Why is MN so obsessed with reception reading?

[skiphopskidaddle]

It's a marathon, not a sprint. It doesn't matter if Johnny is on red and Amy is on lilac as (a) different schools go at different paces and (b) children develop different skills in different order.

I can't quite believe the number of reception reading threads I've seen this week along the lines of "what colour book is yours on?". I'm going over to the behaviour/development board now to check for obsessive posting about when children learn to walk. Cos it doesn't matter either, in general.

I get frustrated (and tired) but never resentful.

ED Hirsch complied a glossary of terms that explain the 'Progressive' philosophy of Education. Readers may enjoy scanning the list and matching comments from posters like Mathanxiety to terms from this list. For example, 'developmentally appropriate' under the 'Romantic Developmentalism' heading.

While the 'Progressives' deride the evidence-based research studies that prove the effectiveness teacher-centred strategies like synthetic phonics, they offer no evidence to support their beliefs.

Along with deriding the results of evidence-based research that conflicts with their personal beliefs, they are quick to reiterate misinformation if it supports their belief system, for example, teachers have always taught phonics, the Finnish school system is better because it is 'child-centred', Scandinadian countries have better education because formal schooling starts later, formal instruction harms young children and so on.

Mathanxiety chooses to ignore my earlier post when I explained that while most children can be taught to read from the age of around three, there is no optimal age to start formal teaching in reading and the most common age to start is 5.

Critical Guide to Terms and Phrases, an appendix in the book: The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them by E. D. Hirsch

Terms Grouped by Themes and Their Supporting Phrases
(quoted from pgs. 240-241)
Tool Conception of Education:
? accessing skills
? critical-thinking skills
? higher-order skills
? learning to learn
? lifelong learning
? metacognitive skills
? problem-solving skills
? promise of technology
Romantic Developmentalism:
? at their own pace
? child-centered schooling
? developmentally appropriate
? factory-model schools
? individual differences
? individualized instruction
? individual learning styles
? multiaged classroom
? multiple intelligences
? one size fits all
? student-centered education
? teach the child, not the subject
Naturalistic Pedagogy:
? constructivism
? cooperative learning
? discovery learning
? drill and kill
? hands-on learning
? holistic learning
? learning by doing
? open classroom
? multiaged classroom
? project method
? rote learning
? thematic learning
? whole-class instruction
? whole-language instruction
Antipathy to Subject-Matter Content:
? banking theory of schooling
? facts are inferior to understanding
? facts are soon outdated
? intellectual capital
? less is more
? mere facts
? rote learning
? textbook learning
? transmission theory of schooling
? teaching for understanding
Antipathy to Testing and Ranking:
? authentic assessment
? competition
? exhibitions
? performance-based assessment
? portfolio assessment

Mrz - do you think that standards in education would improve if health visitors/nursery teachers/midwives, psychologists etc intervened more before children started school? I mean a lot of children are not given the basic skills to cope. I don't know what the answer is but schools shouldn't be seen as part of a social engineering project as free childcare or as a substitute for what the family should be providing. This is why I am opposed to teaching children to read and write so darn early when the are still having problems communicating, socialising etc etc. I am starting to waffle - sorry

"are important aspects of their development sidelined in school because of the primacy of teaching reading?"

Mathanxiety - I absolutely agree that a whole lot of activities can be sidelined and this can happen when teachers lack confidence in teaching synthetic phonics. (Teachers lack confidence because most have little or no guidance from their ITT Establishments - this is a scandal and few people speak out about it. Can you imagine any other professionals being denied basic foundational knowledge?) Instead of phonics naturally occupying just a small portion of the day, over-anxious teachers can spend far too much time - mixing good phonics practice with senseless activities.

Stanovich has some sensible things to say about the benefits of early reading. It should be an immensely rewarding experience for young children but it certainly shouldn't dominate the day.

Masha, I don't know where you got your information the history of English spelling, but your blog post is. well, misinformed to say the least.

MashaBell is but one of many over the last couple of hundred years who have taken up the 'simplified spelling' cause and perhaps MashaBell will have success where people like Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, Melvil Dewey and GB Shaw failed, but I doubt it.

I think Mark Twain deserves the last word on the this.

Mark Twain

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s," and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet.

The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later.

Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.

Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c," "y" and "x"bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould dodereztu riplais "ch," "sh," and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

Rehabibu,I read all I could find on the history of English spelling written by other people and spent years researching it at the British library and in original texts sent to me by libraries. I'd like to know what u think I got wrong.

Ymeyer, I know from learning to read seven languages that phonically consistent spellings systems make learning to read vastly easier and quicker than is possible with English phonic irregularities. But that is not really relevant to this discussion.

I have been trying to explain, here and on my website and blogs, which spellings make learning to read and write English so time-consuming and difficult. The phonics promoter Debbie Hepplewhite keeps claiming that even most teachers don't have a good enough grasp of the phonic knowledge which they need to impart. I have been trying to make this as plain as possible not just to teachers, but parents too. People can buy my books if they want to, but they can now all access all the important information from them for free on my website and blogs.

And hundreds now do everyday. As more people do, debates about the teaching of reading will hopefully begin to be conducted on a more informed and rational basis.

Agh. It's just nothing like as straightforward as you've said, you've wildly overestimated Chaucer's role and presumed an existence of a standardised form of spelling in the middle ages, when there wasn't a consistent standard of vocab and grammar. There's A Lot of guff written about English, even in the BL - perhaps especially in the BL, given that it's a copyright library. You'd be better served simply giving a list of references for people to read for themselves.

And if you've read so much, you'll know that language planning in the way you suggest is rarely if ever successful. So much of the beauty and historical interest of English would be lost in a wholesale spelling reform - chaque mot a son histoire is even more the case for English than for many other languages. And the global dominance of English does suggest that its spelling system is not the hindrance you suggest.

And once more and with feeling - we so need David Crystal on here for a webchat!

I listened to children read when dd was in year 1, stopped in year 2 and resumed in year 3. I recall coming away feeling exhausted by some of the readers (noticeably more boys than girls). There was one boy who would just guess wildly from the pictures. Now, in year 3 I have been pleasantly surprised at the improvement by most. Many who struggled initially are not far behind those who had flying starts. The boy who would guess wildly still struggles but I am nowhere near as exhausted as I used to be.

I think it is a matter of it 'coming together' for some children.

magdalene

Mrz - do you think that standards in education would improve if health visitors/nursery teachers/midwives, psychologists etc intervened more before children started school? as my school is in a deprived area our local children's centre has been piloting the free provision for 2 year olds - support from on site health visitor/nursery staff/family workers /access to EPs and a host of other services...has it helped? I reserve judgement at this time.

As a school we made a decision about 7 years ago to focus on speaking and listening and physical development when children entered nursery as we feel strongly that if children are unable to say it there is little point in teaching them to write it and if they haven't got the physical skills they won't be able to hold a pencil.

We provide lots of stories - 5 a day entitlement but in reality we read or tell more - individual children sitting on an adults knee sharing a book - a small group lying on the floor around an adult with a book (often outdoor - the tent is popular) or on the couch with everyone crowded in and sometimes everyone sitting on the carpet with the adult reading to all. We have storytelling areas indoors and outdoors. We sing songs play games learn nursery rhymes and counting songs and hopefully provide a language rich environment. We talk to children when they are building, playing with dough, painting and model play in the home corner...
Then children begin to learn to read and write. They aren't subjected to long periods of direct instruction as mathanxiety seems to believe but short very active sessions when they begin to associate the sounds they know with the letter/s that represent it.

I fully agree with allchildrenreading some teachers are making it a long drawn out process simply because they don't understand phonics and their training hasn't prepared them to teach reading and some teachers try to make children write sentences before they can talk in sentences because they don't understand.

Magdalene, I am absolutely sure
that standards in education would improve if health visitors/nursery teachers/midwives, psychologists etc intervened more before children started school.
On the whole, middle class, educated parents are better at assisting their children's linguistic and intellectual development than less educated ones, and so their children have regularly been found to do better.

Rehab, modern English begins in the 2nd half of the 14th century, after the end of the 100 yrs war with France, and Chaucer is undoubtedly the main writer from that period. He is already quite comprehensible, especially if u know German. Earlier Englishes were very different and are much less accessible to us now.

Standardisation of spelling was achieved through printing after 1476, but after printers (mainly foreign ones) thoroughly messed up it up first.

U clearly do not know why other European languages have better orthographies than English: they have simply not allowed pronunciation and spelling to become as divorced from each other as in English, by updating them from time to time. The Grimm brothers tidied up German spelling enormously around 1820. If Johnson had done so at least a little bit in his famous dictionary, learning to read and write English would not be as difficult as it is.

People have such daft notions about spelling reforms. When Turkey changed from the Arabic alphabet to the Latin one in 1929, it did not change the Turkish language in any way, just its spelling.

Respelling, for example, 'friend, build, pretty' more sensibly (frend, bild, pritty) would not change those English words in any way either. It would just make learning to read and write them easier. Just as shortening 'inne, itte, uppe, hadde, olde, shoppe' did in the 17th C.

We could at least begin scrapping the still surviving surplus letters which escasped the 17th C cull, words like 'are, have, give, live, dreamt ...'.It would make them and words like 'care, gave, drive, alive, dream' much easier to read.

What you fail to comprehend Masha is the resistance of the British public to change especially when they themselves do not see that change will be for the better. We cling affectionately to our £, we cling to miles, pints, and ounces do you think we have less affection for our quirky spelling system grown from centuries of our history?

Masha, I've got a PhD in late-medieval English. I don't need you to rehearse what I've already read on your blog to still disagree with your analysis.

rofl

ooops!

Waits for Masha to call Rehabbibu an evangelist ...

I haven't got a PhD in late-medieval English, but I shan't let it impede my opinions one jot.

still disagree with your analysis.

Fine, Rehab. But other than saying that I overestimated the importance of Chaucer, u have not pointed out a single thing that is wrong in it.

And Mrz, I am well aware of British resistance to spelling change. Plenty of people on forums like these express it very readily, u including. But many others write supportive messages to me personally, because they don't want to unleash the irrational wrath which the idea of making learning to read and write English easier so predictably provokes in some.

But as I've said before, my main aim is to make it as clear as possible why learning to read and write English is much harder and takes much longer than other alphabetic languages, and which spellings are most responsible for it.

I think it's good for teachers and parents to be fully aware of them. If this should eventually lead to spelling reform - great. But improving people's understanding is what matters to me here and now.

Incipient standards were around in Chaucer's time, and it's been argued that Chaucer's dialect (known as Type II in some theories) was the basis of what became the eventual standard. That's far from saying Chaucer was responsible for standardising spelling. It's also far likelier that the more prosaic uses of the vernacular were responsible for more fundamental linguistic change than one literary writer - Chaucer manuscripts show dialectal variation in similar ways to other manuscripts of the time.

The midle English period was an era of dialects, and Caxton himself notices that there's still plenty of mutual incomprehensibility in his time. Standard English didn't get really become established in vocab and grammar until long after the medieval period.

I've never claimed to know anything about German linguistic history, but you'll forgive me if I'd rather seek other sources of information than your writings if your analysis of it is as simplistic and unsubtle as your analysis of the history of English.

Your crusade also does not sit easily with the global domination of English as a lingua franca - a language too difficult to learn would present too many communicative boundaries, even if there was political pressure placed on potential learners. I'm not saying that English is somehow naturally better at being a global language, though its ability to absorb and adapt new forms is certainly useful, rather that its orthography has not proved a barrier to global dominance.

But I'm not really prepared to argue over the history of English any more. I think your reading of this issue is shallow and lacks nuance, and that makes me sufficiently sceptical of your other claims to see no further point in engaging with them.

But what about little Johnny and Amy, stuck on the reds and lilacs?

Will no one think of the children?

Yes Hullygully and provide them with high quality teaching of how to read words not how to read pictures or dumb our language down to worse than text speak as masha advocates.

Oddly enough in my school in an area of high social and economic deprivation we don't have children stuck on red and lilacs (including children with EAL and SLD) ...

'Mathanxiety chooses to ignore my earlier post when I explained that while most children can be taught to read from the age of around three, there is no optimal age to start formal teaching in reading and the most common age to start is 5.'

Ymeyer, what's with you and the neat boxes? Lists of jargon are not explanations. And stating something is not 'explaining' either.

You keep on saying 'evidence-based' and coming up with none. You also keep on avoiding answering the question of SP as it relates to early childhood education. Once more, with emphasis -- why is reading/ SP taught to children far earlier in Britain than elsewhere? Yes, I know what you said (and keep on saying) but you didn't provide evidence that there is no optimal age and that 3 is perfectly fine therefore. Is everyone else wrong? Is everyone out of step except our Johnny?

I think Maggiethecat's experience with struggling readers and her suggestion that at some point it comes together for children is very apropos here.

Allchildrenreading I think there are tremendous benefits to early reading for children who basically pick it up by themselves though, as 2 of mine did. I think to assume it's a good thing and therefore try to hothouse other children into doing it is taking it too far.