Anna Stokke's podcast with Matthew Burns - Part 2

                                                 

This is a continuation of the podcast by Anna Stokke. (LINK)

Anna Stokke:

Do you see similarities between what happened with reading instruction and what's going on with math instruction?

Matthew Burns:

I do. It's quite analogous, although it's not a complete one-to-one. It's almost like there's a shift in thinking around what constitutes evidence and what constitutes research-based practices. And I think that's cutting across all aspects of teaching and learning…

Trivia & my book - Teach Your Child to Read.

                                                          
 

Perhaps many of you already know this but I just learned it a few days ago. We don't need an ISBN number for printing and selling our books directly. We need it if we are marketing them through a third party - shops etc.

The above image is the amended book cover for the printing in Kota Kinabalu.

 

The original ISBN number has been deleted and the name of the original publisher removed.

I have checked and see that postage for a copy to Sarawak and West Malaysia will be Rm8. Including packaging and transport, Rm10 is a reasonable price.

So, for those in West Malaysia and Sarawak and other parts of Sabah, the cost per book will be Rm30 which is still so much cheaper than the price on the Internet of RM65.

 

Contact me if you are in Malaysia and would like to buy a copy. It is not available in book shops.

Here is the book on the Internet. LINK

 

Please share this info with your contacts.

Anna Stokke's podcast with Matthew Burns - Part 1

                                                            

Here is a transcript of the podcast by Anna Stokke.

She asks many relevant questions and since she is not an ‘expert’ in reading and not selling a reading programme I believe she will read my comments with an open mind.

This podcast is with Dr. Matthew Burns whom she claims is a renowned researcher in the science of reading world.

Here are some extracts and my comments/ questions:

Disinformation by Dr. Miah and Tiffany Peltier

                                                                    

This morning I read a Tweet by Dr. Miah who does not know how kids learn to read. She supports her friend, another Ph.D. who blocked me probably for asking questions she could not answer.

These are the people who will say anything to promote their products.

Here is the Tweet by Dr. Miah @dst6n01

(This woman has 17K followers. Imagine the harm she is causing by this disinformation)

Check out this blog on sight words—and why we should be moving away from them :)—from my colleague @tiffany_peltier @NWEA

Tiffany Peltier, Ph.D.🌸 @tiffany_peltier profile says she is a Mama to 2. Designer of Literacy PL @NWEA. Research in reading, dyslexia, conceptual change.

Here is the Link attached by Dr. Miah

What if your child struggles with a concept?

                                                       

On 30.11.23 I read a tweet by The reading mum, Ph.D. @readingmumngr

If your child struggles with a concept, they have yet to understand it. Sometimes, they are not developmentally ready. Other times, you need to show them another way they can better learn that concept.

What has been your experience?

I replied as follows:

What if that kid is struggling with a concept that has been taught wrongly?

How can a child scaffold when the first scaffold is damaged?

I am only talking about decoding/reading.

I am from the audit field and started teaching to find out why kids were able to read in Malay but not in English. There is a Chinese saying - A journey of 1000 miles starts with the first step.

My question is - what if a kid's first step is to the East when he actually wants to go West?

Do educators know the importance of foundational skills?

 

On 30.11.23 Cameron Carter @CRCarter313 Tweeted the following:

Every educator knows the importance of foundational skills, and of building student engagement and ownership while teaching these skills.

I then Tweeted as follows:

'Every educator knows the importance of foundational skills'.

This is Bullshit! Stop spreading disinformation.

Dr. Sam Bommarito @DoctorSam7 then replied to my Tweet.

? Sorry you feel that way.

Jennifer Serravallo and P.D. Pearson on phonics and reading

                                                                

Yesterday, 21.11.23 I read a blog post by Jennifer Serravallo. A large portion of the post was on comprehension. My blog focusses on decoding. I leave comprehension to experts like Jennifer.

Here are extracts and my comments.

Jennifer Serravallo:

Yeah, nobody denies how important phonics is, but if we're taking a ton of time, then that's the time kids aren't getting to practice other things like you said, fluency or having read aloud or getting to play with each other or all the many other things that they need to develop oral language and literacy skills and things like that.

"The solution to poor reading scores is not simply better instruction"- Emily Hanford (Part 2)

                                                

Here is a response from Jani Wright. As expected there is no reply from Emily Hanford, the so-called literacy expert.

 

Jani Wright @thewrightjungle

Poor Tier I curriculum, poor MTSS, F&P fans at the DO, lack of training for teachers, laws that allow each district to operate with local control, and a state DOE that hasn't prioritized reading using evidence-based practices. No accountability.

These are all too general.

i.                    What exactly is poor tier 1 curriculum?

ii.                  Why has nothing been done since 1972 (the year since when data is available)?

iii.               Why has the reading proficiency level remained the same since 1972?

"The solution to poor reading scores is not simply better instruction"- Emily Hanford (Part 1)

                                                             

Here are some Tweets of Emily Hanford, Jani Wright and me on 15.11.23 (Part 1)

Emily Hanford @ehanford

"The solution to poor reading scores is not simply better instruction, it is also better assessment—an assessment that is matched more closely to what is taught in the classroom." - Hugh Catts    

I then tweeted:

You continue barking up the wrong tree. Since 2017 I have told you that the problem is in decoding. Check the kids who fail the assessment and you will find that it has nothing to do with understanding but an inability to decode. You can't be that naïve can you?

Reading Comprehension - Tweets discussion with Dr. Sam Bommarito

                                                             

Here is a Twitter discussion between Dr. Sam Bommarito and me.

Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel Nov 8

Dr. Sam Bommarito, the simple view of reading says:

   Reading comprehension = Word Recognition X Language Comprehension.

Almost all of my students were unable to answer comprehension questions found at the back of the book when they read the passages. But all of them could answer when I read to them.

Is it a language comprehension problem or a word recognition problem?

If it is not a Language Comprehension problem, then where does the Reading Comprehension problem come from?

How is it that kids who have gone to school for 2 or 3 years have a word recognition problem?

Tweet exchanges with Catlin Goodrow - Evidently Reading

                                                             

On 7.11.2023 I read a tweet by a SoR advocate, Catlin Goodrow. Here is part of her tweets and my replies.

EvidentlyReading @EvidentlyR

I'd like to address another misconception, however. The article begins with an anecdote about a striving reader who is being assessed by one of the authors.

They argue that, because this reader knows letter-sound correspondence, but has trouble reading "after" and "insect" she needs some other instruction than phonics. In fact, they claim this is evidence that "phonics" failed this reader.

But letter-sound instruction is not all there is to phonics! It IS something that will be taught in a structured literacy environment, usually in kinder and/or early first grade. But phonics (or, more accurately, foundational skills) is so much more!

 For example, "after" includes an r-controlled vowel.  Phonics instruction explicitly teaches these vowels, as well as vowel teams, syllable types, etc. We also teach how to blend sounds into words/syllables, and strategies for decoding longer words. 

P David Pearson talks about various literacy issues

                                                      

Here are extracts of the interview of P David Pearson by Dr. Sam Bommarito and my comments.

We take people's temperatures but we don't assume that the only thing you do once you've taken the temperature is to do everything you can to raise or lower the temperature directly you look for a cause and you try to root out that medical cause for it and then see if the temperature goes down so I think that the first task facing the child is transforming graphemes letters into phonemic names sounds and that's what you should focus on.

Teachers and educators are doing exactly this. They do not look at the causes of why many kids are unable to read at the end of Grade 1. These are the kids who get into higher grades and misbehave due to shame avoidance.  

Telling kids not to use context clues when they are figuring out what a word says is like telling leaves not to fall or dogs not to bark. If you are in a problem situation and you cannot figure out what the word says you are going to use every resource at your disposal to figure it out if you are a decent learner.

This has been my mantra for more than a decade. Use all the tools available. In my book, Teach Your Child to Read, I use all the tools mentioned by David Pearson. I use Systemic phonics, analytical phonics, word family phonics, memorising Dolch Words (not mentioned by David), context clues, patterns (not mentioned by David), analogy and ways of figuring out new words. 

Amy McGovern on Reading Comprehension

                                                               

Here is a comment on LinkedIn by Amy McGovern, Associate Director of Continuous School Improvement Services/ Reading Specialist at CESA 9, &The Reading League Wisconsin~ Board Member

“We absolutely MUST do knowledge-building, read-aloud, writing, and language-building. The simple view of reading requires it—Word Recognition X Language comp = Reading Comp.

If we ignore language comprehension, which was NEVER the intention, then of course, the equation is going to break down. We need to pay attention to the language comprehension strand as well."

Here is my reply:

Of course, this is part of the equation. No one will ever say Language Comprehension is unimportant. 

The simple view of reading

 

The image above is copied from a post on LinkedIn by Amy McGovern, a highly accomplished Reading Specialist. 

Here is a comment I wrote this morning on the post above.

The above is the simple view of reading put forward more than 30 years ago (More than thirty years ago) by Gough and Tunmer in 1986.

An individual's reading comprehension (RC) is the product of his decoding skill (WR) and language comprehension (LC).

The question that begs a response is why has the reading proficiency level remained the same since 1972.

Acquired Learning Disabilities - Part 2

                                                              

Here is part 2 of my Twitter discussion I posted yesterday. LINK

Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel

Get a copy of my book Teach Your Child to read and point out if you hear any consonants pronounced with extraneous sounds.

Pat Stone @PATSTONE55

Nice cover. I’ll have a look.

I still defy anyone to say g without it being ug or guh