My teachers

 

Almost everything on why kids disengage from learning to read, I learned from my dyslexic students whom I taught on a one on one basis since 2004.

I started my blog in 2010 and learned quite a bit from comments on my blog posts from dyslexics as well as parents of kids who were unable to read.

I started writing to more than 20 researchers and learned from many of them including, Dr. Joe Torgesen, Dr. Richard Selznick, Dr. David Kilpatrick.

Dr. Joe Torgesen and I exchanged several emails on phonological awareness deficit. I have a blog post on this here.

Dr.Richard Selznick shared with me his experiences as a paediatrician. It was from him that I adopted the title to my book ‘Shut Down Kids’. We had several discourses – Q & A which are in my blog.

He confirmed my findings of kids disengaging from learning to read due to kids being taught consonants with extraneous sounds. He said that a majority of his thousands of patients whom he has examined over the years added extraneous sounds to consonants.

Dr. Selznick presented me with his book ‘Shut Down Learners’.LINK.

Another expert from whom I learned a great deal is Dr. David Kilpatrick. I owe a great deal to this man who answered many of my questions on why kids were unable to read.

He has written two excellent books.

i.                   Equipped for Reading Success

ii.                 Essential of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties.

I read almost the entire pages of both books several times as I was one of his proof readers. I did the work voluntarily but he paid me some money via my PayPal account which he discovered from my blog. I was pleasantly surprised.

He was kind to include my name in the acknowledgment pages of both his books. To my surprise he mailed me a copy of both his books which I refer to regularly and keep improving my knowledge on preventing reading difficulties.

In one of his emails he said that my name has now been etched in stone. Yes! I am proud that my name is included in the acknowledgment pages of his two books.

I am not surprised that Mark Anderson wrote in one of his blog posts that he has high regards for Dr. David Kilpatrick whom he said spent time chatting with on the phone.

Of course, when I don’t agree with what Dr. David Kilpatrick says I write about it in my blog so that others may read and comment so that we all learn together. In two books comprising more than 700 pages there is bound to be one or two ideas that readers may not agree with.

I question and learn from them and then share them with my readers so that they may learn from what I have learnt from my teachers.  

One of the sure things in life is death and I do not want to bring what I have learned to the grave without having shared them.