Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I Taught My Kid to Read

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 176 posts

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#121

Post by Vrondi »

mac01021 wrote: post #104
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…

What words do New Englanders add and remove Rs in?

First, there is the dialect feature known as a "Linking R" (which usually happens in dialects where people don't pronounce the "r" at the end of words by default).

In this video, you can hear JFK saying "eleven billion dollah" then a few sentences later, he says "eleven billion dollars", because the word is follwed by an "i". So, his accent drops a lot of "r" sounds by default, but inserts them back in if the following word begins with a vowel. https://youtu.be/bOGWTEgta_w?t=52

So there is a perfectly articulate, quite educated man, who is making "non-standard" usage that is quite correct in his own dialect.

Another example is where people would typically say the word "car" as "cah", for example. "Pahk the cah." However, if the next word begins in a vowel sound, these same people will suddenly pronounce the "r" at the end of the word. The same person would say "pahk the car in the yahd", because the word after "car" begins in a vowel sound.

There is also the "Intrusive R" where people add a "r" sound to words wholesale (instead of merely pronouncing an "r" that was already there, which they were dropping before). You often hear this if the following word also begins with a vowel. You can hear this when people say things like "idear" instead of "idea". Here's a British gent talking about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpX8NZMxp9Q

This happens in certain parts of New England, Britain, and Australia. In the USA, while some in New England are laughing at Southerners for their exaggerated vowels, the Southerners are laughing at the New-Englanders for their crazy "r" sounds.

Human dialect is fascinating.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#122

Post by andrei_says_ »

mruts wrote: post #69
andrei_says_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to use this opportunity to remind everyone that extrinsic rewards and punishment (withdrawal of rewards is also punishment) kills intrinsic motivation and poisons the relationship destroying trust. In other words if you want you child to stop enjoying an activity, encourage or reward the activity. For more, and a ton of research, see the work of www.alfiekohn.com and more specifically Punished by Rewards.

I mean, is this even true? I love programming for example but love it a lot more when I’m being paid a lot of money.

It’s a bit more complex than this. I highly recommend the book, has a ton of research and cites a lot of the experiments. It’s truly fascinating.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#123

Post by Vrondi »

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…

...in my day, the same stuff was accomplished most entertainingly by Sesame Street. "c" "oo" "kie"... "cookie!" Nobody was bored by phonics being screamed by a blue monster.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#124

Post by andrei_says_ »

laumars wrote: post #75
mruts wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, is this even true? I love programming for example but love it a lot more when I’m being paid a lot of money.

I think the previous poster meant learning should be incentivised with rewards; rather than a behaviour forced because the alternative is punishment.

Incentivizing human beings means treating them like the rats and birds Skinner-ian techniques were derived from. But we’re not rats nor birds and thus such attitude is not effective long term. Apart from being condescending, humiliating, degrading and destructive.

Rewarding a child for reading makes them read for the external reward (for someone else) and makes them hate reading even more because of the humiliation and having to go against their own internal compass in order to get something they want.

You may say this prepares them for the “real world” of exploitation but maybe 1, truly successful people find ways to include their internal compass in their daily flow career-wise and 2., a society where almost everyone tolls at the whims and pleasure of a very few ought to be questioned (reference the insane levels of inequality worldwide, having a king emperor is not sustainable).

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#125

Post by jpfed »

wisty wrote: post #58

Phonics will always be unpopular with teachers for at least 3 reasons. 1. Teachers are typically from good middle-class backgrounds, and will naturally assume children will just learn to read because their parents basically tutored them for hundreds or thousands of hours and they just magically taught themselves. 2. It's hard for an individual practitioner to have any idea whether their methods are wonderful or absol…

This is not to contest your overall explanation, but I should note that teaching with phonics can be fun. When I would give baths to my kids, we used foam letters that stuck to the bath walls. They would randomly pick letters to build a nonsense word with, and we would take turns trying to pronounce it.

So they might randomly grab GSLKJUH and stick it on the wall and I would say "Guhslickjuh!" as I moved my finger across the letters in time with my pronunciation. It's super silly and fun.

To make the associations of letters and sounds more obvious, we built our "words" iteratively, one letter at a time.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#126

Post by abetterday »

barry-cotter wrote: post #48
Iv wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The great strength of child centred instead of teacher centred methods is in realising that it doesn’t matter whether a child learns to read at four, or nine, or twelve. Once you really understand that Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development means you can teach it to a four year old in 100s of hours, a six year old in tens of hours and that a nine year old has a decent chance of picking it up more or less by osmosis…

While I heartily agree in not forcing the child into a method, it very much matters when they learn to read. Reading is a tool more than a skill. Having the tool earlier is hugely valuable (provided they don't hate it as a consequence.)

A reading child can begin to write and type earlier. They can be exposed to complex computer use instead of simplified apps. They can use more advanced materials to learn other skills earlier. They can gain a ton of knowledge from the extra years of reading. And even if they cannot understand much at 4 (which of course depends on the kid), they can at 7 or 8 - being fluent readers by then gives them the advantage of consuming many extra books and richer ones.

There are also psychological components. Until school starts the parents have significant influence over 'cool' skills, important values, 'fun' things to do, etc. Schools rarely breed love of learning and peers often push away from it. Learning at 7 creates risks of it being perceived as less cool or being consumed by other activities and not catching. The time before school is hugely valuable imo. And reading earlier gives the parent another tool to teach by providing books.

It is true that the earlier you start the more time teaching takes. But this time isn't only teaching reading. It is excellent bonding time if you don't turn it into an authoritarian war zone. It teaches focus, overcoming obstacles, etc. On the whole, I think it at least holds its own with other activities parents spend time on with their toddlers. The bulk of the challenge is getting the kid on board. Buy-in and motivation matter far more than any specific method since without them the risk of the effort hurting the relationship or their love of learning is too high.

I used a method of my own making. It probably wasn't the most efficient, but it was always tuned to the kid. My oldest was fully decoding in late twos and reads a ton now in late sevens. He naturally memorized words and we added phonetics later. My youngest is decoding short words with basic sounds in the early threes. He is not a fan of memorizing, but took to phonics naturally.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#127

Post by andrei_says_ »

jacobolus wrote: post #76
mruts wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, is this even true? I love programming for example but love it a lot more when I’m being paid a lot of money.

Yes, this is confirmed by study after study after study. People perform better at tasks requiring deep thought and creativity when doing them for their own sake, instead of based on extrinsic rewards/punishments.

Dan Pink’s TED talk on motivation speaks about this: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation/transcript?...

Human beings are complex, love doing interesting (to us) things, love being in the flow, love contributing to others and hate the feeling of being ordered around or obviously manipulated into something we don’t like.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#128

Post by jinglebells »

JTon wrote: post #90
sandworm101 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It is common, particularly in New England, to drop or add an "R". The dropping and adding of consonants is one of the defining aspects of many accents. It isn't really incorrect, just a mode of speech. Texas: "Readin." Canada/Nebraska: "Reading." UK: "Reading-g." (Really. Every BBC presenter does the double-G ing on everything-g.)

> UK: "Reading-g." (Really. Every BBC presenter does the double-G ing on everything-g.) I had a hard time believing this one. It's subtle to my ears, but I'm a believer now. For those who are curious, check out the clip below [1]. You'll hear "hunting" & "willing" shortly after the linked time [1] https://youtu.be/kngB7PzsDzM?t=48

Huw Edwards is Welsh, from a Welsh speaking family. English is his second language, so I wouldn't put too much stock in his accent being indicative of clipped RP.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#129

Post by BuddyKallipygos »

725686 wrote: post #118

My kid can read just fine. The problem is that he hasen't learned how to ENJOY reading... that is the hard part.

My sons, who are twins, were similar maybe. They learned all of the mechanics of reading. They could read. They just weren't super into it the way their older sister was. Until I let them log in to World of Warcraft with me when they were around seven. When they realized there was a story to the game that they needed to understand and details to the quests that they needed to follow they suddenly cared about reading, they realized that it was a key that unlocked a lot of really cool things. They because voracious readers from that moment. Obviously there are pitfalls to bringing kids into an online community, if I could have played it locally I would have. But it didn't start out as a plan, it was sort of a whim and when I saw the effect I started to use it judiciously, as another tool in our tool box.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#130

Post by laumars »

barry-cotter wrote: post #83
laumars wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that very much depends on the teacher and - to a lesser extent - the school policies as well. Each teacher will have their own teaching style. Some do favour "sit down and copy from a worksheet" style of teaching but I'd argue those are the lazier teachers. Others, however, do find more creative and interactive ways for kids to learn the same curriculum. Source: my wife is a primary school teacher and real…

I presume your wife follows the national curriculum. If she does the subjects children study, the content they learn and their progression within that curriculum are mandated. Children have extremely limited freedom to explore within those narrow guidelines. They are not free to pursue their own interests, to decide what they want to do with their time or to spend the amount of time playing that they would naturally.…

The curriculum is a mandatory set of topics (crudely speaking), yes. But how you teach that doesn't have to be sterile and unimaginative.

In terms of your point about kids having the freedom to explore the subjects they want, I think a fair amount of structure is actually beneficial rather than counter productive. Again, this doesn't mean lessons have to be boring.

If it was entirely down to the child me to control my learning, there is a lot of subjects I simply wouldn't have studied that adult me is glad are covered under the curriculum. There are children who, if given the choice, wouldn't do any studying at all and they really benefit from having structure. There are also children who simply don't know what that like yet and they really benefit from having exposure to the diverse range of subjects on the curriculum.

It's worth baring in mind that what the UK education system does works for the majority most of the time. There will be outliers of people who are disruptive and need more specialised attention just as there are people who are naturally inquisitive and might excel better in environments where their learning is left to themselves to structure. Given the demographic of HN, it wouldn't surprise me if we fall more into the latter category than a common slice of society normally would. However that doesn't mean that the net worth of our education system isn't there.

Post reply on HN