The following is my tweet to Debbie Hepplewhite.
Luqman Michel @debbiehepp
I have no problem with what you and @suelloydtcrw are doing.My contention is that consonants should not be taught with extraneous sounds. Teach correctly and the reading wars will end.
You are right that as far as possible the consonant sounds should not be modelled with an “uh” but this is not even possible for some of the sounds. This does not explain disaffection and dyslexia.
My comment now: I find it difficult to accept this coming
from Debbie Hepplewhite who says she is a Phonics consultant/trainer. Author of
Phonics International, No-Nonsense Phonics?
I think one should not shoot from the hip.
I had attached the link to the video clip that clearly
sounds out the letters of the alphabet. Click here to see the video.
Compare the above with what is sounded out in the video
produced by Baby TV. Click here.
Unfortunately, it is the Baby TV way that is
being taught around the world. I have many video clips in my blog supporting my
statement.
Fortunately, the majority of kids somehow learn to read by patterns and analogies. They struggle to connect the sounds of the letters to the words
taught and learn to read after wasting much time. Why don’t we make it easy for
them to learn to read by pronouncing the correct sounds represented by letters?
Do listen to my YouTube video here. There is no hidden agenda. I
want illiteracy to be reduced if not eradicated. That should be the aim of all
educators.
The western world keeps doing the same thing year after year and expects different results. They keep looking for the reason why kids
are unable to read and when I spell out the reasons they refuse to even discuss
this matter.
My contention is based on what I have learned from the
students I have taught. I have found corroborative pieces of evidence, that
support my findings, from many educators including David Boulton, Reid Lyon,
Siegfried Engelmann, Richard Selznick, Nancy Hennessy and many others.
I believe, my findings will be accepted when new research
students start doing research on what I have been saying for the past 10 years.
2 comments:
Very interested to know which students are doing work based on your theory and what will be the titles of those research projects?
I did not say that anyone is doing research now. I hope that research will be done and I believe it will be done just as it happened in 2010/11 when students had chanced upon my blog.
At that time, I had been saying that ‘phonological awareness deficit is not the cause of dyslexia’. That was the theory that was quoted without fail for 35 years. No one accepted my hypothesis.
You may read my posts in 2010 by Googling ‘Phonological awareness Luqman Michel.’
I have also been continuously writing that many kids disengage from learning to read because they cannot connect the phonemes of sounds taught to the words.
I have many examples on my blog where the pronunciation of phonemes of consonants is taught with extraneous sounds.
For instance, if F is fuh and N is Nuh as per the ‘Charlie and the alphabet’ video clip, a student predisposed to shutting down will shut down when he is taught to sound out the word fan.
To him Fuh ah nuh cannot be sounding out the word fan.
I have explained this in my YouTube video on why kids shut down from learning to read.
I have also mentioned in my blog that the word ‘shut-down’ was coined by a professor in the US in the 90’s. I have his permission to use that word in my book.
Shut-down learner was what he had called them and it means a kid disengages from learning to read due to whatever reason. It is not derogatory. These are smart kids who learn to read when they are taught to unlearn what they have wrongly learned and taught the correct pronunciation of consonants.
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