There's an Internet myth about people being able to read things with totally messed up spelling. Turns out that's only true for very specific examples, the ones that go round FaceBook and elsewhere that people can read. But I'm not sure if you are referring to that myth or something else. You think kids in the prime of learning language can't handle the fact there is a hard and soft 'C'? Kah ah tah Cat.
That's a very cynical POV. My experience in grad school where teaching adult learners was part of the curricula, was that education science should be research based the same way anything else should be. One wouldn't just make up stuff to try. The problem, rather than being the graduate students who actually implement the evidence based learning, is that for it to then be disseminated into the schools is problematic when trying to teach new methods to old teachers. That's not to say crappy techniques don't make it in to some classrooms. But to dismiss every innovative method of teaching without evaluating it on its merits is to doom education to progress at a snail's pace.
I'm familiar with the "your baby can read" bologna, and I'm wondering if that's what this was. I bought into it and purchased it for my son, actually. Recognizing shapes by memory is a lot different than active reading, in my opinion. I don't want my son to be able to read this word, or that word any time he sees it in writing. I want him to know the sounds and how to put them together so he can eventually read any unfamiliar word.
Mostly kids absorb language, both written and spoken regardless of efforts to teach them. Little kids like the same story read to them again and again often until they can recite the book from memory looking like they are reading it. But they are nonetheless absorbing their literacy skills. That one word they recognize becomes two then six then pretty soon they recognize repeating patterns. It's the same with vocabulary. Think about your child's first sentence. They learn sounds first, then they learn the names of things, they learn verbs but we don't teach them how to put a sentence together. My son's first sentence was, "Go home get it." He wanted his 'banky' and I had forgotten to bring it. Kids absorb reading the same way. But when they reach a point where they start to learn to read new words, I think sounding them out is a critical part of the process. What I got from reading the link on context reading was that they wanted kids to use both, not just one means of reading unfamiliar words.
I really don't think that one approach over the other is best for all kids. I'm frustrated by the school system which insists that this is the case. Kids are so highly individual, with such unique talents. I honestly was never really taught to read. My mom was a single mom, and never read to me. I went to daycare, not preschool, and my friend would read and I would watch her. That's how I picked it up, and I was reading by the time I got to Kindergarten. I do remember being able to spell, and having an epiphany that if I could spell, I could read. So, even in not being taught a specific way, it didn't click until I understood phonics. I remember being 4, and my mom was on the phone with my aunt, saying that her brother was in "P-R-I-S-O-N" so I wouldn't know what she was talking about. Later, I asked her what prison was. My son is not this way. He has a natural inclination toward science and putting things together. He can't just "figure it out" like that. He needs to be taught the basics before being asked to jump into anything. Plus, he struggles with concentration. I'm not under the impression that old-fashioned ways of teaching are the only ways of teaching (for instance, everyone's always pissed that kids don't learn cursive any more, and personally I feel that omitting cursive takes nothing away from their life, so I'm fine with focusing elsewhere in that regard). But it drives me fucking nuts that every time they want to change something, they throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's no way for any of us to know how much of what we understand is based on how we were taught versus our natural ability. All we can do is try to help our kids where
Wow that ITA system sounds awful. Truth is, perhaps English just needs a spelling reform! Not that I want one - "simplified" spelling looks awful and I like English the way it is. But if the aim is to help make things simpler to learn, spelling reform is probably the way to go. Taking a slightly longer time to learn reading and writing isn't necessarily a bad thing - it makes sense that more time is needed if the written system is more complex, just as bilingual and trilingual children typically learn to speak a little later than monolingual children. They don't suffer in the end and function just fine in society - so what's the issue? There might not be one (in terms of English literacy). The Czechs actually don't start teaching reading/writing till the age of 6-7. I think they can read some when they're in first grade (typically 6 year olds, but some kids enter first grade at 7, which is also part of the system). They're only really taught to write by the age of 7. Now while I don't really understand why they start so late (they have this belief that if you taught a child to read/write any earlier, it would cause developmental issues I think), the country is literate and older children don't suffer, so there's actually nothing wrong with this approach. Considering this, and considering English employs a pretty complicated spelling system, perhaps delaying the teaching of reading and writing to the age of 6/7 might be the way to go, so their brains are more mature to handle the complexity?
I agree to a point We can make things simpler in approach without reinventing the wheel. When my children were young and even before they started to read at school I used flashcards. We started with the alphabet and then moved on to common words. We played snap and even matched words to pictures or searched the house to find which object matched the word. It was a simple game but it worked. Agree
I can remember, at the time, thinking "Why would you teach a child to read once, and then teach them to read a second time?" It's a bit like teaching a child to call a dog a "woof-woof". A couple of days ago, I heard a father saying "How does a woof-woof go?" and the child replying "woof-woof"... The big thing is, kids aren't stupid, they just don't know stuff, but up to the age of 7 (and to a lesser extent later) they just soak it up.
Yeah, I don't understand the concept of baby talk. Do these parents really think their kids can't handle actual words? "What's that, mommy?" "That's a cow." 0_0 "what?" "A cow." "Huh?" "A moo moo." "Oh, okay, I get it now."
I dunno - I think you just instinctively end up using what your parents used on you when you were a child. And there's a tendency in you where you just wanna make everything cuter I think. I can totally imagine saying "doggy" instead of "dog" to my baby, although so far I've used far more baby talk in Cantonese than I have in English - quite possibly because no one ever used baby talk in English with me. Time will tell how much English baby talk I end up using. I'm attempting to raise my kid trilingual at the moment, so baby talk is the least of my concerns
I remember saying "doggy," but recently I've made the switch where instead of saying "Awww, a doggy," I now resort to "What's up, doge." Because Doge.
How do you pronounce "doge"? My nephew named his dog "d" "o" "g". He says it quickly with an emphasis on the "o".
Surely the -ge should be pronounced the way it's pronounced in "edge"? (note: I haven't a clue how doʊg is pronounced. Nor do I remember what a hard G is. I'm thinking a hard G is like the G in Dog) I feel like this discussion kinda proves the limitations of phonics rather well lol.
/doʊg/ is written in IPA. D as in dog, O as in no, G as in dog, silent E. I just think it sounds better than /doʊdʒ/ (D as in dog, O as in no, G as in edge, silent E). /doʊg/ is like an off-color pronunciation of "dog".
Our distant ancestors would have done subsequent generations of kids a huge favor if they'd just named the damned things woof-woofs and mau-maus.
If there were an animal called a mau-mau, I would name mine Uma. Maybe these parents are preparing these kids to be pokemon trainers?
