Dear John Nissen, 

I am pleased to have heard your exploration from the conference in the London and it's really informative and imperative for me. 

However, as I am new to this world of Learning Disabilities and the ABE world, may I know what do you mean by synthetic phonics? 

Regards, 

Hassan Nasir
Pakistan

John Nissen <jn at cloudworld.co.uk> wrote:       
Hello all,

I recently went to a  conference on literacy in London, held by the Reading 
Reform  Foundation.  Leading figures on reading reform were speaking, 
including  Jim Rose, whose review of teaching methods gave rise to 
recommendations,  including synthetic phonics, endorsed by the government in 
March.  I  have written some notes on the conference proceedings here:
http://www.cloudworld.co.uk/reading-reform-conference.htm

This  was the first time that I heard first-hand from somebody who had 
applied  synthetic phonics with adults - prison inmates in fact - with 
interesting  results.  And I learnt a new acronym, ABT.  The speaker had been  
asked "Is he ABT or SEN?"  ABT is for "ain't been taught", and this was  the 
problem for most prison inmates.  They hadn't grasped the  alphabetic 
principle, so no wonder they couldn't read.

Looking into  the "official" research on literacy and dyslexia, I can see 
that little  account is taken of the ABT factor. 
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus/understandingdyslexia/
I  cannot now accept that dyslexia is an abnormality, dysfunction, deficit,  
impairment or disability. However I do accept that dyslexia is a difficulty,  
but the basic problem is a difficulty in _learning_ to read, not in reading  
itself.  If the appropriate pathways in the brain are trained for rapid  
decoding from the beginning, almost any child can become a fluent reader.  
That was one of the key messages from the conference.

With new  figures out, showing that nearly a third of pupils cannot read 
simple words  by the end of first year at primary, urgent action is required. 
See
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=412806&in_page_id=1770
The  current situation is criminal.  No child need be left behind.    No child 
should be left behind.

It will be a hard task to turn around  the educational establishment to this 
new goal, but it is task worth  doing.

Cheers from Chiswick,

John

John Nissen
Cloudworld  Ltd - http://www.cloudworld.co.uk
maker of  the assistive reader, WordAloud.
Try WordAloud with synthetic phonics:
http://www.cloudworld.co.uk/teaching-synthetic-phonics.htm
Tel:  +44 208 742 3170  Fax: +44 208 742 0202
Email: info at cloudworld.co.uk


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