Sue Lloyd – “Letters and Sounds is not the problem”

Here are extracts of a talk given by Sue Lloyd who is a committee member of the Reading Reform Foundation of UK.

You may listen to the whole talk here.

 

“Why is it that some children find it so difficult to read?

In each class, there is a group of children who learn to read easily, whatever method of teaching is used.

There is also a group of children who struggle and often fail. So, why does this happen when the teaching is the same for all the children?”

My comment: The above question is exactly what I had asked in 2004 and decided to do a research on the cause of why some kids struggle and fail.

Yes, as I have mentioned several times in my blog, a majority of kids learn to read regardless of the method of teaching. It is the “group of children who struggle and often fail” that we should be concerned about.

In 2010, I challenged the theory that it was phonological awareness deficit that is the cause of kids being unable to read. That theory was subsequently debunked.

From observation and ‘interviewing’ all my students over the past 14 years I have discovered that kids predisposed to shutting down do disengage from learning to read because of confusion. They get confused when they receive wrong instructions from teachers. They shut down when alphabets sounds are taught wrong.

The confusion created by wrong teaching of sounds is the answer to “Why is it that some children find it so difficult to read?”

Sue Lloyd, who speaks about phonics has the audacity to now say that it has nothing to do with sounds of alphabets being taught wrongly.

Something is really wrong if she cannot express an opinion on whether the sounds taught in the following video clip is correct or otherwise. This is the way most schools in the world teach sounds of alphabets and it is the main cause of kids shutting down from learning to read.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8gFfr2b5hU

“Unfortunately, for the children who struggle to read, they have two weaknesses in the 2 essential attributes that are needed for reading. What are these attributes?

i.                     A good visual memory

ii.                   A good ear for hearing the words after the sounds have been spoken”

My comment: With a little logical thinking we should know that the above-suggested weaknesses cannot be true. This is just an excuse the Western world has come up with to explain away the reason why many kids cannot read.

Can ‘bad visual memory’ and a ‘bad ear’ be overcome by just a short period of remediation? 

“Even with synthetic phonics teaching, these children struggle to remember the letter sound which is a much easier task than learning whole words.

Blending is a difficult task for them and these children are at the greatest risk of failure and often they are highly intelligent.”

My comment: Yes, all children will learn letter sounds if taught correctly. They will learn to blend just as easily if sounds of alphabets are taught correctly.

Sue Lloyd and RRF should answer how a kid is to blend the letters ‘hot’ if the sound of the letter ‘H’ had been learned by the kid as ‘Ha’ as in the video clip above.

How is a child to blend the letters ‘l- e- t’ if the letter ‘L’ is learned as ‘La’ as in the video above?

How is a child to blend the letters ‘F-o-x’ if the sound of the letter ‘F’ is learned as ‘Fer’?

Why is Sue Lloyd who is an expert in phonics avoiding my question to her on whether the clip above is teaching the correct sounds of alphabets or not?

Is Sue Lloyd avoiding that question because this programme is from the UK?

“It is easy to identify the problem group of children in each class.

i.                     They do not learn the letter sounds easily

ii.                   Weak at blending and segmenting

The main reading problem is almost always insufficient blending practice so they are not good enough.”

My comment: How are kids to learn the letter sounds with ease if they are taught the wrong sounds of alphabets? How are the kids to blend alphabets that have been taught wrong?

The white people around the world who speak only one language have been deceiving the world with all sorts of excuses as to why many kids are unable to read.