“We won’t have so many children not reading” (Dr. Louisa Moats and Dr. Nadine Gaab)

We will get back to Emily Hanford and APM Reports soon. Let us give them a day or two to comment on my post.

On 1.6.2020, Dr. Nadine Gaab with whom I had exchanged emails, in 2018, asked me to listen to a video by Dr. Louisa Moats. This was in response to my post that many kids are unable to read because they are taught the pronunciation of phonemes of consonants wrongly.

You may listen to the YouTube here.

Here are a few lines from Louisa Moats that I would like you to think about.

If we are already doing a good job then we won’t have so many children not reading.

Those are the words of Louisa Moats. Now, I ask Nadine Gaab and Louisa Moats as to what is it that we are not doing a good job on? 30 years ago Louisa Moats had already said the same thing as she has now said in 2019. So, why after 30 years, are we still having children unable to read?

I have done the required ‘research’ and unequivocally state that the first and foremost reason is that the pronunciation of phonemes of consonants are taught wrong.

Is there anyone including Nadine Gaab and Louisa Moats who want to debate me on this?

Nadine, is there any educators/ scientist/ researcher who has written anything on how not to teach?

Reading failure can be reduced if we teach the kids the right way.

What is the right way? Let us leave vocabulary, comprehension and fluency aside for just a short while as all these will not matter if kids have disengaged from learning to read due to confusion. 

These so called experts keep saying that children are not taught the right way and it is not dyslexia but ‘dysteachia’. But who has said what it is that is not taught correctly?

Many are reading in spite of the way we are teaching them.

I have also explained how many children learn to read in spite of the way we are teaching them. They waste an inordinate amount of time in figuring out how to read but they finally do. Why don’t we teach them the correct way so that they will not waste time figuring out how to read? I have many videos on this and have uploaded 3 such videos on my blog which you can find here, here and here. 

Those are children who figured out how to read. How about the kids who disengage from learning to read because of confusion and leave school as illiterate?

Reading = Decoding x comprehension (Phil Gough)

I think most of us know the above but the question as to how kids decode something that has been taught wrongly needs to be addressed.

Why do we teach them - kuh - ah -tuh for cat when it should be /c/ /a/ /t/?

If as a result, children have to struggle to read who should we blame?