[senco-forum] dyslexia

From what I have read it seems clear that the pathways are formed by the

Hi Maggie

Dyslexia is about having problems accessing a secondary man made
communication system, the visual notation of Speech. Of which you are well
aware.
However the real problem is that there is no Agreed Working Model of how we
learn to read, the skills that we require to perform the task of reading,
and how these skills interact when performing the task of reading.
Nearly all of the research is about what works for most of a sample
population, and the experience of how teachers have taught reading in the
past, and based on their experience an opinion about what may or may not
work for those that they may have taught, which is all that empirical
research is about.

But there has been NO rigorous Scientific research to identify how we learn
to read, no research done with children to find out the individual learning
and memory steps, and the steps they make to developing the skills they may
take to learn to read. The only research which even begins to look at these
issues but only as a side issue to the main research program is the new
Medical Research Councils APD research program.
http://www.ihr.mrc.ac.uk/research/apd.php?page=apd_imap 

Basically you would need to have children under constant fMRI and other test
scrutiny as they learn to read from birth to the age of 7 years old, when
they should have reached full development. This is the only way we can
define how we read by going back to a total non reader, and measure each
development step to become a reader. This is the only way because when
humans developed reading we did not write a manual so we can only do this
retrospectively.

Once we have an agreed working model of the skills required to read then we
can look at those who for medical or other reasons have problems obtaining
these skills. This group would be called dyslexics, but most of whom will
have a range of different problems that may cause their difficulties. So a
range of teaching support program and individual support programs and coping
strategies will be needed. Some of the programs already exist, but none work
for all. This why there are so many so called dyslexia remedial programs,
the developers have worked with one type of dyslexic and their program works
for that type of dyslexic. The same goes for teaching programs many will
benefit from a phonics program, where as other need a whole word program, or
a kinaesthetic program like Brain Gym.
It is all about identifying the childs learning needs and providing the
teaching systems that best match their needs. There is no one size fits all,
which is the empirical approach.

Best wishes

dolfrog

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Maggie Downie
Sent: 08 March 2008 15:19
To: Paul and Philippa Bodien; senco forum
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] dyslexia - screening/testing/assessment

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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