Sold A Story - How adult politics created an American illiteracy epidemic

[Elliott]

To me (nobody), phonetics is a shortcut for low hanging fruit, for kids, simple sentences. It cheats, using phonetics to utilize audibly known words.

Edited Sunday at 02:27 PM by Elliott

[DocWatts]

13 minutes ago, Elliott said:

Can you give an example sentence or paragraph?

They do a really thorough job explaining the mechanics of the whole word approach in the podcast, but here's a simple example.

So a whole word approach would present kids with a sentence like:

"The bee was in the ____."

And then the teacher would show them a picture of a tree, and ask them what word what makes sense here. 'Is it a tree?'

This 'works' for a simple three year old picture book story, but it falls apart when the pictures go away and the sentences become more complex.

If instead of a bee it's another type of bug in the tree, like a tarantula, the kid doesn't have a way to decode the word. They've memorized 'bee' but are unable to sound out 'tuh-rant-you-lah', and connect it to a spoken word.

What was discovered is that kids weren't actually reading, they were memorizing the simple stories they were presented with, rather than decoding the words and sentences.

Edited Sunday at 02:39 PM by DocWatts

[Elliott]

1 minute ago, DocWatts said:

So a whole word approach would present kids with a sentence like:

The bee was in the ____.

And then they would show them a picture of a tree, and ask them what word what makes sense here. 'Is it a tree?'

This 'works' for a simple three year old picture book story, but it falls apart when the pictures go away and the stories become to complex to memorize.

If instead of a bee it's another type of bug in the tree, like a tarantula, the kid doesn't have a way to decode the word. They've memorized 'bee' but are unable to sound out 'tuh-rants-you-lah', and connect it to a spoken word.

What was discovered is that kids weren't actually reading, they were memorizing the simple stories they were presented with, rather than decoding the words and sentences.

 You've looked into this quite a bit? Doesn't make sense to me, whole word is the way we all were probably taught. Growing up, it included sounding it out if you didn't know the word, and to spell it "eye wint two tha stoor"

[Elliott]

This is what I remember

 

[DocWatts]

7 minutes ago, Elliott said:

 You've looked into this quite a bit? Doesn't make sense to me, whole word is the way we all were probably taught. Growing up, it included sounding it out if you didn't know the word, and to spell it "eye wint two tha stoor"

I'm summarizing the 10-15 hours of the Sold A Story podcast that I've listened to so far. Full transparency, I'm a writer but an actual linguist could explain this much better than I ever could.

It sounds like you learned to read through a phonics approach, as I did - what you described is exactly how I was taught.

Problem is that many schools across the country adopted an approach that either didn't include phonics, or heavily de-emphasized them.

Edited Sunday at 02:49 PM by DocWatts

[Elliott]

15 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

I'm summarizing the 10-15 hours of the Sold A Story podcast that I've listened to so far. Full transparency, I'm a writer but I'm certainly not a linguist.

It sounds like you learned to read through a phonics approach, as I did - what you described is exactly how I was taught.

Problem is that many schools across the country adopted an approach that either didn't include phonics, or heavily de-emphasized them.

I think it was the Whole Word approach, I remember dyslexic kids that went to my school doing Hooked On Phonics outside of school.

The 'sounding it out' was like until first grade, and only if you didn't know the word from memorizing the flash cards, that ended then and then it was pure memorization, lists and lists and tests of words on their definitions.

Edited Sunday at 03:02 PM by Elliott

[Elliott]

@DocWatts do you know, with the phonics approach will schools still do vocabularly lists with definitions?

Edited Sunday at 02:57 PM by Elliott

[Thought Art]

28 minutes ago, Elliott said:

@DocWatts do you know, with the phonics approach will schools still do vocabularly lists with definitions?

Yes They would. Definitions are still required.

[Thought Art]

Even learning that "tion" makes a Shun sound, is part of the phonetics for example. Emotion.

 

[Nemra]

34 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

Whole word comprension is how people who can't decode words use contextual clues to guess at the meaning of an unfamiliar word. This works okay when the text is very, very simple and there are pictures in the book to tell you what the story is about - but it falls apart very quickly as what you're reading gets more complex.

I don't remember learning most English words that way.

We would read children's novels. The teacher would give us the definitions of the words used in the novel. We would then learn them by memorizing and understanding them.

I'm not American.

[Elliott]

1 hour ago, Thought Art said:

Even learning that "tion" makes a Shun sound, is part of the phonetics for example. Emotion.

 

You were never taught that outside of tutoring? Did you not read out loud in class?

Edited Sunday at 05:05 PM by Elliott

[Nemra]

13 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You can't sound out English words because English spelling is nonsensical.

French is way difficult.

[DocWatts]

2 hours ago, Elliott said:

@DocWatts do you know, with the phonics approach will schools still do vocabulary lists with definitions?

Yes, schools still teach vocabulary lists and reading comprehension, of course. But for these practices to have their desired effect, readers have to first be able to decode written words - and phonics is indispensable for learning how to decode words, because we learn to speak before we learn to read. 

Or that's how it is for heavily phonetic languages like English, at any rate.

Phonics was the traditional approach for beginning readers for many decades before it was deemphasized in favor of an experimental approach (whole word comprehension) that sounded plausible in theory, but didn't pan out in practice.

Our brains are evolved to pick up spoken languages very easily if we're exposed to them early in life. So it was assumed that the same might also hold true for written languages (ie, "just give kids books and a supportive environment they'll eventually learn to read") - but the scientific evidence doesn't bear this out. Kids need both explicit instruction and lots and lots of practice to learn how to read.

Again, everything I've been saying in this thread is just a condensed summary of that Sold A Story podcast - if you're curious, I'd recommend giving the first episode or two a listen.

Edited Sunday at 05:23 PM by DocWatts

[Elliott]

54 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

Yes, schools still teach vocabulary lists and reading comprehension, of course. But for these practices to have their desired effect, readers have to first be able to decode written words - and phonics is indispensable for learning how to decode words, because we learn to speak before we learn to read. 

Or that's how it is for heavily phonetic languages like English, at any rate.

Phonics was the traditional approach for beginning readers for many decades before it was deemphasized in favor of an experimental approach (whole word comprehension) that sounded plausible in theory, but didn't pan out in practice.

Our brains are evolved to pick up spoken languages very easily if we're exposed to them early in life. So it was assumed that the same might also hold true for written languages (ie, "just give kids books and a supportive environment they'll eventually learn to read") - but the scientific evidence doesn't bear this out. Kids need both explicit instruction and lots and lots of practice to learn how to read.

Again, everything I've been saying in this thread is just a condensed summary of that Sold A Story podcast - if you're curious, I'd recommend giving the first episode or two a listen.

Do you not find it odd, take your thread title for instance "illiteracy epidemic", that the framing of these new claims is that our kids are illiterate, when literacy it at it's highest ever?

I watched the videos you posted and looked at a few other sources. The data I see would be consistent with my "cheating" theory, children using 'low hanging fruit' words that they already know audibly. This just has the classic hallmarks of jumping to conclusions. I'm trying to find a long term study, the differences it makes when people grow up, college.

Literacy shot up AFTER switching to Whole Word learning. You don't think they would have caught on if test scores declined after the switch?

Edited Sunday at 06:11 PM by Elliott

[DocWatts]

@Elliott

Over a 200 year timespan - yes, people are more literate than today than they were in 1820.

But what I've heard in Sold A Story also corroborates what I've been hearing from teachers, who've described that the 11-14 year olds are making it into their classrooms lacking basic reading and writing skills.

That said, it was never my contention that Whole Word Comprehension is the only reason for this - America's public education system has always had sharp inequities (the quality of the education you receive is heavily dependent upon your zip code). And iPads making their way into the hands of 4 year olds has been disastrous for developing the kind of attention span that lets that child become a good reader.
 

Here's a 5 min vid of Millennial describing her experiences as middle school teacher, and these sorts of experiences aren't uncommon:

https://www.tiktok.com/@heymisscanigetapencil/video/7579812040152288567

Edited Sunday at 06:05 PM by DocWatts

[Elliott]

13 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

@Elliott

Over a 200 year timespan - yes, people are more literate than today than they were in 1820.

But what I've heard in Sold A Story also corroborates what I've been hearing from teachers, who've described that the 11-14 year olds are making it into their classrooms lacking basic reading and writing skills.

That said, it was never my contention that Whole Word Comprehension is the only reason for this - America's public education system has always had sharp inequities (the quality of the education you receive is heavily dependent upon your zip code). And iPads making their way into the hands of 4 year olds has been disastrous for developing the kind of attention span that lets that child become a good reader.
 

Here's a 5 min vid of Millennial describing her experiences as middle school teacher, and these sorts of experiences aren't uncommon:

https://www.tiktok.com/@heymisscanigetapencil/video/7579812040152288567

Ya, trends seem to correlate with the rise of video games and personal screens. Kids aren't going to spend as much time reading with so many distractions available, I don't care how you teach them. People have the TV raise their kids.

Edited Sunday at 06:17 PM by Elliott

[Leo Gura]

What I said is correct.

The mind will figure out the rest intuitively and naturally.

If you are memorizing whole words you will of course know how to pronounce and spell them.

This whole issue is a human-invented nothing-burger. Learning language is natural and easy for a mind without any formal method.

Edited Sunday at 07:33 PM by Leo Gura

[Elliott]

Obviously this is important with dyslexia though, not that I personally understand how, but dyslexic people really benefit from phonetic practice.

For all we know, grades could be declining because of pollution even.

I look forward to learning more about this though, I'd like to find a long term study, one from K to college.

Edited Sunday at 07:50 PM by Elliott

[Leo Gura]

As if the Chinese struggle with pronouncing kanji.

Bitch,.pleeeease.

The real reason kids are illitllrate is because they are lazy and the schooling system is not strict enough to beat the laziness out of them.

You want to teach kids to read? You beat them with a stick if they don't do their homework. American kids have becone so goddamn entitled they are too lazy to learn. Proper education requires drillmaster to whip you into shape.

I'm serious, skip all the crap and just start memorizing whole words. Your rate of learning will skyrocket.

Edited Sunday at 08:02 PM by Leo Gura

[Elliott]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

As if the Chinese struggle with pronouncing kanji.

Bitch,.pleeeease.

I don't think we could trust any literacy rate published in China, maybe they send dyslexic kids to the rice fields. 

Actually, dyslexic people may do better with kanji rather than alphabets.

 

https://blog.dyslexia.com/teaching-japanese-to-dyslexic-students/

 

Edited Sunday at 07:58 PM by Elliott