Behind & Beyond Sold a Story with Emily Hanford

                                                   

S2 E1: Behind & Beyond Sold a Story with Emily Hanford

Reading Road Trip

Here is an extract from the podcast above and my comments. LINK

It is a profound misunderstanding of journalism. What role does a journalist play? A journalist hasn’t been the thing they are covering; a white house reporter hasn’t been the president… The point of journalism is to investigate and uncover important stories. Journalists ask questions and explain things and we investigate and we look at the data.

I have referred Emily to my book Shut Down Kids and asked her if she has any idea why many kids shut down/ disengage from learning to read. How do these kids get to grade level and are maintained at grade level after a short intervention period?

What have Emily and APM investigated following my several emails to them beginning in 2017?

What data did they look at?

 

I first wrote to Emily Hanford in September 2017.

Here are extracts of my email to her.

I read your article 'How American Schools Fail Kids with Dyslexia dated 11.9.2017 with great interest.

Please ask yourself how kids who could not read could be brought to grade level and made to stay at grade level with a little intervention.

Ask yourself why these kids were put into intervention classes in the first place.

Please respond for a discussion on how to alleviate the illiteracy level around the world.

Here is the response from Emily Hanford.

Thanks for writing.

Yes, you raise many relevant and important points.

Have you heard the full hour long-radio documentary?

It’s on our podcast. https://www.apmreports.org/educate-podcast

I then wrote another email to Emily after listening to the radio documentary for the second time.

Here is an extract of the relevant parts of the email on 16.9.2019.

2. I don't agree with there being 10 to 20% of kids who are dyslexic. This is a fallacy. Any and every kid who can't read is lumped under the umbrella term 'dyslexia'.

A majority of the kids classified as dyslexic are in fact shut-down or disengaged kids.

They shut down or disengage because they have been taught wrongly. About 20% of kids around the world shut down when they are confused. When what is taught does not match with what they already know or have been taught they disengage from learning to read.

All these are explained in detail in my blog.

She said she is looking into it…

The APM website says:

APM Reports strives to raise awareness, trigger debate and prompt positive change via non-partisan, independent investigative and documentary journalism.

I am still waiting for an open debate with the so-called literacy expert, Emily Hanford, or any other expert from APM Reports.

How long does it take for an independent investigation to be carried out?

Now, I have another question for Emily Hanford and APM Reports.

Please investigate and let us know how Singapore brought down the dyslexic population to 3.5% while the US boasts the population to be 10 to 20%?

Why is Singapore always number 1 in reading in the PISA tests when kids there have to learn at least 2 languages while the UK and US are not even in the top 10?