Notes for parents and teachers Part 3 - Context clues

 

Context clues

Everything that a reader has ever seen, ever done and ever read previously should be brought to the reading at hand.

Witch Hunt 3 Kevin Wheldall

 

On 24.8.2020 Kevin Wheldall clicked like on a tweet by Professor Jennifer Buckingham who had said the following:

Luqman, I have had enough of your outlandish statements. Disagreement is fine as long as it is respectful, honest, and not persistently personally targeted. If you don't change the way you interact with me on Twitter I will block you.

Teach your child to read - Lesson 3

 

For best results let your child/ student learn all the Dolch words in Lesson 1 and 2 before listening to this lesson.

Witch Hunt (Part 2) - Lions Club an example

This is a continuation of my response to a tweet by londonjohn on 5.10.2020

As I've said before, if you are right then relax in what you're doing as truth will prevail. You don't need to go on a witch hunt trying to destroy others who are helping kids read. (London John).

Witch hunt? (Part 1)

 

Here is a tweet by londonjohn on 5.10.2020

As I've said before, if you are right then relax in what you're doing as truth will prevail. You don't need to go on a witch hunt trying to destroy others who are helping kids read. (London John).

Professor Pamela Snow on Literacy

Here is a paragraph extracted from Professor Pamela Snow’s blog post, and my comments.

How can a child who receives solid, teacher-guided instruction ranging across phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency be “short-changed”? Seriously?!  Many children can but dream of having these basics in place in their classroom. Having them in evidence is one thing. Having them based on robust evidence, is another thing altogether. And where is the evidence that children exposed to phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency “disengage from the learning process”? What about the possibility that systematic attention to these features might have the very opposite effect for many at-risk learners?

Notes for parents and teachers (Part 2)

Dolch Word (Sight words) list

50-70% of all words used in school books are from the Dolch Basic Sight Words vocabulary of 220 words.

Teach your child to read - Lesson 2

 

Please go to lesson 2 only after your child has learned all the sight words in lesson one.

Notes for parents and teachers (Part 1)

 

Phonics

Is phonics still taught?

Lessons for Shut down kids - Lesson 1

 

Lessons for instructional casualties or so-called dyslexic kids.

Preface - Teach your child to read

 

A majority of children are wrongly classified as dyslexics when in fact they are instructional casualties. Many smart children who are predisposed to shutting down will disengage from learning to read when they have been taught the wrong pronunciation of phonemes.

Sound-symbol skills is the foundation of phonics

 

The following is what Emina McLean had responded to me on an email exchange with her.

We do perhaps disagree that mispronunciation using extraneous phonemes is a/the major cause of instructional casualties and/or The Reading Wars. That's not to say that it doesn't play a role, but in the schools I work in the biggest issue impacting literacy development is that phonics is not taught in any systematic way i.e. students are not learning how speech maps to print in any structured or explicit way and they are not learning the different between speech sounds and alphabet letters. I agree that we should ensure accurate pronunciation, but we also need to get everything right that follows on from that, including ensuring that all schools are following a systematic phonics scope and sequence.

Can I change your mind about changing minds – Emina McLean (Part 7)

 

“Do what you want to do and don't care about what other people say." (Rajinikanth)

 

Emina:

“ … there is little proof that direct challenges to people’s beliefs work to overturn false beliefs. Rather, the evidence currently points to the entrenching of misinformed beliefs as people strive to protect their identities” (Berentson-Shaw, 2018, p.90).

“It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it, and that's what gets results.”

Can I change your mind about changing minds – Emina McLean (Part 6)

 

Emina:

Do not give voice to the naysayers. Do not amplify individuals who cling to misinformation, directly or indirectly. Do not amplify problematic or incorrect conceptions about reading instruction. Do not engage in tit-for-tat debates. Do not waste precious time on people who do not want to know better or do better. Do not demean or malign, and do not make people feel less than. Do not make fun of people.

Sadly, we must accept that some people are unlikely to ever change their minds.

 

Can I change your mind about changing minds – Emina McLean (Part 5)

Emina:

For those loud and unpleasant few online who are openly argumentative and wilfully ignorant, can I suggest the mute or block buttons? Amplifying their voices and further cementing their views through engagement is incredibly unhelpful.