Tuesday, February 20, 2024

How dyslexia changes in other languages - Sophie Hardach

                                                      



Here is an article on BBC written by one Sophie Hardach on 10th March 2023. This was a copy-paste article about which the author knows zilch about. LINK

Here are extracts from the article and my comments.

At the age of 13, however, Alex was diagnosed with dyslexia, a learning difficulty that affects reading and writing. According to test results, his English reading level was that of a six-year-old.

Read my post on this in 2010. LINK 

Monday, February 19, 2024

Jon Hutchinson - Another guy who has blocked me for giving my opinion.

                                                                


Jon Hutchinson @jon_hutchinson_

His profile says he is a Dad. Director at the Reach Foundation. Co-founder @menoacademy. LSX Fellow w/ @newamerica. Chair of @qpacademy.  And he has 17.5K Followers

He tweeted the following on 18.2.2024

Twitter obviously emphasises the things that people disagree on in education, but I’m curious: what are the areas of almost complete consensus? What does (pretty much) everyone agree about regardless of ideological stance?

Shameless self-promotion

                                                      


This is for authors who want to promote their books on Twitter.

Every day since January 2024 I have seen many Tweets to promote each other’s books.

It goes on throughout the week with Twitters promoting books from Sunday to Saturday.

Here is one such example of promotion on Friday. 

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Reading is unnatural - Jennifer Knopf

                                           


Here is a post on LinkedIn by Jennifer Knopf from Orlando that included the above image.

Jennifer is the President and Founding Director @ REED Charitable Foundation

Her post was reposted by 13 LinkedIn members. I commented on one of the reposts and had a discussion/debate with someone. A day later all our (hers, another member and mine) comments has disappeared. Why members do this is beyond me.

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Press Release

                                                     



Someone from the other side of the globe suggested that I should do a press release so that there will be greater exposure of my book. 

This is a free press release that has 10 links to other sites. 

Teach Your Child to Read by Luqman Michel

This book quite simply spells out exactly how to address reading problems. And that is it. Right to the point. Parents and teachers will be relieved to find in this book how their students can easily learn how to read.

Kota Kinabalu, Sabah Feb 10, 2024 (Issuewire.com)  - Luqman Michel embarked upon teaching children how to read when requested to do so by his neighbour whose son could not read even a single sentence after two years of schooling and kindergarten.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

A preventable tragedy - Sarah Duggan

                                                                  


This morning, 8.2.24, I read a post in Education HQ by Sarah Duggan. LINK

 

Here is an extract and my comments:

 

All Australian governments and school sector leaders should commit to a 10-year ‘Reading Guarantee’ strategy to reduce the dire number of instructional casualties slipping through the system and ensure best practice is not left to chance, experts have proposed.

 

One third of all students are below the basic level of reading proficiency, Amy Haywood, Grattan’s education deputy program director, tells Education HQ.

 

“And the sad thing is, that it’s a preventable tragedy because we do know what strong and effective reading instruction looks like – we just need to make sure that we’re getting it happening in every classroom…” Haywood says.

Monday, February 12, 2024

Double Deficit Dyslexia - A new challenge

                                                          


On 9.2.24 a mother who read my message on a Dyslexia Support group messaged me and asked if I could help her son who has been diagnosed with double deficit dyslexia.

This is the first time I am hearing this term 'Double Deficit Dyslexia'. But, I don't believe in all these labels. 

The mother confirmed that her son, let’s call him David, has no acuity problems i.e. he has no hearing, sight or thinking problems.

I asked her for a voice recording of David reading out the sounds of the letters C, F, L, M, N, R, and S. She obliged. David pronounced the letter sounds perfectly. There were no extraneous sounds.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Brain Rsearch - Dr. Sam Bommarito Part 2

                                                              


The following was tweeted by Kerry:

Kerry Greaves @KerryGr76867180 Feb 4

The reasons Reading Recovery is being banned in many states - it works for few and when it doesn’t, the child is blamed…

Luqman Michel

The question to ask is why does it work for a few and not the rest. Also, why does phonics work for some and not others?

Why does phonics work for any child, with no acuity problems, when using my book?

 

Dr. Sam Bommarito @DoctorSam7

Those are all kinds of research questions with plenty of research to answer them. Your claims around your book need to be verified with actual research studies. I know you are doing good work- but for wide-scale adoptions of what you are doing, that kind of field testing needs to be done.

Friday, February 9, 2024

Brain Research - Dr.Sam Bommarito

                                                      


The following are extracts from Dr. Sam Bommarito’s blog and my comments.

Dr. Sam

I also had a chance to hear Dr. George Hruby’s presentation as he talked about various issues including the issue of what we can learn from current brain research. Here’s a teaser- did you know that the pictures of the brain lighting up aren’t direct pictures? Those images are computer-generated and based on the data being collected. So, this picture of the brain lighting up is not an actual picture that was taken directly. It is a computer-generated statistical chart. It is only as valid as the application of the data being collected and the interpretation of that data.

He also pointed out the major limits and limitations of current research about the brain. “50% of all studies in cognitive neuroscience are reporting false positives.” My take: a lot of the brain research being used as a basis for new legislation around literacy falls into the “not ready for prime time” category.

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Top of the world

                                             



This morning I am feeling at the top of the world. 

Ellen Marie Wiseman, a many times Best Selling Author, Tweeted that my book Teach Your Child to Read is amazing. 

Last night I had a chat on Twitter with her that was initiated by her. We chatted well past my sleeping time.

Here is a little about her from the Internet.

Sunday, February 4, 2024

We don’t need meaning and pronunciation to remember words by sight (Luqman Michel)

                                                         

                                                  

Here is a tweet I read this morning that I disagree with.

Helen Proulx @HelenProulx 2 4.2.2024

To sum up- for a word to become a sight word, the meaning must be bonded to the pronunciation. Many words are not meaningful unless read in context (function words). It sounds an awful lot like Meaning, Structure & Visual information. (letters) are important in word reading/learning.

Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel

The following statement is incorrect.

'Words that are known by sight are recognized automatically because their spellings, pronunciations, and meanings have been stored in memory in separate but rapidly linked parts of the brain.'

Friday, February 2, 2024

Turning a school around - Graham Chatterley (Part 2)

                                                          


You may read part 1 HERE.

Here are more comments on the thread by Graham Chatterley. 

NickRiden50575

The point is that schools can only be successful, positive, engaging learning environments when the culture is right. Children need to see clearly right from wrong and that their actions have consequences. If not, schools become chaotic.

graham chatterley

Yes, and the leadership have the job of getting children and staff to buy into that culture. Not taking a shortcut of getting rid of all the children who are struggling.

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Red flags in education research - Anna Stokke with Ben Solomon (Part 2)

                                                               

Part one of this post can be found HERE.

[00:19:48] Anna Stokke: The point you made about this paper being used to influence policy for millions of kids, is quite alarming. Okay, so I'm going to say, you know, in Canada when that curriculum I was talking about was adopted and I'm not kidding you that for a while, teachers were told that children could not use standard algorithms in class. They were not to teach them and kids were not to use them, even if they've been taught at home.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Turning a school around

                                                            


Here is an interesting thread on Twitter on turning schools around by a Former school leader, Director - author, radio presenter and SEN parent who has more than 3,600 followers on Twitter. 

Most educators are good at going around the mulberry bush repeating the same thing again and again expecting different results.

graham Chatterley @grahamchatterl2 29.1.24

If you are bragging about turning a school around, but your exclusion figures are sky high and you are sending parents elsewhere, you haven’t turned anything around, you’ve taken a massive shortcut. If you cherry pick your students of course results go up.

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Red flags in education research - Anna Stokke with Ben Solomon

 

The clip above is copied from Anna Stokke’s Tweet dated 28.1.2024. Anna is a math professor and has a podcast that will be useful for all those interested in Math. I have only listened in full to 2 of her podcasts and think it is one of the best podcasts I've heard.