6 ms·

Two Thirds of American Kids Can’t Read Fluently

33 points by LinuxBender 3y ago

giardini 3y ago
This is yet another opinion piece in the phonics vs antiphonics teaching wars - and an incorrect opinion in my opinion! Using students' poor post-Covid reading performance to support an argument against phonics is bad argumentation. In addition, the article leads with an example of how phonics quickly improves reading skills in a school.
stonecharioteer 3y ago
Is this only in the US? I don't think most kids in India can read fluently nowadays.
soared 3y ago
Headline is literally fake. Read the NAEP standards for basic and you’ll see “basic” level for fourth graders is well beyond fluency. Based on these standards it still looks bad, but to an untrained eye they seem wildly high for 10 year olds. Scores haven’t meaningfully changed I think since they started testing with this rubric so really doesn’t mean much IMO. https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/achieve.aspx#2009_grade4 https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/achieve.aspx#2...
- red_trumpet 3y ago
  I disagree. It seems that to pass "Basic" you don't have to be able to read and understand every word. I wouldn't call this "fluent".
- dvaun 3y ago
  Let’s take a look. > When reading literary texts such as fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction, fourth-grade students performing at the NAEP Basic level can likely: > determine the relevant meaning of familiar words using context within the same sentence or paragraph They can pick out context clues. > identify a specific detail to make a simple inference about the characters’ actions, motivations, or feelings, using a single point or multiple points in the text if they are in close proximity They can determine that “Sally is sad” from the sentence “Sally was crying on the bus.” > sequence or categorize events from the story They can follow the flow of actions in a story. > make a general reference to an appropriate section of the text or provide some support for ideas related to the plot or characters They can answer basic questions about the text and what happened within it. Perhaps the language used within the listed standards gives off an air of “difficulty”, but the fact is that none of these 4th grade students would be expected to understand that vocabulary. These are condensed and taught at an appropriate reading level for the students. The sad reality is that students’ reading levels are down across the board. My wife has students reading at a "3rd grade level" in the 11th grade, while we have a son who read at a "3rd grade level" in 1st. That’s a huge problem. This problem is systemic and should be taken seriously. Edit: I wanted to note that these standards were confusing to me at first. My wife has a masters in curriculum instruction and had to break down how standards-based grading works. It's not explicitly teaching kids higher vocabulary—the verbiage is there to be extremely specific for teachers and curriculum boards to understand what to focus on when developing grade-level curriculum and adjusting their pace for each class (as every class will perform at their own pace) > Based on these standards it still looks bad, but to an untrained eye they seem wildly high for 10 year olds. Scores haven’t meaningfully changed I think since they started testing with this rubric so really doesn’t mean much IMO.
  - BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
    > They can determine that “Sally is sad” from the sentence “Sally was crying on the bus.” Guess, not determine. Sadness is not the only reason people cry.
    - dvaun 3y ago
      Agreed. The point being that the students should be capable of basic inference.
_ah 3y ago
The author wrote a piece of software she thinks does a better job of teaching reading skills. The article is just an argument that people should use her software, and complaint that because it's not phonics nobody will buy it. This article is more sales than content.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  The author's wikipedia entry is obviously self-promotional, too.
karaterobot 3y ago
By what method do non-native English speakers typically learn to read English? That is, phonetically, or "whole language", or something else? I don't mean Duolingo, I mean how do classrooms approach it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ajuc 3y ago
  In Poland new English words are introduced at once as combination of letters and as a sound, and teachers insist on repeating them loudly and memorizing the pronunciation along with spelling. Kids already can read so the problem isn't teaching them to read, the problem is forcing them to ignore the simple regular rules from their native language and to memorize each new word twice. I refused to do that and only learnt the letters and tried to go by with heuristics+exceptions. It just doesn't work. I wonder how long it takes for an average kid to learn to read in English vs a phonetic or close-to-phonetic language. Must be crazy hard to start reading with such insane language. Do you even have that point when "it clicks" when you learn reading?
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    I was taught to read phonetically. The reader books we were given could be read phonetically. Once one was comfortable with that, the exceptions didn't pose any problem. I occasionally discover that a word I'd known for decades had a different pronunciation than I thought it had, since I'd never heard it spoken. Written language is a lot richer than spoken language.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      For example, "chimera". I always pronounced it with "chi" as in "chimney", and emphasis on the first syllable. But it's pronounced with a "ki" as "kite", and emphasis on the second syllable. Boy did I guess wrong!
- randomdata 3y ago
hotnfresh 3y ago
> Third, about 60 percent of the words on any page are “noncontent words”—words like the, so and what that cannot be decoded by sounding out. Ironically, three of the five words in the The Cat in The Hat title are noncontent words. Characterizing them as “renegades,” phonics accords them minimal teaching time. Those are taught very early as “sight words” in every school program I’m aware of—most of which are unfortunately still doing some whole-language crap, but that’s not why they do sight words, it’s because the author’s observation is trivial and already accounted for by any serious system for teaching reading. Teaching time isn’t “minimized”, they do enough that the kids get it, then move on. If they didn’t, literacy rates would be far worse, since, as the author observes, these are most words on a page. I’m not aware of a single teacher of reading who doesn’t take these very seriously, but that doesn’t mean you need to spend tons and tons of time on them. [edit] further, their ubiquity is precisely why they generally don’t take a ton of time: daily review of sight words happens naturally the whole rest of the kids’ lives. If they kinda get a set of sight words one week, they’ll typically really get them before long, with little or no further time dedicated just to them. Most kids can memorize a set of sight words just barely well enough to pass the quiz or whatever, then never need to formally review or revisit them because the knowledge will solidify due to being incidentally reviewed in practically all later reading instruction.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  > three of the five words in the The Cat in The Hat title are noncontent words Wat? They're all easily sounded out, and only one word (the) is "non-content".
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    Yeah, I’d certainly say “in” isn’t somehow difficult to sound out, though “the” is a bit weird and not necessarily intuitive (plus we don’t always pronounce it the same way)
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      If you sound out "t" and "h" quickly, it slushes into to the "th" sound. Besides, there's nothing wrong with teaching that "th" has its own sound, just like "ng" has its own sound.
ta8645 3y ago
Did Scientific American use to have higher standards, or was I just naive when I believed them to be a respectable source for accurate information?
- milsorgen 3y ago
  They used to be much better, it's not your imagination. When I was a kid I read every issue of sciam and new scientist I could get my hands on and ya know maybe their magazine is still alright but nearly anytime I end on their website these days I regret it.
- smcameron 3y ago
  It definitely was a very different and better magazine back in the 1980s when I was a kid, I am sure of that.
- SanjayMehta 3y ago
  They used to have much higher standards around 10 years ago. I used to subscribe, cancelled around 6 years ago. Not sure what happened. New management?
  - surfingdino 3y ago
    The Internet stole their business. They had to find a new model.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  It used to be about science, and then veered into politics.
jeffbee 3y ago
Having strongly-held opinions about primary school math and language curricula is the new way that a certain subset of people signal to each other membership in a clique. It's weird!
surfingdino 3y ago
So that's why all AI influencers teach us to ask ChatGPT to write answers in a way a five year old could understand?
johnea 3y ago
kek rofl...
opwieurposiu 3y ago
We did "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" when the kids were around 4 and it does exactly what it says on the cover. The school said the kids tested in top 5% in reading. I have bought and given away many copies of this book because it is so rare that something just works. I think the reason schools do not use this is because it requires around 30 min of undivided attention per kid per day to make it work. So one teacher could handle maybe 10 kids with this system.
bradgranath 3y ago
"Its premise is that learning to read, like learning to speak, comes naturally via exposure to good material." //facepalm Speech is biological and has been with us for hundreds of thousands of years. We don't need to be taught to speak. Reading and Writing (which are NOT the same skill) were accounting tools invented by temple clerics 10,000 years ago, that we only started trying to teach universally barely 100 years ago. They are not part of our biology or natural development. No one would try teaching mathematics by handing a four year old a Good, Quality, Well-Written physics textbook and expect them to understand what they are looking at, much less that they would somehow learn addition in the process.
vlark 3y ago
This in-depth podcast from American Public Media sheds light on this phenomenon and helped spark the re-evaluation of many popular K-6 reading curricula: https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/ https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

33 points by LinuxBender 3y ago

This is yet another opinion piece in the phonics vs antiphonics teaching wars - and an incorrect opinion in my opinion! Using students' poor post-Covid reading performance to support an argument against phonics is bad argumentation. In addition, the article leads with an example of how phonics quickly improves reading skills in a school.

stonecharioteer 3y ago

Is this only in the US? I don't think most kids in India can read fluently nowadays.

soared 3y ago

Headline is literally fake. Read the NAEP standards for basic and you’ll see “basic” level for fourth graders is well beyond fluency. Based on these standards it still looks bad, but to an untrained eye they seem wildly high for 10 year olds. Scores haven’t meaningfully changed I think since they started testing with this rubric so really doesn’t mean much IMO. https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/achieve.aspx#2009_grade4 https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/achieve.aspx#2...

red_trumpet 3y ago
I disagree. It seems that to pass "Basic" you don't have to be able to read and understand every word. I wouldn't call this "fluent".
dvaun 3y ago
Let’s take a look. > When reading literary texts such as fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction, fourth-grade students performing at the NAEP Basic level can likely: > determine the relevant meaning of familiar words using context within the same sentence or paragraph They can pick out context clues. > identify a specific detail to make a simple inference about the characters’ actions, motivations, or feelings, using a single point or multiple points in the text if they are in close proximity They can determine that “Sally is sad” from the sentence “Sally was crying on the bus.” > sequence or categorize events from the story They can follow the flow of actions in a story. > make a general reference to an appropriate section of the text or provide some support for ideas related to the plot or characters They can answer basic questions about the text and what happened within it. Perhaps the language used within the listed standards gives off an air of “difficulty”, but the fact is that none of these 4th grade students would be expected to understand that vocabulary. These are condensed and taught at an appropriate reading level for the students. The sad reality is that students’ reading levels are down across the board. My wife has students reading at a "3rd grade level" in the 11th grade, while we have a son who read at a "3rd grade level" in 1st. That’s a huge problem. This problem is systemic and should be taken seriously. Edit: I wanted to note that these standards were confusing to me at first. My wife has a masters in curriculum instruction and had to break down how standards-based grading works. It's not explicitly teaching kids higher vocabulary—the verbiage is there to be extremely specific for teachers and curriculum boards to understand what to focus on when developing grade-level curriculum and adjusting their pace for each class (as every class will perform at their own pace) > Based on these standards it still looks bad, but to an untrained eye they seem wildly high for 10 year olds. Scores haven’t meaningfully changed I think since they started testing with this rubric so really doesn’t mean much IMO.
- BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
  > They can determine that “Sally is sad” from the sentence “Sally was crying on the bus.” Guess, not determine. Sadness is not the only reason people cry.
  - dvaun 3y ago
    Agreed. The point being that the students should be capable of basic inference.

_ah 3y ago

The author wrote a piece of software she thinks does a better job of teaching reading skills. The article is just an argument that people should use her software, and complaint that because it's not phonics nobody will buy it. This article is more sales than content.

jeffbee 3y ago
The author's wikipedia entry is obviously self-promotional, too.

karaterobot 3y ago

By what method do non-native English speakers typically learn to read English? That is, phonetically, or "whole language", or something else? I don't mean Duolingo, I mean how do classrooms approach it.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ajuc 3y ago
In Poland new English words are introduced at once as combination of letters and as a sound, and teachers insist on repeating them loudly and memorizing the pronunciation along with spelling. Kids already can read so the problem isn't teaching them to read, the problem is forcing them to ignore the simple regular rules from their native language and to memorize each new word twice. I refused to do that and only learnt the letters and tried to go by with heuristics+exceptions. It just doesn't work. I wonder how long it takes for an average kid to learn to read in English vs a phonetic or close-to-phonetic language. Must be crazy hard to start reading with such insane language. Do you even have that point when "it clicks" when you learn reading?
- WalterBright 3y ago
  I was taught to read phonetically. The reader books we were given could be read phonetically. Once one was comfortable with that, the exceptions didn't pose any problem. I occasionally discover that a word I'd known for decades had a different pronunciation than I thought it had, since I'd never heard it spoken. Written language is a lot richer than spoken language.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    For example, "chimera". I always pronounced it with "chi" as in "chimney", and emphasis on the first syllable. But it's pronounced with a "ki" as "kite", and emphasis on the second syllable. Boy did I guess wrong!
randomdata 3y ago

hotnfresh 3y ago

> Third, about 60 percent of the words on any page are “noncontent words”—words like the, so and what that cannot be decoded by sounding out. Ironically, three of the five words in the The Cat in The Hat title are noncontent words. Characterizing them as “renegades,” phonics accords them minimal teaching time. Those are taught very early as “sight words” in every school program I’m aware of—most of which are unfortunately still doing some whole-language crap, but that’s not why they do sight words, it’s because the author’s observation is trivial and already accounted for by any serious system for teaching reading. Teaching time isn’t “minimized”, they do enough that the kids get it, then move on. If they didn’t, literacy rates would be far worse, since, as the author observes, these are most words on a page. I’m not aware of a single teacher of reading who doesn’t take these very seriously, but that doesn’t mean you need to spend tons and tons of time on them. [edit] further, their ubiquity is precisely why they generally don’t take a ton of time: daily review of sight words happens naturally the whole rest of the kids’ lives. If they kinda get a set of sight words one week, they’ll typically really get them before long, with little or no further time dedicated just to them. Most kids can memorize a set of sight words just barely well enough to pass the quiz or whatever, then never need to formally review or revisit them because the knowledge will solidify due to being incidentally reviewed in practically all later reading instruction.

WalterBright 3y ago
> three of the five words in the The Cat in The Hat title are noncontent words Wat? They're all easily sounded out, and only one word (the) is "non-content".
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  Yeah, I’d certainly say “in” isn’t somehow difficult to sound out, though “the” is a bit weird and not necessarily intuitive (plus we don’t always pronounce it the same way)
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    If you sound out "t" and "h" quickly, it slushes into to the "th" sound. Besides, there's nothing wrong with teaching that "th" has its own sound, just like "ng" has its own sound.

ta8645 3y ago

Did Scientific American use to have higher standards, or was I just naive when I believed them to be a respectable source for accurate information?

milsorgen 3y ago
They used to be much better, it's not your imagination. When I was a kid I read every issue of sciam and new scientist I could get my hands on and ya know maybe their magazine is still alright but nearly anytime I end on their website these days I regret it.
smcameron 3y ago
It definitely was a very different and better magazine back in the 1980s when I was a kid, I am sure of that.
SanjayMehta 3y ago
They used to have much higher standards around 10 years ago. I used to subscribe, cancelled around 6 years ago. Not sure what happened. New management?
- surfingdino 3y ago
  The Internet stole their business. They had to find a new model.
WalterBright 3y ago
It used to be about science, and then veered into politics.

jeffbee 3y ago

Having strongly-held opinions about primary school math and language curricula is the new way that a certain subset of people signal to each other membership in a clique. It's weird!

surfingdino 3y ago

So that's why all AI influencers teach us to ask ChatGPT to write answers in a way a five year old could understand?

johnea 3y ago

kek rofl...

opwieurposiu 3y ago

We did "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" when the kids were around 4 and it does exactly what it says on the cover. The school said the kids tested in top 5% in reading. I have bought and given away many copies of this book because it is so rare that something just works. I think the reason schools do not use this is because it requires around 30 min of undivided attention per kid per day to make it work. So one teacher could handle maybe 10 kids with this system.

bradgranath 3y ago

"Its premise is that learning to read, like learning to speak, comes naturally via exposure to good material." //facepalm Speech is biological and has been with us for hundreds of thousands of years. We don't need to be taught to speak. Reading and Writing (which are NOT the same skill) were accounting tools invented by temple clerics 10,000 years ago, that we only started trying to teach universally barely 100 years ago. They are not part of our biology or natural development. No one would try teaching mathematics by handing a four year old a Good, Quality, Well-Written physics textbook and expect them to understand what they are looking at, much less that they would somehow learn addition in the process.

vlark 3y ago

This in-depth podcast from American Public Media sheds light on this phenomenon and helped spark the re-evaluation of many popular K-6 reading curricula: https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/ https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/