This morning I read a comment on my blog and answered it as below.
This comment made my day. She said, 'I appreciate your philosophical approach'.
May God bless her for such appreciative words.
The comment was on my post on ‘An Ounce of Prevention - Benjamin Franklin’.
Anonymous
Thanks, Luqman. I appreciate your philosophical approach to how to best approach reading instruction. Do you think that universal screenings will help in prevention?
Phillip Chipping and I have been discussing on LinkedIn for a few days. He asked me to send him 2 posts which I think are the top.
All my posts are worth reading but I thought I’d make a new post as there was another teacher, I discussed with who teaches phonics but does not understand why memorising Dolch words is important.
This is one of the problems with kids shutting down. The phonics proponents are adamant that kids should not rote memorise HFWs because it is based on Whole Language and the WL proponents think phonics is useless as many kids who have learned phonics can’t read.
Neither the phonics or the whole word advocates know why many kids shut down from learning to read.
Here is another part of the LinkedIn thread by Ethan Lynn
Ethan Lynn, PhD Author Illiteracy Eradicator | Presenter | PD Specialist | Published Researcher:
Luqman Michel, this is an interesting perspective. Are you saying, it's best not to teach it at all if it's not done right?
Ethan Lynn was referring to teaching sounds represented by letters.
Let us begin with a tweet directed to Dr. Sam Bommarito and his reply.
To my following tweet on 14.8.23:
I wrote emails to both of them (David Boulton and Andrew Johnson) in 2015. Both refused to accept what I discovered and wanted research reports to support what I discovered. Dr. Sam, do we need research reports for everything? Can't we think logically anymore?
Dr. Sam Bommarito @DoctorSam7 responded as follows:
In the world of research, there is the issue of replication. You have to be able to replicate results for them to be significant, replication requires formal studies. One of the key issues here is. If you use your methods on other children and from other places will they still progress? So the answer is if you want other people from other places to consider your (approach) yes you do have to do research.
This is a continuation of my post yesterday found here.
Renee Harding asked the following question:
If the majority of kids were somehow figuring out how to read (i.e., stumbling upon, “discovering,” or activating that “innate” ability [that doesn’t exist]), then why are so few students reading proficiently?!
I have said in several of my blog that reading is an innate ability contrary to what the general opinion is. I based this on observation of my students whom I started teaching in 2004 to learn why kids were able to read in Malay but not in English.
The above clip depicts what was said by Charlie Munger about the human mind being like the human egg.
The following is a LinkedIn discussion with Amy Rheault-Heafield, M.Ed.
Amy Rheault-Heafield
The reality is that 1 in 5 students are dyslexic. Dyslexia encompasses many realms and is a language-based disorder. You cannot “identify” a dyslexic student at first glance or even on a city or rural street. However, once you interact and also analyze written/oral/ and reading behaviors, the evidence to suspect this exists in a student becomes much clearer. Pandemic learning loss is not the same as dyslexia or even being slow to develop reading/writing/language skills.
The powers that be are experts in ensuring that this policy of ‘Divide and Rule’ is in place.
The Reading War has been going on for decades and is now stronger than ever between the phonetics and whole word Apostles.
Exponents from both sides keep warring and will not stand to reason. Their minds are like the Human egg. When one sperm goes into the ovum the ovum does not allow another sperm to get in just like the minds of these exponents.
So, in a way it is why the greatest dangers are not from foolish people who do foolish things or evil people who do evil things but from good people who persist in doing their foolish wrong things to preserve their beliefs that they are good, kind and competent. (Dr. Carol Tavris)
Dr. Carol Tavris, co-author of the newly released third edition of Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): ‘Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts.’
The book explores reasons good people remain wedded to foolish approaches.
I have not read the book but the above is exactly what I have learnt from reading many posts and tweets.
The reading wars have been going on for decades. The more I read tweets by teachers the more I understand why the wars have been going on for so long.
Many teachers are unwilling to discuss with an open mind. They are like the prince in an Indian fable who had caught a three legged rabbit and started proclaiming that all rabbits are three legged.
They are exactly what Charlie Munger had described about the human egg.
As a result of the well-documented confirmation bias, we tend to undervalue evidence that contradicts our beliefs and overvalue evidence that confirms them. We filter out inconvenient truths and arguments on the opposing side. As a result, our opinions solidify, and it becomes increasingly harder to disrupt established patterns of thinking.
