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Improving the way kids are taught to read
- sovok_x 9y agoIs it advertisement for the book? The article doesn't really tell what teachers need to do better exactly.
- TulliusCicero 9y agoYeah, as a parent of a six year old I was hoping to see some tips or advice in the article. Maybe I can get a summary of the book at Amazon or something.
- irickt 9y agoThere are some resources at the author's site: https://seidenbergreading.net/home/ https://seidenbergreading.net/home/
- ThomPete 9y ago"The reasons are numerous, but one that Seidenberg cites over and over again is this: The way kids are taught to read in school is disconnected from the latest research, namely how language and speech actually develop in a child's brain." This is almost certainly wrong and even logically absurd. I am sure there are more optimal ways to learn to read but any kind with a fair IQ who aren't dyslexic can learn to read. My son isn't a genius, but he have been practicing reading since he was 5 and today at 8 he reads Harry Potter. The trick (as with almost any other field)? Practice, practice, practice. That's it. There is no magic sauce there. One thing that we found that actually increased his lust for reading (he definitely would rather play soccer, Minecraft or Rayman) is to give him a Kindle which has a kids app with achievements and daily reading goals. It's sad that so few kids read at their grade level but it's not because of sub-optimal teaching methods that much is for sure.
- golanggeek 9y agoCould you let me know the kids app that you are speaking about.
- watwut 9y agoWe found multiple tricks, not obvious to us immediately, that made learning to read easier. We found them through psychologists and teachers we know. And elementary school also gave us set of instructions meant to avoid common problems. There seemed to be a set of knowledge that makes things easier. And separate category of knowledge around choosing the book the kid has a chance to like to read.
- IIIIIIIIIIIIIII 9y ago> One thing that we found that actually increased his lust for reading (he definitely would rather play soccer, Minecraft or Rayman) is to give him a Kindle which has a kids app with achievements and daily reading goals. That sounds so strange to me. I was an avid reader for as long as I can remember - and my motivator were interesting stories. I also had parents and grandparents who themselves loved to read. Of course, I didn't have the alternative of computers until I was almost an adult, and the web only was developed while I was at university already. So I am not putting too much of an emphasize on my own experience. I could even imagine that setting a motivator that lies outside the task itself may have long-term negative consequences. It should be the task itself. I know a lot of people think things like work are counter examples - we work because we want something else, but I think that too is wrong. I always loved work, even mundane routine jobs, from early on I worked in factory settings (e.g. during longer school breaks, I grew up in East Germany) and even boring things like working on a machine the production line of a brewery (doing the same simple things over and over all day long) were fun, knowing that my job had a purpose. Only when people treated me like I had to be "motivated" (by pressure), for example when some supervisor in a chocolate factory saw me doing nothing (I had just carefully prepared a machine and was now observing its progress - it was the opposite of "doing nothing") my job motivation went from 100% to 0 in a heartbeat. I think when motivation is not there it probably is a pull issue, not a push issue. When I see purpose (incl. the one of serving society) at the far end I like doing even boring tasks, was my experience since childhood. Okay, that last comment leaves the topic at head behind, there only is what I said in my first sentence.
- asimeqi 9y agoI think this is the thread where I should recommend the best book to teach reading: Let's Read, a Linguistic Approach http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Read-A-Linguistic-Approach/dp/0814334555 http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Read-A-Linguistic-Approach/dp/081... I got the recommendation here in HN and I used the book with my 2 daughters. I started with my first daughter when she was 4.5 years old. I started with my second daughter at an older age because she was showing a slight case of dyslexia. It took 2 years to finish the book with each of them. After they were done they could read everything. My second daughter is 9 and is almost done with Oliver Twist. Read this comment by tokenadult: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4665466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4665466
- eppp 9y agoI also used this book with both my sons. It worked amazingly. The oldest one is one of the best readers in the state if the assessment is to be believed. I suspect a lot of the value is the time with the parent actually doing the work of teaching. But the book itself is arranged in such a way that the reading patterns are highlighted and reinforced.
- vog 9y agoIs there a similar book for French or German?
- book_mentioned 9y agoI would appreciate links to similarly helpful tools for early childhood education for any subject (or language). "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" has been recommended ancedata-ly to me.
- dgritsko 9y agoI've also anecdotally heard good things regarding "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" -- does anyone have direct experience with both that book and "Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach" (and if so, a recommendation for one over the other)?
- mixedmath 9y agoI'm disappointed that nowhere in this interview is there any actual indication of what is done badly, or what teachers should do to improve how kids are taught to read. I get that there is apparently a gap between how kids are taught to read and the science behind how kids should be taught read. I would much prefer a single understandable, actionable insight. Without it, this interview seems rather hollow. From this interview, I'm led to expect that the real insight from the book is that "teachers should study behavioral science, congnitive science, and brain development," which is too loose a central thesis to capture my interest. I suppose what I've really gathered from this interview is two things: firstly, I would like to know a bit more about the gap is between how kids learn to read and how they should learn to read; secondly, I do not intend on reading Seidenberg's book (i.e. the book this interview is centered around) to find out.
- skywhopper 9y agoYeah, agreed, there's really no substance to the interview that I can grab a hold of. The main thing that I would be wary of is the idea that there is a single approach or method that will work for every child. "Phonics" is mentioned a few times in the interview, ie, the connection between (English) spelling of written words and the spoken language they represent. I immediately found myself wondering how this relates to how children learn to read in other languages whose written forms are either far more phoenetically entwined with their spoken forms (eg, Portugese and Finnish, as I understand it), or far less (eg, Mandarin or Arabic). (I'm sure I'm oversimplifying complex relationships and reality in the overbroad sentence I just wrote, but I'm happy to hear how my received CW is wrong about these languages.) Anecdatally: when my own daughter was about four, we had some friends whose son had learned to read from a Phonics book at four, and when we knew him at five, he could read pretty much anything you put in front of him (how much he understood, who knows, but he could translate the text into spoken language that we could understand). Both her mother and I were also reading at four, and so we expected our daughter would be able to do the same. We were inspired by this kid's example to get our daughter started early, and tried the same Phonics book with her. Unfortunately, she didn't take to it so well. She seemed to understand what was happening well enough, but it never clicked or became natural, and it was ultimately a frustrating experience for us and our daughter. So we eventually stopped the lessons, and let her learn at her own pace. She happily made it through kindergarten and first grade without really showing any interest in or being able to read with any proficiency. She was clearly smart, and her teachers told us not to worry about it. Then in second grade mid-year, something just clicked, and she started voraciously consuming books, with her reading ability testing well above grade level. Now at 16, she's still a voracious reader, and a writer who has completed NaNoWriMo three times, reads and writes every second of the day, and has an incredibly sophisticated grasp on storytelling, analyzing the writing behind books and movies and TV shows with a clarity that I personally have never had. So, how did she learn to read? I have no idea. It wasn't phonics. But I suspect she would have managed it no matter what instruction she received. I also doubt that she is really a meaningful example, other than to say that it's complicated, and humans vary in their learning styles, and we should focus on the goal of reading and comprehending, trying to discover all the ways that individuals can and do learn to read, and having our teachers focus on identifying and encouraging the best methods for each student and not so much on imposing specific mechanics of how the statistically typical student achieves reading proficiency.
- sbinthree 9y agoIt is amazing how irrational even smart people act about learning to read. Maybe specifically smart people. Please, read the current research. Kids learn to read best out of interest -- with reading material they are interested in and when they are ready to learn. And it makes them better. My parents fought not to teach me to read. I didn't learn to read until I was 11. When I was 12 I went to school for the first time (unschooled) and was the top reader in my academically inclined private school. Everyone else learned phonics and other permanent reading crutches and I read shapes because I wasn't told how or when to learn when I was little. I still read weirdly fast compared to classically trained people who are otherwise smarter than me. What is faster I/O worth to your future? All it involves is not ramming phonics and other Prussian nonsense down your kids throat and waiting for intrinsic motivation to kick in.
- cliffy 9y agoAre you saying the current research argues against teaching children the ability to read at a young age? While forcing children to learn is not ideal, sometimes intrinsic motivation doesn't flourish in the individual naturally. How would you deal with a child that never wants to learn how to read?
- teslabox 9y ago> How would you deal with a child that never wants to learn how to read? All children will eventually come around to the idea that reading is useful. Some children are traumatized by do-gooders trying to force them to learn how to read before they're ready. As I said in another comment here, "I think John Taylor Gatto pointed out that some children learn to read when they're 2, some when they're 8, and by the time they're 12 you can't tell the difference."
- cliffy 9y agoThere are adults who are illiterate and still resist the idea that they would be better off if they learned how to read. I agree there's a level of proficiency that, once reached, seems to be sufficient to tackle most reading challenges. If you can read at 2, then you've 10 years of reading experience on the 12 year old who just learned. It doesn't necessarily make you a better reader, but you've had access to a much wider range of information and knowledge that the 12 year old couldn't access. It seems objectively better to encourage your children to learn to read at the earliest age possible.
- wilwade 9y ago(I taught my daughter to read, my wife currently working on our son, both with a phonics based curriculum, but more in a Vygotsky style) One of the motivations we have used is comic books. (Yes, that death of classic reading!) Both of our kids are My Little Pony fans, so we read a lot of those comic books for story time and gave them the books as they were learning to read. Wanting to read is a requirement for learning to read.
- antirez 9y agoI want to share the experience I had with my daughter Greta (now 5 yo). She learned to write and read independently. At 3 she was already able to write simple words (not memorized, you cold say "write <any-4-or-5-letters-word>"), and at this point at 5 she can fluently write. All this without spending more than, maybe a total of a few days once she were already capable of basic reading/writing. The question is, how she figured out how to write and read independently? I'm not sure, but my wife and I read she books since she was 1 month old, every night before bed time, and often she wanted to look at the books, so I guess she became accustomed to the shape of letters. Later she played a lot in one of these rubber carpets where there are the shapes of the letters (https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/PCwAAOSwM5JZma4a/s-l500.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/PCwAAOSwM5JZma4a/s-l500.jpg), and my guess is that this also helped. At some point when she was like, 2, she became obsessed with "A". This is letter "A" she could say during a few weeks. Later she started to compose the "A" with three sticks, and so forth. Basically with this process she learned all the letters and the sound. Btw what I was able to observe was: 1) It is a lot of work for kids to learn to write and read. Greta succeeded in doing so only because without we even noticing much, he basically spent a lot of time thinking about letters, drawing them, reading them. 2) When we tried to teach her better, like sitting together, we almost stopped this process... because it started to be annoying, so we avoided it if not for 10 minutes every month to say like, how groups of letters sounded. 3) I believe that one of the key point was reading a lot of books, because her language skills where very impressive already at 1.5 yo or alike, and I believe this is potentially the result of reading books.
- zwieback 9y agoDo you have more than one kid? One of mine learned reading super easily, the other struggled. Both of them do very well in high school now. I don't think one approach fits all and I'm certain teachers are sick of being told they are doing this or that wrong. My advice: leave the kids and teachers alone, they'll figure it out.
- balls187 9y agoWhich child performs better, the first born or second? When I was a child, my parents worked on phonetics with me, and encouraged me to work with my sister on hers. She didn't perform as well academically as I did, but now that we're in our mid/late thirties, that discrepancy is nothing but a footnote.
- marze 9y agoEasy fix: cash bonus to teachers based on average year-end score of their student’s reading comprehension.
- maxerickson 9y agoThat does usually prove to be a terrific way to improve scores. The hard part is a test that actually measures something like reading comprehension rather than preparation for the particular test.
- bcoates 9y agoTeaching to the test is so much work, the smart teacher will just lobby administration to get the weaker students removed from the class. https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/03/29/why-selection-bias-is-the-most-powerful-force-in-education/ https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/03/29/why-selection-bias-is-t...
- electriclove 9y agoLarry Sanger's essay on Baby Reading may be of interest: http://larrysanger.org/2010/12/baby-reading/ http://larrysanger.org/2010/12/baby-reading/
- bokchoi 9y agoAnd the site he's helped build based on the technique: http://www.readingbear.org/ http://www.readingbear.org/
- tzs 9y ago> Mark Seidenberg is not the first researcher to reach the stunning conclusion that only a third of the nation's schoolchildren read at grade level. The reasons are numerous, but one that Seidenberg cites over and over again is this: The way kids are taught to read in school is disconnected from the latest research, namely how language and speech actually develop in a child's brain. I presume that at some point in the past most kids could read at grade level, because presumably when it was initially decided what grade level was it was based on how kids actually performed at the time. So how was reading taught then? They certainly did not know today's latest research on language and speech development in a child's brain. Did they just stumble into the right approach, and so a reading program based on the latest research would end up being similar to how reading was taught in, say, the 1920s? Or was the 1920s (or whenever kids were at grade level) approach also flawed, and it is just that today's approach is even more flawed, and so if we based reading programs on the latest research most kids would end up above grade level?
- maxerickson 9y agoThe scales are made up. Many of them are formulaic, counting sentence length or syllables or whatever and digesting that into a number. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability_test links various measures. I'd be curious to go back and see what and how much my grandfather read in ~1910, after he stopped school in the 8th grade.
- sp332 9y agoWhen my grandpa got the news that he was going to ship out to the Pacific in WWII, the CO said to the men: "Gentlemen, there is a time and a tide." None of them had more than a sixth-grade education and they all knew what poem he was referencing. Edit: it appears I have misquoted it myself, or I can't find the reference. It's probably the Shakespeare thing though.
- dbatten 9y agoDoes anybody have any insight into the "reading wars," why phonics has fallen out of favor, and why it might still be important in certain contexts? All of this intrigued me in the interview and I was very disappointed that none of it was explained.
- dkarl 9y agoWhat I point out in the book is that in order to grasp the research, [teachers] need basic scientific literacy to be able to understand it.... The political solution was called "balanced literacy," which called on teachers to use the best of both approaches. But it left it up to teachers who had been trained to dismiss phonics and brush off the science. There's the key. Teachers get their educational ideas from their education and spend the rest of their career defending them from parents, administrators, ideological "reformers," and other random bystanders who are mostly well-meaning but who are all convinced they have a magic trick to fix everything if the teachers would just stop being dumb about how they do their job. Everybody's got an easy answer, 99% of them are just arrogant bystanders, and teachers very quickly start tuning out. And the teachers are not scientifically literate, so they don't know the difference between a scientist who does research on reading and a random yahoo. Plus the calls for educational "reform" usually have a partisan tinge. Republicans say just drill harder and longer and keep the desks separated in 90º grids instead of circles and other commie bullshit; Democrats say give kids books that connect to their unique cultural heritage and respect their cognitive differences and they will magically know how to read. All the more reason for teachers to ignore all outside input and assume they know best. Not to mention the educational companies that have to manufacture excitement about new teaching fads every year so they can sell new classroom materials. With all this bullshit going on, you can't blame teachers for being closed-minded and cynical. Most of them receive an idea of what progressive, smart teaching looks like in college, when they're still optimistic and open-minded, and cling to it for the next forty years. So I think this guy will be pleased by the response of teachers who are currently in college. They'll take in the current consensus and run with it.
- germinalphrase 9y agoOnce you get past phonetics, symbol/sound relationships - the only metric that really matters for basic literacy is # of words read. Should it be challenging? Yea, sure - but ten short books or two long ones doesn't matter a bit. They just need to read more. Source: I'm a k12 English teacher. The data that makes it into my hands almost always comes back to this point.
- crsv 9y agoTwo Paragraphs in the interview are actually talking about the topic area / science, the rest is devoted to a political discussion and isn't terribly helpful / insightful. I was pretty disappointed in what I thought would be a more meaningful piece from a relatively reputable news source.
- dkhenry 9y agoThe best way to teach kids to read is to have their parents read to them, and sit with them individually and work with them on sounding out words. Then you just read with them over and over and over. Every night you read with them, and then you provide them with access to books. Take them to the library check out as many books as they want and then you sit and read with them every single night. That is how you teach kids to read.
- irrational 9y agoI have seven kids, and they are all voracious readers. One of the kids read all of the Harry Potter books when he was 8 years old. I honestly didn't think he could comprehend what he was reading (i.e., I thought the books would be beyond his reading comprehension level), but when we asked him questions about the books he always knew the answers. What we learned works is: 1. Take them to the library a lot. Let them check out whatever they want. Let them check out as many books as they want (up to the limit allowed by the library - ours only allows 100 books per library card and we frequently run up against that limit). 2. Let them get their own library card as soon as the library will let them. When they are older let them ride their bikes to the library (obviously this depends on your location and situation) so they can check out things on their own. 3. Read to them from the time they are young, a lot. 4. Check out audio books from the library and let them go to bed listening to stories when they are too young to read. When they are older make sure they have a flashlight or two so they can read after lights out. 5. Greatly limit access to TV and game systems. We don't have cable or streaming subscriptions. We only use our TV for movies or TV shows on DVD from the library which they can watch on occasion when their chores and homework are done (unless it's a nice day outside then they have to be outdoors playing or reading in the hammock). 6. Fill the house with books. We have thousands of books across all age groups and topics. There are books everywhere in every room just in piles. The kids beds are covered in books. 7. Don't be a book snob. If they want to read comic books, let them read comic books. It doesn't matter what they are reading, as long as they are reading. Like any skill, the more you do it, the better you will get at it and the greater success you will have at reading more advanced material when the time comes. 8. Let them see you reading. Talk to them about what you are reading. Recommend books to them. 9. When they are older, get them jobs at the library. Libraries always have a need for people to help shelve books! One library in our area has a service night when the library closes early and volunteers help clean the library. There is pizza and soda and the kids absolutely love this night. 10. Listen to books on "tape" in the car. Get them used to both reading and hearing things being read to them.
- smoot_hawley 9y agoFor anyone interested in this topic, there's an education documentary covering three teachers who resort to leveraging brain science so as to break through the boredom and disinterest of their students: a great exploration of the personal journeys that led three teachers to use a neuroscience-based teaching model, and showing that model in action within their locales and student age brackets (Roland Park Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore, Maryland; a high school in upstate New York, and a community college in Western Pennsylvania). What really struck me in this documentary was the intimacy with which some students and teachers respond to the model- and it's a very human showing of the personal factors that drive education - both from a teacher and a student standpoint. Told more from the human-experience standpoint, it also covers practical aspects of using brain-based teaching.. worth a look for professional development credits. http://www.greymattersdocumentary.com/ http://www.greymattersdocumentary.com/
- BikinHowd 9y agoThe main gem of wisdom that I took away is that we need an army of reading tutors at a very young age, like K-3. The Reading Partners group that I belong to in Dallas, TX is exactly the prescription that the doctor ordered. We allow the children we tutor to pick a book to read to them, we do some phonics teaching as to pronunciation, word meanings, and then have the student read to us. 45 minutes, usually twice a week. The only thing I'd change, if we had enough tutors, would be to make this a DAILY one-on-one until we got the child up to proficient. Nonetheless, if you want to help out in a big little way, check out Reading Partners and help a child get that reading edge... incidentally, many third world countries have already realized that we need an army of tutors to make sure no kiddos are left behind.