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How I Taught My Kid to Read

theatlantic.com

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Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#41

Post by glandium »

a-saleh wrote: post #21
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…

I don't envy native english readers, as my teacher said, "I wouldn't be surprised if one day English write Manchester and read Liverpool". I am not sure of all Slavic languages work best with phonics, but one I learned seems it does. Like if you just read the sound of each letter fast after the other, you are 80% saying the word :)

I can't resist linking this video: https://youtu.be/A8zWWp0akUU "What if English were phonetically consistent"

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#42

Post by rimliu »

jacobolus wrote: post #34
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…

> kids who have been taught outside of the standard educational system are always behind kids who were not This is awfully overgeneralized. Was this guy “behind” the “standard system kids”? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Demaine

Was he a rule or an exception?

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#43

Post by helloguillecl »

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…

As a native Spanish-speaker I'm astonished to learn that phonics is not the only way to teach reading in English. It makes sense, since phonics are way more difficult to follow in English than in Spanish (written Spanish maps 1-to-1 to the phonetics)

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#44

Post by spraak »

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…

> 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.

Would you admit that your perspective then is heavily biased? I don't claim to be unbiased, but I myself come from a family of educators, and I chose a different direction (see also John Gatto). That is, I'm very unsurprised that traditional educators would think that homeschoolers are behind, but it's very not true.

> Just because it’s not a new idea it doesn’t mean it isn’t also total garbage.

Public school is total garbage, in my experience and opinion.

> Learning to read is not just about learning the shapes of spoken languages. Learning to read also teaches literacy and creative writing. It engages parts of the imagination that other forms of creative play do not. Plus it also teaches mental discipline as well.

I don't disagree. You say it as though my daughter has none of that, which I again find strange.

> The only things I chose to read were technical schematics and programming manuals for 70s and 80s computing hardware. That had a really significant impact on my writing skills; to the extent that I massively struggled to pass my English exams.

Right. Well you have a good lesson to share about that, then. And that's the same reason why I still guide what my daughter reads, and still encourage and recommend a variety of works.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#45

Post by benj111 »

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…

I don't get your examples. babe, boob, Bob, bib, bub, bye, boo, bah all have the same B sound.

It isn't like 'ate' and 'apple'.

Or are you saying they will literally think B is 'buh'? But then any one of those examples will disabuse them of that idea???

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#46

Post by spraak »

pergadad wrote: post #29
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…

Not Op but I work in education. What I would stress is to be aware that it is difficult to understand one's own limitations. So this may or may not be true in your case, but while sometimes parents think their kids are ahead (or behind) on something the opposite can be the case. So just a plea to make sure you get outside feedback (eg on whether she learns all languages 'right', whether she lacks/excells in other ski…

Yes, we don't see ourselves as the only teachers, but more of meta teachers, so yes we reach out to others more specialized in a subject when needed and appropriate.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#47

Post by pbhjpbhj »

lordnacho wrote: post #14

I've got school aged kids in the UK, and I've never seen anything other than phonics as the way to teach reading. Seems to work just fine, never came across a kid who couldn't read quite soon after they started being taught. But of course that may just be my particular environment.

I think phonics is a slight mismatch with English, which might produce poor spelling ability?

The "buh-aye-buh-ee" comment elsewhere here also seems somewhat on the nose.

UK schools have been all-in with phonics for some time though.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#48

Post by barry-cotter »

Iv wrote: post #7
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…

> 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 you wonder why we bother. The hard part of reading isn’t sounding out words, it’s understanding complex thoughts. Four year olds can’t do that.

A good teacher can make a big difference to how a child experiences a year of their life but the long run effects on them are unlikely to be large. Children of normal intelligence learn to read easily once they’re ready, just as you can cover grade school math in under 40 hours with a normal twelve year old.

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#49

Post by dbuxton »

freediver wrote: post #31
a-saleh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't envy native english readers, as my teacher said, "I wouldn't be surprised if one day English write Manchester and read Liverpool". I am not sure of all Slavic languages work best with phonics, but one I learned seems it does. Like if you just read the sound of each letter fast after the other, you are 80% saying the word :)

Serbian is a slavic language with 100% letter for letter pronunciation. You can probably learn to read in Serbian in 30 mins and impress your friends. Understanding it is another matter :)

I agree with this, however to be pedantic even in Serbian (or BCS more generally) there are some homographs (in ordinary orthography at least) which are not complete homophones - the classic example being grâd "city" / gràd "hail". It's definitely not ghoti though ;)

Re: How I Taught My Kid to Read

#50

Post by pushpop »

barry-cotter wrote: post #37
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…

Almost all of your points boil down to homeschooled children not being convenient for teachers used to children who have been in day school since they were of school age. If the only bad result of your reading lots of manuals was poor grades in English for a few years this is of no consequence. Learning to express one’s thoughts about things you care about is a very different skill from imitating research in English…

I did say in my former post that the reason for not contradicting the curriculum is because it is confusing for the child (this is something teachers up and down the country observe day to day).

Sure, it’s also easier for the teacher as well but that’s irrelevant to the discussion.

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