A concrete summary of what I believe:
A certain segment of the population is consistently being discriminated against for requiring a different teaching methodology in order to learn to read than is commonly available in both public and private school settings.
In the majority of cases people who fall into this category of phonemically challenged blame themselves. In fact, the true nature of the problem is that beginning in kindergarten the widely practiced teaching method of teaching the "whole language" method is failing this population.
Estimations of the number of people in this category are between 1/5th to 1/3rd of the total population.
It is widely commonly accepted for children to proceed in school without a certain level of reading ability. It is also common for school personnel to find subtle and overt ways to blame the child for their reading struggles.
These practices are discriminatory and therefore unacceptable.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
I want to pull a few important points from a scholarly paper that has crossed my path called:
30 Years of Research: What We Now Know About How Children Learn to Read
A synthesis of research on reading from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development commissioned by The Center for the Future of Teaching an Learning with funding support from the Pacific Bell Foundation.
This starts out, as many scholarly writings do, as something that is a bit overly complicated for the average reader. But digging a little deeper and staying with this paper was worth it. Here are points I feel like pertain to our story and dyslexia in general.
- ...phonological awareness appears to be the most prevalent linguistic deficit in disabled readers.
- Longitudinal studies show that of the children who are diagnosed as reading disabled in third grade, 74% remain disabled in ninth grade. (Fletcher, et al., 1994; Shaywitz, Escobar, Shaywitz, Fletcher & Makuch, 1992; Stanovich & Siegal, 1994)
- Adults with reading problems exhibit the same characteristics that are exhibited by children with reading problems. (My note- this is good to know).
- About two in five children have some level of difficulty with phonemic awareness.
- Kindergarten children with explicit instruction in phonemic awareness did better than a group of first graders who had no instruction, indicating that this crucial pre-skill for reading can be taught at least by age five and is not developmental (Cunningham 1990).
- In a study by Ball and Blackman (1991) seven weeks of explicit instruction in phonemic awareness combined with explicit instruction in sound-spelling correspondences for kindergarten children was more powerful than instruction in sound-spelling correspondences alone and more powerful than language activities in improving reading skills.
So for a moment I'm letting it settle in that a fast number of educators in the University setting know that this is going on.
Monday, August 27, 2012
School slipthroughs
Someone I know who is into their 60's told me recently that back in the day (when the nuns still ran the Catholic schools for the most part) there were over 50 children in her class.
She said that a person not be in the top percentage as far as quick learners went in those days simply did not get the extra attention they needed. They were passed along and slipped through.
I think we can safely say that in many situations not much has changed. Sure there are laws about how many children can be piled into a room and how many adults have to be there but I'm talking about the 20% or more of the children who need some extra time and attention.
While there is a level where we cannot control what is going on in another's home I think we can safely say that as far as schooling goes parents, grandparents and taxpayers should and do have a say in whether it is an accepted practice to let children slip through the cracks.
Blaming children for not understanding and not liking school is not the answer.
My mother was a teacher in the inner-city. It burnt her out quickly although she has the biggest heart. It was the politics and lack of support in dealing with all the issues that burnt her out. It was the principal always looking for their next promotion and the power plays as well as the blame-the-teacher mentality that did her in.
If I am hard on teachers sometimes I am wrong. It is not the teacher's sole responsibility to educate, they are on the frontlines but it is a collaborative effort with a combination of factors.
We are all accountable to some degree.
She said that a person not be in the top percentage as far as quick learners went in those days simply did not get the extra attention they needed. They were passed along and slipped through.
I think we can safely say that in many situations not much has changed. Sure there are laws about how many children can be piled into a room and how many adults have to be there but I'm talking about the 20% or more of the children who need some extra time and attention.
While there is a level where we cannot control what is going on in another's home I think we can safely say that as far as schooling goes parents, grandparents and taxpayers should and do have a say in whether it is an accepted practice to let children slip through the cracks.
Blaming children for not understanding and not liking school is not the answer.
My mother was a teacher in the inner-city. It burnt her out quickly although she has the biggest heart. It was the politics and lack of support in dealing with all the issues that burnt her out. It was the principal always looking for their next promotion and the power plays as well as the blame-the-teacher mentality that did her in.
If I am hard on teachers sometimes I am wrong. It is not the teacher's sole responsibility to educate, they are on the frontlines but it is a collaborative effort with a combination of factors.
We are all accountable to some degree.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The Big Dog, Education and National Security
One of the best bosses I ever worked for was a man I'll call The Big Dog. I could write a whole novel about him and his wonderfullness. Let me sum him up by saying, they just don't make them like him anymore.
He ran an office at the university where I worked with grants. He knew his job and he knew it well. Although he was not a PhD he never succumbed to the hierarchy of the University setting. He knew what he was supposed to do and no one could ever bully him into anything that he didn't think was ethical. I loved that man and it was a sad day for me when he retired.
He regularly worked with esteemed national agencies (think Department of Defense, Department of Energy and NASA) as well as other major organizations which were funding our grants at the University. Big deal negotiating involving tons of money was a daily occurrence and he was at the helm.
After 2001 when National Security became such a huge priority many agencies wanted only U.S. born people to work on many of those grants. In fact, they insisted on it.
All well and good, the problem was, as put by my boss, "there ain't that many U.S. born left to work on those national security related projects".
Many of the people studying engineering and science at our university were foreign and often they were going back to their home country once they received their degrees. A homegrown U.S. student was actually rather rare.
So how does this relate back to dyslexia and us one might be asking at this point?
Here is my theory:
If essentially all the schools in this country are like streams eventually feeding into our big rivers (universities) and these streams are running dry (in the form of not properly educating our future scientists, mathematicians, engineers, doctors and so on) then when you get to the big rivers (college) and eventually the ocean (post-doctoral) there are simply not going to be many people there who are from this country.
If the math-strong but language weak child of today hates school they are certainly not going to make a life-long study of it.
The typical university game of basing acceptances on the grade point averages of high school and SAT scores are not going to allow children to go to our better universities, this, in turn, will keep holding down our children who potentially could be an asset to our country in the area of math and science.
The potentially great student with different strengths other than language is being turned away and this is frankly, a loss to our own country's security.
Truth be known I have lived in other countries and I have seen them doing things in what I considered a much better way than this country (nationally supported healthcare, much better public transportation).
I do not consider myself a nationalist but I am a concerned citizen. This is my country, I believe in it, what it can and sometimes does stand for, it's history. This is where I want to live and raise my family and grow old and hopefully one day see my grandchildren make their life.
I do not want to be scared that China has increased it's military strength by 80% in the last decade. I know people who have been there and I do understand that their overpopulation problem (as well as lack of females) could lead my country into a vulnerable position where others want what we have (space, affluence, females, etc. )
So sorry, I digress but there it is. My theory about National Security and how it relates back to your local kindergarten class.
He ran an office at the university where I worked with grants. He knew his job and he knew it well. Although he was not a PhD he never succumbed to the hierarchy of the University setting. He knew what he was supposed to do and no one could ever bully him into anything that he didn't think was ethical. I loved that man and it was a sad day for me when he retired.
He regularly worked with esteemed national agencies (think Department of Defense, Department of Energy and NASA) as well as other major organizations which were funding our grants at the University. Big deal negotiating involving tons of money was a daily occurrence and he was at the helm.
After 2001 when National Security became such a huge priority many agencies wanted only U.S. born people to work on many of those grants. In fact, they insisted on it.
All well and good, the problem was, as put by my boss, "there ain't that many U.S. born left to work on those national security related projects".
Many of the people studying engineering and science at our university were foreign and often they were going back to their home country once they received their degrees. A homegrown U.S. student was actually rather rare.
So how does this relate back to dyslexia and us one might be asking at this point?
Here is my theory:
If essentially all the schools in this country are like streams eventually feeding into our big rivers (universities) and these streams are running dry (in the form of not properly educating our future scientists, mathematicians, engineers, doctors and so on) then when you get to the big rivers (college) and eventually the ocean (post-doctoral) there are simply not going to be many people there who are from this country.
If the math-strong but language weak child of today hates school they are certainly not going to make a life-long study of it.
The typical university game of basing acceptances on the grade point averages of high school and SAT scores are not going to allow children to go to our better universities, this, in turn, will keep holding down our children who potentially could be an asset to our country in the area of math and science.
The potentially great student with different strengths other than language is being turned away and this is frankly, a loss to our own country's security.
Truth be known I have lived in other countries and I have seen them doing things in what I considered a much better way than this country (nationally supported healthcare, much better public transportation).
I do not consider myself a nationalist but I am a concerned citizen. This is my country, I believe in it, what it can and sometimes does stand for, it's history. This is where I want to live and raise my family and grow old and hopefully one day see my grandchildren make their life.
I do not want to be scared that China has increased it's military strength by 80% in the last decade. I know people who have been there and I do understand that their overpopulation problem (as well as lack of females) could lead my country into a vulnerable position where others want what we have (space, affluence, females, etc. )
So sorry, I digress but there it is. My theory about National Security and how it relates back to your local kindergarten class.
A story from last night
Every night, after dinner, we go to a local playground close by to play (weather permitting).
Doing this has allowed us to get to know many of our neighbors who attend different schools. We started this after I read the book: Last Child in The Woods which talked about how less and less children are getting the chance to be with nature on a regular basis.
Nightly park visits have become a habit (even though, believe me, there are a million things I could be doing around the house instead).
Still, I've been really glad of the chance to meet other families, many of them in our local public schools, and have my children know these neighborhood friends also.
Last night we ran into a family I knew from our last school- the Catholic School. Even though they only live 2 streets away I didn't know them well because their child was so much older. They didn't know that we left last school year and I told them the reason why.
The stepmother, who is in education, then proceeded to tell me that she believed that their child also has dyslexia. He is going into 5th grade and reads at a second grade level. He is strong in math (typical) but language is a huge challenge.
She said in fact, at the end of the last school year the school told their family that they didn't believe Our Lady of The Pines was a good fit for him.
One would think by now that I wouldn't be shocked at this sort of thing, but I still am.
So he is going into 5th grade, is not reading at a level to "keep up" and just now the school mentions that fact?
Should I be looking at this sort of honesty as an improvement on their part? Are they attempting to be more upfront with parents (after all my family went through with that place). One can hope but I doubt it.
Perhaps I'm simply still too angry at all their shenanigans with my own family to give them the benefit of the doubt. Still, if I were running a school and saw that children were not learning I would hope that I wouldn't be blaming the child or parents for that.
We aren't talking about a principal who is new in the school business. The principal has been there something like 30 years. She was the principal when my husband's friends went there.
She knew how to teach in the pre-whole language teaching method days.
So when 20% or more of the children going through that school were not able to catch on to the whole language teaching method those children got to shoulder the blame?
(That is the typical school routine- blame the child, blame the parents and that is the story I heard last night).
Good grief how is any of this okay! It's not.
So of course I told this stepmother our story and all about our school but the mention of money of course made a decision like the one we made out of the question. I could see her shut off.
She is going to ask that the tutor start using the Orton-Gillingham method with their child (question: what the heck method has the tutor been using on this kid for the past 3 years and if it wasn't working then why didn't she switch until she found one that would?)
I understand that this is a long road. She is speculating that it's dyslexia (most likely true) and they don't even have a real diagnosis at this point (and those aren't cheap even if you go to a less reputable place to get it).
I know my family is blessed to not have the same financial struggles as so many people these days
Still, in our society money takes precedence over children all the damn time and in my belief system this is simply not okay.
We all make choices as far as money is concerned.
I want to be understanding and sympathetic to their plight (and the struggles of so many in these hard times) but I also want to say that our family choices have historically and presently included positioning myself so that our children's needs, rather than money or needlessly expensive items, are the priority.
Quitting my career in grant writing to work part time and breast feed was a major choice. We know others who have sold their house and moved into an apartment in order to be with their baby.
There are school loans that can be taken out in order to pay for an expensive school like the one we go to.
I enjoy looking at mommy blogs that are so popular right now but frankly, the silly overpriced items that so many of them seem to be hawking grate on my nerves. I wouldn't ever spend the sort of money these mommybloggers do on clothes and sunglasses and who knows what. Those things are nice but they are not my priority and I wonder is there all that much wealth in this country right now or are they part of the illusion that there is.
Public schools need to be addressing dyslexia and I don't think they are. If Catholic Schools overall act like the one we attended then I think it's safe to expect that the overall quality of a Catholic School education is greatly reduced from what it may have once been.
Doing this has allowed us to get to know many of our neighbors who attend different schools. We started this after I read the book: Last Child in The Woods which talked about how less and less children are getting the chance to be with nature on a regular basis.
Nightly park visits have become a habit (even though, believe me, there are a million things I could be doing around the house instead).
Still, I've been really glad of the chance to meet other families, many of them in our local public schools, and have my children know these neighborhood friends also.
Last night we ran into a family I knew from our last school- the Catholic School. Even though they only live 2 streets away I didn't know them well because their child was so much older. They didn't know that we left last school year and I told them the reason why.
The stepmother, who is in education, then proceeded to tell me that she believed that their child also has dyslexia. He is going into 5th grade and reads at a second grade level. He is strong in math (typical) but language is a huge challenge.
She said in fact, at the end of the last school year the school told their family that they didn't believe Our Lady of The Pines was a good fit for him.
One would think by now that I wouldn't be shocked at this sort of thing, but I still am.
So he is going into 5th grade, is not reading at a level to "keep up" and just now the school mentions that fact?
Should I be looking at this sort of honesty as an improvement on their part? Are they attempting to be more upfront with parents (after all my family went through with that place). One can hope but I doubt it.
Perhaps I'm simply still too angry at all their shenanigans with my own family to give them the benefit of the doubt. Still, if I were running a school and saw that children were not learning I would hope that I wouldn't be blaming the child or parents for that.
We aren't talking about a principal who is new in the school business. The principal has been there something like 30 years. She was the principal when my husband's friends went there.
She knew how to teach in the pre-whole language teaching method days.
So when 20% or more of the children going through that school were not able to catch on to the whole language teaching method those children got to shoulder the blame?
(That is the typical school routine- blame the child, blame the parents and that is the story I heard last night).
Good grief how is any of this okay! It's not.
So of course I told this stepmother our story and all about our school but the mention of money of course made a decision like the one we made out of the question. I could see her shut off.
She is going to ask that the tutor start using the Orton-Gillingham method with their child (question: what the heck method has the tutor been using on this kid for the past 3 years and if it wasn't working then why didn't she switch until she found one that would?)
I understand that this is a long road. She is speculating that it's dyslexia (most likely true) and they don't even have a real diagnosis at this point (and those aren't cheap even if you go to a less reputable place to get it).
I know my family is blessed to not have the same financial struggles as so many people these days
Still, in our society money takes precedence over children all the damn time and in my belief system this is simply not okay.
We all make choices as far as money is concerned.
I want to be understanding and sympathetic to their plight (and the struggles of so many in these hard times) but I also want to say that our family choices have historically and presently included positioning myself so that our children's needs, rather than money or needlessly expensive items, are the priority.
Quitting my career in grant writing to work part time and breast feed was a major choice. We know others who have sold their house and moved into an apartment in order to be with their baby.
There are school loans that can be taken out in order to pay for an expensive school like the one we go to.
I enjoy looking at mommy blogs that are so popular right now but frankly, the silly overpriced items that so many of them seem to be hawking grate on my nerves. I wouldn't ever spend the sort of money these mommybloggers do on clothes and sunglasses and who knows what. Those things are nice but they are not my priority and I wonder is there all that much wealth in this country right now or are they part of the illusion that there is.
Public schools need to be addressing dyslexia and I don't think they are. If Catholic Schools overall act like the one we attended then I think it's safe to expect that the overall quality of a Catholic School education is greatly reduced from what it may have once been.
Monday, August 20, 2012
The homeschooled dyslexic child
If one were to read through this blog history then the reader would see that at one point I considered (briefly) homeschooling my daughter. But earlier this month I talked to a woman who homeschools and it has taken me the better part of this month to get to the point where I can write down what she told me. I'd like to share it now. (For privacy purposes I will change a view minor details of this story but I am basically writing it as it was told to me).
My family lives in an urban neighborhood which is close to a major university. Our neighborhood is known for being eclectic and mostly educated. In the 1970's this is the area where the hippie types all lived and it's still somewhat like that. I could go on but I wont.
There is a large community of homeschoolers that live in this area. It's so common that 3 of my neighbors homeschool their families. Additionally, we know others that homeschool. Personally I haven't felt convinced by what I've seen.
My daughter has a friend she sees every so often that is her age and is homeschooled. The mother is adamant about homeschooling and they participate in homeschool activities at the local recreation center (which is in our neighborhood and some families drive many miles to be a part of it).
From the outside I would have thought that perhaps her children were getting a fine, if a bit unusual education. Many of the homeschool mothers in this area give off an air of superiority about their decision to homeschool. (For example I have seen bumper stickers that say: My unschooled child will hire your honor student).
When I recently told a homeschooling mother about our change out of the Catholic school and into our Orton Gillingham based school she mentioned that all 4 of her children had dyslexia. She also told me in great detail about her attempts to educate them in spite of their dyslexia. It sounded quite challenging and yet, in a way I understood because of my own struggles to get my child what she needed.
She confirmed my feeling about the local group that use the children as guinea pigs to "educate" tutors. Her family had a horrible experience with that group.
(While she was talking though I wondered how well a child who has never been expected to sit in a chair and listen to an adult who isn't a sanctioned homeschooling adult is going to listen to a person who is mostly dealing with children who are from a traditional school setting and know how to listen to an adult with authority).
She went on to admit that none of her children could actually read due to the dyslexia issue. The oldest is a teenager (would be in about 10th grade).
I'm really trying to reign in my judgemental ism here but I want to say for the record that I am astonished that a homeschooling mother would let their child get to that advanced age and not be able to read.
The mother went on to say that she knew her daughter (which is my daughter's age) cant read either but that she didn't think it was that big of a deal in first and second grade.
She then asked me what I knew about the University program. In my opinion the University program agenda is this: Professors trying to make a name for themselves (publish or perish) have created a center which provides tutoring to prove and/or disprove techniques like Orton Gillingham (which has been around since the 1930's). Children and young people could benefit from this but I certainly wouldn't want to base my child's whole education on this sort of setup (where the child isn't actually the focus).
As I am not a homeschooling mother I do not know the ins and outs of getting my child to the point where they could graduate (question: don't homeschooled children have to actually prove they are learning to graduate?)
Still if our society has a public school system that fails to educate dyslexic children and a large (and growing) group of homeschooling parents that cannot or will not get their children to the point where they can read then we are going to have a future that includes a lot of undereducated and/or mostly illiterate population.
Being under educated and or illiterate will expose these same people to all sorts of exploitation, brainwashing (by TV or religion mostly). These people are very vulnerable to being compromised. At the heart of education is the idea of empowerment. This is the opposite.
I don't want to bash this homeschooling mother who confided in me but I don't think that excuses or being manipulated by children who have been taught not to like tradition school setups is okay.
After this talk I now greatly suspect that homeschooling is being used by at least some people in ways that are unacceptable. In the case of dyslexia I think it would be a mountain-like challenge to educate a child at home (unless someone was already specially trained).
My family lives in an urban neighborhood which is close to a major university. Our neighborhood is known for being eclectic and mostly educated. In the 1970's this is the area where the hippie types all lived and it's still somewhat like that. I could go on but I wont.
There is a large community of homeschoolers that live in this area. It's so common that 3 of my neighbors homeschool their families. Additionally, we know others that homeschool. Personally I haven't felt convinced by what I've seen.
My daughter has a friend she sees every so often that is her age and is homeschooled. The mother is adamant about homeschooling and they participate in homeschool activities at the local recreation center (which is in our neighborhood and some families drive many miles to be a part of it).
From the outside I would have thought that perhaps her children were getting a fine, if a bit unusual education. Many of the homeschool mothers in this area give off an air of superiority about their decision to homeschool. (For example I have seen bumper stickers that say: My unschooled child will hire your honor student).
When I recently told a homeschooling mother about our change out of the Catholic school and into our Orton Gillingham based school she mentioned that all 4 of her children had dyslexia. She also told me in great detail about her attempts to educate them in spite of their dyslexia. It sounded quite challenging and yet, in a way I understood because of my own struggles to get my child what she needed.
She confirmed my feeling about the local group that use the children as guinea pigs to "educate" tutors. Her family had a horrible experience with that group.
(While she was talking though I wondered how well a child who has never been expected to sit in a chair and listen to an adult who isn't a sanctioned homeschooling adult is going to listen to a person who is mostly dealing with children who are from a traditional school setting and know how to listen to an adult with authority).
She went on to admit that none of her children could actually read due to the dyslexia issue. The oldest is a teenager (would be in about 10th grade).
I'm really trying to reign in my judgemental ism here but I want to say for the record that I am astonished that a homeschooling mother would let their child get to that advanced age and not be able to read.
The mother went on to say that she knew her daughter (which is my daughter's age) cant read either but that she didn't think it was that big of a deal in first and second grade.
She then asked me what I knew about the University program. In my opinion the University program agenda is this: Professors trying to make a name for themselves (publish or perish) have created a center which provides tutoring to prove and/or disprove techniques like Orton Gillingham (which has been around since the 1930's). Children and young people could benefit from this but I certainly wouldn't want to base my child's whole education on this sort of setup (where the child isn't actually the focus).
As I am not a homeschooling mother I do not know the ins and outs of getting my child to the point where they could graduate (question: don't homeschooled children have to actually prove they are learning to graduate?)
Still if our society has a public school system that fails to educate dyslexic children and a large (and growing) group of homeschooling parents that cannot or will not get their children to the point where they can read then we are going to have a future that includes a lot of undereducated and/or mostly illiterate population.
Being under educated and or illiterate will expose these same people to all sorts of exploitation, brainwashing (by TV or religion mostly). These people are very vulnerable to being compromised. At the heart of education is the idea of empowerment. This is the opposite.
I don't want to bash this homeschooling mother who confided in me but I don't think that excuses or being manipulated by children who have been taught not to like tradition school setups is okay.
After this talk I now greatly suspect that homeschooling is being used by at least some people in ways that are unacceptable. In the case of dyslexia I think it would be a mountain-like challenge to educate a child at home (unless someone was already specially trained).
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