Educating Education Writers

I've written about education writers and how they contribute  the public's misunderstanding of LD issues (accepting "Irlen Syndrome" as a cause of reading failure;  credulous reporter and "vision therapy" as treatment for LD

It turns out there is a national association of education writers.   It has a plethora of resources on issues such as NCLB and school choice. 

However, there is a glaring lack. The site provides NO resources on learning disabilities: what they are, how they are diagnosed, and effective means of remediation.

This, to me, is a serious shortcoming.  Where are the statistical tables showing the shockingly poor performance of the American educational system? Where are the resources that would help education writers better educate parents? Learning disabilities affect over 20% of children in k-12 education.

The International Dyslexia Association

Few, if any, teacher's colleges in the United States are training teachers in even one research based method of reading instruction.

State teacher certification requirements do not require elementary teachers or special education teachers to be trained in even one research based method of reading instruction.

National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities

The UK dyslexia industry:  Touting of such useless "cures" as the  Dore method (DDAT--see critiques  here and here and here);  Scotopic Sensitivity  (Meares Irlen---see critiques here and here and here and here);  Irlen Lenses and Hooked on Phonics; movement and dietary treatments (the Sunflower Method--see critiques here; Leona Bull's "research" was published in here in  Early Child Development and Care 172 (3) pp. 247-257(11) ) flashing lights (Brightstar, critique here)...the list seems endless.

Critiques of other "treatments" (all pages link to the excellent site maintained by the Tennessee Center for Dyslexia)
FastForWord
Larry Silver on DDAT
Dietary Supplements and Herbs for Learning Disabilities
Optometric and Vision  Training
The Davis Method
Colored lenses and overlays

Common myths about dyslexia
LD Blog on myths
LD Blog on letter reversals
Susan Barton's LD myths page
Dyslexia Center's dyslexia myths page
Meadowbrook Education Services dyslexia myths page
Agape Learning Center's dyslexia myths page

Educating education writers about dyslexia

Solid American resources:
Children of the Code

  Statistically, more American children suffer long-term life-harm from the process of learning to read than from parental abuse, accidents, and all other childhood diseases and disorders combined.  In purely economic terms, reading related difficulties cost our nation more than the war on terrorism, crime, and drugs combined. 

Index page of interviews from Children of the Code

In an interview, Louisa Moats says,

Every day I’m in a school and working with teachers, I continue to be astounded by the gulf of knowledge, the gulf between our knowledge base in the scientific community and the practices that go on in teacher training.....

One of the most common findings in my studies of teacher knowledge and teacher proficiencies is that even experienced teachers of reading really do not know speech sounds. If I ask them a simple thing like how many speech sounds are in the word ‘no’ and I spell it k-n-o-w, they’ll tell me there’s four speech sounds in the word because they don’t know how to separate their own knowledge of orthography from a specific awareness of speech sounds.

Children of the Code's interview with Sally Shaywitz, who used brain imaging studies to reveal that poor readers do not use portions of the brain that excellent readers use.

More links:
Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science
Teachers Not Prepared To Teach Reading
Ann Rickert: I Taught 1,000 Kids To Read, and Failed Hundreds

LD Online
Schwab Learning
Advocating for Your Children: Writeslaw
Susan Barton
The Greenwood Institute
International Dyslexia Association (IDA)
Jonathan Mooney and project Eye-to-Eye

What can Americans do to move from the status quo to universal reading mastery?

Comments

[John Lloyd]

Liz, you have nailed it again. Although we might quibble over some facts, figures, and other minutiae, your analysis of the problems with coverage in the popular press is right on the $$.

Thanks!