So I have to start on my dissertation this semester… I thought that I would just write it for regular people, since those are my people anyway, and I’m pretty normal, and then I’ll make it all academic and shit before I turn it in.

I’m going to write it here on this Blog and hopefully someone finds it helpful and we can all figure this reading shit out! Same headings we have have to use in class and everything.

My Dissertation

Regular People’s Dissertation

Statement of the Problem

Uh, we still ain’t got a good system to teach these darn kids how to read.  That’s a problem!  What kind of first world country with all this damn technology has millions of kids that can’t read???

 

Studies show:

If you can’t read well by the 3rd grade, you have 42% chance of becoming homeless later in life.

If you can’t read well by the 3rd grade, you have a 55% chance of living in poverty when you get older.

If you can’t read well by the 3rd grade, you have 67% chance of being on welfare and food stamps.

If you can’t read well by the 3rd grade, you have a 75% chance of going to prison.

 

So, just for shits and giggles, if you know anyone that is on public assistance, or has been to prison, or has a low paying job, or god forbid, is homeless. .. Think of how often you have seen that person reading… anything??? For work or for pleasure???  And FaceBook and Instagram don’t count as reading!

 

Yup, this is a serious problem!

 

The Research Problem

It would be lovely if students came to school in KG already reading and knowing their letter names and sounds, but they don’t. Well, the majority of them don’t anyway.

The problem is that when children don’t learn to read well, it leads to a lifetime of struggles, and not just in the classroom.  They don’t like school, don’t do well in school, get into fights all the time, the teacher doesn’t like them and doesn’t bother to teach them, and honestly they end up dropping out or getting kicked out because the kids in the street understand them more and don’t care about that schooly shit anyways.

Parents of these struggling readers probably had troubles in school themselves.  One study I read showed that if a parent doesn’t read so great, than their child is 6 times as likely to not read that great either.

These parents are in low paying jobs, work long hours and don’t have the time, energy or know the benefits of reading just 10 minutes a night with the child. Even if they knew, they are dead ass tired from simply trying to stay afloat, let alone buy books on Amazon to read at night.

Oh yeah, now I remember another study that says the amount of words a child knows at 18 months can predict their reading level in the 3rd grade. Crazy, right? So basically we have a year and half to cram a lot of smart shit into these little people or we’re doomed???

Background and Justification

Scientific research shows us how children learn to read.  But honestly, it’s a difficult process and teachers really aren’t reading all of these technical papers on how to teach the ABC’s  And you can’t really blame them, since they have so many kids in the class, not enough help and damn near no resources! Over that last 50 years, we have only reached like half of the students reading at a good enough rate to be called proficient.  What the heck are we doing with all of this research??? And money??? The United States spends about $10,000 per student each year.  I bet if parents were given $10,000 extra a year to read to their children every night, they would learn more than they did in school! Damn, that sounds like more fun than my dissertation J

Most of the people that set these policies and what we need to learn in school are wrinkled old white men.  What the heck do they know about Tyreese and how hard his life is at home, with no time to read?

Deficiencies in the Evidence

Well the US says they have 99% literacy rate.  Which means that 9 out of every 10 people in the united states can read like a champ. Hmmmmm. We started this reading thing in the 1700s.  Horace Mann was in the 1800s with his way of doing things.  He got a whole shitload of schools named after him, but we still aren’t reading any better.  In the 1900s there was the whole-word method. Now here we are in 2021 and more than half of the students still can’t read! But we are turning out lots of folks with their PhD in reading every year? It just doesn’t make sense.  But maybe it makes dollars.

Audience

The lower elementary students, and the youngest of learners will be the most affected.  No matter what we learn from this little experiment, we should end up with something that is better that what we are doing now.

Teachers will have time in the class to actually do fun things if all of the students can already read. Parents will feel better knowing that their child actually has a chance at a better life.  The community will be safer cause teens aren’t hanging out on the corners trying to steal their iphone.  They have a job at the apple store! Prisons will be less crowded, because people actually had a choice on what to do because there are many more options when you have a good education.

There are no losers when everyone is reading.

Setting of the Study

I’m going to get myself into VPK and KG classes in the low-income areas.  All the research shows that we have the hardest time focusing on learning for pleasure.  Probably because we’re out there hustling to make ends meet, but that’s someone else’s dissertation!

Researcher’s Role

 

 

Preliminary Purpose of the Study

We want to come away with a good reading program.  One that works for most of the kids. Not that other research based foolishness that don’t have today’s students shown in a positive light or doing anything good.  It has to be easy enough that the teacher can ‘get it’ and use it quickly and effectively.