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The Truth about Reading Problems

Monday 7th December 2015

The Truth about Reading Problems

In another thought provoking article Louisa Moats, one of the world's leading experts on reading disabilities, has argued that when it comes to reading problems, we will serve students and families better if we are informed by the facts. Some of the myths that she seeks to expose are:

  • Dyslexia as a "gift." People who succeed in spite of their academic learning difficulties are a marvel but their talents exist separate from, not because of, their language-based reading, spelling, or writing problems. We should avoid claiming that dyslexia and giftedness generally go hand in hand.
  • Responsiveness to reading instruction is related to IQ, to IQ discrepancies, to patterns on psychological processing tests, or to family background - the truth is that we still cannot predict who will respond well to instruction. Therefore, systematic, informed reading and language instruction is needed over a sufficient length of time to sort out whose reading and language can be normalised and who will need an IEP and high levels of support for many years.
  • All students with reading difficulties will demonstrate a weakness or low score on a test of phonological processing or phonological awareness. While this is true on average for poor readers, and while teaching phoneme awareness to groups of young children is of proven value for long-term outcomes, about 25-30% of students who have trouble learning to read do just fine on the phonological awareness tests.
  • Lastly, we should abandon the hope that serious reading disabilities can be fixed or remediated in a few short lessons per week over a year or so.

To read the full text of this article by Louisa Moats, click on the External Link button below.

External Link



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