[senco-forum] dyslexia

Is there any study using fMRI brains scans which has scanned a significant sample of children before they have been taught to read and then followed up with scans after reading instruction?

The only studies I am aware of use subjects who are already reading and have been identified as 'dyslexic'.  

Stanovich, when discussing dyslexia, makes the point which seems to be largely ignored in these studies, that one should consider the instructional history of subjects variously labelled as dyslexic or reading disabled.  Various definitions of dyslexia state that it is a difficulty with reading and spelling 'despite adequate instruction'. But none ever specifies what 'adequate instruction' looks like. 

Reading is not a 'natural' activity which has a predefined set of neural pathways to activate in the same way that motor movements and speech do. >From what I have read it seems clear that the pathways are formed by the act of reading/learning to read.  We know that the accepted method of instruction in English speaking countries, for many years, has for most children, been a mixture of 'look and say' (learning words as logographs) and a small element of phonics instruction.  This in itself will create a different pattern of brain activity from that exhibited by children taught (or self taught) to decode and blend all through the word.  

 Remediation of dyslexics with systematic, explicit phonics instruction, as brain scans demonstrate, changes the brain activity to that more nearly resembling that of skilled readers; who,as Stanovich (once again) showed, use an exclusively decoding route to access words.  If these subjects had been taught this way in the first place, is it fair to assume that many of them would not have developed problems with reading and spelling?  (And so, would not have been 'dyslexic' and  the subjects of brain scan research...)  

It is the subjects who fail to be remediated by systematic phonics instruction which are the most interesting and problematical.  The question then becomes, why do their brains fail to develop the requisite pathways?  What, if anything,  can be done to effectively help them to learn to read?  

It has been estimated that some 3 -5% of children will not learn to read with good phonics instruction (Solity's figure is the one I have in mind, but I have seen similar figures postulated in other papers). This is far lower than the current UK level of a 20% 'mix' of dyslexics and common or garden struggling readers.  It seems to me that, while initial reading instruction still consists of a mix of logographical and decoding strategies we will find it difficult to distinguish this 3-5% early and concentrate resources on them, rather than spending time with children who would have learned to read competently had they been given the correct instruction from the start.

Phillippa writes:  "Berninger found, as have countless others, and as Milne also points out, that dyslexics need more of exactly what they find difficult - converting
phonemes to graphemes and vice versa with a good dose of phonological
awareness thrown in."   Ruth Miskin has said much the same in relation to children who are slow to learn to read; that they need more intensive teaching to acquire the alphabetic principle.  In my own experience, albeit not as wide as Philippa's or Ruth's, I find that most children find it difficult to apply phoneme/grapheme knowledge because they either haven't been completely taught it, or they haven't practised it enough to thoroughly master it.

Note, I say 'most', not 'all'.  Of the 60+ children I have worked with in the past 3 years, 1 can apply the alphabetic principle, but has short term memory problems which have a significant effect on his decoding skills and 2 or 3 others have curious 'blank' moments where their previously perfectly OK decoding & blending skills seem to completely desert them. The rest progress as well as their 6 previous years of learned faulty strategies and 'bad' reading habits allow them.

I find Berninger's comments on the 'ceiling' for synthetic phonics interesting, if a bit puzzling.  It is clear that as, words become more complex, knowledge of morphology is important, but morphemes are still most efficiently accessed through the decoding route.

I would be interested to know if any of you do investigate the instructional history of the children you work with and if so, what do you find?   Does anyone work in a school where systematic phonics instruction, unmixed with any other 'strategies' (and the principles applied throughout all the Key Stages) is the 'norm', and does this make any difference to the numbers of children who fail to learn to read?

I'd also like to add that I don't for one minute think that everyone's brains are identical and work in exactly the same way.

Maggie

---------------------------------
Sent from Yahoo! Mail.
The World &#39;s Favourite Email.