For what it’s worth, I write best when my thinking is the most clear. Writing is often viewed as a process of pulling assorted (and often torturous) thoughts from the brain and wrangling them onto paper. For me it has always been about wrangling them within my brain into cohesive and coherent mental form and then committing them to paper (or screen). Anything else is putting the cart before the horse and feels contrived and unnatural. I don’t know how closely this hews to your theory of writing. But when I first read your philosophy of writing instruction in the intro to Writing With Skill, I nearly wept — it made perfect sense.

Writing clearly stretches both mind and soul. I agree that we need more dialogue, if it’s focused and meaningful. And though I do think there is beneficial research potential for AI application, I believe we lose part of what it can mean to be human when we outsource everything or speed up everything instead of wrestling through thoughts and organizing ideas ourselves.

I have moved to prioritizing oral recitation in my own learning and studies. If I can give an extempore explanation in lay language of the academic ideas and language being used to discuss education theories, I know I've understood my class!

In college lit courses I always found that I discovered what I thought during the course of writing. Just as Britton hypothesized. I always thought it was fascinating that it took pen to paper to find out what was really in my mind. So perhaps if it is not well born out by studies since then it is because it is a personal thing and many others do not experience this phenomenon. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think there are different types of thinkers. Some people need to work out their ideas verbally in interaction with others to be able to write, and some people need to work out their thoughts on paper in order to be prepared to talk about them.

Well, I AM curious about the push that’s out now to return to pen and paper in elementary and middle schools since the tablet-led learning popular in recent years was in most opinions a failure.

I’ve believed in the power of discussion since my Honors 101 class with Dr. Michael Harrington at Ole Miss many years ago. It was the first time anyone had asked me to think instead of regurgitate. It changed the way I learned and, years later, shaped the way I teach.

This is an intriguing thought. I can imagine that having a robust debate or even just a well worded defense of our position would be a wonderful test.

At this point I welcome all new ideas about how to work through this rather than insisting students return to times of the past. The cat is out of the bag!

I value and enjoy writing and have a lot of qualms about AI taking over written words with slop, but I also can see that at least one of my kids can't be bribed or threatened to write more than 3 sentences, but could have a detailed and interactive conversation (or narrate) about wolves being reintroduced to Yellowstone, the benefits of a base 60 math system, or the challenges of Elgar's cello concerto. He certainly does a lot of thinking without a lot of writing.

It's clearly time for everyone to re-read Socrates's dialogue with Phaedrus, touching on the differences between discourse and rhetoric! (Or something similar to that; it's been a while, and clearly the practice of reading and writing has dulled my memory and thus my mind!)

I had to talk it through in order to write. I love the idea that both are essential skills but different, and this is how I intuitively taught my homeschoolers. I definitely think making little kids who can barely do the mechanics of writing letters on paper, who are actively still learning to decode words in reading and haven’t encountered enough words to have a very complete grasp of spelling, who don’t know conventions of English grammar and punctuation plus making them come up with stories was way too much. We broke these into hopefully enjoyable separate things with no pressure for many years and focused on reading, and listen while mom read. I loved our discussions, all though high school. I actually think this is true. I like it. But I love cultivating good writing too….

Thank you for posting this! I recently started teaching a writing, speech, and argumentation course for homeschooled high school students and these are the exact waters I’m surfing right now. We have to have better answers than just a brake pedal (though we need that too!) Resonating MAJORLY with the idea that essays do not equal engagement with content. My students are eager to debate and to learn the principles of good communication skills - and they want to do it in real time. I’m assigning them writing to help them organize their thoughts, but not as a final measure of critical thinking. This gives me a lot to think about, thanks!

When I taught an online honors course based on your book, "The Story of Western Science," I relied heavily upon live online interaction. I led the discussions of the first few chapters, to model my expectations; after that, for the rest of the book, the students led 85% of the class time, each one signing up for a few chapters. The lead student would do some additional background reading, and develop discussion questions (presentations optional). I might help wrap up, depending on how needful it felt, and then I'd make a brief introduction to the next chapter and do a bit of tying the threads together. The students also maintained a group interactive timeline, which they loved. We did also have interactive discussion boards for the time between classes, where they helped each other with concepts and questions, but again those were not a significant part of the grading scheme. While I did require a *short* 1-3 page reflection essay at the end of each unit, the heart of the course-- and most of the grading-- depended on those discussion sections. I loved teaching it, the students were engaged enough in the material that they didn't shy away from the public speaking and leadership, and I had minimal worries about AI or other forms of cheating. I did use a rubric for the discussion leading and participation, to ensure some measure of objectivity, but in the end most of the students did well, and those that didn't, often admitted as much to me even before grades were assigned; it was a class where students developed a good sense of whether they were putting in their best effort or not. I think the model has its pros and cons just like any other plan, but as far as the students and I were concerned, it was pretty effective at getting them to engage with the material at more than a superficial level, and they couldn't just cram together an essay ten minutes before class to get a grade.

This is the thing that is and will shut my 2e kids out of academia and other fields. Which is sad for them, but also a loss for those fields because -not just mom pride- their unique ways of processing and challenging mean you don’t ever get the expected response. When quizzed orally, or able to present, etc they have never failed to make an impression. But when even math requires writing, and that’s the thing your brain can’t process, what can be done? They both feel like failures or question their documented abilities. I know why written work came into play, it reduced stress on poor test takers, provided data, etc. but it also bypassed those who weren’t able to spit out a reflection paper to prove they read the chapter in six classes, or explain how they got the answer in math class. As we now homeschool, we use a mastery approach, but I don’t know where that will help at the college level. Sadly, my philosopher will not easily be able to access any course of study that starts with an essay for entry. He might just be an audit for personal development student for life while trying to find work to support that.

Marti Eads you came to mind when reading this. Somehow I remember you helping us to both write AND think in your college classes 😃

I'm disposed to care about reading and conversation as methods toward thinking (and particularly communal ones!), but I found this essay difficult to take seriously after its ridiculous oversimplification: "Most college professors I know believe that students learn to think — critically, creatively, reflectively, tenaciously — only by writing." It's hard for me to believe that any of those known professors would believe themselves justly characterized by that sentence. It's really fun to generalize about colleges and college professors these days, apparently.

So basically a seminar. Well, duh! But both discussions and writing should be part of a good education. 

“Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write." ~John Adams Is Adams identifying a hierarchy here?

Fascinating discussion. I can only add my two cents from homeschooling my kiddies. My eldest had a speech problem and the preschool public school sent a speech therapist who helped her enunciate words more clearly and in the process, my girl learned to read. Two more kids used the Teacher Your Child to Read in a hundred easy lessons… and as promised at age 3, they were both devouring books (problem was, there are not many books at a second grade reading level that toddlers can understand). Last child.. was not ready (and we tried twice at age 3) for the 100 easy lessons. Around age 5, he came around to it. Yes, what is appropriate is different for everyone, but creating a love and joy for reading/words/communication is the same for all. Even with strong readers, our favorite time in homeschool were the read alouds.

I think they are responding to the early education of toddlers. How soon can I get my kid to read? Idea. Instead of simply doing life. That is an a, apple starts with a.

Singing sounds great for auditory learners. What about visual learners? A learning style may never be permanently fixed or determined, so why not teach toddlers the same way we do teach older kids? Offer multiple approaches for various learning styles. Developmentally appropriate doesn't mean, to me, that the child is ready for print; it means how much they can process of something for their age/level/ability before frustration.

Susan Neuman and Maryanne Wolf are both well-respected researchers and their work is generally in line with the way you describe your mother’s advice. They do need to be concerned with folks(sometimes policymakers and others in schools) who do begin to torment toddlers with flash cards. Based on their work, I think they are concerned more with the Baby Einstein phenomenon you mentioned. “Science of Reading” can overdo phonics and be reductionist. I would recommend Maryanne Wolf’s book Reader, Come Home (2018). Readers of this Facebook page may resonate with that work.

Only comment? Subtitles on shows/content played a big role in how two of my children learned how to read. One taught himself, and he preferred whole language. He is learning phonics after the fact to help with spelling. We really need to stop this “XYZ is the only way children should learn how to read” and “this is age by which they should or else”. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Check out this article, Lori Hudson Murphy. It’s good stuff and right up your Prek alley. 👍👍😊

What’s the hurry?

My experience with my non-dyslexic kid was that he was able to learn the letter sounds the way he learned the words for everything in his world. He did this easily at 18 months and was reading by age two. He called it "doing the letters with Mommy," and loved it.

One of my kids started identifying letters of the alphabet all by himself about a month after he turned 3. Might have been related to his older sister starting Kindergarten but that’s what seems to happen when you homeschool.

I couldn’t stop my child from learning letters!

My work is teaching dyslexic kids to read. Ironically, my oldest was reading at 3 by happenstance not my doing. My second kid has dyslexia and started my journey into teaching reading. I have done this work for 15 years, therefore I feel pretty qualified to weigh in. Before true reading can happen, a child must develop phonemic awareness. This is best done by rhyming and reading to a child. Also, there are physical activities, like playing patty cake, which help reading by developing neural pathways between brain hemispheres by crossing the midline. So much early play inherently develops early reading skills. Skipping those activities and making a 3 year old use flashcards risks making them dislike reading and learning. Reading to your kid and keeping them off screens is the best way to get them reading.

I taught preschool for 12 years and other ages (including 2 of my own kids) for 20. I didn't teach letters in isolation til later, but it was very casual. The first thing I did was work with each child's name. Yes, we sang the letter songs, we took big breaths and said letter sounds as we exhaled, we matched letter to letter with clothespins on a string, we hunted for magnet letters in lentils....play is the way. No worksheets, no tracing til much later...

Your mother was so wise. Some kids are early readers like my oldest. She LOVED learning the alphabet. I started teaching her to write her letters because she was copying them from books and forming them wrong well before she should've begun picking up a pencil. It's like the people who say sharing is not developmentally appropriate and don't even teach their kids to share. Training a kid means walking them through a process over and over, giving them opportunities to grow and learn, not pressuring them but showing and demonstrating. Not teaching my oldest when she was showing she was ready would've been wrong.

Yeah, both my kids, including my dyslexic kid, knew upper and lower case letters and principal sounds by 18 months old. It was pretty effortless and easy and didn’t require any drilling or anything. I’ve taught hundreds of 2 and 3 year olds, and learning to recognize letters and sounds is easy and developmentally appropriate, honestly. I hesitate to even call it teaching any more than any other conversation.

I think part of the problem is painting all children with the same brush. The thing people forget about whole language, for example, is that it actually DOES work for some kids. But public education fails millions of children for whom it doesn't work if it skips phonics. Individual letters may be tough for some toddlers, and others may relish the challenge and learn to read early. There are few things that are universally "developmentally inappropriate" because each child is unique. And while we're on the subject, both of my kids were immersed in the same language-rich environment and one of them is a late talker for reasons unknown. So that "will" in the Jesse Bauer quote should be a "may." (I'm also baffled by the expert in the article mentioning Denmark and Finland because they are completely different countries with different cultures, educational norms, and languages.)

I'm in no way an expert, but late last year I read your mom's book on teaching reading. My then-3-year-old had plateaued in speech therapy and was behind, so I decided two things: it was time for a break from therapy, and if she understood how letters formed words and sounds, it might help her fluency. So for the next 8 months, we sang the alphabet, talked about words all day, and worked through the sounds she needed most, borrowing songs like "A says ah, A says ah, apples, acorn, ants, Alice (her friend), A says ah." I picked a letter of the week based on what she needed to master, and we had a great time singing, reading, drawing letters, watching movies and specials, talking about sounds incessantly. It just became part of our normal routine. Well — my younger daughter sang the whole alphabet song at 19 months (she's way ahead), and her big sister's speech, pronunciation, and fluency exploded. When my now-4-year-old went back to speech therapy in July with a different therapist, she wasn't just caught up, she was ahead. Her preschool teachers couldn't believe she was the same child, just months later. One size doesn't fit all, but it sure fits some. She's not reading yet but it's starting to come together. But in terms of confidence she's gained so much and will now speak to adults, make jokes, tease, respond to questions. It's been such a privilege to watch her bloom.

It was always innate within me to teach my children throughout life. When they had a question, I answered. We sang songs. We read books. We encouraged learning through all different styles. I have six kids. One didn’t read until she was 8. One read at 3. One didn’t talk until 2.5. Two of them were speaking simple sentences at 15 months. It was honestly a mystery to me how people didn’t parent this way. I couldn’t help but just be led by my children’s interest and zest for life.

My freshly three year old knows all his letters and most of the sounds. Some of it from reading, puzzles, shows, songs, talking about things. Both/and for sure.

There is a FB ad selling a new reading product that is what I suspect this was written in response to. In the marketing of the product the parent explains that the purpose of having your child learn to read early is so that the schools can’t hold the kid back and can move forward. The regular pace of K-2 grades for smart and well-prepared kids is quite slow, so the theory is that if your kid enters school knowing how to read you can set them up for learning other stuff. Nationally, kids attending public schools with the highest socioeconomic indicators are operating 2 grades ahead of their peers. Parents in the know understand that some kids pick up reading quite easily, and those kids are provided all sorts of self-esteem advantages from that early victory. It’s a snowball effect or Matthew effect as good readers just become better over time and a small initial advantage CAN turn into real academic differences later. But what I find weird about American culture is how you don’t see many think pieces about teaching your kid to swim at 6months or ride two-wheel bikes at age 2 instead of tricycles, or learning how to play sports. The only area that seems to be criticized is when families try to support early academic preparation and I find that super odd. And it’s also odd to talk about countries with very simple and phonetic languages which may not start formal schooling until late while neglecting to mention the very rich early childhood environments they also support and btw many of the kids end up entering their schooling already reading.

I agree. My 3 1/2 year-old watches her older sister, and has been asking to do "school." I just spend about 10- 15 minutes a day with her on a little Math and phonemic awareness activities. It gives her one on one time with mommy, and gives her a little bit of structure. Ironically, both of my kids learned their letters from a pack of alphabet flashcards with Frozen characters on the back, not the crafts I carefully printed out and planned for them. They mostly insisted that I do the crafting for them. Lol

I was a reading specialist with a Master's in Reading Education. I had taught many kids to read.So my own child knew the alphabet and letter sounds by 3. However, he had no interest in reading stories until 10. He listened to thousands of picture books though, his vocabulary is marvelous, and he still prefers audio books now though he's read dozens of printed chapter books. Sometimes they don't want to read until they are ready. I also had copies of the Watergate Institute books and DVDs for phonics that are still wonderful. Your child can watch the Rusty and Rosey phonics videos on YouTube.

I still remember people being amazed that my under-2 year-old not only knew letters and numbers, but had a concept of letters and numbers. I didn't teach anything at that age but she picked it up in conversation, singing, and Sesame Street. My younger children didn't learn letters and numbers as early, and one of them really struggled to the point I worried that she would never be literate. They each had their own pace and path, but they are all successful adults.

It's interesting. I definitely wouldn't want to push flashcards on little kids. 100%. I also know that when literacy is done right, unless there is dyslexia, it doesn't have to take so long, and so starting in Kindergarten (when hopefully kids are turning 6), isn't a terrible idea. You can still have play (for the sake of play. I have seen strange ideas of play in NYC PS in pre-k. It was playish, not play). Nell K. Duke actually published research about teaching letter names in Pre-K, and she also discusses in other places the need for play. It's definitely true, that TRUE play doesn't have push away literacy instruction. www.facebook.com/share/p/1AGXCaC9k5/