Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Practice makes perfect – REALLY?



I saw a post in LinkedIn which said ‘practice makes perfect’. I disagree and will give my opinion below. I believe perfect practice makes perfect.

The reading war as pointed out by Jo-Anne Gross from Canada, a Remediation teacher, has been going on for 45 years. 
 Meanwhile, I heard a friend say that he is surprised that kids in Shanghai are learning to read in English very fluently. I checked the internet and saw news on Chinese teachers teaching mathematics in England. Soon, if the reading war goes on in US then we may have Chinese not only exporting goods to US but exporting teachers to teach English in US.


I have said in many of my posts here that kids disengage from learning to read because they are confused. I know this from having taught about 50 kids in over 10 years.



I will challenge teachers or professors including professors like Andrew Johnson, Reid Lyon, Timothy Shanahan and David Boulton as well as teachers like Jo-Anne Gross who think they are the ‘know-it –all’.


As long as these educators and others like them " latch onto their beliefs, their assumptions, their egos, their careers rather than looking very clearly at what works and what doesn’t" this reading war will continue and the illiteracy rate will remain.

Some questions I have for the above 'educators' are:

  • ·         Has any of them actually seen kids reading in other languages with the same letters as the English language and yet are considered ‘dyslexic’ in English?
  • ·         Has any of them actually sat down and taught disengaged students?
  • ·         Has any of them looked at the faces of disengaged students when they can’t understand or are confused?
  • ·         Has any of them asked these kids why they gave that ‘look’ when they were confused?

Why can’t these so called ‘educated’ people ask questions and learn instead of turning into ostriches and burying their heads in the ground?

Please listen to the following two videos which are from people in the Dyslexic industry. Would practicing phonemes this way make perfect?
 


What do you expect kids predisposed to shutting down to do when they are taught – ‘buh-le-oo’ are the phonemes for the word blue?


‘Cuh-oh-tuh’ is coat?

Many teachers all over the world teach phonics wrongly and then say that phonics is the problem. Only perfect practice makes perfect. (Vince Lombardi).

In my next post we will look at how phonics should be taught.


                       Doing the same thing over and over again
                        expecting different results is insane.
                                                                            Unknown

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