There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation — even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read. In this new podcast, host Emily Hanford investigates the influential authors who promote this idea and the company that sells their work. It's an expose of how educators came to believe in something that isn't true and are now reckoning with the consequences — children harmed, money wasted, an education system upended.

This is an 8 part series about reading education in the U.S. I'm not sure I can summarize it better than the official summary at the link so pasting it here:

There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation — even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read. In this podcast, host Emily Hanford investigates the influential authors who promote this idea and the company that sells their work. It's an exposé of how educators came to believe in something that isn't true and are now reckoning with the consequences — children harmed, money wasted, an education system upended

So far I'm about halfway through episode 5. I think people here will be able to predict in many ways how the story goes. Definitely something I think is important and wasn't aware of (I know that literacy is overall not great in this country, but it's interesting to learn that there is an additional reason besides inequality and low investment in education).

  • ReadFanon [any, any]
    ·
    3 months ago

    I can't find the Wikipedia entry that mentions it but in one of the German colonies in Africa they opted not to establish the German language as the lingua franca because they didn't want the colonised people to be able to read Marx lmao (but also 😭)