Part 3: The Grail Contaminated – Why Clarity Still Fails Some Children

 

In Part 2, I explained that clarity in instruction—the correct sounds of letters, taught step by step—is the Grail. It prevents confusion and keeps children from shutting down. But even with clarity, some children still struggle. Why?

 

Because the human mind is like the human egg. Once an idea has entered, it is difficult for a new one to penetrate. This is especially true for curious, intelligent children. They absorb early input eagerly, and when that input is wrong, it embeds itself deeply. Later correction often bounces off. These are the very children who shut down—not because they lack ability, but because their early learning was contaminated.

Educational Intervention

 

Here is a tweet I read this morning, 7.9.2023 and my reply.

Brad @BradleyKBusch

Dear lovely Twitter people, can you help?  (Yes I am talking directly to you dear reader). I am trying to create a list of education interventions that were popular, but in hindsight were built on correlational not causation studies.

Does anything come to mind?

Teaching correctly

 

For many years now I have said that many intelligent kids disengage from learning to read due to teachers/schools teaching the wrong sounds represented by letters.

The obvious questions to ask me, which have never been asked, are:

i.                    Why are there kids unable to read in schools teaching systematic synthetic phonics like the school in which Sue Lloyd is teaching?

ii.                  How are a majority of kids who are taught sounds represented by letters wrongly, that is teaching letters with extraneous sounds, able to read?

The human mind is like the human egg.

 

Let us begin with a tweet directed to Dr. Sam Bommarito and his reply.

To my following tweet on 14.8.23:

I wrote emails to both of them (David Boulton and Andrew Johnson) in 2015. Both refused to accept what I discovered and wanted research reports to support what I discovered. Dr. Sam, do we need research reports for everything? Can't we think logically anymore?

 

Dr. Sam Bommarito @DoctorSam7 responded as follows:

In the world of research, there is the issue of replication. You have to be able to replicate results for them to be significant, replication requires formal studies.  One of the key issues here is. If you use your methods on other children and from other places will they still progress? So the answer is if you want other people from other places to consider your (approach) yes you do have to do research.

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, 

My first one hour with my first student for 2022

 

This is a continuation of my post found here. 

27.4.2022

Today was the first 1 hour session with Jack.

I asked him to read out the sounds represented by the consonants and recorded it as shown below.

Why the obsession with Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP)?

The following was posted by a teacher from OZ on Twitter.

This SSP mania has been hugely harmful to learners. I am yet to find ten year old struggling learners who don’t know their letter sounds! Aa apple, Bb ball, Cc cat – it is this letter sound teaching that they continue to employ that causes many to struggle.

Reading wars hit home during lockdown lessons (The Australian)

Here is an article on The Australian.com that was posted on twitter. You may read the whole article here.

The Naked Emperor: Not Wanting to Know What We Know

The ‘Naked Emperor’ is a deeply insightful story that exposes how we can know something yet refuse to acknowledge that we know it.

My discussion with phonics proponents on Twitter (Part 1)

I have maintained for the past 10 years that we will end the reading wars if we teach the pronunciation of consonants the way it was meant to be taught.

A group of ladies who are phonics proponents insists that teaching consonants with extraneous sounds cannot be the reason why kids shut down from learning to read.