Astro Hacker News - Analysis points to a unexpected cause of reading difficulties

ckemere |next [-]

To the people who are thinking about other languages, "Lexical decoding" - recognition of a word during reading was the strongest predictor of reading compression (as opposed to phonological).

Restating the highlighted result: Gc ("Comprehension-Knowledge") had the strongest effect on both lexical and phonological decoding. Knowing a word makes it easiest to comprehend when reading. This is probably completely obvious, but the broader point is that rich conversations with students that involve teaching them lots of words will improve their reading.

Only partially supported interpretation/application - All this business about phonics will only take you so far if the adults in a kids life (including their teachers) are not talking to them richly about a lot of stuff. Asking teachers to do a lot of rote repetition risks cutting out the really important part of school where students are actually building vocabulary. Teachers that use/teach large vocabularies may be unexpectedly more effective at teaching reading.

tuukkah |root |parent [-]

I think that only applies if learning to read in English. In a more phonemic writing system, if you can read, you can read any unfamiliar word too. This way, even a young child can read anything to quickly acquire more vocabulary unrelated to what their parents ever acquired.

phkahler |root |parent [-]

>> In a more phonemic writing system, if you can read, you can read any unfamiliar word too.

You mean pronounce the word. Reading is supposed to include comprehension.

tuukkah |root |parent [-]

No, comprehension is again orthogonal to reading as it is needed in spoken language too. Remember: everybody's (unless you have a severe speech or hearing impairment as a baby) first language is a spoken language, and to extend it to a written language you will have to learn (be taught) an artificial orthography to map to and from. You can know a lot of vocabulary before learning to read (if you ever do). In a language with a phonemic writing system, your sets of spoken and written vocabulary are the same, whereas in English they only overlap. In both cases, knowing a word is orthogonal to knowing its meaning(s).

econ |next |previous [-]

[Not an expert] I met someone once who got very expensive glasses with some carefully calibrated prism to perfectly align both eyes. Like when you are exhausted you get double vision. His eyes were fine but with the glasses he could read all day as opposed to only a few hours. He only used them when his eyes started to tire. He said that anyone could have them made but was very curious how many poor readers could benefit as his tired eyes just felt like not wanting to read anymore.

Mordisquitos |root |parent |next [-]

In fact, I find your very comment as an example of the variety of visual experiences that exist that I hadn't even thought of. I mean when you say “Like when you are exhausted you get double vision” that itself sounds alien to me. I have been exhausted many times but never associated it with seeing double. I have only experienced involuntary double vision in certain circumstances during my recovery from a severe TBI.

JMKH42 |root |parent |previous [-]

In my mid forties now reading without good reading glasses is absolutely awful, I could see some people struggling with enjoyment of reading if they weren't aware their eyesight is an issue.

Something to check if you are getting older and not enjoying reading as much lately!

carefulfungi |root |parent [-]

Same. Having aging eyes has increased my empathy. When I can't read restaurant menus, or dosage information on a bottle, or see which direction the battery is supposed to go, or the right button on some tiny remote (and then inevitably fumble and guess when glasses aren't hand), ... I've learned a lot about what navigating the world might be like for others.

arjie |next |previous [-]

What I would like very much is a 'runbook' of techniques in pedagogy. I've read a couple of the books in the space hoping for something and it seems like all of them have philosophical content. The Intentional Teacher is generally pretty good with motivating examples and underlying theory but I'm just looking for a large number of techniques. If anyone has things to share on this front I'd appreciate hearing.

I imagine some kind of teacher training handbook or something. I'm pretty good with rote practice and mechanical repetition, so if there is a list out there of "in case of X, do Y" I will be able to memorize it. Do share if you know what I'm talking about.

tuukkah |root |parent |next [-]

Practical pedagogy is called didactics and primary school teachers (should) learn a lot of it: after all, a child's brain is still quite undeveloped and you cannot teach them like you would teach a peer or yourself. E.g. you cannot teach grammar rules but you can teach a foreign language through singing, learning games etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didactic_method

These approaches work for most children most of the time, but when they don't, you have special education teachers who have a different degree in diagnosing (debugging) learning difficulties big and small as well as implementing interventions etc. The service they provide is also called remedial education [and it's especially cool when a primary school teacher and a special education teacher work in a big classroom together, the latter immediately bringing back to speed anyone who grasped something slower than the others]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedial_education

arjie |root |parent [-]

Knowing the keyword is quite useful. Thank you. Do you know of a teacher handbook like what I mentioned?

mjburgess |root |parent |previous [-]

Teaching requires simulating the thought process and emotional state of learners. And then modelling the appropriate thought process to them, repairing their misunderstanding, and managing their cognitive load and other emotions.

Outside of relatively narrow domains, I'm not sure a runbook makes any sense here. People are not, in this sense, machines.

arjie |root |parent [-]

Thank you for responding. My experience is different. A friend of mine shared an anecdote of his daughter not differentiating between two of something and three of something. Her grandfather, visiting from far away, is a child psychologist and after a short while with her and the right methods she reliably did so. The methods themselves weren't magic or highly tuned. They were actually a selection from a recipe book of techniques he had developed over decades of experience. It struck me that this must be trainable.

My experience with most things that appear to require holistic knowledge is that techniques do work. It's why education is scalable: you cannot reliably identify hundreds of thousands of individuals capable of modeling learners reliably. Teacher training programs do improve outcomes by training teachers on techniques.

Identifying the right techniques that work across humans is obviously very hard, but we have found quite a few. We know that 'phonics' works better for reading than 'guess the word', as an example.

People do behave mechanically in many ways. The game of basketball is not mechanical, but the training that makes the best players has many mechanical aspects. My wife is an artist and her work isn't mechanical, but gaining mastery over painting has a massive amount of mechanical work. My experience is that almost all things that appear to require some kind of gestalt comprehension have sub-components that can be mechanized.

In any case, The Intentional Teacher mentions quite a few. An obvious one from the first few pages is that children have more complex play in a sufficiently small space which they can fully model. It may seem obvious, but also obvious is the counter-version of "children have more complex play when they have unlimited space and a large number of novel things to work with". But only one of these obvious things is true. Hence, I'm looking for more such "rules of learning" so to speak.

zerof1l |next |previous [-]

It would be interesting to see a study comparing languages where writing encodes sounds like English versus languages where writing encodes meaning, like Chinese. And also how a person’s visual and auditory capabilities relate to reading. Because languages like English need both I think.

I’m learning Japanese, and I’ve started learning Chinese characters, both their meanings and how to read them. Reading them feels different than English... I have a hypothesis that our brains work differently when processing symbols that encode meanings as opposed to just sounds. English requires an extra step, where characters are translated into sounds and then into words.

With Chinese characters, you are immediately looking at the meaning; you don’t need translation into sounds. This feels like a more efficient process cognitively to me, even though I have to memorize to recognize more characters.

AlotOfReading |root |parent |next [-]

The other major branch of the sino-tibetan languages is traditionally written in alphabetic scripts like Tibetan. If there's a meaningful practical difference associated with what kind of writing system you use, it's not obvious to me what it would be. Modern English is much less phonetic than classical Tibetan as well.

HPsquared |root |parent |next |previous [-]

English does encode meaning in the spelling, and the connection between spelling and pronunciation is loose at best.

The spelling of a word is more connected to the meaning than it is to the pronunciation.

colechristensen |root |parent |previous [-]

Here's an fMRI study of reading Japanese Hiragana (phonetic), Kanji (logographic) and English as the reader's second language.

They all activate different regions of the brain and clearly are being processed in different ways.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2782536/

gus_massa |next |previous [-]

It would be nice to replicate in other languages. In Spanish and German, reading is almost phonetic, unlike English.

Anyway, from my experience with my daughter, the step from single letters to silabes is difficult.

taeric |root |parent |next [-]

"Reading is almost phonetic" is a largely meaningless phrase. There are some orthographies that are more regular than others. But, indeed, the very confusion people love to talk about with English only works if it is phonetic, but ambiguous.

And just solving for one form of ambiguity does not, necessarily, help. Consider contronyms. Words that are literally their own opposites.

I'm convinced the main thing lost in getting kids to read, is that too many mistake interaction with the words as automatic. It isn't. Taking apart a word symbol by symbol and putting it back together in a different form is the entire point of teaching how to read. And if you don't teach kids to do that with words, are you surprised when they can't do it with equations?

tuukkah |root |parent |next [-]

I think you misunderstand. In a largely phonetic language, almost everyone learns to read in one school semester, after which it's a fully solved problem - no spelling bees or anything. Peculiarly, you don't need spelling bees either when learning English later. ("Contronyms" and "words" are orthogonal to reading as they apply to spoken language too (and it's very much automatic).)

taeric |root |parent [-]

I think you don't understand the various orthographies.

Again, you base the claim that English is not phonetic based on confusions in how different phonemes are represented using the 26 symbols of our alphabet. A thing that is defined as symbols representing phonemes. You could also have a syllabary or a logography. The syllabary would still be phonetic, of course. A logographic writing system is truly not phonetic. Think emoji.

And, of course, I'm summarizing very very briefly.

tuukkah |root |parent [-]

Of course, you don't have to believe me; you could also read about the orthographic depth of English vs other languages on Wikipedia or something. "In shallow orthographies, the spelling-sound correspondence is direct: from the rules of pronunciation, one is able to pronounce the word correctly.[1] That is to say, shallow (transparent) orthographies, also called phonemic orthographies, have a one-to-one relationship between its graphemes and phonemes, and the spelling of words is very consistent. Examples include Japanese kana, Hindi, Lao (since 1975), Spanish, Finnish, Turkish, Georgian, Latin, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Ukrainian, and Welsh. [--] English is unusual because it combines deep orthography, with multiple possible sounds for many letters.[2] This makes it among the most difficult languages in the world to learn to read." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthographic_depth

taeric |root |parent [-]

From the intro of the page you link: "The orthographic depth of an alphabetic orthography indicates the degree to which a written language deviates from simple one-to-one letter–phoneme correspondence."

So, sure, if you want to discuss about how English orthography is deep, go for it. I won't even really disagree. Quite the contrary.

The opening claim was that it wasn't phonetic, though. That is a different thing.

It is funny seeing Japanese as the first example in your quote, as it has both a phonetic syllabary (two, actually) and a non-phonetic logography. That is, you literally have to learn to read a non-phonetic orthography in order to read Japanese!

btreesOfSpring |root |parent |previous [-]

There is a reason why German kids don't have spelling bees.

taeric |root |parent [-]

And, of course, the main reason we have spelling bees is that people enjoy them.

phainopepla2 |root |parent |next [-]

But they are only possible because the phonetic rules of English are far from consistent

taeric |root |parent [-]

This feels like a strong reason to keep both, to me. People enjoy them, and they enable fun games. :D

phainopepla2 |root |parent [-]

I completely agree. I love the weirdness of English and would hate it to have it smoothed out

pessimizer |root |parent |previous [-]

In Western alphabetic languages other than French, English, and Portuguese, not being able to spell the word is virtually identical to not knowing how to say the word.

People who spell words wrong in Spanish are either on the one hand mixing up "k" and "que," "b" and "v," maybe screwing up "c" with "k," "s" and "que" or forgetting the accent placement rules; or on the other hand they've literally heard and said the word incorrectly all their lives.

Also, even the misspellings in Spanish will 99.9% result in perfect pronunciation. The accent rules are just about where you're allowed to omit it, or when you add it to a one-syllable word and it doesn't actually indicate an accent. The error you're most likely to make is to put one in when it is unnecessary.

taeric |root |parent [-]

My apologies if it came across differently; but I'm well aware what a regular orthography is.

I do have a bit of a pet peeve on the stance that English doesn't have a phonetic orthography. It absolutely does. To teach kids otherwise is a massive disservice to the kids.

It is easy to think that all of the exceptions to how things work in English are problematic. The catch, of course, is that many of them are specifically used as fun games to play with the words.

To me, it is the equivalent of planned city centers versus organic variants. Reality is almost certainly that both can work. And there will be preference of folks between the two.

tuukkah |root |parent |previous [-]

You should think "the step from single sounds to syllables", and the way to do that is to begin with the easy syllables like "tu", "mi", "el" (not unlike the multiplication or addition tables) before moving to longer ones. [And note that M alone is not "em", it has to be "m" when learning to read - a common pedagogical mistake! M + I makes "mi" not "emi", so M must be "m".] At least that's how children are taught in Finnish schools since sometime before the 1980s, and since then almost everyone learns to read during the first school semester. Also, one simple and efficient protection against dyslexia is to play the Graphogame (or similar) to get a lot of repetition with the sound-letter correspondences while learning to read (for various reasons, some brains take longer to build the necessary connections and you want to avoid the negative affects of learning slower than your peers if you can).

taeric |root |parent [-]

I contest this. There is no correct "step from" in this. There is a post-hoc explanation for why a lot of things work. And there is some benefit in regularity. But most of this is, as stated, post hoc.

Consider, how do you read "f=ma", or "e=mc^2"? Why don't those follow the same rules? They use the same symbols as our alphabets, after all?

Or consider "do re mi" is pronounced differently from "do re me". And, amusingly, most people will not read those correctly. This doesn't rob the names of the notes as meaningless. Nor does it mean that they are not taught correctly. But you learn to interact with the symbols. Not merely transcribe them between representations.

skyberrys |next |previous [-]

The solution pointed to by this article is as basic and practical as learning how to read is. For someone to become a successful reader they need a supportive environment around them, willing to work with the young reader and help them overcome the many small difficulties that make reading seem impossible at first.

aleqs |next |previous [-]

Somewhat off-topic but related - doing a lot of AI-assisted coding lately, multiple projects at the same time. I'm basically in 15 hour loops of reviewing code/output and creating prompts, switching to the next project while Claude (and others) work. I noticed an almost dyslexia emerging where I'm thinking of the prompt/instructions while typing, then I look at what I typed and it's not what I was thinking - sometimes it's a combination of two different thoughts/prompts that are actually intended for separate projects. It's so weird - I can instantly recognize it's wrong when re-reading the prompt and I still have my intended prompt/instructions in my head. I've never been diagnosed with dyslexia or ever had similar things happen, before AI seemingly captured my brain with the promise of delivering one some of the dozens of my dormant projects/ideas. Maybe I need a break...

anonymars |root |parent [-]

> I'm thinking of the prompt/instructions while typing, then I look at what I typed and it's not what I was thinking

> I'm basically in 15 hour loops

When does...sleeping...happen?

aleqs |root |parent [-]

It happens, but I know it's not enough, and I semi-regularly dream about my projects and AI coding at this point. I do take breaks as well, for food/showers/etc, so not as crazy as it sounds - though I try to line up any breaks with periods when the bots are working on something long/hard..

wglb |next |previous [-]

Dr. Daniel Hajovsky, associate professor in Texas A&M University's Department of Educational Psychology published study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40863201/

jacknews |next |previous [-]

'an'?

Is bad grammar one of the reasons, even though the title suggests there is just one?

genxy |next |previous [-]

Can someone corroborate the lead in

> For decades, the common explanation for why children struggle to read has stayed remarkably consistent. Smart kids read well. Kids who don't simply aren't smart enough.

This strikes me as something that was debunked in the 60s. Ascribing reading ability to intelligence seems like the most fatalistic thought terminating idea one can have.

JMKH42 |next |previous [-]

The article is strange, as it starts with "we used to think it was just that smart kids read well, but this new study etc etc"

But the details of the new study seem to support exactly that original idea.

Perhaps a little more detail on why and what kinds of smart, but it was a pretty broad set of mental skills that mattered

tuukkah |root |parent [-]

"We used to think dyslexia was related to IQ but it's largely orthogonal." More specifically, dyslexia is not a generic learning disability, it's a highly specific one (and mostly preventable).

QuercusMax |next |previous [-]

One of my kids has a fair bit of auditory processing issues, and had to have special help in school learning to read - we couldn't figure out how to help them at home. Now they're the biggest reader I know, but without help they might have continued to struggle for a long time.

echelon_musk |next |previous [-]

An unexpected cause!

U is a vowel.

suddenlybananas |next |previous [-]

This has been the mainstream understanding of dyslexia since the 1990s.

"Since the 1990s, the phonological deficit hypothesis has been the dominant explanation favored by researchers" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_deficit_hypothesi...

technothrasher |root |parent [-]

It's always seemed crazy to me when people talk about "the cause" of dyslexia. There are so many brain processes involved in reading, that any number of issues could be a cause of someone's dyslexia. It's like saying "the cause" of water drainage issues is beavers.

suddenlybananas |root |parent [-]

I do think a lot of researchers propose different subtypes of dyslexia nowadays, with different explanations and potentially different treatments.

htx80nerd |previous [-]

it must be rad to be a scientist and get paid to do a bunch of BS that doesnt really matter and most people wont even double check your work and then if anyone questions your work hordes of Internet Hero's will defend your Expert Honor