Living in the modern world means that a child really needs to learn to read and write/type. For many children, they would much rather be outside playing. Me and my children were motivated and reading before arriving at the school gate. We “suffered” the harms above to some extent unnecessarily but for many, many of classmates, some from homes with no books, learning those basics was tough. They certainly werent going to learn it at school without restricting their liberties. The harms suffered in that were well and truly compensated for by the critical life skill of reading.
Helping with a dyslexic, I see the school in no way able to cope with current staffing. They really want you to pay for outside school programmes with one on one teaching. Effective if you can afford it, but well beyond the means of many families.
Children mostly caring about playing outside sounds like a perspective from another time.
Children care about being able to use their phones in various ways. They text with their friends. They play computer games where being able to read is useful.
Or maybe another place. Extremely unusual for kids here to have phones in first 4-5 years of schooling. And much as my dyslexic relative would like to read what a computer game is saying, it doesnt inspire the hard work needed for learning to read. Not fun compared to other screaming around with a ball.
Children became grown-ups 200 years ago too. I don’t think we need to teach them anything at all, much less anything in particular.
According to this SSC post, kids can easily catch up in math even if they aren’t taught any math at all in the 5 first years of school.
In the Benezet experiment, a school district taught no math at all before 6th grade (around age 10-11). Then in sixth grade, they started teaching math, and by the end of the year, the students were just as good at math as traditionally-educated children with five years of preceding math education.
That would probably work for reading too, I guess. (Reading appears to require more purpose-built brain circuitry than math. At least I got that impression from reading Henrich’s WEIRD. I don’t have any references though.)
200 years ago was different world—reading wasnt required. Ask anyone who cant read as an adult how tough that is. The 10% with dyslexia need intervention fast.
Living in the modern world means that a child really needs to learn to read and write/type. For many children, they would much rather be outside playing. Me and my children were motivated and reading before arriving at the school gate. We “suffered” the harms above to some extent unnecessarily but for many, many of classmates, some from homes with no books, learning those basics was tough. They certainly werent going to learn it at school without restricting their liberties. The harms suffered in that were well and truly compensated for by the critical life skill of reading.
Helping with a dyslexic, I see the school in no way able to cope with current staffing. They really want you to pay for outside school programmes with one on one teaching. Effective if you can afford it, but well beyond the means of many families.
Children mostly caring about playing outside sounds like a perspective from another time.
Children care about being able to use their phones in various ways. They text with their friends. They play computer games where being able to read is useful.
Or maybe another place. Extremely unusual for kids here to have phones in first 4-5 years of schooling. And much as my dyslexic relative would like to read what a computer game is saying, it doesnt inspire the hard work needed for learning to read. Not fun compared to other screaming around with a ball.
There’s no reason why children have to learn those skills in the first 4-5 years of schooling. The important thing is that they learn them.
Ok, I am curious, if they dont read or write in first 4-5 years, what do you expect them to learn in those years?
Children became grown-ups 200 years ago too. I don’t think we need to teach them anything at all, much less anything in particular.
According to this SSC post, kids can easily catch up in math even if they aren’t taught any math at all in the 5 first years of school.
That would probably work for reading too, I guess. (Reading appears to require more purpose-built brain circuitry than math. At least I got that impression from reading Henrich’s WEIRD. I don’t have any references though.)
200 years ago was different world—reading wasnt required. Ask anyone who cant read as an adult how tough that is. The 10% with dyslexia need intervention fast.