Reading In The Modern World

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

I was often approached with so-called "school" problems: a child from seven to 17 years old does not study well / does not answer in lessons / does not do homework / does not want to go to school … etc. While examining these children, I paid attention for one feature. Their mental processes, which are basic for learning at school, could be within the normal range. But all these children read disgustingly. Even 16 year olds. They did not understand anything from what they read, although I allowed them to read twice and three times, by ear, and to myself - as convenient. Some could have asked "what did you read about?" to repeat the paragraph almost word for word, but found it difficult to answer specific questions; with an excellent memory, they could mechanically memorize the text, but understand what it was about - no, never.

All the dots on the “i's” were made for me by a meeting with L. A. Yasyukova, Ph. D. in Psychology, who has been dealing with the problems of reading and literacy for a long time. In her opinion, with which it is difficult to disagree, modern educational programs (based on the phonemic method) have one defect: they cannot teach a child to read meaningfully. They only teach to translate letters into sounds and pronounce them. The unit of reading then is a syllable, children do not see words and sentences, only syllables. Any text for them is a set of sounds that does not carry any meaning. L. A. Yasyukova sees the inability to read as the cause of the following problems: illiterate writing and lack of conceptual thinking.

As a person who loves and knows how to read meaningfully, I was horrified and found in my environment even adults who prefer videos on YouTube to reading and do not have signs of formed conceptual thinking: they draw conclusions based on an insignificant but vivid feature, cannot classify and synthesize, foresee events and fill in the missing links in the logical chain.

I will give simple examples from life. At first - examples about reading. A young colleague on the phone asks me to tell you about the methods and forms of work (it does not matter which one and with whom).

- O! You have no idea how lucky you are! I have the textbook in electronic form and I will send it right now! Page 40 - everything you need, and a beautiful table at the end - I rejoice.

- No, you'd better tell me.

Those. between the choice: to get the original source and quickly (even in a table) look at everything you need, or listen to a long story without preparation, therefore, probably confused, with the inevitable loss of some part of the information, a person chooses … not to read. Previously, such choices were deeply incomprehensible to me, because it seemed that it was always easier, clearer and faster to scan the page with my eyes than, for example, to listen to a video (after all, any person reads "to himself" faster than he speaks). It turns out that I just know how to read. I'm lucky.

Examples about conceptual thinking

A woman buys a charger for her phone. By chance it turns out to be white, and not black, like the previous one, which served faithfully for many years. And accidentally it breaks down after a couple of days. What is the conclusion of the woman? Suddenly for us and naturally for herself, she decides to no longer take the white "chargers". We see a conclusion drawn on the basis of an insignificant but striking feature. How many more wrong decisions did she make without conceptual thinking? How many great opportunities have you missed?

Another example concerns the inability to classify and organize: the client all the time loses things at home, in their own closets. Why? In careful work, it turns out that the cupboards are filled with contents absolutely randomly, and the tablecloths are in the cupboard with records, and the documents for the apartment are with medicines, towels with hats, but not with all, but only with winter ones. It's hard not to lose something here. By the way, while working with this client, I finally understood the logic of some clothing stores, where the goods are arranged by color. And if you came for a straight skirt in size 42, you probably won't have enough patience to find it. "Topographic cretinism", which is widespread now and has become to some extent fashionable, is also based on undeveloped conceptual thinking, when a person does not differ in a clear formed picture of the world (at the physical level) and focuses on insignificant signs: a car standing on the side of the road, looking out of around the corner of the dog (real case). Those. when he hears: “After 200 meters to the right, and after another 300 meters to the left,” a route is not laid in his head, because it is very unclear how long it is - 200 meters, and where “right” is also not so easy to figure out.

It is pertinent to mention one more phenomenon: only that person who has an equally developed (or not) thinking is an authority for everyone. Everyone knows these cases when what the doctor said is ignored, and the neighbors' appointments are carried out exactly. It was just that the doctor explained the problem and the prescriptions at his (scientific) level, and the neighbor, who did not have conceptual thinking, told everything that was available to this patient. And in general he looks like a trustworthy person.

Those. the inability to read is a misfortune that carries with it other misfortunes. You definitely won't want this for your child.

What to do? Search for interesting texts and discuss them, sparing no time. To teach to read from old textbooks, using the visual-logical method, striving to ensure that the paragraph becomes the unit of reading. Learn to read before school. If a child comes to school already good at reading, it will certainly be easy to learn, because understanding of all other academic disciplines and academic performance in all subjects depend on the degree of mastery in reading. Well, we have already talked about how important this is for everyday life.