Why the obsession with Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP)?

The following was posted by a teacher from OZ on Twitter.

This SSP mania has been hugely harmful to learners. I am yet to find ten year old struggling learners who don’t know their letter sounds! Aa apple, Bb ball, Cc cat – it is this letter sound teaching that they continue to employ that causes many to struggle.

Emails to Prof. Jennifer Buckingham

Note: This is a follow up on my post yesterday. The following email exchanges were on phonological awareness deficit and not on phonics.

Jennifer Buckingham Tweets on 28.5.2020

Here is a tweet by Jennifer Buckingham on 28.5.2020

Jennifer Buckingham@buckingham_j

Anyone wondering why the 'reading wars' have gone on so long, look no further. Academics involved in teacher education publish an article arguing that wanting all children to be able to read is about creating "normative citizens".

Ableism (A tweet by Pamela Snow) Continued

Here is my tweet in response to the tweet by Pamela Snow which you may refer here.

I think it is discrimination against the able bodied and not in favour of able bodied. I am talking about the majority of kids who are wrongly classified as dyslexic. These are the really smart kids. (Luqman Michel)

Ableism (A tweet by Pamela Snow)

Here is a tweet by Pamela Snow on 26.5.2020 which I happened to read.

Pamela Snow @PamelaSnow2

Let's call out "neoliberal ableism" nonsense on effective reading instruction wherever we see it. It is a cancer in the lives of children who need competent reading instruction. Let's also stop dumbing down the process of reading & robbing teachers of their rightful knowledge. 

Reading wars hit home during lockdown lessons (The Australian)

Here is an article on The Australian.com that was posted on twitter. You may read the whole article here.

Cockamamie phonics instructional methods (Dr.Reid Lyon)

Here is an extract of an interview of Dr. G Reid Lyon on Children of the Code.

“The Era of Stupid” Michael A Cohen

The title above and this post is inspired by a post on Diane’s blog.

Here are extracts from Diane Ravitch’s blog post on 21.5.2020.

The endless war Jennifer Buckingham vs Jeffrey Bowers

                                           

                                                                 当局者迷，旁观者清

The following is extracted from Dr. Jennifer Buckingham’s Blog post. There has been a debate going on between Jennifer and Jeffrey.

Learning to read via analyses

The following are two video clips of a Filipino lady who has been in Australia for a number of years.

As mentioned in my post several times, the pronunciation of phonemes is taught wrongly in most countries around the world.

Dr. David Boulton vs Luqman Michel Lies do not like to face truth

Here is another comment by David

    Dr. David Boulton:

    I have been bombarded over the years with people 'certain' that if only their way was adopted (spelling reform to instructional method) everyone would be great readers. I don't have the time or interest in being the object such people want to stroke themselves with. I am clear and on the record for decades re what is the reason children struggle to read English. If as you say you have been through my work you'd know that. I appreciate that you help people. I don't want to engage further with you. I am not interested in being a platform for self aggrandizing. I wish you all the best.

Definition of grapheme and phoneme

I believe I now know why I have been getting lukewarm reception of educators in the US, the UK and Australia. I believe most of them do not understand what I mean when I say that the pronunciation of phonemes of consonants is not taught correctly.

  You cannot teach phonics of any kind if the pronunciation of phonemes is taught wrongly. 

Sound symbol skills + Oral blending ability = Basic phonics skills.

Relevant Tweets on phonics

Below are a few tweets I picked up from Twitter.

7.5.2020

John Cosgrove @johncosgrove405 Replying to @juliangrenier and  @tes

In almost 40 years of teaching, I never met a teacher who was anti-phonics. But I have known many children who struggled to read despite phonics (and not from bad teaching). Framing the debate as an all or nothing "war" is probably unhelpful.

 

Reading progress of one of my students.

Allison was one of four students I tutored in 2018. She came to me in the middle of primary 2 unable to read even a sentence or spell even one Dolch word.

Hurray! A solution to the Reading Wars by Dr. David Boulton

This is a revisit of Dr.David Boulton’s response in 2017

    Dr. David Boulton’s response:

    Learning-Activist, Non-Profit Executive Director, Theorist, Technologist, Author, Consultant, PD…

    I concern myself with all children (2/3 of U.S. kids) who do not reach grade level proficiency (reading transparent to learning at their grade level). https://youtu.be/yjjtHytskqs

The number one cause of low literacy in America Dr.David Boulton

The following was published on 4.4.2018 by Dr. David Boulton on the Learning Steward website.

The Number One Cause of LowLiteracy in America? 

Reading is unnatural

Here are extracts from Children of the Code published about 20 years ago.Let us bear in mind that the interviewer is Dr. David Boulton.

Dr.G.Reid Lyon

Number one, we know that reading is complex. And most people give it short shrift as I did when I was a third grade teacher. I just took it for granted. It’s one of the most complex, unnatural cognitive interactions that brain and environment have to coalesce together to produce. (G. Reid Lyon, Past- Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch of the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, National Institutes of Health)

 

The Naked Emperor: Not Wanting to Know What We Know

The ‘Naked Emperor’ is a deeply insightful story that exposes how we can know something yet refuse to acknowledge that we know it.

Relevant Tweets on phonics

Here are some recent tweets on phonics. 

Jeffrey Bowers flawed thoughts on phonics

The following is an extract of a post by Jeffery Bowers.

 He is a professor at the University of Bristol and researches language and memory.

Grade one kid in Australia continued

The kid who I wrote about earlier came back yesterday for his class after an absence of 4 weeks due to the Covid situation.

Responding to Jeffrey Bower's Tweet

Jeffrey Bowers is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Bristol

On 2.3.2020 I read a blog post by Jeffrey Bowers dated February 2020.

I then wrote an article and posted it on my blog which can be read here.

Helping Teachers Understand the Code (Louisa Moats)

This is a continuation of the interview of Louisa Moats by David Boulton.

Teaching Dolch words to a Grade one kid in Australia

I don’t understand why the phonics proponents are insistent upon not allowing other methods in addition to phonics that may further improve outcomes for children.  

 

Visual Memorising of frequently used words Anne Castle

On 8.5.2020 Anne Castles tweeted

Replying to @luqmanmichel and @NathanielRSwain

Louisa Moats "Reading is Rocket Science"

This is part 2 of the interview with Louisa Moats by David Boulton in 2003.

Louisa Moats and David Boulton on Consequence of unnatural overwhelming ambiguity

Here is an article by Dr.Louisa Moats on the interview by David Boulton conducted some 20 years ago.

Plasticity of the brain Dr.Jack Shonkoff

The following is an excerpt of an interview with Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Chair, National Scientific Council on the Developing Child by Dr. David Boulton almost 20 years ago.

Visual memory and reading

Visual memory is a form of memory that preserves some aspects of our senses pertaining to visual experience. We are able to place in memory visual information that resembles objects, places, animals or people in a mental image.

How to memorise Dolch words (most frequently used words)

 Edward William Dolch derived a list of the most frequently used words in the 1930s. The Dolch list includes conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives and verbs; it includes 220 words. He referred to these words as “tool” or “service” words because they are used in all writing regardless of subject matter.

‘Ending the Reading Wars’ Part 3 Frequently used words

This is a continuation of my previous post. Here is an extract from the Report by the three ladies, Kathleen Rastle, Anne Castle, Kate Nation and my comments.

Ending the Reading wars by Anne Castles, Kathleen Rastle and Kate Nation (Part 2)

This is a continuation of the report on Ending the Reading Wars by Anne Castles, Kathleen Rastle and Kate Nation.

Ending the Reading Wars by Anne Castles, Kathleen Rastle, Kate Nation

Juliet Palethorpe replied as follows in a tweet to me.

 I think you’ll find summaries of the research on reading instruction to date dispute your view.

I read the article twice and did not see anything that disputes what I had written on. I then tweeted Juliet Palethorpe asking her to please let me know exactly which of my views the article disputed but did not receive any response.

Idiots, Tribes or citizens

"There are three kinds of people in any given society.

This was first identified and supported by the founders of democracy in Ancient Greece.