[senco-forum] Re Standards site

Graeme, to say that 'the whole problem with any research into reading difficulties should be based on an agreed working model of the task of reading, definitions of the skills required to carry out the task of reading'

 This  is a point I have been trying to get over for many years but with little success. It is precisely because we are not even agreed about the reading process that we end up going round in ever decreasing circles. It is only when we understand the process involved that we will be able to resolve some of the failure issues.

Evidence for this is the fact that a large body of informed opinion sees 'sight vocabulary' as the key to reading compentence while another large and equally committed group of teachers take the view that there is no such thing as sight vocabulary.  How can such diametrically opposite views exist in the same profession?

I personally take that sight vocabulary' is the key to reading competence and the obstacle to its acquisition for many is short term memory deficit but that of course is not the only cause of reading failure. One of the problems with the term 'dyslexia' has always been the wide range of difficulties which it encompasses.

Whatever the nature of a child's problems in acquiring good reading skills, the acquisition of a good sight vocabulary in an essential prerequiste to reading success.

Eddie C. 