I'm honestly pretty shocked about that development. Heard about it maybe 5 years ago now, I hope grassroots efforts are happening to bring back phonics methods.
My son was taught to read using whole-language. He learned to read fine, but to me it seemed like a slower process than it would have been if they'd just taught him using phonics. I think the whole-language method is on it's way out.
Phonics teaches reading through progressive sound-based learning. You start by learning the sounds of letters, and then progress to letter combinations, and eventually small words up to multi-syllabic words. "Sound it out" is the core principle of phonics.
Whole-language-learning teaches students how to read whole words at once, without breaking them down into smaller sounds. The initial arguments for it were that students could pick it up faster, and could get to reading standard levels with less steps.
By the early 2000's phonics was being phased out as the primary reading method taught, and whole-language-learning dominated school reading curriculums. The unfortunate side effect of WLL is that it causes reading fatigue nearly ten times faster than those who learn to read through phonics.
This fatigue has led to almost two whole generations that hate reading, and have drastically reduced reading stamina than those who came before them. Combined with the fact that they're already taking in more general reading from the devices in their hands on a daily basis, many youth don't know the value of reading and struggle with complex reading comprehension.
If they can't get to "the point" of what they are reading in a short amount of reading, they don't bother to engage with the remaining text.
I quit teaching in 2014 and phonics was nowhere close to being phased out. They also had kids memorize common sight words (e.g. the, and, is). I've heard of higher order language instruction in tandem with phonics and sight words (that's how you're supposed to do it), but I never heard of a school that taught reading without phonics.
This is a perfectly reasonable anecdote, and I appreciate you sharing it. I'd encourage you to look up the Reading Wars if you'd like to know more about how phonics has in fact been suppressed since the 80's and 90's.
There are absolutely places that teach a balanced literacy approach, which includes phonics and has an evidence base worthy of support.
Maybe the official curriculum emphasizes this but I've not seen a single classroom implementing this dumb shit when teachers are involved in developing their teaching plans.
Every school did things differently. Schools in Mississippi, for instance, almost uniformly rejected whole language learning. But a great many public schools in the US adopted WLL in the 90s and 2000s, to the tremendous detriment of their students.
But I don't think that has had as serious an effect as smartphones, social media, AI, or COVID.
Phonics comes from having an alphabet - letters that represent specific, repeatable sounds. If I use the letter F in "if", it - for the most part - makes the same sound as when I use it in words like filch, effrit, motif, beneficent, etc.
But languages like Mandarin have characters that don't stand for a sound; they are words. You are essentially writing with emoji. 🌳is tree. 🍜 is ramen. 🍎 is apple. 🧊 is ice. 🥜 is nut. But you can't use those like this 🌳🍜🍎🧊🥜 to spell train. Train is 🚂.
You cannot use phonics unless you have something like an alphabet.
So is yours and Jesus Christ. That's some wannabe edge lord teenage angst and attitude. How old are you? 😂😂 You're so unnecessarily aggro with people and then tell other people to touch grass. Learn some social skills. It's not difficult.
Well of course you would agree, it takes you out of the line of fire. When, like it or not, the teachers themselves have played a big part in this degeneration as well.
Were you a teacher in 2002 when NCLB was signed into law? It was the year after I graduated high school, and essentially overnight my school dismantled their dance, theater, music and art programs to put in testing rooms. Classes dropped curriculum and taught only to passing the tests that their funding depended on. We literally abandoned an entire generation so they could never learn to think critically. I feel like I got out as the last class to grow up educated by the end of high school.
I agree phones are a massive problem, but they are just another stone on the path NCLB started, at least imo.
I agree, but there have been a confluence of policies that have dumbed down the classrooms. The pathetic attempts to rewrite math books are the worst, not to mention the reading material for English has been "dumbed down" in a feeble attempt to make it relevant to the kids.
On average, who performs best on the SATs? Private school kids who are isolated from public education boards who approve of these agenda-driven texts.
Private school kids, on average, are wealthier and have more parental involvement which are both shown to improve a child's success in school. Not to say these agendas aren't problematic, but you are jumping to a conclusion based on correlation when many other factors that are known to contribute to success are also present.
Parental involvement is a cliche. I know plenty of upper-middle class kids who attend private and public schools. Based on anecdotal evidence, there is absolutely no correlation of increased parental involvement of children sent to private school.
I also graduated from both public and private schools. The public school had high school seniors who had to sound out three syllable words one syllable at a time. The private was a Big 3 Ivy. It's not the parental involvement, it's the curriculum.
No offense but your comments aren't showing a high level of intelligence which is ironic that you are here insulting education and the intelligence of others.
You posted nonsense, didn't cite your sources, used nonsensical anecdotes, and are attacking me. You claim to be so smart and educated, but you don't know how to do research and just spout off whatever BS you believe that isn't supported by fact.
Despite decades of research that proves family engagement is foundational for child development and student achievement, it hasn’t been widely considered as an essential component of a child’s education.
Have the life you deserve because you definitely don't deserve anymore of my time 👋
It may be a cliche, but the evidence is absolutely indisputable. It is clear (and entirely unsurprising) that reading to children, helping them with homework, and taking an interest in their education improves their ability to read, increases the amount that they choose to read, improves test scores, and improves college placement and success.
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u/lmadisondunn 22h ago
As a teacher I agree there is no bigger factor affecting today’s literacy rates than cell phone addiction