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Comment by sbinthree | Hacker News Reader

It is amazing how irrational even smart people act about learning to read. Maybe specifically smart people. Please, read the current research.

Kids learn to read best out of interest -- with reading material they are interested in and when they are ready to learn. And it makes them better.

My parents fought not to teach me to read. I didn't learn to read until I was 11. When I was 12 I went to school for the first time (unschooled) and was the top reader in my academically inclined private school.

Everyone else learned phonics and other permanent reading crutches and I read shapes because I wasn't told how or when to learn when I was little.

I still read weirdly fast compared to classically trained people who are otherwise smarter than me. What is faster I/O worth to your future?

All it involves is not ramming phonics and other Prussian nonsense down your kids throat and waiting for intrinsic motivation to kick in.

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> Please, read the current research.

There's no need. How to teach reading has been a solved problem for at a minimum 30 years. It is not a research question. It does include phonics. The only thing with researching is why in the world apparently intelligent, socially conscious people are still litigating the losing side of a lost war after all this time.

And finally, John Taylor gatto from whom you presumably derive your distaste for the Prussian method, had the following to say:

> That was due to the Dewey revolt in the twenties, in which they threw out phonics reading and went to a word recognition as if you're reading a Chinese pictograph instead of blending sounds or different letters. I think killing phonics was one of the greatest causes of illiteracy in the country.

Are you saying the current research argues against teaching children the ability to read at a young age?

While forcing children to learn is not ideal, sometimes intrinsic motivation doesn't flourish in the individual naturally. How would you deal with a child that never wants to learn how to read?

> How would you deal with a child that never wants to learn how to read?

All children will eventually come around to the idea that reading is useful. Some children are traumatized by do-gooders trying to force them to learn how to read before they're ready.

As I said in another comment here, "I think John Taylor Gatto pointed out that some children learn to read when they're 2, some when they're 8, and by the time they're 12 you can't tell the difference."

There are adults who are illiterate and still resist the idea that they would be better off if they learned how to read.

I agree there's a level of proficiency that, once reached, seems to be sufficient to tackle most reading challenges.

If you can read at 2, then you've 10 years of reading experience on the 12 year old who just learned. It doesn't necessarily make you a better reader, but you've had access to a much wider range of information and knowledge that the 12 year old couldn't access.

It seems objectively better to encourage your children to learn to read at the earliest age possible.

Early child education evidence is a whole complicated thing in itself, but programs shifting first reading instruction younger do not show benefits at older age, and school systems that put the expected literacy age much later than most Americans would expect don't underperform.

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