Support for Rape VictimsRape support is available 24 hours...

Support for Rape Victims

Rape support is available 24 hours in Howard County.

The Howard County Sexual Assault Center Inc. supports the Howard County Police Department and its investigations of instances of sexual assault in the county.

The board of directors and I find the reporting in The Sun of the "PrimeTime Live" interview and the rape case on which it was based to be in especially poor judgment.

The comments made by Kevin Thomas in "Robey gets Caught in TV Headlights" (April 16) and the editorial cartoon published the same Sunday hamper the work of the sexual assault center to provide crisis intervention, counseling and therapy to victims of sexual assault and rape.

The column, and the editorial cartoon in particular, feed the fear rape victims have that following their attack no one will listen to them or believe them. Exactly the opposite is true. The Sexual Assault Center gently supports victims during the following investigations of the traumatic incidents.

I suggest that The Sun apologize to the victims of rape and sexual assault who were offended and re-victimized by the inappropriate cartoon. . . . Support for victims of rape and sexual assault really does exist in Howard County. . . .

The center is available 24 hours a day to assist victims with counseling, therapy, and hospital and legal accompaniment. In fact, since 1990 the center has provided 46,162 instances of support and public advocacy. During the same period, 1,256 instances of counseling were provided to assist victims during their investigation and legal processes.

Anyone needing our assistance may call our hot line 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at [phone]. During business hours, the center's clinical staff may be reached at [phone].

David S. Murphy

Columbia

The writer is president of the board of directors of the Howard County Sexual Assault Center Inc.

Teaching Reading

In the effort to teach our children to read, some promote "whole language," and some "phonics."

Both camps suffer from an us-them viewpoint. The two methods of teaching reading are not enemies, but complementary. So should be their sponsors.

The "whole language" technique starts from the idea that reading is a process of recognizing words or pieces of words. That is, English words are committed to memory as they are used -- for reading or writing -- in a very natural, unforced way.

When a word or a fragment is already in a person's memory, the brain seems able to recall its meaning and its pronunciation in the blink of an eye. So reading familiar words is a very fast process, one that rewards the reader with a rapid intake of information.

Still, for an early reader not many words are in memory. Having no other technique on which to fall back can mean enough frustration that reading becomes a dread instead of a pleasure.

Picture yourself reading a word you have never or rarely before seen, perhaps some technical jargon or the name of a foreign capital city. You naturally try to piece it together from the sound bits you recognize.

Thus, you can put together an overall sound and perhaps even a meaning. You do this if they ever taught you phonics. If you never learned phonics, you may tend to skip the word or even skip the sentence, the paragraph or the whole story or article. Of course, phonics is a slow process, but it is better than all this skipping.

For a beginner, many words are unfamiliar and need to be pieced together. As they are, they go into memory, and an increasing portion of the words in a book or newspaper can be sight-read with great speed. Thus, phonics and whole language go together as alternatives for different situations. So it was welcome to read in your April 30 edition that school systems such as Howard County's are beginning to see why one must teach both sets of skills -- sight reading ("whole language") and phonics.

We should applaud their efforts, and not choose sides as if there were a right and wrong way to read or teach reading. Let us ensure our kids can read by teaching both sight techniques and phonics.

Philip L. Marcus

Ellicott City

Whose Hypocrisy?

Jim Mundy's letter of April 30 concerning the awarding of scholarships by the state legislature is interesting, based on his claim that "there's only one thing worse than political deceit and that's political hypocrisy."

In his letter, Mr. Mundy attacks one Republican senator (his opponent in the last election) on his policies related to the scholarship program. He writes, "Mr. (Christopher) McCabe . . . says the scholarships are wrong and then he gives them out and sends a congratulatory letter to boot."

Actually, it is Mr. Mundy who is practicing a little sleight of hand, or in this case, word. Senator McCabe does not even play a part in the selection process and actually hasn't sent a letter of congratulations since 1991. Mr. Mundy is miffed that Senator McCabe actually told the truth about scholarships while numerous Democrats failed to live up to their campaign rhetoric (The Sun, April 15).