Language at the Speed of Sight

I heard Seidenberg speak at a ResearchEd conference in Brooklyn a while back, and I found what he had to say really interesting, but he was a bit kooky and used terms I'd never heard before like "statistical learning," so I wasn't sure what to think, as he seemed to stand outside of the mainstream of education speak. My interest was piqued however, as I happen to also follow the Language Log blog, which he is a contributor to, and in reviewing my notes of his talk, his points continued to jump out at me.

So I finally got around to reading his book when I had a coupon on Google Books, and I figured, what the heck. I don't have any time to read much but I should probably see what it's about.

And man, am I glad I chipped away at this on bus and train rides over the last 2 weeks. The reason he stands outside of the mainstream, it turns out, is because public education is nearly completely disassociated from research, a point he raises vituperatively in his book. This book should be read by anyone involved in education, whether policymaker, administrator, teacher, or parent.

I've been a teacher of special education for 7 years and an administrator for 3, and I am embarrassed to say that Seidenberg lays out facts about reading I had nary a clue about. And he lays it out trenchantly, wittily, and, at times, impassionately, because he sees clearly what a crime it is that the majority of educators similarly have not a clue.

This was also a timely read -- a hard hitting audio documentary that makes Seidenberg's points just came out as I got to his passages about the disconnect between the classroom and what researchers know about reading: www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/hard-words-why-american-kids-arent-being-taught-to-read

Read this book. You will come away better informed, and better equipped to battle the ignorance that has failed generations of kids.