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.
When I saw the trailer for the documentary The Truth About Reading, I wasn’t surprised to see Faith Borkowsky and Emily Hanford featured prominently. That alone was enough for me to know: this film will likely perpetuate the same half-truths and misinformation that have plagued literacy discourse for years.
Why Reading Is the Key to Ending School Misbehavior
In late 2025, teacher burnout is surging. Twitter is flooded with cries for help: flying staplers, constant disruptions, and a teacher shortage pushing schools to the brink. But what if the solution isn’t more behavior charts or segregated classrooms?
What if it’s as simple as this: Every child must learn to read fluently by Grade 2.
Prof. Paul L. Thomas (@plthomasEdD) of Furman University has long been a voice in the education wilderness—pushing back against the hype of "science of reading" mandates, defending balanced literacy, and calling out phonics zealots for oversimplifying complex kids. As a high school English teacher turned professor, his blog Radical Scholarship and tweets cut through the noise with data-driven skepticism. I've cited him approvingly in my own fights against PAD dogma and "cuh-ah-tuh" blunders. But when it comes to my core question—how do multilingual kids (and even fluent adults) nail nonsense words like "scrab" or "thake" despite kindergarten phonics gone haywire? —he's been radio silent. Or worse: a mute button.
A recent Education Week report confirms what many of us have known for years: popular phonemic awareness programs don’t improve reading outcomes. The Heggerty supplement, widely used in U.S. schools, failed to boost word-reading or fluency among first graders. And yet, the same experts who pushed phonological awareness for decades are now doubling down on phonemic awareness—with no accountability.
This isn’t just a failed method. It’s a systemic pattern.
Different Perspectives: Tweets That Echo Across Continents
Good evening, readers. The reading wars don’t respect borders — they leap from U.S. threads to Aussie classrooms faster than a kangaroo on caffeine.
Tonight’s dispatch takes us Down Under to Narelle Lynch, a 19-year veteran teacher from Australia whose tweets on phonics pitfalls and the power of context have fueled fierce exchanges since 2020. Trained by the THRASS Institute — a multi-sensory literacy framework blending phonics, morphology, and more — Narelle champions a holistic approach: grammar, syntax, etymology, and real-world transferability over isolated sound drills.
Tomorrow, I’ll share a companion post that connects this report to the bigger picture—how confusion has been systematically marketed as science for decades.
A Popular Method for Teaching Phonemic Awareness Doesn’t Boost Reading.
That’s the headline from Education Week, and it’s long overdue. But the real question is: why did it take this long? LINK
Why Are We Still Pretending It Will?
From Ignored Yale Comments to “Duh-Ah-Guh” Confusion
Dr. Sally Shaywitz, co-director of the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity and author of Overcoming Dyslexia, has long been a towering figure in the science of reading. Her brain imaging research helped popularize the idea that dyslexia stems from a phonological awareness deficit (PAD) — a theory that shaped policy, pedagogy, and public perception for decades.
I respect her trailblazing. As a non-educator turned tutor in Sabah, I’ve drawn on neuroscience like hers to teach over 80 children labeled “dyslexic” since 2004. But since launching my outreach in 2010, I’ve been waving a red flag: PAD isn’t the root cause of reading failure for many multilingual children. The real culprit? Flawed phonics instruction — especially the kind that teaches “dog” as “duh-ah-guh.”
In Part 1, we revisited the insights of Dr. David Boulton, Dr. G. Reid Lyon, and Dr. Siegfried Engelmann—experts who, as early as 2003, understood that confusion, not disability, was the root cause of most reading difficulties. They knew that ambiguity in English orthography, when not properly addressed, leads children to disengage. They knew that instructional casualties far outnumber true cases of dyslexia. And yet, despite this clarity, the problem persists.
In Part 2, we turn to the uncomfortable truth: when independent voices try to engage with these experts, they are often ignored, dismissed, or blocked. I know this firsthand.
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Phonics Resistance or Shutdown Sparks Ignored? Different Perspectives:
Tweets That Prod the System
Good evening, readers. In the ever-escalating reading wars, few voices slice through the noise like Karen Vaites (@karenvaites)—a tireless advocate for evidence-based literacy, math curricula, and systemic reform. As founder of the Curriculum Insight Project and a prolific K–12 commentator with over 50,000 followers, she’s on a mission to dismantle “broken” programs: balanced literacy relics, discovery-based math flops, and anything that fails her HQIM mantra. Her rallying cry? High-quality instructional materials aren’t optional—they’re the fix for kids who “can’t read, guess, or hate to read.”
Instructional Casualties and Systemic Blindness
In 2011, Malaysia’s National Service revealed that 1,000 out of 11,000 trainees were illiterate. But after just 30 credit hours of instruction, they could read and write. What happened during their years in school?
If 30 hours can reverse years of illiteracy, then the problem isn’t the students—it’s the system.
🔍 A Decade of Decoding, One Sound at a Time
I’ve spent over ten years teaching kids to read—real reading, not guesswork. It starts with clean consonant sounds, not “buh” for B. My book Shut Down Kids lays it out: teach the right sounds from day one, and no child shuts down. My follow-up, Teach Your Child to Read, has helped parents worldwide turn bedtime into breakthroughs.
In Sabah, I’ve taught 80+ kids to read fluently.
In India, ESL learners thrive with sound-first methods.
Several children in Australia.
In California, a grandma is reversing “dyslexia” labels at home.
I have even taught a child in Kenya using Whats App.
“Ten times the number of kids who have innately biologically ordered learning difficulties have learning difficulties that are a consequence of what they learned.” — Dr. David Boulton
For years, I’ve taught children labeled as dyslexic—children who were disengaged, confused, and often branded as lazy or stupid. But what I’ve seen in my one-on-one sessions tells a different story. These children aren’t broken. They’re confused. And that confusion is often caused by how they were taught to read.
