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

[DocWatts]

48 minutes ago, zurew said:

This is true when it comes to reading books, but when it comes to reading academic articles (like philpapers or iep or sep articles), one's inability to track or to understand can be explained by not doing enough thinking and reading on that specific subject or area.

We would never say the same thing about science stuff. Like imagine someone saying "yeah, when I looked up one academic physics article, I realized that it is just a bunch of empty big words and unnecessary technical detail and arguments".

Fair point, but my personal experience is that a lot of academic philosophy is convoluted to an unnecessary degree. 

To return to Heiddegar, Being-In-The-World is a genuinely useful concept - that we're embedded within the world before we start reasoning about it - that's weighed down by overly technical, precise language. 

There's a tradeoff between splitting hairs and writing in a way people can actually comprehend. 

Quality philosophical writing has a good economy of accessibility relative to its precision. (I.e., 'Don't make your writing more difficult than it needs to be')

Edited 20 hours ago by DocWatts

[zurew]

56 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

There's a tradeoff between splitting hairs and writing in a way people can actually comprehend. 

Yeah, level of detail and the usage of words should be (imo) largely informed by the targeted audience.

Academic papers are not  for lay people though. They are for people who are specialized in an area, so you assume that they know a bunch about the field already and you also assume that they can understand technical detail and technical language.

I generally prefer analytic philosophy and I like it more than non-analytic philosophy, because I would choose hardly understandable but crackable technical detail over gibberish and or natural language that lacks substance or conceptually confused (thats not to say that all non-analytic philosophy is trash, because thats definitely not true).

56 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

To return to Heiddegar, Being-In-The-World is a genuinely useful concept - that we're embedded within the world before we start reasoning about it - that's weighed down by overly technical, precise language. 

Yes one can definitely fuck up with going too technical.

Its also the case that we have a bunch of shared concepts that probably no one can explicate or define using other concepts.

Edited 19 hours ago by zurew

[Elliott]

🙄 They didn't write for lay people

Edited 19 hours ago by Elliott

[Elliott]

6 hours ago, Thought Art said:

@Elliott No, phonetics is taught holistically. Sound, mouth shape, air shape, and letter(s) (image). It makes writing, spelling, and reading better.

Phonetics is not incorrect. Written english is based on phonetics of our language. Phonetics is the correct way of understanding the language. 
 

Phonetics does not impede someone’s ability to read/ write and make sense of the meaning of the sentences. It actually makes it better. 
 

For me reading and writing contain many simultaneous processes. 

I don't mean phonetics as an extra thing being taught will impede, I already said it's helpful. Obviously if you teach phonetics you eliminate other things you were teaching,  you're not adding 3 months to every school year for phonetics, you're eliminating vocabularly and reading assignments.

[Thought Art]

@Elliott  I only practiced it once a week for an hour for 2 years with my tutor. It actually taught me to read and write. I learned it after school…. So no.

For me, it wasn’t helpful. It’s how I learned to read and write. It was a relatively small investment of time. Without this I wouldn’t have learned to read. 

I went from being behind my classmates to in front of them. 

It really would change kids lives if taught early on and accelerate the learning of kids going forward making each year of schooling more powerful.

Phonetics is how to actually read and write. I can’t convince you if I haven’t already. You don’t know what phonetics is ultimately.

It would make vocabulary and reading assignments more effective. 

Edited 17 hours ago by Thought Art

[Thought Art]

@Elliott  The whole point of this thread is that research shows the importance of phonetics in learning English. So, why are you arguing with me here? It’s really silly. I’ve provided my own experience and that of my family. The OP has also provided videos showing this is the consensus of experts. Man, it’s like how many times am I gonna explain this to you?

It doesn’t take that long to learn for kids and it makes reading a million times easier. 
 

Plus, what you say is silly because there is I’m pretty sure a literacy epidemic taking place. Of course distraction and laziness is a core part of it… but it’s also because the current system fucking sucks at teaching kids to read and write…. Because they don’t teach phonetics. So, you may not be able to add 3 months to the year…. But when a grade 5 teacher has half her class with a grade 2 reading level you’ve wasted 3-5 years!!!! So what the fuck?

Edited 17 hours ago by Thought Art

[Elliott]

41 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@Elliott  I only practiced it once a week for an hour for 2 years with my tutor. It actually taught me to read and write. I learned it after school…. So no.

For me, it wasn’t helpful. It’s how I learned to read and write.

That's AMAZING!

Do you think, we have a 99% literacy rate, the other kids are just cheating on the tests, you believe they can't read and write?

You didn't do work outside of the tutor session? This thread is not about 1 hour a week for 2 years, it's about completely gutting how reading is taught.

Edited 17 hours ago by Elliott

[Elliott]

California has done phonetics for 30 years, they were the first, they have the LOWEST literacy rate, Mississippi10 years ago....

Phonetics is cheating, of course elementary word tests will get better scores with phonetics.

@Thought Art all you've provided is your opinion stated as fact, you only have anecdotal evidence, you've posted ZERO scientific evidence. This is typical of these bullshit hype-ragebait pseudo-science campaigns.

 

Just post some damn evidence then.

 

"According to recent data, the following states have been identified as having the lowest literacy rates:

California: 76.9% literacy rate, the lowest in the nation. This significant gap highlights challenges in educational infrastructure and demographic diversity. 

1

Louisiana: Approximately 84.0% literacy rate, facing historical educational inequities that continue to impact literacy levels. 

2

Mississippi: Also around 84.0% literacy rate, struggling with similar educational challenges as Louisiana. 

2

New Mexico: Literacy rate of about 83.5%, grappling with rapid population growth and multilingual educational needs. 

2

Texas: Noted for having low literacy rates, with specific average scores under 254, indicating significant challenges in literacy among its adult population. "

1

[Elliott]

Obviously anyone struggling should get more focus on phonics, but not at the expense of everyone else. 

 

The testing data I'm finding isn't showing anything ground breaking, without even entertaining my 'cheating' claim.

https://open.substack.com/pub/freddiedeboer/p/is-phonics-instruction-a-reading?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4r30ck

 

"So sure - I agree there’s a strong evidence-based argument for using phonics to teach reading to students who need formal instruction in order to read, and that such instruction can offer real if modest advantages compared to some other approaches for young, struggling readers who need help decoding at the word level. Beyond the earliest grades, outside of lower-level learners, and for tasks beyond decoding and into real comprehension, the phonics advantage collapses."

Edited 16 hours ago by Elliott

[Leo Gura]

P.S. That's why you don't get monkey as pet.

Edited 10 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Schizophonia]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Paying a university to learn philosophy is literally a scam. The only reason it is done is out of conformity and ignorance.

That's why you get lost or avoid almost all debates, and why you're stuck in shallow concepts; typical example is conformism; you can't explain your intuition, so you just throw your exemples out there like begins the question and if someone asks questions you just reply, "Ugh you're annoying me, just contemplate."

Reading and studying philosophy or even simply watching good videos, not just browsing Wikipedia, in addition to being a pleasure, will provide you with elements of language, concepts, even epistemology with a "dialectical" approach and/or scientific evidence in favor of it (although we, as non-dualists, know that positivism is an illusion and autistic bullshit 😏).

At some point you didn't learn how to make Skyrim mods by reading the C++ Wikipedia page it doesn’t makes sense.

Edited 14 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Thought Art]

@Elliott I also learned a specific SYSTEM. Lindamood.  This is important because there are likely many approaches to phonics/ phonetics. 
 

Anyone calling a specific system of learning “cheating” is a limited perspective. Learning is learning.

I know for a fact the system of phonetics changed the lives for me and my family. And, this system has not been implemented at all wide scale in schools. 
 

Learning phonetics brought me to a near university level reading comprehension by grade 6. I have the tests reports from when I was tested. I was tested by the school, or some third party. 

Why? BECAUSE it actually taught me how English works for reading and writing the fucking words. Memorizing words is for retards who didn’t learn how English works. 

 

Edited 11 hours ago by Thought Art

[Leo Gura]

@Thought Art Take it easy.

[Thought Art]

@Leo Gura

Sure, I don’t know if every kid can afford tutoring and if this system works in a chaotic classroom. I can’t speak for wide systematic implementation of Linda Mood. Also, my own intelligence and massive jump in reading score is probably rare as I had some genius level aptitudes. I am open to that. 
 

There is research around Lindamood people can look at themselves.

I personally could not learn in a classroom. I admit this is partly due to an inability to focus and listen to instruction due to over stimulation the other children and sounds, smells etc. in tutoring I was able to deeply dive into the phonic/ phonetically science and structure of the English language. This allowed me to be able to read any word I saw without memorization and to spell words just by hearing them. 
 

In what fucking world would not actually learning how a language work be a good thing? In what world would learning how words work be “cheating”?

But, learning how words actually work… is effective rather than than retard level word memorization of most humans. 
 

- Once I learned to process speech sounds properly, reading stopped being about memorizing words and became automatic — which is why my assessed reading level jumped years ahead. - AI

 

Edited 11 hours ago by Thought Art

[Thought Art]

@Elliott As I read through your article it is eye opening but also question raising. I am fine with comprehension being something which phonetics doesn’t directly help. However, I have questions about what the UK implementation of phonetics looks like and how it compares to Lindamood. 
 

But, in terms of actually being able to read the words so one can use their own comprehension abilities…. I’d say it helps.

The substack article you share is very interesting and I agree with the person writing it. It doesn’t deny that phonetics is a useful aspect of learning at all. But, that phonics alone isn’t enough for literacy and comprehension which seems very likely. 
 

Also, it’s hard to say when reading this article what really going on in the class rooms, what they refer to as phonics/ phonetics too. If all that’s being improved is “non-word reading” for example, I highly suspect the phonics and approach used is not my system. I wonder if I did that “nonword reading” in Lindamood. I don’t recall it. But, Linda mood did help with decoding words while reading but also from hearing the word itself. 
 

There are so many variables at play here. We can’t just take phonics and how it’s been implemented in some systems or class rooms and know. It is very fuzzy, and you can’t draw a strong conclusion even from this seemingly well written article. More research is likely needed because, “phonics” doesn’t reveal the whole implementation or variety of potential pedagogical methods that could exist and which have been implemented …. This is a highly complex subject. 
 

He does state the phonics helps with Decoding. Which for me was huge. But, not comprehension. Which makes sense to me as comprehension requires deeper levels of human intelligence which is outside of the scope of what phonetics would provide. 
 

For me, learning how to read and decode and sound out words was the missing link. 
 

Here is the research of Lindamood. 

https://lindamoodbell.com/research

Edited 11 hours ago by Thought Art

[Bogdan]

I'm learning dutch right now. I'm using AI to translate sentences I wanna know, then I listen with text to speech programs until I can read them by myself, and eventually memorize the whole thing.

But I do think it's ultimately about learning the words themselves. It's just that this is the best way I've found to do so. By learning them within the sentences you actually are interested in learning.

Simple and direct. Easy, even.

Wikipedia has lists of the most common words for any (or most) languages. In theory, learn the first 2000, you can speak. Learn the first 5000, you are fluent.

[Thought Art]

3 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

That's why you get lost or avoid almost all debates, and why you're stuck in shallow concepts; typical example is conformism; you can't explain your intuition, so you just throw your exemples out there like begins the question and if someone asks questions you just reply, "Ugh you're annoying me, just contemplate."

 

Haha, do you listen to his videos? I wouldn’t say his concepts are shallow at all…

[Thought Art]

29 minutes ago, Bogdan said:

I'm learning dutch right now. I'm using AI to translate sentences I wanna know, then I listen with text to speech programs until I can read them by myself, and eventually memorize the whole thing.

But I do think it's ultimately about learning the words themselves. It's just that this is the best way I've found to do so. By learning them within the sentences you actually are interested in learning.

Simple and direct. Easy, even.

Wikipedia has lists of the most common words for any (or most) languages. In theory, learn the first 2000, you can speak. Learn the first 5000, you are fluent.

I am learning French right now. I agree that exposure to the words and in sentences is important. I am also exposed to French all day at work, though I don’t understand it I think it’s good I am exposed to it all day.
 

I am using Duolingo and an App called speak to practice. 
 

I like the app Speak because it uses AI and is focused on speaking the words out loud in sentences and in useful contexts. It uses an AI too so you can practice speaking to it. It also has good lessons. I’m enjoying the combination of apps because they provide different exercises.

Duolingo is good too for the variety of written, hearing, speaking and newly added AI conversation features. 

Vocabulary is part of the language but, especially for French it isn’t enough because of French conjugations and masculine feminine. For some languages perhaps vocabulary is very useful especially going from English to Dutch as they are pretty similar.
 

For me, my relationship to phonetics was for being able to read and write a language I could already speak and understand verbally at a high level of comprehension. I just didn’t understand how to decode it. 
 

@Elliott Has helped me make some high quality distinctions with regards to various aspects of reading comprehension , etc…I apologize for losing my cool and I’ve edited my posts to be more respectful if you read them. My learning of English reading and writing includes phonetics (for me a huge game changer in my reading) among other methods. 

Edited 10 hours ago by Thought Art

[Lyubov]

20 hours ago, Elliott said:

To read it, or speak it?

It affects everything.

If you have awful phonetics you first and foremost will have a very weak foundation while reading. This will make it hard to fully grasp words and learn new vocabulary. Vocabulary is so important to acquire through reading.

If you lack phonetics you’re going to struggle much more to distinguish the sounds you’re hearing in speech. So your listening as well will be behind.  

Granted if you can already read in one language and are studying a language with some similarities it makes things easier. But yeah, I wouldn’t just overlook phonetics and pronunciation, make sure you have all these sounds down and verbally say them out loud until you can replicate them with ease. 

[Leo Gura]

28 minutes ago, Bogdan said:

By learning them within the sentences

Obviously it's not just about words, it's also about learning the grammar. That's why sentences are necessary. You need to see a lot of sentences to train the grammar into your neural network.

You gotta train your mind like an LLM. That's how you learn language quickly and efficiently.

Edited 10 hours ago by Leo Gura