The Fatal Blind Spot in Phonics
The Giant Hole Nobody Talks About
Greg, like almost every phonics advocate in the English‑speaking world, believes the main problem is that teachers are not being explicit enough.
I argue the opposite: teachers are being explicit about the wrong sounds.
The reading wars are full of loud voices, confident claims, and endless debates about “what works.” One of the loudest is Greg Ashman, deputy principal in Australia and champion of explicit teaching. His tweets and articles win applause from teachers who are tired of trendy distractions. But beneath the surface, something vital is being missed.
This two‑part series takes a plain‑English look at Ashman’s arguments — where he is right, where he is dangerously wrong, and why children keep failing to read despite all the research and rhetoric.
Why China's Kids Are Shutting Down from Reading—and How to Fix It
As a dyslexia advocate who's spent over a decade battling misdiagnoses and flawed teaching methods, I've seen firsthand how "curious, intelligent kids" get labeled as broken when they're just confused. In English phonics, we add extraneous sounds like "buh" for B, turning bright minds into shutdown cases. Now, imagine that same error infiltrating Mandarin's gateway: Hanyu Pinyin. Across my recent posts, a pattern emerges—many Mainland China schools are teaching Pinyin not as the clean, syllable-based bridge it was designed to be, but corrupted by Bopomofo (Zhuyin Fuhao) initial sounds from Taiwan. This isn't just a phonetic hiccup; it's a literacy crisis misdiagnosed as dyslexia, affecting millions and stifling China's next generation of innovators.
The Core Problem: Extraneous Sounds That Don't Add Up
Today I viewed a YouTube video which said that reading is not natural. Read the rest below:
Why So Many Kids Struggle with Reading (And What Needs to Change). For decades, we’ve been teaching reading the wrong way—and the consequences are clear. According to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 40% of fourth graders in the U.S. are performing below basic reading levels. While some progress has been made, the reality is that many children are still falling through the cracks.
In this video, I explore:
I saw a post by Larissa Phillips @larissaphillip today 22nd November 2025 and tweeted her.
Larissa:
Phonics-skeptics fuss over this sort of thing, but the majority of low-skilled readers who come to my adult literacy program can’t decode or encode even three-sound words that they don’t know. They can’t read words like rad or tot or zig-zag.
Couldn’t we all agree that it would be helpful to be able decode the 50-85% of English words that ARE phonetically predictable? Or do they propose just guessing on all of them?
I wish they’d talk to the people who are affected by this inability.
I can tell you exactly what they would say because I hear it all the time: “Why didn’t anyone teach me this?”
This was my response:
Preface to the Greg Ashman Series
This Evening News series examines the writings and claims of Greg Ashman, an educator whose views on literacy and reading instruction have gained attention in Australia and beyond. I have chosen to respond to his posts not because he is my adversary, but because he represents a wider pattern in education: confident assertions made without confronting the real reasons children fail to read.
Lately, I’ve noticed a troubling resurgence of the learning styles myth—so this post couldn’t be more timely.
Why the Learning Styles Myth Persists
Intuitive appeal: It feels right. People are different, so it seems logical that matching teaching to a learner’s “style” would help. But feeling right isn’t the same as being true.
Martin Bloomfield's Wake-Up Call and the Evasive Echo Chamber
If Julian Elliott is the evasive maestro, Dr. Martin Bloomfield is the unwitting spotlight – shining light on the dyslexia farce without realizing it. In his 2024 interview with Elliott, Bloomfield probes the "dyslexic" label's ghosts, only to get half-answers that circle back to square one. But here's the rub: After decades of "research," why are these pros still asking basic questions? In this Evening News follow-up, we dissect Bloomfield's chat, spotlight the dodges, and call out the broader academic blackout. Educators who won't reply aren't just rude – they're roadblocks to literacy for millions. Buckle up; the con unravels further.
We often hear the claim: “All emotions foster learning.” It sounds appealing, almost romantic. But is it true? My experience with children who struggle to read tells me otherwise.
Emotions are deeply intertwined with how we learn. They shape attention, memory, and motivation. Yet not all emotions pull their weight in a helpful way. Some emotions—curiosity, joy, pride—open the mind and expand learning. Others—fear, shame, despair—shut it down.
Julian Elliott’s Decade of Dodging the Truth
🎭 The Master of Evasion
In the lucrative world of dyslexia research, where labels fuel billion‑dollar programs and “special interventions,” one figure has perfected the art of sidestep: Professor Julian Elliott. For more than a decade, Elliott has danced around the real reasons children struggle to read — and the silence from his peers is just as telling.
He admits dyslexia is “a severe and persistent problem with reading.” Fair enough. But if that’s true, why ignore the simple fix that has transformed over 80 children under my guidance?
Let’s get one thing straight: America isn’t talentless. It’s talent-blind.
We’ve got kids with Edison-level genius and Cruise-level grit—but we wait until Grade 3 to notice them. By then, the damage is done. The system has already mislabeled, misdiagnosed, and misplaced them.
That’s why I said it yesterday, and I’ll say it again:
Bridging the Dyslexia Divide: A 15-Year Reflection
Is dyslexia a distraction from teachable fixes? Educational psychologist Prof. Julian Elliott has long challenged the label. In a recent interview, he called out the “multi-billion-dollar business” of dyslexia and emphasized early, evidence-based support.
I agree—and I’ve seen firsthand how confusion, shame, and overload shut kids down. But I also believe the causes are knowable. Fixable. And often overlooked.
A Decade in Literacy Advocacy
In the stormy world of literacy debates I’ve been both a quiet observer and, at times, a thunderclap. From my tutoring sessions in Sabah, I’ve long championed phonics over fairy tales and called out the “dysteachia” that turns eager kindergarteners into reluctant readers.
Now, the term itself has boomeranged back into the spotlight, landing squarely at the feet of Jo-Anne Gross (@RplusDyslexia), the Canadian dyslexia advocate who helped shape this conversation.
It’s been years since Jo-Anne Gross first hit the block button on me—LinkedIn, then Twitter (now X). At the time, it stung. But mostly, it felt like a badge of honour. Here was a self-proclaimed remediation expert, founder of Remediation Plus Systems, selling phonics-heavy interventions for dyslexic kids, suddenly deciding my free lessons and alternative views were too dangerous to engage with.
Stop Importing Brains. Start Mining America’s Own.
The U.S. doesn’t have a talent shortage—it has a talent blindness. For decades, we’ve patched our broken education system by importing foreign brainpower. That’s not a solution. It’s a symptom.
