Controlled by Funding Sources (Part 2)

 

Has the National Research Council hoodwinked the educators and parents?

The National Research Council in their book ‘Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children’ on page 22 says:

‘There are 3 sounds represented by 3 letters in the word “but” but each sound alone does not refer to anything, and only the middle sound can really be pronounced in isolation; when we try to say the first or last consonant of the word all by itself, we have to add a vowel to make it a pronounceable entity.’

What nonsense is this?

How did a 6-year-old kid in Lagos pronounce the letters without adding a vowel sound to consonants? LINK

How did this lady pronounce letters without adding a vowel sound to consonants? LINK

The root cause of children being unable to read (Part 6)

 

Ethan Lynn, PhD

Luqman Michel, I noticed you’ve mentioned diagnosing reading issues by having children sound out consonants. Doesn't that rely on phonemic awareness as a key skill? I'm curious because this seems to contradict a previous post where you downplayed phonemic awareness deficiency as a cause for reading struggles. Could you clarify your thoughts on this?

Anna Stokke's podcast with Matthew Burns - Part 1

                                                            

Here is a transcript of the podcast by Anna Stokke.

She asks many relevant questions and since she is not an ‘expert’ in reading and not selling a reading programme I believe she will read my comments with an open mind.

This podcast is with Dr. Matthew Burns whom she claims is a renowned researcher in the science of reading world.

Here are some extracts and my comments/ questions:

Sally Shaywitz and her book – Overcoming Dyslexia

Kelly Hobbs the Admin of Dyslexia Tutors & Support Group, I am a member of, posted a link to Sally Shaywitz’s book – Overcoming Dyslexia – and said

This is a must read! Does anyone else agree?

I replied:

She did not answer the questions I asked her on the Yale website. My question was left there until her post was removed by her. She is a scientist and not an educator.

YouTube discussion between David Boulton and and Andrew Johnson

                                                          

Here are extracts from a discussion between David Boulton and Andrew Johnson and my comments. LINK

 

At minute 34.30 - dyslexia is an inability to learn to read which is of Unknown Origin. It impacts usually depending on the researcher three to five percent of the population. Unfortunately, it's become such a big thing politically and profitably that they push that three to five percent which I kind of agree with to almost 15 to 20 percent because there's a whole lot more opportunity to intervene. 

 

I have said the same thing for the past over a decade.

Dyslexia - A multi-billion US dollar business written in August 2010. LINK

My e-mail to Dyslexia Scotland part 2 written in September 2010. LINK

Phonological Awareness Deficit is not the cause of dyslexics being unable to read fluently - A Myth Busted written in October 2010. LINK

There are many other posts I wrote over the years.

I believe the % of kids who may fall into the dyslexic category are no more than 2%. Even if we accept the 3 to 5 % as mentioned by David above that leaves a lot more who are unable to read due to ‘Dysteachia’.

Most Twitters have a herd mentality and wear blinkers

 

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. 

Different perspectives – Part 2 - PHONICS

I have said for many years that one of the reasons why many kids shut down/ disengage from learning to read is due to teaching the sounds represented by letters wrongly. A majority of these kids are wrongly classified as dyslexic.

Many educators have disagreed with me.

Let us examine the reason for the different perspectives.

Can a deaf person learn to read

 

How does a deaf person learn to read just as well as one who can hear?

Read the comment section of my post on ‘How the brain learns to read' – Dehaene Stanislas.

Here is another account by another deaf person who is able to read. This should put paid to Dehaene’s theory which says the following:

Reading requires specializing the visual system for the shapes of the letters, and connecting them to speech sounds.

Teaching letter-sound correspondences is therefore essential.

I have repeated several time for you to think rather than accepting whatever is said by so called experts such as Sally Shaywitz, Dehaene Stanislas, Andy Johnson, Timothy Shanahan, David Boulton, Sharon Vaughn and many others. 

The Role of Orthographic Mapping in Learning to Read (Part 2)

 

The first part on Orthographic on Joan Sedita's blog post may be found here. 

How does orthographic mapping develop?

The following are extracts from the blog post found here and my comments.

Three intersecting skills must be in place to enable orthographic mapping (Ehri,  2014; Kilpatrick, 2015):

    Highly proficient phonological and phonemic awareness

    Automatic letter-sound correspondence knowledge

    The ability to accurately and quickly decode a word by identifying its sounds letter by letter, and blending those sounds to read the word.

Are there any studies on extraneous sounds of consonants?

 

I met Alanna Maurin on 23.12.2020 on Twitter and started sharing with her what I had learned from my students who were unable to read when they came to me for tuition.

She was distraught and at her wit’s end as her son was unable to read and was willing to try anything. 

Please read the previous 2 blog posts for a complete understanding of this post. 

Phonological Awareness – A discussion with Dr. Michael Paff

Is Phonological Awareness Deficit the cause of kids being unable to read?

Phonological awareness is the foundation for learning to read. Read more here.

It’s the ability to recognize and work with sounds in spoken language.

Humans Are Born With Brains ‘Prewired’ to See Words

I googled ‘Reading is unnatural’ and there are about 12,200,000 results (0.50 seconds).

I have said several times on my blog that the problem with research reports is that when one ‘researcher’ says one thing the others jump on the band wagon and repeat what the researcher had said, without thinking at all.

Mark Seidenberg on 'How the brain learns to read' and my comments.

 

On 20.8.2020 I read a tweet that said; Streamed live on12.8.2020.

You can find the YouTube video at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1080&v=Pk9ikyVdeIw&feature=emb_logo

‘Last week @markseidenberg presented a talk titled "Can Reading Research Improve Literacy Outcomes?" at the Wisconsin Joint Legislative Council's symposia series on early literacy policies. Exciting to see the interest in science!’

Mark Seidenberg is from the University of Wisconsin.

“dog” is broken down into the phonemes “duh,” “aah” and “guh.” (Sally Shaywitz) A revisit

The Couple Who Helped Decode Dyslexia

This is a revisit of a post earlier.

I read an article entitled ‘The couple who helped decode dyslexia – The Shaywitz’s’.

I am intrigued by why people swallow Hook line and sinker anything and everything written by so-called ‘experts’.

Reading failure (Part 2)

Here is a continuation of the article in my post yesterday.

"Did balance literacy fail to teach your child to read"( P.L.Thomas)

Here are more extracts from P.L.Thomas’s article and my comments.

“Here we have a serious problem because at no period in the U.S. has anyone pronounced reading achievement to be satisfactory…

Yet, most of us view education as a 100% attainable venture—all students can and should learn to read by X age. This is a valuable ideal, but it certainly isn’t a reasonable measure for any sort of accountability (see the disaster that was No Child Left Behind).”

Preposterous idea - Dr.Robert Slavin blog post Part 2

Here is an email I wrote to Dr. Robert Slavin on 28.3.2020 when there was no response to my comment on his blog post - ‘Science of Reading: Can We Get Beyond Our 30-Year Pillar Fight?’

Time, audience/receivers all play a part (Episode 1)

A LinkedIn friend responded to a comment I made and said; ‘Time, audience/receivers all play a part.’

I believe it is time to write with no holds barred.

I read an article entitled ‘The couple who helped decode dyslexia – The Shaywitz’s’.

 

I am intrigued by why people swallow ‘Hook line and sinker’ anything and everything written by so called ‘experts’.

Here are a few excerpts and my comments and please feel free to question me on my comments.

People with dyslexia have trouble separating words into phonemes, the sounds that correspond with each part of a word. For example, the word “dog” is broken down into the phonemes “duh,” “aah” and “guh.”

Hearing these discrete sounds is a vital part of learning to read. But people with dyslexia hear the word only in its entirety: “dog.”