Silenced by the Code

 

For over a decade, David Boulton’s Children of the Code project gathered insights from more than a hundred experts — reading scientists, neuroscientists, linguists, psychologists, anthropologists, historians, and educators. Thirteen years of interviews produced a vast archive of reflections on why children struggle to read.

 

Yet when I engaged with Boulton directly, raising the most practical and urgent question — what exactly are children learning that disables their learning? — the response was not dialogue but deletion. My comments were blocked, videos of teachers teaching letter sounds wrongly were removed, and the conversation was shut down.

This post continues my series on how leading voices in the science of reading acknowledge the problem but silence those who point to its cause.

Here are some quotes from David Boulton:

10 times the number of kids who have innately biologically ordered learning difficulties have learning difficulties that are a consequence of what they learned.

How much of what they are struggling with is an innate learning problem and how much of what they are struggling with is what they have learned in the past working against them learning now.

My thoughts:

What had they learned that resulted in the learning difficulties? Why did David not respond to my comment on his post on LinkedIn instead of blocking me. He had posted videos of teachers teaching the sounds of letters wrongly. He blocked me and then deleted the videos.

David Boulton:

The biggest obstacle to healthy learning is learning – we can learn in ways that disable our learning.

Unhealthy learning harms, injures or maladaptively constrains how well we can on-going-ly learn and stunts or disables our learning from extending into new dimensions.

… until such time that we understand that learning can fundamentally disable learning, then our education is disconnected from a critical layer of human learning.

Healthy learning creates good scaffolding; unhealthy learning creates cognitive infrastructure that goes against on-going learning.

When I questioned David Boulton his reply was:

Children of the Code avoided advocating solutions so as not to be dismissed as having an agenda other than learning deeper into the challenge.

 

I complained to David Boulton that the videos he promoted on LinkedIn is one of the causes of kids being unable to read. He said that he does not want to be a platform for self-aggrandizing and yet immediately deleted the 2 videos I complained of. I never did tell him about adopting my way. All I had said was that the videos he recommended caused kids to be confused.

Those videos were of teachers teaching letter with extraneous sounds.

Dr. David Boulton:

 

I have been bombarded over the years with people 'certain' that if only their way was adopted (spelling reform to the instructional method) everyone would be great readers. I don't have the time or interest in being the object such people want to stroke themselves with. I am clear and on the record for decades re what is the reason children struggle to read English. If as you say you have been through my work you'd know that. I appreciate that you help people. I don't want to engage further with you. I am not interested in being a platform for self-aggrandizing. I wish you all the best.

 

David Boulton’s words ring true — “learning can fundamentally disable learning.” Yet when I have seen this firsthand and speak up, I am silenced. The irony is staggering: those who claim to study the science of reading refuse to confront the simplest truth staring them in the face.

Children are not failing because of biology or destiny. They are failing because of wrong teaching — teaching that confuses, frustrates, and shuts down the very process of learning.

When researchers delete videos, block questions, and hide behind academic walls, they reveal what they fear most: that the truth is not complicated, just inconvenient.

And so, the silence continues — not because the answers are unknown, but because too many prefer comfort over correction.

The real “Children of the Code” are not the ones in the documentaries. They are the millions still trapped behind the wrong sounds of letters — victims of a system that refuses to listen.