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 j8TFQeG23847; Thu, 29 Sep 2005 11:26:40 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 11:26:40 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <039501c5c509$e768cdb0$0202a8c0@Tomschoice> 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: "John Nissen" <jn@cloudworld.co.uk> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-LD:4892] Re: LD and intensive phonics X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 4123 Lines: 100 Hello everybody, It seems I was too late for Christopher, and a bit off topic, since my questions were not related to technology. But I'd be interested to have answers to these questions. Concerning the first question I asked, what kind of particular problems do people with LD have with reading. Is there anything different from the "specific" learning difficulty, which is dyslexia (or at least embraces dyslexia)? Is the difficulty in phonological awareness, or in blending skills, or in spelling/decoding rules, or in comprehension, or a mixture of all these? If it is a mix, is there a characteristic mix? Has any research been done on this? On the second question, I have heard of people with LD being taught to recognise whole words by associating them with symbols. This seems to be a denial of the fact that letters represent sounds, and they should be taught how to decode words, by sounding out the letters and blending those sounds together. But one person I asked said that "phonics was not suitable for children with LD". I cannot believe this. Is there research evidence on whether intensive phonics teaching is effective or not for people with LD, regardless of age? The third question is about cause and effect. If poor readers are utilising their right brain when they should be using their left brain, they could end up with underdeveloped left brains, i.e. not as relatively large (compared to right brain) as normal. That would be an _effect_ of lack of use. Alternatively a left brain problem (e.g. damage) could be the _cause_ of their poor reading, from a young age, and they would grow up with a relatively small left brain. So is it cause or effect? What does the research say? And is there anything that can be done for the older child or adult person to help in left brain development? ---------- ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Nissen" <jn@cloudworld.co.uk> To: "Multiple recipients of list" <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 10:26 PM Subject: [NIFL-LD:4872] LD and intensive phonics > > Hello Christopher, > > I am sorry I coming into this session rather late. I hope I am not too > late > to join in with some questions. > > 1. Do people with LD have different teaching requirements? > > I am trying to find out whether there is any difference in the teaching > requirements for teaching people with LD to read, and teaching people with > dyslexia to read. I haven't found any factor to distinguish them, as > regards their reading (dis)ability. > > 2. Is poor reading due to poor teaching? > > Also I want to find out to what extent the poor reading, or non-reading, > is > due to misguided teaching. I often see that there are attempts to teach > whole word recognition rather than word decoding, especially for people > with > LD, who may be considered incapable of the necessary phonological > awareness. > In the Clackmannanshire study, it was shown that a 'phonics first and > fast' > approach worked marvels for all the children, and by the end of primary > school they were three years ahead in reading age compared to their peers > taught by the 'conventional' teaching of a mixture of methods (including > an > element of phonics, together with guessing strategies, etc.). I suspect > that anybody who has learnt to speak is also capable of the phonological > awareness required for reading and writing, given appropriate teaching. > > 3. Left brain development for rapid decoding > > Finally I wonder whether the right brain development in some poor readers > is > because they have developed skills for whole word recognition, and with > the > right teaching, their left brain would be developed to enable rapid > decoding, even in older children. BTW, I've written about the teaching of a brand of intensive phonics called "synthetic phonics" here: http://www.cloudworld.co.uk/teaching-synthetic-phonics.htm and I'd be grateful for comments. Cheers from Chiswick, John John Nissen, director Cloudworld Ltd maker of the WordAloud assistive reader http://www.cloudworld.co.uk
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