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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Context. Which you can’t get if you’re so busy sounding out each letter that you lose the meaning of what you’re reading.

Fluency tends to require at least some amount of memorizing sight words (what a previous poster described as “popcorn words”) because so many of the most commonly used words in English are phonetically irregular. Also, it’s next to impossible to get any fluency or comprehension when focusing on small bits of text, which phonics instruction tends to do (mainly because it’s hard to write anything meaningful while focusing on a single phonics rule.)

I don’t know why we tend to go all or nothing on reading strategies, but the best bet is likely a mix of strategies that includes sone phonics-based instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Context. Which you can’t get if you’re so busy sounding out each letter that you lose the meaning of what you’re reading.

Fluency tends to require at least some amount of memorizing sight words (what a previous poster described as “popcorn words”) because so many of the most commonly used words in English are phonetically irregular. Also, it’s next to impossible to get any fluency or comprehension when focusing on small bits of text, which phonics instruction tends to do (mainly because it’s hard to write anything meaningful while focusing on a single phonics rule.)

I don’t know why we tend to go all or nothing on reading strategies, but the best bet is likely a mix of strategies that includes sone phonics-based instruction.

I have one kid who learned to read from 100% phonics. I have one kid who really didn't click with phonics initially - he needed something else initially and I kept with the phonics alongside whole word reading. After the idea of reading clicked, then he still needed the concept of sound-it-out to read new words. Context+phonics is what children use to understand new words. And background knowledge, aka content, is what children need in order to comprehend.

Every child uses phonics to read, even the ones who don't want to or think that they don't. This includes dyslexic children but they will sometimes use memorization (and guessing) to compensate for poor decoding.

[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.

My third grader’s current reading level is 6th grade. He reads comic books for fun. He has an adult vocabulary using words that you don’t hear too often.

My middle schooler is reading at grade level and they have always read complete books. That is so weird that there are students who aren’t reading complete books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Do you skim?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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!

I would have a meeting or email w/ the teacher to understand what is on the shelf. I’d be fine if said shelf included a variety of genres and books at my kids level including a healthy dose of books my kid enjoyed. But on some level I’d be perturbed because reading at ES should be about choice with adults supporting and encouraging diversity of books (genre, content, length, difficulty, characters)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Context. Which you can’t get if you’re so busy sounding out each letter that you lose the meaning of what you’re reading.

Fluency tends to require at least some amount of memorizing sight words (what a previous poster described as “popcorn words”) because so many of the most commonly used words in English are phonetically irregular. Also, it’s next to impossible to get any fluency or comprehension when focusing on small bits of text, which phonics instruction tends to do (mainly because it’s hard to write anything meaningful while focusing on a single phonics rule.)

I don’t know why we tend to go all or nothing on reading strategies, but the best bet is likely a mix of strategies that includes sone phonics-based instruction.

Previous post seems to be discussing something that does not exist - and never has. Phonics-centered never meant Phonics-only. Reductio ad absurdam arguments like this are just silly.

[Anonymous]

I’m so grateful that we had old school teachers in our dcps Title 1 dual language. Both kids became strong readers. At 12 and 15 they have no problem and regularly read advanced books, especially the younger one. Their teachers used phonics and probably newer methods. We read to them at home and tracked the words with our fingers, and went through sight words lists.

Now the thing they don’t teach in schools that shows up later— spelling and grammar.

[Anonymous]

Gen Alpha the first generation in over a century where the majority will be unable to read or write. The future does not look bright for humanity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Context. Which you can’t get if you’re so busy sounding out each letter that you lose the meaning of what you’re reading.

Fluency tends to require at least some amount of memorizing sight words (what a previous poster described as “popcorn words”) because so many of the most commonly used words in English are phonetically irregular. Also, it’s next to impossible to get any fluency or comprehension when focusing on small bits of text, which phonics instruction tends to do (mainly because it’s hard to write anything meaningful while focusing on a single phonics rule.)

I don’t know why we tend to go all or nothing on reading strategies, but the best bet is likely a mix of strategies that includes sone phonics-based instruction.

I have one kid who learned to read from 100% phonics. I have one kid who really didn't click with phonics initially - he needed something else initially and I kept with the phonics alongside whole word reading. After the idea of reading clicked, then he still needed the concept of sound-it-out to read new words. Context+phonics is what children use to understand new words. And background knowledge, aka content, is what children need in order to comprehend.

Every child uses phonics to read, even the ones who don't want to or think that they don't. This includes dyslexic children but they will sometimes use memorization (and guessing) to compensate for poor decoding.

I don't know if that's true. Phonics never made sense to me. I ran across "thorn" in first grade and had to ask someone what it was. Once I heard it, I could make the association. The irregularity in Enlgish makes a pure phonics approach extremely difficult, at least it does for me. I often know words and their meanings but have no idea how to pronounce them correctly or would recognize them in a spoken context. Spanish, German, and Italian seem trivial by comparison given their regular spelling and pronunciation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gen Alpha the first generation in over a century where the majority will be unable to read or write. The future does not look bright for humanity.

AI, mumble mumble, AI, mumble mumble, success!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Context. Which you can’t get if you’re so busy sounding out each letter that you lose the meaning of what you’re reading.

Fluency tends to require at least some amount of memorizing sight words (what a previous poster described as “popcorn words”) because so many of the most commonly used words in English are phonetically irregular. Also, it’s next to impossible to get any fluency or comprehension when focusing on small bits of text, which phonics instruction tends to do (mainly because it’s hard to write anything meaningful while focusing on a single phonics rule.)

I don’t know why we tend to go all or nothing on reading strategies, but the best bet is likely a mix of strategies that includes sone phonics-based instruction.

I have one kid who learned to read from 100% phonics. I have one kid who really didn't click with phonics initially - he needed something else initially and I kept with the phonics alongside whole word reading. After the idea of reading clicked, then he still needed the concept of sound-it-out to read new words. Context+phonics is what children use to understand new words. And background knowledge, aka content, is what children need in order to comprehend.

Every child uses phonics to read, even the ones who don't want to or think that they don't. This includes dyslexic children but they will sometimes use memorization (and guessing) to compensate for poor decoding.

I don't know if that's true. Phonics never made sense to me. I ran across "thorn" in first grade and had to ask someone what it was. Once I heard it, I could make the association. The irregularity in Enlgish makes a pure phonics approach extremely difficult, at least it does for me. I often know words and their meanings but have no idea how to pronounce them correctly or would recognize them in a spoken context. Spanish, German, and Italian seem trivial by comparison given their regular spelling and pronunciation.

Phonics-centered does not mean Phonics-only - neither now or ever in the past. All recognize that English has some “sight words”. Phonics does provide a crucial foundation for most students. No one in this thread has proposed “pure Phonics”.

[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.

Same here. I also set up multiple reading areas all around the house to make it easy and pleasant to read.

Living room couches with bookshelves, dedicated library room with table and chairs, a small book bin in his bedroom for reading, a beanbag in the family room for reading. We also visit the library once or twice a month and he gets to borrow a tote bag full of books. He will literally sit in front of the tv on the beanbag and read for hours without once asking to watch tv.

I am so glad we prioritized books and reading, and am happy we haven’t had screen time fights so far. I am sure they are coming… I keep hearing ALL boys play video games once they hit double digits in age. He is 8. Classmates parents ask how I get him off his tablet. Simple: he doesn’t have one.

[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.

Same here. I also set up multiple reading areas all around the house to make it easy and pleasant to read.

Living room couches with bookshelves, dedicated library room with table and chairs, a small book bin in his bedroom for reading, a beanbag in the family room for reading. We also visit the library once or twice a month and he gets to borrow a tote bag full of books. He will literally sit in front of the tv on the beanbag and read for hours without once asking to watch tv.

I am so glad we prioritized books and reading, and am happy we haven’t had screen time fights so far. I am sure they are coming… I keep hearing ALL boys play video games once they hit double digits in age. He is 8. Classmates parents ask how I get him off his tablet. Simple: he doesn’t have one.

Learning and having broad knowledge of the world isn’t going to come from having a book in your hand all day. That’s just one of many activities kids can be involved in to help them be well rounded. Video games are not evil. Just keep the games age appropriate. If you look at successful guys in their 30s and 40s you will see the majority routinely played video games and many still play.

[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.

Same here. I also set up multiple reading areas all around the house to make it easy and pleasant to read.

Living room couches with bookshelves, dedicated library room with table and chairs, a small book bin in his bedroom for reading, a beanbag in the family room for reading. We also visit the library once or twice a month and he gets to borrow a tote bag full of books. He will literally sit in front of the tv on the beanbag and read for hours without once asking to watch tv.

I am so glad we prioritized books and reading, and am happy we haven’t had screen time fights so far. I am sure they are coming… I keep hearing ALL boys play video games once they hit double digits in age. He is 8. Classmates parents ask how I get him off his tablet. Simple: he doesn’t have one.

Learning and having broad knowledge of the world isn’t going to come from having a book in your hand all day. That’s just one of many activities kids can be involved in to help them be well rounded. Video games are not evil. Just keep the games age appropriate. If you look at successful guys in their 30s and 40s you will see the majority routinely played video games and many still play.

You do you. We will never have video games. No time for that. We have sooo many books to read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

And what’s insane is this slavish dedication to iReady and other computer programs, and to restricting students reading to specific books/ levels, has only resulted in lower reading scores. And yet we as educational institutions continue on the same trajectory. Edtech is the doom of ES, it really is.