Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Logical thinking and phonological awareness deficit


This is a continuation of my previous post on Dr. Reuven Feaustein.

The following is what the lady said in our conversation on LinkedIn;

“I am a Literacy Specialist. I believe that schools should have Instructional Leaders who have a knowledge of the Pedagogy and methodology of how to teach literacy and how to Crack the Code.  It is their role to make sure that there is training for teachers and they are held accountable for student progress.  It is critical that in the early years’ student must have teachers who understand the systematic process of closing the decoding crack.  The Developmental Progression:


-Phonological Awareness(sounds)- Print –phonics -vowel patterns -Syllabication/Structural/Analysis-Word Origins/Word Study
I’ve had much success in using this progression in teaching students and training teachers and school districts.

I believe her whole-heartedly. Anyone who teachers the 80% of kids who have not shut down will be able to achieve success in teaching like she says. Most educators appear to only think of the 80% of children who learn to read regardless of the way they are taught.

I am concerned about the smart kids who disengage from learning to read when what they have learned initially (wrong sounds represented by letters) do not match the sounds of words taught subsequently.

Read my post on how important initial input is.

What this lady definitely does not know is how ‘to crack the code’. as she puts it. She does not know why millions of kids around the world, who are predisposed to shutting down, disengage from learning to read. They shut down from learning to read when things taught to them are illogical.

One guy, more than 50 years ago, had blamed it on phonological awareness deficit and this is continuing to be echoed until today by educators who do not know what they are talking about.

Just like our Andrew Johnson (Ph.D.), David Boulton (Ph.D.), Timothy Shanahan (Ph.D.) and many others, she too is in the dark as to why many smart kids are unable to read. This simply proves that she does not know the sounds represented by letters.

If the foundation is wrong, the kids predisposed to shutting down will stop listening to teachers; begin to misbehave to avoid shame; wrongly classified as dyslexic and end up leaving school as illiterates or end up in prison.

Many of the above kids end up committing suicide. Read my post here on suicidal tendencies.

They stop listening to teachers because the sounds represented by letters taught do not match the sounds of words taught. We are not talking about exception words. We are talking about words that can be easily taught using phonics.

Until and unless the educators in the Western world accept that phonics is not taught the way it should be and until they stop TV programmes and teachers teaching sounds represented by letters wrongly the standard of reading will continue deteriorating.

Once again I plead with you to listen to the wrong way sounds represented by most of the letters are taught in this programme that is aired in more than 100 countries on Baby TV.

Listen to the sounds of the letters F, A, N.

How does Furairnuh sound out the word fan?

Listen to the sounds of the letters C, A, N.

How does /kuh/ /ah/ /nuh/ sound out the word can?

I have explained this in detail in my book 'Shut down kids' available on Amazon.

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