Assertiveness (Part 2)
There is another comment on Nitu Bhojwani’s original post that I would like all readers to ponder over.
“It's always the struggle between what is right and what is presumed to be right. Sigh!”
The commenter above has hit the nail on the head. As mentioned in my previous article, 40 years ago, one professor had said that ‘Phonological awareness deficit is the cause of dyslexia’ (loosely kids who are unable to read) and more than 100 professors had echoed it without thinking. All these professors had ‘presumed that statement to be right.’
After having successfully taught more than 60 kids who could not read in English but were able to read in Malay I have concluded that it is not phonological awareness deficit that is the cause of kids being unable to read.
Having observed them and ‘interviewed’ them over the years I am convinced that kids predisposed to shutting down will disengage from learning to read when they are confused. (Thorndike 1913)
Again, let us go back to the commenter who said that one must produce “actual quotes, actual examples from actual books”. Where am I going to go for those requirements when no one else in the world has realised this?
If the ‘Phonological Awareness Deficit’ theory has been debunked then we seriously have to consider the real cause of why smart kids are unable to read in English but are able to read in many other languages.
The Western world has been misleading the whole world that kids cannot read in English because it is an opaque language whilst many of the other languages are transparent languages. This lie has been repeated thousands of times that everyone else just quotes this without thinking.
My findings are that kids predisposed to shutting down disengage from learning to read when the initial input (what is learned initially) does not reconcile with what is learned subsequently. To these kids, if you have initially taught them that the sound of the letter ‘F’ is fuh/fer then the word fox should be sounded as ‘fer-ox’ and not the way we sound it.
If the letter ‘K’ is sounded as ‘Ka’ then surely the word ‘keep should be pronounced ‘ka-eep'.
Without intervention/remediation these kids refuse to listen to teachers and then they are classified as dyslexic and they leave school as illiterates.
We can deduce the truthfulness (what is right) by studies conducted by scientists. Let me quote from a book ‘Equipped for reading success’, by Dr David Kilpatrick.
“… in a large study conducted by scientists from the State University of New York at Albany, researchers were able to reduce the number of children who require ongoing remediation from the national average of 30% down to about 2%.”“In another study by researchers at Florida State University they showed how the most severely reading disabled students could reach grade level – and stay there – using a surprisingly brief intervention programme.”
Many schools in the world teach sounds of alphabets wrongly as in the following clip that is being aired in more than 100 countries by babytv.com. It is this way of teaching alphabets that confuse kids who are predisposed to shutting down. Stop teaching sounds of alphabets wrongly and I bet illiteracy rate will be reduced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8gFfr2b5hU
Comments
1) What goes into reading, what does it take?
2) Why do some kids have difficulty?
3) How can we identify kids early and prevent it?
4) How can we remediate it?
All of these kids that I had tried to teach and who didn’t do well had by nine years of age already begun to avoid the reading process because they couldn’t do it.” (Dr.G.Reid Lyon)
The above was by Dr. Reid Lyon who did not respond to my emails but asked his wife to respond. What does he mean by never been taught?
For how many more years are we going to search for the answer as to what has been wrongly taught or -NBT?
For decades these professors have said the same thing but refuse to consider that the reason is because kids predisposed to shutting down will disengage from learning to read because of confusion as a result of wrong initial input.
http://www.ldexperience.ca/myth-busters-blasting-apart-the-dyslexia-myth-by-michele-pentyliuk/
Luqman Michel
September 7, 2010
You wrote: Most researchers now agree that dyslexic readers have difficulty with phonological processing, or the awareness of and ability to manipulate the sound structure of spoken words.
I do not agree with the above statement. I teach dyslexic children 3 languages. They have no problem reading in 2 languages fluently just like any other kid. However, they find reading in English a big problem. This , I find is because English is an orthographically inconsistent language.
I have 6 research reports by various researchers supporting my finding.
Please read my blog and write to me if you disagree with what I have written.
Kind regards,
Luqman Michel
Michele
replied:
September 22, 2010
I do not consider myself an expert in dyslexia, nor do I have a great deal of knowledge about how this difficulty affects people speaking other languages, but would refer you to Dr. Sharon Vaughn- one researcher who has written extensively about English Language Learners and reading disabilities. If you would like me to send you some of the research articles, including the one I have quoted in my editorial, I would be happy to do so.
Michele