Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Andrew P. Johnson's flawed views on phonics

Andrew P Johnson is a professor from Minnesota State University, Mankota.


           "The Problems with Phonics-Only Reading Programs
            Students who are struggling readers are often given programs that involve only direct instruction of phonics or other reading sub-skills (McCormick & Zutell, 2011).  There are four problems with these types of phonics-only programs:"

My comment: The above is a sweeping statement which will mislead many readers including teachers, students and parents. It is highly irresponsible for a professor to make sweeping statements which will mislead readers. Firstly, how many programmes teach only direct phonics? More importantly, it is not phonics that is the culprit but the teaching of phonemes by many teachers who do not know the letter sounds. 

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Congratulations to one my former student




I wrote about one of my first students who drove me up the wall with refusing to sound out the word fox. She had been taught letter sound correspondences wrongly by her Tuition Centre. Please read details in my post here:

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Q&A on Disengaged Students



The following is a Face Book Q&A between my former employer Mr.Kandiah Namasivayam and myself.
Kandiah:
Luqman, some Kids shut down while Learning English. Others don't. Why? That is the million dollar question. It is obvious to you. But when some kids have no problem why only some kids shut down? So the entire blame cannot be put on English and its teaching method. Obviously there is more to it than what is apparent. Now I wonder why kids turn off when watching Sesame Street? There could be many reasons, one being distraction or attention deficiency syndrome. How do you connect the former to this one?