Sunday, July 30, 2017

Dr. Thimothy Shanahan’s blog post on Phonics (Part 3)



Here is a comment by another reader of Shanahan's blog:

Debbie Hepplewhite
Jul 24, 2017 06:45 AM
Hi Tim,

I wonder if Luqman Michel was actually referring to the pronunciation of letters with an added "uh" which can be misleading rather than suggesting it is 'phonics' as such that is causing the problem?

I've watched part of the video and note that the pronunciation of phonemes as beginning sounds in words is not that great.

Instead of saying /k/, for example, the narrator/singer says /k+u/. Instead of /s/, /s+u/, instead of /m/, /m+u/ and so on.

Friday, July 28, 2017

Dr. Thimothy Shanahan’s blog post on Phonics (Part 2)



This first paragraph below is from my previous post:

Dr.Timothy Shanaghan: The point isn't that phonics is an important thing to learn for English Learners, it is that it is not the only thing they need to learn. There is a reason that English proficiency is the top predictor of literacy learning for English learners.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Dr. Thimothy Shanahan’s blog post on Phonics (Part 1)



Recently I came across a Blog maintained by Dr. Timothy Shanahan. I made the following comments and received his responses below.

At the bottom of this page you will see the link to Dr.Shanahan’s blog but for now let us look at my comments and his response.

I hope this discussion with Dr.Timothy Shanahan will continue.

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Dr.Boulton, Dr.Lyon and Dr.Engelmann on disengaged kids (Part 2)

I have copied the comments of Dr. Boulton and my responses in the Linkedin website for your convenience.



My comment in Linkedin about 1 year ago:

"One should stop categorising all students who find it difficult to read as dyslexics and shove them aside. A majority of these kids are kids who learn differently from the roughly 80% of kids who learn regardless of the way they are taught. Researchers in Children of the Code already are aware of how to teach these kids. 

There are many teachers around the world who have taught disengaged kids successfully. Why not spend the required money to teach these kids instead of wasting it on building prisons and teaching kids in prison. Find the cause and eradicate it rather than trying to find a cure for the symptoms."

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Dr.Boulton, Dr.Lyon and Dr.Engelmann on disengaged kids (Part 1)


The following article was posted by me in Linkedin on September 2015

In response to Andrea’s comment on my article on 'Tale of two studies' I now post extracts from various articles from 'Children of the Code'.

As early as 2003 researchers already were aware of the fact that a major cause of illiteracy is because of children shutting down/disengaging. In time I hope to find out why this information is not wide spread and why solutions have not been suggested in ‘Children of the Code’. Perhaps Dr. David Boulton will read this post and favour us with a response.

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Email to Dr. David Boulton (Part 3 of 3)



·         luqman michel
·          
·         06/09/15 at 4:41 AM
To
·         David Boulton
Hello again Dr. David Boulton,
I think it is time to challenge our institutionalized assumptions about reading failure. Our assumption that many students will be poor readers can and should be changed. As Dr. G Reid said these kids are “instruction casualties”.

Now, I am giving you anecdotal evidence on questions you have raised in your interviews.

Please give me your views.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Email to Dr. Boulton (Part 2 of 3)



6.9.2015
Hi again Dr. David Boulton,
What you said in one of your videos is: 10 times the number of kids who have innately biologically ordered learning difficulties have learning difficulties that are a consequence of what they learned…... Until such time we can read that they are cognitively going askew relative to what they have learnt in the past then our teaching is kind of brute force against this deep core stuff that is working against us.

Emails to Dr. David Boulton - 2015 (Part 1 of 3)



On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 7:03 AM, luqman michel ;luqmanm2002@yahoo.co.uk; wrote:

Dear Dr.David Boulton,
I am writing an article based on videos of the Children of the Code and have one question for you.

There were 6 kids in the video below who had various excuses for not reading.


Dr. Why couldn't these kids read?

Thank you and kind regards,
Luqman Michel


Tuesday, July 18, 2017

My Emails to Dr. Reid Lyon (Part 3 of 3)



7.8.2015
Good evening Mrs. Diane,
I just read another article by Dr. G Reid and my comment follows what he wrote:
Reid Lyon Answers
It is unfortunate that the debates surrounding whole language versus phonics continues to detract from the critical issue - what instructional approaches, strategies, and programs are most beneficial for which kids at which phases or reading development?

Monday, July 17, 2017

My Emails to Dr.Reid Lyon (Part 2 of 3)



Please read my initial emails to Dr. Reid and responses from his wife Diane Lyon in my blog post on 14th July 2017.

The following is one of my emails to Dr. Reid Lyon in August 2015. I was sent on a wild goose chase and was never given a reply to my emails.

Following is taken from Dr.Reid's message in "The Code".

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Why do kids shut-down (v)



Sounds of the alphabet E

Before we look at the different sounds of the letter E let us look at something a Facebook friend of mine had written in his blog.
He had said that he was surprised as to why one of the kids had read the name ‘Darcy’ as ‘Darky’. I would not be the least bit surprised that kids will sound it out either way. I am now 64 years old and have yet to hear this name Darcy neither among friends nor in any book except in that blog.

Saturday, July 15, 2017

Why do kids shut-down (iv)



Sounds of the alphabet O

Early last year a friend of mine asked me to see if I could help his grandson who appeared to be stuck with his reading in the English Language. His mother who spoke excellent English and was a school teacher said that her son (say James – not his real name) could read some three letter words but appears to have difficulty progressing in his reading. He was in primary three.

Friday, July 14, 2017

My emails to Dr. Reid Lyon (part one)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Why do Kids shut-down (Part 3)



Schools here and in most parts of the world teach the alphabets as follows: a is for apple; b is for bed; c is for cat; d is for dog …….. z is for zebra. All kids whether prone to shutting down or not will easily learn these letter sounds. After this has been taught the teachers begin to teach simple words and then simple sentences and slowly start building up the vocabulary of the kids.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Why do kids shut-down (Part 2)



As stated earlier a child shuts down when what he is taught is not consistent with what he has been taught previously. I have explained this about one of my first students who refused to sound out the word fox. As far as she was concerned she had learned the sound of the letter f as fur/fer/fuh.

If the letter ‘o’ followed by the letter ‘x’ is ox, then fox must be fer-ox and not just fox as was sounded by me. I repeat; to this child and most shut down kids if the word ‘ox’ is the way it is sounded then adding an ‘f’ in front of the word ‘ox’ must be sounded ‘fer-ox’ or ‘fur-ox’ because she has been taught that the sound/phoneme for the letter ‘f’ is ‘Fer/fur/fuh’.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Why do kids shut down - Part 1



My last student whom I weaned in less than 3 months is another example of a kid who had shut down. Surely if 10 to 20 percent of kids shut-down they must be wired differently from the other 80% of kids.

However, this is not the same thing as an older kid not understanding some physics or mathematics concept as suggested by my friend Mr.Kandiah.  We will explore as to why these kids shut-down.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Dyslexia OR Shut-Down Learner (Part 3)



I don’t like the word dyslexic as it does not have a definite meaning. I prefer to use the word shut-down learners or Disengaged Students. These are the type of students who have come to me. I have yet to see a student who has the following difficulties:


·         Problems processing and understanding what he or she hears
·         Inability to sound out the pronunciation of an unfamiliar words
·         Difficulty learning the names of letters or the sounds of the alphabet, numbers
·         Difficulty learning to say the alphabet in the correct order or counting to 10 correctly.
·         Difficulty with "phonemic awareness"
·         Complain of feeling or seeing non-existent movement while reading
·         Visual disturbances when reading – for example, a child may describe letters and words as seeming to move around or appear blurred

Monday, July 10, 2017

Dyslexia or Shut Down Learner (Part 2)



·         Trouble learning a foreign language (2)
This term Learning Disability or Dyslexia is used as a loose collection of problems from underachievement to mental retardation.
On what basis do researchers state that students with Learning Disabilities or so called dyslexics have difficulty learning a foreign language?
Where is the evidence to support the statement that so called dyslexics have difficulties learning a foreign language?

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Dyslexia or Shut- Down Learners


Many web-sites say that one of the problems of dyslexics is that of learning a foreign language.

·         
I have extracted the following from the internet.

“In the late 1960's, Dr. Kenneth Dinklage of Harvard University was compelled to find out why some of Harvard's brightest and best were not passing their language classes.
Dinklage found that a number of the failing language students had in fact been diagnosed as learning disabled and had overcome their disability through good tutoring and very hard work
Often these students are classified as having dyslexia or language learning disabilities; sometimes they are not classified but nevertheless struggle considerably to meet the foreign language requirement.
Students who appear to have the most difficulty are those who have experienced moderate to severe reading and spelling difficulties in their native language in their early schooling and now are required to study another language in school.”