average
to superior intelligence
I have been teaching dyslexic children for almost fourteen years now, in many different settings, and at many different grade levels. I have taken part in the identification and placement of students with learning problems, and have provided direct instruction to students identified in almost every area of exceptionality. I believe that dyslexia is a commonly misunderstood learning disability which is more prevalent in the classrooms than most teachers and parents realize.
When most people think of dyslexia, they think of reversals, specifically, mirror-image reading and writing. While it is true that some dyslexics experience reversals, there is much more to the definition than that. It has been my experience that dyslexics have the following characteristics in common:
average
to superior intelligence
difficulty
with reading, writing, spelling, and sometimes math
One of the first professionals to study dyslexia was Dr. Samuel T. Orton, a neurologist who established the Psychopathic Hospital at the University of Iowa. He primarily worked with stroke and accident victims. In 1925, he tested a young man who was 16 years old who had a very high IQ, but couldn't read. He became fascinated with the problems this young man was experiencing and obtained a Rockefeller Foundation grant to give Stanford-Binet IQ tests to investigate this disorder further. He traveled around the area with a group of graduate students, in a mobile clinic, testing people of all ages. He discovered many cases like the 16-year-old young man in a very short amount of time. His research had a major impact on educating children and adults with learning problems.
In 1937, Dr. Orton published his findings in a book called: Reading, Writing, and Speech Problems in Children. In his book, he explored handedness, the relationship betweeen speech disorders and reading problems, mirror-image reading, heredity, clumsiness, and spelling problems. He called this learning problem that he had identified "strephosymbolia", which means "twisted symbols". He noticed that there was a great deal of similarity between the stroke and accident victims' language problems and the language problems experienced by certain children, therefore identifying the problem as brain-based. Dr. Orton was able to separate developmental reading disabilities from mental retardation and brain damage.
Other people who worked with Dr. Orton at his hospital were: Loretta Bender, Anna Gillingham, June Orton, and Bessie Stillman. These wonderful people developed remedial techniques based on Dr. Orton's research, techniques which are still being used successfully today. I call these teaching techniques Language Therapy, since their primary purpose is to remediate reading, spelling, and to some degree, spoken language.
The Orton Society was created in 1949 to continue research about dyslexia and multi-sensory phonics. The techniques developed by Gillingham-Stillman (1960) and June Orton (1964) were based on these principles:
86%
of the English language is phonetic; the exceptions fall into patterns
A
structured, sequential, cumulative, multisensory phonics approach is the
most successful way to teach students with dyslexia
Remediation of learning problems is best done in an individualized setting. The larger the group of students in a program, the slower the success rate will be. A tutorial setting is, by far, the most successful, and will lead to quicker success than a large group situation. Regardless of the number of students being served, it is imperative that certain elements be present for academic success.
First and foremost, it is important that pre-testing be completed to determine specific needs. A post-test should be given after an adequate amount of time to determine progress that has been made. I prefer grade-level scores, because teachers and parents can relate to them better than percentiles or stanine scores. I realize, however, that grade-level scores are not always considered the most accurate by psychologists who specialize in testing exceptional children. The following areas should be tested: reading recognition, reading comprehension, spelling, and math.
Remedial techniques used for dyslexic students should focus on multi-sensory strategies! Instruction should include a visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile presentation. The teacher should incorporate all of the sensory modalities into the lesson plan in order to make the lesson concrete for the student. Phonics programs that are not multi-sensory will not be effective for students having dyslexia.
Phonics instruction should begin with a presentation of each individual sound, and should move sequentially through a recommended sequence of sounds. I recommend the sequence presented in June Orton's book, A Guide to Teaching Phonics. Other sequential programs I've used are: Recipe for Reading and Gillingham-Stillman's, Remedial Training for Children with Specific Disability in Reading, Spelling, and Penmanship. It is not so important which program is used as it is to continue using the same program, progressing quickly as the student masters the sounds that are presented.
A remedial approach of this nature will take at least two years before results can actually be seen and measured. I have noticed that the first area to improve is usually word recognition, followed by spelling, and then reading comprehension. Parents and teachers should be patient and not expect an overnight success rate with language therapy. Again, faster results will occur in a one-on-one remedial setting.
Hopefully, this information about dyslexia will give you some places to start in seeking individualized instruction for your child or a student in your classroom. If you have specific questions, I will be glad to help direct you to the best resources available. I am including links to sites which provide helpful information about dyslexia below:
Orton
Dyslexia Society Web SiteKids
Health Organization - great information for parentsDyslexia
and Attention Deficit Disorder