this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025
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Apparently, some schools in the U.S. didn't teach phonics until recently (2014).

Did anyone here learn phonics in school?

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[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No, but I remember seeing the TV ads for Hooked on Phonics

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Hooked on phonics worked for me!

[–] klemptor@startrek.website 3 points 1 day ago

1-800-ABC-DEFG

[–] onlooker@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

noʊ, aΙͺ doʊnt ΞΈΙͺΕ‹k aΙͺ dΙͺd.

[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 1 points 17 hours ago

TANGO HOTEL ALFA TANGO INDIA PAPA ALFA INDIA SIERRA SIERRA TANGO INDIA LIMA LIMA BRAVO ECHO TANGO TANGO ECHO ROMEO TANGO HOTEL ALFA NOVEMBER TANGO HOTEL INDIA SIERRA INDIA PAPA ALFA

[–] onlooker@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

meΙͺk mi.

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Long after I learned to read. At which point it was just confusing since so many words can't be 'sounded out'.

I learned to read alongside learning to speak, learned it like a language, not like a code, I didn't really sound things out consciously, it went in the other direction, I recognized words. So by 3 years I could read quite well, and did come by that path to an understanding that the individual letters had sounds.

Like if you've ever seen a little kid learning to write, they start with just scribbles then lines of scribbles then clumps of "letters" then actual words with letters. That is sort of the process I had - books held stories, then I saw there was writing, then my mom read the stories while pointing to the words, then I pretended I could read by memorizing the book, but then just jumped to being able to read. Anything. Like first book was "bears on wheels" but second book was Grendel, and I could read the newspaper, literally think I could understand written language more than spoken.

So anyway - yes was taught phonics but not taught to read with phonics.

[–] pip@slrpnk.net 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Since I come from a culture where our alphabet is actually consistent to how you pronounce things with no exceptions:

no.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure your country's high grammar might be consistent, but the general day-to-day would have influences from other languages that can't be so neatly categorised, and their pronounciation would differ from region to region

[–] pip@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

We do, and even those have rules. Not phonetic rules though

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

Well technically that is phonics, you see a new word, as a learner, you know how to sound it out. Compared to the Whole Word learning method where somebody has to teach you what a word says. English is a nasty mess of both.

[–] ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 days ago

Yes, I think so. I also did Hooked On Phonics with my grandfather before starting kindergarten which meant I could already read by the time we started school. This was in Texas in the early '90s.

[–] Fondots@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

I don't remember ever hearing the word "phonics" except in commercials for Hooked on Phonics

That said, the concept of phonics was absolutely part of how I learned to read, even though they never outright told us that that was what we were learning.

[–] ObsidianZed@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Where is 'here?' I grew up in Midwest, US, and I absolutely learned phonics.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

What decade though. I did too, but it was the 1980s.

They got rid of it in many outpaces as a reaction to the Bush admin saying phonics works and arranging to mandate it.

It was probably the only thing Bush was right about, but common core was not the way to implement it.

[–] ObsidianZed@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Yup this didn’t start till after the 2000 ~~election~~.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 days ago
[–] paysrenttobirds@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm not sure what specifically is meant by phonics. My grandma taught first grade for 30 years, ending around 2000. She said when phonics came in "that's just teaching reading" and when phonics went out "well, obviously we still have to teach how the alphabet works" and when phonics came in again "eye roll". So, whatever the school leadership says, my guess is kids are learning phonics.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 6 points 2 days ago

A lot of kids were taught to read badly. There's this whole "whole word" and "cuing theory" approach to reading that doesn't work very well. https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

Apparently 65% of fourth graders aren't proficient at reading (as of the linked source from 2022)

[–] sunbeam60@lemmy.one 2 points 1 day ago

I didn’t, for me it was β€œAi, Bee, See, Dee, Eee, Eff, Jee” (except in my local language Danish). My children all learnt phonics in their U.K. school and it’s taught them to read 5x faster I’d say).

[–] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 day ago

This comment section is reminding me its not normal for me to have maybe a dozen memories from under age 13. I have never even heard of phonics i just know i can read. Idk how i learned to. When i read i just like do it. Its the same as listening it just happens.

[–] confuser@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago

I remember one time thinking about how my grandpa didn't learn this and other related skills as a kid the same way I did in school and so we understand our same language a totally different way, where I saw parts of words, he just saw a whole word.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 3 points 2 days ago

Yes, from early 70s onward.

[–] RagnarokOnline@programming.dev 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yup. It’s phuckin awesome

[–] vext01@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 days ago

I agree. You can't loose.

[–] hallettj@leminal.space 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No, but I remember overhearing one of my teachers saying it's actually helpful. That was in the early 90s in California.

I just had the phonics monkey

[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 days ago

Yes, my elementary school explicitly used it.

Nah, it was mostly rote. But, I was reading pretty early, and my family did use a looser form of phonics with all of us. When it was a read-along, they'd point out words that didn't fit normal phonic rules, and explain a little. Read-alongs were super frequent for us. Daily, for most of my childhood, though I kinda "graduated" into doing the reading somewhere around 3rd grade for the second wave of cousins on one side of the family.

My mom's family runs high to dedicated readers, so it was always a thing where someone was reading something out loud to share a passage or whatever, even when it wasn't one of the adults reading to the kids as a group. And all our parents were super into reading to us individually too.

In kindergarten, it was straight into it, no phonics involved at all. But it was still mostly group based reading. First grade, it was individual work, with vocabulary, reading, and writing as parts of the language arts section of class. No phonics, and really no sounding things out at all. My first grade teacher was sweet as all get out, but did not play around with lessons.

[–] DemBoSain@midwest.social 2 points 2 days ago
[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 1 points 2 days ago

Nope. Never even heard of it until recently, in the context of kids leaving school unable to read.

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No, while it was known, it was not taught at my schools. My mother hated the entire concept so if they tried she'd likely have raised hell.

Or just put us somewhere private instead. The much more sensible option lmfao

[–] ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

She hated the concept of... teaching what sounds letters make? Was she a big proponent of cuing, or something else?

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

She disliked a lot of the newer methods of teaching, so I'm guessing she preferred whatever was before that. The only one she named really was the New Math and I'm positive the New Math was pretty old by the time I was taught it. Have you ever watch Lehrer's song New Math? That's what I was taught, and if it was new then, it was ancient when I got to it!

[–] ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oh phonics is the old one (although it's making a comeback). The "new" one that they've been promoting for a couple decades (and have recently realized isn't very good) is cueing, the one where you just show kids words and encourage them to use context clues to guess what they mean, and hope that they eventually learn to read by doing that. Phonics is the one where you start with letter (and letter group) sounds and learn to sound out words by reading out loud.

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

It was new at the time! Or maybe. While the education I got was pretty good, it was eclectic. I only remember learning math. I picked up language before solid memories form. I also sort of have some brain uh. Problems.

I liked moving the tens to the ones place. I think these days kids are doing some kind of cube thing? Seems neat!