'Mississippi miracle': Kids' reading scores have soared in Deep South states
apnews.com
apnews.com
One of the things briefly touched on in the article is that it seems these states have rediscovered teaching phonics.
When did the stop teaching that and why? I was thought that way in the 70s.
It's like programmers deciding to write a 3d game in Java instead of the known and functional method of c++.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/phonics-science-reading-c715dea43...
Occam's razor suggests that when states that are actively at war with their teachers "magically" buck the statistical learning trends from everywhere else, the statistics are more likely to be falsified than the students improved so dramatically.
Especially when I see: "The states have consequences in place if schools don’t teach kids how to read, but also offer help to keep kids on track." The schools WILL pass those statistical measures someway, somehow if it means that the school loses funding or people lose their jobs.
Highly recommend reading about the ‘whole word’ v ‘phonics’ wars. Generations of children have been and continue to be left behind because an ineffective teaching style that doesn’t work became popular among America’s educators. Here’s an oped from a few years ago to get started with. It's honestly a bit depressing, but things have gotten better since and Mississippi is the proof of that.
https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-ho...
Some reading specifically on how Mississippi is responsible for their own success. It wasn’t magic: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/06/education/learning/missis...
Middle and lower-middle class kids arrive in primary school already pre-literate and prepared to further learn at primary school level. Due to parental habits.
Statistically speaking, lower class kids arrive without the same number of years of preparation at the same level. They do not arrive pre-literate. They arrive illiterate.
I agree that special attention and programs need to be implemented to make up for this state of affairs, but lets not reward grifters and their unqualified media lackeys with attention simply because the public doesn't understand how literacy development works, in general, and these people are willing to exploit that.
This comment reads like ChatGPT being asked to be contrarian for contrarian's sake.
Unfortunately, their higher socioeconomic peers outpace them significantly over the summer. And this swamps the gains made during the school year so the lower socioeconomic students are again at a disadvantage. This is particularly frustrating to people who really do want things to improve education because it is perniciously difficult to counteract--this is where the "year round school" push comes from.
So, the 3 worst states magically managed to overcome every mechanism arrayed against them simply by teaching phonics in the classroom? Even during the height of a pandemic in which teachers could barely corral the students let alone teach them something?
And, by the way, people have been collecting and pushing data about phonics for years--the data always comes back inconclusive to weak. Many places still teach it. Most places see the same things--focused effort regardless of system results in slight increases in performance.
The first part of your comment though seems to imply that you’ve digested some rather biased news reporting about some states. This article comes from the AP. Not exactly known for being a right leaning news outlet.
However, I don't doubt that extra time training teachers to teach phonics would help their students turn those letters on the page into sensible sounds, and I'm happy for the students that seem to be helped here. My mother was a middle (and then high) school Spanish teacher, and her favorite party trick for her new students was to promise them that within the first week, they'd be able to read out most Spanish text put in front of them (albeit with a horrible accent). English pronunciation is notoriously inconsistent; Spanish is particularly consistent.
I'd love to know how long schools in Spanish-speaking countries spend on basic "pronounce the words on the page" level literacy compared to English-speaking ones.
Learning to read via phonics vs the alternative is like the difference between being born into wealth and opportunity, and being born a slave.
No hyperbole.
The States in question implemented a literacy program of the type that is normally reserved for kids with minor disabilities whose parents have money to pay for it.
While there is always a chance of fraud when political pressure is on, I don't see where there is evidence of it that overtakes the variable of the extra reading support.
What this looks like to me is that the States in question found success by implementing a program that essentially is meant to make-up for the fact that impoverished kids are the most likely to receive the least reading instruction and access to books at home. Also, they are the least likely to be spoken to and to be read to from infancy.
These are the factors that are at the root of low literacy levels in impoverished communities. If there is success due to a school's effort, these are the fundamental factors that it is overcoming.
These kids are entering primary school at a massive literacy disadvantage, from day one. Statistically speaking, they are years behind kids whose parents have been promoting literacy from the cradle.
If these States want more success, they need to educate new parents in how to promote language development and literacy from birth.