[senco-forum] recommendations for working with studentswithsurface dysle...

Brendan,

Maggie
It will be couple of weeks before I can sent it anyway. Its just that there 
is a spate of things called 'decodable' some of which are certainly a little 
dubious but since all words are ultimately decodable, publishers use a lot 
of poetic licence. My 'decodable library' is for children aged 10 or over 
who have reading ages in the 6-8 range.
It is common sense that no author can write books using only CVC words and 
no child's interest can be held with test such 'a fat cat sat on a red mat' 
I set out my own criteria for my 'decodable books'  They must

1. be of interest to the target age group.
2. have all complex or irregular words replaced by simple more regular 
words.
3. avoid long sentences and the over-use of subordinate clauses.
4. use slightly extended word-spacing to facilitate individual word 
isolation.
5. have an mechanism to exaggurate word focus
6. have a mechanism for voicing any unfamiliar words.
7. be capable of being read by the target age/ability group without adult 
involvement.

I think it is important to differentiate between software suppliers who do 
not themselves produce programmes - only supply programmes produced by other 
and publishers have a considerable background of experience in special 
education and educational research at a national level.

Eddie C.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <maggiedne at netscape.net>
To: <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 9:50 PM
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] recommendations for working with 
studentswithsurface dysle...

> Brendan,
>
> Samuel Orton was doing research on brain damaged individuals in the 1920s 
> and found that individuals with damage to certain areas of the brain were 
> unable to process the written word.  Nothing seems to have moved on since 
> then!
>
> But, until all children are taught to read by being explicitly taught the 
> phoneme/grapheme correspondences of English and we STILL end up with a 
> figure of 20% being identified as 'dyslexic' I cannot accept that studies 
> of the damaged brain have any bearing on apparent inability of 20% of 
> children to learn to read effectively.  After all, recent research into 
> 'dylexia' shows that most 'dyslexics' can achieve the same 'brain 
> activity' as 'normal' readers when given explicit phonics instruction.
>
> And, before the APD lot jump on me, I'm not saying that this works for 
> every single child, but if it doesn't work it usually indicates an 
> underlying condition, such as APD, and affects a very small number of 
> children.
>
> Maggie
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: KngBrndn at aol.com
> To: Olanys at aol.com; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
> Sent: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:29:40 EDT
> Subject: Re: [senco-forum] recommendations for working with students 
> withsurface dysle...
>
>   Ally -- I pointed out that the research on surface dyslexia is mainly
> focussed on brain damaged adults. "Aquired Dyslexia" is the term. So the
> description I pasted was to do with adult research where identifiable 
> damage has
>
> occurred (they can pinpoint the damage with MRI scanners). This 
> terminology and
>
> precisness will be unfamiliar to those familiar with research  into
> "developmental" dyslexia which is virtually always what we are dealing 
> with  in
> children/young people -- and which is much more theory based.
>
> But, in all fileds of psychological research, studying identifiably brain
> damaged individauls, has always been productive in developing  an 
> understanding
> developmental disorders that may be neurologically based.  If you can 
> "aquire"
> dyslexia through a severe bang on the head -- it, at  the very least,
> indictes it is a real and concrete phenomena -- and that there  is no 
> reason why
> such
> nuerological disorders cannot occur from birth or  genetically. More
> precisely it can indicate exactly where matters may be going  wrong in 
> certain
> types
> of developmental disorder. So the notion of surface  dyslexia is being 
> brought
> into theories with children in terms of  developmental and inhereted 
> dyslexia,
> etc. But we have to be prepared to  accomodate the terms nuerologists will
> use about pathways in the brain -- which  may knock some developmental 
> notions
> out of the  window. Brendan
>
> 