This short piece from the Times illustrates a point I’ve been making for a long time: a lot of our educational difficulties probably stem from inequality in prerequisite skills that are developed prior to formal schooling. Or perhaps skills isn’t even the proper term, as what we’re talking about might best be understood as acquired rather than learned. The article points out that language and literacy skills are both hugely determinative of future success and largely developed prior to formal education.
As the education theorist E. D. Hirsch recently wrote in a review of Paul Tough’s new book, “How Children Succeed,” there is strong evidence that increasing the general knowledge and vocabulary of a child before age 6 is the single highest correlate with later success. Schools have an enormously hard time pushing through the deficiencies with which many children arrive.
As I wrote here at BJ earlier this year, ” Literacy skills, in particular, are likely dependent on students meeting certain thresholds of relevant exposure at a particular age. It’s possible, in other words, that an energetic and bright teacher might have a huge impact on a student who has already developed the prerequisite reading skills but have essentially no chance with a student who lacks them.” Of particular interest– and particularly discouraging– is the possibility that this dynamic is the product of a critical neurological period during which the developing brain is unusually receptive to syntactic conditioning. This would be discouraging because it might suggest a permanency to early-life educational disadvantage.
I think this sort of thing demonstrates the inadequacy of our educational discourse. First, it really should give pause to anyone who is among the “blame teachers first” crowd; how can a teacher be blamed for the results of processes that begin, at the latest, during the toddler stage? But more to the point, it demonstrates that our educational outputs are conditioned by a host of factors that are really beyond society’s control. We don’t take children from their parents, and of course we shouldn’t. But a growing body of evidence suggests that parental input at the earliest stage of life have a huge impact on the success of children. How do we square that with our egalitarian aspirations, when we know that not all parents are made equal? I don’t have an answer, except for this: to protect all of our people from disadvantage through a robust and generous social safety net.
Corner Stone
While this is a huge, and significant topic, FP’ers here do realize it’s Sunday afternoon in America, right?
MikeJ
One thing that certainly can help early childhood development: Big Bird.
Jerzy Russian
Less shit on TV, and more reading to small children.
cyntax
Yeah but this really cuts against the grain of American exceptionalism and if-you-just work-hard-enough-ism.
FdB–if you haven’t already, you should really check out Chris Hayes’ Twilight of the Elites; his ideas about meritocracy and how it’s failing us have some interesting implications for education. Specifically, he thinks that in a society that is OK with unequal outcomes, education becomes increasingly important for doing the heavy lifting of leveling the societal playing field, even when, as you’re pointing out, the inequalities are better addressed outside education.
Arclite
At this point, given what we know about childhood development, preschool starting at age 3 should be public (free) and mandatory.
Corner Stone
Actually, it’s pretty amazing to see what the demands and curriculum are for 1st and 2nd graders now a days.
A far cry from my yoot.
c u n d gulag
American Conservative POG:
All children need to ever read is the Bible.
No, wait!
They need it read TO them!
There’s entirely too much begatting in the first part, and in the second, there’s a lot of inconsistencies – that God guy, after he became a father, seems to have learned to be nicer, kinder, and gentler – and we know THAT isn’t right!
WE WANT THE OLD EYE FOR AN EYE, A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH, GUY BACK!
Corner Stone
I am buried with paperwork every week for my 2nd Grader. Just the volume of what they do, and the level of info they get into is very different than what I remember.
I’ve been pushing for change in a number of areas in my middle-middle class ISD but they are super slow in coming due to all the mofo RWNJs I am surrounded by.
mbss
@MikeJ:
charles blow has a good article on this @ NYT.
it was critical for my development as well, also, too. at least what development there’s been.
this all makes perfect sense to me. if you are literate at a young age then there is a solid foundation for further development. i think what many teachers are dealing with now is an epidemic of kids pushed through without a solid set of fundamental skills. it’s hard to build on a shaky foundation, and i think there is a sort of compounding problem where kids fall further and further behind, until they abandon the entire formal education process entirely, discouraged and woefully unprepared to function in the job market as fruitfully as they might have.
Jerzy Russian
@Arclite:
In Holland, they have something similar to what you propose, namely the “peuterspeelzaal”. I am not sure if these schools are mandatory, but they are widely used. While they are not strictly free, the cost is very low. There is of course zero chance something sensible like this will ever come to the United States.
taylormattd
Is Bill Gates a Manchurian Monster?
Argive
I was talking about this with my BIL (who is a high school teacher) recently. He mentioned that there have been recent studies indicating that vision problems in children can have a tremendous negative impact on cognitive and learning skills if not corrected at a young age. Basically the theory is that kids who can’t see well enough to read (or have dyslexia) develop serious resentment and anger issues over time if the problems aren’t fixed early enough. Kids who come from families of means are usually OK. Kids in poverty, not so much.
TexasMango
I work at a health clinic that provides primary medical care for a mostly low-income population. After specialist referrals for asthma and allergies our most common referral for children is speech therapy. It blew my mind when I ran the numbers for a report. These kids are near school age and can barely talk. They struggle to communicate and it’s difficult to communicate with them.
I’m grew up a middle class, black girl with college educated parents, but I still consider our patients to be “my people”. I still do, but the difference in what people can experience based on income and education is stunning. Even if they are considered members of the same group.
Most of our social infrastructure has no way to account for the effect that poverty has on people from birth. And some people are making teachers the scapegoats for educational failure because tackling poverty is just too damn hard. If the trouble is not only in the home, but during a critical time of brain development for every child. What do you do?
FlipYrWhig
Do you lie awake at night plagued with fretful and practically suicidal worry about these kids and how Barack Obama has so badly wronged them?
mamayaga
The benefits of quality early childhood education are well-documented, including by controlled studies carried longitudinally for decades (see, for instance, here). It’s not a mystery, it’s not rocket science, it’s just yet another example of how unequal our supposedly egalitarian society is. Such programs not only help educationally, they also produce significant benefits in later life, such as reduced criminal behavior, delayed child bearing, and higher later incomes. If programs like this were freely available on the front end to impoverished families as a country we would avoid really significant costs at the back end. However, the right people don’t profit, either as recipients or providers, from providing these programs, so they aren’t offered.
MBL
If I toddle into preschool able to read (and I did) and the kid next to me comes in unable to recognize letters or even to know which way text should go, because there are no books in his house and he’s never been read to, that kid is never, ever, EVER going to catch up with me. The die’s already cast, at three years old. It happens that fast.
arguingwithsignposts
Clearly, this is another reason not to vote for Barack Obama.
Shakespeare
So no one’s going to talk about the donkey in the room?
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes.
MikeJ
@Jerzy Russian:
You mean like Head Start?
jrg
You mean raising your kid results in an increased chance of success in adulthood? I’m flabbergasted.
I thought success could be traced to up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start.
Corner Stone
@arguingwithsignposts:
At this point we don’t need anymore.
To the barackades citizens!!
Cacti
I guess this is the thread where we all pretend that DeBore isn’t a total knob.
suzanne
Start public schooling at age 2. Create jobs, allow parents to go back to work without high child care cots, and produce better outcomes. Of course, it’s logical, so it will never happen.
Toschek
And this is why PBS and Sesame Street matter. I grew up in a household where both parents worked and we were poor as dirt. I remember being on food stamps for a while, and even eating popcorn for dinner sometimes.
I learned to read by watching Sesame Street by age 3 and then it was time for a library card (another target on the so-called-conservative hit list). I often wonder how my life, which is pretty comfortably middle class, would have turned out under a Romney presidency. As it was, much of those things. — PBS, Libraries, etc. were still considered sacrosanct, American institutions.
I guess this is just a roundabout way of saying, we used to honor things like learning and scholarship in this country, and sometimes I feel like certain people in Washington would like a stupid, easily misled population and are deliberately destroying our children’s minds to preserve their political prospects, and its just fucking sickening.
James E. Powell
I’ve been teaching English in ‘failing’ high schools in Los Angeles for the last seven years. I can attest to the extremely limited vocabularies of the typical students. At least once a week, I am shocked to find that not one of the 120 to 130 students knows a word that I regard as fairly common. A recent example was ‘wise.’
Example. In a 10th grade Honors English class, meaning every student had scored ‘proficient’ or ‘advanced’ on the 9th grade standardized test, we were reading a story in the 10th grade textbook. On the first page of the story, there were twelve words that not one of the students knew. When students are confronted with this, they do not become confused, they do not look the words up in a dictionary, they do not ask me, they just quit reading.
Since I started teaching, I have been trained to use five or six different methods for teaching vocabulary. They work with the handful of students who are already readers when I meet them. For the other students, I have not seen any positive results from any of these methods.
suzanne
@Corner Stone:
True dat. My daughter had to start giving PowerPoint presentations in third grade. Research papers with Works Cited pages, too. She’s in fourth grade now, and just did a book report as an iMovie.
joel hanes
It’s not just not being read to.
Seriously deprived children often have not been talked to or heard and responded to by an adult on any regular basis.
James E. Powell
@FlipYrWhig:
FTFY
JustAnotherBob
I listened to a very interesting presentation about teaching mothers to be better teachers for their children. Unfortunately I didn’t note the source.
Basically what the study did was to pair up mothers, especially those who had poor educational backgrounds, with someone who taught them some basic teaching skills. The outcomes were impressive.
This, to me, makes a lot of sense. Parents are able to give a lot more 1:1 attention to a child than a teacher with a number of children. It’s not that the parents of low-achieving children don’t love their children, it’s more likely that they lack a few easily learned skills.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: I just like to be able to suss out which are the political and social problems that no right-thinking and humane person can allow himself to validate by casting a vote for the president. “I can’t vote for him because of children killed by drones,” fine. “I can’t vote for him because of children being badly served by the educational system,” same thing? If you’re deciding your politics primarily by calibrating the depth of your despair, that’s going to lead in some unusual directions.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
@Cacti: @arguingwithsignposts:
tee hee. But especially
@Shakespeare:
bwaaaahaaaahaaaahaaaaahaaaaa
FlipYrWhig
@James E. Powell: Sometimes Freddie is more maudlin than wonkish. Is this one of those times, or not, and why?
eemom
@FlipYrWhig: @Cacti: @arguingwithsignposts:
Tee hee.
But especially
@Shakespeare:
bwaaaahaaaahaaaahaaaaahaaaaa
FlipYrWhig
I mean, I’d love to hear more about education, but Freddie seems to have a highly variable sense of where he feels like placing blame for political and social phenomena he deplores.
jrg
@James E. Powell: Just out of curiosity, why does “society” always get blamed when a significant portion of these kids’ fathers aren’t even around?
FlipYrWhig
All right, I’ve been enough of a cheap-shot dick to the guy for the moment, and I’ve gotta go.
robertdsc-PowerBook
I would be like this with my own child. That’s why I’ve so far chosen not to have any. I’d be a nervous wreck.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
Careful, or Cole’s gonna come thundering in here to defend Golden Boy’s honor.
mbss
btw, freddie, love your work, man.
keep it up.
-a shameless left wing extremist.
Drunken hausfrau
Ross Perot advocated for HeadStart programs to start at 6 months… Infancy! baba Bush pushed Readng is Fundamental. Once upon a time, conservatives believed In early education…
Sesame street, Mr. rogers, Electric Company. For a small investment, a big return.
Why can’t we have subsidised child care centres with early learning qualified teachers and assistants? Is this really so hard to understand and want for all our children?
Ben Franklin
@James E. Powell:
Whose feet do you lay the blame at? My son was a third-grader in the 90’s and when I asked his teacher why he could read but couldn’t spell, she replied; “Oh, we don’t worry too much about that with spell-check and all”
Who are the geniuses who keep trying to re-invent the wheel of the 3R’s? Are they Bureaucrats justifying their jobs, or misguided good-intentionalists?
JustAnotherBob
This might be it – The Harlem Children’s Zone.
Here’s their web site. Unfortunately it’s one of those crappy pages that plays a lot of flash as opposed to letting you read what you want to read.
http://www.hcz.org/home
And I think I heard about it on This American Life – this broadcast…
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/364/going-big
JPL
PBS should no way take the place of a parent reading to a child but they do provide quality shows for children. This is not the time to cut their funding.
OT.. Why doesn’t John have an open thread for football? Did Tunch eat him?
arguingwithsignposts
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, like gun, rope, or exhaust in the garage?
mbss
flacco getting raped by the chiefs D.
3rd or 4th sack of the day?
MikeJ
@JPL:
We don’t decide if parents are going to read to their children. We can decide that we want to support programs that might help children who don’t the quality of parenting we’d like.
You can say, “just read to them” all day, but society has to be there to help the kids that don’t get that.
dr. luba
@jrg:
Is it the fault of the children that their fathers aren’t around? Or that they were born into poverty? Your Bible may lay the sins of the parents upon their children, even children in the third and fourth generations…. but a just and fair society, and one that cared about its future, would want all children to grow up healthy and well-educated.
Jewish Steel
I blame TBogg
Ben Franklin
@mbss:
+1
mbss
it takes a village.
they are all our kids.
Ben Franklin
@James E. Powell:
Welcome to Ballon Juice, the headquarters of Progressivism.
FlipYrWhig
@mbss: Yeah, see, a proud and unrepentant lefty probably shouldn’t be using rape analogies to talk about football.
taylormattd
@FlipYrWhig: They are all targeted for assassination by drones.
Ben Franklin
I’ve been enough of a cheap-shot dick
I dunno. Seems like there’s a lot of room for your dick.
taylormattd
@FlipYrWhig: It’s not highly variable. It’s actually very predictable.
When he’s on his own blog, it’s that right winger Obummer who is to blame for political and social phenomena Freddie deplores. When he’s here, it’s all roses.
JPL
@MikeJ: Mitt can give a two second sound bite about not being able to afford quality programming but over time the cost would be greater if we didn’t fund it. Cable is becoming a luxury item for many.
Public funding supports NPR which serves as an emergency broadcast network for states. This is especially true in the south. Maybe South Carolina will step up their funding but I doubt it.
FlipYrWhig
@Ben Franklin: Oh, believe me, it do fill the space.
mbss
@FlipYrWhig:
Yawn.
Rape
1 [reyp] Show IPA noun, verb, raped, rap·ing.
noun
1.
the unlawful compelling of a person through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse.
2.
any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person.
3.
statutory rape.
4.
an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation: the rape of the countryside.
5.
Archaic . the act of seizing and carrying off by force.
you prob. just needed a bit more big bird and pbs to understand the words.
Todd
Clearly, Obama wants them to play more video games as replacement for verbal acuity. He needs to do this to assure better, faster, more reactive drone pilots.
FlipYrWhig
OK, for real this time, I’m laying off, because I’d rather see a discussion about education issues than a meta-discussion about Freddie, and I shouldn’t have gone down that path. Peace, out, etc.
Corner Stone
Wow. A real barn burner btwn BAL and KC. 9 to 6 BAL.
Football!
Another Halocene Human
Since we’re on a Freddie thread, can Freddie or anyone else tell me what, if anything, Jill Stein said in the Democracy Now! “real debate” that was worth noting?
Anything?
Bueller?
Davis X. Machina
@Ben Franklin: Spelling’s the least of most children’s problems with language.
The period when English had a highly fluid orthography — 16th and 17th c. — is exactly when England had its largest increase in literacy, from maybe ten percent in 1500 to forty-five percent in 1700 — a four-fold increase — and to sixty percent in 1750.
If the language were highly inflected, it would matter more. But English is by IE standards very lightly inflected.
Todd
@JPL:
And even for those who can afford it, the “smart” channels are overloaded with Honey Boo Boo, Toddlers and Tiaras, midgets, Axe Men, Ice Road Truckers, American Choppers…
FlipYrWhig
@mbss: Well, sure, it’s a longstanding metaphor, but someone who just got through patting himself on the back with how hard-core left-wing he is might want to reassess whether metaphors derived from sexual violence mesh neatly with the political affiliation he’s just declared. I’d say the same thing if you had said that the Chiefs were “bending Flacco over and ramming it up his ass” or something.
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina: Spelling English actually is a real bitch for kids. The silent and useless “e” and the other ridiculous pairings that make no sense. Why isn’t “again” spelled “agin” ? Like “begin”.
Just makes no sense when you’re trying to explain it.
? Martin
Interesting. Waldorf Schools, which have educated not a few of our leaders didn’t start having students read until around 2nd grade. That didn’t mean students didn’t have strong vocabularies, but the focus was on reading to the student and expanding verbal communication rather than reading. At least one argument was that young people are capable of much larger vocabularies but we slow them down through the teaching of reading.
Not sure I buy that argument, but if their late reading start is an impediment to students, they’re doing a pretty good job making up for it.
FlipYrWhig
@Davis X. Machina: Verily such a deuelopement vvas trevvelie vnprecedaunted.
Ben Franklin
@Davis X. Machina:
If the language were highly inflected
Notwithstanding, texting and twatting.
Corner Stone
@JPL:
I completely agree. My cable bill has gone up 3 times in the last year. I can’t believe I keep paying this every month.
jrg
@dr. luba: I have no bible. I’m not religious… And of course I want kids to grow up healthy and happy. That’s why I support SCHIP, and F&R lunches, and good wages.
…But there’s only so much we can do for each other’s kids. It seems a lot of people would rather blame “society” or “the man” than take care of their own kids and neighborhoods.
Corner Stone
Not that anyone at this blog cares. But PIT just won against the Iggles.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: English spelling is madness. What’s funny is that in the period Davis is talking about, English scholars would practically brag about how their language didn’t have to abide by hard and fast rules like those French bastards did. That was tyrannical and English people love liberty, see. It was a point of patriotic pride that you could spell things all kinds of ways.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Just saw it. Fuck-o-matic for this Iggles phan.
greenergood
The annual budget for PBS costs the same as 6 hours of the Department of Defense’s budget. (and that’s just the D0D, not their private minions like
BlackhawkAE, etc.Mike G
Clearly, this is yet another problem that can be fixed by upper-bracket tax cuts and financial industry deregulation. And posting the Ten Commandments in schools.
Or so Fox News tells me.
mbss
@FlipYrWhig:
“I’d say the same thing if you had said that the Chiefs were “bending Flacco over and ramming it up his ass” or something.”
but i didn’t say that, did i? i said rape in the context of a football game which clearly has a different meaning than rape in the “the accused,” jodie foster sense, and everyone knows it.
but, you can throw out the kind of faux outrage, alligator tears bullshit that you did if you have some axe to grind against freddie and anyone who supports him…which clearly seems to be the case here.
so here are some tiny violins, tiny.
Kyle
@FlipYrWhig:
Let me guess, their descendants immigrated to the Deep South.
? Martin
@Corner Stone: Again and begin usually don’t rhyme outside of Alabama.
Which illustrates the uselessness of the rules – every dialect screws up a subset of the pronunciation rules, so unless you want every dialect to have different spelling, you’re stuck with this problem.
Davis X. Machina
@Ben Franklin: Texting, etc, may simply be a reversion to a norm of more fluid English orthography, after an anomalous period where we thought it actually mattered.
I had “Spelling” as a class, and as a separate report card grade, for six elementary years. I’m not sure how much difference it made.
FlipYrWhig
@mbss: Yeah, I’m not outraged, I’m calling you out for your inconsistency. And there is no “rape in the context of a football game.” You meant “raped” as “violated like a bitch,” so own it, and then climb down from your perch as Mr. Left Wing Purist.
ETA: I’m really not in the habit of pulling this shit on people. I’m pulling it on you because you did it in the same breath as declaring how progressive you were.
JustAnotherBob
@Another Halocene Human:
In the NPR debate she said a lot of good stuff. Stuff that most of us would readily support.
Unfortunately she’s taken herself out of play on the national level by running as a ‘absolutely going to loose’ candidate.
arguingwithsignposts
I love the English language, even with all its quirky spellings. Sure, it’s not a “pure” language, but that’s what makes it beautiful. And fuck you if you don’t like it.
Corner Stone
@? Martin: Do you say, or more commonly hear, people pronounce it as “agane” ?
Because even in movies I hear it as “agin”. Not just when we’re spooning out road kill stew down in the holler by the crick.
arguingwithsignposts
@FlipYrWhig: Maybe if FdB had brought his weak-ass trollery over here the first time instead of posting it on his other blog while calling out fellow front pagers here, and then hadn’t shown up all innocent and raging about the inequalities of education and parenting, there wouldn’t have been a need for a “meta” discussion.
mbss
@FlipYrWhig:
nope. i meant raped in the sense which i already highlighted from the dictionary definition which is obvious to anyone with a vocabulary:
to seize and take away by force
some synonyms are assault, force, or violate.
are you stupid? do you understand words or definitions?
? Martin
@Corner Stone: Yeah, again sounds like a cross between the i in begin and the word ‘gain’.
But do we change ‘because’ to ‘becuz’ given that most people pronounce it like the latter, though there’s a few places that pronounce it like the former?
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: I hear it as “uh guenn,” the last syllable rhyming with “Ben.” Neither “inn” or “ain.”
lacp
Freddie, when did you come to this enlightenment about language inequality in early childhood? ‘Cause Hart and Risely published on it in 1995.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone:
Do you lay down the banjo while doing that, or use it to stir the pot?
mbss
this is the kind of bullshit you deal with, freddie?
PsiFighter37
@Shakespeare: The good thing (at least for keeping the peace here) is that most people are watching football.
In my case, I’m drunk again. A long weekend is cause to celebrate.
PF37 +3
Ben Franklin
@arguingwithsignposts:
Freddie has posted something y’all should respond to with some reasoned discussions.
But, this is Ballon Juice, after all.
FlipYrWhig
@mbss: Right, you meant that the Kansas City Chiefs were seizing Joe Flacco and taking him away by force. O-kay. Incidentally, that meaning clearly has no connection to violence against women, as you see it, presumably because raiding parties had no tendency to seize women and take them away by force.
The “dictionary definition” is based on the idea that the word means “kidnapping women to violate them” and over time expanded to mean “metaphorically kidnapping women to violate them.” This is stupid. It’s like saying “gay” just means “stupid” or “abnormal,” not _gay_ gay, because that’s how 11-year-old boys use it.
Another Halocene Human
@Corner Stone: If again is spelled agin, how do you spell against in dialect, huh?
ETA: and I pronounce it agen. Suck.On.That.
FlipYrWhig
@mbss: Oh, poor baby. Another instance of his terrible mistreatment at the hands of moral monsters.
Another Halocene Human
@arguingwithsignposts: Not just when we’re spooning out road kill stew down in the holler by the crick.
Do you lay down the banjo while doing that, or use it to stir the pot?
Turtles: soup AND musical instrument!
FlipYrWhig
OK, I said what I wanted to say, and then stayed to play the fool, but now I’m calling it quits. Off to rape some student papers. Godspeed, all.
arguingwithsignposts
@Ben Franklin: You want reasoned discussion? Here:
But we do. All the time. There are whole departments in every state tasked with ensuring the welfare of children up to a certain level.
Corner Stone
@arguingwithsignposts: I wish I could play the banjo. If you can play the banjo you are one bad freakin mofo.
But normally I don’t lay down my shotgun when stirrin’ the pot, but rather use my hip bone to guide it to those evil doers who come upon us while we’re doin’ the Lawd’s work with the still and the divine.
The women, when they’s ain’t too with chile usually do the stirrin’, as needed.
Another Halocene Human
@mbss: are you stupid?
Are you?
Just obtuse?
mbss
@FlipYrWhig:
i’m sorry you don’t understand words. rape has meanings beyond sexual assault. FULL STOP.
if you don’t understand that, then it’s your problem, not mine.
chrismealy
I want to commend Freddie for not attacking other liberals for a change.
Another Halocene Human
@JustAnotherBob: Unfortunately she’s taken herself out of play on the national level by running as a ‘absolutely going to loose’ candidate.
She isn’t a politician. Never was. Got to be the one-eyed King by virtue of being a massive Commonwealth budget wonk, which is impressive, but… Not sure what her bag is. Maybe it’s attention these days. Some women of a certain age have cats. She has meet and greets with aging hippies over vegan potluck. Hard to begrudge her that, just tired of being told I really gotta take her seriously.
I haven’t heard a single “big idea” out of her ever. She’s no Van Jones.
mbss
@Another Halocene Human:
ob·tuse/əbˈt(y)o͞os/
Adjective:
Annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand.
Difficult to understand.
perfect word to describe someone who doesn’t understand a simple dictionary definition which has been thoroughly presented.
thank you.
eemom
@Ben Franklin:
No, actually he’s posted some tired old shit that’s been said better many times by people who aren’t know nothing poseurs.
Corner Stone
@Another Halocene Human: It’s almost as if some people think language doesn’t change.
Hmmm, I’ll need to think on that agin for a wile.
mbss
thank you all for illustrating the major problems we have with literacy. it’s more of a issue than i initially imagined.
arguingwithsignposts
@mbss: who the fuck are you?
lacp
@FlipYrWhig: Will that be legitimate rape?
Ben Franklin
@arguingwithsignposts:
Contextually, no mention of abusive or neglectful parents , so CPS is not the issue. Parents need to take a proactive role in their children’s Ed. They, sometimes, abdicate their role and shift the responsibility of managing their child’s ed. We don’t remove the child from that situation, unless there is some evidence of parental approval of delinquency, and poor attendance.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
dude, you need to stop fighting and embrace your inner “dickishness” as you call it (I wouldn’t). These assholes deserve every bit of it.
Another Halocene Human
@mbss: What’s more fun than a good-hearted game of Calvinball on a lazy, sunny Sunday afternoon in fall? Some lively goal-post shifting by the Freddies. Looks like the Unfreddies are responding with rampant mockery. Shaping up to be a fascinating game.
mbss
@arguingwithsignposts:
i’m mbss.
and i’ve been arguing with signposts.
Another Halocene Human
@eemom: Palpatine? I didn’t know you commented here.
Another Halocene Human
@mbss: Dude, you’re supposed to declare victory AND FLOUNCE.
I give that a 2 out of 10. FAIL.
Corner Stone
Indy beats GB? Yikes.
Another Halocene Human
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s not just that our language has changed. It’s that our metaphors have changed.
When we say “rape” we don’t mean theft, looting, etc. We think ass-rape. A primal dominance display that leaves the loser “butthurt” “bleeding out the ass” or “emasculated”. That’s our dominant meme now.
lacp
@Ben Franklin: Problem is, this is old news. And the fact that Mr. deBoer is hedging with ‘probably’, ‘perhaps’, ‘might be’ suggests that he isn’t really well-read on the literature (I don’t mind being proven wrong on this point). There’s no ‘maybe’ about it – pretty much every study that’s been done indicates that a lack of exposure to language at an early age has a serious impact on educational success.
Another Halocene Human
@jrg: …But there’s only so much we can do for each other’s kids. It seems a lot of people would rather blame “society” or “the man” than take care of their own kids and neighborhoods.
With what hours in what day?
RSR
I say this regularly to people when discussing education ‘reform.’ Kids spend less than 10% of their lifespan (from birth to age 18) actually in school. Until we care more about that other 90%, education reform is simply demagoguery.
NR
Ah, Balloon Juice. Where opposing Obama from the left is a greater sin than killing children.
Chris
@Another Halocene Human:
A big government, trust-busting hardass who unified the galaxy after a war in which he crushed the bejeezus out of its psycho robber barons? I’m not THAT surprised to find him among us.
(Of course as soon as the war is over, half the people who won it follow him while the other half start a revolution, thus proving once again that keeping liberals together is like herding cats. Fucking Rebels were probably the firebaggers of the Star Wars universe, anyway).
FlipYrWhig
@mbss: Look, this shouldn’t be hard, unless you’re just being deliberately obtuse. “Rape” has meanings beyond sexual assault only _because_ it means sexual assault, so, consequently, it also can be used when intending to describing the similarity to sexual assault of things that are not sexual assault, like, for instance, a defense dominating a quarterback. Similarly, if you say that the Chiefs “hammered” Flacco, it doesn’t mean that they literally pounded him with ball peens, but it does mean that they treated him in a hammer-like way. That’s kind of how figurative language works, by activating a literal meaning that is in some way comparable.
Similarly, in the phrase “sack the quarterback,” tackling the quarterback is likened to conquering and plundering a city.
I’m not pulling the Rape Culture card, okay, and I’m not being “PC.” I’m deliberately giving you a hard time because you were claiming to be so far left. IMHO someone who was proudly far left might think twice about casual rape analogies.
Another Halocene Human
@jrg: Just out of curiosity, why does “society” always get blamed when a significant portion of these kids’ fathers aren’t even around?
Because when one dad walks out on his family it’s a personal tragedy. When 30% of fathers in a community are gone, you start looking for environmental causes.
It’s amazing how it just so happens that males in disadvantaged groups all spontaneously: drop out of school, become involved in crime, work low-skill jobs, travel long distances for jobs, become discouraged and quit seeking work, walk out on their families, develop substance-abuse problems, suffer low life expectancy and poor health.
Who can explain it?
ETA: and I forgot to add, and perform poorly on standardized tests.
FlipYrWhig
@Another Halocene Human: See, I thought “butthurt” was supposed to evoke a toddler falling on his ass and going crying to mommy, not anal rape.
Another Halocene Human
@Chris: Fucking Rebels were probably the firebaggers of the Star Wars universe, anyway
They thought that dipshit Yoda was “wise”, so, probably.
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: You’re right! What a bunch of cocksuckers, a word I intend purely metaphorically with no sense remaining of homosexuality or submissiveness! Mwahahahah! Feel the hatred coursing through my veins! :D
Another Halocene Human
@FlipYrWhig: Maybe it’s a Northeast cities under 35 thing but back in the late 1990s I remember discussions before the professor walked in about how yesterday’s quiz “fucked me in the ass and I’m still bleeding”. It wasn’t just assrape, sometimes you still heard PIV references, such as “financial aid must love me because they can’t stop fucking me”.
Daytraders use the assrape metaphor a LOT–check out their lovely online forums some time.
PurpleGirl
@mbss: Actually that process has been going for several generations by my observations. I do not know how to change that.
FlipYrWhig
@Chris:
Frankly, you shouldn’t be able to blow up the Death Star without due process for any Tatooinians who happened to defect to the Empire. That’s a slippery slope even worse than the Sarlacc. Impeach Admiral Ackbar!
Another Halocene Human
@FlipYrWhig: That’s a perfect example. George Carlin was probably the last person to get away with using that word that way. And the metaphor hasn’t gone away–note the use of the word fellating on this blog–but that word used that way is now toxic.
We call sellouts “tools” now. No unintentional (or is it?) did against gays/women.
PurpleGirl
@Jerzy Russian: Project Head Start was one way to extend pre-school to even younger kids. But it was never truly adequately funded and, of course, is one of the things the RWNJ would love to eliminate now.
FlipYrWhig
@Another Halocene Human: Yeah, I’ve heard both “That quiz totally raped me” and “I totally raped that quiz.” I think it comes from video-gamers adapting prison/gangster language like “make you my bitch.”
Another Halocene Human
@JustAnotherBob:
This.
But we don’t have room for this in US society. If poor women don’t work 100 hrs/wk they’re lazy moochers and poor kids just need to accept their lot in life–to be kicked around by the Little Mittlers and Professor Umbrages of the world.
eemom
@Another Halocene Human:
?
Another Halocene Human
@Toschek:
Bingo. And it’s easy for the forces of entropy because defending cultural institutions like this is hard and there’s no fast buck in it.
James E. Powell
@Ben Franklin:
I am not sure what you mean by that.
FlipYrWhig
@Another Halocene Human: Agreed — “fellate” means “act submissive to” only by way of its meaning as a sexual practice, and, oddly, a sexual practice that most of the people who use it as an insult probably rather enjoy.
Another Halocene Human
@eemom: Don’t know Star Wars?
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
Next up, a debate about the increasing use of X-wings in combat zones and the threat it poses to our civil liberties.
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: Joke about encouraging someone to give into his feelings of hatred.
eemom
@Another Halocene Human:
Not since “May the force be with you” was a cool thing to say. Yes, I’m that old.
Chris
@eemom:
Here.
Another Halocene Human
@FlipYrWhig: But I think it’s being used now as another form of assisted masturbation–handjob is almost used interchangeably, as is ego-stroking (the PG version), but not blow job, which is (usually) talking about giving someone sexual pleasure.
You can talk about an asshole “demanding blow jobs” but VIPs on TV don’t demand to be fellated, so it’s less the sadistic dominance/submission and more the implication that the fellator is a courtier.
James E. Powell
@lacp:
Sure, this subject has been written about and discussed before. Does that mean we should let it go? We ought to bring it up as often and as loudly as the ‘unions are destroying our schools’ narrative, no?
PurpleGirl
@JPL: He’s probably still preoccupied with his housefull of guests — a reunion or homecoming or something from his college this weekend.
PurpleGirl
@MikeJ: Many, many parents don’t know how to read themselves or how to read and ask questions about the story. The non-profit I worked for had developed several programs for teaching parents how to read to children and ask them questions about a story. We even gave them books in which we had pasted questions on clear labels so that had an example to keep.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: butthurt is an anal rape metaphor.
jrg
@Another Halocene Human:
Do those environmental causes include people who enable that behavior by coming up with excuses for it?
Ben Franklin
@James E. Powell:
Snarkasm.
Shawn in ShowMe
@jrg:
Yes, that’s surely one of the main environmental causes. If bleeding hart liberals didn’t make excuses for them, the number of deadbeat dads in our ghettos would decrease by half.
Another Halocene Human
@jrg: Sure. That’s why feminists have fought to change child support laws.
But you seem to be implying that researching social problems is a political conspiracy, instead of the first act in a chain of events with the goal of mitigating or reversing the problem.
This wouldn’t be an issue… except for people for whom, say, broken families in certain communities was a feature and not a bug.
lacp
@James E. Powell: I think it’s a very important subject. I don’t think there are too many people following this blog who are really uninformed about it, though.
Another Halocene Human
Of course, I’m ignoring the little bit about how the crusade against deadbeat dads is actually a bit of an anti-welfare, anti-family leave/subsidize childcare/etc crusade in disguise. Note how certain Southron states go after brokeass men and throw them in prison, sure to improve the quality and frequency of remittances, but let the lawyers and banksters and mobsters who refuse to pay their alimony but gave ever so much to Judge Hogg’s reelection campaign run free.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Hmm. I thought it was more like crying loudly over a boo-boo. Well, good thing I’m not in the habit of using it, then.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: No, it’s a disgustingly easy term that seems to roll off the keyboard of quite a few people here.
Soonergrunt
@Corner Stone:
Good times, man. Good times.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: With yer pitcher shows and fancy stew-eatin’ spoons an’ all, you sho’ ain’t from _this_ here holler, I reckon.
Soonergrunt
@lacp: The female body has ways of shutting that down. But are we talking about spastic tubes or certain secretions?
James E. Powell
@lacp:
I would expand ‘following this blog’ to ‘living in the United States.’ It is a subject that most people do not want to talk about because once the research is accepted, cherished beliefs must be abandoned and, if any improvement is going to happen, uncomfortable changes will have to be made.
See, e.g., later school start times
lacp
@Soonergrunt: I really don’t have any idea how one goes about raping one’s students’ written assignments, so I think we’ll have to go back to the source for clarification.
lacp
@James E. Powell: Universal pre-K, too, whether Head Start/Early Head Start or run by school districts.
FlipYrWhig
@lacp: Oh, that’s easy. I’m going to dominate them until they scream to make me stop, but even then I won’t. Metaphorically, you see.
(OK, this is creeping me out.)
jrg
@Another Halocene Human: Of course there are root causes, but the buck has to stop somewhere. It’s hard being a parent. Some days I’d rather just go get drunk at a bar… So my sympathy for people who choose to take the easy way out (then blame “society”, where “society” is make up largely of people who do the hard work required to raise a child) is pretty fucking scant.
Downpuppy
I ride the subway with people of most classes. (Beggars to about $20 million) When people take toddlers, you can really tell. Better off, it’s a continuous conversation. Kids seeing stuff, chatting, parents encouraging, talking back, explaining.
Lower class? Kids need to shut up & do nothing. Often ends in low level violence.
Sad. Not a damn thing I’ve found to do about it.
Jerzy Russian
@PurpleGirl: Yes, Head Start is still a long way from being universal
FlipYrWhig
@Downpuppy: Ooh, too true. You’re right. When I lived in Philadelphia I would see that kind of thing all the time: all the threatening and smacking and silencing and impatient discipline seemingly for the sake of discipline. I had hippie parents and I don’t have kids of my own, so I’m leery about judging, but it felt like a shame, as you said.
Soonergrunt
@NR: Actually, the greatest sin here is hyperbole.
Yutsano
@Soonergrunt: Dishonest argument is a close second.
Soonergrunt
@lacp: Well, you take the paper in your hand, you unzip your trousers, and…
What?
James E. Powell
@Yutsano:
Next open thread, I say we do Top Five Sins lists.
Yutsano
@Soonergrunt: It only counts if the assignment resists.
FlipYrWhig
@Soonergrunt: Also a significant sin: being Johnny One-Note.
Soonergrunt
@Yutsano: funny you should mention that. You remember the iconic photo taken on VJ Day in Times Square? The new Article 120 UCMJ defines rape in such a way that what this Sailor did (the kiss) would be a prosecutable rape today. Resistance is irrelevant. So is consent. As is the opinion of the other party, whether he or she considers him/herself to be a victim of a crime or not.
So about that paper…
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@MBL: Yah, and what happens to the kiddies who CAN read? I was so frikkin bored throughout all of my 2ndary eddykashun that I totally lost interest in damned near everything. Can you read “Juvenile Delinquent?” Been there.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
Actually this is controversial. I thought it was too, and I said as much one time, and a bunch of people responded that no, it was a spanking metaphor and implied that I was some kind of sicko for interpreting it the other way.
And now, as an extra added attraction, I find that I am thinking alike with you of all people. omg.
Xecky Gilchrist
@arguingwithsignposts: Clearly, this is another reason not to vote for Barack Obama.
Indeed. Obama’s only interest in children is blowing them up with DR0NZ.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Corner Stone: @MBL: Yah, and what happens to the kiddies who CAN read? I was so frikkin bored throughout all of my 2ndary eddykashun that I totally lost interest in damned near everything. Can you read “Juvenile Delinquent?” Been there.
Corner Stone
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Only if they are brown.
McAllen ISD, watch the F out amigos!
Corner Stone
@Ronzoni Rigatoni: Yeah. And?
I could read before I started school and had a larger vocabulary than my 3rd grade homeroom teacher. One day he started asking me to define words and stopped when I used them in sentences he didn’t understand.
I became a delinquent much later. We should do what with the small number of you people?
Soonergrunt
@Corner Stone: ahh. Early childhood accomplishment one-upping. It’s Sunday night on Balloon-Juice.
I was quoting Shakespear in the womb.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Corner Stone: Oh, those “useless” silent “e’s” tend to determine the pronunciation of the vowels preceding them. Sumptin’ like the difference ‘tween cot ‘n cote, bat ‘n bate, fat ‘n fate, etc. Fun language. GB Shaw once complained about the vagarities of English spelling and came up with the word GHOTI, for “fish.” GH as in Laugh, O as in “women, and TI as in “nation.” We should all be grateful we didn’t learn English as a second language.
arguingwithsignposts
@Soonergrunt: pffft, I told YHWH that he needed to add a woman to the mix.
Soonergrunt
@Ronzoni Rigatoni: The DoD Defense Language Institute in Monterrey, CA (where the intel kids go to start learning their assigned languages) rates US English a 5 on the 1-5 scale of difficulty for non-native speakers to learn.
Corner Stone
@Soonergrunt: I have yet begun to fight.
Have I told you how I used shorthand to answer vocabulary tests in 2nd grade? Hmmm?
FlipYrWhig
@Xecky Gilchrist: Alas, today’s highly literate child may well become tomorrow’s drone-authorizing intelligence officer. Ironic, eh?
Soonergrunt
@Corner Stone: Impressive, but dude, Shakespeare in the frickin-womb!
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Soonergrunt: Studied Russian there for a bit. My ex was a native and could not ever get the idea of definite and indefinite articles LOL
Corner Stone
@Soonergrunt:
You’re close to forcing me in to Stage II. That’s where I tell you how brilliant my 8 year old son is. And detail some of his exploits.
I don’t want to have to…
lacp
@Soonergrunt: TMI Alert!!!
lacp
@Soonergrunt: Shakespeare in the womb? Jeez, doing Shakespeare in the round is tough enough.
FlipYrWhig
@Soonergrunt: Not of woman born, were you?
gelfling545
@Arclite: Um, no. I directed a preschool for nearly 10 years and taught higher grades for 20 years after that. I oppose the universal pre-k movement because it generally consists, at least in this part of the country, of a lot of developmentally inappropriate, high pressure work at the expense of the exploration and socialization skills which kids can’t go back and make up for later. I insisted on only developmentally appropriate activity and a very abbreviated day in the (private and not attached to an elementary school)preschool I directed but those who believe as I do are losing this battle. Forcing reading on 5 year olds can be done but it is at the expense of skills and experiences that can not be learned at a later time. 3, 4 and 5 year olds should not be sitting in place for hours a day. They’re testing kindgartners too, now. I continually saw students (all of whom had gone to head start or other pre-k)come into middle school who would have been better off if they had been left at home just because the constant frustration of being forced into situations they were not ready for (the structure of the academic day, to give but one example) left these kids with a real hatred for the school situation. It would be far more productive to work with parents, especially pre-natally to help them give the child what s/he needs. It was mentioned above that we don’t take kids away from their parents but in a very real sense we do since they are going younger and younger into very structured environments that in no way meet the child’s needs. Until we get a better handle on just what the students need (and many, if not most teachers know this but are powerless against the push for more earlier)it’s quite likely we are doing more harm than good.
Corner Stone
@gelfling545: I agree. It’s a fool’s game to push kids into something they are not ready for.
Lurking Canadian
@jrg: Okay, it’s Dad’s fault. How do we help Junior recover from Dad’s failings, or is Junior’s messed up life a good lesson pour encourager les autres?
PJ
@Corner Stone: In the parts where I come from (the East Coast), the second syllable of “again” is pronounced like the e in “pen”, while the second syllable of “begin” is pronounced like the i in “pin.”
FlyingToaster
@gelfling545: But developmentally appropriate preschools do work, if you can find them.
My daughter is in one; they NEVER sat for more than 20 minutes before Pre-K, and now in Pre-K the limit is 30 minutes. More time is spent in Music or in low-structure play (just which area of the classroom, be it dramatic play or Legos, plus playground or gym) than in pre-literacy. Arts-oriented schools or farm-oriented schools (another local preschool) or nature-oriented schools or Waldorf all seem to have better results than the local school district’s programs.
She was half-day (9-12) for a year-and-a-half, and since January she’s been full-day. Afternoons are reading (for the readers), socializing, and more dancing/playground/gym. NOT sitting at a desk for 3 hours doing “academics”.
The other nightmare I’m seeing is the “one-size-fits-all” approach that the local districts are following. I have already given up on public school for Kindergarten for a plethora of reasons including sucky schools in my town, and even the good towns have excessive weirdnesses (“social promotion”, my ass).
Pfeh. Gotta put WarriorGirl to bed.
Corner Stone
@PJ: So they’re the same. Thank you!
jrg
@Lurking Canadian: A good start would be to not provide a pre-packaged excuse for Junior to do the same thing.
Past that, I think Junior needs what everyone else does… A paycheck. Stability. Meaningful work. A sense of purpose. Educational opportunities for his kids.
I do think that self respect starts with someone expecting more from you.
taylormattd
@mbss:
Yes, yes you should FULL STOP.
Robert Waldmann
You seem to assume that formal schooling must start at age 6. I think there is no need to take children away from parents. Parents tend to be quite willing to send their children to nursery schools.
The study seems to suggest benefits from expanding early childhood education. It is true that head start has effects on learning which seem to fade over time (and dramatic effects on behavior which don’t) but the problem might be that the program isn’t verbal enough.
In any case it doesn’t follow that if it happens well before age 6 then it is “really beyond society’s control.”
taylormattd
@NR: Be careful, or Obama will drone that comment, TO DEATH.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
As the education theorist E. D. Hirsch recently wrote in a review of Paul Tough’s new book, “How Children Succeed,” there is strong evidence that increasing the general knowledge and vocabulary of a child before age 6 is the single highest correlate with later success. Schools have an enormously hard time pushing through the deficiencies with which many children arrive.
I just attended a library conference where one of the topics was the importance of getting pre-school kids involved and encouraging parents to read to them. Age five is too late – libraries need to aim at two or three year olds, or more accurately those adults in a position to read to them constantly.
Jewish Steel
@Soonergrunt, Corner Stone, arguing:On the internet nobody knows if you are a zygote (I am!)
Yutsano
@Jewish Steel: We are all zygotes now.
Soonergrunt
@lacp: It’s definitely a tough venue.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: My Dad, from Texas by way of a family from Arkansas, insists that “pin” and “pen” rhyme. We have teased him mercilessly about this for roughly 40 years. You have the same ear he does, apparently.
Xenos
@gelfling545: I live in a small country with three official languages and a school system designed to get every child fully literate in each. School starts at age 3, goes full day at age 4. They do not begin to teach any reading, writing, or math until age 6 – three years of kindergarten, basically, oriented around making the children fully expressive around the first language.
It seems to work pretty well, but it does better for middle class kids. Working class kids usually do not do better than 2 languages, and are often routed to apprenticeships and are out into the job market by 17. Bright upper middle class kids end up mastering the first three languages by age 12 and go on to speak 7 or 8 languages as a matter of course.
Whatever system you come up with will result in tremendous inequality. Maybe we could just focus on serving each child as well as possible, for the best outcomes we can manage. Given the social and cultural pressures on Americans to deny inequality and then relentlessly push their kids to get ahead, I don’t know how that can be done well.
Corner Stone
@Xenos: You’re in The Netherlands?
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Hand me a pen, I need to sign this.
Give me that pin, my pants cuff is loose.
Yeah. It’s the same damn thing. How the fuck else do you say this?
Pehn, Pihn. Pehn, Pihn. This is bullshit.
PJ
@Corner Stone: See, if you’d a been edumacated proper, you’d a knowed the difference.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Pin vs. pen discussed by actual linguists, here.
F. Bow
@Arclite:
The gap seems to open well before age 2, so yes to the mandatory universal preschool, but maybe starting at four months?
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: It is ridiculous to say the difference is the same as “pit” and “pet”.
Fascinating link, otherwise.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: The comments on that link are fucking fascinating. Mind boggling.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Yeah, I was getting lost in it too! I love all the times someone chimes in to say, “Wait, those are supposed to be different?”
Xenos
@Corner Stone: Luxembourg. I tend not to mention it in these discussions because the peculiarities of culture and economy make it difficult to use what they do as some sort of guide for policy.
GlibFighter
@Drunken hausfrau: You have heard of ‘Head Start’?
Brachiator
@Xenos:
If all kids start school at age 3, but working class kids still end up being shunted into apprenticeships, then something else is happening here that may come down to soft bigotry and cultural expectations and plain advantages that upper middle class kids have. I don’t believe that working class kids are inferior to other kids.
As an aside, I get nuts over the English Firsters who think that they are better than illegal immigrants. I got mad enough to ask one yokel why he thought he was so smart when he barely spoke English while the Latino cook in the place where we had lunch clearly spoke English, Spanish and passable Cantonese.
dcdl
@gelfling545:
@FlyingToaster:
I like the learn through play pre-k’s. The one my child is now is a city run preshcool. They have a garden, and during the nice days children bring in fruit to help make a fruit salad for snack and on colder days they bring vegetables in to help make vegetable soup. They also make other foods on different days like pumpkin pancakes. They sing songs when they do a lot of activities from walking, picking, up to circle time. They have art tables, sensory tables, a window table, a cubby room with Lego’s, dress up clothes, and host of other activities, and lots of outdoor time. When they are 3 they are only allowed to go two days of the week for 2 1/2 hours and when they are 4/5 they go three days of a week for 2 1/2 hours.
I’ve searched for years with my four boys for a preschool that I was comfortable with. The religious ones (the preschools that were run in churches) were okay, but I never clicked with the schools. The city one is one I clicked with.
I have also found at least with my children you can’t force them to learn the alphabet and whatever until they are ready. Instead what I found is that as long as you are reading to them, or looking at picture books and have them telling you a story, and just mention letters and show them,but not drill them they will read when they are ready. Mine didn’t start reading on their own until first grade. They learned in Kindergarten with help. It’s pretty cool watching when reading clicks with a child. Now they are off and running with reading and enjoy it.
The only testing my children ever had in Kindergarten was just a teacher asking questions like the alphabet, numbers, how to open a book, and other basic questions to get a base line on what they need to do for their class.