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

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

#381

Post by batch12 »

rutthenut wrote: post #233
nice2meetu wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were told it was better to let the teachers teach otherwise kids learn bad habits or don’t engage. That being said our eldest went to school at 4 1/2 in Australia and they had to learn 100 words in their first year (phonics), and we were a little worried that it seemed so intense, though she ended up learning 200 or so and went on to become a voracious reader. But then we moved to the US and our youngest started s…

>> We were told it was better to let the teachers teach otherwise kids learn bad habits or don’t engage. That sounds like very dubious advice to me, even if given with best intentions. Surely if parents read books to their kids, with their kids, then it is a natural step for the kids to start learning the words and word sounds by reading too?

Yeah, I think every person is different. My first kid learned to read himself from watching educational material and using a computer. He knew the alphabet before anyone could really understand his words. His siblings needed someone to walk them through the concepts.

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

#382

Post by Spooky23 »

DocTomoe wrote: post #279
nice2meetu wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were told it was better to let the teachers teach otherwise kids learn bad habits or don’t engage. That being said our eldest went to school at 4 1/2 in Australia and they had to learn 100 words in their first year (phonics), and we were a little worried that it seemed so intense, though she ended up learning 200 or so and went on to become a voracious reader. But then we moved to the US and our youngest started s…

Is this an anglosaxon thing? Here in Germany, I have never heard of anyone telling a child they had to "learn x words". We teach letters and common diphthongs, and then make the kids understand that these glyphs can form words with meanings. When I look at my father's schoolbooks, that already was the common way to teach reading in the 1950s.

It's an adaptation to the limitations of phonetical spelling in english.

IIRC, my kid was taught about 100 "sight words" that are usually common words that link stuff together or appear often. Stuff like "who", "the", "which", etc. The kids memorize those and sound out the other stuff. I think the idea is to avoid discouraging kids from getting hung up on common things or memorizing things wrong.

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

#383

Post by xapata »

Mezzie wrote: post #142
darkerside wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish you would abstain from some of the rhetoric and let your good points shine through

I'm not sure how to untangle the increasing polarization from the decaying of our social fabric and the inclusion of examples was primarily so people didn't take the points and warp them to only fit their ideology and turn them into more culture war bait + I think it's important to note that the media class on both major political sides in the US have very similar incentives to act poorly and stoke knee-jerk fear. An…

You did well by saying, "it's important to note that the media class on both major political sides in the US have very similar incentives to act poorly and stoke knee-jerk fear." By giving examples of it, you're falling into the same trap that the media does. Exciting prose isn't always better prose.

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

#385

Post by pianoben »

javajosh wrote: post #243
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Greek. When teaching a kid to read English using phonics, how do you explain that "tough" and "rough" are written the same, but sound different than "though" and "borough", and that "doe" and "low" rhyme with each other and both the latter, but neither of the former? And how do you explain "Loughborough"? Why not "Lowborrow", as in "low" and "borrow"? Don't kids ask those things when you teach them to read with p…

So many examples of bad definitions: German[1] electron charge[2] music notation[3]! But in the end, I think we have to largely give up the struggle against bad notation, of which spelling is just a part. If it really bothers us we can create our own notations and methods to translate between the old and new, but then you get splitting and fracturing. You can't play together. But if you invent such a notation, and ma…

Western music notation originated in religious vocal scores, at a time when church music was largely homophonic (just one melody). As melody is linear through time, using the horizontal axis to denote time makes a lot of sense - just like we do with the written word.

Of course Gradually tastes changed and Church music became polyphonic - adding a second (and third, fourth, fifth, etc) vocal line was a natural adaptation. Instrumentalists took it up outside of the Church, and the rest is history. We standardized on this notation because, even though it was originally for the human voice, it is convenient and good enough that everyone could make use of it.

Finally, I'll note that 20th century composers experimented endlessly with alternate notations, some more seriously than others: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/5-12-examples-of...

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

#386

Post by siftrics »

nice2meetu wrote: post #225
analog31 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of my parents learned to read at home, in poverty. Both had educated parents, who had been displaced by the events of the era. I learned to read at home. Both of my kids, likewise. It didn't even remotely occur to anybody in the family that learning to read was special, or that there might even be any way to teach it other than phonics. English has a phonetic alphabet after all, right? Moreover, learning to read…

We were told it was better to let the teachers teach otherwise kids learn bad habits or don’t engage. That being said our eldest went to school at 4 1/2 in Australia and they had to learn 100 words in their first year (phonics), and we were a little worried that it seemed so intense, though she ended up learning 200 or so and went on to become a voracious reader. But then we moved to the US and our youngest started s…

"We were told" seems to always preface failure and disappointment.

How do people blindly trust random figures of authority? It's mind boggling.

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

#387

Post by pfedak »

camgunz wrote: post #312
pfedak wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd dispute your characterization of the NEPC summary as well-reasoned. It's definitely a different perspective, but it's clear in a preference for valuing the experience and beliefs of "literacy scholars" over any sort of evidence that could contradict them. It does seems like a good view of the education institution's side of this argument. It is careful to point out even minority criticism of phonics-centered inst…

I mean, I guess a good of framing this is yeah, it is "the education institution's side of this argument". I see it as informed by decades of shifting research on how to teach reading and attentive to the tension between "we need regulations to guard against bad teachers" and "we need to give teachers the freedom to apply their expertise". Most of the rest of your argument is just not realizing that those are the act…

Sorry, I should have been clearer, totally agree about the podcast being a poorer source on the reality and history, and just not trustworthy on the big picture. The article you shared is a fantastic resource, but I would think better of it if it had laid out the sort of strong, pragmatic argument you made here about teachers' autonomy. The article really doesn't want to question the status quo, which would be fine for a historical overview, but feels incongruous with the constant needling of anyone who happens to be pushing phonics (whether because of concerns about dyslexia or neuroscience).

I also didn't mean to suggest those terms were invented by that article, just that they reflect the perspective of the people who use them. I'm assuming initial proponents of the "simple view of literacy" didn't describe it that way, just as we might call "whole language" something different if it ends up being discredited (cf. the focus on cueing in TFA).

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

#388

Post by makeitdouble »

scythe wrote: post #293
makeitdouble wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the his wikipedia page [0], he seems to have spent at most 4 years actually teaching (from "early 1960s" to 1964), was a marketing guy among other things before that, and spent a long career writing eductation books and articles and seminars after that. You have valid point on his work being assessed and valorized in studies, but parent's point also stands stronger in my mind. The ratio of actual experience in t…

What you wrote about the Wikipedia page is not consistent with what I read on the Wikipedia page: >While working as a marketing director in the early 1960s, Engelmann became interested with how children learn. >[...] >In 1964, he left his job in advertising and became a research associate >[...] >In 1970, he moved from the University of Illinois to the University of Oregon in Eugene, becoming a Professor in the Unive…

You're right, I misread the "He began working with preschoolers" bit as professionally teaching the kids.

> you will never understand the experience of a teacher by experimenting on students

I'm not sure to follow, wouldn't you at least understand your own experience as a teacher by actually teaching to students ?

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

#389

Post by WalterBright »

One reason for teaching so long using a failed method is public school teachers are not accountable for failure. There is zero downside for them failing (they just blame the parents) and no incentive whatsoever to do better.

The fix is simple. Give teachers a $1000 bonus for every student of theirs that performs at grade level at the end of the year.

It'll be the cheapest, most effective way to improve kids' education.

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

#390

Post by syrus »

kyrra wrote: post #98
mschuster91 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not very familiar with the field, unfortunately, but it is my understanding that there is not much of a scientific method applied to teaching theories. As in, not just armchair theorizing, but more like A/B testing. I know, it's a hard problem, but so are many science problems, and Rome doesn't have to be build in one day. But where is the progress? There isn't much, for a multitude of reasons: - teachers are o…

> there aren't many teachers in the first place, and the older ones often lack the motivation to further their own knowledge I'd also say part of the cause of this are the teacher unions. When we don't do merit based promotions and raises, people don't care as much.

Unions are on the rise, and we need them to seize more power in every sector of labor to fight against extreme wealth inequality. I fully support the teacher's unions. More often than not, they include resources for their students in their negotiations.
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