Hacker News Reader

Comment by Vanderson | Hacker News Reader

Here's a video of Siegfried Engelmann, who is mentioned in this article, demonstrating how he had taught inner city grade school age kids that were considered "unteachable" (I can't recall the exact label I was told) doing algebra... live. (about 20 min in) I think they are about 4th or 5th grade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9SjFsimywA

Many people didn't like the strict requirement of his reading methods, from what I have been told.

View on HN

Hi Vanderson, I am surprised to hear mention of Engelmann here on HN :). I would love to connect and learn more about how you discovered DI. FWIW, I am a former principal engineer at a FAANG company turned educational researcher / edtech founder. I am working to revive Engelmann's Theory of Instruction and democratize access to the explicit, systematic teaching of the skills of reading (e.g., phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition).

I have a friend who I met in college who got his PhD working under Zig, which is how people who knew Engelmann called him. And this friend gave me a copy of his book "How to teach your child to read in 100 lessons" and I used it to teach my own kids.

I think you have an up hill battle with getting traction with DI, but if you succeed that would be a great benefit to many people. (my perception)

What is the protocol on this site for starting conversations "offline"?

Thanks so much for your response Vanderson! I wish I had known about How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons when I was teaching my daughter. I definitely fumbled my way through it :).

> I think you have an up hill battle with getting traction with DI, but if you succeed that would be a great benefit to many people. (my perception)

I completely agree and it really isn't too surprising that DI never took off in schools. FWIW, I am looking to revive the underlying pedagogy (e.g., teaching sequences for non-comparatives, joining forms, etc.) rather than DI proper.

> What is the protocol on this site for starting conversations "offline"?

Interesting question that I never stopped to consider :). I have met dozens of people through HN, and it seems congruent with the hacker ethic ("throughout writings about hackers and their work processes, a common value of community and collaboration is present"), but ::shrugs::.

Thanks again for sharing your DI story.

I could certainly put you in touch with my friend. What I meant by "offline" is that I really don't want to put my email address into a public forum to be spammed. Any suggestions how to share contact info?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com