Slow labored reading is a bigger barrier to learning to write than poor spelling is. Watch the YouTube video showing dictation with typing echo in action.
Reading by Listening & Writing by Speaking. Watch this YouTube video showing texting with reading by listening and writing by speaking.
overwhelming. But that’s the path most students with dyslexia are taking.
that they will not be able to read like everyone else, and they will miss out on important learning opportunities because they will be spending unnecessary time sounding out and spelling words instead of paying attention to the class lessons. But without sharing this information and having a frank discussion, at the outset, parents are unaware of how their child will be functioning in future classrooms. When there is no alternative presented, parents feel they have no choice but to go along with the plan and hope for the best. There’s optimism and hope in the first few months and years as they start a journey down that dark path. THE TRUE NATURE OF DYSLEXIA To help me understand how we’re going down the wrong path I have been guided by the words of Sally Shaywitz, who said that “the greatest stumbling block preventing a dyslexic child from realizing her potential is widespread ignorance about the true nature of dyslexia” (Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, p 86). This prompted me to study my own dyslexia, how my dyslexia makes me different from others, and how understanding the true nature of dyslexia can help us do a better job for students with dyslexia (for more information, go to http://dyslexiatech. com/mike-s-blog). Focusing on the true nature of dyslexia helped me understand that the print world is designed for the majority of people who can easily sound out and spell words. What we need to do is adjust that world so students with dyslexia can fit in. It became clear to me that classroom environments are changeable, the neurological design of our students with dyslexia is not. The change must come from our classroom environment.
THE HALF TRUTH AND THE FALSE NARRATIVE Students with dyslexia end up on the wrong path. When parents are told their child will “learn to read,” they hear “will learn to read like everyone else.” Now, the research shows us that students with dyslexia can learn to sound out words, but cannot learn to do it automatically. So, now we know that “reading remains effortful for the brightest people with childhood histories of dyslexia” (Shaywitz). Yet, we’re still operating under the false narrative. With all the convincing research data, how do people come to believe something that is not true? It starts with a half truth that leaves important questions unanswered. Here’s how it works. When a student is diagnosed with dyslexia, the reading specialist tells the parents that there are great reading programs that will help their child. Then they tell them that their child will learn to read. The parent assumes that that means that their child will learn to read like everyone else. The devil is in the details. There are two parts to sounding out words, accuracy or being able to pronounce the words correctly and fluency or the ability to pronounce the words rapidly and automatically. But, when the specialists only says “can learn to read,” they mean reading accuracy, ability to sound out words. That’s the half truth. When parents are not told directly that students with dyslexia do not learn to read fluently they are left to fill in the blanks about fluency to get a complete picture. So, the half truth becomes the false narrative: a false belief that students will be taught to read like everyone else. The other important omission is information about how this child will be functioning in the classroom in the future. We have data that indicates that their problems with reading will persist,
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