When I saw the trailer for the documentary The Truth About Reading, I wasn’t surprised to see Faith Borkowsky and Emily Hanford featured prominently. That alone was enough for me to know: this film will likely perpetuate the same half-truths and misinformation that have plagued literacy discourse for years.
There are many Science of Reading (SoR) and Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) proponents who claim it is their way or the high-way. They keep Twitting not to teach kids to memorise the High Frequency words (Dolch Words).
They keep lying that words can be memorised only by shape.
They say that teaching letter names before letter sounds will confuse kids.
No wonder the illiteracy rate in the UK is still high as it was decades ago.
On 29.12.2021 I saw a comment by Nora Chahbliz on Nancy Bailey’s blog post. Nora Chahbliz aids the producers and director of the documentary: “The Truth About Reading”.
Based on the trailer she had viewed, Nancy mentioned that the documentary is missing truths.
Nora Chahbliz commented on Nancy’s post asking if Nancy would consider an interview.
‘I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.’ –Socrates
Unfortunately, for most people thinking is one of the most difficult things to do.
Here is a comment in Nancy Baily’s blog post, by someone who is helping the director and producer.
Nora Chahbazi says November 6, 2021 at 7:36 am
Here are further comments on Nancy Bailey’s post and my response.
Every child needs to be carefully evaluated as to why they aren’t doing well in reading.
My response:
Yes! This can be done as early as in the middle of grade 1. If a kid is unable to read like a majority of the other kids, then we need to find out why. If the kid has no acuity problems, then chances are he has shut down from learning to read due to confusion.
Here is a post in Nancy Bailey’s blog. It is a comment on a trailer of an upcoming movie “The Truth About Reading”.
Nancy says among other matters:
