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.
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.
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 two tweets I have a different perspective on.
Dr. Mary Howard @DrMaryHoward Jun 13, 2023
I'd add.... ignore blatant attacks because there is no good that will come from responding.
Pick your battles & find inroads but ignore dead-end streets that lead only to a childish Twitter battleground. I learned this lesson the hard way. Share legitimate info & avoid the fray
Dr. Sam Bommarito @DoctorSam7 Jun 14
I just gave that same advice in the comments to my blog. If it's apparent the person wants to attack rather than discuss, simply block them. Picking your battles is critical, some of them purposely say outrageous things to get you to go down an off-topic rabbit hole.
I don’t ignore blatant attacks when they are silly and evil.
On September 22nd, Jeffrey Bowers twitted the following:
@jeffrey_bowers Replying to @annephillipswa @dmounty14 and 19 others
What do you make if the fact that reading outcomes in England have not improved in over a decade of legally mandated phonics? No one seems to address the Elephant in the room.
Dr. Sam Bommarito @DoctorSam7 Sep 22
Yes this! By the way if England 10+ years of mandated phonics it hasn’t had an impact why on earth are we in the process of trying to mandate it United States. Time to look at all the data before making decisions.
The following is from the conversation between Dr. Kathryn Garforth and Jennifer Buckingham.
Sight words or one that has been memorized based on its shape vs the word that has been orthographically mapped. Because I see in many classroom teachers sending home Dolch words and expect kids to memorise them. Let us talk about why that is not the best approach and how memorizing a word is different from mapping it orthographically in your brain (Kathryn Garforth).
Somehow NONSENSE makes a lot of sense to most of the people around the world.
Let us look at the absurdity of the following statements by the two ‘educators’.
‘A’ stands for apple but changes a little bit depending on the letters before it or after it. So, it doesn’t sound exactly the same. The idea of a phoneme is a construct that is not true. (Dr. Kathryn Garforth)
It’s a simplification to think about phonemes as having a single sound, however our brains are able to cope with that slight variability in that co-articulation that happens according to the consonant or vowel that’s on the other side. (Jennifer Buckingham)
The following are statements made by Jennifer Buckingham on the conversation between Kathryn Garforth and Jennifer Buckingham found here.
Blending the speech sounds is not easy for every child – to take those speech sounds and put them together so that they make a recognizable word.
GPC’s (Grapheme Phoneme correspondences) must be learned to a level of automaticity so that blending can happen.
On 22.12.2020 I listened to the live conversation between Kathryn Garforth and Jennifer Buckingham. I asked 3 questions of which 2 were answered. The third one was left out due to time constraint.
From the conversation it is obvious that both these ‘educators’ do not know much about Orthographic Mapping other than what they have memorized from some books.
On 24.8.2020 Kevin Wheldall clicked like on a tweet by Professor Jennifer Buckingham who had said the following:
Luqman, I have had enough of your outlandish statements. Disagreement is fine as long as it is respectful, honest, and not persistently personally targeted. If you don't change the way you interact with me on Twitter I will block you.
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 origin of the term lies in well poisoning, an ancient wartime practice of pouring poison into sources of fresh water before an invading army, to diminish the attacking army's strength.
Poisoning the well is analyzed as a tactic to silence an opponent violating his right to put forward arguments on an issue both parties have agreed to discuss at the confrontation stage of a critical discussion. It is concluded that it is a special form of strategic attack used by one party in the argumentation stage of a critical discussion to improperly shut down the capability of the other party for putting forward arguments of the kind needed to properly move the discussion forward.
"There are regional differences in the pronunciation throughout the English diaspora of the phonemes and it does not impact the illiteracy rate."
Katherine, do you really think I don't know this? You have been hoodwinked into believing that it does not impact literacy. I ask you a direct question. Did you take time to listen to my 5 videos that takes only 15 minutes? Answer me yes/No?
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.
