Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great article on the disaster of reading instruction in our country.
https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

Thanks for the article, it was an interesting read. It briefly mentioned this, but I remember reading before I knew the alphabet. I was reading before I had formal education, which started in kindergarten for me. I remember our teacher going through A-Z, and I was thinking, oh I have to read the letters (learn their names) whereas before I only knew the sounds associated with their shapes.

This actually happens a lot when children are read to a lot from a young age.

Phonics is fine but it should not be the way children are taught to learn how to read because, honestly, it is so tedious when taken out of context. The very best way to begin reading is by being read to. Phonics can be very helpful when children begin learning to spell if they are using the Word Study method.

And your comment about sounds associated with the shapes is spot on. That's all "reading" really is. Associating sound and meaning with shapes.

Anonymous wrote:Great article on the disaster of reading instruction in our country.
https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

Great article and great website, thanks for posting it. I'm so grateful that my kids had the basic phonics stuff available to them at their school.

My favorite quote regarding learning to read:

"The reading wars have been fought and science lost".

While around one-half of students will learn to read by any method, one-half need direct instruction in phonics. For some strange reason, many schools do not teach direct phonics or teach a watered down version of direct, systematic phonics. Instead many schools are teaching methods such as look and guess the word by looking at the picture to figure out the content. Or having students read repetitive stories where one word is changed in the sentence to match a new picture on the page. Or other strategies that good readers don't need to depend on because they can effortlessly decode.

I am a school psychologist, but unlike most school psychologists I actually was a teacher before becoming a school psychologist. I taught in the era of whole language and realized it was just flat out an awful way to teach children to read. I secretly taught phonics and my students excelled in reading.

Too many reading teachers at schools don't believe that systematic, direct phonics instruction is the best way to teach reading. Knowing this, I made sure I taught my kids how to read using a direct phonics program before they started kindergarten. One I used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. The other child I taught using Sing, Spell, Read, and Write.

Anonymous wrote:Great article on the disaster of reading instruction in our country.
https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

Thanks for the article, it was an interesting read. It briefly mentioned this, but I remember reading before I knew the alphabet. I was reading before I had formal education, which started in kindergarten for me. I remember our teacher going through A-Z, and I was thinking, oh I have to read the letters (learn their names) whereas before I only knew the sounds associated with their shapes.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would assume if the “just read to your kids and they’ll learn” osmosis DCUMers just want their own kids in the highest reading groups while the rest of you painfully point to sight words until someone suggest a literacy tutor. Children learn to read by practicing reading. In no other academic discipline is there this debate; abilities mature only through practice. Teach your kid to read!

No one is saying that phonics shouldn't be taught. The argument some poster is trying to make is that phonics must be taught and this poster seems to be saying it is a prerequisite to literacy. That is completely incorrect.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who taught your kid to read - the sounds, the blends, the combos, the practice.
Preschool, you, an IPad app, or your independent school teacher (and if so what grade)?

We had play based pk and K, lots of specials for grade 1, and no homework policies school so have never seen a word list or literacy pack come home for either of our kids. Now we feel naive since they still don’t know concepts or spelling and I wonder what fell through the cracks here.

Certainly alphabet memorization and reading at school helps at pk/k levels. But if you read to your kids as parents (almost) every night as toddlers thru pre-k they’ll learn almost by osmosis. DC1 got about 3-5 Dr. Seuss books a night from age 2-3 on and was reading independently by 4 / 4-1/2. DC2 was less interested in reading and being read to and started closer to 5 / 5-1/2, which seemed fine.

Please please do not suggest all children will learn to read through “osmosis”. This is absolutely false and it is reckless to propel this myth.

DP. If you read to your child every day or night, and you point at the words while you read to reinforce the concept of word, I can guarantee your child will learn how to read barring any learning disability or vision problem. And while I would use different words than the PP, it is an awful lot like osmosis. The most important thing any parent can do is to read, read, read to their little child. Every. Day. For at least 10-15 minutes minimum a day. And when the child wants to "read" back, let him/her!

Are you an educator ? That may have been your personal experience but I can “guarantee” it does not work that way for every child.

Yes, in fact I am a highly trained reading specialist. Barring a learning disability or vision problem, children learn to read by being read to and then by reading back. It is a thing. Look it up. It should be consistent and have sufficient duration, like 15-30 minutes a day. Repetition of the same books is fine, even encouraged. In fact, at its most extreme, you could even say that children don't need to know the English alphabet because when learning to read by sight children are connecting sound with groups of symbols and space.

Even Lucy Calkins admitted that phonics instruction is a needed part of "balanced literacy".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who taught your kid to read - the sounds, the blends, the combos, the practice.
Preschool, you, an IPad app, or your independent school teacher (and if so what grade)?

We had play based pk and K, lots of specials for grade 1, and no homework policies school so have never seen a word list or literacy pack come home for either of our kids. Now we feel naive since they still don’t know concepts or spelling and I wonder what fell through the cracks here.

Certainly alphabet memorization and reading at school helps at pk/k levels. But if you read to your kids as parents (almost) every night as toddlers thru pre-k they’ll learn almost by osmosis. DC1 got about 3-5 Dr. Seuss books a night from age 2-3 on and was reading independently by 4 / 4-1/2. DC2 was less interested in reading and being read to and started closer to 5 / 5-1/2, which seemed fine.

Please please do not suggest all children will learn to read through “osmosis”. This is absolutely false and it is reckless to propel this myth.

DP. If you read to your child every day or night, and you point at the words while you read to reinforce the concept of word, I can guarantee your child will learn how to read barring any learning disability or vision problem. And while I would use different words than the PP, it is an awful lot like osmosis. The most important thing any parent can do is to read, read, read to their little child. Every. Day. For at least 10-15 minutes minimum a day. And when the child wants to "read" back, let him/her!

Are you an educator ? That may have been your personal experience but I can “guarantee” it does not work that way for every child.

Yes, in fact I am a highly trained reading specialist. Barring a learning disability or vision problem, children learn to read by being read to and then by reading back. It is a thing. Look it up. It should be consistent and have sufficient duration, like 15-30 minutes a day. Repetition of the same books is fine, even encouraged. In fact, at its most extreme, you could even say that children don't need to know the English alphabet because when learning to read by sight children are connecting sound with groups of symbols and space.

Montessori preschool.

Me and their dad. They went a nonprofit run pre-school that was about half low SES/ ESL kids and there was a big emphasis on reading readiness it there, since the mission was to have low SES kids ready for K. And my older kid picked it up very fast without much help, and went into K reading chapter books. He actually did a lot of his out loud reading to his sister, who is two years behind. And he loves playing big brother. So later, she did her out loud reading to him while he helped. He had a better idea of how reading is actually taught than I did since he had just learned.

Anonymous wrote:As with most things in education, it's a class/income thing. For kids w/o learning differences, being in a household with adults with intensive verbal interaction and vocabulary, who model reading all the time, and spend a lot of time reading to their children produces kids who learn to read easily. Research seems to indicate that phonics instruction is more useful to kids from lower education and income backgrounds, so it makes sense that it be the principal approach used in public education. But, for parents whose children learned to read early and easily, the amount of formal reading instruction in the early primary grades is not only a waste of time, it feels so basic as to border on the oppressive. That's why none of the selective private schools in the area spend nearly as much time on reading instruction as the publics and none use phonics exclusively.

Huh. Is that why my niece cannot read yet? Because she is at a selective private school and isn't being taught?

Her older brother and sister did pick up reading nearly by osmosis with little formal teaching. But she didn't.

Anonymous wrote:As with most things in education, it's a class/income thing. For kids w/o learning differences, being in a household with adults with intensive verbal interaction and vocabulary, who model reading all the time, and spend a lot of time reading to their children produces kids who learn to read easily. Research seems to indicate that phonics instruction is more useful to kids from lower education and income backgrounds, so it makes sense that it be the principal approach used in public education. But, for parents whose children learned to read early and easily, the amount of formal reading instruction in the early primary grades is not only a waste of time, it feels so basic as to border on the oppressive. That's why none of the selective private schools in the area spend nearly as much time on reading instruction as the publics and none use phonics exclusively.

I disagree with this. Everyone benefits from phonics instruction in a systematic way. It's just that kids from lower SES backgrounds usually only get that instruction in school, not at home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Orton-Gillingham tutor after dyslexia diagnosed in 1st grade.

how did you figure this out? A formal assessment? If so, where?

I noticed you did not get an answer.

I called ASDEC and they gave me the name of a person to do a formal evaluation for $3K and a name of a tutor.

My kids would not be able to read without this intervention.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who taught your kid to read - the sounds, the blends, the combos, the practice.
Preschool, you, an IPad app, or your independent school teacher (and if so what grade)?

We had play based pk and K, lots of specials for grade 1, and no homework policies school so have never seen a word list or literacy pack come home for either of our kids. Now we feel naive since they still don’t know concepts or spelling and I wonder what fell through the cracks here.

Certainly alphabet memorization and reading at school helps at pk/k levels. But if you read to your kids as parents (almost) every night as toddlers thru pre-k they’ll learn almost by osmosis. DC1 got about 3-5 Dr. Seuss books a night from age 2-3 on and was reading independently by 4 / 4-1/2. DC2 was less interested in reading and being read to and started closer to 5 / 5-1/2, which seemed fine.

Please please do not suggest all children will learn to read through “osmosis”. This is absolutely false and it is reckless to propel this myth.

DP. If you read to your child every day or night, and you point at the words while you read to reinforce the concept of word, I can guarantee your child will learn how to read barring any learning disability or vision problem. And while I would use different words than the PP, it is an awful lot like osmosis. The most important thing any parent can do is to read, read, read to their little child. Every. Day. For at least 10-15 minutes minimum a day. And when the child wants to "read" back, let him/her!

Are you an educator ? That may have been your personal experience but I can “guarantee” it does not work that way for every child.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who taught your kid to read - the sounds, the blends, the combos, the practice.
Preschool, you, an IPad app, or your independent school teacher (and if so what grade)?

We had play based pk and K, lots of specials for grade 1, and no homework policies school so have never seen a word list or literacy pack come home for either of our kids. Now we feel naive since they still don’t know concepts or spelling and I wonder what fell through the cracks here.

Certainly alphabet memorization and reading at school helps at pk/k levels. But if you read to your kids as parents (almost) every night as toddlers thru pre-k they’ll learn almost by osmosis. DC1 got about 3-5 Dr. Seuss books a night from age 2-3 on and was reading independently by 4 / 4-1/2. DC2 was less interested in reading and being read to and started closer to 5 / 5-1/2, which seemed fine.

Please please do not suggest all children will learn to read through “osmosis”. This is absolutely false and it is reckless to propel this myth.

DP. If you read to your child every day or night, and you point at the words while you read to reinforce the concept of word, I can guarantee your child will learn how to read barring any learning disability or vision problem. And while I would use different words than the PP, it is an awful lot like osmosis. The most important thing any parent can do is to read, read, read to their little child. Every. Day. For at least 10-15 minutes minimum a day. And when the child wants to "read" back, let him/her!