Preposterous idea - Dr.Robert Slavin blog post Part 2

Here is an email I wrote to Dr. Robert Slavin on 28.3.2020 when there was no response to my comment on his blog post - ‘Science of Reading: Can We Get Beyond Our 30-Year Pillar Fight?’

Dr.Slavin,

You said, “…the five pillars of early reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. Actually, there is little debate about the importance of comprehension, vocabulary, or fluency, so the reading wars are mainly about phonemic awareness and phonics.”

I accept and agree with that statement.

“Certainly, then and now there have been many students who learn to read successfully with or without a focus on phonemic awareness and phonics. However, I do not think there are many students who could succeed with non-phonetic approaches but cannot learn to read with phonics-emphasis methods.”

Dr. I would like to discuss this, please. I have taught more than 70 so-called dyslexic kids who had come to me from grade 2 to grade 4 who could hardly read a sentence in English but were able to read in Malay. Those who went to Chinese schools could read in Romanised Mandarin as well.

They had all been taught phonics just like in the US and the UK. They had all been taught the pronunciation of phonemes wrongly. Not being able to match the pronunciation of phonemes taught to the words they represented, these kids had shut down from learning to read and were wrongly classified as dyslexic.

I believe, about 20% of kids are predisposed to shutting down and disengage from learning to read when they are confused.

My additional comment now (Not mentioned in my email)

Robert Slavin said, “I do not think there are many students who could succeed with non-phonetic approaches”

Does he know what he is talking about? If he can think logically, he will not make such a silly remark. How did kids who learned to read during the whole word period learn to read? I have read many comments from those who had studied without having learned Phonics. 

Find out from Diane Ravitch and Sally Shaywitz how they are able to read without having learned phonics.

Checking with friends from other parts of the world I know for a fact that many learned without phonics. As such, on what basis did Robert Slavin come up with such a silly notion?

He also said, “I don’t think there are many students who…. cannot learn to read with phonics-emphasis method”.

Now, where did he come up with such a preposterous idea?

He ought to know that teachers and parents around the world will swallow what guys like him say as the gospel truth.

All these Ph.D.’s should be a little more responsible and not write whatever that comes to their minds.

Now, back to my email.

“In other words, there is little if any evidence that phonemic awareness or phonics cause harm, but a great deal of evidence that for perhaps more than half of students, effective instruction emphasizing phonemic awareness and phonics are essential.”

Dr., phonics cannot do any harm. I taught all my students successfully by using phonics. The problem is teaching such kids the wrong pronunciation of phonemes that actually harms them. I have many videos of teachers teaching the wrong pronunciation of phonemes in many countries.

Additional comments now: 

The problem with educators is that they are only looking at roughly 80% of kids who learn regardless of the way they are taught. The majority use some analysis and figure out how to read. However, a lot of time is wasted even by this 80% who figure out how to read.

Many of them, as a result of wasting time on figuring out how to read, lose valuable time in gaining vocabulary, comprehension and fluency.

Instead of rehashing the same thing repeatedly over the last few decades expecting different results, ask yourself how the Chinese in China, Macau and Hong Kong are in the top places in the last PISA test.

………… To be continued