In my post about why many schools in China are teaching Pinyin using Bopomofo initial sounds, DrJulie Safri made a comment and this is a short extract that I decided to reply to separately from the rest of her comment.
DrJulie Safri
Good morning Luqman, let me clarify my statement.....Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental condition, meaning it originates from differences in how the brain processes language, particularly phonological information. However, it is important to note that these neurological differences don’t mean a person with dyslexia cannot learn to read, they just require tailored, evidence-based instruction that accommodates their unique learning needs.
My thoughts:
“Tailored, evidence-based instruction that accommodates their unique learning needs” is something I’ve frequently heard from many teachers providing intervention for dyslexic kids.
I don't know how the brain processes languages and would be grateful if DrJulie Safri can educate me and whoever else is interested.
When I began teaching my first student, I knew nothing about dyslexia. He had been certified as dyslexic by experts in Singapore and Australia. I used the Peter and Jane books for instruction, where I would read a sentence, and he would repeat it after me. We practiced this for about six months, with one-hour lessons five days a week. By the end of that period, he could read at grade level, which challenged the notion that phonics is the only method for teaching reading.
Motivated to understand why he struggled initially, I took on more students and discovered that all of them could read in Malay, and those from vernacular schools could read in Pinyin, but not in English. After teaching over 20 students, I became convinced that if my students could read in Malay and Pinyin, then the theory asserting that phonological awareness deficit caused reading difficulties must be incorrect.
I wrote extensively on social media for about six years until that theory was debunked in 2017. Many teachers mistakenly teach the wrong sounds of letters and then claim that kids cannot blend sounds, such as gehehtuh for the word "get" and fuhahtuh for "fat."
Thus, it’s not a phonological problem; it’s about teaching children the correct phonemes. What these so-called dyslexic students need is to unlearn the incorrect sounds and be taught the correct ones.
This realization led me to start testing children and informing parents that I could help their kids learn to read within four months with two-hour lessons per week. As long as the child had no acuity issues and pronounced words with extraneous sounds, I recognized they were often disengaged from the learning process.
Many of my students were certified dyslexic. For instance, the father of one student, who came to me when his son was in grade 4, shared the Phonological Assessment Report. I asked the boy to sound out the letters and confidently told the father that I could help his son read in four months, eventually weaning him off after three months. You can read the report here: LINK.
I also began working with parents overseas. One notable case involved a mother from Australia who was frustrated that her son could not read despite attending Specialized Synthetic Phonics lessons for a year. I asked her to send me a recording of her son sounding out the letters. After listening, I assured her that I could help him learn to read quickly. I guided her on how to teach him, and he began to make progress. Here is the discussion between the mother and me. LINK
Note: I have recently come to know that many kids in China now can't read in Pinyin because of a similar problem. The curious kids who can't blend mo + en to form men; fo + ei to form fei; bo + an to form ban; do + ai to form dai; disengage from learning pinyin. They then fall behind in class as they use pinyin to guide them to read the Chinese characters. These are the brilliant kids who are flushed out of the school system because of the stupidity of the Chinese teachers who teach pinyin using bopomofo initial sounds.
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