Liz Ditz has a post noting today’s status as “International Dyscalculia Awareness Day, Today.” Read it here.
Archive for the 'Dyslexia' Category
Although the paper was published several years ago, it is worth noting. It may not be news, but it forms part of the fabric one has to consider in thinking about the nature of dyslexia. Read this in the context of other stories (e.g., this one) about genetic bases for dyslexia.
A candidate gene for developmental dyslexia encodes a nuclear tetratricopeptide repeat domain protein dynamically regulated in brain
Mikko Taipale, Nina Kaminen, Jaana Nopola-Hemmi, Tuomas Haltia, Birgitta Myllyluoma, Heikki Lyytinen, Kurt Muller, Minna Kaaranen, Perttu J. Lindsberg, Katariina Hannula-Jouppi, and Juha Kere
Communicated by Albert de la Chapelle, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, June 24, 2003 (received for review December 23, 2002)
Approximately 3–10% of people have specific difficulties in reading, despite adequate intelligence, education, and social environment. We report here the characterization of a gene, DYX1C1 near the DYX1 locus in chromosome 15q21, that is disrupted by a translocation t(2;15)(q11;q21) segregating coincidentally with dyslexia. Two sequence changes in DYX1C1, one involving the translation initiation sequence and an Elk-1 transcription factor binding site (–3G A) and a codon (1249G T), introducing a premature stop codon and truncating the predicted protein by 4 aa, associate alone and in combination with dyslexia. DYX1C1 encodes a 420-aa protein with three tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR) domains, thought to be protein interaction modules, but otherwise with no homology to known proteins. The mouse Dyx1c1 protein is 78% identical to the human protein, and the nonhuman primates differ at 0.5–1.4% of residues. DYX1C1 is expressed in several tissues, including the brain, and the protein resides in the nucleus. In human brain, DYX1C1 protein localizes to a fraction of cortical neurons and white matter glial cells. We conclude that DYX1C1 should be regarded as a candidate gene for developmental dyslexia. Detailed study of its function may open a path to understanding a complex process of development and maturation of the human brain.
Link to the PNAS materials.
Joanne Jacobs has a post entitled “The illiterate teacher” about author John Corcoran who reports in a book that he “taught high school social studies, bookkeeping and P.E. for 17 years despite being illiterate.” Ms. Jacobs reported that Mr. Corcoran, who’s book is The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read, also funds a foundation that promotes reading instruction. According to the John Corcoran Foundation Web site, Mr. Corcoran has also written another book, Bridge to Literacy: No Child - or Adult Left Behind.
Link to Ms. Jacob’s post. See also the John Corcoran Foundation Web site.
Joe Torgesen, Barbara Foorman, and Richard Wagner of the Florida Center for Reading Research published an excellent overview of dyslexia that is readily available for public download. Although the title, “Dyslexia: A Brief for Educators, Parents, and Legislators in Florida,” makes it sound as if it is only applicable to people in a specific geographical area bounded by arbitrary marks on maps, this paper will be useful to millions of people.
In the document, Torgesen and his eminent colleagues address questions such as these: What is Dyslexia? What type of instruction is most effective for students with dyslexia? and Can reading difficulties in dyslexic students be prevented? How effective is remedial instruction for older students with dyslexia? The writing is clear as well as clearly well-informed.
This document will be valuable to people in PreK-12 schools, students studying education and the professors who should be teaching them the contents of the document; parents who are seeking straight talk with the authority of firm scientific underpinnings; and advocates who can benefit by distributing a tightly reasoned and written document to help explain concepts to constituents.
Snag a free copy from the Florida Center for Reading Research.
Among the fab five components of reading—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension—different aspects have seemed to be in the spotlight at different times. Of course, this is just my subjective view, but it seems to me that there was disproportionate focus on comprehension in the ’80s and early ’90s, then on decoding in the late ’90s and early ’00s. Recently, it seems that everyone’s talking about fluency.
Although I think that a disproportional focus on fluency is a mistake (more on that in a later paragraph), I thought it would be beneficial to have some resources here on LD Blog about reading fluency. So, I’ve assembled a few recommended links here:
- Oregon’s Big Ideas resources on fluency by E. Kame’enui and D. Simmons (n.d.);
- Reading Fluency Assessment and Instruction: What, Why, and How? by R. Hudson, H. Lane, and P. C. Pullen (2005).
- Reading Fluency by N. Mather and S. Goldstein (2001);
- Assessing Reading Fluency by T. V. Rasinski (n.d.);
- Secondary Students with Learning Disabilities in Reading: Developing Reading Fluency (PDF) by D. P. Bryant, J. Engelhard, & L. Reetz (n.d.; note that I am republishing the document here because I can no longer find it on the Council for Learning Disabilities site);
- Reading Rockets has a slew of resources; this link will get you a listing of them;
- Screening, Diagnosing and Progress Monitoring for Fluency by J. Hasbrouck (2006);
- Reading Fluency: What, Why, and How? by M. Dunn (PDF) (2007).
One of the reasons that we have to be careful about a disproportional emphasis on fluency is that we don’t want to communicate to learners that reading speed and accuracy, even including prosody, are all there is to reading. That is, fluency is just a means to the end of finding the ideas that the text conveys. This should be the idea of “balanced reading,” in my view. To be sure, fluent decoding is critical, but teacher have to shift the emphasis from the early stages when they are showing students how to unlock the coded material to the should-come-soon stages of comprehending the coded content.
Although it may sound like I’m playing with words, I am not. As strongly as I advocate for teaching early decoding skills efficiently and effectively, I don’t want readers to think that I consider decoding the end in itself. More on this another time… it probably deserves a page and perhaps it belongs on Teach Effectively rather than here on LD Blog.
Brain Gym (Skeptic’s Dictionary)
Wheeeheee! Over on the Skeptic’s Dictionary, Robert T. Carroll has a take-down and pin of Brain Gym. The contemporary incarnation of some ideas that were thoroughly discredited in Learning Disabilities in the 1970s, Brain Gym is making something of a splash. Shoot, it even appeared in one of my Curry School colleague’s classes for a while, as I understand.
Professor Carroll’s indictment of Brain Gym presents a good opportunity to make an important point. The problem with Brain Gym and many of its siblings is not that the activities might not be worthwhile, it’s that the advocates over-reach so substantially. Shoot, I’m glad to advocate that we teach kids who might fit the clumsy category how to walk, move, dance, play basketball, and etc. I just don’t want people to be sold a bill of goods about how doing so will improve those children’s reading, etc.
Read Professor Carroll’s analysis. Need info on the research about the benefits of perceptual-motor training? Here’s a link to a meta-analysis.