‘How we remember words…’ (David Kilpatrick)

 

Today, 29.12.2020, I listened to a YouTube video post by WalshUniversity Literacy Initiative on Dr.Kilpatrick’s talk re: "How We Remember Words, and Why Some Children Don't"

I decided to ask a question as follows and hope to receive a response.

Orthographic Mapping – ‘A’ for apple. – Kathryn and Jenifer conversation (Part 3)

Somehow NONSENSE makes a lot of sense to most of the people around the world.

Let us look at the absurdity of the following statements by the two ‘educators’.

‘A’ stands for apple but changes a little bit depending on the letters before it or after it. So, it doesn’t sound exactly the same. The idea of a phoneme is a construct that is not true. (Dr. Kathryn Garforth)

It’s a simplification to think about phonemes as having a single sound, however our brains are able to cope with that slight variability in that co-articulation that happens according to the consonant or vowel that’s on the other side. (Jennifer Buckingham)

Orthographic Mapping – Kathryn and Jenifer conversation (Part 2)

The following are statements made by Jennifer Buckingham on the conversation between Kathryn Garforth and Jennifer Buckingham found here.

Blending the speech sounds is not easy for every child – to take those speech sounds and put them together so that they make a recognizable word.

GPC’s (Grapheme Phoneme correspondences) must be learned to a level of automaticity so that blending can happen.

Orthographic mapping – Live conversation - Dr. Kathryn Garforth and Jennifer Buckingham

 

On 22.12.2020 I listened to the live conversation between Kathryn Garforth and Jennifer Buckingham. I asked 3 questions of which 2 were answered. The third one was left out due to time constraint.

From the conversation it is obvious that both these ‘educators’ do not know much about Orthographic Mapping other than what they have memorized from some books.

The solution to kids shutting down is at contention – Pat Stone

 

Here is the continuation of my Twitter discussion / argument with Pat Stone.

I have maintained that many smart kids are able to read in Malay and those who go to Chinese schools are able to read in Han Yu Pin Yin (Mandarin written using Roman / Latin letters).

Lesson 17 - Consonant Blends

Here is Lesson 17 on consonant blends.

Visual memorisation misunderstood

 

From the discussion I had with a number of teachers on Twitter it is obvious that both a majority of phonics as well as whole language proponents are not aware that we don’t store words visually.

Here are some tweets on visual memorisation between Erin Harrington and me.

 

Response by Pat Stone to my post yesterday

 

My post yesterday and this post should confirm that most teachers are unaware of the different sounds represented by letters. I am not basing this only on the 4 teachers involved in the Twitter discussion but on many other teachers I had discussed this with over the last 10 years via emails, on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Face Book. 

Twitter and the reading wars

 

The reading wars have been going on for decades. The more I read tweets by teachers the more I understand why the wars have been going on for so long.

Many teachers are unwilling to discuss with an open mind. They are like the prince in an Indian fable who had caught a three legged rabbit and started proclaiming that all rabbits are three legged.

They are exactly what Charlie Munger had described about the human egg.

 

Three cueing system

 

I believe most schools today teach phonics in one form or another. Unfortunately, many schools have these hard core three cueing system proponents, who have not mastered how to teach phonics correctly, who also teach kids how to guess.

Instead of sounding out words, the three cueing system proponents teach kids to rely on syntax, semantic, or grapho- phonemic cue by looking at the beginning letter of words.

Lesson 16 - Word family 'ox'

 

 Here is the YouTube link to lesson 16.

https://youtu.be/DrmXS12KMug 

Orthographic memory (Part 2)

 

I posed the following question on Twitter on 6.12.2020.

Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel Dec 6 @eeharrington4

 I have one Q for you and your Phonics folks. Can one learn to read without knowing the letter-sound relationship?

Erin Harrington responded as follows:

Not well.

Putting the cart before the horse

Knowledge of sound-symbol associations is vital for success in first grade and beyond.

Good readers do not depend primarily on context to identify new words. When good readers encounter an unknown word, they decode the word, name it, and then attach meaning.

    When a good reader encounters an unknown

word the first thing he will do is to decode the word.

Orthographic mapping (Part 1)

 

Following a discussion on Twitter I decided to refresh my mind on orthographic mapping and chanced upon the following post on an Orton Gillingham blog.

The highlight in bold is my doing and this is what I intend to write to a Dr. David Kilpatrick for further discussion.

https://ortongillinghamonlinetutor.com/the-big-five-phonics-orthographic-mapping/

Reading to respond instead of reading to understand

 

I commented on a tweet by Pam Kastner which was responded by Erin Harrington, Narelle Lynch, Denyse Ritchie and David M. (a grade one teacher in Australia), Dr. Kathryn Garforth and Emily Hanford.

When I clicked on ‘Home’ to skim through what others were tweeting I saw a tweet (in no way related to the tweet above) by Jasmine lane @MsJasmineMN, a teacher.

Too many folks out here reading to respond instead of reading to understand.

Lesson 15 - 'en'

This is a lesson based on word family 'en'.

This is a gentle reminder to get your child not only to be able to recognise and read the Dolch words introduced as sight words but he should be encouraged to be able to spell these words.

Misleading statements by Pam Kastner and more

 

The following is a Twitter discussion/debate I witnessed on 23.11.2020.

It started off with Pam Kastner making a sweeping statement. I asked a simple question based on what she had said and she has not responded. (I am told by a good Twitter friend that no one needs to respond to any questions asked. See note below.)

Lesson 14 -'oo'

 

Notes:

In the last two days, 1st and 2nd December 2020, I have had discussions on Twitter with a teacher named Erin Harrington. She is an SSP proponent who insisted that High Frequency words are memorized, by Whole Language kids, by visual memory.

The above is not a correct assumption. One of the reasons why there is widespread reading difficulties could very well be due to this assumption that we store words using visual memory.

Visual memory revisited

I am writing on visual memory again as there is a discussion on it on Twitter. 

 

Most teachers assume that words are stored by visual memory. This is not an accurate assumption. Some of the phonics proponents say it repeatedly. So much so, that they have begun to believe their own lies.