CHILDREN OF THE CODE VIDEO INDEX

Note: The Children of the Code video library is also available for viewing and sharing on YouTube, Facebook, and on the Children of The Code website. 

WHAT'S AT STAKE:

More American children suffer long-term life-harm as a consequence of reading difficulties than from parental abuse, accidents, and all other childhood diseases and disorders combined. In purely economic terms, reading related difficulties cost more than the war on terrorism, crime, and drugs combined.

VIDEOS: Introduction – Reading Matters – Academic Danger – Emotional Danger – Social Danger / Juvenile Injustice – National Learning Disability – We Need A REFRAME! [Collective Costs: Disabled Democracy – Health – The Economy – Poverty – Price Tags]

WHAT IS READING?

Before we can engage in intelligently debating how we should teach reading, it’s important to understand what reading is.

VIDEOS: Introduction – The Magic – Inner Voice – Unnatural>Technological – Artificially Inseminated Language Experience Dialogues: Perfetti – Allington –Farkas

CAUSES AND CONTRIBUTING FACTORS:

Why is it so difficult to learn to read? The root cause of reading difficulties (in most children) can be understood in terms of the complex interplay between a number of causes and factors. 

VIDEOS: INNATE / LD / Dyslexia – Parents – Print Exposure – Preschools –Language Gap – Motivation – Reading to Learn – UNNATURAL CONFUSION –Superficial Thinking – Teacher Training – Dysteachia – Resistance – CHILD’S FAULT

 READINESS: 

Children’s innate endowments and early life learning trajectories determine their level of readiness for the challenges involved in learning to read. 

VIDEOS: Reading Readiness – Nature & Nurture – Sensitive Slopes – Emotion & Cognition – In The Beginning – Language Foundations – Meaningful Differences

SHAME:

Building on "CHILD’S FAULT" from "Causes and Contributing Factors", this chapter provides a starting point for appreciating the learning-disabling effects of the “SHAME” that struggling readers experience.

VIDEOS: Shame – Power of Shame – Fear of Shame – Secret Shame – Public Shame – Avoidance – Emotionally Learning Disabling – Cognitively Learning Disabling

THE EARLY CODE: 

Understanding the code and its history is essential to understanding the “CONFUSION‘ involved in learning to read it today. 

VIDEOS: The Power of Writing – The Alphabet’s Big Bang – The Grecian Formula Lend Me Your Ears – The Code of DaVinci – The Rise and Fall of Literacy

THE ENGLISH CODE: 

Though readiness and readiness differentiated instruction reduce the difficulty, working through the code’s confusing letter-sound relationships is what most challenges the brains of most struggling readers. There is a direct and causal relationship between the confusion in the code and the ‘stutters’ heard in the voice of a struggling reader. Obviously, understanding this confusion is critical to understanding the challenges involved in learning to read. As importantly, understanding how the code became so confused is critical to reframing the experience of struggling readers. The more we understand the accidents and negligence that led to the confusion in the English code the more it becomes obvious that it is absurdly negligent to blame and shame children for their struggle with it.

VIDEOS: Latin Roots – French Rules – The King’s English – The Chancery Scribes – The 1st Millennium Bug – The Great Vowel Shift – Casting Spells

 ATTEMPTS TO REFORM / PARADIGM INERTIA: 

The story of our attempts to reform the code is fascinating and understanding these attempts, and why they failed, sheds important light on the social, political, institutional, and even scientific inertia that limits our understanding of the challenges involved in learning to read.

VIDEOS: Introduction – Ben Franklin’s Alphabet – Noah Webster’s Spelling – Dewey and Carnegie – Theodore Roosevelt’s Order – The Death of Reform – Mark Twain Reform Champion – Other Famous Advocates of Reform – From the End of Reform to Today’s Paradigm Inertia – Paradigm Inertia in Reading Science and Policy Part 1 through 3

THE BRAIN’S CHALLENGE:

Learning to read is an unnaturally stressful learning challenge to the human brain. Any of a number of things can make the brain’s processing challenge harder (see “Causes and Contributing Factors” above). The most critical processing issues:

CRITICAL ELEMENTS: To construct the reading experience the brain must DIFFERENTIATE and process a number of elements including: Letters, Phonemes, Morphemes, and Vocabulary.

CRITICAL PROCESSING: The brain must Automatize and Synchronize the sub processing of the critical elements.

CRITICAL SPEED: The brain must process all the above fast enough to construct Recognizable Words at Speeds that approximate the rate at which the brain is accustomed to Recognizing Spoken Language - processing speed is critical. Analysis of the Eye Movements of good readers reveals that, on average, the brain must process letters into sounds in less than a tenth of a second per letter.

THE BOTTLENECK: The ‘stutters’ in the voice of struggling readers reflect the time it takes the brain to work through the confusion in the code – the time it is taking to DISAMBIGUATE the code. Code disambiguation is the brain’s greatest challenge during the process of learning to read. Exacerbating all the other challenges is the DOWNWARD SPIRAL that disrupts and dissipates the brain’s processing when shame sets in.

VIDEOS: Letters - Phonemes - Morphemes - Vocabulary - Distinctions - Automaticity - Synchrony - Word Recognition Speed - Speed of Speech - Computer Analogy - What Eye Tracking Reveals - DISAMBIGUATION - DOWNWARD SPIRAL OF SHAME

CHANGING TRAJECTORIES:

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Extras:

Excerpt from a talk by Stanislas Dehaene on “How the Brain Learns to Read” that discusses the effects of orthographic irregularity on the difficulty of learning to read. If you didn't come away from this video wondering why children can learn Italian in 3 months but require 3 years to learn to read English, you missed something vital.

Dr. Louisa Moats discusses Children of the Code's views on the First Millennium Bug.

THE MAJORITY OF OUR CHILDREN ARE HAVING THEIR LIVES ALL-BUT FATED BY THE DIFFICULTY THEY EXPERIENCE LEARNING TO INTERFACE WITH AN ARCHAIC TECHNOLOGY!

When we found out that lead in our gasoline was damaging our children's brains, we didn't train the children how to breathe around gas stations, we got rid of the lead in the gas! If you don't understand that orthography is a technology that is centuries older than gasoline and doing more harm to our children then lead ever did visit the Children of the Code.