The phrase often attributed to George Carlin — "never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups" — is catchy, but it misdiagnoses the problem. It suggests that dysfunction arises from individual stupidity, when in reality, the danger lies in systemic misdirection and the dynamics of group behavior.
Part 1 traced our rocky start: ignored 2018 comments, 2020 mute suggestions, and Snow’s dodge of multilingual miracles. Now comes the meat—her Science of Reading (SoR) sermons on phonemes, foundations, and why kids “disengage.”
Spoiler: She misses the mark by miles, harping on comprehension and fluency while kids trip at the starting gate. My proof? Fifteen years remediating shutdowns with pure sounds: /k/, not “kuh.” Results: Fluency in months, not years. Snow’s response? “Narrow focus.” Reality: She’s tunnel-visioned on symptoms, ignoring the cause: extraneous-sound sabotage.
Herd Mentality and the Comfort of Consensus
Recap: Why They Block
In Part 1, I exposed how my free, results-driven lessons threaten the dyslexia intervention industry. That’s why I’ve been blocked by prominent figures like:
Jo Anne Gross
Debbie Hepplewhite
Pamela Snow and teachers with similar dogmatic attitudes are the ones who perpetuate the reading wars. They do not know the impact they have on others who repeat what they say. Two of many such teachers, who repeat what she says are Emina McLean and Jennifer Buckingham. (All 3 of them are researchers from Australia).
The following is a ridiculous question Pamela Snow asked when I pointed out that many kids disengage from learning to read because of confusion.
(Sila lihat di bawah untuk terjemahan Bahasa Melayu)
Carlo M. Cipolla's "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" offers thought-provoking insights into human behaviour and its impact on society. Here are 10 wonderful lessons derived from the essay.
My friend, Harold Rozario, posted the above on Facebook and commented, ‘Read numbers 7 and 9 again. Do you recognize it in your environment?’
Let’s look at the remaining 8 while I think a little more on 7 and 9.
This morning, 8.2.24, I read a post in Education HQ by Sarah Duggan. LINK
Here is an extract and my comments:
All Australian governments and school sector leaders should commit to a 10-year ‘Reading Guarantee’ strategy to reduce the dire number of instructional casualties slipping through the system and ensure best practice is not left to chance, experts have proposed.
One third of all students are below the basic level of reading proficiency, Amy Haywood, Grattan’s education deputy program director, tells Education HQ.
“And the sad thing is, that it’s a preventable tragedy because we do know what strong and effective reading instruction looks like – we just need to make sure that we’re getting it happening in every classroom…” Haywood says.
Part one of this post can be found HERE.
[00:19:48] Anna Stokke: The point you made about this paper being used to influence policy for millions of kids, is quite alarming. Okay, so I'm going to say, you know, in Canada when that curriculum I was talking about was adopted and I'm not kidding you that for a while, teachers were told that children could not use standard algorithms in class. They were not to teach them and kids were not to use them, even if they've been taught at home.
This is a continuation of the podcast by Anna Stokke. (LINK)
Anna Stokke:
Do you see similarities between what happened with reading instruction and what's going on with math instruction?
Matthew Burns:
I do. It's quite analogous, although it's not a complete one-to-one. It's almost like there's a shift in thinking around what constitutes evidence and what constitutes research-based practices. And I think that's cutting across all aspects of teaching and learning…
Let us continue with the tweets by Dr. Sam and my replies on 8.10.23.
Dr. Sam:
You are at the starting stage of research. You need carefully designed research around this issue. You have promising practices. But at the end of the day yes we need peer-reviewed research for ideas to become widely accepted.
I am not sure if I am at the starting stage of research. As far as I am concerned, I have finished my research. We'll leave this for another day. Anyway, here is my reply.
Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel
Beginning stage of research? Perhaps you are right. I gave up employment in 2004 to learn why kids could not read in English but could read in Malay. I taught > 80 'dyslexic' kids and read incessantly any article on dyslexia. There is hardly anything new on dyslexia to read.
When is anyone going to teach kids Malay or Hanyu Pinyin and at the same time teach them English to research why they can read in 2 languages but not the third?
When is anyone going to do research on why kids disengage from learning to read?
Here is a tweet I commented on and was questioned and my replies:
Evan Robb @ERobbPrincipal Aug 15
To have a great team you must surround yourself with like-minded people!
@MichelLuqman
Where do I find people who can think?
Most of the educators on Twitter have a herd mentality and wear blinkers. They base everything on research reports and rarely think. Read what Daniel Kahneman said about research reports. LINK
Note:
Since 2010, I have been questioned on my credentials and asked for research reports when common sense should prevail. This over-reliance on research reports as if they are the gospel truth is one of the main problems facing education.
Here are a few more comments I have on the podcast by Kate of IDA Ontario and Lyn Stone.
Sunk cost fallacy
People will keep investing in that thing rather than scrap it. We spent all this money and time and can’t possibly be wrong. The sunk cost fallacy exists and it makes you think that something is working when it is not working.
My comment:
Sunk cost fallacy is the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.
I teach all my students to memorise the 220 Dolch words. I
don’t use flash cards. Who introduced flash cards and why would one foolishly
use it is beyond me. English is not pictorial or ideograph like the Chinese
script. Even the Chinese script is not memorised by looking at it but by students writing a character a minimum of a hundred times.
I ask my students to list down the Dolch words, introduced in each lesson, in an exercise book and spell out each word five times before going down the list to the next word. Within a short period of time they are able to spell the words. If a kid who is going to vernacular school can learn to memorise 600 Chinese characters in a year what is the problem in memorising 220 HFW?
On 23rd May, 2018 Emina McLean @EminaMcLean Twitted the following:
If a child memorises ten words, the child can only read ten words, but if the child learns the sounds of ten letters, the child will be able to read 350 three sound words, 4,320 four sound words and 21,650 five sound words (Kozloff, 2002).
Luqman Michel:
Where did you get this nonsense from?
There was no reply.
Dyslexia Georgia @DyslexiaGeorgia
Twitted the same thing as Emina McLean.
Dyslexia Georgia has more than 1,400 followers and its website says, ‘The Children’s Dyslexia Center of Georgia, you will be taught by extremely qualified faculty members with many years of experience and expertise in Dyslexia.’
I believe Kozloff has been misquoted.
I would be grateful if any of those who have quoted the above to please explain where they got this idea that learning 10 sounds of letters will enable kids to read about 26,000 words (720+ 4320+ 21,600 = 26640 words.)
I am all for phonics but I won't stoop so low and mislead readers.
How can teachers like Emina McLean share such quotes without thinking. How will it affect parents and other teachers?
This is another case of the blind leading the blind.
Here is the continuation of my Twitter discussion / argument with Pat Stone.
I have maintained that many smart kids are able to read in Malay and those who go to Chinese schools are able to read in Han Yu Pin Yin (Mandarin written using Roman / Latin letters).
Here is a tweet by londonjohn on 5.10.2020
As I've said before, if you are right then relax in what you're doing as truth will prevail. You don't need to go on a witch hunt trying to destroy others who are helping kids read. (London John).
How can a child who receives solid, teacher-guided instruction ranging across phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency be “short-changed”? Seriously?! Many children can but dream of having these basics in place in their classroom. Having them in evidence is one thing. Having them based on robust evidence, is another thing altogether. And where is the evidence that children exposed to phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency “disengage from the learning process”? What about the possibility that systematic attention to these features might have the very opposite effect for many at-risk learners?
The following is what Emina McLean had responded to me on an email exchange with her.
We do perhaps disagree that mispronunciation using extraneous phonemes is a/the major cause of instructional casualties and/or The Reading Wars. That's not to say that it doesn't play a role, but in the schools I work in the biggest issue impacting literacy development is that phonics is not taught in any systematic way i.e. students are not learning how speech maps to print in any structured or explicit way and they are not learning the different between speech sounds and alphabet letters. I agree that we should ensure accurate pronunciation, but we also need to get everything right that follows on from that, including ensuring that all schools are following a systematic phonics scope and sequence.
“Do what you want to do and don't care about what other people say." (Rajinikanth)
Emina:
“ … there is little proof that direct challenges to people’s beliefs work to overturn false beliefs. Rather, the evidence currently points to the entrenching of misinformed beliefs as people strive to protect their identities” (Berentson-Shaw, 2018, p.90).
“It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it, and that's what gets results.”
Emina:
Do not give voice to the naysayers. Do not amplify individuals who cling to misinformation, directly or indirectly. Do not amplify problematic or incorrect conceptions about reading instruction. Do not engage in tit-for-tat debates. Do not waste precious time on people who do not want to know better or do better. Do not demean or malign, and do not make people feel less than. Do not make fun of people.
Sadly, we must accept that some people are unlikely to ever change their minds.
