Dyslexia info

[Tabrett]

I found an on line video from Reading Rockets called Rewiring the Brain. Watch this!!!!
Rewiring the brain (http://origin.eastbaymedia.com/~weta/asx/Rewiring_the_Brain.asx) (6:02)

Although in the video they are calling the special reading instruction letter/sound recognition and "blending" sounds, it is clearly explicit PHONICS instruction!!! You don't "blend" in whole language.

What do you think?

From what I can tell, a dyslexic wired brain can be rewired to read well with intensive phonic instruction.

[LizzyBee]

A study was done with adults who have dyslexia, some of whom were good readers and some of whom were poor readers. Brain scans showed that the good readers were reading with the right temporal and frontal part of the brain. The poor readers were using the left temporal area used for phonetic decoding. This study suggests to me that even though we can "rewire" the brain, it's not necessarily a good idea to do so. I think some people are wired and designed to learn a certain way, and we need to learn how to teach them the way they learn rather than trying to fix or change them.

There is a massive amount of research that shows most people who have dyslexia learn to read best using Orton-Gillingham methods. OG = multisensory, sequential, explicit, and cumulative. Multisensory means that the student says/hears, sees, and touches the concept simultaneously. Using OG methods allows phonics (and math) to be taught in a way that reaches the right-brained learning style of a student who has dyslexia.

There was another study done with highly successful adults who have dyslexia. All of them became leaders in fields that require extensive reading, such as medicine, law, and the sciences. The average age at which they began reading was 11 yo. I think it's important to remember that right-brained learners and kids who have dyslexia will be "late bloomers", but that doesn't mean they won't excel. It just takes longer to see results (in academic areas; many excel early on in other areas).

I'm just a mom who is feeling her way down the ADP/dyslexia tunnel, and I don't mean to sound as though I'm an expert or know what I'm talking about. It's just that after six years of researching and trying to understand my kids, I've become rather opinionated. :D So take my post fwiw, and ymmv.

[Tabrett]

There is a massive amount of research that shows most people who have dyslexia learn to read best using Orton-Gillingham methods. OG = multisensory, sequential, explicit, and cumulative. Multisensory means that the student says/hears, sees, and touches the concept simultaneously. Using OG methods allows phonics (and math) to be taught in a way that reaches the right-brained learning style of a student who has dyslexia.


Isn't OG an intensive phonics program? I'm mostly referring to teaching whole language verses phonics and the post-After reading the dyslexia/whole word/phonics article (http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56086).

[LizzyBee]

Isn't OG an intensive phonics program? I'm mostly referring to teaching whole language verses phonics and the post-After reading the dyslexia/whole word/phonics article (http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56086).

Yes, OG reading methods teach phonics explicitly. But they also teach to the right-brained learning style rather than "re-wiring" the brain - that's the point I was trying to address.

ETA: I do agree with your assertion that people who have dyslexia can be taught to read well with phonics instruction. But research shows that the phonics instruction should be multisensory. Multisensory instruction works with the way a person's brain is wired rather than changing it.