Is reading instinctive or natural? A revisit.

 

Dyslexia advocates somehow find out that there is a strong objection to their theory and start propagating through whatever means they can. Here is one such YouTube video that surfaced a few days ago. LINK

Interviewer: Ashlie Thomey, A Dyslexia Specialist

Interviewee: Pamela Taylor, Creator of Lexia Heroes.

I listened to the YouTube video by Pamela Taylor who spoke like she is an expert in brain study.

Here are excerpts and my thoughts.

Ashlie Thomey:

Can we speak to the myth that reading is natural, we are born to read just like we acquire language.

My thoughts:

Who told her that it was a myth? Can she speak Tamil which I can? I had to learn it and she can speak Tamil if she learns it.

If you learn to speak, you also learn to read. If speaking is instinctive then reading is also instinctive.

I learned to speak Tamil, English, Malay, and Mandarin. Now I am learning to speak and read Japanese. Today is my 160^th day and I have still not learned to speak Japanese well enough to hold a simple conversation.

So, both speaking and reading have to be learned. If we say that speaking is natural then reading should also be considered natural.

 

Pamela Taylor:

Language is instinctive and it's natural but reading is a very complex skill there's nothing in our brain that we were born with to help us read.

Our language doesn't line up with text if we look at the phoneme which is the smallest part of speech.

It's tricky, especially in English.

We treat English like it should be easy but reading English is cognitively incredibly difficult

 

My thoughts:

She should make up her mind instead of blabbering statements like our so-called experts on Facebook.

One cannot read in English because it is not instinctive or is it because the English language is not reading friendly?

The answer should be obvious when I can teach anyone to read in Pinyin within 2 weeks of one-hour lesson per day.

These dyslexia advocates and those with websites promoting their wares will say whatever that come to their minds with the hope of getting clients.

They are still quoting what was written decades ago when new research reports have already surfaced.

Read the research reports on my blog post. LINK