Jack Wainwright may be a Canadian retired principal, but what he knows about learning disabilities could barely fill a teacup.
What you will find by testing all pre-schoolers for their readiness to learn to read is that 80 per cent are developing normally and the school system will be just great for them.
You will find 20 per cent who are not developing cognitive skills in a normal pattern.
Some of that group, such as those with a history of ear problems, will not benefit from early intervention because, until their brain reaches that maturity level, which for 90 per cent of dyslexics is their late teens, they will, as happens now, have their self-confidence trashed.
Mr. Wainwright, you are totally wrong. What evidence do you have that a child cannot benefit from direct, explicit instruction in phonemic awareness won't help until the child is over 15? Early intervention--preschool is not too early--will help those children to become proficient readers.
They will consider themselves stupid and lazy, because that is what will ring in their ears.
If the school believes that specific targeted instruction = "stupid and lazy" well the child will too. But with appropriate, caring instruction, kids with barriers to learning can learn to read and can keep up with mainstream education (what is called general education in the US).
They stay in school by law and are passed to the next grade by "social promotion." They will leave school at age 16 with a totally hopeless feeling about themselves.
Of those who enter our school system in kindergarten, only 78 per cent complete Grade 12 at the present time. It has been documented that pre-schoolers who come from disadvantaged homes, whose cognitive skills are normal, will progress better with early intervention. So, remove the 80 per cent that will develop normally with no testing and no special programs; then subtract those whose cognitive skills are late maturing, and we are down to the five per cent that early intervention may help. Is it worth the effort?
A better way to spend on literacy is to target the 15 per cent who got through the school system without learning to read. They are our functional illiterates.
This is totally illogical. Why wait for the child to fail to learn to read? Why not intervene early?
Most of the students who have difficulty learning to read in elementary school are boys. Most of the dropouts are male. We need a beginners' reading series with easy vocabulary aimed at young adult male interests. Users must feel empowered and not belittled by the program. Topics such as current sports and cars can be used. The program would teach vocabulary recognition by sight.
Again, ignorant. If you only teach sight words, the child can only read the words he knows. If you teach decoding early and well, the child can then grasp words outside of the small list of sight words.
From what I can see, there is no downside to spending our literacy dollars on this group.
Jack Wainwright is a retired Vancouver school principal.
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