How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers
www.apmreports.org
For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many teachers and parents don't know there's anything wrong with it.
  • De_Narm@lemmy.world
    2·
    4 months ago

    I admit I only read about half of it, but I don’t think the second half could convince me why anyone would ever think this concept works.

    If you teach children to guess based on the pictures, they are not reading - that much should be obvious. I’m confused how they would even start to read anything without pictures. You cannot guess based on the context if you cannot read deep enough to establish one, even worse your context could be wrong.

    However, the worst advice is to skip words. You’re not learning new words if you skip anything you don’t know already.

    • walter_wiggles@lemmy.nzEnglish
      2·
      4 months ago

      The article only hints at this in the end, but there’s a lot of money to be made in selling learning material to schools.

      My opinion: While the origins of the “three cueing” method may have been well intentioned I’m guessing lobbying and kickbacks are what’s keeping it in schools, not it’s effectiveness.

      • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        4 months ago

        While the origins of the “three cueing” method may have been well intentioned I’m guessing lobbying and kickbacks are what’s keeping it in schools, not it’s effectiveness.

        There is also the fact that the resistance to classic phonics in the USA developed as an anti-Bush stance during the 2000s. People thought they were taking a progressive stance against his family’s conservative ideas about reading by adopting the cueing methods.

        Turns out his family’s passionate attack against cueing was actually completely justified even by the science of the time, let alone what we know now.

        Bush is not a good guy but partisanship has ruined multiple generations of Americans’ ability to read, and this cueing bullshit has been leaking into other countries too.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
      21·
      3 days ago

      This seems super dumb to me.

      It is. I mean, the article is pretty clear; these are the strategies bad readers use to get through text.