How to reduce the number of kids requiring intervention

 

I have asked the following question on social media several times and have not received a response. However, when I give them the answers I received from the experts – my students – they refuse to accept them. They do not have an answer and yet refuse to accept answers from the experts. Therein lies the problems with the Reading Wars that have gone on for decades.

Here is the question without an answer from teachers/educators on social media.

'...if many children can read after a short period of intervention, how do we prevent such kids from requiring intervention?'  

Answer/s to this question may be able to reduce illiteracy.

Since 2010 I have said several times that many intelligent kids disengage from learning to read due to confusion. They get confused when what is taught does not make sense to them.

i.                     The brilliant kids are the ones who try to make logical sense of what they learn. We have educators who insist on not teaching letter names because, they insist, the kids will be confused when letter names are taught simultaneously with letter sounds. But, how do these kids make sense of words beginning with sounds of letter names – ace, bee, ceiling, deep, eat, giraffe etc. when they have not been taught the letter names?

 

ii.                   We complain that kids are not able to blend letter sounds. These logical- thinking kids are unable to blend letters taught with extraneous sounds. Listen to my short 1.2-minute video explaining this.

 

 

iii.                 We teach the short and long sounds of vowels and don’t tell kids that the letters in the English language, unlike many transparent languages, represent more than 1 sound. Listen to my short videos at:

          Letters A & E

          Letters I, O & U.