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Is Germany Raising a Generation of Illiterates?
StartsWithABang (3485481) writes "Over at Starts With A Bang, the weekly question comes in from Germany, where we're informed: 'In Germany, many teachers have adopted a new way of teaching children to write properly. The way is called "Writing by Reading" and essentially says: Write as you wish, you're not bound by any rules. Recently, this way of teaching has been heavily criticized [link in German], but not before it has been "tested" on several years of school children.' The reading wars have been going on in the US, too, but will this wind up having a negative outcome? Or, as this piece argues, is it likely to be a wash?"
i rite az i wish and it doz afekt my wrighting.
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The US has been raising illiterates for decades (if not longer). In this metric we can truly shout
We're number one!
We're number one!
We're number one!
I doubt they could catch up with our functional illiteracy rates even if they tried.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I take value in writing correctly (my native tongue is Dutch, not English, in case anybody finds errors).
But language is not something defined by laws; it is alive, changing and evolving all the time.
I may enjoy writing following proper grammar rules, but that's just my personal preference and just because I like it, doesn't mean everybody should do so.
If the text written using this method can be read as easy and fast as text written according to the rules, what really is the problem?
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I realize that Slashdot Summaries are one of the important, protected, habitats of a mixture of questionable proofreading and overt editorializing; but isn't something important being left out here?
The scheme in question is known as 'write by reading'. This apparently boils down to 'write however you want', according to a blog post that barely touches on the matter aside from a link to a German newspaper. Is it possible that this 'write by reading' theory involves some 'reading' somewhere? Maybe the notion that children will pick up grammar by exposure to it, which would make spending the time previously allocated to Learning Your Grammar Rules Children on reading things that are both examples of good writing and also useful, interesting, or otherwise better than distilled essence of grammar a plausible alternative?
Now, I'd be the first to agree that the standards of pedagogical research are... notably tepid... and education is much ruled by fads, many with little or no basis in evidence beyond anecdotes; but can we really have a useful discussion if we are going to start from a position of such inspiring intellectual honesty?
The question: "Do children pick up grammar from exposure to well written, but not otherwise grammar focused, texts sufficiently efficiently that we are better off skipping the lessons in pure grammar in favor of receiving the grammar as a side effect of reading that will also have other uses?" is a perfectly reasonable one, and it isn't immediately obvious which side the facts would come down on, so some research would be nice; but I'm pretty sure that 'Writing by Reading' is not actually a polite expression for 'Thare iz no ruls in Sckool.'
They had to test it on school children. Environmental law is too strict to allow testing on rats.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I tested it on my kids, and didn't even know there was a controversy. I never could sound out words. I was raised under the "sound out only" rules. When I finally, despite all their efforts to the contrary, started reading like an adult, I read faster and with fewer errors than anyone in the class. It just took me 2 years of being functionally illiterate in a room of literates to jump 5 grades in a day.
Finland (arguably the best education in the world) does just that. Expose them to words and letters, but don't start reading until they are old enough to read words. I'd have been exactly on track in the Finland system. So maybe that's why they get better results for less money than the US. They use methods that are better suited to how children learn, rather than forcing children at an unnatural pace, based on what some senile old educators dictate should be covered on that year's standardized tests.
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I went to primary school in Germany from 1996 on and I was in one of those classes that learned "Reading by Writing" (I explained above that the referenced article gets the German original article the wrong way around).
The way it basically works is, that you get a phonetics-alphabet and learn just the sounds and then you write them down in the way you think is right. My class was, in direct comparison to the class that learned traditionally, on average half a grade better in writing and reading by year 4. But my class had only eleven pupils and our teacher had the chance to explain errors and nuances. Usually, classes nowadays are more than double the size.
I am sure that, without proper guidance, many mistakes can be made. The primary thing my parents loved was, that I was able to read stuff the first day I came home from school with my phonetics-alphabet. I could read my children-books from day one. We didn't start with the letter "e" or "o" and only short words. This gave me a real thirst for books and I read "Robinson Crusoe" in second grade.
You've never tried talking to a person under 20, have you?
Germany used to have a pretty good education system. But like the rest of Europe it's on the sharp decline. The goal is now instead of a well rounded education to give you the bare minimum of what's necessary so you can do your job. Schools have been turned from a place of education to something where you can lock up kids at least part of the day so they don't cause too much trouble, because a sensible education simply is not possible if you have 40+ kids in a class and 3/4th of them doesn't speak the language.
But rest assured, it ain't just Germany that's suffering from this.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If the text written using this method can be read as easy and fast as text written according to the rules, what really is the problem?
The problem is that a lot of people with the power to hire and fire may pretend that they cannot read the text "as easy and fast as text written according to the rules". HR may judge a prospective employee as "uneducated" for not following traditional prescriptive rules.
Not just hiring and firing, but anywhere where you wish to be accepted seriously based on how you write.
The problem is non-standard writing is that every deviation is "speed bump" to comprehension. Sure, my relatives in Kentucky may own "worshing machines", but it's one thing to hear them say it and another to see it in print. Bad enough dealing with tyres on the quay through the month of February on Wednesdays, but at least we are used to seeing this kind of slop and don't have to stop and double-check while speed-reading.
Silly rules are silly, but no rules are confusion.