Irresponsible teachers

 

I am recording this in my blog for posterity. This shows the irresponsible people who write whatever comes to their minds without thinking about how it affects others.The irresponsible comments below refer to a Heinemann Reading Curriculum.

Kathleen Seeman, MEdKathleen Seeman, MEd  • 1st • 1st Dyslexia Specialist and Interventionist, Master Teacher, Educator, AdvocateDyslexia.

WOW!! About time this wrong is righted! “The case could also break new legal ground. Stuart Rossman, who oversaw litigation at the National Consumer Law Center for 25 years, said he wasn’t aware of any previous class-action lawsuits over literacy curricula”

Mass. lawsuit calls reading curriculum 'deceptive' and 'defective'

 

December 04, 2024, Christopher Peak, APM Reports. LINK

This story was originally published by APM Reports, an investigative reporting group based at American Public Media, and is part of an editorial partnership between WBUR and APM Reports.

My thoughts:

Who is funding APM reports?

What nonsense is this about investigative reporting? How do they investigate?

I wrote to Emily Hanford and APM Reports in 2017.

Here are extracts of the emails to and from Emily Hanford and APM. Note the dates of the email.

More nonsense from Emily Hanford.

                                                                      

On January 16^th Emily Hanford @ehanford tweeted the following and replies from Twitters have not been addressed by her.

Emily Hanford:

Schools often give struggling readers audio books and headphones with devices that can read aloud for them. These innovations can help poor readers keep up in math, science, and other subjects, but they can also become literacy impediments.

Behind & Beyond Sold a Story with Emily Hanford - Part 4

                                                            

This is part 4 of Kate Winn's podcast with Emily Hanford.   

 

Emily Hanford:

The problem with teachers is they haven’t learned how kids learn to read.

 

My Comment:

It is not only the teachers who have not learned but no one in the world has learned how kids learn to read. I have stated this for many years now. Does Emily Hanford or anyone from APM Reports know how kids learn to read? 

Behind & Beyond Sold a Story with Emily Hanford - Part 3

                                                                 

The following are questions I have for Emily Hanford and APM Reports.

Is there even one study that says that teaching letter sounds wrongly/ teaching consonants with extraneous sounds, is not the cause of kids shutting down/ disengaging from learning to read?

Is there any one study showing schools teach sounds represented by letters wrongly and that this is one of the causes of kids shutting down/ disengaging from learning to read?

Behind & Beyond Sold a Story with Emily Hanford - Part 2

                                                                    

The podcast host asked Emily:

Do you read criticisms and have a strategy for that?

Here is Emily’s response:

I don’t have a strategy to articulate. I have developed a thick skin over the years. I have never muted anyone or blocked anyone on Twitter. People can criticise you and you don’t have to respond.

I believe she has not muted anyone or blocked anyone as she has not blocked me despite many comments I have made about her. Neither have I blocked or muted anyone unlike many who have muted and blocked me.

Behind & Beyond Sold a Story with Emily Hanford

                                                   

S2 E1: Behind & Beyond Sold a Story with Emily Hanford

Reading Road Trip

Here is an extract from the podcast above and my comments. LINK

It is a profound misunderstanding of journalism. What role does a journalist play? A journalist hasn’t been the thing they are covering; a white house reporter hasn’t been the president… The point of journalism is to investigate and uncover important stories. Journalists ask questions and explain things and we investigate and we look at the data.

I have referred Emily to my book Shut Down Kids and asked her if she has any idea why many kids shut down/ disengage from learning to read. How do these kids get to grade level and are maintained at grade level after a short intervention period?

What have Emily and APM investigated following my several emails to them beginning in 2017?

What data did they look at?

Anna Stokke's podcast with Matthew Burns - Part 1

                                                            

Here is a transcript of the podcast by Anna Stokke.

She asks many relevant questions and since she is not an ‘expert’ in reading and not selling a reading programme I believe she will read my comments with an open mind.

This podcast is with Dr. Matthew Burns whom she claims is a renowned researcher in the science of reading world.

Here are some extracts and my comments/ questions:

"The solution to poor reading scores is not simply better instruction"- Emily Hanford (Part 2)

                                                

Here is a response from Jani Wright. As expected there is no reply from Emily Hanford, the so-called literacy expert.

 

Jani Wright @thewrightjungle

Poor Tier I curriculum, poor MTSS, F&P fans at the DO, lack of training for teachers, laws that allow each district to operate with local control, and a state DOE that hasn't prioritized reading using evidence-based practices. No accountability.

These are all too general.

i.                    What exactly is poor tier 1 curriculum?

ii.                  Why has nothing been done since 1972 (the year since when data is available)?

iii.               Why has the reading proficiency level remained the same since 1972?

"The solution to poor reading scores is not simply better instruction"- Emily Hanford (Part 1)

                                                             

Here are some Tweets of Emily Hanford, Jani Wright and me on 15.11.23 (Part 1)

Emily Hanford @ehanford

"The solution to poor reading scores is not simply better instruction, it is also better assessment—an assessment that is matched more closely to what is taught in the classroom." - Hugh Catts    

I then tweeted:

You continue barking up the wrong tree. Since 2017 I have told you that the problem is in decoding. Check the kids who fail the assessment and you will find that it has nothing to do with understanding but an inability to decode. You can't be that naïve can you?

How schools are dealing with the ongoing teacher shortage

 

I commented on a post on LinkedIn yesterday on the ongoing teacher shortage. I read many Tweets by teachers complaining about the bad behaviour of students leading to their resigning from the schools.

The author of this article is talking about how to solve the symptom and I tried to share with her how to help reduce bad behaviour in the future. She was courteous in responding to my comments.

From my experience of having taught more than 80 kids who were unable to read when they came to me for tuition and from reading extensively on this subject, I understand that most of the misbehavior stems from kids avoiding shame due to not being able to read like a majority in their classes. This is also what was discovered by the Children of the Code researchers. LINK

Right to read - Movie Review – Part 3

Minute 34.50: If they don’t know the sounds of the letters they are not going to know how to read.

 

This is nonsense propagated by the puppets of the powers that be.

The brain is powerful enough to figure out how to read despite not knowing the sounds of the letters. 

Right to read - Movie Review – Part 2

 

At minute 10.24: Let’s see what happens when we take away the pictures.

There has been a lot of opinion about how children learn to read.

The above part of the movie shows a girl reading with pictures and the same words being read (wrongly) by the same girl when the pictures were removed.

What does it prove? It only proves that the teacher did not know how to teach that kid and nothing more. 

Right to read - Movie Review – Part 1

 

I watched the movie Right to Read and think it is propaganda to brainwash the Americans to get rid of Lucy Calkins's books and discount Balanced Literature.

Here are some excerpts from the movie and my questions and comments.

At minute 14.20: Kareem - The question is what becomes of those kids who don’t have a foundation in reading? The Lord works in mysterious ways. Kids overcome all kinds of challenges.

A rehash of my emails to APM Reports and Emily Hanford

 

I wrote to APM reports on their article 'How American schools fail kids with dyslexia’ dated 11.9.2017.

 Their website says,

APM Reports strives to raise awareness, trigger debate and prompt positive change via non-partisan, independent investigative and documentary journalism.

The following is my email to APM Reports dated 11.9.2017

No answers from Science of Reading Folks

 

Here is a tweet by Jeffrey Bowers in response to Back Seat Linguist's Tweet followed by my thoughts on it.

@jeffrey_bowers May 25

Interesting thread.  Again, when proponents of the science of reading are asked to cite specific studies that support specific claims, no answers.  Can anyone provide a reference to support highlighted claim?

Quote Tweet

BackSeat Linguist @BackSeatLing · May 23

Any help with these "missing links" - citations to these MRI studies - @markseidenberg @DTWillingham @ehanford or other SOR fans?

 

Obviously we'd need something beyond presenting isolated letters or words to readers.  twitter.com/MaggieEThornto…

My comment now:

“The Truth About Reading” Is Missing Truths and Backstory by Nancy Bailey (Part 1)

 

Here is a post in Nancy Bailey’s blog. It is a comment on a trailer of an upcoming movie  “The Truth About Reading”.

Nancy says among other matters: 

Reading to respond instead of reading to understand

 

I commented on a tweet by Pam Kastner which was responded by Erin Harrington, Narelle Lynch, Denyse Ritchie and David M. (a grade one teacher in Australia), Dr. Kathryn Garforth and Emily Hanford.

When I clicked on ‘Home’ to skim through what others were tweeting I saw a tweet (in no way related to the tweet above) by Jasmine lane @MsJasmineMN, a teacher.

Too many folks out here reading to respond instead of reading to understand.

Lucy Calkin vs SoR proponents

 

The SoR proponents keep smearing the good name of Lucy Calkin. What is their basis? I believe it is none other than promoting their SoR products.

To be honest, I have not read Lucy’s book but I have read many who say that her books have helped them to teach their students.

Humans Are Born With Brains ‘Prewired’ to See Words

I googled ‘Reading is unnatural’ and there are about 12,200,000 results (0.50 seconds).

I have said several times on my blog that the problem with research reports is that when one ‘researcher’ says one thing the others jump on the band wagon and repeat what the researcher had said, without thinking at all.