Recently I saw a Facebook post by one Dr. Anuar Ahmad who has a following of 64K members. He writes many articles on education in Malay on Facebook. His motto on his Facebook profile is: "The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.” – Herbert Spencer
I have copied below his article dated 7.12.23 translated into English by Google and my comments. I hope to be able to pick his brains on this matter.
Here is the fourth and final part of Anna Stokke's podcast with Matther Burns.
Anna Stokke:
About some of the education thought leaders, sometimes you could even call them education celebrities, I think. And we see this in both reading and math. Do you think maybe they get caught up in the positive attention that they're receiving and that this may be why they don't step back on the claims they've made, even when it comes to light that there are problems with some of the ideas they promote?
Matthew Burns:
And I think because of that, people telling you that your stuff is so great and people tell you what you say is true, that you sort of start to believe it.
And you get to the point where you can say, “Well, I think it's true. Therefore, it must be.” So I think we researchers need to be more self-critical and self-reflective. We need to recognize “What I'm thinking based on evidence, or is it something I think is true because I think it's true?” So I really challenge other researchers to engage in that level of self-reflection because you can get caught up in it really easily.
My comment:
Wow! Matthew
has put it very well. Do read his excellent response above, again.
This part is quite interesting and I hope that I am not misinterpreting what Anna is saying.
Anna Stokke:
If we immerse kids in books and we make reading fun and we start with meaning and understanding, the reading will just come.
And I hear this sort of thing in math. all the time. So it's sort of like a top-down approach to teaching instead of a bottom-up approach. So in other words, the idea is to start children with problem-solving. They'll get excited about the problem and the foundational skills will just come after that. But as a matter of fact, you can't solve a problem, right, if you don't have the skills to solve the problem if you don't have the foundational skills to do it or the techniques to do it. Does that resonate with you in terms of what happened with reading?
This is a continuation of the podcast by Anna Stokke. (LINK)
Anna Stokke:
Do you see similarities between what happened with reading instruction and what's going on with math instruction?
Matthew Burns:
I do. It's quite analogous, although it's not a complete one-to-one. It's almost like there's a shift in thinking around what constitutes evidence and what constitutes research-based practices. And I think that's cutting across all aspects of teaching and learning…
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:
This morning I read a Tweet by Dr. Miah who does not know how kids learn to read. She supports her friend, another Ph.D. who blocked me probably for asking questions she could not answer.
These are the people who will say anything to promote their products.
Here is the Tweet by Dr. Miah @dst6n01
(This woman has 17K followers. Imagine the harm she is causing by this disinformation)
Check out this blog on sight words—and why we should be moving away from them :)—from my colleague @tiffany_peltier @NWEA
Tiffany Peltier, Ph.D.🌸 @tiffany_peltier profile says she is a Mama to 2. Designer of Literacy PL @NWEA. Research in reading, dyslexia, conceptual change.
Here is the Link attached by Dr. Miah
On 30.11.23 I read a tweet by The reading mum, Ph.D. @readingmumngr
If your child struggles with a concept, they have yet to understand it. Sometimes, they are not developmentally ready. Other times, you need to show them another way they can better learn that concept.
What has been your experience?
I replied as follows:
What if that kid is struggling with a concept that has been taught wrongly?
How can a child scaffold when the first scaffold is damaged?
I am only talking about decoding/reading.
I am from the audit field and started teaching to find out why kids were able to read in Malay but not in English. There is a Chinese saying - A journey of 1000 miles starts with the first step.
My question is - what if a kid's first step is to the East when he actually wants to go West?
On 30.11.23 Cameron Carter @CRCarter313 Tweeted the following:
Every educator knows the importance of foundational skills, and of building student engagement and ownership while teaching these skills.
I then Tweeted as follows:
'Every educator knows the importance of foundational skills'.
This is Bullshit! Stop spreading disinformation.
Dr. Sam Bommarito @DoctorSam7 then replied to my Tweet.
? Sorry you feel that way.
Yesterday, 21.11.23 I read a blog post by Jennifer Serravallo. A large portion of the post was on comprehension. My blog focusses on decoding. I leave comprehension to experts like Jennifer.
Here are extracts and my comments.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah, nobody denies how important phonics is, but if we're taking a ton of time, then that's the time kids aren't getting to practice other things like you said, fluency or having read aloud or getting to play with each other or all the many other things that they need to develop oral language and literacy skills and things like that.
Here is a response from Jani Wright. As expected there is no reply from Emily Hanford, the so-called literacy expert.
Jani Wright @thewrightjungle
Poor Tier I curriculum, poor MTSS, F&P fans at the DO, lack of training for teachers, laws that allow each district to operate with local control, and a state DOE that hasn't prioritized reading using evidence-based practices. No accountability.
These are all too general.
i. What exactly is poor tier 1 curriculum?
ii. Why has nothing been done since 1972 (the year since when data is available)?
iii. Why has the reading proficiency level remained the same since 1972?
Here are some Tweets of Emily Hanford, Jani Wright and me on 15.11.23 (Part 1)
Emily Hanford @ehanford
"The solution to poor reading scores is not simply better instruction, it is also better assessment—an assessment that is matched more closely to what is taught in the classroom." - Hugh Catts
I then tweeted:
You continue barking up the wrong tree. Since 2017 I have told you that the problem is in decoding. Check the kids who fail the assessment and you will find that it has nothing to do with understanding but an inability to decode. You can't be that naïve can you?
Here is a Twitter discussion between Dr. Sam Bommarito and me.
Luqman Michel @luqmanmichel Nov 8
Dr. Sam Bommarito, the simple view of reading says:
Reading comprehension = Word Recognition X Language Comprehension.
Almost all of my students were unable to answer comprehension questions found at the back of the book when they read the passages. But all of them could answer when I read to them.
Is it a language comprehension problem or a word recognition problem?
If it is not a Language Comprehension problem, then where does the Reading Comprehension problem come from?
How is it that kids who have gone to school for 2 or 3 years have a word recognition problem?
On 7.11.2023 I read a tweet by a SoR advocate, Catlin Goodrow. Here is part of her tweets and my replies.
EvidentlyReading @EvidentlyR
I'd like to address another misconception, however. The article begins with an anecdote about a striving reader who is being assessed by one of the authors.
They argue that, because this reader knows letter-sound correspondence, but has trouble reading "after" and "insect" she needs some other instruction than phonics. In fact, they claim this is evidence that "phonics" failed this reader.
But letter-sound instruction is not all there is to phonics! It IS something that will be taught in a structured literacy environment, usually in kinder and/or early first grade. But phonics (or, more accurately, foundational skills) is so much more!
For example, "after" includes an r-controlled vowel. Phonics instruction explicitly teaches these vowels, as well as vowel teams, syllable types, etc. We also teach how to blend sounds into words/syllables, and strategies for decoding longer words.
Here are extracts of the interview of P David Pearson by Dr. Sam Bommarito and my comments.
David Pearson:
We take people's temperatures but we don't assume that the only thing you do once you've taken the temperature is to do everything you can to raise or lower the temperature directly you look for a cause and you try to root out that medical cause for it and then see if the temperature goes down so I think that the first task facing the child is transforming graphemes letters into phonemic names sounds and that's what you should focus on.
My Comment:
Teachers and educators are doing exactly this. They do not look at the causes of why many kids are unable to read at the end of Grade 1. These are the kids who get into higher grades and misbehave due to shame avoidance.
David Pearson:
Telling kids not to use context clues when they are figuring out what a word says is like telling leaves not to fall or dogs not to bark. If you are in a problem situation and you cannot figure out what the word says you are going to use every resource at your disposal to figure it out if you are a decent learner.
My comment:
This has been my mantra for more than a decade. Use all the tools available. In my book, Teach Your Child to Read, I use all the tools mentioned by David Pearson. I use Systemic phonics, analytical phonics, word family phonics, memorising Dolch Words (not mentioned by David), context clues, patterns (not mentioned by David), analogy and ways of figuring out new words.
