[NIFL-LD:3943] Cause of LD

From: John Nissen (jn@tommy.demon.co.uk)
Date: Thu Mar 14 2002 - 05:35:04 EST


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From: jn@tommy.demon.co.uk (John Nissen)
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Subject: [NIFL-LD:3943] Cause of LD
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Hi Anne,

There's an assumption that LD is to do with brain processes.  
But some recent research suggests reading ability is related to  
teaching.  See "How should reading be taught", Scientific
American, March 2002, pp70-77.  There is a real danger with
the "whole language" methods where you just learn to associate
whole words with their meanings.  A phonics ingredient is essential.

Bad teaching leads to the pupil being a slow reader, and getting
less reading practice.  Then it's a vicious circle.  

BTW, we have developed WordAloud to help slow readers to break
out of that vicious circle.  In "collect mode", WordAloud displays a
word at a time without speech.  When the user comes to a word they
can't read, they just click on it to hear it spoken by the
speech synthesiser.  The word is then added to a list, so they
can later revise the difficult words.  You can download a free
evaluation version from www.wordaloud.co.uk.

Cheers from Chiswick,

John
--
In message <a05010402b8b5325960d4@[10.3.3.130]> nifl-ld@nifl.gov writes:

>Yes, Barbara.  Persons with reading problems need to be informed that 
>the reason they can't read (well) is that their brains process 
>information differently.  (It's not that they are retarded, dumb, 
>lazy, etc., etc.) The basic information they have trouble with is 
>perceiving sounds in words and connecting the letters to those 
>sounds.  That must be directly taught in order for successful, 
>independent reading to ever occur.  The impact on self esteem is so 
>damaging.
>
>Thank you, Barbara, for sharing information about using the Wilson 
>Reading System.  It was 3 years ago that I read your LD Listserv 
>posting stating that, for college students that you serve in your 
>center, "when all else fails, we go to Wilson."  That's what got me 
>started.
>
>And that's why this Listserv is such a fabulous resource for us in 
>the field.  We learn so much from each other!  Thank you, Barbara, 
>and thank you ALL.
>
>Anne

-- 
Access the word, access the world! -- Try our WordAloud software!!

John Nissen, Cloudworld Ltd., Chiswick, London
Tel:   +44 (0) 845 458 3944 (local rate in the UK)
Fax:   +44 (0) 20 8742 8715
Web:   http://www.cloudworld.co.uk



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