[senco-forum] dyslexia

Is there any study using fMRI brains scans which has scanned a significant

Berninger research cited before and after the teaching of reading.  Not sure
what numbers were in that research but the papers are on the CD-Rom for
further reference.  Guinevere Eden also spoke at the 2004 conference and her
paper is on the cd too.  A quick google search for her work brought up
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2001/san_francisco/1173020.stm

If brain function has changed after instruction and attainment scores are
within expectations based on age and IQ I think you can conclude that it is
adequate.  I posed this same question to Martin /Turner some years ago -
when is teaching enough... he gave me the rule of thumb that you take the
mid-point between the IQ and 100 to generate the expected attainment score.
When that is reached then you have done enough.  We measure word reading,
nonword reading, passage comprehension and spelling every 6 mths to track
the efficacy of our teaching and to judge when the pupils are ready to leave
us (making space for the next incomers).

I would encourage anyone teaching reading to read Duncan Milne's book for
the latest on brain pathways.  He makes the same points as Maggie about
reading creating pathways.  The brain is still evolving.  But he also
explains the switch in function from the decoding (synthetic) route to the
whole word route and the part played by analogy.  What he fails to note is
that it is prime to activate the decoding route first, as Maggie points
out.  I have e-mailed him on this point and he has responded, saying that he
agrees with me.

Not all dyslexics use a purely decoding route to work out new words.
Bakker's work makes this point.  The case I quoted where I used Scrambler
and the other case where I used Acceleread Accelewrite clearly demonstrate
that a learner does to necessarily use the decoding route even if they have
been taught and learned the phonics and phonological awareness.  Part of the
3% who do not learn despite instruction.that is sufficient for the
majority.  Their brains are part of the answer as to why reading instruction
fails for the minority.

A very large - probably inseparable - part of the success we have in the
dyslexia unit with our pupils rest squarely on the shoulders of the
parents.  They sit in on lessons as non-participants n the lesson and are
treated as equal partners in the teaching process.  Basically we are
training them through demonstration.  Martin Turner has met many of these
parents on his assessment visits and he was suitably impressed with their
skills and knowledge - saying that they are teaching of reading experts.
(very gratifying!  They are not when they join us...).  Parents - if
accessible - are our biggest ally.  Maggie Snowling also strongly makes that
point.  Parents should be involved in reinforcing the learning of phonics.
Involving parents would take care of adequate learning through repetition -
invaluable.  Ruth Miskin also expects that practise will take place at home
for speed sounds, green words, red words etc.

Philippa

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Maggie Downie <maizie2004 at yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
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