Everything you need to know about literacy and related concepts: an autistic info dump
Reclaiming Literacy: Mapping the Politics of Language, Learning, and Belonging
A living map of my work on literacy, language, and inclusion—tracing how reading is shaped by power, policy, and neurodiversity, and how we might reclaim it as a practice of belonging rather than a test of conformity.
Introduction: Mapping the Language Field
Every few months, someone writes to ask where to begin—where the threads of my work on literacy, language processing, and inclusion first start to braid together. Until now, I’ve sent links piecemeal, one article at a time, each conversation leading to another. But the work has grown into something larger than a list of hyperlinks. It’s become a field—a constellation of thought tracing how we read, how we listen, and how we build meaning across the vast terrain of human difference. This page gathers those paths in one place.
What follows isn’t a syllabus or a linear curriculum—it’s a landscape. A way of seeing how the stories we tell about “reading” are never just pedagogical, but political. Beneath every literacy law, every funding mandate, and every district-approved “evidence-based” programme lies a question about who counts as a reader—and who never gets to be one. The so-called science of reading has built its empire on that question, promising certainty where complexity should live. My work, by contrast, begins with the fractures—with the 40 percent who don’t fit the model and were never meant to.
Across books, essays, and classrooms, I’ve tried to make visible the hidden architectures of language—the analytic pathways that slice meaning into parts, and the gestalt ones that move through melody, memory, and relation. Both are human; both are valid. Yet our systems still privilege only one. These writings trace that imbalance, offering a counter-narrative grounded in inclusion, justice, and care. They ask: what if literacy were not a test of decoding, but a practice of belonging?
To those arriving from schools, from homes, from policy tables or therapy rooms, welcome. You’ll find here a conversation that crosses boundaries—between research and resistance, instruction and imagination. You’ll find questions that refuse easy answers, and tools for teaching that honour the diversity of minds in our classrooms. Most of all, I hope you find a sense of recognition: that you and your students were never broken, only misread.
The AutSide continues to grow as a living archive of these conversations. Every article, every reflection, is an act of reclamation—a reminder that language itself is a commons, and that our task as educators is not to gatekeep it, but to keep it alive.
My latest books
No Place for Autism? 2023 (link)
Holistic Language Instruction. 2024 (link)
Decolonising Language Education - Reframing English Language Development for Multilingual and Neurodiverse Learners. 2025 (link)
My series on literacy and language processing types
In this series, I explore the diversity of language processing styles, focusing on the differences between analytic and gestalt learners. The articles critique literacy policies that promote a narrow, one-size-fits-all approach to reading instruction, such as California’s AB 2222, the proposed “literacy law.” I argue that an overemphasis on phonics-based teaching methods fails to adequately support gestalt language processors, who make up a significant portion of the student population. The series offers strategies for supporting both analytic and gestalt learners in developing literacy skills across various grade levels and subject areas, advocating for an inclusive approach that nurtures the strengths of all types of language processors.
Planting Along the Fence: Reclaiming the Commons of Literacy Through Educator Knowledge (link)
The Tyranny of 'Normal': How AB 2222 Perpetuates a Narrow Vision of Literacy Development (link)
The Forgotten 40%: How California's Proposed 'Literacy Law' Fails Gestalt Language Processors (link)
The Literacy Divide: How Overemphasis on Phonics Fails Gestalt Language Processors (link)
Bridging the Gap: Supporting Gestalt Language Processors in the Early Elementary Years (link)
Empowering Diverse Learners: Strategies for Analytic and Gestalt Language Processors in the Upper Elementary Years (link)
Nurturing Language Diversity in the Middle School Years: Supporting Analytic and Gestalt Language Processors in the Same Classroom (link)
Language Diversity Across the Curriculum: Supporting Analytic and Gestalt Language Processors in All Classrooms (link)
The Advertorial Education Machine: How Capitalism Has Ignored 40% of the Population for Decades (link)
Commentary on the so-called “science of reading”
These articles offer a critical examination of the so-called “science of reading” movement and its influence on literacy education policies and practices. I question the scientific basis of this approach, exploring issues such as the lack of evidence supporting some of its key claims and the role of “evidence mills” in shaping the narrative. The articles also raise concerns about the impact of the so-called “science of reading” on classroom practices, such as the reduced emphasis on reading aloud and recreational reading. I critique organizations like The Reading League and the National Council on Teacher Quality, arguing that they serve corporate interests rather than promoting evidence-based literacy instruction. The series also examines specific policies influenced by the so-called “science of reading,” such as California’s SB 114 which mandates universal screening for reading difficulties in K-2 grades. Ultimately, I argue that the so-called “science of reading” movement represents a continuation of failed approaches to literacy education and call for a more comprehensive, research-based approach that recognises the complexity of reading development.
Where's the science in the Science of Reading? (link)
What are “evidence mills?” (link)
“Evidence Based” does not mean what you think it means. (link)
The Science of Reading ... what actually works? (link)
The Science of Reading Monopoly: How Corporate Interests are Shaping Literacy Policy (link)
Lost in Translation - the Science of Reading edition (link)
Reading Aloud to Students Shouldn’t Lose Out to ‘Science of Reading’ (link)
Recreational Reading (link)
Beware the Reading League (link)
Where’s the Evidence from The Reading League’s Corporate Sponsors? (link)
K-2 Universal Screening for Reading Difficulties: California's SB 114 (link)
More of the same will lead to more of the same (link)
Is the National Council on Teacher Quality an advertising agency? (link)
Beyond Bruises: How BigABA Blocks Autistic Language, and Why It Matters for Literacy. (link)
The Language We’re Forced to Learn: Orthographic Transparency, Dyslexia, and the Erasure of Gestalt Readers (link)
Accommodation, Differentiation, and Universal Design for Learning
This collection of articles focuses on strategies for supporting diverse learners in inclusive classroom settings through accommodation, differentiation, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). I provide practical guidance on differentiating instruction for students with various learning needs, including those with IEPs, specific learning disabilities, other health impairments, autism, English language learners, twice-exceptional students, and those with unfinished learning. The articles also explore the relationship between UDL and assistive technology, the benefits and challenges of inclusion and mainstreaming, and the role of explicit instruction in supporting diverse learners. I argue for extending UDL principles to adult professional meetings and offer tips for effective studying. Additionally, I discuss the process of identifying and evaluating children with suspected disabilities. Overall, these articles emphasise the importance of creating flexible, responsive learning environments that accommodate the needs of all students.
Differentiating readings for students with IEPs (link)
What differentiation can look like in a maths classroom (link)
What does UDL have to do with assistive technology? (link)
Inclusion or Mainstreaming: which is better for your special education student? (link)
What is explicit instruction? (link)
Differentiation of a Geometry Lesson for Students with Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) (link)
Differentiation of a Geometry Lesson for Students with Other Health Impairments (OHI) (link)
Differentiation of a Geometry Lesson for Autistic Students (ASD / AUT) (link)
Differentiation of a Geometry Lesson for English Language Learners (ELLs) and Emergent Bilinguals (EBs) (link)
Differentiation of a Geometry Lesson for Twice Exceptional Students (2e) & Gifted Learners (link)
Differentiation of a Geometry Lesson for Supporting Unfinished Learning (link)
Differentiation of a Geometry Lesson with Direct/Explicit Instruction and Pre-Teaching Key Vocabulary (link)
Why no UDL for adult professional meetings? (link)
How to study (link)
Identification and Evaluation of Children with Suspected Disabilities (link)
Response to Intervention (RtI) and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS)
This series of articles discusses Response to Intervention (RtI) and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), two frameworks designed to provide targeted support to struggling students. I critique the common practice of waiting for children to fail before providing them with additional assistance, advocating instead for early intervention and prevention. The articles also address the issue of prompt dependence and offer strategies for reducing it. I provide guidance for parents navigating special education services, answering frequently asked questions and raising concerns about the validity of certain specialist certifications. The series also explores factors contributing to chronic absenteeism and how schools can support students with attendance challenges. Finally, I discuss alexithymia, a common trait among autistic individuals, and how it can manifest in student behaviors. These articles emphasize the importance of proactive, individualized support systems that address the diverse needs of all learners.
The problem of waiting for children to fail before they receive help (link)
It’s time to reduce prompt dependence (link)
Questions Often Asked by Parents about Special Education Services (link)
Certified Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinical Specialist? Really? (link)
Why are some students chronically absent from school? (link)
Alexithymia and Autistic Student Behaviours (link)
Language as Pathway
It is important to remember that language is not a skill—it is a pathway, a way the nervous system travels toward meaning. For over a century, researchers from the Gestalt psychologists to Peters, Halliday, Prizant, and Blanc have shown that communication begins not with isolated words but with coherence—with the melody and movement of relation itself. Meaning arrives first; measurement trails behind.
Yet both the Science of Reading and Applied Behaviour Analysis cling to the myth that language can be engineered through dissection. They treat speech as code to be decoded, behaviour to be shaped, reading as a formula to be replicated. In doing so, they erase the pathways entirely—the diverse routes through which humans come to know, name, and connect. Their methods deny the body’s rhythm, the child’s strategy, the music that precedes comprehension.
We have a hundred years of evidence that language unfolds through wholeness before part, through resonance before rule. Still, institutions bow to what can be graphed, ignoring what can be felt. The refusal to recognise pathways is not ignorance; it is control. It preserves a world where only the measurable is real, and only the compliant are literate.
But language was never born in a laboratory. It was born in relation—in breath, in tone, in shared attention. Every child, every reader, still walks that same living bridge from sound to sense. To honour language as pathway is to remember that literacy is not the mastery of symbols but the recovery of belonging.
Conclusion: The Living Archive
What you’ve just read through is only a small fragment of a much wider field—over 1500 essays, reflections, and investigations that make up The AutSide. Together they form a living archive: a record of one teacher, one writer, one listener tracing the deep interconnections between literacy, language, justice, and care. The pieces gathered here are not endpoints but portals—each opening into the next conversation about how we teach, how we understand, and how we make meaning in systems that too often mistake standardisation for progress.
If you’re new to this work, wander. Follow the threads that call to you—autism, gestalt processing, inclusion, pedagogy, politics. Each article is a wayfinder in a landscape still being mapped. If you’re returning, welcome back to the pattern you already know: the one that says we learn in relation, not in isolation.
The AutSide was never meant to be a static repository. It grows through dialogue, through correspondence, through the questions readers send when something resonates or unsettles. When you write to ask, what about this?, you help shape the next inquiry. When you share an essay, you carry its frequency into new circles of care.
So explore freely. Search the archive, cite what you need, challenge what you find, and add your own language to the conversation. The work endures not because it is finished, but because it listens.
And if you wish to help sustain that listening—to keep this space open, accessible, and independent—consider becoming a paid subscriber. It ensures that The AutSide remains reader-supported, accountable not to sponsors or institutions, but to the living community it serves.
Thank you for reading, for questioning, for being part of the ongoing work of remaking language as a place where everyone belongs.