Prof. Paul L. Thomas (@plthomasEdD) of Furman University has long been a voice in the education wilderness—pushing back against the hype of "science of reading" mandates, defending balanced literacy, and calling out phonics zealots for oversimplifying complex kids. As a high school English teacher turned professor, his blog Radical Scholarship and tweets cut through the noise with data-driven skepticism. I've cited him approvingly in my own fights against PAD dogma and "cuh-ah-tuh" blunders. But when it comes to my core question—how do multilingual kids (and even fluent adults) nail nonsense words like "scrab" or "thake" despite kindergarten phonics gone haywire? —he's been radio silent. Or worse: a mute button.
It's been over five years since I first tagged him on Twitter in April 2020, fresh off my takedown of Robert Slavin's phonics absolutism. I asked for his take, hoping his research savvy would spark dialogue. Instead, by June, he joined Pamela Snow and Jennifer Buckingham in suggesting folks mute my tweets—classic stonewalling when frontline evidence clashes with academic comfort zones. Fast-forward to August 2023: I spotlighted his tweet critiquing England's phonics screening check, tying it back to that unanswered query. Crickets again.
In 2025, with global literacy pushes leaning harder into synthetic phonics (and AI tools mimicking the same old errors), Paul's cautionary tales feel prescient. But so does my plea: Test the analysis hypothesis. Why waste time debating mandates when simple trials with your Furman students could validate (or debunk) how 80% of kids self-correct through sheer brainpower? Let's end the wars with evidence, not echoes.
For posterity, here's a timeline of our "conversation" (mostly one-sided), pulled verbatim from my blog posts. No emails exchanged—Twitter was the bridge—but the challenge stands.
April 8, 2020: Initial Twitter Ask (via Slavin Post Comments)
From "Idiotic Statement by Dr. Robert Slavin": I have today asked Prof. Paul Thomas of Furman University on Twitter to give his comments on the post above. I am looking forward to his comments. I have also asked Robert Slavin for his comments. He has not responded to my comment on his blog post nor to my email. Let us see his response. There can't be any excuse for not having time.
(Context: Critiquing Slavin's dismissal of non-phonetic paths, with videos of Punjabi-Aussie students decoding nonsense words despite wrong phoneme teaching. Tagged @plthomasEdD—hoping his anti-dogma stance would bite.)
April 10, 2020: The "Navigating Research" Challenge
From "I am capable of navigating research" (Professor P.L. Thomas): P. L. Thomas is a Professor at Furman University. He said on his Twitter message on 7.4.2020 – ‘I have a doctorate and I know that I do not know everything even though I am capable of navigating research.’ I have a request for him to ‘navigate a research’ on my findings that most students – about 80% - learn to read whether you teach them pronunciation of phonemes correctly as taught by Sue Lloyd or wrongly as by most teachers around the world. The majority learns through analysis. The 20% of kids who I believe are the smart kids shut down when the pronunciation of phonemes is taught wrongly. Now, Professor Paul Thomas if he chooses to ‘navigate research’ to confirm my findings we will be on the road to end the Reading Wars. This research can be carried out as of now by simply asking his past and present students to do exactly what I am doing with volunteers as in my post yesterday. Here is another example of another student from Australia. She was born in India and did her kindergarten and primary education in Perth, Australia. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor in Pharmacy (Hon) degree in Perth. The following clip is how she pronounced the phonemes of the letters A to Z. The following clip shows her reading the nonsense words spontaneously. I ask the same question as I asked in the previous blog post. How did she manage to read the nonsense words when she pronounced most of the consonants wrongly? Can Professor P.L. Thomas do simple research by asking for his university students to read the letters A to Z and then asking them to read a list of nonsense words?
(Videos embedded—now archived; showed fluent decoding post-wrong teaching. Direct call: Run the test yourself.)
June 6, 2020: The Mute Suggestion
From "Twitter has a mute function" Pamela Snow, Jennifer Buckingham, P.L.Thomas: This post is in response to the educators, Pamela Snow, Jennifer Buckingham and Paul Thomas, who have suggested to mute my tweets. This is obviously because they have no answer to my question and cannot understand my explanation on why kids leave school as illiterate. If educators are stubborn and shoot from the hip without reading my posts, how are we ever going to end the Reading Wars?
(No verbatim tweet quoted, but framed as evasion—part of a pattern with SoR hardliners.)
August 12, 2023: Circling Back on Phonics Screening
From "Phonics screening": How were they able to read the nonsense words correctly? This is what I asked our education guru Paul Thomas who told the world that he could navigate research to find out. That was 3 years ago. Does anyone know how a kid learns to read? Definitely not! Listen to the two college students who pronounced the letters with extraneous sounds but were able to read all the pseudo words. ... Why are teachers getting excited about what Paul Thomas is tweeting? Because he says that he can navigate research?
Paul Thomas Tweeted: Advocates of the phonics screening tests claim that they are fun. In fact, for fluent readers, it can destroy their recognition as competent readers... [full tweet excerpt on a fluent boy scoring 2/40 by reconstructing words like “elt” as “let”].
Luqman Michel: Why are teachers getting excited about what Paul Thomas is tweeting? ... This is definitely misleading. I wonder how Paul will make meaning of the nonsense words. I definitely cannot.
(Ties his screening critique to my unanswered question; disputes his example as cherry-picking.)
Paul, your defenses of teacher expertise and anti-mandate stances align with my push for logical, confusion-free teaching. But muting the messenger doesn't decode the mystery. Five years in, will you run that simple trial? Email me—luqmanm2002@yahoo.co.uk—or tweet back. Furman's got the students; we've got the words (nonsense and otherwise).
To the community: When experts suggest "mute" over "engage," progress stalls. I've faced it from Snow to Slavin—share your stories below. Let's amplify the questions that matter.
Wish you all well,
Luqman Michel
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