Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

#101

Post by nmca » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:18 PM UTC

tgv wrote: post #18

kleiba wrote: post #4

I seriously doubt that 75% of fourth graders read as bad as the examples at the beginning. But what troubles me more is that people go to universities to study education, and yet after all these years, they still seem to have no clue about how to teach a diverse group of young kids. Yet, they're often very confident in their teaching methods. I'm not very familiar with the field, unfortunately, but it is my understan…

Psychology is already quite lousy as a science, which has hardly made progress in 100 years, but educational sciences bungle somewhere below even social psychology. There's no reproducability, there's no idea of how the learning process works, let alone how to organize a curriculum. They've got no idea what they're doing, yet populate the school boards and ministeries, and mandate methods and topics. We should take t…

Just to steelman for a second but educational research is obviously quite hard (long horizons, large costs including opportunity costs, vulnerable groups necessitating careful ethical standards and consideration).

I'd still give the folks involved a D-, but the average evidence being weaker than Psych is to be expected given equal investment.

Re: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

#102

Post by CalRobert » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:19 PM UTC

noirscape wrote: post #21

What intrigues me here is if the same might have gone wrong with teaching people secondary languages. It's often seen as this big barrier to overcome, but you look at tools like Duolingo and they do this same "whole language" method instead of teaching people the phonics and letting them use that to fill out and learn how to read a foreign language using their skills to put words together, and instead they fall back…

Honestly having done a good bit of Duolingo and Babbel and then visiting the country I was trying to study for (Netherlands) I think they're mostly fun games that make you feel like you're learning something.

https://www.mezzoguild.com/babbel-vs-duolingo/ is a decent review that seems similar to my own experience.

So far drilling on Anki has been a bit better. Still not sure what else will work aside from moving there.

Re: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

#103

Post by nemo44x » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:19 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #97

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that many schools are expected to teach students at scale . If parents are willing to spend more time coaching their kids instead of outsourcing it, then the problem would be less severe. Good schools generally all have a low teacher to student ratio for a reason. Bloom's 2 sigma problem is very real, spend more time one on one with your kids and even poor pedagogy can yield results.

I don’t know if it’s utopian or dystopian but in 20 years we may have the majority of education being done by AIs. That’s the only practical way of getting to 1:1.

I'm cautiously optimistic that it's utopian-ish. If we do it right and supplant it with human interaction and assessment then kids will be better off. They'll be able to learn at their own pace with content that is built around their interests and style of learning best. They can learn when they feel like learning instead of having to use the typical rigid and regimented structure of today's classroom.

I'm not trying to be all hippy about it - kids still need assessment and evidence that learning occurred and there needs to be accountability. And teachers aren't going away. Human leadership is important and someone needs to be accountable for what a kid has learned, etc. A dystopian implementation would be no teacher and a parent just gets a daily report.

Re: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

#104

Post by onionisafruit » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #54

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the downsides of credentialism seems to me that in squishier fields you can end up creating false-credentials where none should exist.

I think this comment should be removed, as it ranks below 7 on the Rob-Grant scale.

You made me google rob-grant scale only to come back here and notice your handle. Good job, Rob.

Re: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

#105

Post by josho » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

somishere wrote: post #71

IMHO reading competency starts at home, not in the classroom. Kids need to be interested in reading, and that's up to the parents more than it is to the school. My very unique / personal take. Have been doing sight words with my 5yo for the last two weeks. He just started his second term of prep (pre year 1). He's not advanced as far as I can't tell, but I'll tell you it's exhilarating to watch his progress. He absol…

> reading competency starts at home, not in the classroom.

You are correct. Those students that read with their parents and learn at home have a significant advantage.

Our education system however should do everything that it can to help those children that didn't have this advantage to catch up. I've read research in the past that shows good schools to bring those kids up to the same level, evidently reading the comments here it seems the US school system has significant issues.

Re: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

#106

Post by JohnClark1337 » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

Khaine wrote: post #57

kleiba wrote: post #4

I seriously doubt that 75% of fourth graders read as bad as the examples at the beginning. But what troubles me more is that people go to universities to study education, and yet after all these years, they still seem to have no clue about how to teach a diverse group of young kids. Yet, they're often very confident in their teaching methods. I'm not very familiar with the field, unfortunately, but it is my understan…

Did you listen to the episode where the teacher said, the theory might be true (phonics) but I ain't teaching it because fuck bush? This is the problem.

A common trait in the US political system. "If the person on the other side of the aisle disagrees with me on points A, B, and C, but agrees with me on point D then I need to reevaluate my position on point D." I noticed this when the pandemic began. For about a week when we first went into lockdown my very conservative and very liberal friends were all worried about getting the virus and what the effects might be. But I knew even before it happened that this mentality wouldn't last and that eventually people would look around and go "wait, we're on the same side as THOSE people? Something isn't right!"

Re: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

#107

Post by naasking » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #80

I just listened to this podcast a few weeks ago. What really struck me was just how obviously wrong the Guided Reading curriculum and three cueing theory was even just on its face, and how many people went along with replacing phonics with Guided Reading despite that. For example, the podcast recounts a Guided Reading lesson where the teacher covers up the words the kids are supposed to be reading with a piece of tap…

I think they've extended the meaning of "reading" to include a certain level of "understanding what you just read". Your nonsense sentence can't pass the latter test because there is no understanding to be gleaned, but it's not at all obvious that that should how we view reading exactly for that reason.

Re: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

#108

Post by CalRobert » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

fwlr wrote: post #90

The fact that the education system managed to forget how to teach kids how to read is unbelievably infuriating. I have been guilty in the past of rolling my eyes at “teachers are heroes, teachers should be paid like rockstars”. I don’t feel guilty anymore!

If teachers were paid like rockstars we'd be able to get better teachers.

Re: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

#109

Post by bityard » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

ljf wrote: post #3

lr4444lr wrote: post #2

As someone who's both worked as a teacher and as a software engineer, my feeling is that what happened in reading education is roughly what engineers' jobs would be forced by their CTOs to use software methodologies and languages that came from their university professors who've never really spend much time (at least not in well over a decade if at all) doing actual salaried software development where code had to be…

It is a really interesting problem - my son and my daughter were both taught using phonics - my son had very little interest in reading and spelling (very much like me at his age) but reads at about the level he should (I personally think if he is anything like me, he is doing really well). My daughter took to reading and spelling like a natural - the same processes just worked for her, and engaged with the way she t…

Wow, this sounds like my life. I honestly don't remember how I learned to read (although I might guess that it came from a desire to learn about how the world worked).

But I can remember clearly the exact moment my daughter wanted to read for the first time. I read a book to her every night and one particular evening it dawned on her that the stories I was reading to her came from the writing on the page instead of the pictures in the book. From that moment on, nothing in the universe could have stopped her from wanting to read.

Re: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

#110

Post by nemo44x » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

patall wrote: post #91

bonthron wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" is an amazing book. I taught my daughter to read before kindergarten. It works.

What does "before kindergarten" mean? In the mornings? Or before she was old enough to go there? I started kindergarten at age 2 (like described in Wikipedia) and I suspect that is not what you mean.

At least here in the USA, age 2 is generally when you start pre-school. Kindergarten starts at age 4 and lasts for 2 years, K4 and K5. Then 1st grade at age 6.