The Paradox of Reach Without Amplification
My blog has been read more than 3.7 million times. Last month alone, nearly half a million readers visited, and thousands continue to read daily. Yet despite this reach, not a single teacher, researcher, or literacy advocate has shared my posts on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Substack. The silence is deafening.
Here is a post on Facebook that I commented on and I received a message from Admin saying that my comment has been removed as it is not verifiable. Please scroll down to see my notes.
The Dyslexia Parent Circle — Your Dyslexia Expert
Here is the post and comments.
For years I have argued that most children labelled “dyslexic” in English-speaking systems are not truly dyslexic. They are bright kids who shut down because of confusion introduced by poor teaching—especially the extraneous vowel sounds added to consonants (“buh” instead of pure /b/) that make blending impossible. Remove that confusion with pure sounds, structured practice, and high-frequency word automaticity, and they read fluently. I have seen it in more than eighty children I taught personally.
This is a continuation of ‘For those interested in education(1)'.
Hey folks—Luqman Michel here, picking up where we left off in part 1. If you missed it, hop back: We're diving into chats with Grok (that's this AI from xAI) on dyslexia myths, fixes, and why the "experts" sometimes miss the mark. Today? A snippet on groups like the International Dyslexia Association (IDA), Nancy Hennessy's wisdom, and those stuck NAEP scores that scream "decades of drift." (And yes, Grok can think... or at least fake it convincingly.)
Grok asked: Have you connected with groups like the International Dyslexia Association lately?
In a recent LinkedIn post by Dr. Martin Bloomfield I asked what % of the population can be considered neurodivergent.
He gave a detailed reply as follows:
Such a good question, and impossible (at the moment, although I'm working on something...) to answer with any degree of certainty.
So, you have several intersections making the precise answer impossible: you have intersections of (or shared neurotypes/ phenotypes of) ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, autism, etc. You have intersections of neurodivergence and gender. You have intersections of neurodivergence and wealth/ poverty. You then have different cultural intersections. And you have different definitions of each of the neurotypes, different ways of measuring them, different "official" (hah!) measurements... (see www.DyslexiaCompass.eu, something I'm proud to have led on). You also have the problem of no databases (quite right too) with any reliable figures. Essentially, all the figures right now are guesswork.
Best guess? I'd say between 15-20%. But it's still an estimate.
"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.”
The following are Tweets by Simon Knight @SimonKnight100 on 3.9.23 and my replies. His Twitter profile says he is currently preoccupied with Special School Headship and all things SEND (Special educational needs and disabilities).
His Tweet was linked to an article titled:
England’s special educational needs crisis ‘out of control’ amid record complaints. LINK
Evidence-based practices have been gaining ground since the formal introduction of evidence-based medicine in 1992 and have spread to the allied health professions, education, and other fields.
Many educators continue asking for research reports for
everything. Daniel Kahneman in his book –Thinking fast and slow - said, ‘We
are far too willing to believe research findings based on inadequate evidence
and prone to collect too few observations in our own research.' LINK.
Once a researcher says something everyone jumps on the bandwagon and repeats what he says without the slightest bit of thought. This is exactly what happened about 45 years ago when one researcher said that it was Phonological Awareness Deficit (PAD) that was the cause of dyslexia. More than a hundred so-called educators repeated what he had said.
I disagreed with the above theory and explained why it cannot be PAD which is the cause of dyslexia. Timothy Shanahan said that there were no research reports to support what I said.
Common sense will tell that if a kid can read in Malay and Hanyu Pinyin but not in English then the cause of that kid being unable to read in English cannot be because of phonological awareness deficit.
What reading research (the science of reading) has shown is that there are no differences in outcomes among the various approaches to teaching phonics and that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is not effective. (Dr. Sam Bommarito)
I have written several posts on the importance of teaching the correct sounds represented by letters.
Many of the teachers/ educators say that it is impossible to teach the sounds of consonants without extraneous sounds. They refuse to correct themselves when videos pronouncing the sounds correctly is produced.
One guy says 'one size does not fit all' and everyone who reads that statement repeat it without the slightest bit of thought. They use this as an excuse for the reading levels maintained for the past more than 30 years.
Now, listen to the video clip here which teaches the correct pronunciation. There will be no kid left behind if teachers teach the pronunciation of sounds represented by letters in this manner.
Angie Neal @angie_neal Replying to @DoctorSam7 @AGoninan @reading_league @ReadWellAlaska
Part of the reason it’s difficult to have a strong dyslexia screening is because it’s difficult to tease out instructional casualties who have never received systematic and explicit instruction in PA and phonics.
Readers of this thread - note that dyslexia screener difficulties are BECAUSE OF INSTRUCTION THAT IS NOT EVIDENCE-BASED!
I then twitted.
I believe you got this wrong. Tell me, please, how there can be instructional casualties if no PA and phonics have been taught.
My comment now:
It was Dr. Reid Lyon who first coined the words ‘Instructional Casualties’ more than 20 years ago. However, no one has ever said what it is that has been instructed wrongly that cause kids to disengage/ shut down from learning to read. I believe I am the first person to have written on why kids shut down/ disengage from learning to read. Read more in my post here.
Dr. Nancy Hennessy, President of IDA between 2003 and 2005 said “We still don’t have the capacity nor the will to change what it is that we are doing with reading early on and so consequently unless we make those significant changes we are not only going to lose the dyslexics but I am also concerned about these other children; these other struggling readers.” Read more here.
What does Angie mean when she says; note that dyslexia screener difficulties are BECAUSE OF INSTRUCTION THAT IS NOT EVIDENCE-BASED!
It is such misinformation that is spread by SoR proponents that irks me.
Angie Neal @angie_neal Replying to @DoctorSam7 @PATSTONE55 and 5 others
I’m not arguing for the sake of argument. I’m responding to baseless claims in the name of every parent who has told me their child wanted to kill themselves because they were taught to read using approaches and curriculum that had no evidence kids should have learned to read.
My response now:
This SoR advocate wants us to believe that kids told their parents that they wanted to kill themselves because of 'approaches and curriculum'. What utter rubbish is this? Would you ever believe that a child would ever say 'they wanted to kill themselves because they were taught to read using approaches and curriculum that had no evidence kids should have learned to read'?
Curriculum casualties, of which there are millions, could be virtually eradicated…(IDA)
International Dyslexia Association and National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development’s definition of dyslexia is:
This morning
I had a tweet from www.understood.org
in response to my tweet. They linked the following resource. LINK
Here are excerpts and my response.
Dyslexia is a common condition that makes it hard to read. Some experts believe that between 5 and 10 percent of people have it. Others say as many as 17 percent of people show signs of reading challenges.
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ideas. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” – Mark Twain
Luqman Michel: Dr. Selznick, for our next discussion, if I may request, please ask your 'patients' one question. Ask 10 such 'patients' and let us see what they say. Please keep a record.Ask them for the sounds of a few consonants.Let us find out if they will add vowel sounds to consonants such as mmmm (not muh),nnnn (not nuh), fff (not Fuh.) lll (and not Luh).This will give us an idea as to whether they are shut-down kids or otherwise.
