Echoes, Evidence, and the PISA Wake-Up Call
Shouldn’t we think before accepting anything we read?
Since 2016, when I first read that “reading is biologically unnatural,” I’ve disagreed. This post shows what happens when one researcher makes a claim—and others repeat it without question. Stanislas Dehaene. Pamela Snow. David Chalk. Regie Routman. The myth spreads. The consequences deepen.
I have been shouting at the top of my voice since 2010 why many intelligent kids shut down from learning to read. Except for a handful such as Dr. Richard Selznick and Dr. David Kilpatrick hardly anyone bothered to understand. Many of the blocked me on social media. Now, these people who blocked me will hear it from Grok.
Almost everything on why kids disengage from learning to read, I learned from my dyslexic students whom I taught on a one on one basis since 2004.
I started my blog in 2010 and learned quite a bit from comments on my blog posts from dyslexics as well as parents of kids who were unable to read.
I started writing to more than 20 researchers and learned from many of them including, Dr. Joe Torgesen, Dr. Richard Selznick, Dr. David Kilpatrick.
Dr. Richard Selznick, my mentor, in my discussion with him in 2010 said:
I agree with you that many of these kids are instructional casualties and if they had been taught differently, many would not have shut down.
Most of my thousands of patients, who could not read, pronounced the consonants with extraneous sounds.
Please keep in mind that what I say and how I respond are based on my experiences and understanding of the research. I am not a scientist or researcher, but respond from my decades of clinical experience.
Yesterday, 2.10.24, LinkedIn prompted me to request a connection with Dr. Steve Truch.
Sometimes, I request for connections but I seldom read the profile of the members I request connections.
This was an exception and I viewed his profile and was excited to read the videos listed on his profile.
I have said several times that when you want something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it.
There are many things that I have done in my life where Mother Nature provided the information I required. Let me share just 3 of many.
Back in 2010 after teaching so-called dyslexic kids for 6 years I was convinced that all my approximately 20 students whom I taught during the 6 years were shut-down kids who had disengaged from learning to read due to confusion.
At that time the existing theory that had existed for more than 35 years was that kids could not read due to phonological awareness deficit.
I disagreed with that theory and wrote over 100 articles/comments that disagreed with it until it was debunked in 2017. You may read some of my articles/comments in 2010 here. LINK
Here are Tweets between Dr. Sam and I on 8.10.2023
Dr. Sam Bommarito @DoctorSam7
I know you (Luqman Michel) do good work. But I spent my career working with a diverse group of children, teaching them in a language that is not always regular in its sound-symbol relations.
Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel
I understand Dr. Irregular sound/symbol relations are not what causes a kid to disengage from learning to read. The weird spelling of words is not what causes kids to shut down from learning to read. Teaching sounds of letters with extraneous sounds is what causes kids to shut down.
Dr. Sam Bommarito @DoctorSam7
Agree to disagree.
Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel
Are you saying that kids disengage from learning to decode because of irregular sound-symbol relations?
There is no reply from Dr. Sam. In the absence of a reply, I have to try and guess which of the following he is referring to.
Here is a tweet I read this morning, 7.9.2023 and my reply.
Brad @BradleyKBusch
Dear lovely Twitter people, can you help? (Yes I am talking directly to you dear reader). I am trying to create a list of education interventions that were popular, but in hindsight were built on correlational not causation studies.
Does anything come to mind?
Many ‘educators’ from the US have blocked me but I can’t recollect any from the US who have blocked me and said things behind my back. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for some Australians and the British.
Recently I created a second account on Twitter and saw the following tweets from Peter Blenkinsop from the UK.
This guy is a secondary school teacher and has never taught kids to learn to read and yet argues with me about how to teach kids to learn to read.
Here is a YouTube video by Dr. David Kilpatrick and my comments.
Dr. Kilpatrick:
At minute 2.08 it says: Poor access to the phonemes makes reading alphabetic languages very difficult.
At minute 2.47 it says: The ability of identifying unfamiliar words by sounding them out.
Here are extract from an article found here and my comments. This is a continuation of my post yesterday.
A lack of phonemic proficiency is viewed as a reason for word-reading difficulties (e.g., Kilpatrick, 2019a, b, 2020). Hence, it is assumed that stronger and weaker word readers can be better differentiated by assessments that involve more advanced phonemic manipulation tasks (phoneme deletion or replacement), compared to measures that are viewed as more “basic” such as phoneme segmenting or blending.
Following a discussion on Twitter I decided to refresh my mind on orthographic mapping and chanced upon the following post on an Orton Gillingham blog.
The highlight in bold is my doing and this is what I intend to write to a Dr. David Kilpatrick for further discussion.
https://ortongillinghamonlinetutor.com/the-big-five-phonics-orthographic-mapping/
