How I Taught My Kid to Read • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#151

Post by sudosteph » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

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…

> It is common to fail to distinguish running from run-in, or pin from pen.

The pin-pen merger is a reality for millions of people all over the country, and we are understanding each other and everyone else just fine.

Check the map: https://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map3.html

Also, as a person who actually had years of speech therapy despite a very early mastery of reading, it's honestly a bit offensive to see you conflating the two subjects here. Mutual misunderstandings while reading between two people who each speak different dialects is not a form of speech pathology. Teaching someone else your dialect through reading with them does not correct genuine speech pathology either.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#152

Post by burfog » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 9:01 PM UTC

pushpop wrote: post #143

tomp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the UK. Everybody complains about the public ("state" or whatever) schools. I'd never enroll my kids in public schools here (pre-university), only in private schools, if I had the means. Continental Europe is much better IMO/E.

People moan about a great many things but it doesn’t mean they’re right (hence Brexit, Trump, “Christian values”, racism/homophobia/etc, those who moan about computer security from a lazy ux perspective (eg “why can’t my password be the same as my user name?”). I take much more stock in the opinions with those who actually have to work under those conditions and see those systems in use first hand. I agree it’s not p…

Schools with worse equipment and worse teachers can sometimes do very well. They might have far less classroom disruption because the rules are different and the families are different. In a school that is free for all to attend, the most important quality of a teacher is probably the ability to control mayhem without having the authority to do much of anything to stop it.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#153

Post by burfog » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

pushpop wrote: post #33

spraak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Does innovation in general bother you? Only when I have numerous first hand accounts of where it doesn’t work. Just as I have from my extended family, most of who are teachers and all of who state that kids who have been taught outside of the standard educational system are always behind kids who were not. This is often even true for kids who have received additional tuition outside of school where their tutors hav…

The "kids who have been taught outside of the standard educational system" seem to be behind for at least two reasons:

1. You have a biased sample. You're getting the failures. If homeschooling doesn't work, parents give up. If homeschooling works well, parents keep at it. You'll almost never see the successes.

2. You don't check everything. If a student in 6th grade is at a 5th grade writing level but is at 9th grade for math and science, you'll really notice the writing deficiency but you won't realize that the math and science are ahead of grade level. This is simply a matter of an incompatible curriculum schedule, the same as if the student arrived from a different country.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#154

Post by woodandsteel » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

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…

That's a good point about no particular method working with all children. But first of all, many students are not going to have parents who have the time or the ability to try out various methods until they find the right combination. Like a single mother who doesn't read very well herself, and is working two jobs to stay above water financially.

That leaves it up to the teacher. So what is the teacher supposed to do? And what if one methods works with 90% of students, and then there are 5 other methods that each either work by themselves with a small number of students, or only if combined in some way that is unique to each student?

And let's assume the teacher has 35 students in their class, and a lot of other subjects to teach them. And that a first grader who is not able to read well enough will fall far behind in other subjects, and likely do poorly in school from then on? And one more point. What if a substantial proportion of the students are, unlike your daughter, below average in IQ?

It would seem the smart thing to do is teach them all the 90% success method, and for those it doesn't work for maybe figure out some way to get them instruction in some other method, if that is possible.

Pardon me for saying this, but the fact that you didn't address all these issues makes me think you are looking at this whole issue from the perspective of people in a rather privileged position in life, at least relative to a considerable proportion of students.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#155

Post by laumars » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

andrei_says_ wrote: post #148

laumars wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Incentivizing human beings means treating them like the rats and birds Not at all. Incentivising means to motivate. How many people work because they want money rather than because they like to work? > Apart from being condescending, humiliating, degrading and destructive. You're being a tad over dramatic :) > Rewarding a child for reading makes them read for the external reward (for someone else) and makes them ha…

I appreciate the conversation but don’t have the bandwidth to engage your points. If you’d like to explore the research, check out the resources I mentioned. It’s possible you’ll arrive at a different opinions... different from mine but also maybe different from your current ones. I dislike the dismissive + condescending label you try to attach to someone you haven’t really met. Labeling while effective, is not clean…

> I dislike the dismissive + condescending label you try to attach to someone you haven’t really met. Labeling while effective, is not clean argument.

You need to read back this discussion because I've been anything but dismissive and condescending while you have been using language like "condescending", "humiliating", "degrading" and "dismissive" throughout.

In fact if you do read it back you'd also realise that I'm not even disagreeing with the research per se but rather disagreeing with the extreme tone and ideology you're applying to it. The rest of my post is just real world examples demonstrating that point.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#156

Post by bitwize » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

james_s_tayler wrote: post #30

brownbat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Maybe this is why The Little Prince is the most translated book outside the Bible. It's a children's book, and it uses relatively simple language, but it has a story and theme that even adults find profound.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#157

Post by pushpop » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

burfog wrote: post #152

pushpop wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People moan about a great many things but it doesn’t mean they’re right (hence Brexit, Trump, “Christian values”, racism/homophobia/etc, those who moan about computer security from a lazy ux perspective (eg “why can’t my password be the same as my user name?”). I take much more stock in the opinions with those who actually have to work under those conditions and see those systems in use first hand. I agree it’s not p…

Schools with worse equipment and worse teachers can sometimes do very well. They might have far less classroom disruption because the rules are different and the families are different. In a school that is free for all to attend, the most important quality of a teacher is probably the ability to control mayhem without having the authority to do much of anything to stop it.

You can’t argue that bad teachers don’t matter in private schools because if a teacher is unable to teach the subject effectively then it doesn’t matter how well the class behave, they’re still not going to learn the subject.

One of the private schools I was referring to had successfully been sued by several ex-pupils because they failed exams because the teachers were that poor they didn’t even touch large sections of the syllabus.

Another school was trying to teach ICT on hardware that was more than 10 years out of date and their ICT teacher was actually a geography teacher who’s only qualifications in IT was a passing interest in the subject.

Sure, if you pay a high premium then I’m sure you can make some guarantees about the quality of your child’s education. But honestly, some private schools are actually a whole lot worse than your average public school.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#158

Post by pushpop » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

spraak wrote: post #146

pushpop wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People moan about a great many things but it doesn’t mean they’re right (hence Brexit, Trump, “Christian values”, racism/homophobia/etc, those who moan about computer security from a lazy ux perspective (eg “why can’t my password be the same as my user name?”). I take much more stock in the opinions with those who actually have to work under those conditions and see those systems in use first hand. I agree it’s not p…

> I take much more stock in the opinions with those who actually have to work under those conditions and see those systems in use first hand. Check out John Taylor Gatto's works [1]. He was a public school teacher for 30 years, but later advocated for homeschooling. [1] E.g. Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, and The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate In…

I know of his work. I just disagree with it. He isn’t the only teacher with 30 years of experience in public schools under his belt and plenty of other teachers have the opposite opinion of homeschooling to him.

While I do think it’s good that people like him create a discussion I still see him as somewhat of an outlier when all of the other teachers I know - both retired and those still in “active service” - take a dim view of homeschooling.

But if that’s what you want to do for your kids then I genuinely hope it works out for you.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#159

Post by woodandsteel » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

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 don't know much about home schooling (I assume that's what you mean by free schooling). It seems to me that it could work well for some cases. But most parents couldn't survive economically with one parent not working (and what about single parents). Also most parents don't know enough academically to be able to do it well, and most students are not as smart as I am guessing your daughter is. So if your goal is to have a well-educated society, free schooling is not the answer.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#160

Post by pushpop » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

burfog wrote: post #153

pushpop wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does innovation in general bother you? Only when I have numerous first hand accounts of where it doesn’t work. Just as I have from my extended family, most of who are teachers and all of who state that kids who have been taught outside of the standard educational system are always behind kids who were not. This is often even true for kids who have received additional tuition outside of school where their tutors hav…

The "kids who have been taught outside of the standard educational system" seem to be behind for at least two reasons: 1. You have a biased sample. You're getting the failures. If homeschooling doesn't work, parents give up. If homeschooling works well, parents keep at it. You'll almost never see the successes. 2. You don't check everything. If a student in 6th grade is at a 5th grade writing level but is at 9th grad…

1. You make a valid point there

2. Any half decent teacher will know if that were the case because teachers (at least in the UK) have to set different levels of work for their class anyway to compensate for the natural discrepancy in children’s ability. They know which kids are stronger in what subjects and who struggle. I’m not saying it’s something that every teacher is great at picking up on but there are plenty of telltale signs that help you spot this - even without going as far as testing the kids.

Eg when creating lesson plans my wife will often say out loud to herself things like “I need a 4th challenge for this topic because Charlie and Alice are clever and will do the other tasks quickly” (highly paraphrased and names made up).