Out of Her Mind -- Musings on Education and Life

A Response to Spafford and Grosser’s “Controversial Theories” , A Chapter in  Dyslexia and Reading Difficulties : Research and Resource Guide for Working with all Struggling Readers (2005) What IS dyslexia?   Dyslexia--the Controversial Search for a "Cure"     Dyslexia reminds me of psoriasis, a genetic skin condition I suffer from, in that "often parents, teachers, and other concerned persons will search for miracle cures to relieve the reading disability of a dyslexic child” (Spafford & Grosser, 2005).     I am frequently approached by people with a magic cure for psoriasis although there is NO cure.  There are, however, medicines that treat my symptoms, that make my skin and my condition better as long as I stick with them.  Everyone has their pet whack cure--Vaseline, dead sea salts, etc. for this auto-immune system deficiency; much the same as dyslexia.   Because people with dyslexia, and their parents, are so intent on “curing” the issue, many s

A Response to Perfetti’s (1985)   Chapter 9 of Reading Ability : “Dyslexia” The Process of Reading and How It is Changed for Dyslexics According to Perfetti (1985) Summary In this chapter, Perfetti defines dsylexia, explores various theories concerning its cause, and looks at various types of subgroups.   Also, it is argued that reading ability is a continuum, rather than there being sharp differences between low-readers and dyslexics. In order to be considered dyslexic, a child must be of normal intelligence, and must read at least two years below grade level.   However, there are problems with this definition because a reader in second grade will have a hard time meeting the two-years-or-more-below-grade-level criterion, and IQ measured on verbal items may not be normal because these items will presumably show the same deficiencies as found in reading measures.   Thus, nonverbal IQ scores should be used for classification, but they aren’t always.   A fundamental qu

○ According to Larson, what should be the unit of processing? Letter or word? LETTER ○ What is at stake with a word shape model of word recognition? UMM --it's crazy--the actual process of reading is not understood and would lead people to focus on unrelated features of the word.  Our instructional time is limited.  Struggling readers need the MOST time to spend reading and they need the highest quality of instruction--teaching word shape is ineffective and muddies the waters.  You will have students who can't read because they didn't learn to decode. ○ Should we teach typical eye-movements (of a reader) to struggling readers? I don't know where I stand on this issue.  My instincts say---maybe with the most disabled readers.  But this seems so instinctual, so tacit.  How do you teach it?  It's a slippery slope issue.  Teaching stuff like eye movement reminds me of having dyslexics focus on strengthening their eyes and their fine and gross motor skills.  We DO