Return-Path: <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id fA65GA024973; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 00:16:11 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 00:16:11 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.2.20011105194818.01d6fec0@mail> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: Clifton Willard <clifwillard@home.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-LD:3736] Re: NIFL-LD digest 1180 X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: multipart/alternative; X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Status: O Content-Length: 26464 Lines: 464 --=====================_14731793==_.ALT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed >Anne, I appreciate you reply. >When I say that persons failed to learn to read, I do NOT blame them. >The system did not teach them. Yes, persons who have reading >disabilities do get PhDs. I agree with you - schools do abuse >students and then blame them for not being successful. We must >change that! There is an assumption here that anyone can learn to be "good readers" and that good reading is essentially a matter of learning. If this is so, why are so many with average and above ability stuck at the 5th grade level in reading? Why do they continue to have to echo the word in their head before they know the meaning?? A student is told that the reason they cannot read as a good reader is because they were not taught correctly and that if they are taught with the OG+ system they will become a good reader. Then they go through the new reading method and still cannot read fast enough to be competitive, what do you think they tell themselves? They tell themselves, " well even when I an taught with the correct method, I still can't do it. I must be stupid or just not trying hard enough." No I do not believe that you directly blame them but what other conclusion can they come to?? It is the promise that they can "learn " to do something they find they can't. How else are they to think?? It would be a very different story if they were told," lets try this and see what happens." This may be helpful. When they reach the 5th grade ceiling, suggest that now is the time to begin accommodations and alternate methods of accessing the information stored in the print. That would be a good approach and offer opportunities for college and beyond. Isn't the point to access the information and get on with getting on?? Or is it to prove that phonetics is the true method. It seems unclear at times. >"Have I asked my students what is going on in their heads when they >are tring to read?" Yes, I do ask adults what reading is like for >them - why they want to learn to read better. Not what it is like to read or why they want to read better but what is going on in their heads. Are they trying to see the words? Are they thinking about the words? What do you mean "thinking" about the words? ... >I do listen. I do >care. Just this morning I just with a woman who can read and write - >dropped out of school after 8th grade and then completed a GED. She >said she wants to be a better reader and she needs to spell better. >Here's a quote (unsolicited!) "The vowels and consonants don't come >out right. I know I don't say all the words right." There may be different reasons for her experience. >Mispronouncing words is another aspect of dyslexia. That's another >manifestation of not perceiving the sounds of language. Visual >misperception may play a part in some people's reading problems, but >it doesn't play a major role for most persons. (I won't cite the >research because you choose to dismiss it.) Do they mispronounce printed words? Do they also mispronounce the same word when they originate it in conversation? If they mispronounce the word when originating it and they then learn the correct sounds/pronunciation, do they no longer have trouble pronouncing the printed form? >You quote R. Lyon's statement about reading problems causing school >failure and then you say "It is totally unnecessary and an utter >disgrace that it is allowed to continue." That's exactly the point >Lyon was making! He does not, as you imply, "accept failure as >inevitable." The rest of his statement describes how children learn >to read - the necessity that children (and adults) be taught phonemic >awareness and how to apply the alphabetic principle. > >Lyon does not ignore the need for accommodations, He is >communicating that children can be taught to read so they don't need >accommodations. The tragedy is that too many educators are too busy >debating viewpoints and do not give necessary instruction to the 30% >of the population that has difficulty hearing the sounds in words and >connecting the sounds to letters. Again assuming that their difficulty in reading is something that can be remediated. There is a lot of these phonetic awareness methods around yet there does not seem to be any less then 30 percent with reading difficulties. What happens to their future in education if they cannot read fast enough to keep up with the required amount of reading? Dr. Lyons did not offer any alternative to teaching phonetics. Accommodation is not even considered as a viable remedy. Dr. Lyon's statement of the prognosis is correct without accommodation. Why is accommodation not promoted in the schools and in your adult Ed and literacy classes? It can mean the difference between a college education and academic failure, an economic future and underemployment. Why not speed listening classes? Why not learn to listen at 1.5 to 2 times the recorded rate with good comprehension?? Why not teach dictation? Why not use a screen reader to proof written work? You can hear mistakes that you would not pick up by reading the paper. Why not train people on how to efficiently scan books into etext so that they can be listened to on computers, MP3 machines and any CD player? How about teaching independence and self-reliance in reading so that they can get out of school? Why are there no tests of phonetic awareness in eligibility? How do you test phonetic awareness isolated from visuo perceptual problems? Dr. Sally Shaywitz uses this test. Say the word Germany and leave the "ma" out. She says this is a good test of phonetic awareness. Is it? I think not. You cannot do this without "first" revisualizing the word in your minds eye and then dropping the "ma" out, joining the two parts together and sounding out the result. The sounding out of the result is the only phonetic part of this test of phonetic awareness. You cannot do this quickly if you have difficulty revisualizing the word Germany in the first place. She denied this perceptual part completely and claimed that this proved a lack of phonetic awareness because so many of the poor readers had difficulty this the test. It is this type of ignoring of the facts that justifies the phonetic awareness/OG+ methods. I have to ask, why is this? Maybe you can answer that for me. Another research project claimed that there was a correllation between reading disabilities and ADHD. When I read the research, I realized that these claims were being made quite convincingly but the children in the study never read a word, they were read to. How would they know if they could read or not?? Much of the research is all about numbers and statistics that sound good but mean little to the person with the reading problem. Why is it that everyone assumes that others are just clones of themselves and because they "learned" to read everyone can? I would like to see some serious research that assumes that phonetic awareness has nothing at all to do with reading disabilities and think about what might be the problem. Some of you might try this. Approach a student with a reading disability and ignore everything that has to do with phonetic awareness as THE problem. Put all the OG+ programs away and think about how you are going to help this person. As you watch them read, ask yourself, "What is going on here?" What is this person doing when they are trying to read?? See where it takes you. You can't cheat and think of phonetics. I once heard that the definition of an intellectual was someone who could listen the William Tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger. I guess I'm dating myself. There is no one more interested in anything that would enable someone with a reading disability to read normally then myself. I just do not see the support for phonetic awareness. I do not see the majority of young students with reading disabilities reading normally after they are 12.5 or 13 years of age and know the phonics and phonemics. Reading at the fifth grade is not overcoming the disability nor is it reading rapidly enough to be competitive academically and post academically. I sometimes get very angry when I hear this forcing of phonetic awareness and OG+ without any better success then the fifth grade. If I have offended anyone I sincerely apologize, I just get so frustrated. I really am a nice guy who is in touch with the results of a system out of control. There has been little progress in resolving reading disabilities as a result of all this research. Maybe it is time to consider phonetic awareness as a possible part of the problem and look else ware. A bigger hammer does not word. I listen to patients who are the product of that kind of thinking and I see what it does. I am horrified at the number of students that come to see me and do not even know what their disability is. Most never heard of Recording for The Blind and Dyslexic. They never knew they could scan books into their computers and listen to them at accelerated rates. You have no idea what it feels like when a bright adult asks, " You mean I could have gone to college? You mean I did not have to drop out of high school? Why did no one tell me this? Why did they keep remediating me? It is so important to think. Sometimes the best question is: What am I doing? Not, why am I doing this or that? Try to get into their heads, their perception and try to figure out how to help them be successful. Forcing a rigid program that is limited at best and not considering alternatives is not doing that. The driving force should be the results and the impact on the daily activities of the student. I tell every client that my philosophy is this; I know something you don't know and you know some things I don't know. We will trade. I will learn as much from you as you will from me. You can see the body language change to one of trust and hope. This is not only true but it is empowering and takes me off the pedestal. I am very limited in how much I can help someone if I place myself above intellectually or in any other was above them. When they say, "No that is not what I do." I ask them to tell me what they do do. It is amazing what I learn. Bringing up a reading level to the fifth grade level may be a great improvement for many but it is not good enough to be competitive. There is much discussion about which program is preferred over another. Where is the, What else can I do? What do I do now? I sense that the answer is more remediation or we haven't found the "Holy Grail in Teaching." I don't think there is such a thing but in the quest, what is not being looked at? If you are doing one think, you are not doing something else. What other choices are there for the students who want a good education and learn about history, English, literature, and so on. Where is the discussion on how to do this without reading above the 5th grade level. Where is the innovation? Where is the thinking out of the box? Are students even given a choice? I have never heard of a student being given any choice. I have read a great deal of research, it is not that I ignore it, I do not. It all seems to say the same thing over and over and over. I have always been curious as to why the researchers keep trying to find how many ways they can prove that phonetic awareness is the true cause of the majority of reading disabilities. If it were so true, why do they need to keep trying to prove it? I spent many hours at Yale University being taught by the guru's in the field. I sat through many a multi-sensory lesson and had a great deal of behavior modification for reading and still could not read any better. I do not believe that I am the exception that many say I am. I have not found a single student with a reading disability that disagrees and they all identify and relate to the perceptual deficit in reading model. Phonics help compensate for the perceptual deficit but it will not fix it. I have lectured to large numbers of students with these disabilities and they all get that "ahah" and start accommodating. The now have a choice they never had before. They are also now responsible for their accessing printed material. That to me is a sound idea, self-reliance in reading, you can't beat that. True power is having a choice. Having this choice is truly empowering. Clif. >-- >Anne Murr, Coordinator >Adult Literacy Center >School of Education >Drake University >3206 University Ave. >Des Moines, IA 50311 >anne.murr@drake.edu > Tel 515-271-3982 > Fax 515-271-4544 > >-- --=====================_14731793==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <html> <blockquote type=3Dcite class=3Dcite cite>Anne,</blockquote><br> I appreciate you reply.<br><br> <blockquote type=3Dcite class=3Dcite cite>When I say that persons failed to learn to read, I do NOT blame them. <br> The system did not teach them. Yes, persons who have reading <br> disabilities do get PhDs. I agree with you - schools do abuse=20 <br> students and then blame them for not being successful. We must <br> change that!</blockquote><br> There is an assumption here that anyone can learn to be "good readers" and that good reading is essentially a matter of learning. If this is so, why are so many with average and above ability stuck at the 5th grade level in reading? Why do they continue to have to echo the word in their head before they know the meaning?? A student is told that the reason they cannot read as a good reader is because they were not taught correctly and that if they are taught with the OG+ system they will become a good reader. Then they go through the new reading method and still cannot read fast enough to be competitive, what do you think they tell themselves? They tell themselves, " well even when I an taught with the correct method, I still can't do it. I must be stupid or just not trying hard enough." No I do not believe that you directly blame them but what other conclusion can they come to?? It is the promise that they can "learn " to do something they find they can't. How else are they to think?? It would be a very different story if they were told," lets try this and see what happens." This may be helpful. When they reach the 5th grade ceiling, suggest that now is the time to begin accommodations and alternate methods of accessing the information stored in the print. That would be a good approach and offer opportunities for college and beyond. Isn't the point to access the information and get on with getting on?? Or is it to prove that phonetics is the true method. It seems unclear at times. <br><br> <blockquote type=3Dcite class=3Dcite cite>"Have I asked my students wha= t is going on in their heads when they <br> are tring to read?" Yes, I do ask adults what reading is like for <br> them - why they want to learn to read better. <br> <b></b></blockquote><br> Not what it is like to read or why they want to read better but what is going on in their heads. Are they trying to see the words? Are they thinking about the words? What do you mean "thinking" about the words? ...<br><br> <blockquote type=3Dcite class=3Dcite cite>I do listen. I do=20 <br> care. Just this morning I just with a woman who can read and write - <br> dropped out of school after 8th grade and then completed a GED. She <br> said she wants to be a better reader and she needs to spell better.=20 <br> Here's a quote (unsolicited!) "The vowels and consonants don't come <br> out right. I know I don't say all the words right."</blockquote><br><br> There may be different reasons for her experience. <br><br> <br> <blockquote type=3Dcite class=3Dcite cite>Mispronouncing words is another aspect of dyslexia. That's another <br> manifestation of not perceiving the sounds of language. Visual <br> misperception may play a part in some people's reading problems, but <br> it doesn't play a major role for most persons. (I won't cite the <br> research because you choose to dismiss it.)</blockquote><br><br> Do they mispronounce printed words? Do they also mispronounce the same word when they originate it in conversation? If they mispronounce the word when originating it and they then learn the correct sounds/pronunciation, do they no longer have trouble pronouncing the printed form? <br><br> <br> <blockquote type=3Dcite class=3Dcite cite>You quote R. Lyon's statement abou= t reading problems causing school <br> failure and then you say "It is totally unnecessary and an utter <br> disgrace that it is allowed to continue." That's exactly the point <br> Lyon was making! He does not, as you imply, "accept failure as <br> inevitable." The rest of his statement describes how children learn <br> to read - the necessity that children (and adults) be taught phonemic <br> awareness and how to apply the alphabetic principle. <br><br> Lyon does not ignore the need for accommodations, He is <br> communicating that children can be taught to read so they don't need <br> accommodations. The tragedy is that too many educators are too busy <br> debating viewpoints and do not give necessary instruction to the 30% <br> of the population that has difficulty hearing the sounds in words and <br> connecting the sounds to letters. </blockquote><br><br> Again assuming that their difficulty in reading is something that can be remediated. There is a lot of these phonetic awareness methods around yet there does not seem to be any less then 30 percent with reading difficulties. What happens to their future in education if they cannot read fast enough to keep up with the required amount of reading? Dr. Lyons did not offer any alternative to teaching phonetics. <br><br> Accommodation is not even considered as a viable remedy. Dr. Lyon's statement of the prognosis is correct without accommodation. Why is accommodation not promoted in the schools and in your adult Ed and literacy classes? It can mean the difference between a college education and academic failure, an economic future and underemployment. Why not speed listening classes? Why not learn to listen at 1.5 to 2 times the recorded rate with good comprehension?? Why not teach dictation? Why not use a screen reader to proof written work? You can hear mistakes that you would not pick up by reading the paper. Why not train people on how to efficiently scan books into etext so that they can be listened to on computers, MP3 machines and any CD player? How about teaching independence and self-reliance in reading so that they can get out of school? Why are there no tests of phonetic awareness in eligibility? How do you test phonetic awareness isolated from visuo perceptual problems? Dr. Sally Shaywitz uses this test. Say the word Germany and leave the "ma" out. She says this is a good test of phonetic awareness. Is it? I think not. You cannot do this without "first" revisualizing the word in your minds eye and then dropping the "ma" out, joining the two parts together and sounding out the result. The sounding out of the result is the only phonetic part of this test of phonetic awareness. You cannot do this quickly if you have difficulty revisualizing the word Germany in the first place. She denied this perceptual part completely and claimed that this proved a lack of phonetic awareness because so many of the poor readers had difficulty this the test. It is this type of ignoring of the facts that justifies the phonetic awareness/OG+ methods. I have to ask, why is this? Maybe you can answer that for me.<br><br> Another research project claimed that there was a correllation between reading disabilities and ADHD. When I read the research, I realized that these claims were being made quite convincingly but the children in the study never read a word, they were read to. How would they know if they could read or not?? Much of the research is all about numbers and statistics that sound good but mean little to the person with the reading problem. Why is it that everyone assumes that others are just clones of themselves and because they "learned" to read everyone can? <br><br> I would like to see some serious research that assumes that phonetic awareness has nothing at all to do with reading disabilities and think about what might be the problem. Some of you might try this. Approach a student with a reading disability and ignore everything that has to do with phonetic awareness as THE problem. Put all the OG+ programs away and think about how you are going to help this person. As you watch them read, ask yourself, "What is going on here?" What is this person doing when they are trying to read?? See where it takes you. You can't cheat and think of phonetics. I once heard that the definition of an intellectual was someone who could listen the William Tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger. I guess I'm dating myself.<br><br> There is no one more interested in anything that would enable someone with a reading disability to read normally then myself. I just do not see the support for phonetic awareness. I do not see the majority of young students with reading disabilities reading normally after they are 12.5 or 13 years of age and know the phonics and phonemics. Reading at the fifth grade is not overcoming the disability nor is it reading rapidly enough to be competitive academically and post academically.<br><br> I sometimes get very angry when I hear this forcing of phonetic awareness and OG+ without any better success then the fifth grade. If I have offended anyone I sincerely apologize, I just get so frustrated. I really am a nice guy who is in touch with the results of a system out of control. There has been little progress in resolving reading disabilities as a result of all this research. Maybe it is time to consider phonetic awareness as a possible part of the problem and look else ware. A bigger hammer does not word. I listen to patients who are the product of that kind of thinking and I see what it does. I am horrified at the number of students that come to see me and do not even know what their disability is. Most never heard of Recording for The Blind and Dyslexic. They never knew they could scan books into their computers and listen to them at accelerated rates. You have no idea what it feels like when a bright adult asks, " You mean I could have gone to college? You mean I did not have to drop out of high school? Why did no one tell me this? Why did they keep remediating me? It is so important to think. Sometimes the best question is: What am I doing? Not, why am I doing this or that? Try to get into their heads, their perception and try to figure out how to help them be successful. Forcing a rigid program that is limited at best and not considering alternatives is not doing that. The driving force should be the results and the impact on the daily activities of the student. I tell every client that my philosophy is this; I know something you don't know and you know some things I don't know. We will trade. I will learn as much from you as you will from me. You can see the body language change to one of trust and hope. This is not only true but it is empowering and takes me off the pedestal. I am very limited in how much I can help someone if I place myself above intellectually or in any other was above them. When they say, "No that is not what I do." I ask them to tell me what they do do. It is amazing what I learn. <br><br> Bringing up a reading level to the fifth grade level may be a great improvement for many but it is not good enough to be competitive. There is much discussion about which program is preferred over another. Where is the, What else can I do? What do I do now? I sense that the answer is more remediation or we haven't found the "Holy Grail in Teaching." I don't think there is such a thing but in the quest, what is not being looked at? If you are doing one think, you are not doing something else. What other choices are there for the students who want a good education and learn about history, English, literature, and so on. Where is the discussion on how to do this without reading above the 5th grade level. Where is the innovation? Where is the thinking out of the box? Are students even given a choice? I have never heard of a student being given any choice. <br><br> I have read a great deal of research, it is not that I ignore it, I do not. It all seems to say the same thing over and over and over. I have always been curious as to why the researchers keep trying to find how many ways they can prove that phonetic awareness is the true cause of the majority of reading disabilities. If it were so true, why do they need to keep trying to prove it? I spent many hours at Yale University being taught by the guru's in the field. I sat through many a multi-sensory lesson and had a great deal of behavior modification for reading and still could not read any better. I do not believe that I am the exception that many say I am. I have not found a single student with a reading disability that disagrees and they all identify and relate to the perceptual deficit in reading model. Phonics help compensate for the perceptual deficit but it will not fix it. I have lectured to large numbers of students with these disabilities and they all get that "ahah" and start accommodating. The now have a choice they never had before. They are also now responsible for their accessing printed material. That to me is a sound idea, self-reliance in reading, you can't beat that. True power is having a choice. Having this choice is truly empowering. <br><br> <br> Clif.<br><br> <blockquote type=3Dcite class=3Dcite cite>-- <br> Anne Murr, Coordinator<br> Adult Literacy Center<br> School of Education<br> Drake University<br> 3206 University Ave.<br> Des Moines, IA 50311<br> anne.murr@drake.edu<br> Tel 515-271-3982<br> Fax 515-271-4544<br><br> --</blockquote></html> --=====================_14731793==_.ALT--
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