Many ‘educators’ from the US have blocked me but I can’t recollect any from the US who have blocked me and said things behind my back. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for some Australians and the British.
Recently I created a second account on Twitter and saw the following tweets from Peter Blenkinsop from the UK.
This guy is a secondary school teacher and has never taught kids to learn to read and yet argues with me about how to teach kids to learn to read.
This is a continuation of my previous post found here.
Peter Blenkinsop, kept insisting that I listen to Prof. Stanislas Dehaene video and educate him on how a child learns to read.
Why Peter, who calls himself a consultant, wants me to explain it to him is beyond me but I shall try and describe what I have understood from the video.
Peter asked me to listen to minute 14.30 of the video above which says:
I have always found it easy to say sorry when I have made a mistake and move on. Once I say sorry the matter will not be dwelt on.
Here is a recent example of a mistake I made on Twitter and when was informed by an education consultant, Peter Blenkinsop, I apologised and moved on.
This is a Twitter discussion where we were discussing whether to teach letter names. Dylan Wiliam joined in in response to my tweet as follows.
On 21.3.2022 I tweeted that
Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong were in the top 4 positions in the PISA test while the UK was in 13th followed by the US. Why are we arguing about teaching letter names when it takes just a short time to teach the alphabet song?
Dylan Wiliam @dylanwiliam Replying to @luqmanmichel @ManYanaEd and 16 others
I suppose you realize that this is an example of a "post hoc ergo propter hoc" argument. And until we control for the vastly greater amount of private tutoring in the jurisdictions that you cite as performing higher on PISA, such arguments are just silly.
There has been a heated Twitter discussion on when to teach letter names.
When the British came to Malaya they taught our teachers to teach us letter names first and then teach us letter sounds. This is what I practice in teaching my dyslexic students.
They taught us only one of the sounds of letters. They taught us A for apple; b for ball; C for cat and so on.
I tweeted about Timothy Shanahan asking me for evidence (research reports) to show that consonants should not be taught with extraneous sounds.
The following Tweets ensued.
Peter Blenkinsop @ManYanaEd Replying to @luqmanmichel @ReadingShanahan and 14 others
It must be ok to ask for evidence?
Luqman Michel Replying to @ManYanaEd @ReadingShanahan and 14 others
Yes, when it is something that cannot be thought of logically. Tell me, Peter, do you really need evidence to teach consonants without extraneous sounds. Where do I look for such reports? I can give you many personal anecdotes but you won't accept them.
Peter Blenkinsop @ManYanaEd
I would expect others to be using the system you use. That is some evidence.
Do we have to teach the vowel blend ai to read the word rain? I believe it is not necessary. Here are a few Tweets and my response.
Jeffrey Bowers @jeffrey_bowers Mar 15 Replying to @mazst @Spell2Read, @ManYanaEd, @jeffrey_bowers, @ReadingShanahan, and a few others.
Most of the kids in that video could not. A few kids could. But the lesson is useful for all. How does a child get to the point of recognising "rain" in an analytic phonics context? The child knows rain before lesson, and learns its spelling, GPCs, and related words in lesson
Londonjohn @londonjohn9
But have these pupils reached the extended code of /ai/? If they haven't, they'll dissolve when they meet rain.
