Questions by Suri Charles and my responses

 

“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?

Hypothesis - Why Singapore consistently does better in PISA (Part 3)

                                                          

                       "There are none so blind as those who will not see".

Here is some corroborative evidence for you to ponder.

Ms. Nancy Hennessy who was the President of International Dyslexia Association from 2013 to 2015 said:

“……even if we settle on a middle number, let us say 10%; that still leaves a lot of children who are not dyslexic, whose brains are not wired any different way, who have reading difficulty.”

Dyslexia – What % of the world is dyslexic

                                                       

Here are a few tweets and my response.

Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel

Most of the so-called dyslexic kids are kids who have disengaged from learning to read due to confusion. They shut down from learning to read. Get rid of the root causes and you will not have to blame Phonics or Lucy Calkins or BL.

Teaching EcoSystems Matter @CreditFlex

Not sure I’d say “most”. But really have had difficulty narrowing down the real percentage.

Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel

The dyslexia advocates try to convince the world it is around 15 to 20%. Some researchers have said it is about 2 %. Recently David Boulton said it s/b around 3 to 5 %.

Here is the latest discussion between David Boulton and Andrew Johnson where this is mentioned. LINK

YouTube discussion between David Boulton and and Andrew Johnson

                                                          

Here are extracts from a discussion between David Boulton and Andrew Johnson and my comments. LINK

 

At minute 34.30 - dyslexia is an inability to learn to read which is of Unknown Origin. It impacts usually depending on the researcher three to five percent of the population. Unfortunately, it's become such a big thing politically and profitably that they push that three to five percent which I kind of agree with to almost 15 to 20 percent because there's a whole lot more opportunity to intervene. 

 

I have said the same thing for the past over a decade.

Dyslexia - A multi-billion US dollar business written in August 2010. LINK

My e-mail to Dyslexia Scotland part 2 written in September 2010. LINK

Phonological Awareness Deficit is not the cause of dyslexics being unable to read fluently - A Myth Busted written in October 2010. LINK

There are many other posts I wrote over the years.

I believe the % of kids who may fall into the dyslexic category are no more than 2%. Even if we accept the 3 to 5 % as mentioned by David above that leaves a lot more who are unable to read due to ‘Dysteachia’.

A research report by Prof. James Chapman and William Tunmer.

 

The following are extracts of a research report by Prof. James Chapman and Prof. William Tunmer in 2019 and my comments. I was sent this as an attachment in an email from James Chapman a week ago, on 6.12.2021.

Chapman and Tunmer are researchers attached to Massey University 

 

The wealth of scientific evidence does not support the view that dyslexia is present at birth, that it can involve numeracy and musical notation, and that the skills may not “match up to an individual’s other cognitive abilities” (Elliott & Grigorenko, 2014).

The U.S.-based International Dyslexia Association (IDA) has retained the term dyslexia:

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. (IDA; retrieved from http://eida.org/definition-of-dyslexia/ )