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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

#471

Post by Vanderson »

bluGill wrote: post #32
Vanderson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siegfried Engelmann from the University of Oregon developed a science based method for teaching reading. With simple ideas like making sure the letters were distinguishable, teaching the most common letters first, teaching the sounds the letters make before teaching the names of the letters, immediate feedback on reading mistakes, etc...

I've seen many "science based methods" in my lifetime, and they are contradictory. I am not an expert in the subject of education, which means I cannot evaluate what is really science based. I could do this of course - but my day job is as a programmer and when I'm done with that I just want to make sawdust or music, not do more research.

Well, by "science based" my understanding is that they could prove the system worked to effectively teach kids to read with predictable results.

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

#472

Post by ultrarunner »

doubled112 wrote: post #167
joelfried wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tried that with our first and it didn't work. Some children require more direct support. Knowing what works for those who need it is pretty huge.

I'm in this boat. Every kid is different. My oldest was reading little books by 3. It was zero effort other than reading to him. Suddenly he just took over and didn't need mom and dad to read to him anymore. He's 8 now and can plow through the Harry Potter series in a week. Some days I think he might read better than I do at 31. My youngest is 5 and still struggling. He never really liked to be read to. As soon as he…

We have a 9 & 5 that are exactly the same way, which makes me want to mention: the Harry Potter series gets really dark pretty quickly. Some of the stuff in the latter books is (IMHO) not appropriate for 8-9 year olds. Just a friendly note in case you struggle like me to keep up with all the books your son is going through :)

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

#473

Post by nkrisc »

oxfordmale wrote: post #459
TRiG_Ireland wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People confidently stating as fact stuff they know little or nothing about. Ask any competent linguist: English has a phonetic script. (Not a very good one, perhaps, but phonetic nonetheless.)

https://www.teflcourse.net/blog/english-as-a-non-phonetic-la...

The issue in this thread is confusion between two separate ideas: "English is a phonetic langauge" and "English uses a phonetic script".

The former point can be debated. The latter, not. The English script is phonetic. Graphemes represent phonemes.

The English script (its writing system), which is based on the Latin alphabet (the graphic symbols) is phonetic because the symbols represent sounds and have no intrinsic semantic meaning. I think that's fairly un-debatable unless you want to make the case that emoji are part of the English script.

"t" represents a sound in the English script, a phoneme. It does not represent a thing, an idea, or anything more than an aspirated consonant sound.

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

#474

Post by pitaj »

com2kid wrote: post #456
anon291 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I learned I didn't know how to pronounce a lot of words Taking words on a page and reading them out loud is a fundamental aspect of reading. The way you've written it here, you were not fully able to read until the fifth grade. That is ... problematic. From my perspective, the problem is this. Phonetic reading naturally encompasses whole word reading, because a child who starts reading with phonics, eventually read…

> This would be problematic if you were learning any new language for example. But it is a benefit when it comes to technical papers, chemical names, and foreign loan words. > This is not exceptional for an adult. Really? I've met plenty of functioning adults who say they sound out words in their head when reading. Go to any one of the many online threads about reading methods and you'll come across plenty of people…

> you'll come across plenty of people describing that they have a voice in their head pronouncing each word that they read.

That's not the same thing as sounding out words. It's just the internal monologue.

Some people may choose to sound out a word they've never encountered before to have an idea of what it sounds like, but that's optional.

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

#476

Post by obscurette »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #410
obscurette wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I mean that it's not hard to gather evidence to back even very stupid teaching methods if you simply put enough effort and time to it.

Ok, so: "cherry picked evidence means the conclusions are bullshit" ?

No, cherry picking would be relatively easy to spot. What's actually hard is to determine what you actually measure.

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

#477

Post by danielmarkbruce »

obscurette wrote: post #476
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so: "cherry picked evidence means the conclusions are bullshit" ?

No, cherry picking would be relatively easy to spot. What's actually hard is to determine what you actually measure.

What's an example?

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

#478

Post by hydrok9 »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #349
generalizations wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple explanation is that the spelling rules are a combination of several older languages, saxon and french included. So a lot of the trick is to just recognize which language the word construction originated in. English is phonetic; but it's also bimodal.

"tough", "rough", "though" and "borough" all come from Old English, without any French influence. The wackiness in pronouncing "ough" is sadly not predictable from any set of rules and as you'd probably expect varies between dialects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ough_(orthography)

"at least eight pronunciations in North American English and nine in British English, and no discernible patterns exist for choosing among them."

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

#479

Post by camgunz »

mattmcknight wrote: post #350
camgunz wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and op are both correct. The problems are teaching only phonics (which a lot of SOR advocates want) and not teaching phonics at all (which happens in a fair number of classrooms).

I can't find anyone out there that advocates teaching only phonics. It's a step in the process of learning to read that, if left to teachers that were taught under a non-evidence based approach, many try to skip.

They don't say "only teach phonics", they say "always teach phonics no matter what even if it fails a significant number of students". It's an issue of forcing teachers to do things they know won't work or aren't working.

I'm not saying there aren't bad teachers, and I agree that's a problem and that the solution (get good people to be teachers and give them the autonomy to be good) depends on addressing it. But using bad teachers as a reason to strip all teachers of their autonomy is a huge step back.

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

#480

Post by camgunz »

warner25 wrote: post #445
camgunz wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teaching is pretty hard. It's a lot easier if you have only 1 kid, you control their home life also, they have a similar culture and background as you do, you can give them your (relatively) undivided attention all day, and you don't need to get them to pass a standardized test. Elementary school teachers have > 30 kids, new batch every year, from all walks of life, they can't control their home life, and they have t…

Oh, I agree. My wife taught in public high schools for a couple years in an economically struggling city. It was so hard (and paid so poorly, especially per hour of labor) that she quit after those two years and is still traumatized by it a decade later.

Oof I'm sorry. But yeah, an all-too-common story. Maybe it's corny but, thanks to your wife for her service.
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