So, I add this ONE hour video by a Harvard professor singing the praises of Proust and the Squid, it may be easier to listen to and much more thorough than my blog.
This is very dry material and as my father, who is a doctor and avid reader who has read every classic, twice just said, "it is a bit boring". Yes, he is correct....
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/197405-1
Mary Ann Wolf devotes a great many chapters in Proust and the Squid to dyslexia and when the brain can't learn to read. She recounts stories of many successful business people overcame dyslexia to be the heads of major corporations, etc. She writes of the humility many of these people suffered and her own personal account with a child who cannot learn to read. She calls it a messy enterprise with no clear definition. But since this book is basically about he brain and the inherent challenges and accomplishments that allow us to form words, sentences and meanings, brain abnormalities need to be addressed.
Ah, so I just called it a brain abnormality, and it was a British neuropsychologist who declared that dyslexia is "not a reading disorder" (qtd. in Wolf p. 168). It is not a flaw in the brain's reading center but in the circuitry of the brain and in one of the cognitive layers of the pyramid. I am sorry this is so small, but here goes, this is the Pyramid of Reading Behaviors. I will google it and see if I can get a better version.
How am I doing, Eldon? He is probably not even going to see this....So, In short, dyslexia was a term for "word-blindness" and probably very serious when diagnosed in the early part of the century. I remember having a childhood friend who was very smart, from a very "smart" family yet she had been diagnosed with dyslexia. I did not understand what it was only to know that it was a very big problem as words were backwards. Alas no blog on reading would be complete without the arrival of Noam Chomsky, who was a linguist in the 1970's in the emerging field of psycho inguistics, which is not the study of crazy people doing strange things while using big words. but it is the study of the psychology of language. These crazy language people determined that dyslexia was a perceptual and visual based disorder rather than a language based issue (173). And that is really all for now.
My brain is full and I can no longer make sense of this! I will leave you with a quote from John Donne
"The way of words, of knowing and loving words, is a way to the essence of things, and to the essence of knowing".
So did your book offer any "answers" as to why some people with dyslexia can "overcome" or "compensate" and become highly successful as you mentioned, and why others seem to continue to struggle?
ReplyDeleteGretchin you are too kind. Thank you. I feel that I am at a disadvantage. Not being a teacher and not having an opportunity to study literacy as a teacher has left me feeling inept. I appreciate the comment about the blog that was created because of this class.
ReplyDeleteIts ironic that you have introduced dyslexia. I am dyslexic. Or at least that is the diagnosis that was given to my mom many years ago. With that knowledge, my parents did everything they could to "combat" this diagnosis by reading, studying and communicating all lessons to me. Even today, when looking at simple text I seem to have to readust and reread it until I am sure what it (the text) is telling me.
The main issue I have had is with my first language (Navajo) and how different it is compared to English. A simple example is the hierarchy it attributes to the subject in speech and translation. The order of hierarchy in order is: Deity, Nature, Geography, Human, Large mammals, larger reptiles, smaller mammals, smaller reptiles birds, insects, etc. So when speaking, the most important subject is listed first based on hierarchal philosophy. That is what I attribute this diagnosis to.
I was given this quote about dyslexia:
ReplyDeleteCosby added a quote from his late son: "The happiest day of my life occurred when I found out I was dyslexic. I believe that life is finding solutions, and the worst feeling to me is confusion."
Dyslexia is a hard disease to overcome, and one that requires the entire families support. A good book for kids about it is called the ABC War. I read it last semester for my children's Lit class.
Gretchen, I will always fell guilty for not being aware of a student's dyslexia once. She came to class, but could never turn in the assignments. Another instructor was experienced enough to spot it and send her for intervention. IF you see students reading with colored pieces of plastic over the page, it usually means they have dyslexia.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! What scares me the most (since I have not taught yet), is not being able to recognize the signs of any learning disability and "failing" a child. I mean that not just by giving them bad grades, but failing in my duties as a teacher. For the first time ever, in my last class I was asked about what kind of accommodations I might give a student who is struggling with a learning disability and I wasn't even sure if my answers would help (extra time, extra attention, small group learning combined with lecture, using alternative mediums). I really wish the MA program included more than one required special ed class. Thank you for the great post.
ReplyDeleteI know my brother always felt less than and that he could never measure up to other classmates because the words on the page never made sense. In my classroom, I find great value in talk. Even if the words on the page don't make sense, the kids can talk it through and still find meaning. Meaning is at the heart of learning.
ReplyDeleteWow, I was very interested in the reading of this post. I never knew that Dyslexia was "...a perceptual and visual based disorder rather than a language based issue (173)", I always heard that it was a malfunction of the brain process of reading and comprehension. I wonder how people that have this disorder can function? I'll have to research more about this. Thank you Gretchen :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great information on Dyslexia. I am really enjoying learning all I can about these types of disorders. The chart looks very interesting and I am going to see if I can find it as well. In this book you said the author focuses a great deal on Dyslexia. Does he/she give any specific strategies to overcome this challenge that we as teachers can use? If so I may have to add this one to my collection as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm always for learning about issues that occur in the classroom. It just makes me feel a little more prepared to dive in. Dyslexia is something I am not familiar, lets not get that confused with being aware of it, I just don't know about its classifications, what occurs in the brain in its case, etc. What I'm curious though about this post was the cases in which individuals went off to succeed and accomplish prestigious things. How did they compensate? What did they do that was different? And most importantly can it be applied across the board to help others? I think that's just as important for a teacher to know about then just understanding the disability. What do you think?
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