Time, audience/receivers all play a part (Episode 1)

A LinkedIn friend responded to a comment I made and said; ‘Time, audience/receivers all play a part.’

I believe it is time to write with no holds barred.

I read an article entitled ‘The couple who helped decode dyslexia – The Shaywitz’s’.

 

I am intrigued by why people swallow ‘Hook line and sinker’ anything and everything written by so called ‘experts’.

Here are a few excerpts and my comments and please feel free to question me on my comments.

People with dyslexia have trouble separating words into phonemes, the sounds that correspond with each part of a word. For example, the word “dog” is broken down into the phonemes “duh,” “aah” and “guh.”

Hearing these discrete sounds is a vital part of learning to read. But people with dyslexia hear the word only in its entirety: “dog.”

Suicide prevention and shut down kids

Recently I read a post on LinkedIn published on 12.9.2018 entitled:

“Suicide Prevention Plan: 5 Tips to Deal With Thoughts of Suicide”

 The article is written by psychiatrist Melissa Welby, MD.

Phonics video that should be banned

The above is just one video to support my post yesterday. How does a teacher know what is the correct way to teach phonemes of alphabets?

My friend Ms Rose Hsu was honest in coming out to say she had made a mistake and taught phonemes of alphabets wrongly. 

Naïve parents let their children listen to videos, such as above, thinking that they will learn the alphabet sounds little realizing that many of them will be confused and end up shutting down from learning to read. The way phonemes are taught in many schools is more or less like that on the video.

Colorado's Dyslexic Students Face Systemic Challenges

Here are extracts from a Colorado Public Radio News. 

Colorado's Dyslexic Students Face Systemic Challenges—If They Can Even Get A Diagnosis

“But then she was failing. Years of struggling in class had worn away at her self-esteem, and eventually her will to live.” 

My comment: Yes, this is true with smart kids who cannot understand why they are smart and yet are unable to read. They enter school with very high self-esteem which is lost within a few months of entering grade one. My first student kept asking me ‘Uncle, do you think I am stupid?’This question was asked by him intermittently and stopped when he was able to read at grade level.

Initial learning

One of the chapters in my book is on ‘The importance of initial learning’.

I believe there are two broad categories of learners. About 80% of children do not question and learn whatever the teacher teaches or somehow figure out how to read using patterns and analogies. About 20% of kids are those that are logical thinkers who question everything they learn. When what they are taught does not make sense or does not agree with what has been learned earlier they shut down or disengage from learning to read.