Specific Learning Difficulties
ADD/ADHD | Mathematics Difficulties | Dyslexia

Dyslexia

by Phillip Howell, Academic Dean

Approximately 20% of our nation's school children are not learning to read at a level which will benefit their lives. As adults, these individuals do not read for pleasure, to learn about the world, or to learn about themselves. Their inability to read inhibits opportunities for careers and full participation in our society.

There are various reasons why children don't learn to read. Some begin school already behind their peers, because they have not had adequate exposure to language and reading experiences. Others are dealing with emotional or behavioral difficulties which direct their energies away from learning. Other children have had sufficient early language experiences, are capable of learning, and are motivated to learn; however, they still have difficulty learning to read. Usually, such children are suffering from dyslexia.

What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability (or learning difference) which interferes with a person's ability to learn the written code of our language. Dyslexia hinders one's ability to identify printed words (either through sight memory or "word attack" skills) and to spell them. While most children learn to read with little or moderate difficulty, a person with dyslexia experiences great trouble and frustration.

A tremendous amount of research has been conducted on dyslexia since the early 1930's. In recent years, medical research (primarily in neurology and genetics) has added insight to the substantial educational research data available. While there is much left to learn about dyslexia, we have learned significant information:

Dyslexia is one specific learning difference (or learning disability). Other types of learning differences may interfere with mathematics computation, mathematics reasoning, reading comprehension, attention, or listening comprehension.
 

Dyslexia is caused by differences in the way the brain processes certain types of information. In order to read, the brain must be able to process visual information and various language information quickly and accurately. Dyslexia involves a deficit in one or more of these areas.
 

These differences are in no way related to intelligence. Reading requires a person to quickly integrate various skills which are unrelated to one's intelligence. Most people with dyslexia are bright, and many are brilliant.
 

Dyslexia has biological origins, rather than emotional or environmental causes. In other words, a person with dyslexia was born predisposed to this difficulty. Dyslexia is heritable; usually a family history of dyslexia can be traced through previous generations.

Other learning differences can co-occur with dyslexia. For example, a child may have difficulty with ADHD and dyslexia, or might have a mathematics learning difference in addition to dyslexia. In addition, the child may demonstrate some characteristics which are common to children with learning differences, in general. These characteristics include disorganization, difficulties relating to peers, and difficulty remembering and understanding directions.

Language sounds: The most common cause of dyslexia is difficulty processing phonological information, or the sounds of language. While the person has no hearing deficit and words are heard clearly, the person with dyslexia often has difficulty manipulating that information in specific ways. For example, such a person may have trouble identifying the individual sounds that make up a word, or hearing the beats (syllables) in a spoken word, or hearing the difference between certain sounds ("e" in "bed" versus "i" in "bid"). Most children develop a repertoire of such skills with sounds -- known as phonemic awareness -- before the age of seven.
 

Visual information: A common myth is that people who have dyslexia see everything backwards. While this is certainly not true, some people with dyslexia do have deficits in processing visual information. There may be more letter reversals than are typical for the child's age, very poor memory of sight words, or scrambling of the letters within a word as the eyes track across the text. Eileen Simpson, a noted author with dyslexia, describes the sensation of letters occasionally "swimming on the page," jumbling themselves unexpectedly.
 

Word storage and retrieval: When good readers read, many words which are read are recognized by sight and retrieved from the child's verbal memory. When the child sounds out unfamiliar words, she monitors the process to make sure that each word she reads is indeed a real word. Both of these tasks involve rapid retrieval from the child's memory. If a person is somewhat slower than average in retrieving words from memory, his rate of reading will likely be slower and stilted.

Each of these types of processing relates a separate aspect of reading. Phonological (sound) processing directly impacts a person's ability to sound out words in reading or spelling. Orthographic (visual) processing directly impacts his ability to remember words by sight and to correctly perceive the details within a word. Rapid word retrieval has direct correlation to the reader's fluency. Early difficulty in these areas are proving to be accurate predictors of future reading troubles.

When word recognition does not come easily for a child, she is unable to give much attention to other thought processes which support reading. For example, the child may be working too hard on processing visual and phonological information to make use of context clues or clues from her personal knowledge of the topic.

Typically, children hone their reading skills through practice. The more they read, the better they become at reading. As time passes, the child's difficulties are compounded as she misses the opportunities to read which her peers receive. Poor readers avoid reading, often because they are unable to succeed with the level of difficulty typically present in children's literature. Keith Stanovich, a prominant reseacher refers to this defeating cycle as "the Matthew effect," in which good readers get better through practice and poor readers do not.

How successful is intervention?

More than forty years of research has demonstrated that most children and adults with dyslexia can learn to read, when provided with the right kind of instruction. There is substantial data to demonstrate that the most effective interventions for students with dyslexia have several key attributes:

Time of intervention: The younger the child is when intervention begins, the more likely the child is to succeed. Numerous studies indicate that when appropriate intervention is provided in Kindergarten and first grade, most students at risk for failure end up reading on grade level. However, children who do not receive such intervention until age nine or older require much more strenuous and long-term remediation for success, and are at greater risk of being struggling readers as adults.
 

Correct instructional techniques: Explicit instruction, multisensory techniques, and an emphasis on focusing attention have the best results in teaching students with dyslexia how to read. (See the Teaching Methodology section for a more detailed listing and explanation.)
 

Curricular approach: Programs which offer a systematic approach to teaching the code of language as well as reading comprehension, written expression, and literature provide a balance of the necessary learning experiences. It is important to note that "teaching the code of language" is more than teaching phonics; it involves building automaticity in recognizing and spelling letter clusters, such as syllables, and in understanding the relationships between words. (See the Curriculum section for a more detailed listing of components.)
 

Frequency and duration of studies: Best results are obtained from daily practice of significant length. While the amount of time needed depends on the severity of the child's dyslexia, the programs which demonstrate success provide more than twenty minutes daily, and sometimes as much as two hours of daily instruction.