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 j9JKn3G03815; Wed, 19 Oct 2005 16:49:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 16:49:03 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <8C7A304D3A0AA6F-FA0-113C@FWM-D40.sysops.aol.com> 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: robinschwarz1@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-LD:4943] Re: LD and intensive phonics X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed X-Mailer: AOL WebMail 1.1.0.14204 Status: O Content-Length: 17384 Lines: 443 -----Original Message----- From: Robinschwarz1 To: nifl-ld@nifl.gov Sent: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 11:28:58 -0400 Subject: Re: [NIFL-LD:4927] Re: LD and intensive phonics Sorry to be chiming in on this somewhat late-- I was traveling. Aaron's reference to Ken Pugh's work is great-- the point of Pugh's research, to my mind, is that the process of reading is the same in any language and occurs in the same part of the brain. When it can be observed that it does not, we can predict that that person will have more difficulty with "standard" teaching than the person whose brain does it in the more common, if you will, way. John has a point about "synthetic phonics"--the process of making English more predictable to decode. It has been observed by numerous researchers in the last decade that relatively few persons show up with reading problems (called dyslexia when reading is a very difficult skill to acquire) in languages which are more "transparent" or regular in their orthography--e.g. Italian, Hungarian, Finnish, Korean-. The effect of learning in those language is the same as with the synthetic phonics John is discussing-- the sound-symbol system is completely regular and easy to predict. I observed that in Italy, for example, children are able to spell almost every word in Italian by second grade because Italian is so regular. Because of this phenomenon, it was believed for a time that there was no dyslexia in these languages. But studies such as the one Ken Pugh and others have done show that the anomaly that causes difficulty in becoming a fluent reader is present in persons in all cultures and languages. It is only that their compensatory skills--provided either by the language they are learning in, or in the case of English, by extremely skilled teaching and hard work--have allowed them to overcome the anomaly. Recent attempts to find out if in fact dyslexia-- or that brain anomaly--could be detected have shown that readers in these transparent languages who have the anomaly still read more slowly relative to their non-impaired peers--though on an absolute scale comparing ALL readers, their slower reading is hard to detect. Many features of English contribute to its being such a difficult language for those persons with dyslexia--i.e. the well-documented brain anomaly causing the processing of the sound symbol association to occur in other places in the brain. First, of course, is the incredible range of sounds and symbols a skilled reader must deal with. The figure of 1,100 -- maybe more- of actual graphemes (That is, ways we represent sounds) in English has come across my radar screen recently. This requires amazing flexibility of the brain. . Second is the fact that up through second grade at least, more than half of the words needed to be a fluent reader are "sight words"--words that cannot be easily put into phonological categories. Thus an English reader must learn not just the phonics of English, but a body of sight words at the same time. It requires that a truly skilled reader have an excellent SIGHT, or visual memory, --as well as skill in sound symbol association Thirds, add to that the fact that English has, as we know, parallel vocabularies-- the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman, plus who knows how many others, which results in an incredibly large lexicon--or number of words that we use. ( the most recent OED has over 800,000 words in it, WAY more than any other language on the planet) This means a reader must be skilled at understanding and using synonyms and multiple meanings of words (some piece of literature I found pointed out that in one child's basal reader, the word "play" was used in 5 different ways in about three pages!!). English VALUES variation--which means that when learners learn to read, unless the text is highly controlled, they do NOT see the same words--and the same patterns of words-- over and over as does a reader in Italian, for example. Fourth, because of the size and multi-lingual nature of the language, a skilled reader must have a good understanding of and use of morphology--the pieces and parts that make up English. Otherwise, as those of us who have tutored hard core non-readers know, every word is a new word. This understanding of the word parts--roots and affixes-- develops relatively late in the literacy process. and fifth, one of the fundamental skills required to be literate is phonological AWARENESS--that is, to put it simply, the understanding of the sound chunks of a language and that these chunks can be manipulated. Weakness in phonological awareness has been shown time and again to be strongly associated with dyslexia. So what synthetic phonics appears to be doing is addressing this fundamental weakness in beginning readers before the weakness interferes with their attempt to make sense of print. In English, one of the most fundamental constructs of sound--and requirements in phonological awareness-- is the rhyme scheme, made up of units known as onset-rhyme--that is, the beginning of the unit , /c/ and the rime (spelled rime because it refers to the unit, not the function) -/at/. Nearly every English word is constructed this way, either simple words or in the syllables in longer words, and if a learner is not fundamentally skilled in hearing and constructing rhyme, then reading is VERY difficult, if not impossible. Try it-- ask a struggling reader you know to produce rhymes for simple words. I have repeatedly had amazing success with severely impaired readers by working at getting them to hear and produce rhyme--often a LONG process! But finally, I want to add my voice to those who caution that many things may be going on. Not all people who struggle to read have phonological problems or phonological awareness difficulties. There is a good body of research and plenty of evidence to show that many who have mastered the system but do not read well have visual difficulties that interfere with reading. Vision functions in poor readers need to be checked routinely--all vision functions, not just near and far point acuity, but binocularityand tracking-- how the eyes focus on one point and then move smoothly across print. I cannot even count the struggling readers I have assessed who have ONLY this difficulty-- and some who have both this and phonological problems. These visual problems can be addressed in young peobinocularity ple with vision therapy and in older readers with prisms that offset many of the problems. And finally, because I won't probably jump in again for a while, let me agree with some who have said that dyslexia, which is a real condition, does not affect just reading. It may be associated with a broader spectrum of learning disabilities, which are difficult to manage in real life. And my own concern is that if dyslexia exists, foreign language learning is often, if not usually, significantly impacted. A person who has had no difficulty reading in their first language, either because of good teaching or because the language was not difficult to master, but who has the brain anomaly referred to earlier, is very likely to have a lot of difficulty when encountering a foreign language. So let us not dismiss dyslexia as a result of poor teaching. It is true that most who end up with reading problems could have been helped early on to avoid these problems, but the difficulty is real and should not be swept aside in an effort to show the effectiveness of a good reading program. Robin Schwarz, Specialist in LD/ ESOL Partner, The TLP Group Columbus, OH -----Original Message----- From: Aaron Kohring <akohring@utk.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Sent: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 09:09:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [NIFL-LD:4927] Re: LD and intensive phonics John, Sorry I couldn't respond earlier- I have been out of town the past week. Kenneth Pugh at Yale Univ. has also done some recent brain research using MRIs and looking at what happens in the brain when someone is reading. There is a short write-up here on his research area: http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Haskins/STAFF/pugh.html\ I don't know if more has been published yet. Aaron At 11:04 AM 9/30/2005 -0400, you wrote: >Hello Aaron, > >Thank you for the references. I had a good read of the article on >Neurobiology, and it is very informative and well written. > >However I have some problems with it. From what I have seen, none of the >research on dyslexia has taken into account a key environmental factor - how >the subjects had been taught to read. Moreover none of the researchers, to >my knowledge, have looked at children who have been given intensive phonics >training at the start of primary school, by either explicit phonics or >synthetic phonics. Perhaps the patterns of brain activation would be >different, if the subjects had been taught in a different way. In the >Clackmannanshire study, all the children were taught to read successfully >using synthetic phonics, and there was little or no "dyslexia" apparent. >And I have heard of reseach suggesting that the left brain can indeed by >"activated" to help people overcome reading problems. > >Therefore, I am suspicious when the article says that "dyslexia is a >persistent and chronic condition". It seems there might be effective >remediation that could activate the parts of the brain that are used by >normal readers. A key giveaway in the article is as follows: > >[quote] > The awareness that all words can be decomposed into these basic elements of >language (phonemes) allows the reader to decipher the reading code. In order >to read, a child has to develop the insight that spoken words can be pulled >apart into phonemes and that the letters in a written word represent these >sounds. This so-called phonemic awareness is largely missing in dyslexic >children and adults. Results from large and well-studied populations with >reading disability confirm that in young school-aged children, as well as in >adolescents, a deficit in phonology represents the most robust and specific >correlate of reading disability. >[end quote] > >The explicit phonics and synthetic phonics are designed to give this >phonemic awareness from the start. The other skill these methods impart is >"blending" - the ability to put the phonemes together to form (spoken) >words. This skill is not mentioned in the article but is a key skill for >reading. > >There is a great danger of looking at the brain of a dyslexic person, and >saying the brain has been "disrupted" or "impaired", when in fact it may be >just the way the person was taught. Is there any evidence to the contrary? > >What I'd like to see is brain scans of the Clackmannanshire pupils reading, >to see which parts of the brain they are using, especially for those pupils >with dyslexic genes. > >Cheers from Chiswick, > >John > >P.S. Ian, I'm copying this to you, because I read you'd done some fMRI with >researchers at Bristol. > > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Aaron Kohring" <akohring@utk.edu> >To: "Multiple recipients of list" <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> >Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 5:00 PM >Subject: [NIFL-LD:4893] Re: LD and intensive phonics > > > > John, > > > > Yes, there is research into some of these areas you mention. > > > > I'd recommend taking a look at the Focus on Basics article: The > > Neurobiology of Reading and Dyslexia: http://www.ncsall.net/?id=278\ > > > > Also, look at the resources under the section on Teaching/Learning related > > to instruction: http://ldlink.coe.utk.edu/research.htm\ > > > > Other good instructional guides are found here: > > http://ldlink.coe.utk.edu/ld_instruction.htm\ > > > > Aaron > > > > > > At 11:26 AM 9/29/2005 -0400, you wrote: > >>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\ > > > > Aaron Kohring > > Coordinator, LINCS Literacy & Learning Disabilities Special Collection > > > > Center for Literacy Studies, University of Tennessee > > EFF Center for Training and Technical Assistance > > Phone:(865) 974-4109 main > > (865) 974-4258 direct > > Fax: (865) 974-3857 > > e-mail: akohring@utk.edu > > > > Aaron Kohring Coordinator, LINCS Literacy & Learning Disabilities Special Collection Center for Literacy Studies, University of Tennessee EFF Center for Training and Technical Assistance Phone:(865) 974-4109 main (865) 974-4258 direct Fax: (865) 974-3857 e-mail: akohring@utk.edu
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