
How Spelling Keeps Kids From Learning - rangibaby
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/02/how-the-english-language-is-holding-kids-back/385291/?single_page=true
======
Aoyagi
This really seems like excusing the underperforming education system in US and
cultural glorification of language bastardization. Every language has some
areas that are difficult to grasp and English is one of the easier languages,
as most people who have learned more than two foreign languages (including
English, of course) can tell.

~~~
sthreet
Everyone seems to agree that schools are garbage. Why doesn't someone do
something about it?

Also, this is off topic, but a decent place to ask: Why are there no
programming classes in schools? (I've heard 'politics' before, but it has
never been explained to me.)

~~~
germinalphrase
School is 'garbage' because it's compulsory and is one of the few areas in a
young person's life where they are forced to be disciplined when they're lazy,
be organized when they're not, be thoughtful when they're pleased with simple,
and/or work hard when they're tired.

There are plenty of reasons to criticize the specific ways in which we educate
our children - but the general unease with the 'education system' has more to
do with everyone having been through it (making them experts on teaching,
apparently) and having negative memories of a time where they were
particularly socially and mentally stressed.

~~~
sthreet
While I don't like school for those reasons, I also don't like how I don't get
any options to actually learn stuff. Especially stuff that I care about. (I do
learn some things, but not much.)

I personally like math, but we have spent more than a week on basic
sin/cos/tan/csc/sec/cot curves doing things I already know.

Also, I don't like stress. Some amount of stress is bad, but I don't care
about my grades anymore because that was too much stress. (I'm good at school,
so I can get good grades just by doing my homework, the increase isn't worth
the stress.)

I've also noticed the few adults (mostly my mom/relatives) I've talked to in
real life about school (I've talked to other people in running start (college
classes in high school) or at game jams, but not about how I don't like
school.) seem to be of the opinion that I "need to learn stuff and things."

If I learn less after school I will be very disappointed, because I'm pretty
much terrible at everything I do and I need to get decent at something.

~~~
germinalphrase
The real relevance of content in school is often terrible, but until we can
truly figure out what we care to educate our children about (which is
exceedingly difficult without being able to agree on what skills will be
needed in the future economy) compulsory education will remain hindered in
this way.

At least for me, I would like to see a de-emphasis of content and A stronger
focus on preparing young people to educate themselves, to be curious about our
world. If you bring this to the table on your own I would hardly worry about
'learning less after school'. After all, only you have done your learning this
far in life. School is only one structure for learning (that is often expected
to be/treated as if it's the only one).

------
PeterisP
By the way, it's not like other languages magically happened to avoid the same
problems - from what I see looking at 19th century European text, they had the
same issues that English still has.

Most of those languages have made a spelling reform or two that did exactly
the proposed radical changes to spelling of words, including common words, to
make spelling mostly match pronounciation.

~~~
dietrichepp
Other languages don't just have spelling reforms, but they also have
institutions which periodically update the spelling of words.

For example, in Spanish, "Iraq" is spelled "Irak"—but only as of 2010! The
change came with justifications: that it avoids the use of "q" outside of the
digraph "qu", and that the terminal "k" is nowadays more familiar in words
borrowed from other languages.

Japanese is a famously difficult language, but in the past century and a half,
they've had multiple reforms which standardized and eliminated
characters—there are more changes in the works, but it looks like they'll get
new characters, such as "gaiji".

As an English writer I feel left out.

~~~
iopq
You don't want to learn Kanji, there's about 2000 of them for words and they
have several different readings depending on context. At least you can guess
the reading of some English words when you read them.

~~~
paulsutter
Actually in Japanese the kanji makes it much easier to guess meanings,
especially with place names which look bland and empty in romanji.

It's pronunciation that's hard to guess from kanji.

~~~
kyllo
I like how there are two ways to say "I have a headache" in Japanese, and they
are written with the exact same Chinese characters, but are pronounced
_completely_ differently:

頭が痛い (atama ga itai)

頭痛がする (zutsuu ga suru)

~~~
vorg
Also in Chinese, "我有頭痛", tho "我有头疼" is often used in mainland speech.

~~~
kyllo
"我有頭痛" sounds very Taiwanese. This usage of 有 is an artifact of Taiwanese /
Minnan dialect. The Standard Mandarin （普通话） way to phrase that sentence is
just "我头疼" or "我头很疼". Also like you said, 疼 sounds a little more mainland and
痛 sounds a little more Taiwanese. A general word for "pain" is 疼痛, they are
really synonymous.

------
Udik
I don't really think that native English speakers have a problem in knowing
how a certain sequence of characters should be pronounced. This kind of
problem is usually typical of people (of any native language) with high levels
of literacy - it happens when a substantial part of their vocabulary comes
from reading books rather than oral communication (be it person to person or
tv/ cinema). To me, the problem of native English speakers seems to be that
they are often unable to _write_ their native language well enough not to come
across as uneducated people.

I am an Italian living in an English speaking country. I never had any problem
in remembering the correct spelling of English words, and I believe it's
because I can read them with the Italian pronunciation (in which spelling and
sound are perfectly matching). It's probably much easier for the brain to
remember a sequence of sounds rather than a sequence of symbols. So I wonder
if anybody has ever tried, as a teaching tool, to teach children to read
English with an "alphabetic" pronunciation that associates exactly one sound
to each letter. Assigning to every word a "written" sound on top of the
"spoken" sound could help in remembering the correct spelling.

~~~
vorg
Because of the different accents, vowel sounds are pronounced differently in
different native English countries and regions of countries, so associating
one letter to a sound is only possible if you chose a particular accent, e.g.
U.S. Great Lakes, U.S. Kentucky, or U.K. Manchester.

------
vorg
English-speaking children typically needed about three years to master the
basics of reading and writing, whereas their counterparts in most European
countries needed a year or less. [...] That’s bad news for English-speaking
societies, which represent about 6 percent of the world’s population

That's also bad news for learners of English as a second language, who
represent another perhaps 60% of the world.

~~~
gambiting
I've been learning English since I was six, then went to a British university,
completed my degree and now I live and work in the UK. My proficiency level
would be easily rated at C1/C2 level - I am completely fluent in both reading
and writing.

And yet, I still find words in English that I simply don't know how to
pronounce. I can give them a try, but unless I've heard someone else say them,
I have no idea. That's a huge problem with English and I know that a lot of
people who learn English as a their second language struggle with it.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I'm a native English speaker (Australian) and I find myself looking at a
dictionary on average 5 times a day. Probably because of this, and an amateur
passion for linguistics, I have a broader depth of knowledge on word
definitions and pronunciations than most people I communicate with.

It's certainly not uncommon for native English speakers to have no idea how to
pronounce a whole bunch of English words because they don't use them, so
you're not alone there.

I always tell people: read with a dictionary and understand the pronunciation
key! Or use an app or web dictionary that has a 'play' button.

Having said all of that, I don't know if it's a huge problem - most people get
by fine with the words they know, and domain-specific words tend to be ones
you learn in the field.

~~~
sthreet
How did you figure out pronunciation keys? I've tried before, I don't even
think that they are consistent between dictionaries.

Also, as a sidenote: I won't be learning pronunciation that way because I
would rather enjoy reading things than learn to pronounce them properly.

------
lordnacho
>Ultimately, about one out of every five English speakers are functionally
illiterate, meaning they "cannot read or write well enough for everyday
literacy needs," Bell said.

This is an utterly surprising statistic. Do they mean people who aren't native
speakers?

Having lived in the UK for many years, I never came across anyone who couldn't
read for daily needs. How would you even use public transport?

~~~
sirwolfgang
I think this might be a US centric article.

~~~
rhino369
20% only sounds right if you are lumping in immigrants who are barely able to
speak English.

------
teddyh
_Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse._

[…]

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Chaos](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Chaos)

Further notes:

[http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/cyc/e/pronounc.htm](http://www-
users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/cyc/e/pronounc.htm)

------
angdis
I think it is worth it to try this but it will likely go the way of Esperanto.
English really is NOT especially challenging compared to other languages. And
as anyone who travels in Europe will realize, there seems to be little problem
with people learning it as a second language.

~~~
Cthulhu_
I'd say that's not so much because of whether it's easy or hard to learn or
not, but because the vast majority of media (mostly movies and TV, but
nowadays also the internet) is in English, often subtitled. Some countries dub
it (like Germany), so the level of English there is often lower.

It's amount of exposure, clear and simple. Replace English TV with Spanish or
Finnish or maybe Korean and you'd probably have the same effect. That said
though, English is relatively close to western-European languages; similar
origins and influences, so the barrier to learn English in addition to a
western European language is lower than learning Russian or Korean and,
arguably, Spanish or Italian.

------
efaref
I really don't understand why educators persist in trying to teach English
reading and writing phonetically. It's not a phonetic language, so surely it
is harmful to pretend that it is and lie to children about it.

Children learning Chinese can learn the Chinese character set through rote,
and there's no reason why we can't be honest and accept that English learners
have to do the same, too.

------
rootbear
When my friend married a Hungarian woman, she brought her teenage sons to the
US with her. I told them that I wanted to apologize in advance for two things:
English spelling, and the Imperial measuring system. They were amused. While
they all knew some English, the boys, not surprisingly, have learned more
quickly than their mother.

------
analog31
_English has 205 ways to spell 44 sounds._

How's that compare to Chinese? Are Chinese kids at a disadvantage learning to
read?

------
cafard
What would the normative pronunciation be, and how long would it remain
stable?

And I find this very strange: 'On the other hand, the American concept of
"reading level" doesn’t even exist in countries with more regular spelling
systems.' Surely there is more to reading levels than knowing how the words
sound.

------
6stringmerc
Painting with a broad brush, this article is.

English is my native language, but I spent many years achieving fluency in
French and that included extensive study of culture. I achieved a degree in
English literature so I also know the background of the language (re: oops
everybody who speaks Latin is dead - thanks plague!). English is by and large
the most complex "cultural dumping ground" of the world. American English is
incredibly diverse.

What bothers me so much is that the cultural issues surrounding language are
far more complex than the English language itself. Citing Finland or South
Korea is bullshit because they are very homogeneous societies and cultures.
Toss in a bunch of Central Americans trying to learn Korean as a second
language, or Gold Coast Africans trying to learn Finnish and show me what that
study looks like. Bad, that's what. Why? Because those KSL and FSL students
will be on the outside of the culture, and be dealing with literacy not just
in speaking/reading/writing, but of adapting to a world that they do not know.

Boston English isn't the same as Mississippi English which isn't the same as
San Diego English. Basic literacy, spelling, is the glue that allows people to
move between cultures within the same language. That's why slang is so amazing
in American English - it's all the influences and rule breaking that the
language can stand...which, as my studies have shown, is one of the major
criticisms against French as a language and culture. It's interesting to me
and really broadened my worldview.

Now, after throwing the notion and explanations from this article in the
trash, I do have an alternate issue that must be addressed within English
learning. The day that "technology" renders writing by hand obsolete - which
is a frequent argument I've heard put forth by parents and lazy students (Who
writes cursive anymore? Why do I have to learn division when I have a
calculator?) - students will be cheating their brain development. Why is
cursive hard? Because it's forcing mental connections between the linguistic
and motor skill areas of the brain. Same goes for working on basic math
problems by hand.

Just like taking hits to the head in football, using performance enhancing
tools should be evaluated on the basis of maturity of mind having achieved the
basic skill set by which the enhancement is dependent. Also, pay sucks in
Education and the dynamic of parents/administrators is one that I'm smart
enough to avoid. Want smarter kids? Make them work harder.

------
song
In term of spelling French is much worse than English. I wonder how they
compare in term of education level. My anecdotal experience living and going
to school in both England and France as a kid leads me to believe that the
level of British primary school is not very high and that basic knowledge in
math and reading is introduced slower there.

~~~
dghf
> In term of spelling French is much worse than English.

Is it? Certainly, multiple sequences of characters map to the same sound: the
final vowels in _et, est, thé, années, soleil, clef_ all sound identical (at
least to my ear: there may be some subtleties of pronounciaton that escape
me).

But from what little study I've done of French, I don't remember the opposite
problem being as bad: a given sequence of characters is generally pronounced
in one way. So if you come across an unfamiliar French word, you can take a
punt at how it's pronounced, and the odds are you'll be correct.

There are of course exceptions, especially with proper nouns ( _Moët_ , as in
the champagne, is pronounced _moe-ETTE_ not _moe-AY_ , Freddie Mercury not
withstanding), but these seem to be fewer than in English.

[Edited for grammar.]

~~~
juliangregorian
In proper french nouns the final consonant is usually pronounced.

~~~
dghf
Is that really the case? There seem to be an awful lot where it's not: Bardot,
Paris, Nantes, Flaubert, Monet, Camus, Dumas, Rimbaud, Truffaut, Roux,
Lacroix, Godard, Foucault, Bordeaux, Versailles, Calais, Maginot....

~~~
juliangregorian
I should say "often" rather than "usually". Regular french nouns are much
stricter in contrast.

~~~
dghf
That I can believe. English proper nouns are likewise typically more badly
behaved, especially British English ones: Worcester ( _WUSS-ter_ ),
Featherstonehaugh ( _FAN-shaw_ ), Dalziel, ( _d '-YELL_), Menzies ( _MING-iz_
).

