[NIFL-POVRACELIT:474] Re: family literacy--it takes a village

From: Harry Forster (hforster@strato.net)
Date: Thu Apr 26 2001 - 16:18:24 EDT


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From: Harry Forster <hforster@strato.net>
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Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:474] Re: family literacy--it takes a village
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I appreciated the report that you posted.  Would it be possible to make the
entire report available somewhere?

I was particularly interested in Geraldine's statements below.   We have had a
similar experience in which the student was not aware of signs.  Once he started
to read he was proud to read street signs, store signs, and signs on trucks and
busses.  It appears that he previously was not even aware of signs.

I feel that the lack of awareness of signs may be an indicator of a learning
disability in which language is not processed by the brain.   When a person with
this problem sees a sign  the right brain sees the form of the sign but the
language areas of the brain do not process the words.   The result is that they
do not run into signs but they are also never aware that there is information on
the form.

Our work has indicated that such persons can not process phonics and that other
means of starting reading have to be used.  We see some indication that if the
cognitive parts of the brain are adequate the language processing can be made
cognitive rather than instinctive.

Have you, or any of your associates, noticed such effects?

gdemetrion wrote:

>
> Geraldine:  I look at the newspaper, I write the words down.  Then I ask my
> boyfriend what the sign is.  He like, "spell it.  If you can't spell it,
> write [copy] it.  Now I'm doing  both. I'm looking at the signs when I go
> down town. I'm looking this way and that way.  Then I take another [look?]
> and they don't be right.   I be like, "I give up."  Then I say something
> else and if it still don't be right, then I [get?] it then.  That's all.

Harry



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