Good NPR article about dyslexia

[ElizabethB]

The findings should not be shocking to anyone here, but good to share with friends who have struggling children.

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/03/11/591504959/rethinking-how-students-with-dyslexia-are-taught-to-read

[BlsdMama]

I can’t believe any schools are still teaching the whole language approach. The data is so clear for phonetic language development.

 

I'm flabbergasted too.  Sigh.

 

But I agree with the jist - if we were teaching effectively, using an OG method, we wouldn't need nearly the costly remediation (and often ineffective) that we currently do.  (And I will digress from jumping on my soapbox about how we could prevent a lot of bullying, anxiety, and eventually, prison costs.)

[displace]

I can’t believe any schools are still teaching the whole language approach. The data is so clear for phonetic language development.

Our school system uses it. They pretend it’s a combo of phonics, sight word memorization, thinking about what word would make sense, etc. It’s horrible, truly. It really encourages sight word memorization instead of phonics, guessing, etc. it’s been proven to be horrible for people with known dyslexia and pretty bad for neurotypical people too.

[TravelingChris]

I taught all three using phonics and my third who is dyslexic reads so so so much better than our son in law who is also dyslexic. So much so, that he thought she was lying about dyslexia when he first met her. Btw, he is a super strong advocate for homeschooling because of his poor education in public schools.

 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[ElizabethB]

I have a few good quotes I will find later from Mark Seidenberg’s “Reading at the Speed of Sight,†he talks about the disconnect between science and education and why poor teaching methods persist.

 

I'm flabbergasted too.  Sigh.

 

But I agree with the jist - if we were teaching effectively, using an OG method, we wouldn't need nearly the costly remediation (and often ineffective) that we currently do.  (And I will digress from jumping on my soapbox about how we could prevent a lot of bullying, anxiety, and eventually, prison costs.)

 

Soapbox away!  People need to know.  Most homeschoolers know, but a few don't, and almost all of us have friends with kids in schools that teach using balanced literacy. With 30% of students having some degree of reading problems, most of us probably know someone who needs to know.  (And they don't know that they don't know, you need to give out reading grade level tests and explain how the problem is hidden--the stick.  Or, the carrot--if you help your child learn to read above grade level, they will be able to finish their homework faster and with less effort.  My online Syllables program, my online phonics lessons, and Phonics Pathways are the easiest for a non homeschooling parent to use with their children.)

 

Yes, sadly, 70% of prisoners are illiterate, and they have tried phonics remediation of juvenile offenders and even did a government study about it, but it was discontinued. Mike Brunner’s book “Retarding America: The Imprisonment of Potential†is a good source for this. He states on page 26, “Every dollar invested in reading saved $1.75 as a result of reduced recidivism.â€

About 70% of those on welfare are illiterate, too.

 

My remedial students have often low self esteem, their whole demeanor and outlook on life changes as they start reading well.  Satisfying to fix, but aggravating to know the suffering should have been prevented if they were taught well in the first place with methods that have been repeatedly studied and proven over decades of research. 

Edited March 12, 2018 by ElizabethB

[ElizabethB]

I can’t believe any schools are still teaching the whole language approach. The data is so clear for phonetic language development.

Our school system uses it. They pretend it’s a combo of phonics, sight word memorization, thinking about what word would make sense, etc. It’s horrible, truly. It really encourages sight word memorization instead of phonics, guessing, etc. it’s been proven to be horrible for people with known dyslexia and pretty bad for neurotypical people too.

 

I have been tutoring since 1994, back when I first started some schools still did 100% whole language. Most of my remedial students didn't know all of the consonant sounds and knew only a few vowel sounds. The last 20 years have generally been balanced literacy, some variation of what Displace so aptly describes. They focus on meaning and sight words and do a variety of activities that are more towards the whole language side than the phonics side. For example, almost all of the lower level books in the Accelerated Reader program are based on sight words and are not phonetic, they promote guessing from the pictures. Then there is this horrible 3-cueing system that I don't totally understand but none of it seems to be good sound incremental explicit teaching. Guided reading promotes guessing and “reading†of words the students have not yet learned to decode.

 

Different schools use a varying level of different whole language based practices that routinely fail about 30% of students. A school in California that did speed drills with sight words was closer to 40%. A school that did less of the whole word stuff and added in their own supplemental phonics based spelling did almost as good as the private schools that teach with a good phonics program. (This was the only elementary school in the district that did this, the rest were normal balanced literacy, 30% failure rate. Houses zoned for this elementary school were almost $100K more than houses zoned for the other elementary schools. I tried to explain why to parents with kids in the other schools with only a few successes.)

 

In general, some phonics is taught, but sight words are taught first and most of the activities are whole language based and promote guessing. The phonics are usually not complete, upper level phonics are generally not taught, so the students do not end up with the tools they need to sound out anything. Moreover, the sight word start gets many students into the habit of guessing.  But, they do teach all the consonant sounds now and my students generally know the short vowel sounds and a few of the two letter vowel teams, but they don't know all of them and most cannot reliably sound out an open vowel 2+ syllable word if it is not a common word (for example, they can read tiger but not viper.)

 

ETA: Here is a quote with some things commonly taught in the 3-cueing system, then a link the the full article that explains why it is bad and a bit of what it is, I have tried to read several books about it, it is a complex theory/system that has been disproven with scientific research but still persists in the ed schools. (Hard to wade through the books, I read a bit, skim a bit, drop the book on the floor in disgust, wait until I can stomach it again, repeat process.)

 

 During reading. When your child gets stuck on a word, follow these 4 (sic) steps.

 

Ask your child to:

1. Guess what the word might be.

2. Look at the picture to help guess what the word might be.

3. Go back to the start of the sentence and re-read it, adding the word you think might make sense.

4. Read to the end of the sentence and check that the word "makes sense".

5. If the word makes sense then check if it "looks right" (could it be that word?).

 

If the word is still incorrect, tell your child the word and allow him/her to continue reading. It is inappropriate for your child to be directed to "sound out" words, using individual letter sounds, as many words cannot be identified in this manner.

 

https://www.nifdi.org/resources/news/hempenstall-blog/402-the-three-cueing-system-in-reading-will-it-ever-go-away

 

I would drop the book on the floor in disgust after reading, "It is inappropriate for your child to be directed to "sound out" words, using individual letter sounds, as many words cannot be identified in this manner."  I have found only a handful that fit that category, and I still teach phonetically those few letters in them that are regular!  It is not many, it is more like a small handful, and they almost all have interesting reasons for their irregularities.  (I don't share the interesting reasons with 5 year olds, but I do share them with inquisitive children age 6 and older, and any student who is 9 or older.)

Edited March 12, 2018 by ElizabethB

[Tanaqui]

They're not just teaching students - or "teaching" them - with whole words, they're indoctrinating the teachers.

 

Waaaaay back when I was first realizing my evidently dyslexic kiddo needed more help with writing than she was getting (or ever going to get because she can read) I did an inordinate amount of research on the subject. Ever spent time reading posts about literacy, reading instruction, and spelling on a teacher forum? Some of them will practically drive themselves to tears talking about how awful it is and how bad they feel for those poor kids who are learning to just hate reading and words because of phonics instruction.

[Tanaqui]

4. Read to the end of the sentence and check that the word "makes sense".

 

Technically, this is good advice all by itself. If your word choice doesn't make sense then you've done something wrong. But....

 

[ElizabethB]

They're not just teaching students - or "teaching" them - with whole words, they're indoctrinating the teachers.

 

Waaaaay back when I was first realizing my evidently dyslexic kiddo needed more help with writing than she was getting (or ever going to get because she can read) I did an inordinate amount of research on the subject. Ever spent time reading posts about literacy, reading instruction, and spelling on a teacher forum? Some of them will practically drive themselves to tears talking about how awful it is and how bad they feel for those poor kids who are learning to just hate reading and words because of phonics instruction.

 

I will hunt down those Seidenberg quotes tomorrow, he mentions the word indoctrination in his book when talking about the ed schools.

[ElizabethB]

Technically, this is good advice all by itself. If your word choice doesn't make sense then you've done something wrong. But....

 

They are actually not all that bad in isolation, but not as a primary method for reading!  In fact, Dr. Patrick Groff found that poor readers rather than good readers were more likely to use and benefit from these practices. For a good reader who can easily and fluently sound out the words, sounding them out is the easiest way to read.

[ElizabethB]

Yeah, but we do this for syllabic emphasis on a word we can already decode, not to figure the word out. I’m breaking out the syllabary with my current seven year old when he completes the last book in his phonics program, because he has a hard time figuring out the rhythm of a word and exposure to the lists and patterns of emphasis will probably do him much good.

 

But yeah, the context thing is something we studiously avoid when we are still learning new phonograms and expanding our reading skills. Otherwise it can become a crutch, and a very poor one as books move further away from pictures coupled with words to straight blocks of text.

 

The arrangement of 2+ syllable words by schwa accent pattern in Webster is especially helpful for ESL students and a few other students, usually young boys, but a few girls or any student with a speech/language processing issue; basically students that do not naturally figure out the cadence of our language.  My daughter naturally figured it out and we finished Webster early, just doing a few words from each table; my son worked through Webster until the end of 4th grade and needed to do a lot more multi-syllable words.

[Tanaqui]

I would drop the book on the floor in disgust after reading, "It is inappropriate for your child to be directed to "sound out" words, using individual letter sounds, as many words cannot be identified in this manner."  I have found only a handful that fit that category, and I still teach phonetically those few letters in them that are regular!

 

Oh, god, I just remembered something. A few months ago there was another NPR article on how schools don't diagnose dyslexia.

 

As is typical for the comments, there was somebody eagerly stating that you can't sound out a certain word using phonics.

 

What word did she pick to show the uselessness of phonetics education? Two? Eye? Lead (the metal)? Ewe? Island?

 

No, the word she picked was... color.

 

:rolleyes:

[HomeAgain]

This weekend I watched a Kindergarten teacher sitting down with a parent/child in the book store and teach them how to use BOB books: by memorizing every word first, then "reading" the story.  Repeat for the next book.  And the next.  It was......I can't even say eye-opening.  It was disappointing.  I'd like to say a large part is the increase of "skills" a young child is supposed to have at each grade level.  The teachers have to frontload the information to get them to pass, and then try to teach in reverse.

[Lecka]

What would be really frustrating to me is that the parents of the kids who would learn to read no matter what, who just picked it up easily, will often say "oh the school has such a good reading program." 

 

Well, it's great it worked out for their kids, but that doesn't mean it is a good reading program. 

 

Really I have heard this so much. 

 

No, just because your child is a good reader it doesn't mean that the school is using a good reading program. 

 

Where we were, it definitely wasn't that bad, it really wasn't, but it also wasn't that good, either.  My son got a lot of help from his 1st grade teacher, and I did a huge amount with him at home.  He got placement with his 1st grade teacher known as very good for struggling readers. 

 

But having a great teacher is not the same as the school having a good reading program.  It just isn't. 

[ElizabethB]

Language at the Speed of Sight by Mark Seidenberg explains the science behind reading, including recent brain research, and also seeks to understand why the definite answers from science have not been implemented in the classroom.

 

From page 9:

Here we encounter a problem. There is a profound disconnection between the science of reading and educational practice. Very little of what we’ve learned about reading as scientists has had any impact on what happens in the schools because the cultures of science and education are so different.  These cross-cultural differences, like many others, are difficult to bridge.

 

The gulf between science and education has been harmful.  A look at the science reveals that the methods commonly used to teach children are inconsistent with basic facts about human cognition and development and so make learning to read more difficult than it should be.  They inadvertently place many children at risk for reading failure. They discriminate against poorer children. They discourage children who could have become more successful readers. Many children who manage to learn to read under these conditions wind up disinterested in the activity. In short, what happens in the classrooms isn’t adequate for many children, and this shows in the quality of this country’s literacy achievement.

 

 

From p. 249

The barriers between educational training programs and the related sciences—psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science—are especially well entrenched.  Those barriers could be overcome, and, as I will argue, the benefits could be substantial. What is required is ending Education’s hegemony over education.

 

p. 251-252

If teachers are not trained to teach, how are they prepared for the profession? The principal function of schools of education is to socialize prospective teachers into an ideology—a set of beliefs and attitudes about children, the nature of education, and the teacher’s role. Prospective teachers are exposed to the ideas of a select group of theorists who provide the intellectual foundations for this ideology.

 

 

And, the indoctrination line, from p. 254, after describing some of the activities common in the ed. schools:

 

I have no direct experience with these activities, but as described they are uncomfortably reminiscent of methods used to restructure people’s beliefs to bring them into alignment with a dominant political ideology. The assumption that the individual’s beliefs are insufficiently advanced, the engagement in extended self-criticism, the public confession and repudiation of errors in thinking: the goals may be more enlightened and the methods kinder, but they share characteristics with other forms of indoctrination. Perhaps the more benign comparison is to 1970’s-era sensitivity training and consciousness training.

 

 

 

The book is well worth reading, here is his website:

 

https://seidenbergreading.net

[ElizabethB]

What would be really frustrating to me is that the parents of the kids who would learn to read no matter what, who just picked it up easily, will often say "oh the school has such a good reading program." 

 

Well, it's great it worked out for their kids, but that doesn't mean it is a good reading program. 

 

Really I have heard this so much. 

 

No, just because your child is a good reader it doesn't mean that the school is using a good reading program. 

 

Where we were, it definitely wasn't that bad, it really wasn't, but it also wasn't that good, either.  My son got a lot of help from his 1st grade teacher, and I did a huge amount with him at home.  He got placement with his 1st grade teacher known as very good for struggling readers. 

 

But having a great teacher is not the same as the school having a good reading program.  It just isn't. 

 

Right, that masks the problem.  Also, the proliferation of tutoring and tutoring centers masks the problem and increases the gap between the poor and the better off, those least likely to get and afford tutoring are poor and minorities, also minorities have generational literacy gaps that make them unable to after school to fix the problem. 

 

The other thing that masks the problem is that it doesn't show up for a student with just a bit of a problem until you are given a harder text with a lot of unfamiliar 2+ syllable words, and many school books and books in the AR program have been dumbed down and stripped of most vocabulary outside of the most common words, more common words are easier to guess and the very most common words are taught as wholes by sight.