For Gen Alpha, learning to read is a privilege, not a right

[Anonymous]

I’m a lawyer who reads nonstop all day every day for work. Our interns can no longer get through the work that interns used to easily get through a few decades ago. They just don’t read fast enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a 3rd grade teacher. I am also a parent of 4. All of my children are strong readers and writers. All of my children do not enjoy reading and will not read for fun. All of my children get unlimited amount of screen time. I honestly do not know what I contribute it to. I did not read to them every night. We have never gone to the library. They (2 of my kids) spend k and 1st grade through virtual learning. I could not assist as I was teaching my own class. The science of reading was not popular at that time in the curriculum. Again, what did I or the teachers do that others did not do to make strong readers? Are kids just born this way?

Wait- you’re a teacher who doesn’t read to your kids and they’d never been to the library??? This blows my mind. You’d think a main requirement of being a teacher would be a love of education and reading, especially in elementary grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My neighbors's child is an incredibly strong reader and every time I ask the mom about it, she just shrugs and says "we got lucky." The rest of us in the neighborhood are all struggling to get our elementary age kids to read at all. Meanwhile, this kid reads way above grade level and even did the gospel reading--nearly flawlessly--in church a few weeks ago. Gotta be more than just luck.

Probably not your neighbor, but we say this only to be polite. Our DD reads several grades above grade level and reads chapter books for fun.

We put DD in a Montessori where they were taught letters very explicitly from age 2. By Fall of 3 yr old year, all kids were learning Phonics via explicit instruction. During that year, we taught our DD at home to read using Bob Books (learned about them from DCUM), but honestly her Montessori had all the kids reading well during the 4 yr old year. They all started K as readers with a solid Phonics foundation.

PP you quoted. Here's the thing, in our little neighborhood, most of us send our kids to a public Montessori school! Some of our kids are "fine" readers, but none of us would say they're strong (and some parents lament how poorly their kids read). A couple families go to a public dual immersion, same thing, fine but not strong. And yet this one kid, the only one who goes to a regular public school, is so far beyond everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never have I been so glad to be the "weird" parent that allows almost zero screen time. My second grader loves to read, begs to go to the library, and reads increasingly complex books. I hear the other parents in my neighborhood fret over their kids' lack of reading skills.

We do the same. Almost zero screens. Very strong reader who reads for fun.

The irony is that the inventor of these devilish machines - Steve Jobs - never let his kids near them! (Saw internal reports about addictive nature, apparently)

[Anonymous]

My teen is a fast reader who read a lot for fun up until classes got difficult in high school. Now, they read in the sense that they do their homework, consume all type of media (required, not required) and can get through work efficiently wih clarity. They are very smart...largely intelligent, but also just sharp.

I break this down to 50% genetics (my husband is very very smart, I'm regular smart with very high EQ), and 50% early learning. We were able to keep him out of day care until age 3 with some exposure to activity classes, but we talked/engaged/explained/conversed/exposed constantly. All day. It wasn't terribly exhausting or structured but I talked to my child in the grocery store in a way that was normal for us and that I don't often see. We had early learning materials at home. He had regular toys, but also learning toys, and he loved them all. When we did put him in preschool we lucked out with a great experience with pull-outs and a few aides that spent one on one time with him helping him read and do math because they noticed he wanted to.

Nature and nurture matter. But phone/tech distractions plus just the growing haves/have nots divide that steals time from our families all have a huge negative impact. As society continues to polarize with respect to resources, parenting will get harder for many, and teachers will find it harder to be effective and resourced. This is an America Problem.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's screens that are slowing the kids down. I am a parent a kindergartener and this is the problem:

1. Kindergarten language arts curriculum is totally developmentally inappropriate. They expect the kids to be writing sentences and "journaling" three months into the school year. They don't learn to sound out letters, they learn "popcorn words" and "guessing the word from the picture".

Kindergarten academic expectations are on par with 2nd grade, without the teachers providing any of the preliteracy/scaffolding exercises to build up to reading such as phonics awareness or learning to write letters.

There is absolutely zero direct instruction in letter formation past like, the first two weeks of school. Remember as kids how we traced letters for weeks? My kid has no tracing exercises, just a blank square to write letters.

Without the muscle memory of letter formation, of course the kids are struggling to write! They need to know how to form the letters before they can even write a single word. Writing and reading are so linked, so if you can't do one well the other won't work, either.

Of course the school uses the Columbia University Sold a Story method to teach writing and reading. The school's test scores are abysmal and I get it, they are not teaching the kids to read, they are actually confusing them and hindering their progress towards literacy.

And all this at the age of 5, when many kids are not intellectually prepared to do reading and writing work. They aren't doing any fun experiential learning like "collect leaves" "observe a caterpillar become a butterfly" "grow seeds". Just endless disconnected worksheets and sitting still and turnign school into a grind of disjointed "learning." It's all so sad and disheartening as a parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a 3rd grade teacher. I am also a parent of 4. All of my children are strong readers and writers. All of my children do not enjoy reading and will not read for fun. All of my children get unlimited amount of screen time. I honestly do not know what I contribute it to. I did not read to them every night. We have never gone to the library. They (2 of my kids) spend k and 1st grade through virtual learning. I could not assist as I was teaching my own class. The science of reading was not popular at that time in the curriculum. Again, what did I or the teachers do that others did not do to make strong readers? Are kids just born this way?

I was a born reader. My parents read to me a decent amount, took me to the library and gave me a set of books on tape that I could follow along with. I taught myself to read that way right before kindergarten. I read to my own son, though less than my parents did because he didn't want to sit still as much. Now as a teen he reads more than I do, around an hour a day. He also reads much more complex texts than I ever did at his age.

[Anonymous]

When you are reading to the babies. Use your pointer finger to follow the text - very important. Emphasize the phoenetical sound of the start of each word while pointing. I’ve found this very helpful to get my young readers going strong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it's screens that are slowing the kids down. I am a parent a kindergartener and this is the problem:

1. Kindergarten language arts curriculum is totally developmentally inappropriate. They expect the kids to be writing sentences and "journaling" three months into the school year. They don't learn to sound out letters, they learn "popcorn words" and "guessing the word from the picture".

Kindergarten academic expectations are on par with 2nd grade, without the teachers providing any of the preliteracy/ scaffolding exercises to build up to reading such as phonics awareness or learning to write letters.

There is absolutely zero direct instruction in letter formation past like, the first two weeks of school. Remember as kids how we traced letters for weeks? My kid has no tracing exercises, just a blank square to write letters.

Without the muscle memory of letter formation, of course the kids are struggling to write! They need to know how to form the letters before they can even write a single word. Writing and reading are so linked, so if you can't do one well the other won't work, either.

Of course the school uses the Columbia University Sold a Story method to teach writing and reading. The school's test scores are abysmal and I get it, they are not teaching the kids to read, they are actually confusing them and hindering their progress towards literacy.

And all this at the age of 5, when many kids are not intellectually prepared to do reading and writing work. They aren't doing any fun experiential learning like "collect leaves" "observe a caterpillar become a butterfly" "grow seeds". Just endless disconnected worksheets and sitting still and turnign school into a grind of disjointed "learning." It's all so sad and disheartening as a parent.

Which school system is this ?

Many K reading and Phonics curricula ARE developmentally appropriate for the age. Montessori is over 100 years old and (properly done, which above curriculum is not) reliably works well, as an example.

That said, the K curriculum you describe is almost totally different from the one at our small Montessori school.

In particular, even Columbia U now admits their (Lucy Calkins driven) reading and writing curricula did not work and should not be used. (Anyone who has not yet listened to the "Sold a Story" podcast should do so pronto.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never have I been so glad to be the "weird" parent that allows almost zero screen time. My second grader loves to read, begs to go to the library, and reads increasingly complex books. I hear the other parents in my neighborhood fret over their kids' lack of reading skills.

We do the same. Almost zero screens. Very strong reader who reads for fun.

The irony is that the inventor of these devilish machines - Steve Jobs - never let his kids near them! (Saw internal reports about addictive nature, apparently)

I used to live in Silicon Valley. Very Strict "no screens" child rearing is quite mainstream parenting there.

[Anonymous]

My 4th grader loved reading in second and third grade but it's gotten harder to find stuff that's both the right difficulty level, maturity level, AND is a story of interest to him. We try to do a lot of library trips and ensure he has a lot of options in case he likes one, which has helped in the last couple months. It takes a lot of effort to keep him in books!

That said, school really isn't helping this year!! He used to bring a book in his backpack to fill the time between drop off and school start, even trying to get to school early for reading time, and the end of the day if he finished his work. Now he's not allowed to read at the beginning of the day, if they're there early they have to do math on iReady. He's allowed to read for 10 minutes at the end of the day IF he's done 15 minutes of math and 15 minutes of ELA in iReady, but ONLY from one specific shelf in the classroom, nothing he selects from home or the school library. Yeah, he isn't allowed to read a school library book that isn't from that shelf.

As parents we tell him that if he's read all the books on the shelf, we'll talk to the teachers about it, but until then he can try out what's there. But I'm not thrilled that iReady has basically shoved out any opportunity for kids to enjoy reading in free moments. The school is really pushing it because their annual goals are all around iReady improvement, but these are elementary schoolers!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a mess. That "Sold a Story" podcast was super interesting. However, it didn't address phones and the reluctance of Gen Z/young millennial parents to DO much with their kids.

What do the teachers DO all day with the kids? They are there 6-7 hours and can't read? Come on. If I'm supposed to do all the teaching then give up on the idea of public schools.

They're forced by their central office supervisors to only teach kids how to pass the ELA portion of standardized tests, which are a couple paragraphs long at most. You can't give a test score out for reading an entire book, so districts skip it.

[Anonymous]

I sell things to school districts. They're very big on Chromebook crap software like iReady and IXL nowadays, because it's "edtech". I can tell you from personal experience, the decision makers are very easily impressed and impressionable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It really does have to do with whether a child was taught phonics systematically or not. I have 4 children and all but one were given phonics instruction. The other, poor child, was not and still struggles to decode text and spell properly

The Reading Wars have been going on for decades, swinging back and forth between phonics and whole language (or similar) approaches. This is probably because the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Phonics is a piece of the puzzle, but systematic phonics instruction alone might get you 90% of the way to decoding (because English isn't phonetically regular), but decoding is only a part of reading. Give it a few years, and you'll hear people complaining about how their phonics-instructed kids have no fluency or comprehension, and the pendulum will start swinging back again.

Girl what the hell can they comprehend if they cannot decode? How does one "fluently" guess the meaning of a word?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never have I been so glad to be the "weird" parent that allows almost zero screen time. My second grader loves to read, begs to go to the library, and reads increasingly complex books. I hear the other parents in my neighborhood fret over their kids' lack of reading skills.

We do the same. Almost zero screens. Very strong reader who reads for fun.

The irony is that the inventor of these devilish machines - Steve Jobs - never let his kids near them! (Saw internal reports about addictive nature, apparently)

I used to live in Silicon Valley. Very Strict "no screens" child rearing is quite mainstream parenting there.

Yes. Probably more so than anywhere else, Silicon Valley is the place where children get very little screen time. Every parent there is acutely aware of the dangers screens pose to neurological development. Most tech executives are reading Goodnight Moon with their toddlers at bedtime.