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Easy classroom tips for Literacy strugglers

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Easy classroom tips for Literacy strugglers

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Dyslexia is a learning difference which primarily affects reading and writing skills. However, it does not only affect these skills. Dyslexia is actually about information processing. Dyslexic people may have difficulty processing and remembering information they see and hear, which can affect learning and the acquisition of literacy skills. Dyslexia can also impact on other areas such as organisational skills.

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“Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.”

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Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty that can cause problems with reading, writing and spelling.

It's a specific learning difficulty, which means it causes problems with certain abilities used for learning, such as reading and writing.

Unlike a learning disability, intelligence isn't affected.

It's estimated up to 1 in every 10 people in the UK has some degree of dyslexia.

Dyslexia is a lifelong problem that can present challenges on a daily basis, but support is available to improve reading and writing skills and help those with the problem be successful at school and work.

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“Dyslexia is a learning difficulty (or difference) that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling.

• Dyslexia occurs across a range of intellectual ability

• Additional difficulties may be seen in aspects of language, motor coordination, mental calculation, concentration and personal organisation

• Dyslexia is on a continuum

• A good indication of the severity and persistence of dyslexic difficulties can be gained by examining how the individual responds to well informed intervention”

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Dyslexia can be described as a continuum of difficulties in learning to read, write and/or spell, which persist despite the provision of appropriate learning opportunities. These difficulties often do not reflect an individual's cognitive abilities and may not be typical of performance in other areas.

The impact of dyslexia as a barrier to learning varies in degree according to the learning and teaching environment, as there are often associated difficulties such as:

auditory and/or visual processing of language-based information

phonological awareness

oral language skills and reading fluency

short-term and working memory

sequencing and directionality

number skills

organisational ability

Motor skills and co-ordination may also be affected.

Dyslexia exists in all cultures and across the range of abilities and socio-economic backgrounds.

It is a hereditary, life-long, neurodevelopmental condition. Unidentified, dyslexia is likely to result in low self-esteem, high stress, atypical behaviour, and low achievement.

Learners with dyslexia will benefit from early identification, appropriate intervention and targeted effective teaching, enabling them to become successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens.

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http://addressingdyslexia.org/free-online-learning-modules

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Free Online Learning Modules | Addressing Dyslexia Addressing Dyslexia

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Free Open University Online Learning Modules Three free online learning modules, which support GTC Scotland Professional Standards, Professional Update…

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The Dyslexia-SpLD-Trust, or the Trust, is a collaboration of voluntary and community organisations with funding from the Department for Education to provide reliable information to parents, teachers, schools and the wider sector. It acts as the important communication channel between government, leading dyslexia organisations, parents, schools, colleges, teachers and the sector.

For specific information and guidance on how to support children and young people with dyslexia-SpLD please feel free to contact us.

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Find out more about dyslexia here, where you will find expert articles and videos.

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Some strengths of Dyslexia- there are many and using these strengths in the classroom will help children make progress 

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Some strengths of Dyslexia- there are many and using these strengths in the classroom will help children make progress 

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Find out more about dyslexia here, where you will find expert articles and videos.

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Support and advice

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This website places cookies on your computer to improve your experience. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. For more details, see our privacy policy. I agree

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The British Dyslexia Association is the voice for the 10% of the population that are dyslexic

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Specific Learning Difficulties including dyslexia, spelling and memory

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The Dyslexia Association provides advice and assistance to families to raise awareness of the condition within the wider community.

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What is Dyslexia? - The Dyslexia Association

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Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed. Dyslexia occurs across the range of intellectual abilities. It is best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct category, and there are no clear cut-off points. Co-occurring difficulties may be seen in aspects of language, motor coordination, mental calculation, concentration and personal organisation, but these are not, by themselves, markers of dyslexia. A good indication of the severity and persistence of dyslexic difficulties can be gained by examining how the individual responds or has responded to well-founded intervention.

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I have dyslexia.....

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As part of our ongoing commitment to raise awareness of dyslexia and specific learning difficulties, the British Dyslexia Association has a comprehensive training programme. We deliver our expert training in a number of formats so that you can find a session to suit your needs, whether you are an organisation aiming to raise dyslexia awareness among your workforce or a dyslexia professional looking to gain a Level 7 accreditation and everything in between.

Live Virtual Training

We provide a rolling programme of free live information webinars to members of the public to raise awareness about supporting individuals with specific learning difficulties.

We also run live half and full day virtual training courses on specific topics:

Modules which can lead to an Accredited Level 2 or Level 3 qualification, suitable for any attendees including parents, carers, teachers, employers and professionals

CPD tailored towards specialist teachers and assessors in particular.

You can see our programme of live events here.
Please scroll down to view our specific topic courses.
Live Bespoke Training

We provide live information webinars, virtual training and in-person sessions about dyslexia, dyscalculia and supporting individuals with specific learning difficulties to a broad range of organisations:

Workplaces

Schools and other educational settings

Charities and public sector organisations

This can include modules of our accredited training or professional CPD.

We can schedule these sessions at times to suit you and can tailor this private training to be relevant to the needs of your delegates. You can see our price list here.

To book a bespoke training session for your organisation please email us at onsitetraining@bdadyslexia.org.uk

Accredited Training

We provide gold standard accredited training courses which are delivered online including:

Level 7 Diploma in Dyslexia Assessment and Intervention

Level 5 Certificates in Dyslexia; Literacy, Support and Intervention and in Dyscalculia and Maths Learning Difficulties; Support and Intervention

Level 4 Workplace Assessors Programme

Level 3 Various which can be undertake module by module

Level 2 Various which can be undertake module by module

Please scroll down to view our accredited courses.
eLearning/Online Training

We provide a comprehensive programme of eLearning/online training modules on specific topics:

Modules which can lead to an Accredited Level 2 or Level 3 qualification, suitable for any attendees including parents, carers, teachers, employers and professionals

CPD tailored towards specialist teachers and assessors in particular.

Please note: Access to eLearning/online modules are released on the first Thursday following the submission of your booking; and more specifically, providing payment has been made before the allotted time.

Please note: eLearning modules will automatically expire after 3 months, from the date that the module has been released.
Please scroll down to view our eLearning/online specific topic courses.
Payments

Payments can be made by credit/debit card or for businesses and organisations by invoice.

If you have any problems with the booking process please email us: training@bdadyslexia.org.uk

Professional Members Only - to book your discounted eLearning modules please email us at: elearning@bdadyslexia.org.uk

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The British Dyslexia Association is the voice for the 10% of the population that are dyslexic

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Patoss training and events are one of the biggest reasons to join and are available to a variety of member types.

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Almost impossible to get through the NHS or LA. Have to pay for them costing in the region of £300-£600

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OpenDyslexic is a typeface designed against some common symptoms of dyslexia.
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I like this article because it talks about identifying signs of dyslexia by grade level.

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Teaching Students with Dyslexia: How to Recognize Early Warning Signs, Provide Effective Intervention, and Unlock Student Achievement | Lexia

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Dyslexia is one of the most common yet misunderstood learning disabilities. Find out the surprising truth about dyslexia, including the challenges, warning signs, and support strategies. This paper is a must-read for educators across all grade levels.

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An Interview...

Remember to click on Note: any word on this page to experience the next evolutionary step in technology supported reading.
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(see ' Interview Notes' for more details). Bold is used to emphasize our [Children of the Code] sense of the importance of what is being said and does not necessarily reflect gestures or tones of emphasis that occurred during the interview.

Point of View:

David Boulton: To begin with, help us understand your passion and point of view.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: All right. I'm a neuroscientist, but a pediatrician by training. My interest in trying to better understand learning disabilities, and particularly reading difficulties, came from my own experience as a resident, seeing many, many children and their families. I became aware of how worried mothers and fathers were about how their children were doing in school, and, also, how little we, particularly pediatricians, knew about it, and had to offer these families. Since that time I chose to not only be a pediatrician, but to specialize in developmental and behavioral pediatrics, and then further in learning disabilities, and then further in reading.

Over the years I've really gotten to know so many children and their families, and also I've seen the children grow up and got to know them as adolescents and young adults and even adults. I have seen the tremendous cost to these children and their families of having reading problems that often were unidentified and misunderstood and inadequately treated.

David Boulton: So, you connected up with and empathized with the challenges they're living through in some way that drew you in.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Oh, absolutely. As a neuroscientist I feel privileged to be studying the brain, but I think the passion that drives my husband and me, we work together, is really the knowledge and experience of what the cost is to individuals. It's an enormous, enormous cost and because it seems to be hidden, as I say in my book " Hidden only from those who don't have to live with it."It's frequently terribly misunderstood. Children who are struggling to read, are often told, "Well, you're not motivated," or, "You're not trying hard enough." Or if a parent is concerned, that parent might be told, "Oh, you're just worrying, don't worry, they'll outgrow the problem." The idea that this is somehow a phase rather than something that will be with the child for life.

David Boulton: Yes. One of our interests is to explore what happens when children become so ashamed of how they feel about themselves in this process that it creates an almost preconscious aversion to it.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Well, I think that's true. I've had the good fortune to speak to many people who are dyslexic, and who've been highly successful by anyone's standards. But if you speak to them, as I have, and you ask them: " Well, what was it like for you when you were a child, particularly, what was school like?" And you see this terrible look on their face. Particularly they recall the really horrible experience of being called upon to read aloud in class, in front of everyone when they couldn't do it.

David Boulton: Yes.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's the kind of mental image and emotional experience that stays with a child. It's really remarkable how many adults will remember that and can picture that classroom and how they felt and how they wanted to get out of there and avoid that at all costs.

David Boulton: Right. Almost everyone we talk to speaks about this feeling level connection with people who are suffering with this challenge.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Yes, this isn't an academic abstraction, it's about real people who have to live with something that people don't see, and that's why I guess it's been a really wonderful thing that the science has progressed so far, and that we actually now have the ability to see the brain at work, so we can actually see what is happening at the most basic levels.

What Brain Scans Reveal:

David Boulton: Good. Thank you. That's a great place to start from. Relative to what you were just saying about being able to see the brain working on these fundamental levels, tell me a little bit about your research model, what you've been looking for and how you've gone about it.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Well, clearly, for anyone who's interested in reading and dyslexia, which was initially described over a hundred years ago, the goal has been to try to understand where, at a fundamental level, reading takes place; and obviously it takes place in the brain. However, the challenge has been how do you study a process within the brain of children who are otherwise healthy? Fortunately, we have a very nice hard skull protecting the brain. So, how do you look within the brains of healthy children? We've all been extraordinarily fortunate that two lines of research have converged. One is the understanding of the basic nature of reading and reading difficulties; and the other has been the extraordinary progress in technology that allows us in really quite a benign way to be able to image the brain at work. We use Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), which allows us to image children and adults as they try to read without using radiation or injections or anything like that.

So, our first goal was to see if the technology could work, and to be able to identify and localize what are the brain systems used in reading. First we studied adults, good and poor readers. We found that good readers use three major systems on the left side of the brain. Then we found that poor readers had a disruption, a significant underactivation of two of the regions in the back of the brain. But when you see that, the question always is: Is this something that if you see it in an adult, is it the result of years and years of not reading?

David Boulton: Right, or mis-learning to read, as distinct from being something that's more neurobiological/structural in origin?

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Well, yes - not quite, maybe having not read... I'll get to something in a moment, and you'll see why I'm sort of hedging here.

David Boulton: Okay.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Anyway, so our next step was to study a very, very large group of children who were good readers and struggling readers, and we found exactly what we had found in the adults, a significant underactivation in the areas in the back of the brain. This study was really a very, very informative one because there was an unusually large number of children participating, 144. That is a very large number of children for an imaging study and that allowed us to do a number of things. It allowed us to begin to map out: Well, what do these areas do? What was particularly of interest to us was one of the areas - have you seen my book?

David Boulton: I have it in front of me.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: The area in the back of the brain, the left occipital temporal region, or the word forming area - activation in that area was significantly related to a child's skill as a reader. So, the individual differences in reading skills were related to individual differences in brain activation. That was very important, because this is a very important area in fluency, which is critical to being able to read not only accurately, but also rapidly and with good intonation. So, we went from simply geographically identifying the systems to being able to see the locations of potential differences between good and poor readers, and what the role of each of these systems is.

Connecticut Longitudinal Study:

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Then we were able to go even one step further. I directed a study called the Connecticut Longitudinal Study. This study has been ongoing since 1983, where we've followed an epidemiologic sample of Connecticut school children. The target population was to reflect and be representative of all children attending public kindergarten in the state of Connecticut.

We've now followed and continue to follow ninety percent of that group, so they're now in their mid- twenties. We gave them reading tests every year and every other year ability tests; asked their teachers about them, asked the families about themselves, asked the children how they felt about themselves. It's a very broad range of information about the children.

What we were able to do as a result of that is when this group was in their early twenties a few years ago, identify three groups: one group who had never had a reading problem; one group who seemed to early on, in third and fourth grade, have a reading problem, but by the time they were in ninth grade, have really good accuracy, but still not fluent; and the third group, who we call persistently poor readers, they were poor readers in third grade and in ninth grade.

When we imaged them - I'll make what could be a long story very short - we found that the worst readers, the persistently poor readers, had the systems for reading in place, but they'd never been properly activated. They weren't connected up the same way as good readers. More importantly, because we had data on these young people from the time they entered school, we knew about their families and schools. What we found was that the persistently poor readers seemed to have lower verbal ability from the beginning and to attend more disadvantaged schools than the group that had compensated.

That has led us to hypothesize that we may be dealing with two different types of poor readers: one type, which would represent about a third of the total group of poor readers, who had their reading problems on an inherent basis. The other, which would represent two-thirds of the poor readers, seemed to have the systems for reading intact, but they'd never been properly activated. So these were shown primarily as environmental influences, perhaps from growing up in more disadvantaged circumstances and from not having received the kinds of reading instruction that would properly activate these systems.

Again, this is not to just to be simplistic and think that it's either all genetic or all environmental.

David Boulton: Right.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: With every child it's always a combination. But in each child, also, there's a predominance of one or the other. What's very hopeful is that this large group representing two-thirds of all poor readers are children who really could be helped, who have the systems intact, who don't have that kind of disruption, but really haven't that that kind of stimulation either at home or at school that would allow these systems to be properly activated.

Limitations of Current Brain Scans:

David Boulton: Do we have any brain imaging tests that you're aware of that allow us to see a signature distinction in the structure or processing of the brain before the process of learning to read that predicts difficulty in learning to read?

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: We don't. I know exactly what you're saying, and that would be just a really commendable goal. Currently, when we do functional brain imaging, children have to lie very still, and the youngest that I think we or others have done is about six-and-a-half. So then at that time that would be when children are about near the end of kindergarten. So, you'd expect them to have the rudiments of early reading in place.

It may be possible, with other technologies that are evolving, to be able to identify children earlier.

David Boulton: So, currently there's a rather significantly sized uncertainty about that threshold.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's right.

David Boulton: Okay. Relative to your tests, how fast a frequency variation can you see? I mean, for example, with Keith Rayner's work we're seeing that the difference between graphemic and phonological follow-up is happening in a five to twenty-five millisecond time window when somebody is reading well.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Well, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imagining doesn't give temporal information.

David Boulton: So, then difficulties associated with the time precarious interactive interplay between these various modules you're identifying can't be seen with the equipment and setups we've got yet.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Certainly not with the Functional MRI. But what we can see, for example, that when we present words to children very quickly if they are using the word formation area that's critical for fluent reading. That's possible.

Now there are new techniques that show how the parts of the brain are connected, so we can have a sense - and that's what I was just telling you about in the last research I mentioned, where we looked at the persistently poor readers who seemed to have all the systems in place, but they weren't connected appropriately, they weren't connected properly. I think this is an area where the technology is evolving very, very rapidly, so I think things are really changing as we speak.

David Boulton: So, we're heading towards being able to peer into this space. It seems when children are reading, if we really track their facial expressions and articulations, there's a hesitancy, or starting and stopping that happens for struggling readers, and that that starting and stopping has a correspondence to a number of things. One thing for sure is the kind of ambiguity they're processing at that moment, yes?

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Well, yes, I think each of us would represent that a little bit differently.

David Boulton: Okay.

The Challenge of Learning to Read:

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: To us, when we think of how children learn to read, children first, you know, obviously learn the letters and the sounds. Then they learn strategies to sound out words. When they're doing that, that's still laborious. It demands attention.

David Boulton: Right.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: After they've read a word correctly a number of times - no one knows exactly how many times, some people think four or six, and it probably varies for each child - but have read a word over and over again correctly - and that's the key, correctly - then that the word becomes automatic, and they just need to look at it and they automatically recognize it. That's where that occipital temporal region becomes involved. So it's really that occipital temporal region that is critical because it's that same ventral stream on the left side of the brain. So this particular area on the left side of the brain, the word forming area, is the area that we and others believe serves the expertise in reading. That's very, very important because when you can read a word fluently it's read automatically. That means you don't have to devote conscious attention to it. And unless you can read words fluently, you're not going to enjoy reading.

David Boulton: Right.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: It's hard work. That why I think so many people misunderstand what a struggling reader is all about. It's not that they can't read. That may happen, but it's very rare. But it's how much effort they have to put into it.

David Boulton: The bandwidth they're consuming to do the processing to get to that level of fluency that can allow them to run.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's right.

David Boulton: Which comes back to the point that there's certain processing involved. In order to get to a point where there's the automatic recognition that you're describing, they need to develop the skills that will allow them to work out a word they haven't previously encountered.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Exactly.

David Boulton: It's in that process, how well they learn to work out a word that's confusing them, and how fast they're able to do that that's at the core of whether or not this whole thing smoothes out and becomes transparent enough.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's right. I don't know if I would use those exact words, but I would agree with the idea.

David Boulton: Okay. So there's a time that it takes to work it out that's associated with creating a phonological experience of the word they're reading, yes?

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Well, yes, a phonologic model that's able to transform the letters into the sounds the letters have to represent.

David Boulton: And in the course of doing that, as we know, there's this very ambiguous - to the child, anyway - relationship between the letters and the sounds, that their brain has to work out.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Oh, absolutely. When I lecture, what I always say is: That's the whole challenge in reading. The spoken language is not a challenge, because it's natural, it's been with us forever, it's been certainly hundreds and thousands of years. We as human beings are genetically programmed and our brains are hardwired for spoken language; whereas written language, from an evolutionary perspective, anyway, is much newer.

Unnatural Challenge:

David Boulton: Okay. One of the things that our project starts off with is the distinction between oral language and written language. With oral language, depending on which expert, 50,000 to a million years old, whether you go genetics or...

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: How can anyone know? There's no way that we know exactly when we began.

David Boulton: No, but we do know from facial anthropological structural shifts when we became capable of more rapid articulate speech.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Right, but that's still a big window.

David Boulton: Yes, it's still a big window, but as you pointed out just a few moments ago, there's a big difference between the time we've had to adapt to speaking and listening...

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's right, exactly.

David Boulton: And the time that we've had to adapt to writing and reading. I mean, only a few percent of Mesopotamia and Egypt could read, and during the Dark Ages, only a few percent of Europeans. English as a written standard for mass writing and reading is only a few hundred years old.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's correct.

David Boulton: The English code, in particular, is a fusion of the sound system of Latin and the letter system of Latin with the sound system of English. It has very confusing letter-sound level correspondence ambiguities that takes time for the brain to work through, and that time has some correspondence to the stuttering that we experience or see in the processing that children are going through that are struggling. Yes?

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Go ahead. I'm listening.

Education and Science:

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: As I said, I'm a physician, and this month I've been taking care of sick children in the hospital. When we make our morning rounds and we talk about what treatments to use, we always look to the evidence, you know, what is the evidence that for a treatment - treatment A versus treatment B - we look at the scientific literature. What is to me extraordinary, truly astonishing, is that in education, that's never been part of the culture. What is chosen - what books are chosen, or programs, really reflect a philosophy, or what publishers tell people - lots of different things, but not true science.

David Boulton: Well, there seems to be a rather assumption-based war that goes on between some different interpretations of how human beings learn in general, and learn to read in particular. There are people, and I've talked to some of them, who firmly believe that given enough success, the kids will pick up the code processing skills without needing to be explicitly conducted through learning them.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Right. Because there are people who inherently believe that you can treat cancer by an extract from apricot pits.

David Boulton: Yes.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: We need more than beliefs, we need to show evidence.

David Boulton: Right. And we need to reframe - we need to challenge the assumptions in an environment, situation and setting where they can actually be approached by the people that are holding them.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Well, that's right. You need to do a scientific study, and you've got to have a hypothesis, and come up with a hypothesis that can be challenged, that can be falsified.

David Boulton: Right.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Because science has a real process. What's really been extraordinary, is in the last several years we've really had a cultural and a paradigm shift where the very basic tenets of science have entered into education. That's very hard, because it's not been part of the culture.

I've sat in meetings with educators in New York City, where there's the huge issue of how to teach children how to read. I sit and I listen, and I think, well, what is the problem here? These people are intelligent people. Then it struck me that the whole notion of science and what that implies and the process, and how you validate something is foreign to them. It's not the fault of these individuals, it's just not the way they were taught. People who've come through schools of education and wherever else they've trained, the scientific process has just not been part of the conversation.

Secret Shame:

David Boulton: Well, we've been interviewing a number of people on the adult literacy and juvenile justice sides to get a triangulation on two levels: the shame aversion and the hiding that goes on. Robert Wedgeworth at ProLiteracy described a recent adult literacy studies in which what they found to be the most striking correlation in the buying behavior of people that are challenged with respect to reading, is the extraordinary degrees they go to hide it.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Oh, absolutely.

David Boulton: It just goes to show us again how powerfully locked up this is with shame.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Oh, absolutely. To give another example - I think it would be very important for people, though, in your project to make sure that people can understand how very bright and sometimes very successful people can have this. Some of the most distinguished professors or our best students will come and ask to speak to me. This has happened so often now that my assistant knows, and she'll lead them into my office, and they'll look around to make sure no one can hear, close the door, and then will say, "I have to tell you something. You're not going to believe it. And no one knows this about me." Then I know exactly what they're going to say, you know, what a terrible reader they are, or how slow they read, or how long it takes them. They're filled with shame and they think they're the only one who has this. I say, "Well, you know, I've seen many of your colleagues." I don't mention who they are. They say, "Really? I can't believe that." They think they've somehow fooled people. (More "shame stories")

David Boulton: Yes. That's such a powerful piece. The other thing that very few people get that's connected to this is more at the processing level, that the more that shame accumulates the easier it is to trigger.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's right.

David Boulton: And the moment that it triggers it sucks up bandwidth, that diminishes their brain's capacity to process the code.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Well, that's right. That's right. That's why it's so critical to try to reach children really early.

David Boulton: Yes.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Because it's just an extraordinary thing, and how it affects people in every walk of life. I hope you will show some highly successful people talking about it.

David Boulton: We will.

Dyslexia Numbers:

David Boulton: I'm really enjoying this and could go for a lot longer but I want to hold to the hour that I asked for. You've been attributing that up to twenty percent of the population has or could have dyslexia.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Right.

David Boulton: When we talked with Reid Lyon and James Wendorf, they're very clear in the way that they frame it, coming at it from two different but correlated angles, that only about five to six percent of children, according to all of their studies and information, have anything that might be considered neurobiological in origin that's impeding their learning to read; that for ninety-five percent of the children that are in various stages of struggle, that struggle has to do with how it is we are meeting them, teaching them, unfolding this before them; and that as a consequence, if we take your twenty and overlay it on that, there's a kind of a definitional confusion.

Are you saying that twenty percent have an inherent problem with dyslexia, or that what we call dyslexia, which is such a general and broad term, stretches across twenty percent, part of which is neurobiological and part of which is instructional?

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's an empiric question. We don't know the answer to that. But if I were to come down on it, I would say that it would be just what we reported when I was telling you about the two-thirds and one-third. So I would, I think...

David Boulton: Basically, that actually brings it right back into alignment, right?

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Exactly.

David Boulton: Okay. That's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure we explicitly went through that loop together.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Right. And we don't know. That's why we're carrying out genetic studies, to really see the differences.

David Boulton: They've backed into their five to six percent numbers; they're not bottoms-up, right?

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: I don't know where they - I think they got their number because what's been shown is if you give children highly effective, evidence-based intervention you can bring down the number of struggling readers to five to seven percent.

David Boulton: Right. But that's what I mean, they've backed into saying how many people might have neurobiological problems.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Yes.

David Boulton: Because they can't see them directly, they're inferring them from how many people they can help inside the box of what they can offer.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: I think what you said is correct. [laughter]

David Boulton: Okay.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: I think so, because what's nice is it all overlaps; what I'm saying and what they're saying really comes to the same thing, essentially.

David Boulton: Right. And I think there was enough potential for confusion here that I wanted to get more explicit in that space.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Glad we clarified that.

David Boulton: Yes.

Slow Readers Need More Time:

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: I don't know if you want to get into it or not, because it's probably a little different than what your primary focus is on, but a very important thing is children grow up to be adolescents and young adults, and whatever they want to aspire to be, a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, a writer, they often have to take a series of tests. One of the things we know is that because children who struggle to read don't develop that left word forming area that's responsible for being able to read more fluently, they read very slowly and require extra time.

That becomes a really important thing because so many children who've worked so hard all their lives, they come to the point where they need to take an SAT or an ALSED Law School Admissions Test or a GRE, and they require extra time if they're going to be able to show what they know. There's been a very strong - it's not a movement, I don't know the right word - but these children are more and more being denied the extra time that they require.

David Boulton: There's this general failure in the way that we think about assessment to actually meet the kids in some way that reflects what their situation is.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's right, not to feel that they're somehow getting away with something or weak. If somebody needs glasses, you wouldn't question it, or if a diabetic needs insulin, in the same we know that children or young adults and adults who have reading problems require extra time. For me, as a physician and as a scientist, one of the most exciting things has been that we've been able to now demonstrate that in children who are dyslexic, they don't develop that word forming area but they do develop compensatory regions on the right side of the brain and also in the front that allow them to read. But not automatically so that they can become highly accurate readers, but by the investment of an extraordinary amount of time and energy. They can get there, but their route is much slower and more inefficient.

David Boulton: Right. There's some kind of a circuit detour that's had to happen for them.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Exactly.

David Boulton: Which is slower in processing and results in them needing more time to be as effective in the task.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Right. What I say now is that dyslexia simply robs a person of time, accommodations like extra time return part of it, and that a person who is dyslexic has as much a physiologic need for extra time as a diabetic needs for insulin.

David Boulton: Yes.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Now that we can show that with our brain imaging, that's made an extraordinary difference. Because I've seen too many young people who were applying to graduate school or professional school who struggled their lives to reach the point where they can read accurately, but not automatically, are turned down for extra time. It's like somebody climbing to the top of a mountain and you suddenly step on their fingers, and don't let them take that last step, and knock them down. So, it may not sound like an important thing to you, but for all those people who have had difficulty reading it is.

David Boulton: All of these dimensions are critical. We're looking at the family context, the social context, very particularly at the emotional affective context as well as the cognitive processing challenge.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's at the very - that's at the heart.

David Boulton: Yes.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's the heart and soul of it. Because you can teach a person to read, and you can do all the things, but if they've had that hurt and that pain and that blow to their self-esteem, that's the most difficult. We have no medicine for that.

David Boulton: Yes. And it's not just a bad feeling they're having; it's fundamentally processing-level debilitating, draining of the efficiency that's necessary to process the thing that could make them feel better. It works in a downward spiral.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: That's right.

In Closing:

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Well, it sounds like - I'm feeling good speaking to you because it sounds like you really care.

David Boulton: I really care. This is my life work. I am totally focused on this all the time.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Well, I'm glad, because it's my life's work.

David Boulton: Yes. I feel like we've met each other well. I look forward to meeting you in person and interviewing you on camera for the documentary. I really applaud and congratulate you for all that you've done that's helping so many children.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: I think what you are doing and will complete, and I guess continue to do, will really have an enormous impact.

David Boulton: Yes, thank you. I hope so. We've done interviews with people ranging from the man who discovered the basic principles of the emergence of the Standard English, and orthography experts like Venezky, and people that studied the emergence of writing with the Hebrews, Phoenicians and Greeks and the fall of letter-sound correspondence. We have also interviewed Pat Lindamood and Nanci Bell, Paula Tallal, and other people working on the circuitry of sound, and then Keith Rayner on visual perception, and Keith Stanovich and others. We're trying to bring together a matrix that will allow people to really understand how all these things connect. We've got to reframe how we think about all of this.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Well, that will be wonderful. But how long a documentary are you going to make?

David Boulton: The broadcast documentary will be three hours long, but there will be a ten-hour extended DVD for teachers and professionals.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Isn't that wonderful.

David Boulton: Yes, so it'll go from the beginning of oral language and the brain - did you ever read Terrence Deacon's The Symbolic Species?

Dr. Sally Shaywitz: Yes.

David Boulton: I really enjoyed conversations with him.

So we'll go from the development of language and its effect on consciousness, to the emergence of writing, the breakdown of phonetic correspondence - remember in Plato's day, the letters and sounds were the same - and up to the challenge of today. We will visit the history of attempts to fix the code as well as the reading wars. We want to dispel the myths about the code and get down to the fact that learning to use it is a technological process - like learning to program a remote control or use a machine. It's a virtual reality machine. Our children are f eeling ashamed of being confused because of the way we're contextualizing and helping them through the confusions caused by our technology.

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Dr. Sally Shaywitz - The Brain and Dyslexia

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Dr. Sally Shaywitz, author of "Overcoming Dyslexia", is a neuroscientist who is passionately dedicated to helping children and families overcome the pain and strain of reading difficulties.

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This article was provided courtesy of Prof. John Stein and the Dyslexia Research Trust

What are the symptoms of Dyslexia?

1. Difficulty learning to read despite normal intelligence, adequate teaching, and parental support.

2. Family history of similar problems.

3. Commoner in males.

4. Childhood 'milestones'(crawling, walking, speaking, throwing) are often delayed.

5. Slow to learn to speak; poor at rhyming; mispronouncing words, lisps, not noticing small differences between word sounds.

6. Slow at learning letters, letter sounds, alphabet, colours, days of week, months of year, multiplication tables.

7. Poor coordination with unusual clumsiness.

8. Difficulty with distinguishing left from right.

9. Mis-sequencing letters, sounds, numbers, days of the week, months of year.

10. Letter and number reversals.

11. Letters appear to blur and move around and get in the wrong order.

12. Bizarre spelling, same word spelt several different ways on the same page; spelling learnt one day forgotten the next.

13. Difficulty with phonology (the sounds in words) is often claimed to be the most important feature, although these problems are found in any poor reader.

14. Hatred of reading aloud.

15. Difficulty copying from blackboard.

16. Difficulty concentrating.

17. Confusing left and right.

18. Getting directions in the wrong order.

19. Illogical sequencing of ideas.

20. Immunological problems such as asthma, eczema, hay fever, other allergies.

21. Dyslexia overlaps with related neuro-developmental conditions which tend to run in the same families, e.g. Dysphasia (Specific Language Impairment), Dyspraxia (Developmental Coordination Disorder), Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Asperger's & Autism. The overlap with ADHD is around 30-50%, and with dyspraxia is even higher.

22. NB often dyslexics have exceptional talent in other areas: the arts, engineering, business and computing.

Preschool

1. Late in learning to talk, or with speaking clearly.

2. Mispronounces familiar words; persistent "baby talk".

3. Doesn't recognize rhyming patterns like cat, bat, rat.

4. Trouble learning common nursery rhymes, such as "Jack and Jill".

5. Difficulty learning (and remembering) the names of letters in the alphabet.

6. Unable to recognize letters in his/her own name.

7. Family history of reading and/or spelling difficulties.

8. Allergies, asthma, eczema, hay fever.

Childhood

1. Particular difficulty with reading or spelling.

2. Figures or letters, the wrong way round e.g. 15 for 51, 6 for 9, b for d, 'was' for 'saw'.

3. Confuses the order of letters in words.

4. Reads a word then fails to recognise it further down the same page.

5. Spells a word several different ways without recognising the correct version.

6. Poor concentration span for reading and writing.

7. Trouble with sounds in words, poor sense of rhyme.

8. Difficulty pronouncing words, reversing or substituting parts of words.

9. Doesn't hear fine differences in words; e.g., writes "pin" for "pen".

10. Answers questions well orally but has great difficulty writing down the answer.

11. Confuses left and right.

12. Difficulty carrying out a sequence of directions.

13. Difficulty understanding time and tense.

14. Unusually clumsy.

15. Has problems stating thoughts in an organized way.

16. Allergies, asthma, eczema, hay fever.

Adulthood

1. Bright in many ways but has a 'block' on reading and writing.

2. Very slow and inaccurate reading, particularly out loud.

3. Very bad spelling.

4. Difficulty remembering what s/he has just read.

5. Difficulty remembering telephone numbers.

6. Difficulty concentrating when reading or writing.

7. Unable to tell important information from unimportant details.

8. Difficulty taking notes or copying.

9. Difficulty with planning and writing essays, letters or reports.

10. Difficulty carrying out three instructions in sequence.

11. Allergies, asthma, eczema, hay fever.

The Dyslexia Research Trust
www.dyslexic.org.uk
The Sherrington Building,
Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics,
Parks Road,
Oxford OX1 3PT

Dyslexia Research Trust Clinics
Dr Anna Pitt (OXFORD Diagnostic Clinic)
Dr Sue Fowler (READING Visual Clinic)
Dyslexia Research Trust
179A Oxford Road
Reading
RG1 7UZ
0118 958 5950

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Dyslexia Daily BlogDo I Have Dyslexia Or Not - Dyslexia experts have created a list of

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Do I have dyslexia? - The Dyslexia Research Trust has many dyslexia researchers. See their list of dyslexia symptoms for all age groups here...You will soon

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In truth, Calliope wasn't catching up. As peers began whizzing past her in reading, Taylor became more anxious and worried. Their collective frustration levels - both Calliope's and her parents-soon reached a breaking point, especially after they'd hired a private tutor to help speed up her reading in the fall of second grade.

"She'd have massive tantrums over homework," Taylor said. Calliope would be happy and fine all afternoon, but when it came time to do homework, she would refuse to begin. "She would scream and cry, then I would scream and cry," Taylor said. "I once crumpled up the whole assignment and yelled, 'What are we going to do?' "

Then one night, after four months of intensive (and expensive) tutoring, Taylor's husband, Matthew, was talking to Calliope's tutor on the phone when she mentioned the word "dyslexia." A light went on. Taylor recalled that up to that point, everyone had been very careful not to say the word, but the tutor suggested that it might be time to have Calliope officially evaluated in order to receive more targeted instruction.

An intensive two-day battery of tests provided the data that Taylor, by this time, already knew: Calliope had dyslexia. Although she was very bright and displayed above-average social skills, without intense and specific intervention, she would never "catch up" in reading.

Taylor now knows that an overly emotional response to homework is common in those with dyslexia: Calliope didn't know why she couldn't read either. Now with a diagnosis and intensive intervention, Calliope is entering seventh grade with her peers. She's able to accomplish all the work, although she requires more time. "I always disliked the words 'learning differences,' " Taylor said. "But the more I get to know about this, the more I think it's true."

This kind of anxiety and frustration can be largely avoided, said Wolf, who is also director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University and author of " Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain."She and colleague Martha Denckla designed a simple test to quickly know whether there is a problem in the reading circuit very early on, as early as kindergarten or first grade. Called the RAN/RAS test (Rapid Automatized Naming/Rapid Alternating Stimulus), students are timed on how fast they can name letters, numbers, colors and objects.

RAN/RAS or a comparable evaluation is one of the single best predictors that there's something different in how the brain is putting together letters with their name, which is like a mini-version of the later reading circuit. While RAN/RAS cannot diagnose a reading problem, it does provide educators with a red flag, suggesting that students may need further evaluation.

In "Proust and the Squid," Wolf writes that if she were given five minutes with all teachers and parents everywhere, she'd want them most to know that "learning to read, like Red Sox baseball, is a wonderful thing that can go wrong for any number of reasons." For students accused of being stubborn or not working to their potential, often neither is true: Children with dyslexia need immediate and intensive intervention to connect the pieces of the reading circuit.
The Science of Reading and Dyslexia
The act of reading itself is anything but natural. Human brains weren't designed to read: There is no "reading center" of the brain, and there are no "reading genes." Instead, in order to read, each brain must fashion new circuits between parts originally designed to do other things, like retrieving the names for objects. These new circuits must not only combine many processes from different areas of the brain to form a specialized circuit just for reading -- in order to become a fluent reader, the circuit also needs to run lightning-fast, nearly automatic.

Wolf has spent her career studying how the brain reads and, in some cases, how it doesn't. "Because we have no pre-programmed wiring for reading [in the brain], we have to do something very different," Wolf said. "What the brain does have -- which is fantastic -- is the ability to make new circuits based on new connections among its already-there parts. So, when I said [in the book] we were never born to read, that is the absolute truth. We weren't. Each child has to do it by themselves."

Since each brain must learn to read from scratch, as Wolf put it, "many things can happen along the way." Dyslexia, originally called word-blindness, is a neurobiological condition describing the failure to read words and letters affecting an estimated 10-20 percent of schoolchildren, depending on whom you ask.

While classified as a "learning disability," dyslexia is not a brain disorder or a disease, nor is it flipping letters backward. Often the failure to read is in direct opposition to a brain's cognitive ability, leaving parents and teachers stymied when an otherwise intelligent child can't spell words they've seen a thousand times, or put a sentence together.

Dyslexia, Wolf said, is the result of a brain that's organized in a different way. In many children, this is because the right hemisphere tries to muscle the strengths of the left, specifically at tasks that are the domain of the left, like many language functions. When the reading circuit is being dominated by the right hemisphere, it takes longer for the information that goes to both hemispheres to get together.

In the dyslexic brain, there are several major areas that could develop problematically. (While there is no singular form of dyslexia, there are several profiles that appear most prominently.)

* Phoneme awareness, or knowing the sounds that correspond with letters and words, is the No. 1 deficiency in the dyslexic brain. "Our language is made up of 44 sounds called phonemes," Wolf said. "English is trickier because we have phonemes that can be expressed in different letters, and we have letters that can stand for different phonemes. It's an irregular language, and that adds to the complexity, but the underlying issue for many, but not all, children is problems in the basic representation of those phonemes." Wolf said there are multiple areas of the brain contributing to our ability to represent phonemes, and that many dyslexic children have issues with developing phonemes, as well as knowing which sounds are assigned to which letters.

* Fluency, or getting the reading circuit to work together quickly, is the second-biggest issue. "Children can have perfectly represented phonemes, but can't get the phonemes together with the letters, because there's a speed-of-processing issue," Wolf said. "And part of that may well be because that right hemisphere is taking a longer time and trying to do what the left hemisphere usually does, in getting that circuit to work very fast together. That can mean not just the phonemes aren't represented very well. It might also mean that letters aren't getting represented very well, and that the circuit is not becoming automatic."

* Comprehension is the third but no less crucial issue to reading. "After making letters and sounds work together, and getting the whole circuit to work in time, then words have to be connected to meanings and functions of grammar," Wolf said. "It takes explicit work to get the visual representation, meaning, sound and grammatical function all working together, and that's what dyslexic children must do." Wolf said that often this kind of dyslexia doesn't show itself until the child is older, third grade and up, when a child switches from learning to read to reading to learn.

"Some of our children can read words, but read them laboriously," Wolf said. "And by fourth grade they're a major failure and have never become fluent." Many of these children are bright and have compensated up to this point by memorizing words, but have never learned to read fast enough to comprehend what they're reading.

Understanding that these developments are nothing more than brain differences that can be aided with systematic and explicit instruction, Wolf said, is a large but necessary step for everyone involved: students, parents and teachers. When children find they're unable to read or read with much difficulty, they often believe that it's the result of a bad or broken brain. Some teachers may also unwittingly hold beliefs that reading happens for all children by a kind of osmosis.

Wolf insists that three decades of research has shown that neither are true, but keeping the truth about dyslexia hidden or misunderstood only hurts the students, their parents and the educators trying desperately to help them.

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Understanding Dyslexia and the Reading Brain in Kids | KQED

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Reading is a skill humans aren't born with, but schools are designed to reward those whose brains are well-wired to read, which can complicate the learning experience for kids with dyslexia.

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OpenDyslexic is a typeface designed against some common symptoms of dyslexia.
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ABOUT DYSLEXIA

Tools are essential and offer various solutions, however sustainable progress starts with knowledge, understanding and recognition. We work hard to increase the awareness of dyslexia and to spread knowledge - as well as in areas where dyslexia is relatively unknown. We like to approach dyslexia with a positive twist and therefore emphasize the upside of dyslexia; a side that we would love to help you discover.

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Dyslexie Font - An award winning Dyslexia font

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Being challenged by dyslexia? Dyslexie font motivates you to start reading more. With the innovative tools, we clear the way through the letter jungle.

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Dyslexia Training

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We offer a range of specialist services to schools, workplaces and families. Our webinars are either recordings of live events or were recorded specially as on demand events- you can view them at your convenience. Please ignore the published dates unless it states that the event is live.

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Assessor in Lancashire ( ideally east as that is where I’m based)

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Welcome to Literacy Solutions
Sara Graham, founder of Literacy Solutions and the team provide a professional and friendly service to educational settings, workplaces and families throughout Lancashire.

We are passionate about learning and literacy development for both children and adults and provide a person centred approach for professionals and families which is committed to assessment and support of individual needs through targeted tuition or training.

We offer bespoke services and offer one off services and flexible support packages to allow us to work with everyone in the way that is best suited to their individual needs.

Dyslexia testing Lancashire - Dyslexia teacher - Irlen Testing provided by Sara Graham Dyslexia Consultant of Literacy Solutions.

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Dyslexia testing Lancashire - Irlen Testing by Sara Graham

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Dyslexia testing Lancashire - dyslexia teacher - Irlen Testing provided by Sara Graham Dyslexia Consultant of Literacy Solutions.

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Assessor east Lancashire

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Welcome to Literacy Solutions
Sara Graham, founder of Literacy Solutions and the team provide a professional and friendly service to educational settings, workplaces and families throughout Lancashire.

We are passionate about learning and literacy development for both children and adults and provide a person centred approach for professionals and families which is committed to assessment and support of individual needs through targeted tuition or training.

We offer bespoke services and offer one off services and flexible support packages to allow us to work with everyone in the way that is best suited to their individual needs.

Dyslexia testing Lancashire - Dyslexia teacher - Irlen Testing provided by Sara Graham Dyslexia Consultant of Literacy Solutions.

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Dyslexia testing Lancashire - Irlen Testing by Sara Graham

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Dyslexia testing Lancashire - dyslexia teacher - Irlen Testing provided by Sara Graham Dyslexia Consultant of Literacy Solutions.

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Hi, I am Zachary and I am The Dyslexia Detective.

I am lucky to have dyslexia and this channel is a positive journey about me. I will review locations, products and general stuff I like. You might notice my glasses 👓 I have Irlens syndrome too.

I will show you how I use my 7 dyslexic superskills in daily life.
I would like to see pictures of  your superskills in action, you can reach me at thedyslexiadetective@gmail.com I would love to see your awesome skills and feature them in some of my videos.

I will share tips on how I like to do some of the things that I need to work hard on, you could maybe try some out.

Celebrities and influential people that have dyslexia have thrived and I will explain how their superskills have helped them be successful.

We are the future, we are dyslexic!

We are lucky to be different and that should be celebrated everyday!

Tap that noggin - Dyslexic super brain 🧠 right there!

I hope to see you every week, just remember to stay unique !

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Hi, I am Zachary and I am The Dyslexia Detective. I am lucky to have dyslexia and this channel is a positive journey about me. I will review locations, products and general stuff I like. You might notice my glasses 👓 I have Irlens syndrome too.

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Dyslexia Further Information for Class Teachers -February 2018