Outdated teaching methods are restricting children in lower and middle income countries from attaining basic literac, undermining their opportunities and their nations’ economic growth, a new analysis warns.
A failure to teach reading with evidence-based approaches is compounded by insufficient books, inadequate teacher training, high absenteeism, limited class time, instruction in an unfamiliar language and teaching that does not match children’s learning levels, it says.
Long_comment_san on
Is there a way to read article for free? It prompts for 1$ trial.
Stunning-Tea-1886 on
Outdated teaching would imply that it taught previous generations to read…
OneChrononOfPlancks on
I am convinced that the solution to literacy on the individual level is family time spent with the child reading before bedtime.
Short of a legitimate learning disability, humans have the capacity to learn reading at very young ages, if the family only can and does budget the time to spend with them.
Social programs should make up the shortfalls where parental illiteracy or socio-economic disadvantages present a barrier to this. But notwithstanding that, I feel that many families who could, and should, be teaching their kids to read, are failing to do so and then blaming “the system” for their own preventable failure.
brickpaul65 on
The issue is that it implies that the current reading proficiency achieved is a result of the outdated methodologies…which achieved higher profiency rates in the past. It is not the technology or money per student etc.
Veylo on
Its not because of teaching. its literally because technology has advanced (Smart phones) that kids don’t have attention spans anymore.
I have two friends that are teachers and they say the same thing. Its not the teachers.
Outside_Ice3252 on
not because parents hand them cell phones as a babysitter. or parents are on their phones ignoring children.
Another study blaming teachers from fixing much bigger problems
Chemical_Shallot_575 on
Jeez Louise. Are folks still trying to argue against phonics?
Reasonable-Can1730 on
So much of learning still happens in the home. Schools will never replace that.
prsnep on
Why did these “outdated teaching” techniques work just fine in the past? This is a question that’s rarely answered when people suggest changing the curriculum or teaching methodologies to combat declining performances of students.
teachersecret on
Every few years someone gets a bright idea to change how we teach kids reading. Phonics gets shoved to the side, teachers learn a whole new set of dumb words to describe the new whole language learning system (or whatever the new hotness is), and in the end, they revert back to phonics and the the basics because that still works. Our literacy rate was higher using those “old ways” because they actually work to teach kids how to read.
NameLips on
My wife is an elementary school teacher. She says that every few years the curriculum salespeople convince the district to buy and implement a new curriculum, along with all of the books and supplies necessary to teach it. This is always expensive, and they always promise it will increase literacy and test scores.
It never works, for many reasons, but one of the big reasons is that they keep switching curriculums so often! A single child could go through 3 or 4 different curriculums during their education.
They’re designed to teach things a specific way and in a specific order, and build on their own teaching. They assume that a child in 5th grade has been following the curriculum since they were in kindergarten. But that’s not usually the case, they roll out the curriculum across the entire district all at once, so the 5th grader gets a brand new curriculum based on techniques they have never been taught.
And then, when test scores don’t go up, the district buys the next curriculum from the nest salesperson who hypes it up.
(And by the way, the grades and test scores a student gets are more strongly correlated with the income level of their family than by any other factor. Sure there are exceptions, kids who do well from poor families and kids who do badly from rich families, but those are unusual.)
12 Comments
Outdated teaching methods are restricting children in lower and middle income countries from attaining basic literac, undermining their opportunities and their nations’ economic growth, a new analysis warns.
A failure to teach reading with evidence-based approaches is compounded by insufficient books, inadequate teacher training, high absenteeism, limited class time, instruction in an unfamiliar language and teaching that does not match children’s learning levels, it says.
Is there a way to read article for free? It prompts for 1$ trial.
Outdated teaching would imply that it taught previous generations to read…
I am convinced that the solution to literacy on the individual level is family time spent with the child reading before bedtime.
Short of a legitimate learning disability, humans have the capacity to learn reading at very young ages, if the family only can and does budget the time to spend with them.
Social programs should make up the shortfalls where parental illiteracy or socio-economic disadvantages present a barrier to this. But notwithstanding that, I feel that many families who could, and should, be teaching their kids to read, are failing to do so and then blaming “the system” for their own preventable failure.
The issue is that it implies that the current reading proficiency achieved is a result of the outdated methodologies…which achieved higher profiency rates in the past. It is not the technology or money per student etc.
Its not because of teaching. its literally because technology has advanced (Smart phones) that kids don’t have attention spans anymore.
I have two friends that are teachers and they say the same thing. Its not the teachers.
not because parents hand them cell phones as a babysitter. or parents are on their phones ignoring children.
Another study blaming teachers from fixing much bigger problems
Jeez Louise. Are folks still trying to argue against phonics?
So much of learning still happens in the home. Schools will never replace that.
Why did these “outdated teaching” techniques work just fine in the past? This is a question that’s rarely answered when people suggest changing the curriculum or teaching methodologies to combat declining performances of students.
Every few years someone gets a bright idea to change how we teach kids reading. Phonics gets shoved to the side, teachers learn a whole new set of dumb words to describe the new whole language learning system (or whatever the new hotness is), and in the end, they revert back to phonics and the the basics because that still works. Our literacy rate was higher using those “old ways” because they actually work to teach kids how to read.
My wife is an elementary school teacher. She says that every few years the curriculum salespeople convince the district to buy and implement a new curriculum, along with all of the books and supplies necessary to teach it. This is always expensive, and they always promise it will increase literacy and test scores.
It never works, for many reasons, but one of the big reasons is that they keep switching curriculums so often! A single child could go through 3 or 4 different curriculums during their education.
They’re designed to teach things a specific way and in a specific order, and build on their own teaching. They assume that a child in 5th grade has been following the curriculum since they were in kindergarten. But that’s not usually the case, they roll out the curriculum across the entire district all at once, so the 5th grader gets a brand new curriculum based on techniques they have never been taught.
And then, when test scores don’t go up, the district buys the next curriculum from the nest salesperson who hypes it up.
(And by the way, the grades and test scores a student gets are more strongly correlated with the income level of their family than by any other factor. Sure there are exceptions, kids who do well from poor families and kids who do badly from rich families, but those are unusual.)