Luqman's Dyslexia Blog

Now, let us look at Timothy Shanahan's blog in 2015 – that is 5 years after my emails to all the experts who echoed what one guy told the world more than 35 years ago.

He said that phonological awareness deficit is the cause of dyslexia.

I listened to a YouTube video this morning featuring MIT Professor Catherine Drennan discussing her dyslexia and its advantages. Here are extracts from the video along with my comments. LINK

Catherine Drennan:

"I learned to read through the shapes of words. You see things differently when you are dyslexic, and that can be useful in certain areas. This ability to visualize and see shapes and patterns is true."

Dyslexia advocates somehow find out that there is a strong objection to their theory and start propagating through whatever means they can. Here is one such YouTube video that surfaced a few days ago. LINK

Interviewer: Ashlie Thomey, A Dyslexia Specialist

Interviewee: Pamela Taylor, Creator of Lexia Heroes.

I listened to the YouTube video by Pamela Taylor who spoke like she is an expert in brain study.

I am recording this in my blog for posterity. This shows the irresponsible people who write whatever comes to their minds without thinking about how it affects others.The irresponsible comments below refer to a Heinemann Reading Curriculum.

Kathleen Seeman, MEdKathleen Seeman, MEd  • 1st • 1st Dyslexia Specialist and Interventionist, Master Teacher, Educator, AdvocateDyslexia.

WOW!! About time this wrong is righted! “The case could also break new legal ground. Stuart Rossman, who oversaw litigation at the National Consumer Law Center for 25 years, said he wasn’t aware of any previous class-action lawsuits over literacy curricula”

Shouldn’t we think before accepting anything we read?

Since 2016 when I read that reading is biologically unnatural, I have disagreed with that statement.

This post illustrates that when one researcher says something many follow suit and repeat what they read. Some insist that we should accept these research reports or statements researchers make. 

Now proven:

i.                    Since 2010 I wrote extensively that phonological awareness deficit cannot be the cause of dyslexia. Many researchers disagreed with me and asked me for evidence. Many blocked me. I persisted because of my experience and not because of some book theory. That theory was debunked in 2017.

ii.                  In 2016 when I saw the quote by Pamela Snow, I disagreed with it. She said ‘‘Reading (and its corollary, writing) is a human contrivance that has existed for only approximately 6,000 years. This recency of reading as a human skill is important, because 6,000 years is a mere blink in evolutionary terms, and the human brain has not developed specialized neural pathways to support a skill that is widely agreed to be essential to successful living in first-world developed economies and to the social and economic trajectories of developing nations.”

Pamela Snow and teachers with similar dogmatic attitudes are the ones who perpetuate the reading wars. They do not know the impact they have on others who repeat what they say. Two of many such teachers, who repeat what she says are Emina McLean and Jennifer Buckingham. (All 3 of them are researchers from Australia).

The following is a ridiculous question Pamela Snow asked when I pointed out that many kids disengage from learning to read because of confusion.

Since 2010, when I started my blog, I have been told numerous times that I should read research reports. Of course, I read research reports but I don’t accept them if they don’t make sense. We should think if research reports make sense and discard those that don’t appeal to our senses.

I am reminded of what Daniel Kahneman wrote in his book ‘Thinking fast and slow’: