Relaxing to learn?

Published
by
JohnL
on 13 October 2008
in Causes, Comments, Dyslexia, News and The press
. 2 Comments

An anonymous post on the Hattiesburg (MS, US) American caught my attention. The poster applauded a facility called the “Dynamic Dyslexia Design School.” This is the school about which Liz Ditz posted a note a couple of months ago. The school is accredited by the International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council, which is probably a good thing. However, that didn’t prevent it’s director from providing a not-too-thoughtful explanation for reading problems:

The education is delivered in a way the dyslexic students can understand, said director Cena Holifield.

“They don’t feel the stress of everyone around them being able to do something they can’t. When they feel safe and secure, the pathways to the brain open and makes it easier to learn,” she said.

I’d hazard an alternative explanation: If the students seem more relaxed, it’s likely the result of succeeding, not the other way around.

Link to the full statement. Link to the school’s Web site. Link to Liz’s earlier post. More about the International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • De.lirio.us
  • Furl
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

2 Responses to “Relaxing to learn?”

Feed for this Entry Trackback Address
  1. 1 Kathy Rollheiser
    13 October 2008 at 9:41 pm

    Hi John,

    I agree with you regarding the order of events. If that’s all it took, we would have a lot of dyslexics “curing” themselves in the privacy of their bedrooms or living room windowseats.

  2. 2 Liz Ditz
    14 October 2008 at 1:54 pm

    I wonder if Holifield is referring to Steven Krashen’s notion of an “affective filter”. Krashen was thinking and writing about second language acquisition, but I’ve heard this idea applied to culturally & linguistically diverse students and students with learning disabilities in various professional development & ed. school classes.

    From http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html

    Finally, the fifth hypothesis, the Affective Filter hypothesis, embodies Krashen’s view that a number of ‘affective variables’ play a facilitative, but non-causal, role in second language acquisition. These variables include: motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. Krashen claims that learners with high motivation, self-confidence, a good self-image, and a low level of anxiety are better equipped for success in second language acquisition. Low motivation, low self-esteem, and debilitating anxiety can combine to ‘raise’ the affective filter and form a ‘mental block’ that prevents comprehensible input from being used for acquisition. In other words, when the filter is ‘up’ it impedes language acquisition. On the other hand, positive affect is necessary, but not sufficient on its own, for acquisition to take place.

    A more critical look is here http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/LangTeach/Licence/FLTeach/Thunk5.htm

Leave a Reply