[senco-forum] [SENco-forum] [SENco-forum] [SENco-forum] dyslexia

Sharon -- I supported a secondary age highly autistic boy with phenomenal spelling ability -- in the?mid 80s. He was placed in a moderate learning diff school - and I was drafted in as the Autistic specialist tutor / support teacher. He did not comprehend much of?what he read -- but he could spell any word. He was vulnerable to bullying /?teasing and was regarded as "mental" by the least sympathetic 'tough' street wise MLD lads. But his spelling was used as a great resource by the other pupils -- who would pop over to him asking how to spell words. This was before spell-checkers and lap-tops. It proved to the other pupils that he had a good brain -- and led to further understanding of him as being a? great?valued person. And to him flourishing in a placement that was not at that time really appropriate for him.?????

-----Original Message-----

From: SEN at tringham.net

To: Becta Senco 

Sent: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 10:12

Subject: Re: [senco-forum] [SENco-forum] [SENco-forum] [SENco-forum] dyslexia - screening/testing/assessment

Good parents don't teach that M=McDonalds that is just what normal children  pick up.     They are inquisitive beings and when they hear a sound and see the same  symbol repeatedly (hence the McDonalds!) they usually, if all is working  normally, put these together.  M=McDonalds   and eventually that M='mmm'  and that is the same sound as Mum,  money,  mug,  mat,  etc.,     Thus if someone was being very unkind they could teach that the sound 'ah'  looks like this '$',    'n'=* and 'd'= %    so the word that we know as  'and' will to them looks like '$*%' although the word sound remains the  same.    I have seen a child with autism & a phenomenal memory  able to spell  anything with no phonics.  He has the word read to him then he uses letter  names R-O-V-E-R = rover   S-H-A-R-O-N- =Sharon and one correction is all he  needs to 'bank' a new word.  This is not normal and he reads anything at all  with little or no understanding.    Theorists - love them or hate them someone ha
 s to go out on a limb, make a  statement and then try to justify it.  This is fine as long as having taught  the spider to move left or right on command that we do not postulate that  spiders become deaf when their legs are removed!    It is postulated that some with dyslexia or more likely the auditory  processing aspect of this have an inbuilt delay - thus when they see a  letter and hear a sound it is not matched exactly  so  'pans'   is perceived  one letter late     - p  is ignored     'a' seems to make the sound 'p' and  'n' seems to make the sound  'a' and  's' sounds like 'n'.   This would be  easy to see if the ph/gr that they were perceiving were always the same,  like my $*% model, but the next word they see is :    'span' which using  their new code sounds like ' n - pa'   Very confusing.    Now this is where synthetic phonics might help to circumnavigate this  problem  - if you could blindfold a child from birth until they were taught  phonics!   Instead SP has 
 to re-teach some children with learning  difficulties in the same way as it is re-teaching those for whom English is  not a first language be they Chinese, Indian or Eastern European, in just  the same way as dyslexia tutors teach initially if that is what is needed.  These students all need re-coding and take varying lengths of time to grasp  the concept as seen by the Ruth Miskin TV show.    However, some, and usually the ones with dyslexia go on to need 1:1 help.  Julie might argue that this happens in her system without a label - Wave  1/Wave 2 and then at the end of Wave 3 some 1:1 with.........a TA?  Most  LA's are resistant to the idea of using 'specialist' teachers.  These are  not magic they just have a lot of strategies up their sleeves and because  they have been using both formative + summative assessment much longer than  most class teachers they can find the route to individual success much  quicker.    Eventually I hope all teachers have this skill, but until 
 then those with  dyslexia find themselves left high and dry until Wave 3 when their  self-confidence is shot to pieces and they have no love of learning - their  primary reason for being placed in a school. As while they may have grasped  the 44 phonemes they cannot manipulate them the same way that others can. My  daughter could not blend. She was taught clean phonemes but still used the  'schwa' to make cat/kerater/catter. Synthetic phonics is great in that it  does something similar to what dyslexia tutors have always done.  There is a  great downloadable chart here http://www.syntheticphonics.com/ showing not  only the 44 simple sounds, but explains the more complex variation similar  to the DI or other dyslexia based sound unit teaching lists.  In the end  blends were offered to my daughter as digraph units treating 'bl' etc in the  same way as 'ch' ie 2 letters to make one sound - problem gone. The same is  done for trigraph - 'dle'  or for 'tion/shun'.  It is not poss
 ible to use  left to right SP but a combination of SP/AP   for words such as  'c-a-n -dle.'    As for whole words they have to be taught as whole words with supports such  as colour or pictograms or whatever it take to make it stick otherwise how  do you deal with saw/was without having explain spelling rules.  As my  daughter says she knows all the complex variations & spelling rules just as  she knows all her punctuation marks -she just doesn't remember which one  goes where.  This is what is lacking for some when for others these  irregular words or spelling rules just 'are'.  They never have to be  consciously learned.  They just heard them, saw them and used them - no  phonics involved. As you say both whole words and phonics have a place. Its  just that I leave room for using whole word, SP & AP in whatever way the  child needs to learn    Sharon          No virus found in this outgoing message.  Checked by AVG.  Version: 7.5.518 / Virus Database: 269.21.7/1319 - Relea
 se Date: 08/03/2008  10:14    

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