We Can Do by Moshe Kai with guest Robert Levy discussing Saxon Math.

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
141

To Poker Dad,

Wow. I looked up “TERC Investigations Suck” on Google (always a good way to get to see the dark side of anything), and I got this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YLlX61o8fg

I was about to cry for this poor girl, but the video has a very happy ending, as her parents took her math education into their own hands. If you look hard at the TERC technique, you’ll see the intent of it was to avoid forcing the kids learn anything beyond single-digit counting, in order to do large arithmetic problems. In other words, to use their method to add 8 plus 7, she draws out 8 shapes, then 7 shapes, then counts them all to get 15 shapes. She never needs to actually know that 8 plus 7 equals 15. So they make the problems an order of magnitude more complex (and thus more subject to failure), in lieu of having the kids learn their number facts.

Obviously I’m trusting whoever uploaded the video to be honest about it, but nothing in it surprises me.

142

Yeah, pretty bad. But if you can suspend your brain for a second, you might see why the teachers actually like the method. You see, in the “stacking” example, the child just goes through a systematic process of adding digits. She might not even understand why she carries the 1, she just does it. The argument was that doing this method focused too much on mechanics and not enough on conceptual understanding.

I’m not buying it and neither is anyone else around here…

My point is that saying something that utilizes mechanics will lead to lack of understanding numbers is the very same argument the national council of teachers of math (though I might have the organization incorrect, so don’t take it as truth that it was them) that brought about these “improvements”… yeah, you’ll understand how to break a number into components but woop-dee-doo. The kid that masters the “stacking” method will understand numbers just fine after a while (though may not understand it when 5 or 6 years old or when very first taught); a 9th Dan in soroban understands numbers just fine. I really think it’s the same argument, made primarily by those that didn’t understand the method in the first place.

One of the most damning chapters of Sowell’s “Education in America” was when he started talking about exactly who, on average, goes into the teaching profession. Hint, it’s not exactly the Nobel laureates if you know what I mean. I know three teachers within my family - one says she doesn’t understand math, one feels as though TERC needs to be balanced at some point, the other is a complete dumbs****t… it’s no wonder that the system is now cranking out failing math students at an ever increasing rate… and those in other countries love all the jobs getting outsourced because the subsequent crops of graduates are effectively innumerate.

143

PokerDad,

Agree, and I had mentioned it also in an earlier post, regarding who now goes into teaching, and what is expected of them. Just from a political end, I’m an engineer, so I’m able to do math. There are millions of engineers in this country - and there are likely hundreds of thousands who are either retired or unemployed. The vast majority of us could teach early math in our sleep - but we don’t, because we’re not ‘qualified’ to do so (i.e., don’t meet cert standards) - and those that are qualified would never be trusted to teach in a way they think would work (i.e., memorizing more than just counting) - so we don’t. We leave it to the ‘professionals’, like you just described.

Is it any wonder regarding the results we’re getting?

144

This thread has had me thinking a lot. And I actually think I personally like learning the traditional algorithms, becoming competent, if not to mastery, THEN being mind blown when I see how it works. I have been watching a lot of math videos lately and actually been seeing how stuff works and feeling wowed and loving math even more. But, I don’t think some of the things I have seen would have helped me learn or have made an impact if I didn’t know the traditional way of doing it.

Edited to add: I honestly think that teachers who learnt thing traditionally are having the same reflections that I am having. They are seeing HOW and WHY the algorithms actually work. And they are being seduced by it and thinking, wow it is so easy. But in reality it isn’t any easier, at least to a new student because they didn’t know how to do first.

It is like breathing, We know how to breath, but to have it broken down scientifically and understand how oxygen is pumped into our blood and how co2 is expelled it awesome to know. … Or maybe I am just that much of a nerd. But if someone tried to read me breathing by explaining all that I would be dumb founded.

I know that breathing is an automatic thing, but I can’t think of a better analogy now. Walking or running or hitting a baseball might be a better one.

145

To Korrale4kq,

“This thread has had me thinking a lot. And I actually think I personally like learning the traditional algorithms, becoming competent, if not to mastery, THEN being mind blown when I see how it works. I have been watching a lot of math videos lately and actually been seeing how stuff works and feeling wowed and loving math even more. But, I don’t think some of the things I have seen would have helped me learn or have made an impact if I didn’t know the traditional way of doing it.”

If that’s the case, I shall vaporize from this site, as my job is done. Just kidding. I think you hit on something very much at the root of our problems. The case for Whole Language was made by saying if the kids (that can’t read) are exposed to the great works of the past, they will pick up reading by assimilation. We also know that’s simply BS, but that was foundational basis on which Whole Language was pushed - that kids would appreciate the great works and learn to read just from that. Millions of kids later, we know that simply doesn’t work any better than explaining to a kid how a car works and then expecting him to design and build one on his own.

“Edited to add: I honestly think that teachers who learnt thing traditionally are having the same reflections that I am having. They are seeing HOW and WHY the algorithms actually work. And they are being seduced by it and thinking, wow it is so easy.”

I know you’re talking math, but the reading analogies are what keep popping into my mind. In the case of reading, adults simply say: “I read by sight, I don’t sound out words, so why should my kids have to”. To answer that, THEY DON’T have to sound out words. Once David knew a word by sight, I never, ever, dreamed of making him still sound it out. But it takes time to get there, and that’s where I diverge from these people. I simply wanted to give him the tools to either sound out words, or get very close to that (for the tougher words)…rather than guessing. Most adults simply don’t remember how they learned to read. I did, but only because my speech was so bad (only my mother and brother could understand me through first grade), that they were stuck having to start from scratch and teach me sounds. So I learned phonics, but only be sheer luck.

"I know that breathing is an automatic thing, but I can’t think of a better analogy now. Walking or running or hitting a baseball might be a better one. "

There are plenty of analogies. Yes, I can appreciate (to an extent) a great work by Picasso, but being shown those works, for years, will not get me any closer to be a great artist.

146

To MummyRoo,

“Yes, thankfully they start phonics straight away in school. There are sets of phonics readers - hundreds and hundreds of them - and in most schools, the kids have to read every single one, whether they are easy or not. So even the good readers make slow progress, which turns reading into a boring and tedious part of early schooling for them. It seems that the government targets are to finish phonics by the end of Y1 (age 6) but there are still lots of children failing to learn to read - I would have thought that phonics taught correctly should prevent this!”

That’s half the game, the other half is how serious they are at it. When David was in pre-K, at Age 4/5, his class was covering one letter-sound a week. They didn’t even make it through the alphabet that year, much less blends, much less words. That was it. It was a good school overall, but they simply were not interested in teaching 4/5 year olds how to read…so it’s still understandable that kids can be taught phonics but at such a slow rate that they likely forget what they already learned, when they have to apply it.

147

Robert,

I had a phonics reading analogy ready :slight_smile: but thought it might be fa fetching.
We teach our kids 44 phonemes, what they look like and expect them to memorize them. Later they blend them. Voila. When you think about it, pretty elementary, but it does nothing to explain how reading actually works, or I guess langauge in general. You have a pretty good formula that you apply over and over… With exceptions. :slight_smile:

I learnt to read with phonics. And I have taught with phonics. But my son is a pretty competent whole word reader at a K-1st grade level. :slight_smile: He has had rudimentary phonics instruction and he will have more in time. When he is older and doesn’t struggle so much with it. But he is doing pretty well with intuiting phonics. And he is reading a lot, so has lots of practice. He learns the word jump. He comes across the word jumping while reading. I tell him what it is. He later is able to read the word running, swimming, and a variety of other verbs with the -ing suffix.
I have thought about reading a lot with the whole word and phonics debate and initially I thought I was a phonics reader because that is what I was taught with (as we’re nearly all Aussie kids in the 80s, thanks why Aussie teachers were in demand in the US a decade ago) but the more I think about it, I thought I was a whole word reader… But now I have decided that I am a chunking reader. I don’t sound out words anymore. Even unfamiliar words. Infact when I read them I look for small known words inside of the words. And I have realised that this has contributed to some odd pronounciations.

148

MummyRoo,

That is sad about the incessant phonics readers drilling. The thing I have found about phonics readers is the they bore older kids and are hard to comprehend for younger kids. And the stories don’t have any substance initially. Yes, at first there is a sense of achievement to be able to read a first book. But when the book goes like this…

Mat sat.
Sam sat
Cat sat.
Mat, Sam and cat on a mat.

There is little to make the child want to read more. And very little to excite the child to learn to read. So i certainly see why there is failure. My son detests those type of phonics readers.

I will type out the first book that my son (2 yr) read.

JUMP ROPE
“I have a jump rope,” he said.
“That jump rope is for you to play with.”
“It is in the box of toys.”
“That is it on top of the bat.”
“You have to jump in and out of it.”
“You have to jump for a long time.”
“It is fun to play jump rope.”
The End.

He loves this story. He love the conversation between the little girl and boy illustrated on the pages. We talked a lot on out jump rope afterwards. He was entertained and he wanted to read the book again and again. 6 months later he still likes the book. But I limited him reading it because I don’t want him to memorize books.

I should add… There are some amazing phonics readers out there. Usborne (lucky Brits) make some amazing ones. But they are usually not the ones that are available by the hundreds in schools. :frowning:

149

"Korrale4kq "

I have thought about reading a lot with the whole word and phonics debate and initially I thought I was a phonics reader because that is what I was taught with but the more I think about it, I thought I was a whole word reader… But now I have decided that I am a chunking reader. I don’t sound out words anymore.

I doubt any parent on this sounds out words much - we’re all sight readers now - the only question is initial learning, and how was that done. I think in many cases, parents simply don’t remember how they learned, so they think it’s how they’re doing it now. I’m taking a Russian class at work. It’s a voluntary class, and it’s all phonics, they don’t dream of throwing us a bunch of weird looking words and expecting us to remember them by sight, without knowing the sounds of their alphabet - and if they tried it, I’d get up and walk out, and so would everyone else. In fact, they don’t even have names for letters - just the sounds (at least the way we’re being taught). Backwards “R” (я) is not called “Backwards R-ski” or something, it’s called “ya”, because that is its sound. It’s all phonics.

150

To Korrale4kq ,

“Mat, Sam and cat on a mat.
There is little (in those phonics readers) to make the child want to read more. And very little to excite the child to learn to read.”

I’m with you 100% there. I never used them and actually didn’t know they existed or how to get them (thankfully). We started with letters, then blends, then simple words. From there it was right to children’s books. It was slow at the beginning, but before he read from a page, I made him learn the difficult words. I knew which ones, and we would work on them separately. Once he knew them pretty well, we’d go back to the book and read that page (which could still take a while).

I’ll be the last person to support “Mat, Sam, and cat on a Mat” - his first book was “Walter and the Tugboat”. It was a real story at least and wasn’t trying to teach him phonics at the same time.

151

I love the way that you are learning Russian. Similar to how my son learnt phonics.

I only taught him lowercase letters and called them by sounds. He actually doesn’t say letters. He calls them phonics. He has plenty of time to be corrected. I never taught him the names. And only later did I teach him upper case. My son can not recite the alphabet song, and I am completely okay with that. He does know most, if not all the letter names now I think. Honestly I am not sure how he knows them all. I assume from apps. We don’t do TV, so no Elmo assist. :slight_smile: Now I think about it he may have learnt them from a little toy laptop that he has. With the exception of a drum and Piano it is the only electric toy he has.

I figure we use lowercase letters the most when reading it was the most logical place to start. I really did intend for him to learn to read phonetically at first. … Just didn’t work out that way.

I like that you used a real book to teach David to read. Centuries ago before primers, children learnt to read with the bible.

152

“I only taught him lowercase letters and called them by sounds. He actually doesn’t say letters. He calls them phonics. He has plenty of time to be corrected. I never taught him the names. And only later did I teach him upper case. My son can not recite the alphabet song, and I am completely okay with that. He does know most, if not all the letter names now I think. Honestly I am not sure how he knows them all. I assume from apps. We don’t do TV, so no Elmo assist. smile Now I think about it he may have learnt them from a little toy laptop that he has. With the exception of a drum and Piano it is the only electric toy he has.”

Wow, you’re better at it than I was. We still had David learn letters, but I agree, they’re not needed and can be confusing - you might as well just learn the sounds. You can always pick up the letter names later.

“I like that you used a real book to teach David to read. Centuries ago before primers, children learnt to read with the bible.”

Thanks, like I said, it wasn’t brilliance on my part, I just didn’t have anything else around, so I grabbed the first book that looked potentially doable for him. The bible would work to…just much slower (and small print) - I could see spending a month to get through the first page, using my technique (of learning the words before attempting to read). Things would, of course, speed up over time.

153

Lol, teaching sounds initially only makes sense to me. But I didn’t always do it that way, I had a few years under my belt. You were in a time crunch and figured out something that obviously worked.

154

Robert,
Russian letters do have names (though the vowel names are equivalent to their sounds) though I was never taught them and only picked them up much later because I felt silly spelling out words using phonics. lol

Koralle,
I do like the Usborne books particularly. I believe they can be found on the bookdepository site with free shipping to most countries, so its not just those of us in the UK that can benefit! Their phonics readers are good fun for very first books (mostly cvc words) and their farmyard tales are excellent for confident early readers with very clear print.

We have most of what I would consider ‘good’ phonics readers. We have several sets, but they are generally those considered ‘advanced’ readers - the ones with lots of words and an actual story - that I hope will make the transition to chapter books easier. I can’t imagine more than a couple of ‘cat on mat’ type stories will be tolerated. Once the excitement of actually reading a book himself wears off we’ll be straight on to the proper books.

I have one set using the same books the schools use - the stories are ok, but somewhat tedious to begin with, but where I have two books at each level where the school has a box (I would guess 10+ per box, but I can’t find official numbers). I know my mum raves about my brothers (Aussie) Reception teacher because she was willing to go against the ‘rules’ and let the kids skip whole boxes. This in itself is telling that there were lots of boxes of readers to get through!

155

Off topic a bit ( but so is the entire thread! lol ) but i ran the reading program at my kids school, they are fairly typical of a smaller school here ( Australia) they run with a set of PM readers. They are not phonics based readers but sight word readers that gradually increase in difficulty. The phonics difficulty increases over the levels also. They have between 6 and 16 books for each level and there are 30 levels. They also have a backup set of 8 books per level, all 30 levels for kids who need more practice. Level 30 is supposed to be for 12 year olds but most kids finish the set completely by grade 4 ( age 9/10) at the latest. Mine finished them at the end of grade 1 ( second child about to finish them) Kids are expected to read every available book on each level then progress automatically. They are tested 4 times a year to move them up ( or potentially down) levels to ensure they are constantly getting just above easy books. it works out to be three books and a worksheet for each book a week.
The phonics programs are usually run separately, in class time. It is systematic phonics and usually linked to spelling lists also. He books are for the parents to teach the phonics is for the teachers to teach. that way even the kids with lazy parents who never do a reader will still learn to read just a little slower.

156

Robert, Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences. You’re very pragmatic :slight_smile: Just one more question. Most of the child prodigies and accelerated learners that I’ve read about have ended up depressed and being unhappy during adulthood. There are a few exceptions to this list like your son (great indeed). One common thing about the prodigies/accelerated learners who turned out depressed is the fact that they were accelerated in a super fast pace like graduating college at the age of 12 or less. What is your opinion on this? Did you put special efforts to ensure that your son is happy and did you make conscious effort in making him well-rounded or is it because of his personality that he is happy now.

157

Manda,
That is how it was when I was in primary school. We did the phonics work in class. Even though i could read, I still remember ants on and apple a…a…a… Lions licking lollipops l…l…l… And many more.
Then I remember a whole slew of readers that we took home. I remember having to read them, but I took home up to 5 at a time. A distinctly remember one saying “this is an apple.” “This is an orange” And more pages with other fruits. These had large font and a picture of an apple, orange or whatever fruit to give context clues. I loved those books and I think they help with fluency and comprehension. And above all confidence. These are called high frequency readers and outside of a school setting they are hard to find. And when they are found they are ridiculously expensive. These are the books that parents see and I think the assume that kids are only learning to read via whole words. But in fact nearly every school district I know has a phonics program that is given by pure instruction.

158

To Mandabplus3 ,

“Off topic a bit ( but so is the entire thread!)”

Teaches you guys to invite me to someone else’s threat. But I like it better this way, it gives my kid some cover.

No comment on the rest, as it’s out of my league - other than to mention again that we just had a marker board and then standard children’s books.

159

To Arvi,

“Just one more question. Most of the child prodigies and accelerated learners that I’ve read about have ended up depressed and being unhappy during adulthood. There are a few exceptions to this list like your son (great indeed). One common thing about the prodigies/accelerated learners who turned out depressed is the fact that they were accelerated in a super fast pace like graduating college at the age of 12 or less. What is your opinion on this? Did you put special efforts to ensure that your son is happy and did you make conscious effort in making him well-rounded or is it because of his personality that he is happy now.”

Good questions Arvi. I guess a few things here. First, David had his church group of same-age (or at least very close-aged) kids that he grew up with literally from day 1, so that was probably the most important factor. Had we moved (for any reason) or sent him away, I suspect he would have turned out completely different (and for the worse). It’s critical for a kid in that situation to have a group like that and stay with them. Remember, David also doesn’t have siblings - and even ‘normal’ single kids tend to have a lot more problems socially - so he had both going against him. Next, like I’ve said, I beat it into him (figuratively, but pretty loud when necessary, which was very rare) that he was nothing special, he was just a kid whose parents started him early. Without that, he probably will have still been in the top half of his class, but not by much (and I’m not even sure of that). He knows it himself - he understands that intrinsically. A number of times after he’d spent hours living it up with his friends I’d ask him whether they talked about him going to college - it never comes up, he’s not about to talk about it, and to the other kids, he just went to another school - so they would never feel inferior around him.

Beyond that, we never, ever, shopped him to the media or had a blog, or anything. But keep in mind that the Internet was younger, although still very big - I just had no interest. I realize that others here have pages, and I completely understand that. You have relatives, probably out of town (especially grandparents), that just love to read and watch the postings - and that’s fine, because I also know that you guys will know be able to figure out when to back off, such as when it could make the kid susceptible to teasing. Since I haven’t done it, I don’t feel qualified to say if it’s harmful or not. But back to the media. My conservative political views don’t give me much love of the media to begin with, and I’ve heard story after story of how they mess up and ruin people. So it was easy for me to avoid them. But, in the end, we had Pam at the Community College, that really stuck her neck out to get him enrolled early - and when she wanted to put out a press release when he finished there, so that she could maybe draw more kids in like David, we were fine with it. And then you had University of Houston that had an 86 year old graduating the same day as David (who was 16 years old), and they wanted to do a story on it, and then TV stations got wind. We were good there too, as the school also did a great job and we didn’t want to let the older guy down. But all this was done just as he was finishing up both schools. So while he was in school, there were no distractions, like TV stories, that would have made him an outcast (or gotten to his head). I know lots of parents do shop their kids - I think some parents just have their own problems and are trying to solve them through their kids, but I suspect many other parents just want the kid’s name out there, so the colleges come knocking with offers. We don’t know - because we never gave them that chance (to speak of). And by the way, the media stories were fine…they weren’t out to destroy him. LOL.

A couple of other things that we did, that may have helped. First, I never used baby talk with him. When he was two months old in a basket, I would explain to him that was changing out a washer in the sink, why I was doing it, how I was doing it, and I would talk in exactly the same tone that I would talk to a co-worker in. Of course he was 2 months, but then he was 6 months, and then 12 months. When he started talking, he was talking like an adult practically from day 1. I remember one phone call to my mom when he was probably 5 years old and she said to me (after) that feels like she’s talking to an adult. Where it helps is when they’re with older kids in school - they simply sound more mature. David wasn’t actually the first one I tried it on. When I was growing up, we had a dog and I would talk to him like an adult too. Needless to say he’d cock his head over like I was a mental case, but he remembered stuff and was brilliant, for a dog - and I think that was part of it. Back then I figured it wasn’t his fault that he was a dog and I wasn’t going to treat him that way (that was my rationale). For David, I saw the results with the dog, so it was a no-brainer.

160

Robert, we are very much alike. lol

I will point out, FYI, the reason I am blogging is two-fold. 1. It’s just for me to keep track (call it motivation, child rearing is HARD WORK) 2. People on this forum that have helped me. It gives sort of a running commentary on things we’re doing. These are the only two reasons, and basically it’s anonymous. The family far away does see some of the videos, but not the blog. But enough about that, I’m sure there are as many reasons people do it as there are people.