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A Sequel to My Morning Post on Dr. Bommarito
This morning, I unpacked the polite pivot of centrists like Dr. Sam Bommarito – that warm nod to innovation without the follow-through that could actually change lives. If you haven't read it yet, head over here for the full story of our 2021 Zoom chat, his kind email a year later calling my work "a great gift to literacy," and why even bridge-builders sometimes leave the bridge half-built.
But let's zoom out to the bigger pattern that's been gnawing at me: the unheard hour. That's what I call those 45-minute black holes where literacy experts and podcasters invite me on, draw out my hard-won truths about reigniting reading in shut-down kids, then... ghost. No episode drops. No shout-out. Just silence, leaving my stories – and the fixes they've sparked for over a hundred kids since 2004 – echoing in the void.
It started with Jedlie Doherty. Back in September 2020, we recorded a deep dive into sound-pure phonics: how I strip away the "buh" mush that confuses learners fluent in Malay or Hanyu Pinyin, and replace it with crisp /b/ isolation that flips the switch on comprehension overnight. He was engaged, probing the video clips I'd shared of a seven-year-old going from shutdown to decoding full sentences in one session. "This is revolutionary," he said mid-chat. We wrapped at the hour mark, promises of editing and airtime exchanged. Crickets. No release on his platform. No follow-up. Just my 45 minutes, evaporated.
Then came Timmy Bauer of Podcasts of Timmy Bauer. December 2020, another hour on the line – scheduled for the 17th but spilling into the 18th via Zoom. I laid out the systemic sabotage: how Project Follow Through buried direct instruction's wins decades ago, and how my Shut Down Kids methods counter the early confusion that masquerades as dyslexia. Timmy lit up at the parent stories – the WhatsApp sessions where a kid from a non-English home cracks the code, eyes widening as sounds finally click without the baggage of bad modeling. We dug into the meat of it: why educators complicate simple fixes like extraneous sounds, quotes from Dr. Richard Selznick agreeing many "dyslexics" are instructional casualties who'd thrive with better teaching, and even the headmistress of Kota Kinabalu's only private dyslexia school calling out the damage of mushy phonics like "ber" for B. "This needs to get out there," he assured me mid-chat.Post-session, I fired off an email unpacking the tangents we'd skipped – challenging his view that my core idea (extraneous sounds as the shutdown trigger) was "too simple to be true," and pushing back: "What I have said is simple. I don't understand why you and many others on LinkedIn and Twitter will complexify a reading problem as complex as portrayed by the people with a vested interest which has now influenced the majority of those involved in education?" I referenced Dr. David Kilpatrick's work on reducing remediation needs by 30% with targeted interventions, and pressed: "Timmy, why do you think that the solution should be more complex, rather, why do you think it should be made complex?" He replied the next day: "Hey Luqman, you're welcome to post this if you like... I'll probably post it on the podcast if that's alright with you." A week later, he greenlit it: "Okay great. I'm not sure when it'll be posted so just subscribe if you'd like and you'll see it pop up!" I did – and waited. Episode teased vaguely on his socials... then nada. No upload. No archive. Another hour lost to the ether, despite the explicit go-ahead.
And now, circling back to Dr. Bommarito from this morning's post. Our 2021 call? Same script. Attentive questions on teacher-proof fixes that prioritize results over peer-reviewed polish. Praise in email form. Zero broadcast. Three experts, three vanishing acts. That's nearly three hours of my life – not to mention the prep, the vulnerability of sharing raw successes without the safety net of "studies" – poured into conversations that never see the light.
Why does this keep happening? It's not malice; it's the comfort of the middle. As I wrote this morning, centrists like these folks champion balance, teacher agency, and exploration over disruption. My grassroots toolkit – honed in real classrooms and Zoom rooms, not ivory towers – spotlights the flaws in mainstream phonics without apology. It demands action: retrain on sound purity, amplify practitioner wins like those in Shut Down Kids, and stop diagnosing aversion as deficit. That's not a side to pick; it's a lifeline to throw. But airing it? That means owning the urgency, risking the harmony they hold dear.
Don't get me wrong – these aren't villains. Jedlie's platform spotlights diverse voices in education; Timmy's pod dives into indie creators and literacy chats; Sam's blog builds real bridges in literacy debates. They're the good guys, doing vital work. But when grassroots truth-tellers like me get the nod without the megaphone, we stay sidelined. And the kids? The ones teetering on shutdown, mislabeled and medicated instead of retaught? They pay the price.
So, here's my call: If you're a podcaster, educator, or ally reading this – don't just listen. Air it. Share it. Commit to the results, not just the rapport. I've said it before: "I don’t like to say no to any tool that helps a child read." Let's make that the default, not the exception.
If any of you three – Jedlie, Timmy, Sam – stumble on this sequel, hit reply. Let's dust off those tapes and get the unheard hours heard. The literacy world could use a little less ghosting and a lot more grit.
What about you, readers? Ever poured your soul into a conversation that vanished? Drop a comment below – let's build the chorus these stories deserve.
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