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Teaching Tips January 1, 2009 |
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Pinpointing the Problem When parents tell me that their child is having problems reading, the first thing I do is find out what stage of the reading process the child is at. Each stage has potential pitfalls that relate to certain physiological changes and abilities that must exist first. Decoding
If you recall from the Stages of Reading article, pre-reading skills, which involve hearing the sounds of the language properly, develop in the right hemisphere of the brain. Decoding skills develop in the left hemisphere. In order for a child to master the first stage of reading, the mid-line connections between the two hemispheres of the brain must be adequately developed. These cross-hemisphere connections were first made during the crawling stage. Children who skipped this stage or did not crawl using the standard alternating arm/leg method, often have weak mid-line connections. This underdevelopment can impact reading significantly. Since the two hemispheres must work together, a related problem occurs when there is no dominant hemisphere. Consider for a moment what happens if you have to report to two different bosses. What happens if they each tell you to do something different? Or what if each boss thinks the other is assigning the task, and doesn’t say anything? Neither one is sure who should take the initiative. Ideally, one hemisphere of the brain should dominate, with one side being stronger - dominant hand, eye, ear, and leg. If not, it’s as if the two sides become confused as to which should direct the action. If there are problems at the first stage, then these mid-line connections and dominance should also be evaluated. Fluency The major symptom of problems at this stage is inconsistency. Several factors can be involved, including lack of mastery of stage one skills, vision problems, mid-line problems, and learning style differences. A common problem at this level is that the child seems to know the sound-letter connections, but then seems to forget them when reading. Or a child knows a word one day but then quickly forgets it. First and foremost, this means the child has not mastered the first stage of decoding. It’s important that you take the time to solidify these phonics skills. Since reading is a sequential skill, non-sequential learners will have a harder time. It will take longer for abstract, random, and global learners (about half of all children) to master the sound-letter connections. That’s because they are trying to learn something that is the opposite of their natural way of learning. A good indicator of this is to watch the child’s eyes when reading. If the eyes follow the line of words smoothly from left to right, then chances are the child is reading well for his/her age. But if the eyes dart all over the page while the child is trying to read a sentence, then the child is probably a global learner. When you understand what is involved in reading, it is not surprising to find that the majority of reading problems are due to learning style issues rather than actual physiological problems. So the next step is a learning styles assessment. If you are dealing with a global learner, just understanding that extra time is required is half the battle. Then you can make any adjustments in the curriculum and teaching method required. It’s also helpful to check for dominance, mid-line connections, eye-hand coordination, and development of body-in-space orientation – all of which have to do with the two hemispheres of the brain working properly. Both sides need to be working in tandem in order for the child to be able to read smoothly. Finally, a complete eye test is recommended to see if the eyes are tracking properly and focusing together. If not, then vision therapy may be necessary. If problems persist after six months, then other possible physiological issues should be evaluated by a medical professional. Comprehension The major symptom at this stage is that the child can read, but doesn’t seem to remember the details. Most of the time, this is because fluency skills have not been mastered, which is usually caused by learning style differences. If problems persist once learning style adjustments have been made, then chances are there are significant problems with the cross-hemisphere connections. The child may need integration training. Advanced Comprehension Both left-brain and right-brain students have trouble at this stage for different reasons. In order to synthesize and analyze a reading passage properly, a child must be able to identify the main idea and the supporting details. Concrete, detail-oriented students often think every detail is important! Abstract, global students may think nothing is important; the information seems to go in one ear and out the other, without consciously thinking about what was read. Abstract/global learners are usually very good at “reading between the lines” and recognizing the symbolism involved. But because they overlook information that is not important to them, they often miss key points. Concrete, sequential learners often have a hard time making inferences and drawing conclusions unless they are spelled out for them. Recognizing symbolism is not natural for them; they have to be taught how to identify it and link the elements together. In other words, most of the problems at this stage are due to learning style differences. Parents assume that students automatically know how to analyze a passage, just as we automatically assume a student knows how to make an outline or write note cards. All skills must be taught, even if some students seem to pick them up immediately. Learning Stages vs. Learning Disabilities It should be clear by now that if your child is having trouble reading, you must address two issues first: (1) has your child mastered the previous stage of reading? and (2) are learning style differences affecting how quickly your child is mastering these skills? Once these two cognitive areas have been dealt with, any problems that persist may be due to physical situations. The primary physical culprit impacting learning is diet and nutrition. In order for the brain connections to work properly, the chemical-rich bath that surrounds the connections must be properly balanced. The connections themselves must be properly insulated. And the brain must be hydrated adequately for the electrolytes to fire efficiently. All of these actions are impacted by lack of water, chemicals and dyes in the food, deficiencies in the essential fatty acids, sugar content, lack of proteins, and medicines and anti-biotics. In other words, you may be dealing with several layers of issues delaying development. Solving the problem often involves dealing with each issue one at a time. In a classroom situation, teachers rarely have time to “peel away the layers.” Consequently, students are diagnosed as having learning disabilities, even when there are not actual physiological conditions causing the problems. Too often, learning style issues, visual perception issues, and auditory tracking problems are misdiagnosed as dyslexia. Dyslexia comes from the Greek words (dys) meaning difficulty and (lexia) meaning pertaining to words. The trend is to diagnose ANY problem pertaining to words as dyslexia. To make matters worse, the tendency to mix certain letters (such as b and d) and switch letters in a word (such as saw and was) is mistakenly viewed as THE sign of dyslexia when in fact almost all children do this for a period. If you look at a list of common traits exhibited by children with dyslexia, they are very similar to those found in random, global learners. Professionals who have to screen children for referral to special services now recognize that a series of symptoms must be present for an extended period of time (usually over six-to-nine months) before such a diagnosis can be made.
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