You may have heard last week that the British politician Graham Stringer got himself in to terrible trouble when he claimed that dyslexia is a myth. As you can imagine this has ignited fierce criticism.
Mr Stringer believes the reason why many children cannot read and write properly is that the wrong teaching methods are used and he suggests one way to fix the problem: synthetic phonics. Although a solid understanding in phonics is critical to language development, in my experience there is never a ‘one solution fits all’ way of addressing this challenge. Every student learns in a different way. A method, program or strategy that works with one student might not necessarily work with all students.
Schools, where ever one might be in the world, are filled with teachers who are using best practice strategies to support students who are struggling to read and write. We need to hear more about the excellent work that is being done. Mr Stringer is not serving students in any meaningful way by shocking and confusing the community with provoking comments.
If Mr Stringer is serious about serving our struggling students and making a positive contribution to the education community, he’d be better off trying to figure out how we can create time and opportunities for teachers to talk about what they do and share their best practice strategies with each other.
What do you think about Mr Stringer’s comments? What resources, websites and strategies are you using to support students with reading and writing difficulties?
