The Worst Mistake in Education

The way we teach reading handicaps all children and is a direct impediment to 20 per cent of the population. This strategy is the biggest mistake in Education.

Phonetic decoding is an essential skill for anyone who has to speak what they are reading. Poetry and acting are examples and “spoken word” is an apt synonym. However, it does very little beyond this, and adds nothing to meaning of the word unless the reader was already familiar with it. In addition, it is effective for only 80 per cent of the population. The remainder are called dyslexic.

Dyslexia is the most expensive part of the Mistake and the Educational Establishment has compounded it by its approach to solve the problem. There is considerable neurological evidence (Search Shaywitz) that dyslexics have low activity in the brain system (left angular gyrus) involved in converting mental activity to speech. In simple terms, phonetic decoding. The traditional strategy used in dealing with dyslexia is to drill phonetic decoding, despite this known neurological deficit. Rather than accommodating the brain deficit, Education has aggressively pursued a remediation approach. School budgets are strained by the children who cannot read, and industries are based on teaching children to read. Hooked on Phonics can serve as the poster company, and Orton Gillingham is perhaps the most respected.

We do not attempt to teach the Blind to see nor the Deaf to hear. But we do attempt to teach dyslexics to decode even though they have known issues in that brain system? Is this an example of Teacher as Neuropsychologist  Rather than remediating a weakness, accommodate the known deficit. For example, the Deaf cannot use phonetic decoding but they can read. Use strategies similar to those for the Deaf as a starting point for Dyslexics.

The Gift of Dyslexia is a term that is used to describe imaginative and creative skills in some dyslexics. I think that the gift of dyslexia is the realization that we do not need phonetic decoding to read and are far better off with alternatives.

Children learn the meaning of the spoken word before they can speak the word themselves. But it takes years before they learn the meaning of the written word. Why should it be more difficult to understand the written word than the spoken word?  The phonetic decoding approach is the answer. The child must memorize the letters and sounds of the alphabet, put them together into words, and then say the words. It takes 5 years. Has the child lost 5 years of potential?

Another issue in a phonetic decoding approach is that speed reading is encouraged later in life. Speed reading is based on NOT using phonetic decoding. After stressing phonetic decoding over the years, we now tell students to forget all that. Asian languages tend to be pictographic and do not lend themselves to phonetic decoding. They are de facto using speed reading from the start. Are we handicapping out students?

The Solution

The Enabling Support Foundation has developed a reading strategy based on listening, called Early Reading.  In the initial proof of concept studies nursery school children in Kenya and Uganda used Early Reading for 4 months. We have videos of the initial lessons through the children reading 3 sentence paragraphs.

We have developed a model of reading based on the way we teach the meaning of the spoken word. We teach the spoken word as a complete word, not a series of sounds. Almost all children learn to listen and speak and the small minority who do not are quickly identified. 

Early Reading has one rule: Postpone the alphabet until the child can read. Teach reading by the word, not the letter.  From a logical perspective, if a person can understand the meaning of the spoken word, they can also understand the meaning of the written word.  The written word has an advantage since it is relatively permanent compared to a fleeting spoken word.

The goal of Early Reading: Children will start school already reading and writing. (Penmanship is a separate skill.). The ideal: Children start school as soon as they read and write in an ungraded program. We are now exploring what we can teach in Primary 1 to a child who already reads and writes. You can enroll in the program at www.enabling.org/register.