The Fatal Blind Spot in Phonics
The Giant Hole Nobody Talks About
Greg, like almost every phonics advocate in the English‑speaking world, believes the main problem is that teachers are not being explicit enough.
I argue the opposite: teachers are being explicit about the wrong sounds.
The reading wars are full of loud voices, confident claims, and endless debates about “what works.” One of the loudest is Greg Ashman, deputy principal in Australia and champion of explicit teaching. His tweets and articles win applause from teachers who are tired of trendy distractions. But beneath the surface, something vital is being missed.
This two‑part series takes a plain‑English look at Ashman’s arguments — where he is right, where he is dangerously wrong, and why children keep failing to read despite all the research and rhetoric.
Preface to the Greg Ashman Series
This Evening News series examines the writings and claims of Greg Ashman, an educator whose views on literacy and reading instruction have gained attention in Australia and beyond. I have chosen to respond to his posts not because he is my adversary, but because he represents a wider pattern in education: confident assertions made without confronting the real reasons children fail to read.
Here is the fourth and final part of Anna Stokke's podcast with Matther Burns.
Anna Stokke:
About some of the education thought leaders, sometimes you could even call them education celebrities, I think. And we see this in both reading and math. Do you think maybe they get caught up in the positive attention that they're receiving and that this may be why they don't step back on the claims they've made, even when it comes to light that there are problems with some of the ideas they promote?
Matthew Burns:
And I think because of that, people telling you that your stuff is so great and people tell you what you say is true, that you sort of start to believe it.
And you get to the point where you can say, “Well, I think it's true. Therefore, it must be.” So I think we researchers need to be more self-critical and self-reflective. We need to recognize “What I'm thinking based on evidence, or is it something I think is true because I think it's true?” So I really challenge other researchers to engage in that level of self-reflection because you can get caught up in it really easily.
My comment:
Wow! Matthew
has put it very well. Do read his excellent response above, again.
When educators cannot respond to my questions they ask me for ‘data’ and ‘peer reviewed’ reports.
Dr. Katherine Garforth Twitted the following:
“I have a long list of papers & books to read that are peer-reviewed and published. I would be happy to read your posts if you pay me for my time.’ (Dr. Katherine Garforth).
What Greg Ashman wrote in his post is relevant:
‘…peer review is a relatively new idea. Pretty much all of the science we teach in school was developed in the absence of peer review and so to insist that it is a fundamental component of the scientific method is stretching things somewhat.’
Here are some extracts from a post by Greg Ashman and my comments. I have told this guy to stick with what he is good at - Math and Physics – and not to stick his fingers in what he knows nothing about but this guy is just too stubborn or naive. I have not seen his tweets for a long time as he decided to mute me for asking questions he could not respond to. He has learned well from the ostrich.
Here are two tweets from Dr. Kathryn Garforth that I wanted to ignore but in less than a week I read a blog post by Greg Ashman that I think I should share.
First, here are Dr. Kathryn Garforth’s tweets:
Kathryn Garforth, Ph. D.@GarforthEduc Oct 17 Replying to @GarforthEduc and @luqmanmichel
I have a long list of papers & books to read that are peer-reviewed and published, forgive me for not putting yours at the top of the list because of your aggressive & insulting manner in attacking my intelligence. I have paying clients that are my priority not boosting your ego.
As far as I know, your posts have not gone through the peer-reviewed process and published in a reputable journal. It is unrealistic to expect anyone to read absolutely every article they are interested in. I would be happy to read your posts if you pay me for my time.
Here are extracts from Greg Ashman’s blog post.
I could not have put it half as well as he has.
‘Preschool and child care have little impact on a child’s later school test scores’.
The above was tweeted by Greg Ashman.
We need an early phonics check, like the one recently trialled in South Australia, to ensure that readers are not lost to literacy early. As many phonics advocates have maintained, let’s place a warning sign and a fence at the top of the cliff instead of parking an ambulance at the bottom of it.
10 times the number of kids who have innately biologically ordered learning difficulties have learning difficulties that are a consequence of what they learned…... Until such time we can read that they are cognitively going askew relative to what they have learnt in the past then our teaching is kind of brute force against this deep core stuff that is working against us.How much of what they are struggling with is an innate learning problem and how much of what they are struggling with is what they have learned in the past working against them learning now.
“You need to know a lot of stuff in order to think critically about it. It is daft to set these up in opposition. As cognitive scientist Dan Willingham suggests, a child can think critically about something she knows about and a trained scientist can fail to think critically about something she does not know about."
