Literacy and Dyslexia

Literacy, or the ability to read and write, is a challenge for those individuals who have dyslexia.  While there are many statistical and defining disagreements about how many people have dyslexia and what dyslexia actually is there is the acknowledgement that those with dyslexia find literacy more difficult to learn. How to approach addressing the needs of those with dyslexia is much debated as well.  Rachel Gabriel’s article Preparing Literacy Professionals: The Case of Dyslexia (2018)  focus’ on the concern that many educator programs are specifically training their teachers to teach a scripted commercial program.  Gabriel believes “that the premise of such programs, sometimes offered by or in partnership with schools of education, raises questions about the purpose, location, and nature of graduate study, professional knowledge, and the role of commercial interests in the preparation of literacy professionals. It also signals a dangerous narrowing of both the focus and scope of preparation for literacy professionals” (p. 266).  To this I wholeheartedly agree.  There should be needs assessment done with those who struggle with reading and a systematic approach to teaching them the phonemic rules and skills needed to better decode the English language.

The nature of the English language, as it has integrated thousands of words from other languages, has a multitude of features which make teaching reading and writing more challenging that other native languages.   The 26 letters of the English alphabet are combined to make the 44 sounds, by listing, for example, that there are 28 initial blends, 48 final blends and so on. Consider that there are no less than six ways to make the /ew/ sound; blue, blew, moon, suit, flu, cute.  One implication for teaching must be to teach what is consistent and where ‘rules’ can be applied rather than to emphasize irregularities, though dealing with these when they arise (Kelly & Phillips p.51)  While sounds blends is something I have begun to study I am always fascinated to learn even more about the nuances of our language.  I was particularly fascinated to learn about and think about assimilation which “occurs when a phoneme changes according to the following sound because it simplifies the movements involved in articulation. It is not ‘sloppy’ or ‘lazy’ speech, it is due to efficient movement to articulate the sounds. It is noted that /n/ is affected, for example, when followed by /b/ or /p/ e.g., ‘He is in prison’ will usually be formed as ‘im prison’. (Over centuries, the prefix ‘in’ has become ‘im’ in words where the base or root begins with a ‘b’ or ‘p’ e.g., impossible, imbibe.) (Kelly & Phillips p.51) ”  I read the prison sentence several times noting how I pronounced it when reading.   When asked I asked my son to repeat the phrase however he said “in prison”.  When I asked him to read it and say it aloud he said “im prison”.   Fascinating!  Other challenges to literacy instruction are with elision in which occurs when sounds disappear from words e.g., ‘castle’ becomes ‘cassle’ (Kelly & Phillips p.51).  Making it more difficult for those learning to match the sounds with the letters.  

Although Kelly and Phillips end their chapter about phonemic instruction with a sales pitch for a particular literacy program, their argument for including a multi sensory approach to instruction on phonemic awareness is echoed by other researches.  They sum up their arguments by recommending that “reading and spelling can be improved by intervention which links reading with phonological awareness training incorporating phonemic awareness and attention to prosodic/rhythmic aspects. It is important to recognize that learners with dyslexia need systematic teaching to establish sound-symbol relationships (phoneme-grapheme) and this will require practice and over learning. Strategies should aim to develop learners’ short-term verbal memory” (Kelly & Phillips, p. 56). 

Works Cited

Gabriel, R. (2018). Preparing Literacy Professionals: The Case of Dyslexia. Journal of Literacy Research, 50(2), 262-270.

Kelly, K., & Phillips, S. (2014). Phonological skills, literacy and dyslexia. In Teaching literacy to learners with dyslexia: A multi-sensory approach (pp. 47-57). Sage.