My discussion with Stephen Krashen and his team
I am temporarily parking this article here for the benefit of Stephen Krashen and his team.
STEPHEN KRASHEN is professor emeritus of education at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
I chanced upon the teams Face book page and requested to join the group. I shall post the discussion with Stephen and others in my blog posts at a later date but for now I am using this blog temporarily to explain to that team that the problem is not with phonics but with how letter sounds are taught all over the world.
As explained in my blog a majority of children will learn regardless of the way they are taught. I am concerned about the approximately 30% of kids who shut down when what they learn at a subsequent date clashes with what they have been taught previously. When things do not make sense to them they shut down.
Stephen thinks that the sounds of alphabets are taught correctly in the following video which I think is the root cause of illiteracy. The way sounds of alphabets are taught in this video is how it is taught in most schools around the world.
Please listen to the video paying particular attention to the consonants. I have stressed that consonants should not be taught with extraneous sounds. There are 2 letters, b and d, that are difficult to be pronounced without extraneous sounds but we should try like it is done in the second video attached.
The video that should be banned is ABC Song -Letters with Charlie BabyTV
The letter ‘C’ is pronounced as ‘cur/cuh ’.
The child who is predisposed to shutting down with learn this letter as taught but will shut down when he is told the pronunciations of words such as cute, cot, come etc.
To that kid it should be cuh –ute, cuh –ot and cuh-ome.
Please listen to how it is taught in the following video.
Listen to the sound of the letter ‘F ‘ in the first video which says it is ‘Fur/fuh”
Compare it with the way it should be pronounced as in the second video.
If the sound of’F’ is fur/fuh’ many kids will shut down when the teacher teaches the sound of words such as fox.
If ‘ox’ is sounded the way it is sounded then to these kids fox should be ‘Fuh-ox’.
If the letter ‘H’ is sounded as ‘ha’ many kids shut down when told that the word hat is pronounced the way it is.
Compare the sounds of alphabets in the two videos one letter at a time and we will know why exactly kids prone to shutting down do indeed shut down.
Here are a few related articles in my post for Stephen Krashen to read and comment as he pleases. My blog allows any and all comments without being moderated.
Stephen Krashen, you may also like to read and comment on related articles here.
Comments
"Hi Lukman-- I stumbled across your post about Steve Krashen and have read many of your posts elsewhere. From what I've read, we share the same views.
As others have noted, it seems to me that the situation in reading instruction is akin to the situation of climate change. The history of the Alphabetic Code and the English language is largely unknown, and the discussion revolving around \"phonics\" and the reification of \"dyslexia\" prevails.
There are many who read my posts but either do not know how to comment here or are 'shy' to comment.
Anyway, it is always nice to read comments such as the above from my readers.