# Confusion, Not Disability: The Real Reason Kids Struggle to Read
## A literacy advocate’s challenge to 50 years of consensus—and a call to teach letter sounds with clarity.
For decades, educators have relied on explicit instruction to teach reading. But despite its widespread use, millions of children still struggle. Why?
**Luqman Michel**, educator and author of *Shut Down Kids*, argues that the problem isn’t cognitive—it’s confusion. When letter sounds are taught with extraneous sounds - schwas (“muh” instead of “m”), children disengage. This landing page explores the overlooked cause of reading failure and offers a path forward.
### 🔍 Core Message
- 80% of children become confused when letter sounds are taught incorrectly.
- 20% shut down completely.
- 60% struggle silently and waste years catching up.
- Only 20% learn efficiently—and often in spite of instruction.
### 📚 Featured Books
- **Shut Down Kids** – Why children disengage from reading and how to prevent it.
- **Teach Your Child to Read** – A practical guide for parents to reverse reading struggles.
### 🎙️ Podcast Commentary
Reflections on Anita Archer’s interview with Anna Stokke:
- What explicit instruction gets right—and what it misses.
- Why teaching letter sounds correctly is the missing link.
- How confusion—not phonological deficit—is the real trigger for dyslexia.
### 📣 Call to Action
- Share this page with educators and parents
- Subscribe for updates and new blog posts
- Contact Luqman for interviews, guest posts, or collaboration
Why Explicit Instruction Alone Won’t Solve Reading Failure
Explicit instruction has long been promoted as a gold standard in teaching—especially for novice learners. In her recent podcast with Anna Stokke, veteran educator Anita Archer emphasized the importance of clarity, consistency, and interactivity in instruction. She argued that how well teachers teach directly affects how well students learn, and that struggling learners especially need structured, explicit teaching to succeed.
But what does “how well you teach” really mean?
The Missing Link: Precision in Teaching Letter Sounds
Anita rightly stresses that instruction must be clear and concise. Yet she doesn’t fully unpack what clarity looks like at the foundational level—particularly in early reading. This is where my advocacy diverges. If teachers teach letter sounds with extraneous Sounds (schwas) (e.g., “muh” instead of “m”), they unintentionally create confusion.
Listen to Anita pronounce the letter M as mmm correctly at minute 14.39 LINK
Based on my experience:
Around 80% of children become confused when exposed to incorrect letter sounds.
20% disengage entirely from learning to read.
60% struggle silently and only figure it out later—wasting valuable time.
Only 20% learn efficiently, often due to external support or intuitive decoding.
This confusion is the root cause of most reading struggles—not phonological deficits, as traditionally claimed.
The Brain Can Decode—If We Don’t Disrupt It
Anita insists that children must be explicitly taught letter-sound associations to decode words. I respectfully disagree. The human brain is remarkably capable of figuring out how to read—provided children aren’t derailed by confusion and frustration. During the whole language era, millions of children learned to read simply by listening and repeating. The brain mapped sounds to letters through exposure and pattern recognition.
Even when letter sounds are taught incorrectly, continued reading allows the brain to self-correct. But this only works if children remain engaged. Confusion shuts them down before their brains can adapt. LINK
Intervention Is Not the Solution—Prevention Is
Anita emphasizes the need for effective and efficient instruction for struggling readers. But if letter sounds were taught correctly from the start, most children wouldn’t struggle at all. The fact that many “struggling” readers catch up quickly with minimal intervention proves that the problem lies in initial instruction—not in the children themselves.
We don’t need more intervention programs. We need to prevent the confusion that causes disengagement in the first place.
Challenging the Consensus: Dyslexia and Instructional Failure
In 2010, I challenged the dominant narrative that dyslexia stems from phonological awareness deficits. I argued instead that incorrect instruction—especially in letter sounds—is the real trigger. My book, Shut Down Kids, documents how children disengage from learning to read due to confusion. No one has refuted this. I followed it with Teach Your Child to Read, which has helped parents worldwide reverse reading struggles.
Anita and Anna discuss how explicit instruction benefits all learners, especially novices. But if this method has been around for over 50 years and children are still struggling, we must ask: what’s missing?
The First Step Is Sound
Before we talk about comprehension, vocabulary, or fluency, we must get the basics right. That means teaching letter sounds with precision—no schwas, no embellishments. This is the foundation of decoding. Without it, everything else collapses.
Anita concludes that good instruction is the best form of prevention. I agree. But good instruction must begin with clarity at the phonemic level. When children are taught correctly:
They don’t shut down.
They don’t struggle.
They don’t misbehave to avoid shame.
Teachers don’t burn out from preventable challenges.
This isn’t just pedagogy—it’s justice.
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