In my last post, I argued that most children who struggle with reading are not “disabled” in the clinical sense, but rather victims of poor or confusing teaching. When the foundations are muddled—wrong sounds, distorted input, or unclear strategies—many children disengage, and once that shut-down happens, remediation becomes far harder.
It's Often the Teaching, Not the Child
In 2010, my mentor, Dr. Richard Selznick, shared a profound insight that has stuck with me ever since: most children on the left side of the bell curve aren't truly "disabled" in the clinical sense. Instead, they are often "teaching disabled" or "curriculum disabled." These kids thrive when given structured, explicit instruction with ample practice and immediate feedback. True dyslexia—where a child struggles profoundly even with the best teaching—is far rarer.
Here is a comment I made this morning, on a FB post by Dyslexia Inspired.
This resonates deeply with views I've been expressing since 2010. Back in 2004, when I began investigating why many intelligent children could fluently read in Malay and Pinyin (Hanyu Pinyin) but struggled with English, the prevailing explanation was a phonological awareness deficit as the root cause of dyslexia.
I wrote extensively on social media challenging that theory, arguing it couldn't hold because these same children demonstrated strong phonological skills in more consistent orthographies like Malay and Pinyin.
That dominant theory faced significant scrutiny and was largely reframed or debunked around 2017, with emerging research highlighting its limitations.
Now, it feels like the same old idea is being repackaged with new terminology—what I'd call putting fresh lipstick on the same pig.
For more on my early writings, Google search "phonological awareness luqman michel"
Here are comments on the post:
Intro
For years, I have written about dyslexic children who leave school unable to read, only to discover literacy later in life. Their stories raise an uncomfortable question: Why do so many fail in school, yet succeed as adults? The answer lies not in their intelligence, but in the way they were taught.
Visit my bookstore at: https://payhip.com/LuqmanMichel
Why Experts Ignore Evidence on Phonics and Dyslexia
The ongoing "Reading Wars" – the fierce debate between advocates of systematic phonics instruction and proponents of balanced literacy or whole-language approaches – have persisted for decades, leaving many children struggling with reading and labeled as dyslexic. Over the years, I've documented interactions with prominent educators and researchers on my blog. These posts highlight a frustrating pattern: questions rooted in real-world teaching experience and student evidence are often met with evasion, silence, or outright dismissal. This blog post summarizes five key entries spanning from 2020 to 2025, revealing a core issue that could potentially resolve much of the controversy.
Enough is Enough – The Gatekeeping Must Stop
After more than 15 years tutoring dyslexic and struggling readers one-on-one – watching kids light up when confusion clears and they finally read fluently – I'm done holding back.
I've poured my observations into this blog since 2010, only to face silence, blocks, and herd-like defensiveness from the "experts" in the Science of Reading (SoR) and structured literacy world. Parents are desperate, kids are suffering needless disengagement, and yet the echo chambers on Twitter/X rage on, protecting egos, products, and flawed dogmas. It's time to call it out plainly: We're creating "dysteachia" – preventable reading failure through poor instruction – and mislabeling it as incurable dyslexia. And the gatekeeping? It's a big disservice to every child who could thrive with simpler, common-sense fixes.
The dominant view, repeated endlessly in Western research, is that dyslexia is a neurobiological phonological processing deficit. But in 2010, I began questioning this after teaching children who struggled severely with English yet read fluently in transparent orthographies like Malay and Pinyin.
If a child truly has a phonological deficit, shouldn’t it impair reading in any alphabetic system? Yet these same children decoded Malay and Pinyin effortlessly.
– Extraneous Sounds That Cause Shutdown
For decades, the “reading wars” have pitted Whole Language against phonics. Yet despite the swings in fashion, reading failure rates have remained stubbornly similar across eras: 20–30% of children still struggle significantly.
Why? Because both approaches often share a critical flaw: teaching stop consonants with an added schwa sound (/uh/).
Peter’s thread paints English spelling as chaotic — with “200,000 phono-illogical errors” supposedly blocking children from learning to read. But how many of those words does a Grade 1 child actually face?
The Reality in Grade 1
By the end of Grade 1, most children read simple books containing just 300–500 unique words. These are mostly high-frequency and basic decodable words like:
Why English Spelling Isn’t the Main Villain in Reading Struggles
Recently, Peter (@PeterDMayr) shared a passionate X thread arguing that English’s irregular and unpredictable spelling is the primary reason so many children struggle with reading. He highlighted the landmark 2003 study by Philip Seymour and colleagues, which found that children learning consistent orthographies (such as Finnish or Italian) often achieve near-perfect decoding by the end of Grade 1, while English-speaking children typically trail two to three years behind. Peter contends that this orthographic complexity inflates dyslexia diagnoses, widens inequality, and imposes heavy societal costs—a perspective echoed by many spelling-reform advocates. It’s an argument that’s easy to sympathize with.
Visit my book store at https://payhip.com/LuqmanMichel
Preface (2025)
This article revisits a debate I first engaged with in 2021, when Jeffrey Bowers claimed that “no one” had addressed the lack of improvement in England’s reading outcomes after more than a decade of mandated phonics. At the time, I challenged that assertion directly, pointing out that the real issue was not phonics itself but the way letter sounds were being taught.
Four years later, the same misunderstanding persists. By presenting this updated reflection alongside my original 2021 post, readers can see the continuity of my argument and recognize that the “elephant in the room” has been addressed for years — yet still ignored by those who prefer debate over solutions.
📌 Revisiting the “Elephant in the Room” Debate (2025)
Back in September 2021, Jeffrey Bowers tweeted:
200,000 Defects or 26 Letters? A Twitter Debate on Literacy Reform
Setting the Stage
On March 11, 2024, a Twitter thread reignited a familiar argument:
“Kids are not dumb; the spelling system is. Research shows it delays learning to read by 2.5 years (Seymour, 2003).”
The claim: English orthography is riddled with “200,000 phono‑illogical errors” and only spelling reform can fix it.
Wrong Sounds, Not Spelling, Confuse Kids
Here is my response to a Tweet by one PeterDMayr on 23.12.2025 @PeterDMayr
I am sick and tired of countless people like Peter who speak as if they are experts in this field.
Hannah Ward 👩🏻🏫 Mom (x3) | Learning Designer @HannahWardEdu
On Dec 21 Hannah tweeted the following:
I've experienced this as a rule: rich kids abroad who are learning English as a second language read, write, and speak FAR better than native English-speaking kids in the USA because they're taught using phonics, direct instruction, and classic read alouds. It's embarrassing.
Visit my book store at https://payhip.com/LuqmanMichel
Lipstick on the Pig — Recycling Narratives While Illiteracy Persists
Opening Challenge
For decades, literacy rates have stagnated. Every few years, a new theory is paraded as the solution. Yet children continue to leave school as functional illiterates. The question is unavoidable: Is anyone truly interested in reducing illiteracy, or only in preserving their narratives?
The answer matters, because every recycled theory cost children their chance at literacy. Each decade of avoidance is another generation lost.
