[NIFL-LD:3650] Re: No support for Phonetic awareness as cause . . .

From: Brian Anderson (brian@madisonarealiteracy.org)
Date: Wed Oct 24 2001 - 10:36:05 EDT


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From: "Brian Anderson" <brian@madisonarealiteracy.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-LD:3650] Re:  No support for Phonetic awareness as cause . . .
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Dear People:
I sent the exchange on Phonetic Awareness to my mentor, Barbara Bliss, who
teaches parents, teachers and tutors how to do Orton-Gillingham instruction.
She had, as do many members of this list, strong opinions.  With her
permission, I am including her words directly below.

From: "Barbara Bliss"
To: "Brian Anderson"
Subject: web conversation.
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 12:29:31 -0500
Words cannot express how I feel about the Web conversation you sent me! It
is very obvious that the man has little real understanding of dyslexia
except his own.

He claims he spent a week in an Orton-Gillingham course and then arrives at
the conclusion that it "has no lasting effect, is not teaching reading, that
it substitutes tactile and auditory strategies for reading words!"
What a lot of harm this person is doing! OG is time-tested in schools for
dyslexics throughout the U.S. It has been replicated and expanded by
Project Read, by Lindamood-Bell (to focus more specifically on the "how" of
making speech sounds when specific students need this help.) The Wilson
Language System, the Slingerlands and Alphabetic Phonics Methods are all
successful classroom adaptations of OG. Since no two dyslexics are alike,
OG and its spinoffs make use of the multisensory factor to make up for
student deficits. Right now in many schools the Direct Instruction (DI)
method is being used successfully. This is a good phonetic method which
will enable many students to do better work. The dyslexics who are
seriously handicapped will also need OG or its spinoffs. Not because
phonics is not needed, but because they needed more specific Multisensory
instruction than DI provides.
Reading word for word is just part of the early process of reading which
smoothes out as the volume of reading increases to where reading becomes
automatic. Comprehension improves usually at the same time. If it doesn't,
the Lindamood-Bell system has additional help.
Wish I had more time to write and to "talk back" to this man.
Unfortunately, many academicians who read without effort simply cannot
understand dyslexia and seldom have an opportunity to work one to one for
any length of time with really handicapped readers.
Thanks for sending me this. I'll take it along with me to the IDA
convention Wednesday.
Barb

Brian Anderson, Education Director
Madison Area Literacy Council


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Dear Don,

Good Readers do not read aloud to themselves sounding out each word they
see (reading word for word).  They are aware of the words as symbols for
meaning and can therefore read rapidly. It is not possible to read 300
words per minute while sounding out each word as you see it. How fast can
you read aloud??? I doubt it is as fast as you can read to yourself
assuming you do not have a reading disability. Because a reading disabled
person perceives the same word differently each time they read it, they
cannot develop the engram to skip the sounding out process and go directly
to the meaning of the word they see.



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