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How I Taught My Kid to Read

theatlantic.com

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Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#21

Post by a-saleh »

burfog wrote: post #15

You teach Russian or Spanish with phonics. You teach Chinese with whole-word. English needs a bit of both, since it is mostly phonetic. An on-demand approach to phonics works very well. The rules and exceptions are pointed out as mistakes are made. This avoids the boredom of drilling endless phonics rules and the long-term difficulty of whole-word. A common mistake with phonics is the accidental association of specif…

I don't envy native english readers, as my teacher said, "I wouldn't be surprised if one day English write Manchester and read Liverpool".

I am not sure of all Slavic languages work best with phonics, but one I learned seems it does. Like if you just read the sound of each letter fast after the other, you are 80% saying the word :)

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#22

Post by llllllla »

I learned to read from ”100 Easy Lessons” shortly after its publication, completing about 80 lessons before starting kindergarten. I never ended up finishing all 100, however, so perhaps there are some phonemes I have yet to learn.

One key element that the article misses is that a direct instruction approach to phonics means that the learner is not just learning to say phonemes fast and winding up with words, but is learning what it feels like to construct new knowledge from smaller bits. As a four year old, this meta-lesson was known to me only as the incredible sense of joy and accomplishment in seeing my parent’s face light up after successfully sounding out a difficult word. To be able to read a word without anyone telling you the answer first is something truly formative for a budding intellect. I believe there is no way to progress through “100 Easy Lessons” without also learning to some degree that one can tackle the unknown.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#23

Post by brainpool »

musicmann wrote: post #10

I'm always fascinated and curious about language learning. We seem to just pick up our native language so easily as we're growing up, but it seems difficult to pick up a new language with the same ease later on. I don't have kids, and can't remember what my reading ability was at 4 years old, but I thought when I started reading that I started out by identifying individual characters and trying to sound them out piec…

Agree, language acquisition is so cool! That we just ”absorb” the language, or even languages, around us at early age is just amazing. Steven Pinkers 1994 book “The language instinct” gives interesting perspectives.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_Instinct

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#25

Post by watwut »

Iv wrote: post #7
skywhopper wrote: post #2

I love McWhorter but this is a disappointing mishmash. While it does seem that a lot of new educational techniques seem to be based on skipping past the underlying fundamentals and trying to teach kids to immediately start reading by whole words before learning the sounds letters represent and giving the brain a few decades to recognize whole words at a go (as McWhorter describes here), or by doing math by estimation…

> Ultimately she benefitted from patient teachers and a nurturing environment All of the calls to alternate education methods fail to recognize the weakest link in the education system: teachers. Teaching methods are not designed just for kids but also for teachers. Almost any method will work wonders with good teachers who know when to wait, when to push, who are competent and empathetic. Methods need to be tested a…

For the teacher to have ability to wait or push as needed, the teacher must have quite a lot of autonomy. And a system that rewards teachers for doing own decisions instead of following prescribed methodology.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#26

Post by noisy_boy »

For my daughter it was phonics at school (which seems to be quite common nowadays) combined with reading stories to her daily (about 20 minutes or so). Also took her to library and let her read/select her own books. Seems to be reading fine.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#27

Post by spraak »

pushpop wrote: post #17
spraak wrote: post #16

We do a free schooling approach. My daughter speaks 3 languages and learned to read all 3 simultaneously on her own* once she was ready (around 9). I felt a lot of pressure from everyone (family, friends, etc.) to teach her earlier, but now she reads just as well as her peers, and most of her peers/friends only speak/read one language. *literally on her own in that one day she wanted to learn to read, so we got a sta…

I really wish people wouldn’t trying “hacking” education. Sure the system has its faults but it’s far better than the alternatives (eg waiting until your child is 9 before teaching them to read). Ultimately it’s your own children that your disadvantaging in life.

> I really wish people wouldn’t trying “hacking” education.

Does innovation in general bother you? Besides, what we're doing isn't a very new idea. We are predominantly inspired by the 1960 book Summerhill by A. S. Neill, and even he was inspired by prior art (This isn't the only inspiration, but it's a good tldr in a way)

> Sure the system has its faults

For us, those faults are deal breakers, but I understand if they aren't for you or others.

> better than the alternatives (eg waiting until your child is 9 before teaching them to read).

Well again, we didn't exactly teach her, she taught herself with our guidance. She speaks English, Swedish and German, and she's learning French and Spanish. We live in a mono-lingual environment, so it's interesting to me you would think that she is somehow doing poorly. What has she missed out on during the time that she could have been reading? As I said, she already reads as well as her peers.

> Ultimately it’s your own children that your disadvantaging in life.

With all that I wrote originally, and with this added context, I fail to see how she's disadvantaged. In many respects, I think she has it way better than her peers. She has two personal tutors with her that guide her into learning what she wants. Public school does not offer that. Also I find the typo here [1] a tiny bit ironic [2]

[1] `s/your disadvantaging/you're disadvantaging`

[2] In the Alanis Morissette kind of way

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#29

Post by pergadad »

spraak wrote: post #27
pushpop wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish people wouldn’t trying “hacking” education. Sure the system has its faults but it’s far better than the alternatives (eg waiting until your child is 9 before teaching them to read). Ultimately it’s your own children that your disadvantaging in life.

> I really wish people wouldn’t trying “hacking” education. Does innovation in general bother you? Besides, what we're doing isn't a very new idea. We are predominantly inspired by the 1960 book Summerhill by A. S. Neill, and even he was inspired by prior art (This isn't the only inspiration, but it's a good tldr in a way) > Sure the system has its faults For us, those faults are deal breakers, but I understand if th…

Not Op but I work in education. What I would stress is to be aware that it is difficult to understand one's own limitations. So this may or may not be true in your case, but while sometimes parents think their kids are ahead (or behind) on something the opposite can be the case. So just a plea to make sure you get outside feedback (eg on whether she learns all languages 'right', whether she lacks/excells in other skills, ...) rather than just rely on parental intuition.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#30

Post by james_s_tayler »

brownbat wrote: post #18
burfog wrote: post #15

You teach Russian or Spanish with phonics. You teach Chinese with whole-word. English needs a bit of both, since it is mostly phonetic. An on-demand approach to phonics works very well. The rules and exceptions are pointed out as mistakes are made. This avoids the boredom of drilling endless phonics rules and the long-term difficulty of whole-word. A common mistake with phonics is the accidental association of specif…

> not wanting to read books that parents would buy for 4-year-old kids Similarly, children's books can be great for learning a foreign language, except that they're children's books. It's hard to find simple language books to practice with.

Children's books are usually horrible for learning foreign language. They're full of all sorts of cutesy bullshit that's really strange. Some children's books aren't but if you read a lot of them you find they actually often contain quite bizarre language and scenarios.
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