𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖆𝖘

I've been looking for this thank you

the part about the goodmans dismissing the interviewers out of hand with “my science is different” and straight-up saying dyslexia doesnt exist is fascinating to me

Anecdotal: I didn't receive any systemic phonics education until 2nd grade, and it made a night-and-day difference in terms of my ability to recognize new written words and to spell. I literally can't imagine how the rest of my elementary education would have gone without that.

This is the kind of thing that makes me pause and feel grateful for all the opportunities I wouldn’t even know I’ve been afforded. Being able to competently read has been foundational to so much of my life. I had a look over the UK curriculum guidance and am glad to see it looks like 100% phonics endorsement here at least.

this is a really good point about mirroring the lack of computer literacy in younger generations.

I think there's also this assumption that the only thing that truly matters is "enjoyment" and from there knowledge and skill will follow. It's there in teachers thinking the most important thing is for kids to enjoy the text, but also in this cultural assumption that the point of English classes is to make kids and teenagers "fall in love with reading" (and that's why there is no point reading older or more complex books than whatever YA bestseller came out that year). At least, that's something that I see a lot in writing/book review spaces. And look, giving kids contemporary works that have them as a target audience is great, but that can't be the only kind of text you teach. The point of classes is not just to make kids enjoy reading, but to actually help them develop the skills to analyze a text and evaluate it critically.

To your tech literacy point, I think it's partly the same assumption: kids already love their phones and their technology so there really is no point in teaching them anything.