Sunday, May 29, 2022

No answers from Science of Reading Folks

 


Here is a tweet by Jeffrey Bowers in response to Back Seat Linguist's Tweet followed by my thoughts on it.

@jeffrey_bowers May 25

Interesting thread.  Again, when proponents of the science of reading are asked to cite specific studies that support specific claims, no answers.  Can anyone provide a reference to support highlighted claim?

Quote Tweet

BackSeat Linguist @BackSeatLing · May 23

Any help with these "missing links" - citations to these MRI studies - @markseidenberg @DTWillingham @ehanford or other SOR fans?

 

Obviously we'd need something beyond presenting isolated letters or words to readers.  twitter.com/MaggieEThornto…

My comment now:

 

I too have asked several questions and tagged Mark Seidenberg, DTWilliamham and Emily Hanford who had chosen to bury their heads in the sand rather than responding. For now, let us stick with what Jeffrey Bowers has tweeted – ‘When proponents of Science of Reading are asked to cite specific studies that support specific claims, no answer’.

The above is true and is not restricted to Science of Reading proponents. I have yet to find anyone except for one educator to admit his mistake and move on.

Reading the above by Jeffrey I was reminded of Tweets between Alanna Maurin and Dr. Brittney Bills @Brittne79358065 and decided to see if she would now have an answer to the question asked by Alanna in December 2020.

Here are the original Tweets in December 2020:

@Brittne79358065

There are schools that have figured this out. To achieve this on a national level would require a complete overhaul of teacher preparation. Plain and simple.

I should clarify that some schools have the early reading piece figured out. It will be years before they see the impact in high school.

Alanna Maurin:

To clarify, there are schools with 99 % of year 3 children reading and comprehending at or above grade level?

Which schools are these?

They can't actually claim to have figured it out until such time as the results are seen in high school achievement. To do so would be a gross misuse of data. At this stage, it is still a hypothesis. Nothing more.

You are claiming that some schools have the early reading sorted. I'm interested in the evidence behind this. Which schools?

Here is the response from Brittney to my tweets on 28.5.2022.

Dr. Brittney Bills @Brittne79358065 Replying to @luqmanmichel @sydneycjensen and @AlannaMaurin

I have already shared enough. I am not at liberty to share that data publicly. If I were, I would and I won’t continue to argue with you about that. I don’t need to prove anything to you. I know what we are doing and I know it’s working. We have data to demonstrate that.

Do some of these SoR folks think everyone around the world are idiots?

I quote below what I read in a recent post by Dr. Sam Bommarito:

The author of the recent NY Times article seems to have bought into the narrative being created by the group of Science of Reading (SOR) advocates I have dubbed the "my way or the highway" group. By using an exceptionally well-done PR campaign based on a limited view of the reading process and supported by using cherry-picked, often questionable research, this group has convinced many folks that they have the one and only path to solving reading problems. I've written about this group and the limitations of their view many times. The dichotomy suggested by the NY Times article is a part of the narrative being pushed by the "my way or the highway" folks. 

 

Note: The image on the top is based on a Tamil saying. When we say 'Can you see a flower behind my ears' it means 'do you think I am wet behind the ears.

 

 

 

 

1 comment:

Luqman Michel said...

Here is a tweet and my response to something a Twitter said without being able to back up with evidence.

anna rz-karwowska @annarzepeckaka1

Words have internal structures; they do not appear out of the blue; they make sense. We can call them the structural units of language.
A student can remember no more than 4000 words, and if we teach them morphology, the opportunities are endless.

Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel

'A student can remember no more than 4000 words,'
I would be grateful if you could please point me to research reports supporting this view.


anna rz-karwowska @annarzepeckaka1 Replying to @luqmanmichel
I would be grateful If you did not expect people to soon feed you the knowledge .