[SENco-forum] Re: How many rules?

That there is order (of sorts) in the English language with regard to

Very few mis-diagnosed as dyslexic?  I cannot agree with this I'm afraid. 
The present consensus amongst the dyslexic community  (BDA & BDI) is that it 
is a lifelong condition but then they have a vested interest in this, it 
brings them work, status and funding.  I recall that the then Spastics 
Society fought long and hard against Conductive Education just like the deaf 
societies were against cochlear implants.  Change never comes from vested 
interests, they seek to mainatain th status quo.  I
have 'cured' (to use a medical model) many alleged 'dyslexics' simply by 
arranging the learning
in a logical way and dealing with the problem of phonemic awareness and
processing by taking into account how speech is produced and perceived and
using psychologically based improvement techniques from sports and
performance coaching (using a psychological model).  We still have to have 
an agreed defintiion of dyslexia.  Poor / inappropriate teaching will 
confuse learners and they
will then behave in a 'dyslexic' way, that is they will be cognitively 
confused in Downing's sense.

If you teach a dyslexic to read well is he / she still dyslexic?  if so was
the 'diagnosis' correct or meaningful in the first place?  The evidence from 
brain scans by the likes of Sally Shaywitz has shown that the brains of so 
called dyslexics become more like non dyslexics if they are given the right 
treatment.  It is not so much a neurological problems as a cognitive one and 
this is where we should be focussing out attention. We have yet to determine 
what
separates good readers from poor readers apart from phonemic processing
skills and rapid naming, these skills are teachable to most.  Learning to
read and phonemic processing skills (the ability to unglue the phonemes in a
syllable) are interdependent as long as the materials and methods are well
thought out and reflect what we do know about the learning to read process.

Philip EP
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <SEN at tringham.net>
To: "Philip MacMillan" <P.Macmillan at exeter.ac.uk>; "Becta Senco"
<senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 8:56 AM
Subject: RE: [SENco-forum] Re: How many rules?

> That there is order (of sorts) in the English language with regard to
> spelling and its history is not under debate.  Medical and IQ factors
> aside
> the thing that is a bar to spelling well is whether one can 'absorb' the
> 'rules' unconsciously. Those who cannot learn to absorb spongelike on
> their
> own the things we sponges take for granted -social rules, reading between
> the lines, ability to emote correctly, make oneself understood or grasp
> later language skills such as reading with meaning, spelling and using
> writing to represent all the earlier conversational skills are those
> deemed
> to have special educational needs.
>
>  The ones that have persistent problems in learning to spell/read despite
> normal teaching are deemed to be those with dyslexia.  Even if taught in a
> way that suited each one so that they could access spelling and reading
> the
> dyslexia remains and may hamper other areas of life, so it is unlikely
> that
> children are 'accidentally' labelled with dyslexia and therefore I cannot
> agree with statement that 'We have the biggest number of so called
> dyslexics mainly because reading has been badly taught for at least the
> last
> 100 years.' I would argue that for 100 years many pupils with Dyslexia or
> other SEN have been badly served with regard to reading, as it makes no
> difference to around 75% of the students what silly reading fad is in
> place.
>
> A recent study in the US showed that a mix of methods was the best path
> for
> most students when learning to read and also acknowledged that some
> preferred either whole word or phonic learning.  So as the % of us who can
> read has barely changed over many year it seems that the majority of
> children learn to read with little difficulty regardless of what teachers
> teach.
>
> Phonics is a good early strategy for most, as is learning those irregular
> 'whole' words on flashcards or in contextual sentences. One does not exist
> without the other. Most children grasp the principle of magic 'e' with
> little effort so the teaching of it serves only to highlight those that
> cannot.  The question is not whether to bother to teach the rule, but how
> the teacher can better teach it so that all can understand it.
>
> Now with proper support(including learning historical roots or applying
> likely percentages to 'correctness') my daughter now has a range of
> strategies that help her select the right word from a spellchecker choice
> of
> 5, but she cannot be sure, unless she hears the word read aloud that she
> has
> made the right choice.  Likewise she knows exactly where to use
> punctuation,
> but doesn't, can morph words in a set exercise, but still uses incorrect
> tenses in aural or written work even though she is 15 with a 141 IQ. Her
> dyslexia remains despite the best teaching and a myriad of routes into
> reading.
>
> The mystery lies in why some children have the ability to absorb grammar
> (or
> punctuation usage) unconsciously that is it mystery.  Of course a child
> bought up in a language rich environment is going to do this earlier and
> better than one that is not, but true dyslexia is any child who even when
> given every opportunity and ALL routes into reading/spelling is still not
> doing it 'automatically' or without a huge strategy support system.
>
>
> Sharon Tringham
>
> PS Any chance the PC ones can change 'compensated dyslexic' to something
> better.  How about Education System Survivor or is this still too
> negative?
>
> [mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk]On Behalf Of Philip
> MacMillan
> Sent: 04 September 2007 21:17
> To: Amanda; Phil; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Re: How many rules?
>
>
> Oiech spells week, not really, the /w/ in one, once is a one off.  In no
> other word can you find the o representing the /w/ sound.  ch is never
> hard
> /k/ at the end of a word, it needs an e or other letters to follow it eg
> Michael and usually indicates a Greek derivation,  ie for /ee/ sure and
> there are many examples.  Its all a bit like the trick the whole language
> freaks used to pull on ghoti =  fish.  gh only says   /f/ at the end of a
> word never at the beginning, o - /i/ as in women is a one off  and ti will
> never say /sh/ at the end of a word but only if it is the last but one
> letter pair.  It is  left over from the Norman French.   Our language is
> logically ordered.  Take a look at Diane McGuiness' work and then look at
> Crystal and Coulmas.  Good sources of information on how it all works.  It
> is a fascinating story.
>
> Taking into account the historical roots, changes of pronunciation (in the
> olden days we used to pronounce the /k/ in knock, knuckle but changed the
> pronuncation and now do not say the /k/ but retained the spelling) and
> propensity to absorb words from other languages eg. ketchup  = catsup =
> catsiup  cantonese for fish sauce,  our spelling system is very orderly
> but
> it does need to be learned.   We have the biggest number of so called
> dyslexics mainly because reading has been badly taught for at least the
> last
> 100 years.   It si all down to some research in the late 1800s that showed
> that we could recognize words as fast as we could single letters and
> therefore the paying attention to the letter content was uneccessary
> (Cattell)  and then we had look say, basal reading schemes, real books,
> whole language, readiing recovery and all the rest of the badly thought
> out
> approaches all from research that  was ecologically invalid and was
> recognized as such almost immediately, but it still went on to determine
> reading curricula.  Bandwagons!   The problem with education is that it
> seems to prefer research that is qualitative or based on questionnaires,
> observation etc. and not on empirical causal enquiry.  And before everyone
> starts screaming about reading recovery take a look at Center et al and
> Shanahan & Barr.  If you want more references on this I can supply them.
> That the situation is not changing can be found in the fact that despite
> the
> Rose Report Reading Recovery is going to be re introduced to 10 LEAs.
> The
> empirical research says clearly that the effects do not last so why is
> more
> taxpayer's money being spent on it?
>
> Philip EP
>
> Center, Y., Wheldall, K. & McNaught, M. (1995) "An Evaluation of Reading
> recovery". Reading Research Quarterly, 30, p. 240-263.
>
>
>
> Coulmas. Florian (1989). "The Writing Systems of the World",  Basil
> Blackwell Ltd. Oxford, England  1989.
>
> Crystal, D. (1987) " the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language".
> Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
>
>
>
> McGuiness, D. (1997) "Why Our Children Can't Read: and what we can do
> about
> it". New York. The Free Press.
>
>
>
> Shanahan, T. & Barr, R. (1995) "Reading recovery: An independent
> evaluation
> of the effects of an early instructional intervention for at risk
> learners".
> Reading Research Quarterly, 30,  p. 958-996.
>
>
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