Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

I can relate to that. At one point in one of my DC educational paths, they came home with the instruction to read for 10 minutes. They wanted to set a timer. I said no. Look at the time, read a chapter. Has 10 minutes passed? Yes - you are done. If not, read another chapter. I equated this to watching a movie for 10 minutes - how would one enjoy the story if it was all broken up in random places. (This was in a time window where we also did laundry movie night to get the laundry folded and put away!)

My kids loved Sesame Street, Electric Company and Reading Rainbow, the endless books in our house and any library or bookstore they saw. They still do.

S taught himself to read at 3 via Sesame Street and spelling things out to the tourists when I wouldn’t read every word of every sign while pushing D in the stroller. D taught herself to read as well via those shows and us reading and rereading favorite books. We never did flashcards. D didn’t start reading until she was about 6 or so.

I’m pretty sure the schools my kids attended were using these strategies described in the podcast BUT some teachers were also using a bit of phonics too. I believe many of the kids struggled to read and spell. My kids still aren’t great spellers, but spellcheck helps a lot. Sadly many kids who struggle to read hate reading and come to hate school as well. Our state routinely has awful standardized reading tests.

My sister made a nice living helping tutor kids in reading for decades. These were very bright kids in an elite private school, most of which had no learning disabilities (though she had a master’s in special ed and even took extra training in how to teach dyslexics). She was HIGHLY sought after and could have charged whatever she wanted.The school even gave her an office on their campus, to make it more convenient for the kids. She was highly successful and the families were VERY grateful. I’m pretty sure phonics was a major tool she used in teaching them. Two of her three kids love reading.

The older teachers were taught phonics (and how to teach it) before these programs became widespread so some taught it also. Newer teachers were not taught to teach phonics so only rely on the new programs.

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I remember reading Dick and Jane and using phonics. “Fun with Phonics” is a term I still remember from that time. I also developed my Boston accent at that time even though neither of my parents were from the Boston area. R was pronounced “ah”, unless it was the first letter in the word, and that is the way it was taught! :rofl:

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Once I attended a deposition taken by Boston attorney and at a break the court reporter said “I really don’t understand why the fish was stolen. “ And we were like , what fish? “ The cod,” she said. “You keep asking about the stolen cod” It was a stolen CARD. Lololol.

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That was one of my girls favorites! We all loved it. The movie is great too.

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We all loved “Holes”, book and movie. (As a special treat, son and I went to the movie when killing time during piano competition day.).

I absolutely understand that different books click with different kids. (For me for a while it was biographies… may have read all the titles in elementary school library biography section.). It’s great if teachers can offer a variety of genres.

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Glad you liked it!

I watched the movie also…it was just as bad as the book.

This is assuming that the parents were taught this stuff. In some communities, I’d imagine that we are looking at generational reading problems. In others family members do help, though. Some of the kids that I worked with told me that they knew their multiplication tables because their grandmother made them learn them. It wasn’t required by the schools, or even practiced in some of them, but the kids who could do math reasonably quickly usually had an involved older relative.

There’s a lot that goes on with reading that I hadn’t recognized. When we did phonics with my kids, they did fantastically until we came to the ‘et’ words- bet, set, pet…those were fine, but they asked what ‘get’ meant…I used it in a sentence and they immediately recognized it as an ‘it’ word…because we are from the south and they are used to hearing ‘git’. When volunteering, I had multiple instances of kids not recognizing words because they used non-standard pronunciations. The kids are also hampered by limited vocabulary. One boy was reading ‘A fat tan cat sat on a mat’ and got stuck on tan. It was fascinating - he understood language enough to know that the word should be a color word, and he said ‘t-an, t-an…brown?’ because he couldn’t make the word make sense. So we learned the color tan that day. I hadn’t ever thought about how much kids sound out the word and play with it until it matches a word in their repertoire. Teaching phonics is critical, but many kids also need a lot of being read to with teachers asking ‘Who knows what X means?’ and hands-on play with adults narrating or anything else to build vocabulary. I saw the kids doing assignments in elementary (2nd-3rd) designed to increase science vocab, but there are many more ‘everyday’ words that kids need exposure to and I’m not sure where these kiddos are supposed to get it.

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My friend has twins who were in my S’s kindergarten class. One twin didn’t understand anything related to reading, but her twin tried to cover for her by quietly telling her what to say. The adults quickly figured out what was going on, but helping that child learn to read was quite a challenge. Her mom took her to a local university, where they determined that she was unable to see patterns. For example, if I wore a blue skirt with white flowers, she would not see that there were flowers - she would just see blue and white. With the proper intervention, she learned to read … but a child whose family doesn’t see the issue, or who sees the issue but doesn’t have the means to get the necessary help, is at a huge disadvantage.

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My oldest was taught through a whole language approach. Her daughter was taught through a phonemic awareness approach. Both were surrounded by so many books, library trips and story times and both loved “writing” stories. I know both of them are bright (okay I’m a little biased) and was surprised at how long it took them to learn to read. Then all of a sudden they were both reading chapter books fluently for enjoyment by the end of first grade. I think we push reading too early for most children to enjoy mastering it. I’m also a fan of a blended approach. On the other hand, my second could read just about anything before Kindergarten. She recognized patterns so early and intuitively. I remember being shocked that she understood chords in music right away when she started piano and I hadn’t really understood you could read a whole chord rather than the individual notes until much later.

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I listened to the first episode today. Interesting and a little scary. The stat that suprised me was that 2/3 of 4th graders were not proficient in reading… something they say has been true for decades.

I can’t be sure on the method used in our schools. When I volunteered in the kindergarten classes, one of the jobs was to listen to the books brought home (starting with A level, very simple… progressing when a level was achieved). Daughter flew through the levels, probably aided by Sesame Street and phonic exercises at childcare (also Chicken Soup with Rice book mentioned in podcast). Son had same background and was slower, which I heard was typical. Both became stellar readers, and I suspect they would have done fine regardless of method. I worry about the other young readers who struggle more. It does seem a blended approach has merit.

Just an aside–Pat Conroy, author, uses a HUGE vocabulary in his writing. We were on a trip once and as a trivia game my husband would read down a page aloud and then hit a big word and ask the kids “what’s that mean?” Actually a fun game!

As for spelling? My D missed that entirely. Her teacher couldn’t spell–she’d put spelling words (to be tested on) on the board–spelled wrong. It took me a LONG time to realize that was happening. And when the school got new spelling books? The principal refused to distribute them. I should’ve pulled her out then but there weren’t many school options.
Sigh. I was young and stupid but I learned.
D did end up a great writer–a HS teacher circled every single misspelled word and grammar error (certainly not the “You’re not supposed to be mean to a kid, you hurt their feelings…you can only circle three errors on a page.” stuff). And she then paid attention.

My D’s spelling is still atrocious. Her teachers didn’t care as long as it was phonetically correct!

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Math is another topic of its own. First time I heard you didn’t need to learn multiplication tables (horrors!) was from my niece and my SIL (a doctor no less) who INSISTED that was right. After all you can use a calculator. (Don’t ask but that’s the reason.)
Then my D who REFUSED to memorize multiplication tables (because teacher said that wasn’t necessary and wouldn’t listen to me tell her otherwise) hit division in fourth grade. No clue and couldn’t do it. Upset. Told her it was because she needed multiplication to do division–and the faster she knew it the easier would be. And less time working on homework. More time to play!
So a huge stack of flash cards and two days later she had them down cold and could do division as well as multiplication. I truly understood why people home school. I should have done that or private school for her.

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Funny you should mention that… I essentially “homeschooled” while my kids were also attending regular school. I realized that they went to school for socialization, and a few specials that they couldn’t get at home. I taught them reading, writing, math, science, foreign language, and more at home. The school’s math program, I think it was called Everyday Math, was horrible. If I hadn’t taught my kids their math at home using the traditional methods, I don’t think that they would have been able to do higher mathematics.

Ran into a problem once I had realized that the oldest had ADHD. Oldest said later on that they learned best with a one-on-one teacher, but of course, that didn’t work out so well in high school and college.

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I understand totally. I was the “mean person” because I think of ALL the people in my D’s school life I was the ONLY one who said “I love your writing–but if you want people to read it you’ve got to have good spelling and grammar.” Until that ONE HS teacher who literally fire-hosed her with corrections.

My friend is also southern but her family lived in NY for a year or two when she was little. Her brother was referred for speech therapy in the schools because of his southern accent in first or second grade!

It was an award winning book. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s bad.

Nah, it was pretty bad…just because it’s “award winning” doesn’t make it good. :smile: