Re: Fw: Newsweek/Dyslexia and the New Science of Reading

[Deborah Meier <dmeier@ESSENTIALSCHOOLS.ORG>]

To add to Judi's point about how we learn to read, and motivated also by
some passing remarks by Gerald Bracey  made recently about the phnics/whole
language debate, the "naturalness" of learning to read, etc.  I hope many
of you have read the books of Frank Smith--an Ontario psycholinguist.  His
first book Understanding Reading had an enormous impact on me and I reread
it often.  The critics of what is today called "whole language" need to
read it and think about it.  He wrote a simpler follow=up book called
Reading Without Nonsense, and many subsequent books on writing, technology,
etc.  He's sharp, a little nasty, is a very good writer, and his works are
studded with research evidence.  It's powerful stuff and definitely needs
tobe  read and reread.  Those who have read Understanding Reading and feel
he's missing the point would and could help me to see where they think his
argument breaks down.   I'm not sure I dare to fully follow the
implications of his analysis in practice, the implications of his work are
both so common and so noncommonsensical, even though I'm more and more
convinced he's right!   I think my reasons are partly that I'm stil a
little skeptical, but also because there are other factors to be
considered.   Given the way students and their families are acculturated to
believe, their deep-seated assumptions about how reading is learned, I
think I "give in" - because otherwise I'll lose the confidence of the
children and their families.  And in fact learning to read reminds me as
much as anything else of learning to ride a bike or swim--it seems
ridiculously hard if not impossible until you master it;  but you only can
master it if you have confidence that it's do-able!  (That's one reason to
postpne teaching reading until it's most ikely to be do-able.)  So I think
sometimes I use methods that seem silly to me just to gain the confidence
of my students.  I've been wokring with one boy for 2 years--who just did
it!  The basic thread of how I worked remained one that Frank Smith would
probably approve of; but I took detours that he wouldn't probably approve
of, and I think it also helped!  But: read Frank Smith.  If you never have
you are in for a treat.  If you have, it's a good time to reread.    And
it's good reading for people who teach kids or adults too, and not just
teachers of reading--because it's basically about human learning.   And
about questioning assumptions. Deborah

p.s.  I'm also inconed, mind you, to be syjpathetic to the idea that
reading the way some of us do is probably an "unnatural" act.  Like biking
and playing tennis and a lot of other inventions of our specie.  I'm hoping
to find the book with that title Bracey referred to--whose author at the
moment I can't recall.


>Hi there Gerald,
>    I think there's truth to the notion that we learn to read in much the
>same ways that we learn to speak:
>1. it's part of our culture if we're literate
>2. it's done by those around us
>3. we can pick it up as we go along
>4. many of us learn it without formal instruction
>5. we see/hear adults, siblings, friends & neighbors doing it
>6. people are happy when we try to do it, and respond to us
>7. usually people around us are happy that we are trying to do it
>8. there's support for us to get better
>9. people are patient with our mistakes and usually don't criticize us
>10. there's a history of our heritage/culture in this modality (words)
>11. things in this modality are treasured/respected
>12. we get to follow along as others do this thing (tell/read stories)
>
>enough?
>    Judi
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Gerald W. Bracey <gbracey@EROLS.COM>
>To: <ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU>
>Sent: Monday, November 15, 1999 4:19 AM
>Subject: Fw: Newsweek/Dyslexia and the New Science of Reading
>
>
>> While I generally back literature-based approaches to reading, the notion
>> that kids learn to read the same way they learn to speak is one of the
>great
>> mistakes of the whole language philosophy.
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: JimmyKilpatrick <JimmyKilpatrick@EducationNews.org>
>> To: <Recipient list suppressed>
>> Sent: Sunday, November 14, 1999 8:59 PM
>> Subject: Newsweek/Dyslexia and the New Science of Reading
>>
>>
>> Dyslexia and the New Science of Reading
>>
>>
>> Millions of otherwise bright children struggle with words, but recent
>brain
>> research shows there's hope-if parents and teachers know what to look for
>>
>> By Barbara Kantrowitz and Anne Underwood
>> Newsweek, November 22, 1999
>> The first thing Kathryn Nicholas will tell you about her 11-year-old son
>> Jason
>> is that he's a bright, curious kid who can build elaborate machines out of
>> Legos and remember the code names and payloads of bombers. "He has a
>> phenomenal
>> desire to see how things work," she says proudly. But reading, for Jason,
>> was a
>> train wreck. In first grade he was assigned to special-education classes
>> with
>> three mildly retarded children. Two years later, despite extra help, he
>> still
>> couldn't decipher a sentence, and his mother was worried that he would
>soon
>> become so discouraged that he would give up trying. Then she heard about
>> Virginia Wise Berninger, an educational psychologist at the University of
>> Washington who studies dyslexia, a disorder that makes learning to read
>> extremely difficult. As part of her ongoing research, Berninger tested
>Jason
>> and then invited him to a summer program for dyslexic boys. The kids
>didn't
>> just play letter games. They did science experiments, studied
>biodiversity,
>> met
>> with a geneticist and radiologist from the university- and learned to read
>> words relating to the science they were studying. Berninger explained that
>> their brains weren't defective, just different. She told them that
>Einstein
>> had
>> trouble in school, too, until he found one that emphasized individual
>> thinking
>> and discouraged rote memorization. At the end of the program, Jason went
>up
>> to
>> her and asked earnestly, "Can you help me get into a school like
>> Einstein's?"
>> Cover Talk
>> Millions of otherwise bright children struggle with words, but recent
>brain
>> research shows there's hope-if parents and teachers know what to look for.
>> Join
>> Newsweek senior editor Barbara Kantrowitz and New York reporter Anne
>> Underwood
>> for a live talk Wednesday, November 17 at noon E.S.T. Submit questions
>now.
>> Unfortunately, there are no schools like that around the Nicholas home in
>> Kent,
>> Wash. But Jason did make dramatic gains during that summer program in
>1997.
>> What's more, he's maintained them. He'll never be a great speller. He
>still
>> stumbles over new words in a text. But he's an honors student in his
>> sixth-grade class and continues to amaze his mom every day with his
>> creativity.
>> "I look at kids like Jason and think God gave them other things to
>> compensate,"
>> says his mother. "They think differently, and come up with creative ideas
>> we've
>> never thought of. They have a gift, even though the world sees it as a
>> disability." Indeed, famous and successful dyslexics include Tom Cruise,
>> artist
>> Robert Rauschenberg and Olympian Dan O'Brien.
>> Jason is one of the lucky ones-and not just because he's smart and
>creative.
>> Until recently, dyslexia and other reading problems were a mystery to most
>> teachers and parents. As a result, too many kids passed through school
>> without
>> mastering the printed page. Some were treated as mentally deficient; many
>> were
>> left functionally illiterate, unable to ever meet their potential. But in
>> the
>> last several years, says Yale researcher Sally Shaywitz, "there's been a
>> revolution in what we've learned about reading and dyslexia." Scientists
>> like
>> Shaywitz and Berninger are using a variety of new imaging techniques to
>> watch
>> the brain at work. Their experiments have shown that reading disorders are
>> most
>> likely the result of what is, in effect, faulty wiring in the brain-not
>> laziness, stupidity or a poor home environment. There's also convincing
>> evidence that dyslexia is largely inherited; scientists have identified
>four
>> chromosomes that may be involved. Dyslexia is now considered a chronic
>> problem
>> for some kids, not just a "phase." Scientists have also discarded another
>> old
>> stereotype, that almost all dyslexics are boys. Studies indicate that many
>> girls are affected as well-and not getting help.
>> At the same time, educational researchers have come up with innovative
>> teaching
>> strategies for kids who are having trouble learning to read. New screening
>> tests are pinpointing children at risk before they get discouraged by
>years
>> of
>> frustration and failure. And educators are trying to get the message to
>> parents
>> that they should be on the alert for the first signs of potential
>problems.
>> It's an urgent mission. Mass literacy is a relatively new social goal. A
>> hundred years ago people didn't need to be good readers in order to earn a
>> living. But in the Information Age, no one can get by without knowing how
>to
>> read well and understand increasingly complex material. These skills don't
>> come
>> easily to about 20 percent of kids. Not all of these youngsters are
>> dyslexic.
>> Researchers now think that dyslexia represents the low end of a continuum
>of
>> reading ability. The teaching strategies that help dyslexics, those most
>> severely disabled, are also helping kids who require only a little extra
>> attention.
>> These dramatic changes come none too soon. For years people thought
>dyslexia
>> was rooted in the earliest research. Dyslexia was first described 100
>years
>> ago
>> by W. Pringle Morgan, a general practitioner in Sussex, England. In 1896
>he
>> published an article in the British Medical Journal about a 14-year-old
>boy
>> named Percy who was "quick at games and in no way inferior to others of
>his
>> age"-except that he was unable to read. Because Percy and others like him
>> had
>> problems with written words, not with spoken language, it was assumed that
>> the
>> problem was visual. Dyslexia was turned over to ophthalmologists, who
>tried
>> to
>> teach dyslexic kids by using outsized letters and words.
>> This didn't help at all because most dyslexics see as well as anyone else.
>> But
>> they do have trouble pulling words apart into their constituent sounds,
>what
>> scientists call phonemes. These are the smallest discernible segments of
>> speech; there are more than 40 of them in the English language. To
>> understand
>> how this process works, Shaywitz uses the example of the word "cat," which
>> is
>> made up of three phonemes: "kuh," "aah" and "tuh." Most people understand
>> this,
>> but dyslexics can hear only "cat"-one sound. As a result, they can't sound
>> out
>> words, the first step in reading. Most people race through this
>sounding-out
>> phase and the process becomes an automatic, essentially unconscious, part
>of
>> reading. Dyslexics get stuck at the starting gate because they can't make
>> the
>> connection between the symbol and the sound.
>> Researchers are getting a clearer picture of why this is happening by
>using
>> new
>> imaging techniques. Brain scans are now showing that when dyslexics try to
>> decipher words, certain areas in the back of the brain are underactivated,
>> while other areas in the front are overactivated. In the September issue
>of
>> the
>> American Journal of Neuroradiology, Berninger and her colleague Todd
>> Richards
>> reported on a study in which they scanned the brains of six dyslexic and
>> seven
>> nondyslexic boys performing three different tasks: telling two musical
>tones
>> apart, distinguishing real spoken words from nonsense and picking out
>> rhyming
>> syllables. The only difference was in the rhyming task. Dyslexics scored
>> significantly lower and scans showed that regions in the front of their
>> brains
>> were in overdrive. This suggests that dyslexics have to work much harder
>to
>> analyze sound patterns. The sounding-out process wasn't efficient.
>> Shaywitz and her husband, Bennett (co-directors of the NICHD-Yale Center
>for
>> the Study of Learning and Attention), are using functional magnetic
>> resonance
>> imaging (fMRI) to track blood flow through the brain. The areas that
>receive
>> the most blood are working the hardest. Last year they reported in the
>> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they saw a similar
>> pattern
>> of increased activity in the front of the brain, an area that's known to
>> govern
>> speech production. "What we believe is that dyslexics are trying to find
>> another way to get at the sound of the word," says Sally Shaywitz, perhaps
>> by
>> saying words under their breaths. This could be one cause of dyslexia:
>> inefficient pathways in the brain.
>> Because of this research, scientists now have a much better understanding
>of
>> how we process written language. What they're realizing is that learning
>to
>> read is not a natural process like learning to speak. "Speech is a
>> biologically
>> hard-wired ability," says Reid Lyon, chief of the child development and
>> behavior branch of the National Institute for Child Health and Human
>> Development (NICHD). "Almost all humans acquire it in the same way. They
>> coo,
>> then they babble, use single words, then put two words together."
>Scientists
>> estimate that the ability to use speech is at least 100,000 years old
>while
>> written language is only about 5,000 years old. Because written language
>is
>> so
>> new, learning it is not in our genes; we have to be taught.
>> Which reading method works best? The answer is a lot more complicated than
>> the
>> much-ballyhooed "reading wars" of the last decade, in which proponents of
>> whole
>> language or phonics each claimed the true path to literacy. The often
>highly
>> politicized debate distracts from the real issue, that both methods are
>> failing
>> too many kids. Instead, experts say, reading needs to be taught in a
>> carefully
>> sequenced way that includes pieces of both these methods, plus much more.
>It
>> must be based on solid research and geared to the needs of individual
>kids.
>> No
>> single strategy will work for everyone who's having trouble, researchers
>> say.
>> "People can respond differently to a similar deficit," says Georgetown
>> University neuroscientist Guinevere Eden. "Some can draw on other skills."
>> The
>> right method for a particular child depends on the severity of the problem
>> and
>> the age at which a youngster is diagnosed.
>> Everyone agrees that early intervention is the most effective. Researchers
>> suspect there's a window between the ages of 5 and 7 when the underlying
>> skills
>> of reading are most easily learned. "If kids are at risk, we can address
>it
>> with 30 minutes of intervention a day at the kindergarten level," says
>Lyon.
>> "By the time the children are 8 or 9, it takes at least two hours a day of
>> special training." The key is finding those at risk early. One new
>screening
>> test, developed by Barbara Foorman and her colleagues at the University of
>> Texas-Houston Medical School, asks kindergartners to give the sounds for
>> specific letters and sets of letters. Kids who have trouble get more
>> specific
>> diagnostic testing. This fall, Foorman's two-minute test, called the Texas
>> Primary Reading Inventory, will be used in 89 percent of the state's
>school
>> districts. Marilyn Jager Adams, a researcher at the Harvard Graduate
>School
>> of
>> Education, has also developed a two-minute screen, currently being tested
>in
>> Kansas schools. It checks kindergartners for basic skills and tests
>> higher-level abilities, such as fluency and word recognition, as children
>> progress.
>> In the future, we may be able to spot problems even earlier. Two
>researchers
>> at
>> the University of Louisville, Victoria and Dennis Molfese, have studied
>the
>> brainwaves of infants and compared them to the reading skills of the same
>> kids
>> at 8. In a report released earlier this year, the Molfeses said they found
>> that
>> infants who later had reading problems responded slightly more slowly to a
>> series of taped syllables-perhaps because they were not processing sounds
>> efficiently.
>> No one really knows how the Molfeses' findings fit into the larger
>picture.
>> Some researchers think these delays correlate with another key predictor
>of
>> reading trouble, the lack of a skill called "rapid naming," quickly
>> retrieving
>> the names of very familiar letters and numbers. "What you're measuring,"
>> says
>> Joseph Torgesen, an educational psychologist at Florida State University,
>> "is
>> how fast a child can make a connection between a visual symbol and its
>> spoken
>> equivalent." That skill is essential to reading. Maryanne Wolf, director
>of
>> the
>> Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University, believes
>sound
>> differentiation and naming speed could be separate causes of dyslexia,
>what
>> she
>> calls a "double deficit."
>> One program that has been proved effective is the Lindamood Phoneme
>> Sequencing
>> program (LiPS), which makes students identify how sounds feel while saying
>> them. Consonants are given names according to the motions involved in
>making
>> them. For example, "P" is a "lip popper" because the lips start together
>and
>> then come apart. This gives students another way to recognize letter
>sounds.
>> One reason this may work is it helps dyslexics get past that initial
>> obstacle,
>> their inability to break words down. They may not be able to distinguish
>the
>> constituent sounds in a word, but they can feel their mouths making
>distinct
>> and separate motions. Researchers are now trying to find out whether this
>> kind
>> of training can produce changes in the brains of dyslexics.
>> In selecting a program for their kids, Shaywitz advises parents and
>teachers
>> to
>> look for programs that emphasize breaking words down into sounds-what
>> researchers call "phoneme awareness." "Dyslexic kids need very intense and
>> specific help" in this area, she says. The second key ingredient is
>learning
>> the letters that go with those sounds-or phonics, which Lyon calls
>> "nonnegotiable... You have to learn it." The final essential is constant
>> practice, using interesting stories to develop fluency, vocabulary and
>> comprehension. While these are elements of any good reading program, the
>> difference is in the increased intensity and explicitness for dyslexics.
>> Researchers are using this information, gleaned from the new brain
>research,
>> to
>> revolutionize the way reading is taught to all students. The main obstacle
>> is
>> that many classroom teachers are woefully undertrained in the newest
>> techniques. "Teaching reading is rocket science," says Louisa Moats, NICHD
>> researcher. "Our profession has underestimated how much and what kind of
>> training teachers need." For the last two years, Moats has been working
>with
>> some Washington, D.C., public schools with a large number of students who
>> may
>> be at risk because they come from low-income homes, and haven't had much
>> exposure to books. Their curriculum includes lots of rhyming, songs and
>> games,
>> as well as hands-on activities. By the end of the first year,
>administrators
>> were amazed to find that almost all of their kindergartners were starting
>to
>> read.
>> Until more kids get that chance, much of the burden will continue to fall
>on
>> parents. But there's a lot they can do even before their kids are in
>school.
>> Language games like pig Latin (igpay atinlay) enhance the ability to
>> manipulate
>> sounds in words. Another good tool: just about anything by Dr. Seuss,
>> because
>> of the rhyming and wordplay in the texts. Of course, this is no guarantee
>of
>> success, but research consistently shows that kids who are exposed to
>rhymes
>> are more likely to hear the individual sounds of language. When their kids
>> start kindergarten, parents should be alert for signs that the children
>are
>> falling behind. Getting help isn't always easy; parents have to be
>> aggressive
>> advocates.
>> Susan Hall, now president of the Illinois branch of the International
>> Dyslexia
>> Association and coauthor (with Louisa Moats) of "Straight Talk About
>> Reading,"
>> started on that path five years ago when her son Brandon was in first
>grade.
>> She knew something was wrong because he wouldn't talk about school and
>> seemed
>> much too eager to get home when she picked him up at the end of the day.
>So
>> she
>> volunteered as a parent aide. What she saw was disturbing. "The children
>> were
>> supposed to read aloud," she recalls. "When I heard the first child, I
>knew
>> she
>> could read a lot better than my child could read. When his turn came, he
>was
>> devastated. That enabled me to open the door and talk about what was
>> bothering
>> him."
>> Hall asked to have Brandon tested at school, but, she says, "they said
>they
>> couldn't possibly do it because he wasn't a year behind yet"-a requirement
>> in
>> many districts that costs kids valuable time. Finding a good diagnostician
>> proved difficult. After two tutors didn't work out, Hall decided to study
>on
>> her own. A Harvard M.B.A., she quit working and made fixing Brandon's
>> problems
>> her cause. "The first year, I took three graduate courses in reading at
>our
>> local teachers college, flew around the country to attend 10 conferences
>and
>> read 25 books on the subject." She was impressed with the speakers at an
>> International Dyslexia Association conference and took Brandon to a tutor
>> who
>> used their approach. It helped, but Brandon still had problems. Finally,
>"at
>> a
>> huge cost to my family," Hall took Brandon to a Lindamood clinic in
>> California,
>> where he finally made a breakthrough. Brandon, now in sixth grade, is a
>> pretty
>> good reader, his mother says, "but his troubles continue in writing,
>> spelling,
>> French and oh, yes-we still have algebra ahead."
>> Hall gave Brandon what dyslexic kids need most-the emotional support to
>stay
>> positive about school. But her experiences have left her frustrated and
>> angry-feelings shared by many other parents who were left to find an
>answer
>> on
>> their own. "This is just way too difficult," she says. "You do what you
>> think
>> is best and hope that research doesn't come out later showing you should
>> have
>> done something else. We have got to make this process a whole lot easier."
>> That's a goal shared by everyone involved in unraveling the mysteries of
>> dyslexia-researchers, teachers, parents and most of all, the kids
>> themselves.
>> With Pat Wingert
>> © 1999 Newsweek, Inc.
>>
>> ---------------------------
>> Forwarded by
>> Jimmy Kilpatrick
>> EducationNews.org   http://www.EducationNews.org
>> ReadbyGrade3.com   http://www.readbygrade.com
>> k-12Science               http://www.educationnews.org/science.htm
>>
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