Unmasking the Myths: My Decade-Long Clash with Professor Pamela Snow (Part 1 of 3)

 

🚨 Unmasking the Myths: My Decade-Long Clash with Professor Pamela Snow

“Reading is biologically unnatural.” — Professor Pamela Snow, 2018

 

For over a decade, I’ve challenged this myth—and the silence surrounding it. I’ve taught 80+ children since 2004, many fluent in Malay and Pinyin yet stumbling in English. The fix? Teach consonant phonemes correctly. Pure /b/, not “buh.” Results in four months flat.

 

But Professor Pamela Snow, a leading voice in Australia’s Science of Reading (SoR) movement, has dodged, muted, and dismissed my evidence. This three-part series exposes the myths, the dodges, and the consequences.

🔥 Highlights from Part 1

The Spark: Snow’s 2018 blog post echoed the Ewing-Union Report and Stanislas Dehaene’s recycled neuro-narratives.

 

My Response: Polite comment, clear question—ignored.

 

The Evidence: Kids fluent in Malay (same alphabet) bomb English sentences. Why?

 

The Silence: Emails unanswered. Tweets muted. Questions dismissed.

 

The Stakes: Grants, trainings, and interventions built on blaming kids’ brains instead of teacher instruction.

 

📹 Watch the Results: Kids Reading in 4 Months

Multilingual children, wrongly labeled dyslexic, now reading fluently.

 

📚 Read the Full Blog Series

Each post breaks down the myths and the evasions.

 

Part 1: The “Unnatural” Reading Myth

 

Part 2: The Straw Man of “One Method” Phonics

 

Part 3: The Empire of Silence and Selective Accountability

 

📣 Join the Conversation

I’ve never blocked or muted anyone. Debate me. Tweet your thoughts: @luqmanmichel Email me: luqmanmichel52@yahoo.com

 

🧠 Why This Matters

When educators teach “buh” instead of /b/, kids shut down. When experts dodge evidence, myths persist. When systems blame brains, they ignore instruction.

 

Let’s fix this. Let’s teach right. Let’s hold the gatekeepers accountable.

 

PART 1

For over a decade, I’ve emailed, tweeted, and commented on blogs with one simple fix to end the “reading wars”: teach consonant phonemes correctly—pure /b/, not “buh”—and watch children read fluently within months. No shutdowns. No misdiagnosed “dyslexia.” But Professor Pamela Snow, a leading figure in Australia’s Science of Reading (SoR) movement, has dodged, muted, and dismissed me at every turn.

 

From her 2016 claim that reading is “biologically unnatural” to her 2023 defenses of SoR dogma, Snow’s work perpetuates the very confusion that leaves children illiterate. I’m not an academic—I’m a finance guy who’s taught 80+ kids since 2004, many fluent in Malay and Pinyin yet stumbling in English. I’ve got the receipts: videos, testimonials, and results in four months flat.

 

This three-part series revisits our “exchanges” (mostly one-sided), exposing how Snow’s myths fuel failure. It’s not personal—it’s about accountability. I’ve never muted or blocked anyone. Debate me. But Snow? She suggests muting my tweets, ghosts my emails, and repeats debunked tropes. Why? Because my evidence threatens the SoR empire: grants, trainings, and interventions built on blaming kids’ brains instead of teachers’ mouths.

 

The Spark: 2018 and the “Unnatural” Reading Myth

It began in October 2018 with Snow’s blog post echoing the Ewing-Union Report. She claimed reading is a “biologically unnatural act,” only 6,000 years old, with no specialized brain pathways—recycling Stanislas Dehaene’s neuro-myths. Her solution? Trust teachers to “critique research” and adapt. No prescriptive phonics. Parents bear the burden. Human variation explains failure.

 

I called BS. Billions read Chinese characters or Tamil scripts effortlessly—why exceptionalize English? My parents spoke zero English; teachers did the heavy lifting. No “parental responsibility” cop-out. I commented politely: Why do kids fluent in Malay (same alphabet) bomb English sentences? Wrongly labeled dyslexic? Email me—luqmanmichel52@yahoo.com. Crickets.

 

By 2020, her silence turned snippy. In Pamela Snow: Perpetuating Myths about Phonics Instruction, I tagged her on Twitter: Read this. No reply. Ostrich mode. Meanwhile, she warned against “one method” phonics—a straw man. Nobody pushes that. We push correct phonics: sound-symbol mastery first, then blending. But Snow’s trust in educators? Laughable when they delete dissent, manipulate data, and ignore kids shutting down from Day 1 confusion.

 

Early Exchanges: Dodges and Disengagement

Fast-forward to June 2020. I asked why multilingual kids falter in English. Her reply? “Dear Luqman, I am not your on-call response service.” She called my focus on phoneme pronunciation “narrow,” accused me of racism and rudeness. Where? My 2018 comment was polite as pie. No slur—just facts: Australian university students pronounce /b/ as “buh” yet read Kilpatrick’s nonsense words by analysis, not synthesis. Her solution? Mute me.

 

In Twitter Has Mute Function, Pamela Snow, I laid it out: I’ve read Kilpatrick’s manuscripts thrice, corresponded with Torgesen, Selznick, Wolf. UK dyslexia teaching cert since 2005. Taught 70+ kids. Yet Snow, Buckingham, and P.L. Thomas urge muting because they “have no answer to my question.” That question? If phonological awareness deficit (PAD) causes dyslexia, why do kids read fluently in Pinyin and Malay? Silence.

 

Her March 2020 piece on university students botching sentences? Valid frustration, wrong diagnosis. In You Can’t Teach Old Dogs New Tricks (Final Part), I tweeted: These grads cracked reading by Grade 6 but missed vocabulary and fluency foundations. Probe that, Pamela. Nada. She laments no change post-inquiries (US, UK, Aus)—yet ignores my decade-long pleas to Aussie ministers: Ban “buh” on YouTube. Teach pure sounds.