My teachers

 

Almost everything on why kids disengage from learning to read, I learned from my dyslexic students whom I taught on a one on one basis since 2004.

I started my blog in 2010 and learned quite a bit from comments on my blog posts from dyslexics as well as parents of kids who were unable to read.

I started writing to more than 20 researchers and learned from many of them including, Dr. Joe Torgesen, Dr. Richard Selznick, Dr. David Kilpatrick.

John Corcoran’s post on LinkedIn (Part 2)

 

John Corcoran’s website says the following which appears to be a copy-paste effort.

His website:

While a small subset of children can learn to read no matter how they are taught, a majority of students require explicit instruction to learn how to decode and encode the written language, skills that the human brain is not naturally wired to do.

Confusion due to many sounds of letters

The second reason why many kids shut down from learning to read, is that teachers do not tell them at the onset that most letters of the English alphabet represent many sounds.

Having learned one sound of a letter and then when a second sound is introduced without the kid being informed that that same letter represents more than one sound, the kid shuts down. Kids predisposed to shutting down disengage from learning to read and are then wrongly classified as dyslexic.

If a child can speak

On 27.12.2019, I came across an excellent blog by Mark Anderson @ Manderson. The author had taken great pains to write the article. He has done extensive reading but is still groping in the dark as to why many children cannot read in English.

Unfortunately, he is looking for research reports and is unable to think for himself. He is not going to find any research reports telling him the wrong ways the letter sounds are taught. He has to wait for research students doing research based on what is in my blog.

Following are a few excerpts from his article with my comments as usual.

Is phonics the culprit

Yesterday, 23.1.2020, I read a post by one Amy Gibbons which stated the following;

There is 'little or no evidence' that phonics improves reading, study finds.

Academic says we should consider 'alternative methods of reading instruction', despite minister's support for phonics.

Empirical evidence

An educator who had worked in several positions for 45 years and who is 80 years old and now retired – said on 11.1.2020 in a comment on one of my posts;

“As long as it is empirical, Americans are comfortable

but if it isn't empirical it is suspicious stuff.”

What has happened to the common sense of the American people?

Letter sounds taught in Malaysia

Here is one of several video clips I received from a teacher in Malaysia on how letter sounds are taught in most Malaysian schools.

Beating Dyslexia

Many of the YouTube videos I had complained about have been deleted.

Corroborative evidence – from the horse’s mouth -David Boulton

The following is what is extracted from a YouTube video by David Boulton 

Unlearn

                                             

Teaching almost all my students to unlearn was a big problem. Teaching them something new is one thing but teaching them to unlearn something that they have learned and practiced for a year or more is not easy at all. I found that the child’s face went blank when I pronounced certain words. It took me a while before I found out the reason.