We're going through it now, the same book 100 lessons. I have two kids, one is almost 6 and one is 3.5. We got the book because the 6 year old was struggling considerably with reading. The book is a real effort to go through and requires a lot of patience with the 6 year old. Thankfully we are 80% of the way through it. The incredible thing is the 3.5 year old sees the older one do it and she wants to do it and she's actually on track to read much earlier than the 6 year old. It's really something to watch. I'm glad we found this book (actually on another HN thread..)

My wife, who is actually an early childhood montessori educator, was vehemently against the book, and I had to tell her, "look whatever we're doing right now isn't working, we need to do something different". Educational methodology is almost something like a religion hence such a strong need for what should be more "experienced-based" teaching. Do what works, tested on children, versus proving of academic scientific hypotheses. Sometimes what works just works and should be continued until something better can be identified. Again, a lot of this is anecdotal, but it was definitely an uphill battle. Frankly I don't think she's still completely convinced, but I refuse to sit on the sidelines and watch my kids not be able to read.

Always a bit of a struggle as an engineer who is always searching for the solution and has a trained approach to debugging. Some just don't want to try something new for fear it won't work or that it isn't the preferred approach. This is most people I feel.

Thanks for sharing. I'm going to try this book. My 5 yr old likes to be read to, but sternly refuses to attempt to read words. Also montessori. He likes some mobile games which have menus so I'm going to explain why we are doing it but also position this book as a way so he can read menus in games so he knows how to play. And then I'll reinforce that when he asks me to read any menus/storylines in the games by going through the phonetic process and challenging him.

> Frankly I don't think she's still completely convinced, but I refuse to sit on the sidelines and watch my kids not be able to read.

I had a similar situation where I had a thesis on my child's behavioral health concern. Saw a neurologist and she confirmed exactly what I said. Wife was STILL not convinced and even criticized the neurologist's evaluation. But our kid improved after I disclosed the neurologist's evaluation to my sis in law and told them we need them to move out. They had been staying with her family in my house for a year and my wife had been watching their kid. Problem solved. Case closed. My wife wanted to help her sis so much that she was refusing to see the damage the situation was causing.

I also had to take matters in my own hand with getting kids to be sleep trained. Wife refused to do cry it out and we just kept struggling and getting no sleep over and over and kids weren't getting quality sleep. I'll get onboard a plan but if it doesn't work, I'm not going to continue to stay on that path.

I told her I'd handle it and then boom, got them trained in a few days. Not fun at ALL, but all these industries and philosophies take over and push it out there as the new one true way when we have hundreds or sometimes thousands of years of success in various things that work lol.

This is not unique of course. We see this in engineering all the time. Until the tried and true disciplines prevail. And the ones that care about what works best for the context, rather than what is popular at the time are the ones with less stress/anxiety.

I've seen family members say - oh cry it out is stressful for the child and creates distrust. Meanwhile, both partners get no sleep, project their stress and frustration and even end up yelling at their child because of it! Their spousal relationship suffers big time too. Makes no sense to me. Also the same ones who try to optimize everything for their child according to modern parenting philosophies are the ones who have completely unhealthy marriages in my experience. In my opinion, the best thing you can do for your kids is to just show them how to treat and love your spouse and do things that take care of yourself and your spouse so you can be great parents. If you try to do everything according to what is popular at the time, you're going to have a bad time. You need the oxygen mask so you can help your dependents.

Or you have parents who refuse to do cry it out and say - oh I couldn't get baby down last night, had to hold them on my chest and sleep in a chair. Utter madness. Don't do that. They will now be used to your warm embrace and heartbeat and they will never be able to sleep normally in their bed. Well... until you do some form of cry it out lol.

Most things really aren't that hard or frustrating unless you create and foster an environment that makes them so.

end rant

We use the same book with our kids, and had a similar experience with educators. When she moved a to new school in first grade, they were extremely skeptical that she has able to read chapter books.

But I don't think it was specific to reading — they pulled the same crap when it came to other subjects. My sense is they don't want to admit when a student comes in with lots of skills because then they can't take credit for how well the student is doing at the end of the year. This is shown on report cards, where they never put down at/above grade level in the fall/winter quarters, even when the child is clearly multiple grade levels ahead. If they admitted that up front, they wouldn't be able to show "growth".

I suspect that many teachers also (1) don't want to feel like parents can just casually do their job pretty well, like their years of education and certification aren't necessary, and / or (2) deal with an above-average number of parents who think their kids are above-average, so develop some skepticism over time. We just sent our kids to school knowing how to read without telling anyone and let their teachers tell us how well they're doing.

Teaching is pretty hard. It's a lot easier if you have only 1 kid, you control their home life also, they have a similar culture and background as you do, you can give them your (relatively) undivided attention all day, and you don't need to get them to pass a standardized test. Elementary school teachers have > 30 kids, new batch every year, from all walks of life, they can't control their home life, and they have to teach to a test.

Oh, I agree. My wife taught in public high schools for a couple years in an economically struggling city. It was so hard (and paid so poorly, especially per hour of labor) that she quit after those two years and is still traumatized by it a decade later.

Oof I'm sorry. But yeah, an all-too-common story. Maybe it's corny but, thanks to your wife for her service.

Funny you say that because I'm an Army officer, so people regularly thank me for my service, but my wife arguably worked harder, had more responsibility, and was contributing more to society while she was in those schools. And she got paid less than a 19 year-old private in the Army. In fact, the principal of the whole school was paid less than I had been paid as a lieutenant in my early 20s.

Anyway, what's hard about teaching is not pedagogy or the subject material itself, but rather the administrative burdens and management of large and diverse classrooms, as you said, unfortunately.

Most of the time I defend teachers, but I confess to feeling pretty weird about it because with some (super notable) exceptions I had pretty bad experiences with them. I have a lot of opinions about schools/teachers/education whatever but they're pretty polemic and would derail.

But, very glad you found success with your daughter. My partner and I just had a kid and what I wouldn't give for her to sit through us reading a very short book to her without yelling very loudly. One day haha :)