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Got Dyslexia?

If your mind ‘hears’ every word of this sentence, you’re probably okay.

By Eric Hasteline

Have you heard the one about the agnostic insomniac dyslexic who stayed awake pondering the existence of Dog? If not, you’ve got a fresh joke for the next cocktail party. But when you spin this yarn over a glass of merlot, be sure to add that it’s flawed: Dyslexia is not about letter reversals. Rather, it is a brain disorder that makes it difficult for a dyslexic to connect the sound components of speech –called phonemes– to the written letters representing those sounds. A few dyslexics may see letters reversed, but more often the problem can’t be so easily described.

To understand dyslexia better, consider the contortions the brain must go through in order to read and understand the word rutabaga. First it must resolve the word’s contours into letters, and then match these letters to the individual phonemes the letters represent. Next the brain stitches the phonemes together into the sound of rutabaga, then it retrieves the word from memory to comprehend it. In English, the more than 40 phonemes outnumber the letters in the alphabet, because letters can express multiple sounds. For rutabaga, a normal brain would select the phonemes /r/, /u/, /t/, /e/, /b/, /e/, /g/, and /e/. The /t/ sounds similar to a d, while the pronounciation of the letter a, which occurs three times in the word, requires two different phonemes. The first and last take on the sound of the a in sofa, while the second a sounds like the long a in bait.

The phonemes in rutabaga illustrates how complex reading actually is. Now imagine trying to navigate this lexical jungle while lacking the ability to match the letter a to the sound of /e/. The brain’s method of unlocking the meaning of a word –silently sounding out /rutebege/– is disrupted for a dyslexic, thus creating a challenge. To see if you might have dyslexia, try the experiments below.

Experiment 1

1. Do you have difficulty reading aloud?

2. Are you a bad speller?

3. Do blood relatives of average or higher intelligence have trouble learning?

4. Do you struggle to follow written but not oral directions?

5. When reading, do you often have to go back over the same word several times before understanding it?

6. Did you have problems learning a foreign language?

Answering yes to more than two questions means you should try the next experiment to see how well you connect phonemes.

Experiment 2

Below are 20 nonsense words. If spoken aloud, nine of them sound like real words-baik, for example, stands for bake. Without speaking the words out loud, figure out which ones corrispond to real words. Missing more than three could mean you have some degree of dyslexia and could benefit from further evaluation. The answers are at the bottom of the page.

zam

lep

crope

bete

mord

sed

rool

peze

frire

blone

baik

calp

hib

masp

thoe

vust

praid

blut

karn

crad

If the experiments above lead you to believe you might have dyslexia, don’t despair. You’re in good company: Dyslexia affects more than 15 percent of us and is a leading cause of learning disabilities. But new teaching methods that emphasize the sounds of language can help dyslexic readers attain normal reading skills. Some neuroscientists believe that dyslexics are more creative than average – Alber Einstein and William Butler Yeats had this disorder- because the brain structures normally devoted to processing language rewire themselves, thereby priming the mind to cook up novel ideas. For more information about dyslexia, go to www.discover.com/brainworks.

Answers to Experiment 2: beat, said, rule, peas, fryer, blown, bake, though, prayed

Related Resources

• www.discover.com/brainworks

10 Ways to Help Kids with Learning Disabilities Succeed

Adapted from an excerpt from The Survival Guide for Kids with LD by Gary L. Fisher, Ph.D. and Rhoda Cummings, Ed.D.

A lot of kids with LD do not like school. After all, it is not fun to have problems learning, especially when most of the other kids are not having problems. That may be why so many kids with LD get into trouble at school.

There are some kids with LD who do like school. Maybe they do not like it all of the time, but they like it some of the time. If you do not like school, you can do something about it. There are ways to get along better in school. Here are 10 ways for you to try.

1. When Things Are Tough, Have a Chat

Often, kids with LD do not share their feelings with others. They feel sad, hurt, and angry, but they keep these feelings bottled up inside of them.

It is hard to keep feelings bottled up. Sooner or later, the feelings come out. Sometimes they come out in strange ways. Some students with LD stop doing their school work. Or they throw things, get into fights, or talk back to teachers. They get into trouble, and they feel even worse.

When you are feeling sad, hurt, and angry, why not find someone to talk to? How about a school counselor, teacher, janitor, aide, bus driver, or friend? Pick someone you like, someone who will understand. Then go and talk to that person.

2. Keep Your Head Up!

Being a person with LD is nothing to be ashamed of. If someone asks you why you go to LD classes, tell them (if you feel like it). Look them in the eye and say, “I have a learning disability.” Or say, “I learn differently. The LD classes help me learn.” Believe and act like you are important. The more you do this, the more other people will treat you like an important person.

3. Become an Expert

An expert is someone who is the best at something. Kids with LD can become experts, just like anyone else.

Think of some things that kids your age are interested in. What about collecting baseball cards? Listening to rock groups? Building models? Pick something you like that other students in your class like, too. Then find out as much as you can about it. Ask your teacher and Mom and Dad to help you.

This is a good way to show that kids with LD can be smart. It is also a good way to get attention. When you are an expert, other people will ask you for help.

4. Take Part in School Activities

School is more fun when you do other things than just school work. Take part in school activities like plays, clubs, or sports. Offer to help plan school activities. Let your teachers know that you want to help.

5. Learn More about LD

Find out as much as you can about your kind of LD and the ways you learn. When you have teachers who do not understand LD, you can tell them about it. This will help them plan for you.

6. Make Friends

Sometimes kids with LD make friends only with each other. It is good to have friends who have Ll). But it is better tQ have friends who have LD, AND friends who do not have LD.

7. Be a Helper

Many kids with LD feel like they are always asking for help. It seems like they are the only ones who ask for help.

You can be a helper, too! Maybe you can help younger kids who are learning things you already know. Or you con help another student in your class with something you are good at. If you know you can help, tell someone! Offer to help.

8. Stay Out of Trouble

For many kids with LD, school work is hard and boring. So they join in when other kids start fooling around (After all, fooling around is more fun than Working!)

This kind of joining in is not a good idea. It gets teachers and parents upset. If you see other kids fooling around just ignore them. Keep doing your school work. Then you will stay out of trouble.

9. Know How to Relax and Cool Off

Think of the last time you were working on something very hard that you did not understand. Maybe you got upset and angry.

What did you do next? Did you pretend to keep working when you were really not working? Did you yell? Throw your work on the floor? Quit? Cry? Go home?

These things will not help you get along better in school. You need to come up with other things to do instead.

Maybe you can raise your hand and ask your teacher for help. But what if your teacher is busy? Then you need to help yourself.

Here are two ways you can help yourself: Close your eyes, take three deep breaths, and count to ten very slowly and quietly. OR… Say “Relax” to yourself five times very slowly and quietly

When you start to feel better, try doing your work again.

Gary says: “I am not good at putting things together. It always makes me feel nervous and dumb. But sometimes I have to do it.

“Last summer, I bought an outdoor grill that was supposed to take two hours to put together. It took me TWO DAYS!

“I use to try to put things together when I was a kid. I would get so mad that I would throw things and yell. That didn’t work very well. Now I read each step of teh directions a couple of times. I also look at the pictures very carefully. And I work very slowly. I set short goals, things I know I can do, like putting the legs on the grill. After I meet a goal, I give myself a short break for a reward.

“If I get too frustrated, I stop working for a while. Then I take some deep breaths and read the instructions again.

“I’m still not very good at putting things together. But I have gotten better. And I don’t get so angry anymore.”

10. Do Not Use LD as an Excuse!

Some kids use LD as an excuse for not doing their work.

Maybe a kid has science homework to do. But there is a movie on TV he wants to watch. So he watches the movie instead. The next day, he tells his teacher, “I forgot to do my homework because I have LD.” Or maybe another kid has a math lesson to do. But she does not want to do the lesson. So she tells her teacher, “I am no good at math because I have LD.” Or another kid has a spelling test coming up. He does not want to study for the test. He wants to play outside instead. So he tells his teacher, “Spelling tests upset me because I have LD.”

NEVER use LD as an excuse for not doing your work! It is your teacher’s job to find the best ways to teach you. It is your job to work as hard as you can. Even with the best teachers and the best books, some things will be hard for you. But NEVER use LD as an excuse for not trying.

For more ideas about how to help your child with a learning disability, visit www.ldonline.org.

The Importance of Rhyme for Children

Research is showing that learning how to manipulate words through rhyming and word games is an important, if not crucial, reading skill. Students who struggle with reading often have a difficult time breaking words down into their individual sounds, and even in hearing each of these sounds. Here are some ideas to help develop this critical reading skill.

Help your child memorize nursery rhymes. Repeat them over and over. Enjoy the rhythm and rhyming patterns. Find the word families like dock and clock, spoon and moon, or Peep and sheep.

Memorize a tongue twister. Enjoy the alliteration of Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

Speak in Pig Latin. This gives kids and adults alike the chance to take words apart and hear the beginning sound separate from the rest of the word.

Make up your own rhyming verses. Kids especially love to create. They don’t even have to write them down. Saying the rhymes out loud helps a student hear and identify the sounds.

Make up “Hink Pinks.” This is a fun car game and develops a critical reading skill. Kids can really get into this game as they make up riddles such as, “What is a plate for tuna?” A fish dish. Or, “Name a small, stinging insect.” A wee bee. A fun book to help you get started is The Hink Pink Book or What do you call a Magician’s Extra Bunny? By Marilyn Burns. Also see the “Web Tips” section of this newsletter for an Internet site with fun word and poetry games.

Pushing Preschoolers to Read Can Cause Problems

All work and no play won’t necessarily make children dull, but it could increase their mental distress without helping their grades, say three child development specialists who recently completed a study of the effects of pushing children to succeed academically at an early age.

The scholars found that children whose parents pushed them to attain academic success in preschool were less creative, had more anxiety about tests, and by the end of kindergarten, had failed to maintain their initial academic advantage over their less pressured peers.

“We forget that play is the work of childhood,” says Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple University and one of the studies directors. The other two investigators were Marion C. Hyson, associate professor of individual and family studies at University of Delaware and Leslie A. Rescoria, assistant professor of human development at Bryn Mawr College.

–by Chris Raymond, taken from The Chronicles of Higher Education