My Response to Savannah's Comment

                                                                Savannah Jackson NGO

'Great work requires being stubborn about your goals but flexible about your methods. The best people I know stick relentlessly to what they want to achieve, but quickly adapt how they'll achieve it when they see a better way. Most people do the opposite - they cling to their methods even when better options appear.'

I recently posted an article quoting Siegfried Engelmann's statement that there is a procedure for teaching reading that can reach virtually 100% of children. Savannah, a teacher, responded with her own experience:

Ethan Lynn, PhD, and Reading Horizons

As mentioned in my blog post yesterday, Ethan said that Reading Horizon teaches the word cat as follows:

At Reading Horizons, we use successive blending to eliminate the extraneous sounds often accompanying stop consonants.

For example, 'cat' would be reduced to 'ca' and then made into 'cat'. The vowel following the consonant necessarily eliminates those extra sounds.

What nonsense is Ethan Lynn and Reading Horizons disseminating to the masses?

Stacy Hurst of Reading Horizons - Blocked me when questioned.

 

My Twitter account says:

@StacyHurst15 has blocked you 

We will return to Gwendolyn but for now, let us discuss the following post on a current LinkedIn post.

In 2010 I disagreed with the theory that phonological awareness deficit is the cause of dyslexia (kids not being able to read) and wrote extensively until that theory was debunked in 2017. LINK

There are still many researchers bent on bringing that debunked theory alive. Here is a LinkedIn post by Ethan Lynn, Ph.D. on whose previous posts I said why this theory is incorrect. 

Kids shutting down (Part 2)

Let’s start with a Twitter thread I read yesterday, 30.10.24, morning. Many parents and teachers complain about kids who fail to read at grade level. Unfortunately, they don’t accept simple solutions. Let us read their comments as a preliminary to ‘Kids Shutting Down’.

 

This is a long post but will prove that teachers worldwide are having kids in grades 4 and above reading at grade one level. Many teachers who are still employed dare not comment as they have been warned by powers that be.

The following was the post commented on.

Beanie @Beanie0597

A 4th grader who can’t read because he wasn’t taught properly doesn’t need “accommodations” to make his illiteracy easier. He needs specific interventions that teach him to read. Otherwise, he’ll just become an illiterate middle & high school student with “accommodations”.

Disinformation circulated by dyslexia advocates

 

I refer to a LinkedIn post by Ethan Lynn where he said:

Truth: "Dyslexia is a language-based learning disorder which refers to a cluster of symptoms that result in people having difficulties with specific aspects of language, particularly phonological processing and/or orthographic processing in the area of reading."

I commented as follows:

Ethan Lynn, PhD again you are repeating what you have been saying without bothering to understand what we had discussed.

Teachers teach kids letters with extraneous sounds and then complain that they cannot blend because of phonological processing disorder.

Many children get confused and shut down from learning to read when they can't blend cuh ah tuh for the word cat. How do you expect them to blend duh ah guh for the word dog?

Did you read my post at LINK

Which part did you not understand?

Difference between dyslexia and struggling readers

 

This is a LinkedIn thread from Ethan Lynn's post

Luqman Michel 

Tell us what the difference is between people 'with dyslexia' and kids who can't read. How do you teach a kid 'with dyslexia' and a kid who can't read?

Note: Ethan did not answer.

Dr. Gwendolyn Lavert, PhD (She/Her) • 1st

International Literacy Trainer of Leaders and Teachers, Writer/Researcher, Coaching, Mentoring, Cognitive Mediator

Luqman Michel, Dyslexia and struggling readers differ in their underlying causes and instructional needs. Dyslexia is a neurological disorder affecting reading, writing, and spelling skills, despite average or above-average intelligence, requiring specialized multisensory instruction, phonics-based approaches, and assistive technology. Struggling readers may face challenges due to lack of exposure, limited vocabulary, poor instruction, or environmental factors, benefiting from targeted interventions, small group instruction, reading recovery programs, and vocabulary building. Shared strategies include patient support, progress monitoring, individualized instruction, confidence-building, and collaboration with specialists. Effective teaching involves identifying underlying issues, using evidence-based methods, providing consistent support, fostering growth mindsets, and celebrating progress.

Note: This person is an international Literacy Trainer and researcher.

Most ‘Dyslexics’ Are Created by Misguided Teaching

 

 

I recently shared some thoughts with Ethan Lynn regarding a pervasive issue in education: many educators struggle to understand why some children cannot read. They either don’t understand or refuse to accept that the reason is confusion caused by teaching consonants with extraneous sounds.

 

This brings to mind a response I received from some ‘experts’ in Australia in 2020 regarding phonics instruction. You can read more about it here. LINK

Questions awaiting a reply from Ethan Lynn or anyone else (Part 2)

 

The following is extracted from Part 2 of being unable to read. LINK

Sounds represented by letters

I requested Ethan to listen to the sounds of the letters by kids who can’t read in grade 4. Let us see what he finds out.

This ‘research’ would be simple for any teacher to carry out. Get kids in grades 4 who cannot read, to sound out the letters, say, c, f, m, l and s. See if they pronounce them with extraneous sounds – cuh, fuh, muh, luh, suh. I’ll bet that is how they will pronounce these letters.

Questions awaiting a reply from Ethan Lynn or anyone else

 

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? 

The root cause of children being unable to read (Part 7)

 

Ethan Lynn, PhD:

Luqman Michel thanks for sharing. I’m curious—what exactly is the method you’ve used with the 80+ kids you’ve taught since 2004? Could you walk me through how you diagnose and then teach them to read?

Luqman Michel:

In Malaysia, I used to talk with kids who were sent to me for tuition. This is to ensure they can speak English well. All my students could speak at grade level or higher.

I then asked them to read the letter names to make sure they knew the letters. All of them do this with ease.

The root cause of children being unable to read (Part 6)

 

Ethan Lynn, PhD

Luqman Michel, I noticed you’ve mentioned diagnosing reading issues by having children sound out consonants. Doesn't that rely on phonemic awareness as a key skill? I'm curious because this seems to contradict a previous post where you downplayed phonemic awareness deficiency as a cause for reading struggles. Could you clarify your thoughts on this?

The root cause of children being unable to read (Part5)

 

Luqman Michel

Excellent questions. Thank you. I don't have supporting research by others as no one does this research. What little was done has been suppressed by those with a vested interest. (Remind me later on this.)

NOTE: Here is my answer to ‘Remind me later’. Research has been suppressed. Why isn’t a study that costs taxpayers billions of USD not been widely disseminated? Interviews were conducted with more than 100 experts and many kids who could not read.

I asked David Boulton, the interviewer of Children of the Code, what is his conclusion after his interview of more than 10 years with more than 100 experts and his answer was:

Children of the Code avoided advocating solutions so as not to be dismissed as having an agenda other than learning deeper into the challenge. LINK

Having been informed by experts in the interviews that the main problem with kids being unable to read is teaching the sounds of the letters wrongly David Boulton went ahead and posted 2 videos teaching letter sounds wrongly.

When I questioned him about the videos, he immediately unfriended/blocked me on LinkedIn. 

Why did he then delete the two videos?

Read the comments on the link above.

Is there a puppeteer who is directing the puppets? (More on this later)

The root cause of children being unable to read (Part4)

  

Ethan Lynn, PhD

Thanks, Luqman, I appreciate your insight and fully agree that phonics and letter-sound correspondence are one important key to reading success.

However, I’m a bit unclear about the idea that kids can "figure it out" on their own if they don't have proper instruction.

From my experience, those who don’t receive proper early instruction still need targeted intervention later on to fully catch up. This can and should occur in 4th grade and beyond and focus on the instruction you mentioned in the audio clip.

Could you clarify whether you're suggesting that most kids who can't read well by fourth grade will learn to read without further intervention even if they've received poor instruction? Or if there’s still a role for additional instruction? I'd love to better understand how your approach applies to struggling readers.

Luqman Michel Author

Ethan Lynn, PhD Has any research been done on how many students who could not read in grade four could read by the time they are in grade 9?

Did anyone find out how they could read without any remediation/intervention?

A large % of kids learn to read when they somehow figure it out.

They learn to read in later grades by using patterns and analogies.

Had they been taught correctly at the onset; they would not have had to figure it out.

 

Ethan Lynn, PhD

Luqman Michel, I agree that early instruction needs to be done right.

I'm curious about your argument that some kids eventually figure out how to read without intervention. How do they do this, and is there research supporting it? What do you mean by using "patterns and analogies," and what percentage of students successfully make this turnaround?

 

Additionally, what about the students who don’t figure it out? Are you advocating for no intervention, or could intervention help teach kids the right way, making up for what they missed early on?

To be continued…