Children of the Code: The Code and the Challenge of Learning to Read It

“Children of the Code*” is a documentary project that explores the “Code and the Challenge of Learning to Read It“.   It’s based on over 100 interviews with field leading scientists and scholars (overview of interviewees, transcripts, raw videos). The series distills over 1000 hours of conversations into 130 video components organized into 10 chapters. For a quick sense of the overall depth and breadth of the collection just open each chapter and read it’s brief introduction: What’s At Stake? What Is Reading? What’s So Difficult? Reading Readiness. Shame: The Dark Heart of Reading Difficulties. A Brief History of the Code. The First Millennium Bug. Paradigm Inertia. The Brain’s Challenge. Changing Trajectories.  

Interviewees

Series Tour

YouTube Playlists with Intros:

Note: though some of the videos might seem dated, the critical points they make remain true and arguably even more urgent today.

Suggested short tour:

1. Start with a quick scan over the “comments” left by scientists, professors, superintendents, teachers, tutors, and parents.
2. To appreciate “What’s At Stake” watch “A Brief Tour Though Decades Of Reading Scores” followed by “Academic Danger“, “Emotional Danger” and “Social Danger“. If you are interested in what’s at stake economically, politically, or systemically, watch the videos in the subchapter “Collective Costs“.
3. Look over the component videos in “What’s So Difficult” making sure that you watch “Unnatural Confusion“.
4. If you are interested in WHY the code is confusing watch “The Roots of Confusion“.
5. If you are interested in how early life learning prepares or doesn’t children to learn their way through this confusion watch “Meaningful Differences in Family Language Learning“.
6. If you are interested in how reading-shame exacerbates the challenges of learning to read, consider scanning over the titles in “Shame: The Dark Heart of Reading Difficulties” being sure to watch “The Power of Shame” and “Cognitively Learning Disabling“.
7. With all the above as background, to understand the “bottleneck” to individual and collective progress in reading watch the videos: “What is Reading“, “The Brain’s Challenge: Processing Stutters – Processing Speed” and “Disambiguation” and the “Downward Spiral of Shame“.

Special Options: Quick Clips

Clips of Kids: What’s At Stake – Shame – Confusion
Clips of Experts: Source of Confusion

1) Research: a reasonable ballpark estimate for the total number of research papers and studies published on “learning to read” since 1992 likely falls within the range of tens of thousands to potentially over one hundred thousand publications.

2) Methods and Products: a conservative ballpark estimate for the number of different kinds of methods and products related to “learning to read” created or used since 1992 is likely in the tens of thousands, potentially exceeding 50,000 or even 100,000

3) Teachers & Tutors: the number of individuals who have received some level of training to teach reading in the U.S. since 1992 could easily be in the multiple millions.

4) Literacy Organizations: a very rough and broad ballpark estimate would be in the thousands if we consider all types of organizations (non-profits, educational institutions with specific programs, community-based initiatives, etc.) that have had some form of literacy learning initiative continuously operating since 1992

5) Money Spent: a very substantial amount, likely in the hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars cumulatively, has been spent on teaching and remediating reading in the U.S. across all sectors since 1992.

6) Money Lost: a very rough ballpark estimate of the cumulative financial and healthcare costs associated with insufficient literacy in the U.S. since 1992 could likely be in the tens of trillions of dollars.