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Comment by unsigner | Hacker News Reader

From reading about this reading wars, one would think reading itself was invented around 30 years ago, and people are still not sure how to teach it.

Shouldn't that be a solved problem? How were English children taught to read 100 years ago? 150 years ago?

something scholarly-looking claims there was 90% literacy rate in England in 1870: https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/education-in-victorian-en....

I've learned English as a second (actually fourth) language, and it was definitely weird (the previous ones, including my mother tongue are almost fully phonetic, i.e. much easier to read) - I guess it must be different when learned as a first?

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I don’t know about 100 years ago but 50 years ago, they were taught using phonics.

That’s the ridiculous part of this whole ordeal; this was already a solved problem before some idiots came to the conclusion that phonics was not good, and apparently had to be replaced across the US.

Luckily, most of the world didn’t catch on! They’re still teaching phonics in most of the world.

> Luckily, most of the world didn’t catch on! They’re still teaching phonics in most of the world.

The need for heavy-duty phonics instruction depends somewhat on the language. For example, languages like Spanish and Italian are quite phonologically regular, so once you learn what sound each letter makes, it's easy to read. In English, the mappings between letters and sounds is much more complicated, so teaching the various rules and exceptions is more important.

I have a feeling you’re talking about spelling here, not about reading?

IME, phonics (sounding out the letters as you read them) is equally valuable as a learning tool for beginners in a language with regular spelling as in English (which has irregular spelling).

The various rules and exceptions are necessary to have memorized when writing, though!

I'm talking about reading. Some kids who have a hard time learning to read in English would have an easier time learning a more phonologically normal language. They would also have an easier time spelling, but I was referring to the ability to sound out words.

You’re right, anyone would have an easier time learning a language with actual spelling rules, not just those with reading difficulties.

Nonetheless, phonics-based learning is better for any language.

All languages have "actual spelling rules". What makes English more complex is that it borrows from various different types of languages, so inherits different sets of rules. And of course, many English speakers are unaware of whether a particular word has Germanic or Latin roots.

As for whether phonics-based instruction is better than alternative systems for any language, I wouldn't be so bold as to make that claim (I work in literacy). It is quite possible that in some languages, the phonological rules are sufficiently simple that it isn't necessary to spend much time on phonics, and instead to do more of a "balanced-literacy" type approach. This does not work well with English, but it's possible the tradeoffs are significantly different in other languages.

Yes, I was being a bit facetious with the remark about spelling rules. I was guessing if I stated "English has an unusually defective orthography", people would not get what I meant. But since you work in education, you probably do.

If you have a language where a learner cannot derive spelling from phonetics, or phonetics from spelling, a learner instead has to memorize the spelling _and_ pronunciation of every word. This is highly unusual, and suboptimal! My hyperbolic statement was that, from the perspectice of the learner, there might as well not be any spelling rules because you have to memorize everything by rote.

I don't know why English spelling reform has never happened (AFAIK) but it's for sure making life a lot more difficult for dyslectics or people with learning disabilities.

Just a word of caution: comparing literacy rates from different times and places is difficult because literacy isn't really a binary and the way people are judged to be literate or not literate isn't standardized. To compare literacy rates from two different times or places you need to figure out how each was determined.

Indeed. In North Korea, the population apparently has a 99% literacy rate but their government just defines it as being able to write your own name.

And I'm sure a lot of people's names end up being whatever the Hangul version of "X" is.

Surely you could provide a citation for this.

Not exactly their name, I was misremembering, it was understanding a short sentence.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/PRK/north-korea/litera...

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/korea-north... (ctrl-F for literacy rate, it is 100%)

I think that's a pretty standard literacy criterion, and probably equivalent to "Level 1" in the US (which is in the low 90%s : https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp#:~:text=Adult....)

No it isn’t different as a first. Teaching people to read English isn’t difficult, and as you said was solved hundreds of years ago. There is something else going on. I wasn’t even taught to read, I just picked it up because my parents read to me before I even went to school and I wanted to read books. I made a perfect score on the ACT test reading component.

>Nearly half of California students can’t read at grade level.

This is a complete travesty in one of the most developed countries on Earth. I’m sure phonics would help, my Mom is a special ed teacher and teaches phonics to her students and never stopped.

Consider that you may be somewhat of an outlier.

Yes that’s certainly true, I didn’t do anything to really earn it other than have a desire to read and enjoy reading. I also didn’t have anything else to do to escape, so books were it. No phones, no tv shows, no video games, no YouTube. Not because my parents restricted them but just because they didn’t exist back then and especially in the rural area we lived. I remember turning the tv to snow and pretending I was playing Space Invaders, which had just come out. :)

> my mom is a special ed teacher

Yeah, that's quite specific and relevant

Kinda like you, I was taught using what amounts to phonics. I learned words, then I was shown those words in a book once I knew how to say them. My reading and speaking were years ahead of my peers. I remember when Hooked on Phonics came around at my school it struck me that the way I was taught had a name and it didn't really occur to me anyone learned that differently.

I think the more modern problem is that a lot of parents offload things like this to the education system, so they become classified as emerging education issues. There's probably lots of cause and effect incentive system related reasons for that. I had three siblings that weren't served dinner unless they taught me to say a new word.

> I made a perfect score on the ACT test reading component.

This seems a bit out of place. How are ACT scores relevant to phonics-based instruction? Typically the ACT happens a decade after a kid learns to read, right?

I went to public school in California 50 years ago, it was 100% phonics.

The thing was, by the time I started school in the early 70's, I already knew how to read because my parents taught me at home - with phonics.

I still say the biggest effect on my attaining early literacy was growing up in a house full of books and people that loved to read.

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