The things Strategic Advisors say - Nora Marketos

                                             

This is a follow up to my post yesterday.

Nora Marketos profile says:

Strategic Advisor, Board Member, Facilitator Education, EdTech, Refugees, Migration, Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships

She commented the following on a post on LinkedIn in response to my comment.

There is an extensive set of research showing that learning how to read is not naturally acquired like learning how to speak. This article explores the question of whether this learning process is better in the mother tongue, and there seems to be quite promising evidence for this claim.

I then responded as follows:

Nora Marketos, Thank you. How does one do research to say if reading is naturally acquired? This is something I would like to learn from you.

Not being argumentative with you, but I have learned that when one so-called researcher says something many others jump on the bandwagon and repeat what he says without thinking. They simply quote each other. Likewise, your 'extensive set of research' may fall into this category.

A child will learn in Malay, which may not be his mother tongue, much faster and has no possibility of disengaging from learning to read unlike an American, British or Australian who learns to read in English. A majority of these latter kids disengage from learning to read within a few months of attending school.

My comments now:

There are many, like Pamela Snow from La Trobe University who say that reading is not natural. Pamela Snow said, ‘written language is recent in evolutionary terms, being only about 6000 years old, and is biologically “unnatural” or “secondary”.’

Are all these opinions or actual research reports? How do we do research to find out if reading is natural?

Where is the ‘extensive’ set of research showing that learning to read is not naturally acquired?

As for researchers jumping on the bandwagon, in 2010, I saw more than 100 educators/researchers who quoted the first guy who said that dyslexia is a phonological awareness deficit. I wrote to more than 30 of these professors who did not respond or disagreed with me. That theory was debunked in 2017.

We actually do not know what research the first guy did. It could just be an opinion. But, when I explained it in detail the researchers I wrote to should have been willing to change their stance.

Well, I can be harsh on such matters as this is a serious matter for a strategic advisor to say such a thing on social media but I thought I was polite and yet someone commented that I was a tad harsh and that is why no one comments.