“dog” is broken down into the phonemes “duh,” “aah” and “guh.” (Sally Shaywitz) A revisit

The Couple Who Helped Decode Dyslexia

This is a revisit of a post earlier.

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.”

My comment: The above was in the New York Times. Does Sally Shaywitz know what she is talking about? To say that 20% of the population is dyslexic and that they have a problem separating words into phonemes is utter nonsense.

I have repeatedly said that all my students can read in Malay and those who go to Chinese schools can read in Han Yu Pinyin (Chinese written with the same 26 alphabets). All of them have no problem with separating words into phonemes.

How do you expect kids prone to disengaging from learning to read, not to shut down from learning to read if you teach the phonemes for dog as ‘Duh- aah – guh’ when it should be /d/ /o/ /g/?

The above is the same as in the video by Liz Dunnon found here.

By the way, I am not dyslexia and neither are any of my family members. We all can only hear the word dog in its entirety. We can, of course, hear the phonemes /d/ /o/ /g/ when the phonemes are sounded out.

“There is an epidemic of reading failure that we have the scientific evidence to treat effectively and yet we are not acknowledging,” Sally said.

“We will continue until we no longer have questions and hypotheses that our C.L.S. population can help to address,” Sally said.

My comment: She has been writing about dyslexia and brain imaging for about 20 years and yet the population classified as dyslexic has not reduced.