Apparently, some schools in the U.S. didn’t teach phonics until recently (2014).

Did anyone here learn phonics in school?

  • @[email protected]
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    25 months ago

    Long after I learned to read. At which point it was just confusing since so many words can’t be ‘sounded out’.

    I learned to read alongside learning to speak, learned it like a language, not like a code, I didn’t really sound things out consciously, it went in the other direction, I recognized words. So by 3 years I could read quite well, and did come by that path to an understanding that the individual letters had sounds.

    Like if you’ve ever seen a little kid learning to write, they start with just scribbles then lines of scribbles then clumps of “letters” then actual words with letters. That is sort of the process I had - books held stories, then I saw there was writing, then my mom read the stories while pointing to the words, then I pretended I could read by memorizing the book, but then just jumped to being able to read. Anything. Like first book was “bears on wheels” but second book was Grendel, and I could read the newspaper, literally think I could understand written language more than spoken.

    So anyway - yes was taught phonics but not taught to read with phonics.

  • @[email protected]
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    15 months ago

    Nope. Never even heard of it until recently, in the context of kids leaving school unable to read.

  • @[email protected]
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    25 months ago

    I didn’t, for me it was “Ai, Bee, See, Dee, Eee, Eff, Jee” (except in my local language Danish). My children all learnt phonics in their U.K. school and it’s taught them to read 5x faster I’d say).

  • confuser
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    45 months ago

    I remember one time thinking about how my grandpa didn’t learn this and other related skills as a kid the same way I did in school and so we understand our same language a totally different way, where I saw parts of words, he just saw a whole word.

  • @[email protected]
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    85 months ago

    I’m not sure what specifically is meant by phonics. My grandma taught first grade for 30 years, ending around 2000. She said when phonics came in “that’s just teaching reading” and when phonics went out “well, obviously we still have to teach how the alphabet works” and when phonics came in again “eye roll”. So, whatever the school leadership says, my guess is kids are learning phonics.

    • @[email protected]
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      5 months ago

      Back in the day, we learned phonics and syllables, and the general proper way to spell, pronounce and enunciate words.

      Today people are lazy, and say shit like ROTFLMFAO, and expect everyone else to know what that letter salad means.

        • @[email protected]
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          25 months ago

          I said back in the day. I was born in 1982, back when people Xeroxed their memes and knew how to spell out things like Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Fucking Ass Off.

          • Arghblarg
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            5 months ago

            Xerox?! In my day we only had those faded-ass mimeographs, stinky sheets of blurry purple letters :P

            …and we learned phonics in Canada in the late 70s.

            • @[email protected]
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              45 months ago

              Ah, we actually had those purple mimeographs in gradeschool! Yep, the quality was shit, but it worked.

              I just figured more people would remember Xerox. 🤷‍♂️

            • davel [he/him]
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              45 months ago

              stinky sheets of blurry purple letters

              Hey now, the fresh ones smelled pretty good!

  • @[email protected]
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    25 months ago

    No, while it was known, it was not taught at my schools. My mother hated the entire concept so if they tried she’d likely have raised hell.

    Or just put us somewhere private instead. The much more sensible option lmfao

    • @[email protected]
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      55 months ago

      She hated the concept of… teaching what sounds letters make? Was she a big proponent of cuing, or something else?

      • @[email protected]
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        25 months ago

        She disliked a lot of the newer methods of teaching, so I’m guessing she preferred whatever was before that. The only one she named really was the New Math and I’m positive the New Math was pretty old by the time I was taught it. Have you ever watch Lehrer’s song New Math? That’s what I was taught, and if it was new then, it was ancient when I got to it!

        • @[email protected]
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          25 months ago

          Oh phonics is the old one (although it’s making a comeback). The “new” one that they’ve been promoting for a couple decades (and have recently realized isn’t very good) is cueing, the one where you just show kids words and encourage them to use context clues to guess what they mean, and hope that they eventually learn to read by doing that. Phonics is the one where you start with letter (and letter group) sounds and learn to sound out words by reading out loud.

          • @[email protected]
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            35 months ago

            It was new at the time! Or maybe. While the education I got was pretty good, it was eclectic. I only remember learning math. I picked up language before solid memories form. I also sort of have some brain uh. Problems.

            I liked moving the tens to the ones place. I think these days kids are doing some kind of cube thing? Seems neat!

  • hallettj
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    15 months ago

    No, but I remember overhearing one of my teachers saying it’s actually helpful. That was in the early 90s in California.