Dyslexia not linked to eyesight

A study says that dyslexia is not linked to eyesight.

Many individuals and associations who have a vested interest keep posting articles that say that dyslexics have all kinds of ailments which are not true.

One such claim has been that dyslexics see words in pages jumping around and that words flow out over the edges of pages. They even do videos and post them all over the internet and dupe parents of dyslexics to go for eye tests and also to buy glasses with coloured layers which supposedly will help kids in learning to read by making the words not float about.(I looked for the video today but it is now classified as private.)

Does teaching handwriting re-mediate Reading related learning disabilities?

Following is my letter to Ms.Rowe A. Young Kaple who wrote an article on Handwriting and I copied it to Marilym Jager Adams. We'll await their response. Meanwhile:

Dear Ms.Rowe A. Young Kaple,

Recently I read your article entitled: Teaching fluent Handwriting re-mediates many reading-related Learning Disabilities.

I have a few questions for you and your team and would like your response please. I would be posting this e-mail in my blog www.dyslexiafriend.com and would like your response to post in a subsequent post.

Fixed mind set

I engage in discussions in forums under Literacy for Reluctant and Struggling students in Linkedin. A teacher there keeps talking about scientific method of teaching being the only way to improve literacy. When I asked her specifically and the group in general as to why the rate of illiteracy has not come down since the 1970’s she nor the group responded. I asked her why scientific method of teaching has not been implemented in schools and if it has why then there is no improvement in literacy even after George Bush’s ‘No child left behind policy’ introduced in 2001. Again there is no answer. 

Whatever I had said in Linkedin about my teaching experiences with dyslexic kids is brushed off as anecdotal and has “no place in scientific teaching”.

Writing and reading

I have written about a British who could read fluently in Japanese and yet was ‘dyslexic’ when it came to reading in English. I have articles by researchers saying that Italians who could read fluently in Italian could not read well in English. I personally have taught many dyslexic kids who could read well in Malay and yet were dyslexic in English. Now, my friend Bob has said that a Harvard professor who wrote the introduction to the 1912 English translation of The Montessori Method also wrote "That (handwriting fluency) might work for Italians, but it would never work for Anglophone students".

How can we incorporate handwriting with what I have been writing in my blog on teaching ‘shut-down’ learners?

A continuation of my Face Book discussion

This is a continuation of my Face Book discussion with Bob and Kate Gladstone. 

On 1.7.2015 Kate Gladstone had written in Bob’s face book page: "Actually, I've met seriously struggling readers who could churn out page after page of impeccable cursive or ball-and-stick printing ... and who could not read even what they had just copied."

Bob Rose: Hand -writing will improve literacy - Part 3

I have said in no uncertain terms that handwriting should be encouraged for kids in schools. When you handwrite, be you a visual learner, auditory learner or kinaesthetic learner, the alphabet you write and sound out while writing it will embed in your brain.

Having said the above and having said in the previous two posts that learning to write fluently does not necessarily translate into reading fluently in English I began to think how to incorporate teaching a kid to write with what I have been writing all along in this blog.

Bob Rose: Hand- writing will improve literacy – part 2

I have added some further thoughts. Those of you who have read yesterdays post may read only the indented passages.

Bob

"What Bob Rose thinks is that "phonics rules" don't really exist, especially for our vowels, so what counts is the sound represented in the particular word the student is learning to write. The association is made mentally as the student "silently" say the word (with its sounds) to himself as the word is repetitively written."