(no subject)

[conuly]

New York City Plans to Screen Every Student for Dyslexia for the First Time

In Seismic Shift, NYC to Mandate Phonics-Based Curriculum in Elementary Schools

If this is implemented properly, this is all for the best. It's the "implemented properly" part that concerns me - it's my understanding that schools throughout the Anglosphere are amazingly resistant to handling dyslexia and/or dysgraphia properly, or even diagnosing it. You'll note that the first link talks about the cost of private assessment. Properly speaking, all US public school districts are supposed to assess children for learning disabilities upon request, even if the child is not enrolled in a public school, but there is a reason you end up doing a private assessment if you're seeking a dyslexia diagnosis.

And I say "schools", but of course that starts with the system and ends up at the teachers, especially in the lower grades. Maybe it's just the ones I've happened to run across in the many years of having a dyslexic niece, but there's a truly shocking number of early elementary teachers out there who will use, as their killing argument against direct instruction in a synthetic phonics program, the rhetorical question "How do you sound out the word red?" Or "me" or "car", and it should be obvious to the casual reader that while it's true that a disproportionate number of high frequency words have one or two weirdnesses that have to be learned by rote, those are not examples. Those aren't even examples of tricky words like "light", which require children to first learn that "igh" is a single phonogram.

I suppose increased access to training in Orton-Gillingham programs such as Wilson or Barton will help... but only if the city actually does fund that and teachers actually do take up that training.

Comments

[shadowkat]

Ack, Phonics. It took me until the second grade to figure out how to read because of evil phonics. That was instituted in the 1970s, and so many kids with audio and visual dyslexia and coordination disorders couldn't read because of it. I remember my second grade teacher finally figured it out - took about five of us aside and pulled out the old school "sight and sound" readers or Dick and Jane and Spot. And I finally could read. We were "visual" learners, not audio. Sounding out words confused me - since I couldn't process certain sounds properly. "Th" - I didn't process or hear the same as others did. It took me forever to learn how to talk because of that - and I had speech therapists throughout elementary who failed miserably, finally what worked was taking theater and drama. The whole sounding out the word did not work. I flipped the sounds around.

Phonics works for some, but not others, and should never be mandated for all. Because of that mandate in the early 1970s, I went through hell. We don't understand that everyone learns differently, and processes sounds differently. None of the processes you state above would have worked for me. Phonograms make no sense to me. I can't learn that way at all.

[calimac]

For those of us who don't have those conditions, phonics is a godsend. Phonics would have saved me from some terrible reading habits. I taught myself to read at the age of 2 (this is before I could speak properly) and by the time I got to school I was so used to recognizing words on sight rather than sounding them out that I began reading at a glance words I didn't already know, and consequently mangling them horribly. I may have been in high school before I realized that "arboretum" wasn't "arbetorium."

[conuly]

Were you using a synthetic phonics program or an analytic one? That is, were you taught to look at the letters in order and sound them out, or were you taught to write down phonograms (letters and combinations of letters that represent sounds) and then asked to read what you had written?

The latter is generally considered the gold standard. The former, which is inexplicably more widespread, not so much.

We were "visual" learners, not audio.

This is a myth. There really is no such thing, which is why there are no studies backing up "learning styles" and a million studies debunking the idea.

It is more likely, given the speech therapy, that you had an auditory processing disorder... and very possible, if my experience in speech therapy is typical, that you were not getting the appropriate intervention for that, even with the speech therapy. (Especially given that you describe being told to "sound out the word". Did they actually sit down and tell you "To make this sound, do this with your tongue, like this diagram shows"?)

[conuly]

OG programs are generally considered the first, best step for dyslexia intervention... though of course, many (most) dyslexics have other disabilities as well, such as CAPD and/or ADHD, and probably require more than just the phonics training.

[gwydion]

My mom has to fight so hard to get the schools my sister went to to help her with her dyslexia even after she was diagnosed. I clearly have mild dyslexia and dysgraphia. you can clearly see it in my papers all the way back to when I was four (randomly reversed letters and numbers, switched letters on spelling papers, consistent issues with not telling seven and nine apart, that sort of thing. My reading rate is very fast because I simply learned to read words whatever order I was seeing the letters in. My sister's was way worse, so no one could ignore it). They acted like I was doing it on purpose the whole 14 years I went there.

No one wants to do help or accommodations because it's expensive in terms of specialist yours and trained special ed teachers are a forever shortage in the teaching profession.

Whole word only is a notoriously bad 'reform' gen how few kids can learn to read that way. Phonics isn't perfect, but I'll take 90ish percent over 30-simething percent any day. I forget the exact percentages. I knew them when I was teaching. I absolutely agree that the hybrid approaches are best.

I hope they do implement properly. We'll see.

[thekumquat]

I wish there was a Like button for this comment.

My kids school taught synthetic phonics very well, kids were writing phonetically by the end of Reception (like Kindergarten), then were mostly selecting the conventional way to spell phonemes by the end of year 1.

My stepson's school? Not so much. Look And Say doesn't help if they don't know what groups of letters to look for.

[shadowkat]

That is, were you taught to look at the letters in order and sound them out, or were you taught to write down phonograms (letters and combinations of letters that represent sounds) and then asked to read what you had written?

They tried both, couldn't do either. I flip the sounds and words around. I had to use a Sight and Sound reader to learn - where pictures were above the word. Sound them out made no sense to me. I do not think that way.

(Especially given that you describe being told to "sound out the word". Did they actually sit down and tell you "To make this sound, do this with your tongue, like this diagram shows"?)

Yes, it made no sense to me. My mother was a licensed speech therapist and tried everything. And I got confused. I did not get past it until I took theater in the fifth grade - somehow it worked, maybe because it was more metaphorical and intitutive? No confusing diagrams - god, I hated those diagrams, they made no sense to me at all. I am not a literal thinker - I think metaphorically, and logically. Twirling your tongue from my perspective has zip to do with speech, it didn't connect logically in my head. It was just an illogical game. Nonsensical. The diagrams were also nonsensical. It's not how I think.

See? When I look at someone doing it - I reverse it in my head, it's like seeing things through a mirror? My mind flips things, and I have to flip to flip them back. It's very hard to explain to someone who doesn't think like this. Showing me how to do something by physically doing it yourself - does not work for me at all. If you step right, I see you stepping right. Also looking in a mirror and sounding off words is headache inducing - because I'm already seeing things as if I'm looking through reflective glass.

I remember sitting in front of speech therapists twirling their tongues at me, and asking me to mimic it to get the sound, and never getting it. I had to figure it out on my own - which I did finally, It was horribly traumatic. I remember hating speech therapy in schools, they always took me out of social studies (which I loved).

It's the problem with most academic studies - is the need to generalize. People can't be pigeon holed that neatly. We all think very differently. For example, my mother used to use board games - but I don't see the point of board games - so it didn't work at all, while theater did. Part of what is needed is something that interests the person - grabs their attention, or makes sense to them. If the person doesn't think say spatially, a diagram would be nonsensical to them.

[gatheringrivers]

Hooked on phonics works for me!

My folks opted to get me a set of phonics learning things when I was little. It actually did work for me, but I never stopped to think over the years that other people might NOT be able to learn that way.

TIL!

[landofnowhere]

I was a hyperlexic kid, and neuroatypical possibly in some of the same ways as shadowkat. So phonics didn't come easily to me, but it didn't cause any issues. Mainly I resented it as a kid because it was the only section of the standardized test that didn't make any sense to me. But I defer to the education experts on how it should be taught generally!

I'm guessing that teachers who oppose phonics come from a similar place -- they didn't get it as a kid but were able to compensate, and they still don't really get it and feel uncomfortable admitting it. Similar to teachers who aren't comfortable teaching math.

[conuly]

I don't think it's that. I think they're honestly being taught a whole bunch of weirdness when they're in school to be teachers, and they don't realize it's nonsense.

[marahmarie]

Oooh I have a link for this, collected amongst many I'll never have time to post (so many)...https://qz.com/2166242/what-is-dyslexia-and-why-is-defining-it-so-controversial/ (ignore title, it actually gets into what might be the best way of dealing with it and how much it costs the US each year to mostly not deal with it...staggering)

I felt...divided upon reading it, not knowing if it's the best course of action. I flip numbers and letters and insert or misread entire words that are not there or not the words I think I saw the first time. My sister got left back a grade over it, a method of "dealing with it" I don't agree with which made my mom absolutely incandescent with rage.

I didn't have signs of it as a kid like my sister allegedly did, only as I got older.