Donald Potter

I am an advocate for teaching reading with phonics.

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

Another excellent Psychology Today article by Dr. Gentry, continuing to bring the best in the Science of Reading to the general public.

[Stephen Parker @ParkerPhonics]

In this article in Psychology Today, J. Richard Gentry summarizes the keynote address of neuroscientist @StanDehaene.

Dehaene gave this speech at Learning Ally’s 2023 Spotlight on Dyslexia Reading Conference.

It's a great summary. https://t.co/rksphcK8P5

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

One of the best infographics I have seen, yet. This will be very helpful to parents, educators, and even policy makers in other states.

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

This really nails it. The print on my Sunbeam Timer was worn off a long time ago! Anyway, the kids love beating their old times. It's a game! Ask any Gamer! I call it a Poor Man's fMRI because of the deep insights it gives into brain function.

[Lisa Jeffery @lisa_jeffery1]

@TheReadingApe @jo_facer Sounds so obvious put that way. Yet every primary school website everywhere "We aim to install a love of reading". It probably is a better sell than; "We time to achieve decoding mastery & orthographic processing" but I know which one I would buy if I was given a choice again.

[Valentin Riedl @vavatin]

How is energy consumption distributed across the human brain?

We find excessive glucose metabolism in evolutionary novel cortex for neuromodulator activity and cognition

3 main aspects of our #preprint in 🧵 below

https://t.co/WVwBgjo99R

[Tom Bennett OBE @tombennett71]

This research, published a few weeks ago, demonstrates that open plan classrooms are the worst environment for reading development, because irrelevant sounds place a huge burden on a student's cognitive load. Noisy spaces impede learning https://t.co/flkKDNAJOL

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

@ehanford @ReadingShanahan I have tutoring students in first grade who make 90% on their report cards, but cannot write the alphabet from a to z or pass a standard Informal Reading Inventory for their grade levels. They only read memorized F & P Leveled Readers.

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

This is great, but nothing new. It was taught by the Beacon Method in 1913, Hazel Loring's 1980 Blend Phonics is exactly the same. I. A. Beck called it cumulative or sequential phonics in her Making Sense of Phonics: the how's and whys 2nd ed. 2013.

[Sarah Hodges @kinderatlast]

🗣️👄👂🧠👥One of our many warm ups we do each day to introduce and practice a new skill in #tier1🗣️🔤👥 My goals are always: ✔️Engagement✔️Student Voice✔️Direct Instruction model ✔️Immediate Feedback✔️Everyone does Everything ✏️

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

I am amateur radio operator (NG5W), who can copy and send in excess of 20 words per minute. It would be pure lunacy to try to teach people to read Morse Code messages without teaching them the code. (Put 5 pieces of rubbish in the bin).

[Stephen Parker @ParkerPhonics]

*
Reading Teachers

If you had to teach a child to read Morse Code, you wouldn’t hand her the text below and expect her to focus on its “meaning.”

Instead, you’d rightly first explain HOW the code works, and you’d provide lots of practice decoding individual words. 1/3

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

I hear kids read like this. And I fix it with phonics, which they should have been taught first - instead of memorizing whole words by configuration.

[Dylan Wiliam @dylanwiliam]

Absolutely brilliant!

[Stephen Parker @ParkerPhonics]

Here's what Balanced Literacy is:

It takes the fully discredited Whole Language method of the 80s and 90s, adds in a little unsystematic phonics of the wrong type (analytic phonics), and then the BL establishment wonders why reading scores have flat-lined.

Source: Nation's Report Card.

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

I made a comment on this back in 2018. Edward Miller developed a test that compared how kids could read the 50 words in GREEN EGGS AND HAM and 50 simple short vowel words from Rudolf Flesch's WHY JOHNNY CAN'T READ. He noted speed & errors between the lists.

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

I taught the Rod and Staff 4th grade English Language program that emphasized parts of speech and sentence diagrams. Several of my students became language majors. When I taught Spanish in middle school, none of my 120 student had seen a diagram or knew what a direct object was.

[Stephen Parker @ParkerPhonics]

Sentence diagramming. It's how the nuns taught me 60 years ago -- and it's how I taught my own children parts of speech when I homeschooled them 25 years ago.

It's why they each know the difference between a gerund, a participle, and an infinitive.

Most college students do not.

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

My last teacher training in 2018, before retiring, was two well-meaning teachers explaining how to teach Fry and Dolch with Word Walls sans phonics. I asked them if they knew the scientific definition of a sight-word, they totally in the dark, still living in the WL Dark Ages.

[Stephen Parker @ParkerPhonics]

And here is another big warning sign for parents: a word wall. Imagine a child looking at the A, C, or E words and trying to figure out the sound of those letters.

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

This is good news, but I will reserve my applause until I see the performance. Retraining is far more difficult than training because entrenched belief systems and decades of practice have to be abandoned and new beliefs and practices habituated. No easy task!

[Nicole @NicoleATreanor1]

TX has banned 3 cueing!

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

I am Extra Class Amateur Radio Operator (NG5W) from the old day when we had to pass a 20 wpm code test. I taught my oldest daugher Morse Code when she was 8 years old. She loved operating code on my Heathkit HW 101 Transceiver. Practice, Practice, Practice!

[Tom Bennett OBE @tombennett71]

This is a terrific way to explain why decoding is vital to beginning readers, not guessing.

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

@ParkerPhonics I once taught a first grade RR student. Her RR teacher had two Master's Degrees, I had the 72 Exercises in Flesch's 1955 WHY JOHNNY CAN'T READ. She read "mat" backwards! I taught her to read. Her RR teacher was astounded when she became a good reader.

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

@ParkerPhonics I once taught a first grade RR student. Her RR teacher had two Master's Degrees, I had the 72 Exercises in Flesch's 1955 WHY JOHNNY CAN'T READ. She read "mat" backwards! I taught her to read. Her RR teacher was astounded when she became a good reader.

[Ms. Benison- @BenisonMrs]

7/7
So here is my weekly plea: when it comes to novice readers ditch the weekly list of “snap words”.

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

I am a retired elementary teacher, who is spending his retirement years tutoring kids struggling to learn to read. Most would not be coming to me if I would have been their first grade teacher. Parents are paying 2x: First taxes then me.

[Spring Branch Literacy Initiative @Literacy4SBISD]

Question: Has your school district ever surveyed parents to dig into how many parents hire private tutors and for what reasons?

[Donald Potter @don07774637]

Every tutoring student coming to private tutoring practice for reading brings their F&P Text Level Gradient System Assessment, asking what it means. I reply, "It means nothing, and gives me no information for helping your child read better. I have my own.

[tetheredtoed @tetheredtoed1]

F&P is "not a reliable measure of reading ability or reading progress."

@buckingham_j @ehanford @burnsmk1 #SoldaStory #ScienceofReading https://t.co/baO28fTvdA