Four Years On: Revisiting the Elephant in the Room

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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:

Reform Beyond Reach, Pedagogy Within Grasp

 

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.

Stop Blaming English—Fix the Teaching

 

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.

Blocked for Answering: The Silence That Sustains Illiteracy

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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.

Lipstick on the Pig — Recycling Narratives While Illiteracy Persists

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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.

Part 5: Voices That Break the Silence

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While institutions resist reform and avoid clarity, individual voices tell a different story. Parents, teachers, and relatives who have used Teach Your Child to Read show what happens when confusion is replaced with structure: children regain confidence, families find solutions, and progress becomes visible.

 

Alanna Maurin (Australia)

Alanna Maurin is an accomplished teacher in Australia, a mother of four boys, and a master’s student in Reading and Literacy. In late 2020, she reached out about her youngest son, Louis, who was confused, emotional, and resistant to reading.

Fun with learning Mandarin - Mandarin Neutral Tone in '记得'

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Chinese Podcast - jì de 记得 or jì dé

Lately, instead of scrolling aimlessly on Facebook I decided to improve my Mandarin. I found one excellent podcast that I am now fond of listening to.

Unfortunately like many other websites this site also pronounced many words ending with ‘de’ in the second tone instead of neutral tone. 

Part 4: “Write Your Own Programme”? I Already Did.

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When I tweeted about foundational contamination in reading instruction, Geraldine Carter of the Reading Reform Foundation (RRF) replied that there are “thousands of requests” and suggested I write my own programme. My book, Teach Your Child to Read, is designed as a practical tool for parents and educators — a way to bypass institutional inertia and give children the foundations they deserve. Where avoidance stalls progress, this resource offers clarity, structure, and empowerment.

Enough Excuses: Scottish Education's Decline Demands Real Accountability, Not Deflection

                                                     

I read this Substack article from the Scottish Union for Education this morning:

It highlights falling standards but dodges the hard truths. Here's why it's yet another evasion from those who refuse to face the real problems.

Extract:

This is despite the fact that Scottish standards in reading, math and science have been falling, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Part 3: The Grail Contaminated – Why Clarity Still Fails Some Children

 

In Part 2, I explained that clarity in instruction—the correct sounds of letters, taught step by step—is the Grail. It prevents confusion and keeps children from shutting down. But even with clarity, some children still struggle. Why?

 

Because the human mind is like the human egg. Once an idea has entered, it is difficult for a new one to penetrate. This is especially true for curious, intelligent children. They absorb early input eagerly, and when that input is wrong, it embeds itself deeply. Later correction often bounces off. These are the very children who shut down—not because they lack ability, but because their early learning was contaminated.

Part 2: The Grail Revealed – What Actually Causes Functional Illiteracy?

 

In Part 1, I wrote that people aren’t struggling because they don’t care. They’re struggling because no one aligned the path for them. That’s true in education too—especially in literacy.

 

For over a decade, I’ve pointed to what I believe is the “Holy Grail” of literacy reform: the actual cause of why so many children leave school as functional illiterates. It’s not hidden. It’s not complicated. It’s not a mystery.

The Myth of Struggle – Part 1

 

This post is influenced by a reflection I read on LinkedIn:

 

People aren’t struggling because they don’t care. They are struggling because they don’t know what actually matters today.

“Dyslexia for Profit: Identical Articles, Endless Disclaimers”

 

💰 Dyslexia is not just an educational challenge—it has become a multi-billion US dollar per annum business. Every year, vast sums are poured into research, therapy programs, brain imaging, pharmaceuticals, tuition, and salaries for professionals across countless organizations. With so much money at stake, it is hardly surprising that dyslexia is often portrayed as a disease—something that can only be “treated” or “cured” through expensive interventions.

The Real Barrier Isn’t a Phonics Gap—It’s a Clarity Gap

                                                                      

Here is my response to a Substack post on decodables. 

While it’s true that not all struggling readers have the same needs, the statement “many struggling readers have phonics gaps” significantly understates the real issue for a large proportion of children.

 

After leaving a career in accounting in 2004 to investigate why some children read easily in Malay (a transparent orthography) but struggle severely in English, I found that the primary barrier for most persistent struggling readers is not a lack of phonics instruction per se, but the initial confusion caused by imprecise or inconsistent teaching of letter–sound relationships.

Part 2: The Reading Guarantee – Bold Vision or Missing Step?

 

We're back with the literacy showdown. As Hunter pushes structured literacy to rescue Australia's readers, Luqman tags her from the trenches. Can policy catch up to practice?

October 2024: Hunter escalated with her Grattan manifesto, slamming the 1970s "whole-language" hangover – where kids guess words from context – for leaving a third of Year 5s unable to decode proficiently.