Montana does not use the word "dyslexia" in discussion students with difficulties in reading. That's fine; many states do not. Using "specific learning disability in reading" or comprehension or both is just as good.
Specific learning disability -- reading is has the following roots:
- Difficulty processing speech sound (phonological weakness)
- Difficulty manipulating speech sounds (phonemic awareness)
- Difficulty with associating symbols (letters) with sounds
- Difficulty retrieving sounds and symbols from memory.
These difficulties are brain-based--functional magnetic imaging studies of dyslexic students' brains show that unremediated dyslexics use different parts of the brain for reading tasks. Effective remediation "rewires" the brain (even in adults).
The proceeding is what most mainstream researchers now believe to be true about dyslexia.
Ronald Davis has a different (and unproven) approach. He believes that dyslexics are prone to disorientation, and that they must be taught to control the mental state that leads to disorientation (
Davis Orientation Counseling®). Mr. Davis also believes that all dyslexics "think in pictures" and are "triggered" into disorientation by reading words that cannot be pictured (such as "the" "at" or "and). The remedy is to model the words in clay (Davis Symbol Mastery®).
Unfortunately, Davis's assertions are not backed with the same scientific weight as the mainstream views, as no studies have been done to back his assertions, and no rigorous, independent evaluation of the efficacy of his approach have been undertaken, either.
That has not stopped Mr. Davis's organization from vigorously marketing his treatment.
Mr. Davis recently appeared in Montana (he was invited to speak by a private school) where there are five "treatment" providers. In some settings, the Davis approach seems to be a week-long, intensive program. In other settings, it seems to be more spread out over time. The cost of the program isn't listed on the website, but in 2003 several parents mentioned cost of the one-week program was $3,000.00, plus lodging if necessary.
In Davis's experience, dyslexics are superior in intelligence and imagination to persons without the disabilit.
That advantage has inspired Davis to make a renewed charge at the public school system. He said he wants to get more educators interested in his theories as a counterbalance to the phonics-heavy curriculum now in vogue.
“Our education system is designed for people who think with sounds of words,” he said. “Our native way of thinking is with images. If you didn't think in images, you wouldn't recognize your own mother on the street. Why not teach that to the part of us that learns that way?”
I sincerely hope the Montana public schools don't fall for the Davis approach. But it doesn't really sound like the
Special education coordinator Candy Lubansky said the term [dyslexia] doesn't mesh with the learning disabilities that schools can identify and treat.
“I could tell someone was coming to town, because I've started getting calls from parents saying, ‘I would like my child evaluated for dyslexia,' ” Lubansky said. “It's a very broad term. It can include a wide variety of reading issues. If a child is struggling with learning to read, we're looking at determining eligibility for specific learning disabilities. We're trying to look at that in a uniform manner, so when a child in California is identified with a specific learning disability and comes to Montana, we know what to do with them.”
In Missoula, there are about 700 kids with reading-based learning disabilities. That's a hell of a market for someone like Davis, whose "treatment" only takes a week, and must have a huge profit margin.
“I would always like to think that our strategies are evolving,” Lubansky said. “I think there's a lot of room for a lot of kinds of approaches. We should never stop trying different strategies.”
I would hope that Lubansky would be looking at programs that have a solid research base such as Lindamood Bell.
“In effect, PSD60 went ‘by the book’ in producing large-scale reform with unparalleled success.” PSD60 did this by allowing Lindamood-Bell to train over 1200 professionals in the district over the researched period of time and assist the district with over 4300 children receiving intensive remedial instruction in reading.
PSD60 was chosen for this study as a result of its dramatic increase in student achievement after it partnered with Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes, a private literacy and research organization with years of success in improving reading and comprehension skills. “We always believed that these students could perform academically,” said Paul Worthington, Lindamood-Bell’s Director of Research and Development. “Based on the typical expectations for high poverty schools, PSD60 is a statistical improbability,” referring to the fact that these students from poor areas are performing so well.
Susan Barton visted Billings and Great Falls earlier in the month -- her program, Barton Reading and Spelling, is effective.
Here is a review of the Davis approach from a parent active on the Schwab Learning board:
I did the program for my son at the Davis Center for the exact same reasons you state in your post and NO it did NOT remedy the issues. You are better off spending your $$ on Lindamood Bell v/v or possibly the PACE/Brain skills program. If you are determined to try the program, just buy the book and do the clay portion as described in the book. Most of the success stories from the parents I talked to who did it (I talked to about 12 of the references the Davis Center gave me) where from parents who had done no special remediation before hand and the kids could not read at all. If you are starting from zero, there may be a benefit but otherwise most likely not.
The following is a description of Montana's approach to learning disabilities:
The Child Study Team must determine that the student demonstrates a significantly low rate of achievement relative to the student's age and ability levels in at least one of the following areas: oral expression, listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skill, reading comprehension, mathematics calculation, or mathematics reasoning. The team must also document that despite the implementation of data-based, research-supported interventions the student’s academic achievement continues to progress at a rate that is below the learning rate of students of a similar age and/or grade level, or that the data-based, research-supported interventions necessary for the student to progress at a rate comparable to students of a similar age and/or grade level are equivalent to the services provided to students receiving special education services.
That would seem to eliminate Davis's approach--it's not data driven, and it is not research based. As of 2001, Davis was promising research but all the "research" on the Davis site is anecdote.
Learning Disabilities Resources in Montana
The Learning Clinic in Billings (read the Plan to Reduce Need for Special Education)
LDA of Montana
3544 Toboggan Rd
Billings, MT 59101
406-259-3110
Parents, Let's Unite for Kids (PLUK)
PLUK is a private, nonprofit organization formed in 1984 by parents of children with disabilities and chronic illnesses in the state of Montana for the purpose of information, support, training and assistance to aid their children at home, school and as adults.
Disability Services for Students, University of Montana
Disability Services for Students, Montana State Univeristy (Billings)
Effective Teaching to Remediate Dyslexia--These steps must be mastered in order!
Phonemic Awareness is the first step. You must teach someone how to listen to a single word or syllable and break it into individual phonemes--the individual sounds. The person may also have to have awareness raised--that /pin/ SHOULD sound a little different than /pen/. The learner also has to be able to take individual sounds and blend them into a word, change sounds, delete sounds, and compare sounds --all in their head. (Non dyslexic children learn these before the reading task begins. These skills are easiest to learn before someone brings in printed letters.)
Phoneme/Grapheme Correspondence is the next step. Here you teach which sounds are represented by which letter(s), and how to blend those letters into single-syllable words.
The Six Types of Syllables that compose English words are taught next. If students know what type of syllable they're looking at, they'll know what sound the vowel will make. Conversely, when they hear a vowel sound, they'll know how the syllable must be spelled to make that sound.
Probabilities and Rules are then taught. The English language provides several ways to spell the same sounds. For example, the sound /SHUN/ can be spelled either TION, SION, or CION. The sound of /J/ at the end of a word can be spelled GE or DGE. Dyslexic students need to be taught these rules and probabilities.
Roots and Affixes as well as Morphology are then taught to expand a student's vocabulary and ability to comprehend (and spell) unfamiliar words. For instance, once a student has been taught that the Latin root TRACT means pull, and a student knows the various Latin affixes, the student can figure out that retract means pull again, contract means pull together, subtract means pull away (or pull under), while tractor means a machine that pulls.
How it is taught
Simultaneous Multisensory Instruction: Sometimes we rattle this off and don't really explain what it means or why it is important
This can be confusing to parents
Sight or seeing, using the eyes = VISUAL
Hearing or listening, using the ears = AUDITORY
Feeling or touching, using the skin = TACTILE
Moving through space and time, using the whole body = KINESTHETIC
Reading and writing go together; writing is a kinestethic task--(can you feel how all the muscles in your hand and arm work to form letters as you write a sentence?).
Research has shown that dyslexic people who use all of their senses when they learn (visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic) are better able to store and retrieve the information. So a beginning dyslexic student might see the letter A, say its name and sound, and write it in the air -- all at the same time.
Intense Instruction with Ample Practice: The dyslexic brain benefits from overlearning--having a very precise focus with lots and lots of correct practice.
Direct, Explicit Instruction: dyslexic students do not automatically "get" anything about the reading task, and may not generalize well. Therefore, each detail of every rule that governs written language needs to be taught directly, one rule at a time. Then the rule needs to be practices until the student has demonstrated that she has mastered the rule in both receptive (reading) and productive (writing and spelling) aspects. Only then should the instructor introduce the next rule.
Systematic and Cumulative Many dyslexic students are not identified until later in their academic careers. They have developed mental "structures" of how English works that are completely wrong. To develop good written language skills--reading and writing--the tutor must go back to the very beginning and rebuild the student's mastery with a solid foundation that has no holes or cracks. The student must learn the the logic behind our language, by encountering one rule at a time and practicing it until the use of the rule is automatic and fluent when both reading and writing (spelling). The student must learn to connect previously learned rules into current challenges.
Synthetic and Analytic: dyslexic students must be taught both how to take the individual letters or sounds and put them together to form a word (synthetic), as well as how to look at a long word and break it into smaller pieces (analytic). Both synthetic and analytic phonics must be taught all the time.
Diagnostic Teaching the teacher must continuously assess their student's understanding of, and ability to apply, the rules. The teacher must ensure the student isn't simply recognizing a pattern and blindly applying it. And when confusion of a previously-taught rule is discovered, it must be retaught.
NOW WHAT?
There are a number of places to get help. The International Dyslexia Association can help, as can LD Online and Schwab Learning Susie Barton has a very helpful site.
Schwab Learning Articles
Effective Teaching Methods for Dyslexic Students
Elements of Good Research
Features of Good Reading Programs and Remediation
Myth of a Quick Fix
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