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It makes no sense to me that they had the idea that reading will just naturally arise like speech. Like, how did they come up with that? We have ample evidence

It makes no sense to me that they had the idea that reading will just naturally arise like speech. Like, how did they come up with that? We have ample evidence that human infants spontaneously generate language. If you're unlucky enough to be born profoundly deaf in a country without an existing programme of sign language for deaf infants, you'll sign anyway, just there isn't anybody to provide a vast menu of existing signs and a grammar for them, and those you're communicating with wouldn't know it if there was. So your signs will be primitive and you'll struggle unless/until introduced to a full sign language. [Sign languages are languages, they're not just spoken language somehow transliterated into signs - so e.g Mexican Sign Language is a thing even though in Mexico the spoken language is Spanish] Writing seems to have arisen independently only very rarely. Some tiny fraction of humans will spontaneously invent written language, and a larger but still small fraction will spontaneously acquire this technology if exposed to the writing. Everybody else must be taught if you want a literate society. I can imagine that functional literacy would be aided by school programmes which encourage it, but the core technology of converting between words you say (or sign) and symbols in the world makes no sense as something you just hope they'll absorb from their surroundings without teaching.

jancsika 3y ago
> I can imagine that functional literacy would be aided by school programmes which encourage it, but the core technology of converting between words you say (or sign) and symbols in the world makes no sense as something you just hope they'll absorb from their surroundings without teaching. Apparently only a tiny fraction of humans will spontaneously follow links in the article to vet that same article: > She memorized high-frequency “sight words” using a stack of laminated flash cards: “and,” “the,” “who,” et cetera.[1] Even if a shitty math curriculum consisted solely of kids memorizing times tables, such a curriculum is obviously distinct from a school hoping the kids will absorb math "without teaching." I've heard many parents talk about "sight words" before, so I know that concept has been used in the U.S. for quite some time now. Just to be clear-- I've cited a single sentence, from one minute of skimming a single link from the article we both read. I have no idea about the efficacy of phonics vs what's called "balanced literacy" in the article. And I don't know what, if any, other teaching techniques are included in either the theory or practice of balanced literacy. (Or phonics, for that matter.) What I do know is that "you just hope they'll absorb from their surroundings without teaching" is divorced from reality. What I'll speculate is that ad tech indirectly delivered a low-effort article to your eyeballs and tricked you into riffing on a faulty premise. 1: https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-and-fall-of-vibes-based-literacy https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-...
jancsika 3y ago
> I can imagine that functional literacy would be aided by school programmes which encourage it, but the core technology of converting between words you say (or sign) and symbols in the world makes no sense as something you just hope they'll absorb from their surroundings without teaching. Apparently only a tiny fraction of humans will spontaneously follow links in the article to vet that same article: > She memorized high-frequency “sight words” using a stack of laminated flash cards: “and,” “the,” “who,” et cetera.[1] Even if a shitty math curriculum consisted solely of kids memorizing times tables, such a curriculum is obviously distinct from a school hoping the kids will absorb math "without teaching." I've heard many parents talk about "sight words" before, so I know that concept has been used in the U.S. for quite some time now. Just to be clear-- I've cited a single sentence, from one minute of skimming a single link from the article we both read. I have no idea about the efficacy of phonics vs what's called "balanced literacy" in the article. And I don't know what, if any, other teaching techniques are included in either the theory or practice of balanced literacy. (Or phonics, for that matter.) What I do know is that "you just hope they'll absorb from their surroundings without teaching" is divorced from reality. What I'll speculate is that ad tech indirectly delivered a low-effort article to your eyeballs and tricked you into riffing on a faulty premise. Edit: well, not exactly "tricked you." More like for every N eyeballs will be connected to a brain that takes the bait. Today, you were the lucky winner! 1: https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-and-fall-of-vibes-based-literacy https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-...
- tialaramex 3y ago
  And what fraction manage to post essentially the same comment twice ? Critics of "Balanced literacy" sound like they have similar complaints to those for "Intelligent design". They believe Balanced Literacy isn't really a new thing, but an old discredited idea ("Whole language" literacy education) given a re-branding to escape criticism, just as "Intelligent design" is Creationism again. And "Whole Language" is exactly what I discussed above, a belief that "learning to read English comes naturally to humans, especially young children, in the same way that learning to speak develops naturally". A laughably false idea.

jancsika 3y ago

> I can imagine that functional literacy would be aided by school programmes which encourage it, but the core technology of converting between words you say (or sign) and symbols in the world makes no sense as something you just hope they'll absorb from their surroundings without teaching. Apparently only a tiny fraction of humans will spontaneously follow links in the article to vet that same article: > She memorized high-frequency “sight words” using a stack of laminated flash cards: “and,” “the,” “who,” et cetera.[1] Even if a shitty math curriculum consisted solely of kids memorizing times tables, such a curriculum is obviously distinct from a school hoping the kids will absorb math "without teaching." I've heard many parents talk about "sight words" before, so I know that concept has been used in the U.S. for quite some time now. Just to be clear-- I've cited a single sentence, from one minute of skimming a single link from the article we both read. I have no idea about the efficacy of phonics vs what's called "balanced literacy" in the article. And I don't know what, if any, other teaching techniques are included in either the theory or practice of balanced literacy. (Or phonics, for that matter.) What I do know is that "you just hope they'll absorb from their surroundings without teaching" is divorced from reality. What I'll speculate is that ad tech indirectly delivered a low-effort article to your eyeballs and tricked you into riffing on a faulty premise. 1: https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-and-fall-of-vibes-based-literacy https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-...

jancsika 3y ago

> I can imagine that functional literacy would be aided by school programmes which encourage it, but the core technology of converting between words you say (or sign) and symbols in the world makes no sense as something you just hope they'll absorb from their surroundings without teaching. Apparently only a tiny fraction of humans will spontaneously follow links in the article to vet that same article: > She memorized high-frequency “sight words” using a stack of laminated flash cards: “and,” “the,” “who,” et cetera.[1] Even if a shitty math curriculum consisted solely of kids memorizing times tables, such a curriculum is obviously distinct from a school hoping the kids will absorb math "without teaching." I've heard many parents talk about "sight words" before, so I know that concept has been used in the U.S. for quite some time now. Just to be clear-- I've cited a single sentence, from one minute of skimming a single link from the article we both read. I have no idea about the efficacy of phonics vs what's called "balanced literacy" in the article. And I don't know what, if any, other teaching techniques are included in either the theory or practice of balanced literacy. (Or phonics, for that matter.) What I do know is that "you just hope they'll absorb from their surroundings without teaching" is divorced from reality. What I'll speculate is that ad tech indirectly delivered a low-effort article to your eyeballs and tricked you into riffing on a faulty premise. Edit: well, not exactly "tricked you." More like for every N eyeballs will be connected to a brain that takes the bait. Today, you were the lucky winner! 1: https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-and-fall-of-vibes-based-literacy https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-...

tialaramex 3y ago
And what fraction manage to post essentially the same comment twice ? Critics of "Balanced literacy" sound like they have similar complaints to those for "Intelligent design". They believe Balanced Literacy isn't really a new thing, but an old discredited idea ("Whole language" literacy education) given a re-branding to escape criticism, just as "Intelligent design" is Creationism again. And "Whole Language" is exactly what I discussed above, a belief that "learning to read English comes naturally to humans, especially young children, in the same way that learning to speak develops naturally". A laughably false idea.