Curriculum Review

Here are extracts from the article by Holly Korbey found HERE and my thoughts:

Extract 1:

The public deserves to know how the brain learns, and how that info could transform every kid’s potential. When you support The Bell Ringer, you’re making that world possible. This week, I wanted to talk more about retrieval practice, because last week’s newsletter, Four big ideas on retrieval practice with Patrice Bain, made such an impact on me.

My Thoughts:

The call for public access to how the brain learns is spot-on—educators, parents, and policymakers need clear, actionable insights to unlock every child’s potential. Yet, the question of how the brain learns to read remains elusive, not because we lack research, but because the focus is often misdirected. My experience teaching over 100 children since 2004 reveals a critical barrier: many kids struggle to read because they’re taught letter sounds incorrectly from the start, like blending "kuh-ah-tuh" instead of clean phonemes for "cat." This initial misstep creates a faulty foundation, making retrieval practice—a powerful tool for reinforcing knowledge—ineffective if what’s stored in memory is wrong.

Consider retrieval practice: it’s about pulling facts from long-term memory to strengthen learning. But how can a child retrieve and scaffold knowledge if the initial input is flawed? For example, when I taught my five children how to excel in their studies , I taught them retrieval practice deliberately—encouraging them to recall a page or chapter while brushing their teeth or doing chores like sweeping or mopping. This habit of active recall, built on correct foundational skills, helped them become top performers in school. Two of my 5 children were top in the State of Sabah. But for kids who’ve learned incorrect letter sounds, retrieval practice only reinforces confusion, leading to disengagement or complete shutdown. Since 2010, I’ve asked: how do we help kids unlearn wrong foundations and rebuild them correctly? My approach—screening for accurate letter sounds and promising reading improvement within four months through two-hour weekly lessons—shows that addressing this foundational error first allows kids to engage with retrieval practice effectively, turning struggling readers into confident learners. The education system must prioritize this root issue over endless debates about cognitive theories, ensuring kids aren’t set up to fail before they can even begin to retrieve.

Extract 2:

Reviews are only produced by groups of educators, and no researchers or experts are consulted. And reading programs that use techniques unsupported by research have received the coveted “green light,” while others that have been proven successful—often through randomized control trials—have not, creating confusion.

My Thoughts:

The disconnect in curriculum reviews is glaring: educators, not researchers, decide what’s “approved,” often endorsing programs with shaky foundations while sidelining proven methods. My work with over 100 kids since 2004 offers a clear counterpoint. By teaching one-on-one, I discovered that many children who couldn’t read were tripped up by extraneous letter sounds (e.g., adding "uh" to consonants), which blocked their ability to blend words. After a short period of targeted tuition—focusing on correct phoneme pronunciation and high-frequency Dolch words—these kids not only read fluently but became excellent students. Parents’ testimonials from my book Shut Down Kids confirm this transformation, yet no educator or researcher has engaged with my findings. Why? Because the system favors recycled academic theories over real-world evidence from the very students who shift from struggling to thriving.

This oversight is costly. Getting the foundation right—clean letter sounds, systematic phonics—creates a compounding effect. Kids who master reading early don’t just become competent; they evolve into critical thinkers, as seen in students like Louis (Alanna Maurin’s son), who went from dreading English to decoding words on packages in weeks. If curriculum reviews ignore practical, proven methods like mine, they risk perpetuating a cycle where 20% of kids leave school illiterate. Instead of rubber-stamping untested programs, reviewers should seek out “experts” who’ve been in the trenches—teachers, tutors, and even students themselves—to understand what truly works. My screening process, which identifies and corrects faulty sound pronunciation in minutes, could be a starting point for such reform, ensuring no child is mislabeled or left behind.

Extract 3:

“Relying on EdReports blindly is not reliable,” said education journalist Natalie Wexler, who wrote her own widely-read critique examining how EdReports reviews could be misleading to consumers last year.

My Thoughts:

Natalie Wexler’s critique of EdReports hits the nail on the head: blind reliance on these reviews is a recipe for confusion and failure. Too many reports parrot outdated theories or quote “experts” who’ve never sat with a struggling reader to ask why they can’t read. My book Shut Down Kids documents my findings from teaching over 100 children since 2004, revealing that incorrect initial instruction—like extraneous sounds in phonics—causes kids to shut down. After just a few months of correcting these errors, my students became fluent readers and excelled academically. Yet, not one researcher has reached out to explore why my method works or to interview the kids who transformed into confident learners. This gap exposes a deeper flaw: EdReports and similar reviews often recycle secondhand knowledge rather than engaging with practitioners who’ve cracked the code.

The real experts are those who’ve bridged the gap between failure and success—like the parents who saw their kids thrive after my lessons or the students themselves who can articulate what clicked. For instance, my simple screening process, where I ask kids to say letter names and sounds, reveals if they’re adding extraneous noises, predicting their reading challenges with near-perfect accuracy. This isn’t theory; it’s evidence from the field. If EdReports wants credibility, it should prioritize such practical insights over academic echo chambers, ensuring reviews reflect what actually helps kids read rather than what fits a preconceived narrative.

Extract 4:

I think it goes without saying that curriculum choice, what students actually learn all day at school, is important—research has confirmed it. Using learning materials that are well-designed, organized and sequential, year upon year, add up to more than the sum of their parts, according to cognitive science, because a store of knowledge in long-term memory is so crucial to the kind of thinking and analyzing we want students to be able to do.

My Thoughts:

Curriculum choice matters immensely—decades of cognitive science back this up, showing that well-structured, sequential materials build a robust knowledge base in long-term memory, fueling critical thinking. But here’s the elephant in the room: why, after years of curriculum tweaks, do 20% of kids still leave school illiterate? The issue isn’t just curriculum design; it’s the failure to address foundational errors in how reading is taught. My work with over 100 kids since 2004 shows that many struggle because they’re taught incorrect letter sounds early on, like "buh" instead of a crisp /b/. This flaw disrupts their ability to blend words, leading to frustration and disengagement. No amount of “sequential” curriculum can help if the starting point is wrong.

Take my student Louis, who transformed from hating reading to decoding fluently in weeks once I corrected his phoneme pronunciation and paired it with Dolch word memorization. My five children, taught with similar precision and retrieval practice, topped their schools because their foundation was solid. Yet, educators and researchers rarely ask why kids like Louis initially fail or why my methods succeed. The answer isn’t more curriculum revisions; it’s ensuring the foundation—clean, accurate phonics—is right from day one. Singapore’s low dyslexia rate, around 3.5% to 10%, hints at this: their early, structured literacy focus prevents kids from shutting down. If we keep ignoring this root cause, we’re just rearranging deck chairs while literacy rates stagnate. It’s time to ask: is it the curriculum, or is it how we teach the basics?