[Reading-hall-of-fame] Dyslexia BS

Thu Aug 29 04:02:04 BST 2019

Attached is a brief paper I've written for the Tennessee Reading Teacher. It focuses on the dyslexia craziness swiftly moving across the US. If anyone knows if there is an external funder for Decoding Dyslexia let me know. 

Dick Allington
Professor Emeritus
University of Tennessee

-----Original Message-----
From: Yetta Goodman <ygoodman at u.arizona.edu>
To: Brian Cambourne <bcambrn at uow.edu.au>
Cc: Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk <Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>
Sent: Wed, Aug 28, 2019 1:37 pm
Subject: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: What do Warwick Elley, Tom Nicholson, and other NZ'ers think of this?

Good to hear from you in the present, Warwick.   All the best...Yetta and Ken Goodman 
On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 12:25 AM Brian Cambourne <bcambrn at uow.edu.au> wrote:

Thanks for sharing these thoughts Warwick. Love the last two sentences. Stay well.Brian Cambourne

On 28 Aug 2019, at 3:12 pm, val.warwickelley at iconz.co.nz wrote:
I have been asked to express my views on the recent debates in NZ and elsewhere on the role of phonics in learning to read.
As one who has found it difficult to attend or participate in RHF activities, due to the frailties of advanced age, I have been reluctant to join in these controversies, once again.

However, for what it is worth, I see no good reason to revise my former position that children best learn to read, and develop a long-standing interest in reading, when they are immersed in authentic, predictable books and have the guidance of a teacher who understands and applies the shared reading approach with its high-interest activities.

Done well, this approach has worked effectively for me for most children in a wide range of countries learning to read and write in a second language, just as it has in New Zealand for many years. Certainly there are a few who may fall by the wayside, for a range of reasons, and who may benefit with greater phonemic emphasis, but I find most children learn their phonics as they learn to read by more natural meaningful approaches, rather than in phonics schemes studied out of context.

These debates have surfaced many times during my 68 years as a teacher and researcher, here in NZ and internationally. It seems that empirical studies have so far not been convincing enough for those with entrenched positions to change their view. However, one study I came across recently has not had the publicity I think it deserved in this part of the world. Wyse and Goswami reported on a year-long study of how well children learned to read in their first language by synthetic phonics in 14 different European countries. Probably those in England know of the study.

After one year of instruction, all the children in the selected classes were tested on 20 familiar words and 20 pseudo words.
Not surprisingly children in Finland scored best, with an average of 98% on the familiar-word test, and 95% on the pseudo-words. Finnish is the most phonetically-regular language.  The children in eight other European countries scored over 90% on the familiar word test, and nearly the same in the other test. Three others, (French, Danish and Portuguese) scored in the 70%s. But those children learning in English, had an average of only 34% on the familiar words and 29% on the pseudo-words. Clearly, English is quite different from the other languages for children learning by synthetic phonics.

Admittedly, the samples were small, and the mean ages were not equal, but the size of the differences between languages surely highlights the fact that learning to read with synthetic phonics is much more difficult in English than in other languages.
As Wyse and Goswami point out, "The phonological complexity of the syllabic structure in English is different from the other languages. ...and requires instructional levels other than the phonemes may be required."  (p. 693)

This research may well have been interpreted differently by others, but I find it explains well why children learning by phonic approaches learn well in phonetically regular languages, but not in English. As my grandchildren learning to read in England discovered, a year-long focus on phonics is merely an interference when one can already read meaningful text. Of course they were read to daily as pre-schoolers!

Refs:
D.Wyse & U. Goswami. (2008) "Synthetic Phonics and the Teaching of Reading." British Journal of Educational Research, 34, 6,
p691-710.

P. Seymour, P. Aro & J Erskine (2003) "Foundation Literacy Acquisition in European Orthographies" British Journal of Psychology, 94, p143-147.

On 2019-08-23 01:58, Greg Brooks wrote:

Brian and others
My response would be as in the attachment.
Best to all
Greg Brooks
On Wed, 21 Aug 2019 at 04:08, Brian Cambourne <bcambrn at uow.edu.au>
wrote:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12259907

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Assoc. Prof. ( Dr) Brian Cambourne
Principal Fellow
School of Education
Faculty of Socal Sciences
Building 67, Level 3.  Visiting Fellows Room 
University of Wollongong NSW 2522 Mobile 0408684368
socialsciences.uow.edu.au/education   
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-- 
Yetta Goodman, Regents Professor Emerita
University of Arizona, College of Educationhome address:  7914 S Galilleo Lane, Tucson AZ.85747-9609
http://www.retrospectivemiscue.com

No child needs to be motivated to learn. To learn is their trade.
They can't stop learning because they can't stop growing.
             Emilia Ferreiro, 2003 
Every time we teach a child something, we keep him/her from inventing it. On the other hand, that which we allow him/her todiscover will remain visible for the rest of his/her life.                Jean Piaget

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