Do You Know the Facts About Dyslexia?

Science Jack 

Dyslexia is neurobiological in origin. The students are NOT being lazy.

People with Dyslexia often have difficulties inaccurate, and/or fluent word recognition along with poor decoding and spelling skills.

People with dyslexia have trouble with the sounds of language (phonology), yet will have average or higher cognitive skills.

Children who have a parent with dyslexia have a 50% chance of having a dyslexic brain. If both parents are dyslexic then the chance is closer to 100% that their children will be dyslexic.

Seeing letters backwards is not an indicator of dyslexia. Macdonald et al. (2017) found that 50% of educators and 76% of the general public felt that children seeing letters backwards was an indicator of dyslexia. Written communication is a man-created/designed form of communication using letters, in the case of English. Our brains are designed to see an object and remember that object, such as a cup. When we see a cup our brains know it’s a cup if it is on its side or upside down. We are also able to transfer that information we know about a cup if the cup is larger or smaller. A cup is a cup. When we move to learn about writing all of a sudden the rules change. The letter “b” is no longer a “b” when it is turned around. It is a “d.” Upside down it is  a “p.” Until the student is able to understand that letters do not operate the same as objects, all children might have reversal problems.

Dyslexia can have an impact on a student’s self-image and self-esteem. Students with dyslexia often end up feeling “dumb” and feel less capable than they really are. They often use distractions to get out of completing school activities.

Dyslexia is often classified as a learning disability when really it is a brain formation that close to 20% of populations are born with. It only becomes a disability when the learner does not fit into the education program in which they are placed. Students who have a dyslexic brain thrive in education when their instruction is provided in a format which aligns with how their brain processes information.

Because a child is born with a dyslexic brain, it is something they have for a lifetime. Dyslexics, with proper instruction, are able to learn to process and read and write well. We have also learned through science that dyslexia impacts the way a person processes information. If pathways are built in younger children they are able to transfer those processing skills. The key instructional time is between the ages of 3 and 7, therefore, waiting and allowing them more time has been disproven to be effective.  

If a child doesn’t read on grade level by the end of third grade, they have a four times greater chance of dropping out and a one in seven chance of becoming a reader as an adult.

Dyslexia is a neurological condition that causes the brain difficulty in processing information in the areas of reading, writing, and spelling. The National Institute of Health estimates that as high as 20% of the children in our schools are on some level of the dyslexia spectrum.

Many students with dyslexia remain undiagnosed. The way the system has currently established a percentage of students will not qualify for special services. General education teachers along with reading specialists and even special education teachers do not have enough training to provide the evidence-based instruction that these students need. Dyslexia is not overcome by a program because every student will need to have special skills addressed. Currently, students with dyslexia in public schools continue to fail to reach their potential, reaching frustration and not feeling misunderstood, which puts them at greater risk of dropping out. They live with frustration and continually ask themselves,  “Why can’t I read?”

How can you help?

Become aware of the characteristics of dyslexia, especially at the preschool age.

Educate yourself on scientific evidence-based early reading skills instruction.

Be proactive for each child’s education and instruction.

Narrative Writing using Show & Tell!

Narrative Writing

Narrative writing is a lifelong skill student are able to start developing as early as kindergarten and even preschool.  Developing the skill of narrative writing starts with language development and learning to share information orally with others. Oh the dreaded Show and Tell in kindergarten and first grade where the student simply say, “This is my------------truck” is often seen by teachers as a waste of time because they feel there are so many more important skills which need to be addressed. Therefore, this critical language skill often gets skipped.

One option teachers might consider when implementing Show and Tell for language development is to have students share in small groups. There could be four centers; where the sharer sits in a chair and for two minutes shares about their object. The other students are divided up and sit on the floor to listen and ask questions. After 2 or 3 minutes the students who are sharing rotate to the next group. Then they get to share again. This gives the sharer a chance to share four times and practice four times. When the rotations are complete the four students sharing can stand in front of the class while the rest of the students go back to their workspaces. The students sitting at their work spaces then share what they learned with the class about the objects brought in for that day. I guarantee that your students will improve in their language ability and time spent sharing will actually be shorter. Bring back Show and Tell !

Once children are able to talk openly about a subject or object they are ready to begin their writing journey. When writing students are working at one of the highest levels of Blooms Taxonomy. So, if a student is struggling with writing, step back and allow them to process using their language skills. They still might not be ready to do their own writing and additional scaffolding may be needed for them to be successful, but processing orally fist will help students get their thoughts in order which is critical.

Below is a chart created using the Common State Standards for grades k-3 along with expectations, possible activities and assessments teachers might consider using. Writing is a transfer skill which is developed from oral language development. If students cannot talk about it they are not going to be able to write about it.    

Phonics WHY?

For years it has been debated whether reading should be taught through a phonics approach or a sight word approach. Science has provided us the answer to this highly debated question. It appears the phonics approach has greater benefits.

There is no question that young children can memorize approximately 90 words for rapid recall and appear to be readers. When they begin to be exposed to multisyllabic words some are able to use their knowledge of vocabulary and context clues to read the word but the majority hit a wall and have know idea where to start in order to decode larger words. They often struggle with spelling, especially with multisyllabic words. Many times this has been called the “second grade wall.” This is because by the middle of second grade the students are being exposed to larger passages and also unfamiliar words.

Our language is made of sounds, which are represented by symbols making it a linguistic language. The word “phonics” came from the instructional approach in the mid- 1960’s through the process of teaching young students to read through word parts (Chall, 1967). The National Reading Panel in 2000 chose not to use the word phonics and instead separated the broad category into two different skills, phonological awareness and alphabetical principle which were once taught together. Their reasoning was that we needed to be able to distinguish and hear the sounds in our language before starting to attach symbols. There is no question many students are able to learn these skills simultaneously without difficulty, but for those students who struggle it has been found they need the scaffolding which the phonological awareness provides (Moats & Tolman, 2009).

Possibly one of the major stumbling blocks with phonics is that you must to know all the graphemes (groups of letters which represent a single sound) along with the rule behind them (Hempenstall, ND). There are linguistic rules which represent the sounds those sets of letters make, yet we do not require our teacher to fully understand these for the language they are teaching. Then assumptions are made.  Noa Webster, known for his dictionaries, published one of the first spelling books used in American classrooms in 1829 modeled from The American Spelling Book (1804), providing the rules for our English language. 

Don Potter created a web published document of Websters American Spelling Book - 1804

This document will provide you with a complete understanding of phonics and what your students need to understand to be successful readers and spellers.

References:

 Chall, J. (1967). Learning to Read: The Great Debate. New York: McGraw-Hill. 372 pp. 

 Hempenstall, K. (No date). Some issues in phonics instruction. Education News 26/2/2001. [On-line]. Available: http://www.educationnews.org/some_issues_in_phonics_instructi.htm

Moats, L, & Tolman, C (2009). Excerpted from Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS): The Speech Sounds of English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Phoneme Awareness (Module 2). Boston: Sopris West.

Potter, D. (2008) http://donpotter.net/pdf/websterspellingbookmethod.pdf)