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.

Luqman Michel

Jul 21, 2017 10:10 AM

Hi Dr. I agree with you completely. Obviously there are many things besides phonics one has to learn. English proficiency can come only when a kid in grade one has not disengaged from learning to read. I have found that all my students who have come to me for tuition had shut-down because they have been taught phonics wrongly. They shut-down because they are confused. Please spare a few minutes to listen to just one video which is what creates confusion.


If we teach the sounds of F as Fuh, M as Muh, S as Suh - about 20% of kids shut down.

Thank you for your response Dr.
Wish you well.

Timothy Shanahan

Jul 23, 2017 02:35 AM

You can make that claim about phonics but research doesn't support the claim--in fact, it goes the other way (not teaching kids such clues is a serious problem).

My comment now as at 28.7.2018:
What research report will one find on this subject? How many teachers/researchers have tested kids in Malay, English and Han Yu Pin Yin (romanised Chinese)? I could be the only one in the world to have done this.

Does this Dr. Shanahan not understand what I have written or is he just beating around the bush?
I bet he did not even listen to the video attached. Anyone, with an ounce of intelligence, will not respond the way Dr. Shanahan has responded if he had listened to the video above.

 

Dr. Timothy said: “… research doesn't support the claim”

Doesn’t support which claim? That teaching consonant sound with addition of vowel sounds is not the proper way to teach phonics? Do we really need research reports for obvious matters such as this?

I have interviewed about 50 kids over 10 years while at the same time teaching them and observing their reactions. A majority of the kids shutting down and disengaging from learning to read are kids who have been taught phonics wrongly. Thank goodness that about 80% of kids is able to somehow overcome this stupid way of teaching them.

  

“….95% of those kids are instructional casualties. These are what we call as NBT – never been taught.” (Dr. Reid Lyon)

They are not NBT but kids who have been taught wrongly.