3 ms·
Public schools have been teaching "cueing" instead of phonics for a couple of decades, despite research showing that it...makes kids worse readers. This is fina
by BobaFloutist 2y ago
Public schools have been teaching "cueing" instead of phonics for a couple of decades, despite research showing that it...makes kids worse readers. This is finally changing. https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-ho...
- bushbaba 2y agoPublic Schools near me in SF Bay area are more focused on political ideology than improving kids ability to attain Literary, Math, and Science education. There is a push for Equity over Achievement, by bringing the top performers down to raise the bottom. However the top performers have left for private school, and Public institutions declined. It's a downward spiral. There's hope it'll change either through full dissolution of the public institution (voucher programs) or through the dissolution of such "equity at all cost" political ideology.
- emseetech 2y agoThis situation, where it is true at all, is a vanishingly small minority when accounting for these across-the-board downward shifts in national data. Oppose it locally if you wish but extrapolating your local situation to a national level doesn't hold up. Whereas at least 75% of elementary students nationwide are learning cueing, so starting there makes more sense.
- rahimnathwani 2y agoLocal changes can spread like a virus. San Francisco Unified School District implemented math sequencing changes that failed. District Leadership claimed they worked. Those changes were then cited by the authors of the latest California Math Framework. Because California is a big state (and with some popular state universities), the California Math Framework will influence curricula and teaching methods far beyond California.
- emseetech 2y agoThat's a future hypothetical and we're discussing specific data about a nationwide trend that has already occurred.
- rahimnathwani 2y agoThe experiment in San Francisco has been widely reported (in education circles) since this opinion piece in 2018: https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-how-one-city-got-math-right/ https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-how-one-city-got-math-ri... It has had a nationwide impact already. It's not a hypothetical. Jo Boaler and her organization have done consulting not only in SF and not only in California. Her impact on K-12 math education is directionally the same as Lucy Calkin's impact on reading instruction.
- emseetech 2y agoThis is specious. Can you show me direct evidence that these policies have been adopted nationwide to the broad degree necessary to explain the data as presented in the original post?
- rahimnathwani 2y agoCan you show me direct evidence that these policies have been adopted nationwide to the broad degree necessary to explain the data as presented in the original post? No, not 'to the broad degree necessary to explain the data'. But no one in this thread is claiming that these policies alone explain the data. You say it's a local thing only. I explain how local things expand. You say it's a hypothetical. I say no these things have expanded already. You say that doesn't fully explain the data. If you will dismiss any hypothesis that doesn't fully explain the data, you will never receive a satisfying answer.
- emseetech 2y agoI would need something more than a link to an opinion piece and a thumbtack and yarn on pinboard, yes. I have not seen any evidence that this policy, loosely defined, has spread in any considerable way nationally.
- rahimnathwani 2y agoYou've been downvoted, probably due to the opinions/hopes in the last sentence. Many people strongly believe that government-funded education must be government-run. I won't comment on those opinions, but what you've written earlier in the paragraph is broadly correct, at least in San Francisco. However, private schools are not a panacea. Most of them still group kids by age and do not tailor content to each kid's level, or even do single-subject acceleration.
- HDThoreaun 2y agoThis was basically only in NYC from my understanding. Everyone Ive asked learned via phonics
- rahimnathwani 2y agoNot just New York, but also California and parts of the North East.
- pitaj 2y agoNope it was widespread.
- kvmet 2y agoPhonics certainly doesn't _feel_ like the best way to teach English, but hopefully we now have enough data to show that it is at least acceptable. A big factor too is "can it be taught at scale". You don't only have to teach the students, you have to teach the teachers how to teach the new methods. Much like NCLB, these changes are well-meaning but we really need to stop rolling things out nationally only to find out they harm outcomes.
- zozbot234 2y ago> Phonics certainly doesn't _feel_ like the best way to teach English Phonics is not about "teaching English" in some fuzzy generic sense, it's specifically aimed towards teaching English written orthography, starting from its phonetics. I.e. teaching fluent speakers of English to read.
- anon291 2y agoWhy doesn't phonics _feel_ like the best way to teach English? This is a minority opinion I would think.
- lkbm 2y agoProbably because English is so very non-phonetic. To repeat an ancient joke, "Hookt awn fonix werkt fer mee". I could also see it resulting in more subvocalization, but my assumption is that subvocalization is actually a very important short-term strategy that almost always goes away quickly.