Accountability and transparency of Reading Reforms Foundation UK

 

Is the Reading Reform Foundation influenced or controlled by external powers such as funding sources, political agendas, or institutional pressures?

Should there be more accountability and transparency in organisations advocating educational reforms?

I can think of only 3 probable answers to the attitudes of the committee members of Reading Reform Foundation.

They are controlled by the Funding Sources or the committee members are naïve.

Another reason could be to protect their rice bowls – intervention services and sales of educational material.

Controlled by Funding Sources

 

 

In my previous post, I posed a critical question: Can researchers, organizations, and government foundations be influenced or controlled by external powers such as funding sources, political agendas, or institutional pressures?

 

This inquiry leads us to consider who is behind BabyTV, the producer of Charlie and the Alphabet, which I believe negatively impacts children's learning.

Consider this question with what Edward Thorndike and Charlie Munger said. LINK

 

Response to Dr Martin Bloomfield’s comment on LinkedIn

 

Dr Martin Bloomfield:

Professor Elliott is extraordinarily well-researched, and it would do you good to pay attention to his, and others', voices.

 

I have paid attention to Professor Elliott and many other researchers. In 2010, I told Professor Elliott and Durham University that I disagreed with what was said about dyslexia. I requested that he read my posts on my blog. He replied that he would.

Then in 2014, he published his book. He either did not understand my blog posts or he did not read them.

If he had researched ‘dyslexia’ (kids who can’t read) for more than 50 years, how does he not know what causes kids to disengage from learning to read? 

How Can We Educate Educators Who Struggle with Critical Thinking?

 

Learners generally fall into two categories: approximately 80% of children accept what their teachers present without question, often learning to read through patterns and analogies. In contrast, about 20% are logical thinkers who question everything they encounter. When their lessons conflict with prior knowledge or fail to make sense, these children may shut down or disengage from the learning process. This was already discovered by Thorndike in 1913 (More than 100 years ago). LINK

Acquired Learning Disabilities Part 1

 

On 25.10.23 I Tweeted the following:

Baby TV Channel and Reading Reform UK are 2 of the main culprits for poor reading performance in the world. I have explained this in my blog post. LINK

 
More than 100 countries in the world broadcast Baby TV programmes.

I tagged Geraldine Carter the Managing Director of Piper Books who told me in June 2020, that the Reading Reform Foundation receives thousands of requests, messages, and different points of view. It is not possible to address all of them. Perhaps write your own programme and get it published?

 

I wrote my own programme and published my book this year and it is as good as any programme on teaching children to read and it is the cheapest in the world complete with Tracking which enables a kid to listen to the lessons while following the book. LINK

Irresponsible tweets Part 1

 

Geraldine Carter is the Founder and Director of Piper Books. 

26.6.2023, Geraldine Carter @ged10  Tweeted the following:

Autonomy in training medics?  Teacher’s judgement, observation, adjustment to situation is important but there's only 1 alphabetic code just as one heart, liver etc. Look at high levels of illiteracy in US, Canada, N.Z. Aus inc. prison & YO. Teacher’s using 'balanced' lit. result in this tragedy.

 

The following is my reply to her tweet:

Right to read - Movie Review – Part 3

Minute 34.50: If they don’t know the sounds of the letters they are not going to know how to read.

 

This is nonsense propagated by the puppets of the powers that be.

The brain is powerful enough to figure out how to read despite not knowing the sounds of the letters. 

Different perspectives – Part 4 – Blocking

 

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.

4th Lesson with Jack and the naysayers

 

Yesterday, 8.5.2022 was my 4^th lesson with Jack.

He still guesses instead of reading what he already knows. This is a habit which will take a little time to unlearn.

Today, I gave him the following Dolch words to memorise by rote memory:

her, all, good, some, my, this, here, soon, 

Jo Anne Gross and other blockers

Too many so-called educators on social media block me. They block me to prevent truth being known by others. They misrepresent to promote their products.

Jo Anne Gross was one of the first to block me. She blocked me on LinkedIn when I wrote that phonological awareness deficit is not the cause of dyslexia. In 2010, I also started promoting my Free of charge lessons on my blog for parents of kids unable to read. If teachers and parents know why kids are disengaging from learning to read, then Jo Anne Gross as an intervention business owner, may lose business.

Instructional videos that cause many kids to shut down

 

Yesterday, 27.10.2020, I had a fruitful discussion on Twitter with nickie simonetti @ End the Struggle#Dyslexia.

 In brief I said at the end of the discussion:

My discussions on Twitter is not to 'fix' but to make teachers aware that we can reduce kids leaving school as illiterate simply by not teaching the wrong pronunciation of phonemes of consonants. Prevent rather than cure.

nickie simonetti @ End the Struggle#Dyslexia responded:

Agree...whenever I watch an instructional video I shudder.

 

‘When government is wrong, it is dangerous to be right’ (Voltaire)

I have been writing to Reading Reform Foundation of UK of which Mona McNee is the founder.

Here are a few extracts of emails from Mona to me in 2015. Read it carefully and it may explain why no one wants to discuss why many smart kids are unable to read.

“I am 92 next month and failing daily -eye sight, and have been deaf for 60 years so now I merely exist. 

Thank you for your help. Keep fighting for phonics based on 26 letters>sounds which works for all.”

 “I am delighted to hear of your fight.

Remember I myself thought it was just look-say vs phonics. The Evils behind all this must be very clever.”

My comment: I stopped writing to the lady above in 2015 because she was almost blind and I did not want to burden her.

Critical thinking (Part 2)

“Surely, Scott must be aware of Finkel’s views and yet he has made no attempt to counter or rebut them.” (Greg Ashman)

The above comes as no surprise to me.

Other than the three professors no one attempted to counter or rebut my posts on my blog, Face Book or on LinkedIn.