On January 16th Emily Hanford @ehanford tweeted the following and replies from Twitters have not been addressed by her.
Emily Hanford:
Schools often give struggling readers audio books and headphones with devices that can read aloud for them. These innovations can help poor readers keep up in math, science, and other subjects, but they can also become literacy impediments.
Mrs. K @Eduventuring04
This one is wild to me.
When the goal is the entire rope and a child is in intensive decoding intervention because of, I don’t know, dyslexia- as a 1 in 5 reasons to need such an intervention- audio-books support access to grade-level novels to foster growth in comprehension.
Then came in one Emily Hanford supporter.
Outer Party Dissident @otrpartydisidnt
Hanford is not saying these shouldn’t be used at all or in special education. Instead, she’s saying that they shouldn’t be crutches. Children aren’t going to have their future tax documents and lease agreements in audio form.
Mrs. K @Eduventuring04
Every teacher understands that. If a child can’t read in high school audio-books are more than just a crutch.
My comment now:
The kind of argument by OPD is the way kids will argue. It is argued that tax documents will not be in audio form and therefore audio cannot be used to help kids. Mrs. K did not suggest that these kids should not be taught to read in conventional ways. She is suggesting that audio can be used as an additional tool to teach kids to learn.
Anyway, why can’t a crutch be used just like a person who has injured his leg will be given a crutch to use until his leg heal?
Outer Party Dissident @otrpartydisidnt
If the cause of their inability to read is because of poor reading instruction (namely Balanced Literacy and Whole Language), then that needs to be remedied with phonics and phonological awareness methods. That’s her point.
Hanford’s argument is that a student was struggling with reading because they were not given proper literacy instruction, and hence was struggling to read. That is the plain text of the thread and article.
Luqman Michel
OH? Is that her point? I recently heard her say in a podcast with Kate Winn "I see no evidence that sometime in the past phonics has worked."
Whether it was the WL/BL or phonics period about the same % of kids left schools as illiterates.
I have been shouting at the top of my lungs that kids predisposed to shutting down, disengage from learning to read due to confusion. Get rid of the causes of this confusion and there will be fewer kids requiring intervention.
Outer Party Dissident @otrpartydisidnt
@mandylorianm Will we ever be allowed to say that poor reading instruction be replaced with phonics and phonological awareness methods?
Luqman Michel
OPD, have we never taught phonics in the past 100 years? Don't get me wrong, I teach my students phonics. However, the difference is that I teach them the correct pronunciation of sounds represented by letters. Do you want to discuss this?
The problem is not WL/BL or phonics
My comment now:
To be fair to OPD, he/she joined Twitter only in June 2023 and is not privy to the fact that I had emailed Emily as early as in 2017 and 2019 and asked many questions which have not been answered by her or APM Reports.
I request OPD to get a Kindle copy of my book Shut Down Kids to understand why kids disengage from learning to read.
OPD may also get my book Teach Your Child to Read which eradicates the confusion caused as explained in my book Shut Down Kids.
Meanwhile, here is another tweet by someone who dares to say what she believes to be true.
𝓜𝓼. 𝓚𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓮 🇵🇸 @ChiSpecialEd
The number of people who listen to this woman, unquestioningly, is what scares me. She built a following on a manufactured crisis and now is looking for the next big way to capitalize on schools/teachers are the problem narratives, regardless of the harm.
Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel
Precisely what I have been saying for years.
You may like to read my current post on the nonsense @ehanford writes.
There is someone who is pulling the strings. I believe she is just a puppet.
Note: As usual, there are no replies/comments from our ‘literacy expert’, Emily Hanford.
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