The dominant view, repeated endlessly in Western research, is that dyslexia is a neurobiological phonological processing deficit. But in 2010, I began questioning this after teaching children who struggled severely with English yet read fluently in transparent orthographies like Malay and Pinyin.
If a child truly has a phonological deficit, shouldn’t it impair reading in any alphabetic system? Yet these same children decoded Malay and Pinyin effortlessly.
Take Emmanuel, age 9. His psychological report showed superior nonverbal IQ but phonological and literacy skills in the lowest 2–5%. He failed most subjects requiring reading. But after precise instruction using pure alphabet sounds (no extraneous /uh/), just under four months of weekly 3-hour sessions were enough for him to read fluently, wean off support, and thrive in mainstream school. LINK
Such rapid progress suggests that much of what we call “dyslexia” in English-speaking contexts may be instructional casualties – children who shut down because early teaching was illogical and confusing.
Yes, the phonological deficit theory has neuroimaging and twin studies behind it. But cross-linguistic evidence shows the “deficit” is far less impairing in consistent writing systems. English’s opacity amplifies minor vulnerabilities into major obstacles, while poor sound instruction (like adding schwas) creates confusion that mimics or worsens the deficit.
Common sense should have led researchers to question the universality of this theory long ago. Instead, it took years and new studies for experts like Timothy Shanahan to partially acknowledge the nuance I had observed in practice since 2010.
Perhaps it’s time to move forward – and focus on what actually works: logical, confusion-free teaching that respects how children’s brains naturally learn.
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