A Twitter discussion on frustration and confusion in English Language learners.
Meena Wood @WoodMeena
English is NOT a phonetic language much to the frustration and confusion of millions of people all over the world and in the UK. They’re learning English as a second third or fourth language! Most learn English through alphabet, look cover check and comprehension!
John Corcoran’s website says the following which appears to be a copy-paste effort.
His website:
While a small subset of children can learn to read no matter how they are taught, a majority of students require explicit instruction to learn how to decode and encode the written language, skills that the human brain is not naturally wired to do.
In 2010, I approached the dean of the University Malaysia Sabah and requested that researchers investigate my theory that dyslexia is not caused by a phonological awareness deficit. However, the dean was not interested. Fortunately, someone from another country did conduct the research.
We, in Malaysia, are in a unique position to explore why students can read in Malay and Pinyin but struggle with English. I would welcome any research students interested in investigating this phenomenon. They are free to use the materials on my blog, and there is no need to mention my name - I will be more than happy to assist anyone who wants to pursue this as a research project, as it could make for an excellent PhD thesis.
Insistence on Research (Desakan terhadap Penyelidikan- sila lihat di bawah)
Recently, I have wasted too much time answering questions that appear to fall on deaf ears. So, I decided to let the other parties have the last say as I am busy with other work.
In 2004, I realised that intelligent kids who were good at many things could not read in English. I browsed the Internet and found reports on kids reading in many languages but are dyslexic (could not read) in English. But there was no report on the reasons why.
I decided to research this by quitting my job and teaching kids to find out why they could not read in English.
Dyslexia advocates somehow find out that there is a strong objection to their theory and start propagating through whatever means they can. Here is one such YouTube video that surfaced a few days ago. LINK
Interviewer: Ashlie Thomey, A Dyslexia Specialist
Interviewee: Pamela Taylor, Creator of Lexia Heroes.
I listened to the YouTube video by Pamela Taylor who spoke like she is an expert in brain study.
Since 2010, when I started my blog, I have been told numerous times that I should read research reports. Of course, I read research reports but I don’t accept them if they don’t make sense. We should think if research reports make sense and discard those that don’t appeal to our senses.
I am reminded of what Daniel Kahneman wrote in his book ‘Thinking fast and slow’:
“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.” Carl Jung
Suri Charles
Luqman Michel You’ve mentioned that the children you came across and/or worked with couldn’t read because they 'shut down,' yet you also stated that you taught 80 dyslexic children from 2004 to 2019.
1. How do you reconcile these two positions?
2. Are you suggesting that these 80 children had both emotional or psychological shutdowns as well as dyslexia, or were they misdiagnosed as dyslexic?
I made a comment on Facebook stating that I have worked in the accounting and auditing field for most of my adult life. Following that, I received a comment from Suri Charles, who is aware of my previous experience teaching dyslexic children before transitioning to teaching their parents.
These dyslexia proponents will write on anything to promote their wares. It is time to shut them up.
This morning Julie posted the following on Facebook.
DrJulie Safri
Neural Connection Differences
Studies using electroencephalography (EEG) indicate that individuals with dyslexia have different neural connection patterns, particularly in the temporal lobe areas associated with auditory processing. The discovery indicates that dyslexia involves atypical neural communication pathways, which affects language processing abilities.
Reference:
Pugh, K. R., Shaywitz, B. A., Shaywitz, S. E., et al. (2000).
向下滚动查看中文翻译Here is a discussion on Quora that confirms my findings that Pinyin is taught wrongly. This explains why many kids in China and Malaysia today can’t read in Pinyin. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to comment.
Luqman Michel · Nov 3
Unfortunately, too many Chinese teachers from China are messing up Pinyin by teaching it wrongly. Here are two of many examples. Teachers from China screwing up Pinyin. LINK, LINK
I made a few comments on the YouTube video. LINK
My comments have been removed.
This has been my experience since I started writing on social media in 2010. I have learned to copy-paste as soon as I comment before my comments are deleted.
This is a continuation of my post yesterday. LINK
Here are the paragraphs highlighted in red in yesterday’s post.
As Maggie pointed out, if you cannot achieve the best grades, you are cast out.
Further, students who performed poorly in Pinyin reading tended to perform poorly in future reading comprehension tests.
Previous evidence showed that poor readers in higher grades (e.g. Grade 4) suffer more from Pinyin reading difficulties than normal readers (Yin and Weekes, 2003; Ding et al., 2015).
The Pinyin phonetic symbols are continuously presented alongside Chinese characters in textbooks until Grade 3 and are provided only when new characters are introduced.
The following email from James Chapman, in 2010, fortifies the saying by Charlie Munger that the Human mind is like the human egg.
One of my first emails disagreeing with a Phonological Awareness Deficit being the cause of dyslexia was to James Chapman. He and William E. Tunmer had jointly produced a paper stating that dyslexia is caused by Phonological Awareness Deficit.
This is a clear case of researchers who have written something and when evidence to the contrary is produced they refuse to accept it.
Mike Bell @evidence_1st
The following is from his Twitter profile.
Author of ‘Fundamentals of Teaching’. Organiser of Evidence Based Teachers Network. Committed to making the evidence accessible to teachers.
Here are Twitter discussions between Mike Bell and me.
Luqman Michel Dec 2
I researched why kids can read in Malay and Pinyin but not in English by quitting my job and teaching > 80 kids on a one-on-one basis.
The answer to how to reduce illiteracy is simple but the white man who speaks only one language does not want to discuss this.
(Lihat di bawah untuk terjemahan bahasa Melayu)中文翻译见下文On 24.11.24 my student attended her graduation ceremony at her University.
Chan
Tze Xin was sent by her parents when she was a few months into primary
two and could read well in Malay and Hanyu Pinyin but was unable to read
at grade level as far as English was concerned.
Her mother was at wit's end as she was unable to make headway in teaching her daughter to read in English.
I
taught her for less than one month (less than 8 one-hour lessons)
explaining to her that the sounds of the letters she had learned in
school were incorrect and taught her the correct sounds of the letters.
This is a continuation of my post yesterday. LINK
Is Nora Chabazi or the Right to Read team interested in reducing illiteracy?
Nora Chahbazi nora@ebli.com Dec 29, 2021, 2:25 AM
Hi Luqman,
I have forwarded your email to Nick and Katie, the story producer.
The documentary team has not decided what they think is keeping the literacy rate so abysmal in the US and other English-speaking countries. That is what they are looking to discover through their work on this documentary. There are still about 30 people on our list to yet be interviewed and we're not sure if funding and time will allow getting to them all. That is why the story producer has been very mindful when choosing people to interview. It looks as if what you say -teach children to decode and also vocab, fluency, and comprehension is along the lines of what many who have been interviewed are saying too.
I'll let you know when I hear back.
Thanks again for your email and the resources you shared.
With appreciation,
Nora
This is a continuation of my post on Gwendolyn Lavert. LINK
To a question on how she teaches High Frequency Words, Gwendolyn replied that she teaches kids to learn them by sight and patterns.
Luqman Michel
English words are not pictorial like Chinese characters and I teach my students to memorise them by rote memory. I explained what I meant by that.
How do you teach High Frequency Words? Which, where, here, who, like, there.
Note: Many teachers teach kids to memorise HFWs by sight. Then they complain kids can’t read. Why reduce an alphabetic language into a pictorial language?
How do you teach the above HFWs by patterns?
I am not a trained teacher, but in 2004, I found myself teaching a child who couldn’t read a single sentence after two years of school. Curious about this intelligent child’s struggles, I began researching the issue. I eventually worked with over 80 similar students and noticed a common pattern: each child was sounding out consonants with an extraneous sound.
By teaching them the correct consonant sounds, they started to read successfully. Many of my former students have since become professionals. I then began assisting parents concerned about their children's reading difficulties. I asked them to record their kids sounding out consonants and encouraged them to correct the pronunciations. Soon, those children also began to read.
Recently I posted a video broadcasted in over 100 countries that teaches the wrong sounds of the letters. Many toddlers listening to this video will shut down/disengage from decoding and blending. Those promoting this video claim it to be an entertainment video.
You can find the video here. LINK
I made a comment
According to some, this is an entertainment programme, not an educational one so it does not matter. These clowns have made many believe that kids can differentiate between what is entertainment and what is academic.
Is this how to teach the sounds of the letters? The British are the main culprits in creating 'dyslexic' kids.
Suri Charles commented as follows:
Question from: The root cause of children being unable to read - Part 1
Why can't we find out the kids who can't read at grade level by the end of grade 1?
Your answers to these questions will be the beginning of a constructive discussion.
This lie that kids who cannot read like most kids in a class cannot be detected by the end of grade one is ludicrous.
This lie was propagated by those with a vested interest. Every other educator repeats it as if it is the Gospel truth. Would any teacher here tell us why kids who can’t read like most kids in a class can’t be determined by the end of grade 1?
