How bad are childhood literacy rates?
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Re: How bad are childhood literacy rates?
#2Re: How bad are childhood literacy rates?
#3>>> “A lot of people are thinking about reading in terms of pretty narrow definitions of comprehension,” says Forzani. “But of course we want kids to be able to make inferences and interpretations beyond just literal interpretations, right? We want them to be able to make higher level inferences and to be able to evaluate and critique text.”
Forzani points to research from the UK, where reading curriculums were widely reimagined a few years before the US did the same thing. “They shifted attention to really focus on teaching phonics, which is good and important,” she says. “But then they’ve also seen, ‘Wait, we did too much of that focus and now we lost sight of really comprehending at a high level.’” Huh?
"Higher level" analysis while have to be built on top of basic comprehension.
And how exactly is phonics (very early "what words are on the page") displacing comprehension (much later; something you do with those words once you have them)?
Re: How bad are childhood literacy rates?
#4[flagged]
Re: How bad are childhood literacy rates?
#5>>> “A lot of people are thinking about reading in terms of pretty narrow definitions of comprehension,” says Forzani. “But of course we want kids to be able to make inferences and interpretations beyond just literal interpretations, right? We want them to be able to make higher level inferences and to be able to evaluate and critique text.” Forzani points to research from the UK, where reading curriculums were widel…
Literacy should probably be defined like this: the person can read and write their language as well as they can speak and listen. Illiterate people possess language, just not reading and writing.
Being able to read, write and think deeply, analytically and critically is setting the goalposts beyond literacy.
(I understand it's hard to draw hard lines. Literacy affects the degree of language acquisition. People who become literate acquire more language in so doing than people who remain illiterate.)
Re: How bad are childhood literacy rates?
#6>>> “A lot of people are thinking about reading in terms of pretty narrow definitions of comprehension,” says Forzani. “But of course we want kids to be able to make inferences and interpretations beyond just literal interpretations, right? We want them to be able to make higher level inferences and to be able to evaluate and critique text.” Forzani points to research from the UK, where reading curriculums were widel…
“They shifted attention to really focus on teaching phonics, which is good and important…we did too much of that focus”.
Without knowing the before and after, it’s not safe to say it’s still very early. Few additional weeks? Few additional months? Few additional years?
At some point and grade a class should be moving past the time-consuming out-loud reading and pronunciation corrections to timed (and silent, focused) reading; and the ones lagging behind get remedial attention.
Otherwise, most of the students are being held back.
Re: How bad are childhood literacy rates?
#7total parent hours spent per child tracks this, no change in literacy when this is controlled for.
Re: How bad are childhood literacy rates?
#8Maybe reading books is less important than ever, and the kids are adapting to the new world.
I am reminded of this xkcd, which I just realized Im about a decade behind on.
Re: How bad are childhood literacy rates?
#9The article tries to claim that we should take those claims with a grain of salt because people have been complaining about kids' literacy rates since time immemorial. The difference is that now it is measurably true.
I also think that anecdotal evidence is evidence nonetheless. If teachers active for many years start to ring the bells they are probably onto something, even if the official statistics are yet to come.
Re: How bad are childhood literacy rates?
#10[deleted]