12 votes

Inside the massive effort to change the way kids are taught to read in the US

19 comments

  1. [12]
    mieum
    Link
    I have a lot I would like to say about this. I don't know if I can really share my thoughts without ranting right now, so I will just say this: read WITH your kids. No amount of policy or...

    I have a lot I would like to say about this. I don't know if I can really share my thoughts without ranting right now, so I will just say this: read WITH your kids. No amount of policy or "results-based" curriculum is an adequate substitute for actually enjoying reading and being motivated by the intrinsic joy of learning. Should phonics be taught? Sure why not, but the problem really isn't just what schools can and should do. Is it any surprise that somewhere like Oakland lags behind in reading scores, or that, like the article mentions, literacy is low among prisoners? Phonics or not, I am doubtful of the role schools themselves can realistically play in improving those conditions, at least when methods and policy are where the energy is going.

    10 votes
    1. [11]
      skybrian
      Link Parent
      Yes, that's best, but I think we still hope that schools can make up for the limitations of bad home environments to some extent?

      Yes, that's best, but I think we still hope that schools can make up for the limitations of bad home environments to some extent?

      8 votes
      1. [9]
        EgoEimi
        Link Parent
        I sense there's a lack of straightforward acknowledgement of bad home environments. I find that the eternal search for novel pedagogical silver bullets dances around the elephant in the room:...

        I sense there's a lack of straightforward acknowledgement of bad home environments. I find that the eternal search for novel pedagogical silver bullets dances around the elephant in the room: there are no adequate replacements for the fundamentals of practice (practice, and more practice). And at the end of the day, you need parents who keep their kids' noses at the grindstone.

        There's recent controversy about a statement made by the newly appointed SF BoE Commissioner Ann Hsu:

        From my very limited exposure in the past four months to the challenges of educating marginalized students especially in the black and brown community, I see one of the biggest challenges as being the lack of family support for those students. Unstable family environments caused by housing and food insecurity along with lack of parental encouragement to focus on learning cause children to not be able to focus on or value learning. That makes teachers’ work harder because they have to take care of emotional and behavioral issues of students before they can teach them. That is not fair to the teachers.

        It drew seemingly universal condemnation from SF's justice organizations, decrying her statement as racist and xenophobic. It's not Oakland, but both cities share similar political climates.

        I was struck by the controversy because I thought the facts of her statement seemed fairly obvious: students need stable home environments that support education and home cultures that prioritize it.

        10 votes
        1. [4]
          Micycle_the_Bichael
          Link Parent
          That's precisely why it was so controversial. Assuming best faith, which I think everyone should, her statement is a surface-level description of a problem that is worded in a way that plays into...
          • Exemplary

          I was struck by the controversy because I thought the facts of her statement seemed fairly obvious: students need stable home environments that support education and home cultures that prioritize it.

          That's precisely why it was so controversial. Assuming best faith, which I think everyone should, her statement is a surface-level description of a problem that is worded in a way that plays into racist stereotype of black and brown parents in America. The way it is worded implies (at least to me, and given how controversial the statement was, to others as well) that if we could just get those darn black and brown parents to be more involved in their kids lives like the other parents then their kids would be much better off. Which, yeah. Parental support is critical for academic success. Cool. We agree. That statement doesn't acknowledge or address the underlying issues that need to be solved in order for that to happen though. Notable omissions from her statement despite her singling out black and brown communities:

          • Poverty: Do their parents have less time to spend helping them with school work because they have to work multiple jobs? Are their parents spending more time stressed and focus on finances to spend time helping their children learn? She mentioned food insecurity and housing insecurity without mentioning the reason that people face those issues. What's her plan for addressing the issue of parents not having time to help their kids with school due to economic insecurity? Rather than phrasing it in a way that makes it sound like black and brown parents are choosing to not support their kids, she could have brought up the challenges that lead to parents having less time to support their kids.

          • Mass Incarceration: Are their parents not around due to America's historically racist police policies? Is the refusal to hire ex-convicts playing a role in why these children face food and housing insecurity? Would their parents have more time to help them with school if one of them wasn't in jail? Did their parents receive enough of an education to be able to teach/help their children?

          • Historical Education Policies: How much education did their parents receive? From what type/quality of school? Did that education pay off for them? Did the education system continuously fail them to the point they are wary of said system or the value of education? Schools in the US were desegregated 60 years ago. We are ~150 years from when black people were banned from being taught how to read and the time between then and now was filled with official US policies to keep black and brown families at an educational disadvantage.

          • Honestly, I don't feel like writing all the other things that feed into this. Housing insecurity and its relationship to Jim Crow and Redlining. Terrorist attacks against black communities that got too successful. School-to-prison pipeline. Food Deserts. The list of systemic issues being overlooked goes on.

          The problem isn't that her statement is wrong. It is that it is just a gesture in the direction of an issue without actually addressing the issues nor offering any semblance of a solution. Black parents don't need to be told that being more involved with their kids academics makes them more likely to succeed. What they need is solutions to the problems they are facing that prevent them from being more involved in their kids lives. Systemic problems cannot be solved by telling individuals that they just need to try harder.

          14 votes
          1. [3]
            kfwyre
            (edited )
            Link Parent
            Excellently said. Her statement continues to feed into the longstanding American lie that outcomes yielded by systemic racism and oppression happen because of the character of those harmed. The...

            Excellently said.

            Her statement continues to feed into the longstanding American lie that outcomes yielded by systemic racism and oppression happen because of the character of those harmed.

            The other piece I'll add on to what you've said that I think a lot of people who have lived outside these issues miss (as I did before I started working in school districts ravaged by poverty):

            If you have lived a life in which you and community have not been negatively impacted by forces like poverty or systemic racism, then you have lived a life in which your caring, your hard work, and your efforts have been structurally affirmed. You've "bought in" to the systems around you and they have "bought in" to you in kind.

            However, if you have lived a live in which something like poverty or systemic racism has done significant damage (and continues to deal harm), then you have lived a life in which your caring, your hard work, and your efforts have been structurally eroded. The systems around you have discarded you, and you must maintain an nearly impossible ideal of "character" in spite of them, lest you be accused of "not caring/not trying/not making an effort" and then deemed responsible for the oppressions put upon you.

            I spent a decade of my career teaching in low-income schools before moving to a wealthy school district. If you believe that poverty is a character problem, I encourage you to sit in on some of the parent meetings I currently get to suffer through. Let me assure you that many wealthy people also have significant character problems.

            Furthermore, I saw so many people of absolutely incredible character in the first decade of my career, in kids and families that had literally nothing, that it quashed the "poverty is a character problem" lie for me flat out. I wrote about it more at length here if anyone's interested in more of my story.

            13 votes
            1. mieum
              Link Parent
              Thank you for that link! And I can confirm from similar experience about character-poverty being non-correlative >_< oh boy...

              Thank you for that link! And I can confirm from similar experience about character-poverty being non-correlative >_< oh boy...

              3 votes
            2. Pistos
              Link Parent
              Thank you for linking to that other post of yours, and thank you for writing it. (I wish I could upvote it, but it's too old.)

              Thank you for linking to that other post of yours, and thank you for writing it. (I wish I could upvote it, but it's too old.)

              2 votes
        2. [2]
          eladnarra
          Link Parent
          Kind of sounds like there should be greater focus on adult literacy and enjoyment of reading, plus social programs that support things like housing and food security. Otherwise it'll stay a cycle...

          Kind of sounds like there should be greater focus on adult literacy and enjoyment of reading, plus social programs that support things like housing and food security. Otherwise it'll stay a cycle - parents who didn't grow up reading and/or don't have any stability won't read much with their kids, so their kids won't get enough practice.... And then the cycle repeats.

          I think maybe talking about it in terms of "home culture" or lack of parental encouragement is part of what sets people off. Teachers are right that they can't fix it on their own, but neither can individual parents. It's structural.

          6 votes
          1. mieum
            Link Parent
            I totally agree. When I was younger I worked with the Read Aloud organization that was basically a campaign to get families interested in reading together. A household that enjoys reading produces...

            I totally agree. When I was younger I worked with the Read Aloud organization that was basically a campaign to get families interested in reading together. A household that enjoys reading produces excellent readers and self-motivated learners. It is unattractive to a lot of folks, though. Especially now that everyone has their own screen. Just yesterday someone told me that their 6 year-old reads a lot...on YouTube @_@

            Anyway, I agree that the institution of education can't and won't fix the systemic issues that affect the disparity of wealth and access to life chances. A solution to such a general problem is unlikely to come in the compartmentalized form of institutional policy.

            4 votes
        3. skybrian
          Link Parent
          I would distinguish between absolute and relative performance. Keeping up with the smartest kids in the school isn't too likely without support at home, though there are always exceptions. But...

          I would distinguish between absolute and relative performance. Keeping up with the smartest kids in the school isn't too likely without support at home, though there are always exceptions.

          But absolute performance isn't about keeping up, it's about whether you learn to do it or not. And it seems like, with the right approach, there ought to be enough practice at reading during school hours that elementary-age kids can learn to read? The school has the kids for much of the day for years, after all, and the younger children shouldn't be doing much homework anyway.

          (Pandemic aside.)

          3 votes
        4. nukeman
          Link Parent
          Good lord. We’re never going to get anything done at this rate. I’m tempted to say we should just ignore, if not actively push back against these organizations. At times they seem like a conduit...

          Good lord. We’re never going to get anything done at this rate.

          I’m tempted to say we should just ignore, if not actively push back against these organizations. At times they seem like a conduit for money to spend on complaining and activism without tangible results.

          2 votes
      2. mieum
        Link Parent
        That is the hope, and a lot of people work really hard to make postive changes in their communities. The problem isn't always just a bad home environment, but that demonstrates the impossible task...

        That is the hope, and a lot of people work really hard to make postive changes in their communities. The problem isn't always just a bad home environment, but that demonstrates the impossible task of institutionalized education: that it cannot directly address the causes of the problems it deals with. The "school" is in an awkward situation here. It is supposed to be a vehicle of social reform (to some extent, especially when it comes to literacy etc.), but it really functions almost as damage control---nursing the wounds of a sick system in a way.

        I know I am a bit jaded about all this. I am a researcher in the Ed. department of a huge university, and our kids are unschooled >_< I would love for school to be better, but I don't see that happening in a top-down model like we have.

        6 votes
  2. [6]
    Akir
    Link
    I’m increasingly worried how often I keep reading this story. It seems like teaching phonics is something that society just can’t help but learn the hard way because I seem to read this same...

    I’m increasingly worried how often I keep reading this story. It seems like teaching phonics is something that society just can’t help but learn the hard way because I seem to read this same article every year or so.

    7 votes
    1. [4]
      0d_billie
      Link Parent
      Disclaimer: I am not a teacher, just a linguistics student with a chip on her shoulder. The thing is, just being able to read words doesn't necessarily lead to successful comprehension. My thesis...

      Disclaimer: I am not a teacher, just a linguistics student with a chip on her shoulder.

      The thing is, just being able to read words doesn't necessarily lead to successful comprehension. My thesis supervisor was talking the other day about a data gathering session with kids around 10-12 who could read words more or less fine, but still weren't able to demonstrate even simple comprehension of a text. Things like "who does 'he' refer to in xyz sentence?" were met with unexpectedly slow responses, if they were correct at all.
      Being able to infer meaning from the surface code of a text is a fundamental part of reading comprehension, and it's beneficial to teach strategies for understanding how words interact together in written text as well as how letters do. Decoding the written word is an important skill, but approaching it from the perspective that written language and spoken language are the same will only lead to more difficulty down the line. It's the same sort of thinking that assumes that second language learners already know how to listen to their target language, without bothering to teach strategies to scaffold the process.

      6 votes
      1. NaraVara
        Link Parent
        You gotta get comfortable enough with the mechanics of reading (i.e. figuring out what the individual words are) to where its second nature and then you can start making sentences and paragraphs...

        You gotta get comfortable enough with the mechanics of reading (i.e. figuring out what the individual words are) to where its second nature and then you can start making sentences and paragraphs out of them. At some point you just gotta do the thing even though it sucks and is boring, just like playing a music instrument. Once you get to where you're not constantly being like "Um . . . which one is G? Ok and F? Ok G F then. . ." Once that becomes intuitive to you then it's pretty trivial to start playing simple songs by ear. Then you can start getting into more complicated stuff.

        Maybe different pedagogical techniques can make that retention happen faster or slower, but there's no substitute for practice. That's the key thing.

        6 votes
      2. [2]
        Akir
        Link Parent
        But nobody is advocating for only phonics. It’s just part of learning how to read. The article itself mentions phonics as being only part of the full package.

        But nobody is advocating for only phonics. It’s just part of learning how to read. The article itself mentions phonics as being only part of the full package.

        4 votes
        1. 0d_billie
          Link Parent
          You're right, that's what I get for skimming the article!

          You're right, that's what I get for skimming the article!

    2. kfwyre
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Yup. Previously on Tildes: 2018: Why are we still teaching reading the wrong way? 2020: At a loss for words: How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers And then of course...

      I seem to read this same article every year or so

      Yup. Previously on Tildes:

      2018: Why are we still teaching reading the wrong way?

      2020: At a loss for words: How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers

      And then of course this one, in 2022.

      I commented on the 2020 one with some pretty strong words that echo your idea about learning things "the hard way". If I had to amend that, I'd say that at this point the primary concern isn't going to be getting people on board with teaching phonics but recruiting and retaining teachers with the skills to teach it.

      COVID and conservative aggression have been significant stressors on an already stressed system. Phonics instruction, even if it's valued, isn't going to happen meaningfully or with fidelity in settings where substitutes are filling long-term positions, school weeks are cut down to four days a week, or class sizes are expanded beyond instructional limits. These, unfortunately, apply to much of our country right now, and they aren't likely to get much better any time soon.

      4 votes