I Received a comment on my post ‘Stop Blaming Kids' 'Poor Phonemic Awareness' — It's the Wrong Letter Sounds, Stupid!’ LINK
Here is the comment by Deanna White - Interdisciplinary Studies Major
Sir, while your success in helping students is commendable, neuroscience offers a clearer explanation for why your "letter-naming" method works—and why "rote memorization" isn't actually what is happening in the brain.
Humans do not store words as visual "pictures" or shapes. Instead, we use a process called Orthographic Mapping. To read efficiently, the brain’s Visual Word Form Area must link the sequence of letters (orthography) directly to the sounds of the spoken word (phonology).
When you have students recite "W-I-T-H," you aren't training their visual memory; you are forcing their brain to attend to the internal sequence of letters. This helps them map those letters to the sounds they already know. However, for a student with dyslexia, relying on letter names can be a fragile "workaround."
Neuroscience shows that the most efficient way to create "sight words" is to explicitly link the phonemes (sounds) to the graphemes (letters). Even "irregular" words are mostly phonetic. By helping students map the regular parts and identify the "heart" (irregular) parts, we build permanent neural pathways. This moves them beyond the limited capacity of rote memory into the effortless, automatic retrieval required for fluent reading.
Here is my reply:
Deanna White Thank you for your comment. Yes, I am familiar with the claim that humans do not store words as visual “pictures.” I proofread Dr. David Kilpatrick’s two books several times, and my name appears in the acknowledgments. I have also studied his chapters on orthographic mapping and Ehri’s articles on the subject.
You mention that relying on letter names can be a fragile workaround for dyslexic students. That may be true for the small percentage—around 3%—who are truly dyslexic. But my focus is on the far larger group of “shut‑down” children who disengage from reading because they are confused by wrong instruction.
I have also read the statement that “even irregular words are mostly phonetic.” Yet in practice, every student I have taught—and many I have guided indirectly through their parents—has had no difficulty retrieving High Frequency Words once they were taught correctly. They became fluent readers without the barriers described in theory.
Here is the key question: you wrote, “This helps them map those letters to the sounds they already know.” But what happens when the sounds they “already know” are wrong? How does a child map luh‑ah‑muh‑buh into the word lamb? This is the crux of the problem. If the foundational sounds are mis‑taught, orthographic mapping cannot function as intended.
My experience shows that when children are taught the correct sounds of letters, and when they are guided to rote‑memorize the Dolch words alongside phonics, none are left behind. The confusion disappears, and fluency follows. That is why I continue to emphasize clarity of instruction over theoretical models that overlook the damage caused by wrong teaching.
I asked above: “What happens when the sounds they ‘already know’ are wrong? How does a child map luh‑ah‑muh‑buh into the word lamb?”
To explore this, I tested college students by asking them to sound out letters and then read a sample paragraph. They pronounced letters with added, extraneous sounds—yet they were still able to read fluently. These are the students who eventually “figure out” reading around grades 4 to 6 or later. The brain can perform remarkable compensations when a learner is determined to crack the code.
But this is not the case for the 20% who shut down early. These children disengage because of confusion created by wrong teaching, and they are too often misclassified as dyslexic. The difference is stark: some fight through the confusion and succeed late, while others give up and are left behind—not because of a neurological deficit, but because of flawed instruction at the start. LINK
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