Primary School wont diagnose dyslexia

[bethalexander]

My 9yo DD is really struggling with her spelling and is bottom of her class. We think she has dyslexia but her primary won't test her. Getting her tested privately costs a fortune. Surely the primary have a duty to test her?

My dyslexic son's reading was transformed through a synthetics phonics program. He had I think six (maybe fewer) tutorial sessions when he was about seven and went from a child who threw tantrums at the suggestion of reading to one that reads extensively for pleasure. He still struggles with his writing, but I think that might be fine motor control issues too as well as crazy spelling. With a laptop he is pretty close to top of the class in English now (at 16).

We have dyslexia very strongly running through our family, affecting virtually every boy in my generation and ds's generation. It will be interesting to see if the next generation has similar issues of if better teaching will mean that they don't have to struggle so.

Tomatodizzymum the meme is from a PhD thesis written by Graham Rawlinson but there is research carried out by Keith Rayner

"education is often the victim of a reactionary myopia characterised by The Semmelweis Reflex (“the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs or paradigms.”) The term is named after the unfortunate Ignaz Semmelweis who discovered that bacteria was infecting mothers and children in a Viennese hospital in 1846, published conclusive research that would eventually save many lives and yet was publicly scorned at the time by his peers..."

schoolsweek.co.uk/education-research-the-intractable-problems-carl-hendrick/

Dr Semmelweis's colleagues were determined to believe that "it's all more complicated than that" because that is what their training about infection agents had led them to believe. They weren't interested in hard scientific evidence if it contradicted their beliefs, and continued to argue for those beliefs despite not having studied that evidence.

They were also unaware of the existence of "confirmation bias", which leads people to unconsciously filter their professional experiences, and only really 'take in' evidence that supports their pre-existing beliefs. This is one of the reasons why basing professional practice on the scientific consensus of many minds, rather than on one's own individual experiences, is vitally important.

I think, tomatodizzymum, that you completely missed the point of why I was referrring you to Dehaene. It was about how words are processed by the brain. You will, I hope, have noted that the process starts with identifying individual letters.

The theory is that there are three phases of learning: pictorial, brief photography of a few words and the phonological stage that decodes sounds and symbols and finally learning the spelling so word recognition can be fast and automatic.

I make that 4 stages, but never mind. The key word in that extract is theory. There are researchers, such as David Share, who see no validity in the 'stage theory' and I entirely agree with him!

Stage theory seems to imply that reading is a process which children somehow acquire developmentally. But it isn't acquired, it is taught. Researchers who came up with the stage theory were observing mostly US children who were taught in much the same way as the stage theory describes, learning words as 'wholes' first, then some attention to some letter sound correspondences which, if they were lucky, led to skilled reading. Neat, isn't it, the way the 'stages' coincide with how reading was taught.

Now Share observes that children learning to read other languages, whio are taught letter/sound correspondences and sounding out & blending right from the very start don't show any signs of conforming to the 'stage theory' model.

When you start to think logically about it there is absolutely no reason, apart from having been taught, for them to see words as 'wholes' initially when they are learning how to work them out right from the start. Some children might 'recognise' a few familiar words if they have been well exposed to text pre school but this is not a developmental stage, it's just familiarity because of exposure.

Maizie and mrz, we have just had a thread where I quoted many many peer reviewed papers debunking the fact that we read through phonics alone. Have you forgotten it? We discussed dehaene in that thread and he does not support what you are claiming here.

No I haven't forgotten your links but I did miss any convincing debunking

Yes, mrz. We also discussed your obtuseness and complete inability to engage with any of the evidence put before you.
In reality, as far as the actual process of reading, as opposed to that of phonics instruction goes, you are in total opposition to either of the two main theories held by the experts in the field.
I really don't have the energy to go to the lengths of posting huge amounts of evidence for you to completely ignore yet again, but if anyone would like me to link to the earlier post, I'm sure I can dig it out.

Did we also discuss your failure to present a convincing argument?

As I said, if anyone would like a link to the previous thread with lots of links to papers containing actual research on the subject by professors and doctors, instead of listening to a primary school teacher on mumsnet, I will happily provide the link.

Yes maizieD The key word in that extract is theory - it is, it is a summary of Dr. Dehaene's theory.

I broke the 3rd stage into two parts.

Stage theory does not suggest that reading is aquired!! Stage theory hypothesises that the brain develops in distinct stages as learning progresses and new connections are made in a continuous motion.

Yes stage theory has it's limits because we know that for a lot of children learning happens at different rates and other factors play a part.

www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2014/04/29/how_did_we_learn_to_read_956.html
"The last 15 years has seen an increasing consensus among researchers: children initially learn via the letter-sound translation mechanism. As they gain reading practice, they acquire the spelling mechanism as well, although the letter-sound translation method continues to make a contribution to reading."
". This general view accords with other behavioural data showing that methods of reading instruction that emphasise phonics have an edge over other methods. "

www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-education-blog/review-sheds-new-light-on-phonological-awareness-and-reading

www2.hull.ac.uk/science/pdf/johnston_etal.pdf

www.researchgate.net/profile/Alfred_Schabmann/publication/26849483_Does_systematic_reading_instruction_impede_prediction_of_reading_a_shallow_orthography/links/0c960524d312f316b1000000.pdf

Oh my god, some people are just so THICK.

Stage theory hypothesises that the brain develops in distinct stages as learning progresses and new connections are made in a continuous motion.

If that were so then all children, whatever the language they are learning to read, would noticeably pass through the 'stages'. They don't, as Share points out.

And I am sorry, but nothing I have read on the 'stage' theory of learning to read links it to brain development It is a description of what the researchers have observed. Could you cite something which shows the link with brain development?

www.education.com/reference/article/Chall-model-reading-development/

It's still just an observational model, mrz, that reflects what US children were taught in the 1950s/60s.

The only research I can think of that appears to relate the 'stages' of learning to read with brain development is Goswami's 'grain' theory. That children initially appear to find onset & rime analysis of words easier than phonemic analysis. But that is challenged by the fact that children taught phonemic analysis from the start, e.g. in other languages with a 'transparent' orthography, have no difficulty with learning to read.

I agree MaizieD and just one of many alternatives

Goswamis grain theory is not in the least challenged by different orthographies using smaller grains. It's what it predicts.
Although it says most children hear rimes before phonemes, with lots of evidence, it doesn't suggest that they learn to read these first. Single letter sound patterns are learned first, and in very regular orthographies not much else is required.
However, for English, children will also learn larger grains, including rime encodings and occasionally whole word patterns.
I've just read: Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia and skilled reading across languages, a psycholinguistic grain size theory, by Goswami and Ziegler. It's a very thorough meta analysis and extremely convincing. Also available without charge if you search for the PDF.
Please note they don't suggest teaching the look and see method, or teaching using rimes as a primary means of instruction.They are discussing how children learn and though they did touch on a comparison of different teaching methods at one point, they were very factual in their reporting of the various experiments that have been carried out.

Goswami also does not appear to subscribe to a stages interpretation.
"Grain sizes.. are word and neighbourhood specific, a view that is consistent with non-stage incremental theories."

Micksy I'm hopeful that anyone with concerns about dyslexia and teaching methods will do as you say. I know lots of people living with dyslexia and working in the field and have never met anyone as committed to one single interpretation of how to address it, as I have read on this thread.
Thankfully the academics and associations working in this area are more open and much less dogmatic than some of the self-proclaimed 'experts' on this threaf which has enabled them to help lots of children and adults, but then they are also very aware of listening to people with dyslexia.
I'm actually angry that someone searching for help could come across this thread and feel their situation is hopeless because the one technique/teaching method being espoused so vehemently here, hasn't worked for them. It's hugely damaging and reminiscent of the traditional 'one size fits all' approach to learning disabilities.

Have you actually read the OP?

Researchers who came up with the stage theory

Researchers study what they are interested in. In some cases they fall into a stage theory model, in others they don't. Stage theories simply relate to specific stages. It can be applied to a lot of sciences. I think it was first applied to Piaget, but I might be wrong. Dr. Dehaene's theory is a stage theory. I recently read an article about the differences in brain development of bilingual vs monolingual children that would also be a stage theory.

There are researchers, such as David Share, who see no validity in the 'stage theory' There are no researchers who deny the validity of research, limitations yes, validity, I doubt it. If an experiment is repeated and yields different results, then it's validity can be questioned, the god helmet experiment is a good example of this. If David Share is denying the validity of stage theory models then he would have to deny the validity of an awful lot of psychological research.

It seems various papers are being linked here, there and everywhere! Every peice of research is small parts of a larger picture, sometimes old parts can be made clearer. There is no "right" and "wrong" and every peice can be used as a springboard to help us understand the real world, not that one is a blueprint for how it works.

That's why caution is needed when applying research to education practices.

Yes and I have RTFT. I commented on it earlier too. You seem determined to dominate it mrz and although you may be coming from a well-intentioned place, I find your insistence on your approach (to the exclusion of and minimisation of others' experiences) worrying. It would also be unhelpful to most of the dyslexics I know.