A LETTER FROM SUSAN MAHAR

 I have had a good run over the last 10 years getting  letters published in the Age and sometimes the SMH but no longer.  I like this one so I thought I should share it. I think we all need some relief from the madness of the phoneme combinations and rules being dreamt up by speech pathologists and linguists as we speak.. All evidence-based as critical to learning to read!   Aagghh!

Onwards and upwards,

Susan                susanmmahar@gmail.com

The Cat in the Hat has been banished! Dan the Man has gone too. Most of us know about phonics but none of us had to sit through a 'synthetic phonics' program when we began school. 'Synthetic phonics' is not phonics as we know it. It is a program of sequential phoneme segmentation designed by cognitive scientists for children with serious learning problems. Synthetic phonics has been mandated in some states as if all children are remedial learners. That's like learning to swim in a straight jacket. Could it be like insisting we know all the workings of an engine before we drive a car?  Useful for some perhaps.

Reading is a complex process and children need time to develop, remembering the normal range to achieve reading competency is anywhere between 5 and 9. It is not normal to label a child dyslexic at 5 or 6. Parents should be questioning this push by cognitive scientists to ignore early learning experts and impose their theories about 'brain science' and prescriptive learning.