American Dyslexia Association

Tag: dyslexia

  • Humans are born with brains ‘prewired’ to see words: Study finds connections to language areas of the brain

    Humans are born with brains ‘prewired’ to see words: Study finds connections to language areas of the brain

    Source:  Ohio State University

    Humans are born with a part of the brain that is prewired to be receptive to seeing words and letters, setting the stage at birth for people to learn how to read, a new study suggests.

    Analyzing brain scans of newborns, researchers found that this part of the brain — called the “visual word form area” (VWFA) — is connected to the language network of the brain.

    “That makes it fertile ground to develop a sensitivity to visual words — even before any exposure to language,” said Zeynep Saygin, senior author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.

    The VWFA is specialized for reading only in literate individuals. Some researchers had hypothesized that the pre-reading VWFA starts out being no different than other parts of the visual cortex that are sensitive to seeing faces, scenes or other objects, and only becomes selective to words and letters as children learn to read or at least as they learn language.

    “We found that isn’t true. Even at birth, the VWFA is more connected functionally to the language network of the brain than it is to other areas,” Saygin said. “It is an incredibly exciting finding.”

    Saygin, who is a core faculty member of Ohio State’s Chronic Brain Injury Program, conducted the study with graduate students Jin Li and Heather Hansen and assistant professor David Osher, all in psychology at Ohio State. Their results were published today in the journal Scientific Reports.

    The researchers analyzed fMRI scans of the brains of 40 newborns, all less than a week old, who were part of the Developing Human Connectome Project. They compared these to similar scans from 40 adults who participated in the separate Human Connectome Project.

    The VWFA is next to another part of visual cortex that processes faces, and it was reasonable to believe that there wasn’t any difference in these parts of the brain in newborns, Saygin said.

    As visual objects, faces have some of the same properties as words do, such as needing high spatial resolution for humans to see them correctly.

    But the researchers found that, even in newborns, the VWFA was different from the part of the visual cortex that recognizes faces, primarily because of its functional connection to the language processing part of the brain.

    “The VWFA is specialized to see words even before we’re exposed to them,” Saygin said.

    “It’s interesting to think about how and why our brains develop functional modules that are sensitive to specific things like faces, objects, and words,” said Li, who is lead author of the study.

    “Our study really emphasized the role of already having brain connections at birth to help develop functional specialization, even for an experience-dependent category like reading.”

    The study did find some differences in the VWFA in newborns and adults.

    “Our findings suggest that there likely needs to be further refinement in the VWFA as babies mature,” Saygin said.

    “Experience with spoken and written language will likely strengthen connections with specific aspects of the language circuit and further differentiate this region’s function from its neighbors as a person gains literacy.”

    Continue reading article here:

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201022125525.htm

  • What is dyslexia and what can be done to help?

    What is dyslexia and what can be done to help?

    by David Morgan | 2 April 2019

    Dyslexia can make learning to read a real challenge, but dyslexics are often exceptionally bright children, with incredible potential. We find that – with the right targeted support – every dyslexic can crack the code and start reading and writing well.

    If your child is struggling with dyslexia, he or she isn’t alone. According to Chris Horn of the University of South Carolina, an estimated 6 to 10 percent of today’s students face this learning challenge. Some say that the percentage could be even closer to 20, since many people struggle with their reading and exhibit dyslexic patterns, but do not fit exact testing criteria.

    20% is roughly the number of adults who have passed through the school system and not learned to read in the USA, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Such statistics shed light on just how widespread reading difficulties are. However, this doesn’t change the fact that it can feel scary and overwhelming— especially when you’ve just received a diagnosis of dyslexia for yourself or your child.

    But what does a diagnosis of dyslexia mean? Does it mean that learning to read is impossible? Is dyslexia a lifetime disability?

    At Helping Children to Read, our answer is a resounding “no!”

    Instead, our research has shown that almost all dyslexics can learn to read and spell. In fact, we have not had a single dyslexic not learn to read well on completion of our home support process in recent years. Most can reach the middle or top of their class. It is our experience that with the right tools, every child can gain the skills they need to read fluently and well. It is our mission to get those tools into the hands of every child.

    Rethinking dyslexia: a label, not a diagnosis

    When someone is given a dyslexia diagnosis, our greatest worry is that they take it as a label of disability, with a sentence of lifetime reading struggles. Some specialists will suggest this is the case, and say that a dyslexic child should accept the situation and switch to using “practical” tools like read-to-me software as a workaround.

    We understand that if you have not seen dyslexics learn to read, then that would seem like good advice. But we could not disagree more with that view!

    Learning with conventional phonics is often hard for dyslexics, but there are new and different strategies. If you support the decoding of words in the right way, children with dyslexia can still become proficient at it quite quickly, with good comprehension. By using trainertext visual phonics to help with the decoding and by addressing other causes of difficulty, we fundamentally change the way that dyslexics approach the written word. Once that switch of strategy has occurred, their reading can start to fly.

    Continue reading article here:

    https://www.helpingchildrentoread.com/articles/what-is-dyslexia/

  • We Can’t Teach Love But We Can Teach Reading

    We Can’t Teach Love But We Can Teach Reading

    Teachers can speak a lot of things into existence (a quiet line in the hallway, students sitting “criss, cross, applesauce”) but a love of reading isn’t one of them. Enthusiasm is a part of good teaching, but communicating a love of books isn’t the same thing as teaching reading. I learned that the hard way.

    When reading comes easily, it’s easy to love it

    Reading courses in my teacher preparation program centered around a love of reading. In class, we shared our own memories of learning to read, curated books lists for our classroom libraries, and debated the themes hidden in our favorite children’s books. We were taught to devote time to students reading for pleasure and to be disdainful of basal programs with scripted lessons.

    When I first began teaching, I read aloud to my class every day, gave my students time for independent reading, and facilitated discussions about their books. My approach worked well for students who entered my fourth grade class already reading well. They would sprawl around the classroom and become so absorbed in their books that they’d groan when Read to Self time was over. I had a few students who struggled with reading and they were pulled for intervention by a specialist and I never had the opportunity to see the instruction they received. So while I taught fourth grade in a high-performing school, I believed that if students were given time to read and discuss good books, their abilities would grow and a love of reading would flow naturally.

    But when reading is difficult …

    Five years ago, I moved to a school with low reading achievement. As a literacy coach, I saw teachers try the same strategies I had used, but they experienced very different results. And I quickly learned that in classrooms with children who cannot read well there are a thousand ways a Readers Workshop lesson can backfire.

    In one third grade class, a teacher began to state her teaching point, “Good readers…” only to be cut off by a student who called out, “We don’t got those in here!” The teacher handled the disruption beautifully in the moment, but afterwards she lamented, “The kid had a point.” Just two of her students were reading anywhere near grade level.

    In well-managed classrooms, independent reading periods would devolve into quiet distraction. In less-orderly rooms, students scrawled curse words in books and knocked leveled book bins to the floor. Our school’s kindergarteners had more tolerance for low-level books than the ten year olds who had been struggling for years to make sense of reading. I soon realized that independent reading is a burden, not a pleasure, for students who struggle to lift the words off the page.

    Student: Why do they always put tricky words in there?

    Although we had hundreds of books bins, only the low-level books were being used. Our mini-lessons began to feel too mini and our Guided Reading lessons felt too guided. What had seemed to be enough in my own fourth grade classroom was certainly not enough here. It seemed cruel to talk about a love of reading when students felt taunted by the squiggly lines on the page.

    The joy of cracking the code

    I began to use the time I had devoted to Guided Reading intervention for explicit phonics instruction. The scripted lessons felt dry, but I honored the instructional routines and I faked enthusiasm. My students discovered the joy in the lessons before I did.

    Continue reading here: https://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/right-to-read/we-cant-teach-love-we-can-teach-reading

  • Children’s Confidence Boosted Thanks to Dyslexic Artist’s Reading and Learning Resource

    Children’s Confidence Boosted Thanks to Dyslexic Artist’s Reading and Learning Resource

    by Rossie Stone

    MY NAME IS ROSSIE STONE. WHAT HAPPENED TO ME IN HIGH SCHOOL CHANGED ME FOREVER.

    Rossie Strathclyde TEDX photo.jpg

    All my way through school, I struggled with processing information through words, both spoken and written. Listening to the teacher was really hard, as was following and remembering information from books.

     After being at the bottom of the class throughout primary school, I was eventually identified as dyslexic. Though it was a relief to be assured the problem wasn’t stupidity, the diagnosis didn’t make high school any easier. Or exams.

    Kickstarter (Story) Export 09.png

    Eventually, I had a eureka moment. It struck me that if understanding information through text was so hard, I could try turning my revision notes into something I had never found difficult to read: COMICS.

     To my surprise, it was not only highly enjoyable (in a way, I expected that) but highly effective too. Suddenly, the information was getting into my head and staying there, the way I assumed it was for people who take in knowledge more conventionally.

     When it came to my exam, I did my best to remember the notes from my Revision Comic. I was delighted to find how easy that was. I remembered all the pictures and parts of the story in the comic that contained the facts I needed. Even so, I wasn’t expecting to come back with my very first GRADE A in an academic exam!

    It wasn’t the Grade A that filled me with confidence, though, but the realization that I COULD access information – and could have been doing it all along – when it was presented in a way that worked for me.

     Since then, I have made my revision technique into a series of comics more accessible to a younger age, the years when I felt I really missed out.

     These comics turn school subjects like maths, literacy, science, and history into pure entertainment in the form of visual stories.

    Continue reading the article, here: https://dekkocomics.com/blog/improving-confidence-through-comics

    The comics can be found on our website, here:
     
  • Dyslexia – Dyscalculia!?

    Dyslexia – Dyscalculia!?

    The authors, Dr. Astrid Kopp-Duller and Dr. Livia R. Pailer-Duller, describe in this publication the necessity of intervention at the educational-didactic level, which is of preeminent importance for success in the training of people who have problems with reading, writing, or calculating.
    Information on ordering is found here:
    https://www.dyslexia-dyscalculia.com/
    Available in English, German, and Spanish.
    Download PDF-Excerpt!
    It is a fact that many people who simply have problems with learning how to read, write, or do arithmetic continue to undergo only psychological or medical therapy, and don’t receive the educational-didactic assistance that they actually need. In cases of problems with reading, writing, or calculating, only the specially trained educator will be able to help these people using educational methods that have been developed through educational-didactic research.
  • MIT Professor Catherine Drennan on Her Dyslexia and Its Advantages

    MIT Professor Catherine Drennan on Her Dyslexia and Its Advantages

    http://DyslexicAdvantage.org “Don’t listen to what anyone tells you what you can or cannot do…there is no dyslexia ceiling. Doesn’t exist unless you create it in your own mind.” – MIT Professor of Chemistry and Biology Catherine Drennan, PhD. Dr Drennan also shares how she is able to read molecular spatial configurations like how she learned to read. The Conference was made possible by a generous grant from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation

  • Dyslexia Is Done

    Dyslexia Is Done

    For over 100 years, dyslexia has had a good run. It’s caused heartache, misery, and frustration for millions. That’s over now. A fifth independent study has once again proven that dyslexics can become better readers than non-dyslexics. It takes between 20 and 40 hours of practice with a method called “Eye-Hop.”

    The Eye-Hop exercises are fun and easy to do. Through progressive levels, people move from processing one word at a time to reading 5 to 8 words at a time. This is all done with high comprehension. Amazingly, those with the worst phonological processing achieve the greatest percentage increase in their reading abilities. This appears to be due to the ability to process so much information in one glance. Like predictive text on a smartphone, the more information provided, the more certain it is of the word you’re typing.

    Eye-Hop is an element of the SuperReading Program. This course, developed in 1995, has always produced these results. The difference today is that SuperReading is now available 100% online. Nearly a year was spent creating compatible online testing, which is rigorous and accurate. Resources were also spent to perfect an online App which converts ordinary text into the Eye-Hop format almost instantly. This means that age-appropriate material of interest can be used to fulfill the hours required to overcome dyslexia.

    The online SuperReading course is easy to understand and apply. Any parent or guardian can read about a tool or watch a 3-minute video and explain it to a child in a minute or two. Coaching is available, though not required. Every child graduating the SuperReading Program has become the best reader and learner in their school in 60 days or less. In the case of some dyslexics, it has taken closer to 90 days.

    Skill levels are measured by “Reading Effectiveness” (RE) with standardized tests. RE is reading speed multiplied by comprehension/recall (expressed as a percentage). For example, a person reading at 200 words per minute (wpm), able to recall 50% of what they read, would have an RE of 100, or 200 x .5 = 100. A person reading at 150wpm with 50% accurate recall would have an RE of 75, or 150 x .5 = 75. In plain English, RE tells us how fast we read and what we have to show for the time spent. The SuperReading Program guarantees to at least double the baseline RE scores of any person. With the online testing, this is now a much “cleaner” process than from paper. All scores are computed, graphed out, and tracked in a secure database.

    SuperReading was developed in Silicon Valley in the mid-1990s. One of the first companies to bring in the Program was Apple Computer. After 5 weeks, their Global Response Team was able to reduce 28 hours of reading each week down to 5 hours. They also reported that their engineers did a better job reading incoming emails, as their “Negative Response Rate” (NRR) dropped by 85%. The NRR was end-users complaining that the engineers did not understand their email. The first identified dyslexic to enter the Program was from the legal department at Hewlett-Packard in 1996. In a group of 25 engineers and managers, Nancy started off with the lowest RE scores in that group. 35 days later she had the highest RE scores. This would become a trend in the years to follow.

    From 1996 to 2005, hundreds of dyslexic readers came through the SuperReading Program, did their Eye-Hop exercises, and became brilliant readers. In 1996, these engineers asked to have the Program for their children. Some companies held family classes after hours. Those children quickly became the best readers in their school. Many of them were dyslexic, others had ADHD, ADD, and other learning challenges. No condition or label seemed to make any difference. They all became great readers and progressed from dreading having to read to loving it. When asked why they felt that way, most replied that it was no longer a chore, or torture. It was easy and felt like fun. Apparently, children do not run away from fun- they move toward it. Combined with memory tools and stress-free study techniques, these students thrived. After a major exam, one student commented that the memory tools made it easier than cheating! Other students agreed.

    In 2006, I moved to the UK. There I met Dr. R. Cooper, one of the UK’s leading authorities on dyslexia. At first, he dismissed the results, believing those people were not truly dyslexic; that they only thought they were. As a person who sat on the board when the UK defined dyslexia, he had been teaching teachers how to help dyslexics for 16 years. Dr. Cooper politely dismissed me. Nearly a year later, while teaching law students at the London City Law School, I had two dyslexic students take the course. They had papers from bona fide Assessors of Need proclaiming them as dyslexic. They more than tripled their initial RE scores and wrote glowing testimonials. I sent the documents and comments to Dr. Cooper, who invited me to London South Bank University to run a course for a group of dyslexic students and adults. Dr. Cooper was, in his words, “astounded at the results.” The last class was very emotional- lots of tears from people who had just finished a book for the first time in their lives. Some were in their 40s and 50s. We ran a second course, this time with a control group. We got the same results. 84% of the dyslexics ended up with higher RE scores than a group of non-dyslexic university professors! In future studies, they would be compared to their non-dyslexic peers, and 100% would end up with higher RE scores. Since 2009, the UK government has funded SuperReading for all dyslexic university students in the UK.

    The Italians have translated SuperReading into Italian and are taking it through their university system. They have seen equal success in a high school and in their dyslexia centers. You can view their latest published study. The other studies can be accessed from our website.

    The SuperReading Program is available now, at https://superreading.com, along with the unique Eye-Hop exercises. Dyslexia has had its day. Now you can have yours.

    Ron Cole
    The Reading & Learning Coach

    Soaring Students, Delighted Parents,

                  Turned-On Teachers

               www.superreading.com

  • GHOTIT Can Help Kids With Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Spelling

    GHOTIT Can Help Kids With Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Spelling

    Dyslexia Spelling = Phonetic Spelling + Creative Spelling

    What is Phonetic Spelling?

    When you’re dictating a word and tell your son or daughter that he should write what he hears, your child will attempt to map the sounds in the words to the sounds of the letters.

    However, English is not a phonetic language. There are a very large number of English words where there is a gap between how the word sounds and how the word is actually spelled. Not to mention, there are many times multiple correct phonetic options to a given sound (for example: k , c, ck, and qu – all sound about the same)…

    What is creative spelling?

    Given that English spelling is not phonetic, and each sound may have several spelling options, a lot of correct English spelling is dependent on the visual memory of a written word. If you have good visual memory of words, you will be able to spell a word correctly simply by writing it down, and from memory deciding if this is the correct spelling.

    But kids with dyslexia and dysgraphia have very poor and inconsistent visual memory of spelled words, and therefore, can hardly rely on their visual memory of words…. Not to mention that children with dyslexia or dysgraphia sometimes confuse the direction of letters, and though they meant to write the letter “b” actually end up writing the letter “d”…

    A child’s Creative Spelling refers to the spelling of a child who has no idea of how to spell correctly certain syllables of a word, and therefore, creatively makes them up as he writes. And each time he/she “creates” a word’s spelling, it usually ends up as a different spelling creation.

    Can a regular spell checker correct dyslexia spelling?

    English is not a phonetic language, and therefore, the “creative spelling” of a child with dyslexia or dysgraphia must be taken into account in order for a spell checker to provide value for a dyslexic child. However, the “creative” spelling of such a child is basically “noise” and therefore any computerized program, such as a regular spell checker, that tries to correct a single word at a time (and not based on the context of the sentence) is doomed to fail… That is why Microsoft spell checker many times simply fails to correct a heavily misspelled word written by a dyslexic… and the reason why dyslexic children require…

    Continue reading here: https://www.ghotit.com/ghotit-for-kids

  • Why Dyslexia Is More Than a Reading Disorder

    Why Dyslexia Is More Than a Reading Disorder

    People with dyslexia have difficulty reading letters and words; it’s a learning disability that has nothing to do with their intelligence. Until recently, researchers assumed the challenge could be traced to language difficulties, including problems processing printed words, and they focused their attention on the language parts of the brain.

    But in the latest research published in the journal Neuron, scientists led by John Gabrieli, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that dyslexia may be due to a much broader difference in brain function. After analyzing functional MRI brain scans of people with and without dyslexia, they found that those with dyslexia were less adept at something called adaptive learning. When the brain sees something new, whether it’s a word, object, voice or experience, it expends a lot of neural energy to gather as much information about the novel stimulus as possible. But if it does this every time it hears the same voice, or encounters the same dog barking, for example, that wouldn’t be efficient. It’s therefore able to adapt and quickly triage new encounters from familiar ones.

    Gabrieli found that in the brains of dyslexics, this process wasn’t occurring when they heard the same person speak different words. Nor did it occur in other tests of the brain’s plasticity, or ability to adapt. That suggests that the trouble with reading has less to do with language specific problems but rather broader issues with adaptivity. In other words, the issues with adapting to new things may compromise skills like reading.

    Continue reading here: https://time.com/4608060/dyslexia-reading-disorder/

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