You see, dyslexia doesn’t actually exist, it’s just because my child isn’t being taught by synthetic phonics. Which is odd really as last time I looked Jolly Phonics is in fact a synthetic phonics scheme and we laboured our way through that for 2 years. In fact, the reading instruction in My Father’s World is synthetic phonics too and we are plodding through that at a slow and steady rate, interspersed with Stile (also phonic) and the LA part of SonLight (which, would you believe, is also phonic) So, erm, I’m obviously such a c**p teacher that even with several solidly synthetic phonic systems at my fingertips, my child is still not reading at a level she "should" be for her age and IQ.
Some random quotes on this (as stumbled upon arround our most informed and truthful internet…. I didn’t even open the Wikipeadia pages)
There are two simple reasons for being confident about the false nature of dyslexia. International comparisons and the fact that so called dyslexic children have no more trouble learning to read than other children, if the appropriate teaching methods are used. (Stringer, accessed 2009)
Which is all fine and dandy but you know, even Dyxies usually finally learn to read when they have heard, seen, felt and done enough to internalise the information. Some of us even get reletively fast at reading. We are, however, still dyslexic. And as for international comparisons, genetic conditions can be funny like that.
I was going to extensively quote from this website however, the way the site is produced means that when I try to copy and paste it into here it screws with my fonts and formats which just drives me nuts so I shall refer to it on a point by point basis instead and paste in sound bites
"Myth 1" - There is no way of differentiating dyslexics from other poor readers (Profs.Elliott /Stanovich ‘The Dyslexia Myth’)
Sorry, I can’t find the actual research offered by Elliot and Stanovich but the website linked to doesn’t not say that this is so but merely suggests this as one of 5 current theories. As the actual definition of dyslexia is a marked difference between the subject’s reading ability compared to what would be expected from their general inteligence it does seem to imply that it is only a portion of poor readers who should be "labelled" as dyslexic.
"Myth 2" erm, actually I couldn’t quite untangle the squigly mass of poorly constructed argument here. She is trying to refute the neurological basis for dyslexia, as demonstrated in various clinical trials where MRI scans have shown that dyslexics and "normal" people use different areas of the brain when reading. She doesn’t refer to any clinical evidence to the contrary but says (I think) that good teaching will produce good readers (which, incidentally I don’t dispute, is will, eventually.)
"Myth 3" "Unless the child is profoundly deaf, mute, or grossly mentally disabled the most likely reason why they can’t read is ‘ABT (ain’t being taught!) (Miskin) or dysdidaxia (a problem with the teaching) (Macmillan p134)" U-huh, thank you for those kind and thoughtful words. I feel so much better about my failure to teach my child to read.
Myth 4 is about the statistics of how many etc and seems to be responded to with an open ended quote and actually I really don’t give a hoot about the numbers.
"Myth 5" in which she refutes that the main "disabling" elements of dyslexia - poor short term memory and organisational skills - are actually part of dyslexia at all, because some people who can read also show these signs. Cough… I can read, I’m still dyslexic.
"Myth 6" on genetics "As there is no operational definition or indisputable way of diagnosing dyslexia it is impossible to find ‘dyslexics’ for a scientifically valid study. This means that the results of all the heritabilty studies and genetic models of dyslexia are invalid." However, using what most psychs will state as the accepted definition of the condition, studies have been conducted in several different locations on a collectivly large sample of individuals taht all independently located the same gene in dyslexics which does not appear to be present in non-dyslexics. (studies at CArdiff and Oxford university and the National Institute of Health in teh US)
skipping a few myths here (either because I can’t be bothered or because they are Aunt Sallys, deliberately set up to be knocked down)
"Myth, erm, not sure what number but anyway" "If dyslexics are taught to read using a genuine, synthetic phonic, remedial programme such as the Sound Reading System, their ‘dyslexia’ WILL disappear." No, the reading part of their problem will be lessened to the point where they are capable of getting by quite happily in the real world. This is good. This is not a cure any more than insulin injections "cures" diabetes.
"No scientifically valid tests are available that can differentiate dyslexics from other poor readers;" depends on how we are defining the condition doesn’t it.
"In countries which have a transparent alphabet code and synthetic phonic teaching methods (e.g. Austria, Germany) it is rare to find people who are very inaccurate readers and spellers i.e. dyslexic in the English-speaking world’s sense of the word" Well, I’m sure that there are lots of answers to this one. Thalassemia is pretty rare in the general "white" population, as is sycle cell anaemia, they both exist though don’t they? Funny thing genetics, you can get little pools of a condition in some populations and not in others. But even in these countries where it is rare to find inaccurate readers, there are some aren’t there? Surely those few mean that there is more to it than teachign?
and finally, lumping all the proven and less well studied "cures" or means of assisting dyslexics including coloured lenses, fish oils and Dore "None of these cures or remedies are based on good empirical evidence" Well, I can’t speak for the Dore method, I don’t have a few thousand £ to try it out. I can’t say for sure on fish oils but I’m sure if your diet is lacking in whatever is in them then they will help something. I can speak for colours. I’ve seen it in my own ability to read. I’ve seen it in my child whose face suddenly lit up as she was able to suddenly "see" the words properly. I’ve laughed about it with other "sufferers" when we have compared notes on how the words misbehave for us. It’s real. It’s not dyslexia though, it’s Meyers Irlene or Visual Stress or whatever this week’s buzz word is. It’s an associated condition, and it can stand alone from dyslexia but usually it doesn’t.
And whilst I’m being catty about the site, it hurts my eyes, all that really close packed text in suddenly different sizes. But I do like the colour.
