"Dyslexia is a myth"
says Graham Stringer, the MP for Blackley. Read his thoughts in full here, and feel free to comment below. We plan to talk more about this on the programme tonight.
1410 UPDATE: Mr Stringer is on the phone to us now and we've confirmed him for an interview. What would you like me to ask him?
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Dangerous, and silly, stuff.
There are, of course, casualties of poor teaching, but to confuse that issue with the serious matter of dyslexia is crass. He seems to correlate spelling, etc., mistakes with dyslexia, while anyone who has ever had to teach a true dyslexic will understand fully the distinction. And that it without the problems experienced by those with dyscalculia, dyspraxia, etc. Some people really do need to engage brain before opening their mouths.
Sorry, it is rarely that I get so cross, and this may seem rather rude, but such comments are not only offensive to dyslexia sufferers, but also dangerous disinformation.
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Eddie,
RE: Graham Stringer, the MP for Manchester Blackley. Remember Eddie -Blackley is pronounced BLAKE-ley. Okay?
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Graham Stringer MP - may have mis-underestimated the problem.
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I have scanned through his rubbish and he is mistaking Dyslexia with Illiteracy.
Dyslexia is not a myth. It has various degrees of severity the same as Aspergers and Autism are varying degrees of the same thing.
Give him what for if you interview him.
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This is something I feel strongly about, too.
And it is really crucial that we get the words right, especially in quotations.
Nowhere in the article does the phrase "Dyslexia is a Myth" occur.
It is in the subeditors headline.
This thread (an associated connections on the BBC website) has the phrase ' "Dyslexia is a myth" says Graham Stringer, MP for....'
The MP does say Dyslexia is a cruel fiction.
The MP does raise some interesting points, he certainly has made it into the news, and many people will disagree with him. But neither side is advanced if the words are not quoted accurately.
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I don't have any experience of what does or does not go on in schools, colleges or universities with regard to people with dyslexia, so I can't comment on some of what Graham Stringer has said. I can, however, comment with authority on my own experience of dyslexia. My husband is in his late sixties, and while he can read, he cannot write with any confidence because of his dyslexia. His dyslexia manifests itself in confusing the order of letters in words: for example, he does crosswords, and can spell out the answer correctly but fails to write it down correctly. This is not just 'bad spelling', and had never been identified during his formal education, and thus never labelled as dyslexia. He had always been ashamed of his self-perceived inability to spell, but with assistance has recently completed his first novel.
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Nikki - to be clear, the quote on the blog refers to the headline on the online piece for the outlet where, I understand, Mr Stringer is a regular columnist.
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If you really MUST give this old chestnut yet another airing (... note to Editor: don't forget you can also find people to say ADHD sufferers are just naughty kids; forget ASBOs and bring back National Service; national ID cards will stop crime/ID theft/terrorism/benefit fraud; etc ad nauseam...) then be sure to find a really SHARP person to give the opposite point of view, not some soft easily-bullied sweetie-pie who'll be talked over.
However, to repeat the mantra that bores even me. . .
This is a backbench nobody trying to get some profile. IT'S NOT NEWS!!!!!!!
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Mr Stringer does not know what he is talking about. He first confuses functional illiteracy with illiteracy. These are not the same thing at all.
Further, and worse, he appears to confuse the term 'dyslexic' with 'illiterate'. It is patently not true that all diagnosed dyslexics are illiterate, so his argument is fallacious.
That is not to say that many diagnosed dyslexics are not, in fact, dyslexic. It is also true that alternative teaching techniques can help many people diagnosed with dyslexia.
Does anyone know what the crime rates are in Nicaragua? By Mr Stringers argument, it should be around zero.
Finally, and almost trivial in comparison with some of his other blunders, dyslexia was not invented by teachers. It was discovered by physicians - and the term was coined in Germany, so would seem not to be just a British disease.
It is hard to take an MP seriously when he writes such twaddle. More importantly, it is worrying to think that he represents the interests of so many people.
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What a twit. Because one educational area uses techniques to teach reading that work for both dyslexic and non-dyslexic pupils, he concludes that "The education establishment, ... have invented a brain disorder called dyslexia."
Is he logically dyslexic? (Logic-blind.)
I notice he doesn't give literacy figures for other areas which use synthetic phonics.
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Graham Stringer is mixing quite a few arguments together to make his case. Some of what he says I agree with, but disagree with him on 'Dyslexia is a myth'.
a) I agree that the linguistic phonics system should be more widely used in teaching reading in schools. It seems remarkably effective, it is the mainstream educational methods that need to change.
b) Dyslexia is too often used as a catch all term to cover poor reading and writing skills. Often used by people with no training in how to diagnose it correctly.
c) I also believe that Dyselxia really does exist, but probably affecting a smaller number of people who are defined as 'dyslexic', solely because of poor literacy skills. There's a much evidence that genuine dyslexics fall within the autism spectrum disorders, along with Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia, mild Asperger's Syndrome - up to full autism. Other indicators of dyslexia could include difficulties in learning simple patterns of sequential activity, clumsiness and difficulty with co-ordination, auditory and/or visual perception and so on.
d) Interestingly, those working with diagnosed dyslexics also use methods that emphasise phonic patterns in spellings, as used in the linguistic phonics system.
e) Graham Stringer is absolutely right to point out that many prisoners have very low literacy and educational achievement. But this can be due to many factors, not least a family background where parents also have low literacy, where reading or homework doesn't happen, where communication between parent and child is limited and so on; or from a having turbulent upbringing in 'care' homes.
Poor literacy isn't just about low reading and writing ability; a poor vocabulary also means poverty in ideas and concepts and knowledge about the world, resulting in general low achievement.
The badly educated also often have very poor 'life skills' and knowledge of how the world works because these haven't been passed on by parents or carers; often accompanied by low emotional self control.
Inevitably this results in their being virtually unemployable and also having chaotic lives that often leads to alcohol, drugs and crimes.
There is certainly a link between very low educational achievement and crime, drug use etc. A major part of that is the family background; how to break this cycle (children go on to become parents themselves) is a major issue of our time.
f) Graham Stringer is wrong to say dyslexia is a myth, but one reason he believes this is it is too often seen as simply meaning being a poor reader. Of course not all poor readers are dyslexic, but neither are all dyslexics poor readers - if they've been diagnosed and taught correctly.
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I don't think dyslexia is a mthy.
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my sis told me wotit zed If i could red n e off thi s oy htink ei agry*
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One of my favourite people has been diagnosed as dyslexic, as has one of her sons.
She went to Oxford and read English, and has written forty or so very successful books. Her son is doing pretty well in the computer programming field -- not one in which failure to get things in the right order is generally likely to lead to success.
Both are also left-handed.
The two conditions seem to have had about as much effect as each other in causing these two people to fail in literacy or any other field.
I don't think dyslexia doesn't exist; I am sure that it does.
I don't think that dyslexia has no effect; again, I am sure that it does.
What I do think, though, is that it is probably exaggerated in many cases, and that if someone gets labelled 'dyslexic' (or 'left-handed' or 'colour-blind' or 'autistic' or whatever else) it is entirely possible for this condition to become a problem in and of itself, when had it not been diagnosed and made available to explain any and all problems that person might have during education that person might have managed to deal with it really quite well -- like my friend and her son, and like my other severely dyslexic friend who simply went a different way: reading and writing were very hard, so he became an expert on circuitry instead, and became very good at electronics.
Dyslexia may be a *reason* for failure in a given area, but it seems horribly easy for it to be used as an *excuse* for failure in that and any other area as well, which seems to me to be likely to make things more difficult for the sufferer rather than easier, because if s/he expects to fail, it is more likely that s/he will. If I know that 'I can't do that', it means I don't think there is much point in trying to do it, and never find out whether I really couldn't or just thought that it was impossible for me to do.
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I feel that the quote "Dyslexia is a myth" is a bit misleading, one important point the MP did make which I feel is worth highlighting is how some schools and teachers are failing students.
I watched "Can't Read, Can't Write" on Channel 4 last year which highlighted how some teaching methods and life experiences have let people down in the past and resulted in illiteracy.
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Just another MP wanting to make an appearance on PM. If he had a medical or educational qualification he might be worth listening to but he hasn't and so will not be
Peter Holme
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7
:-)
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He may be right, although, I suspect he's totally wrong.
Dyslexia is a complex condition.
Mr Stringer's argument (or should that be opinion?) as put, is virtually meaningless, being unaccompanied, as it is, by informed, supporting, recognised - medical, academic and educational statistical reference data.
Talk of a "Magic Bullet" and broad-brush statements involving entire countries (Nicaragua, South Korea) again without recognised comparative statistical data just makes matters worse. In fact, it leaves me cold.
"There can be no rational reason why this ‘brain disorder’ is of epidemic proportions in Britain but does not appear in..."
Well if he's correct, there clearly IS a rational reason and in his article Mr Stringer is giving it.
Sorry. Mr Stringer doesn't do it for me.
I'm just thankful he's not my MP nor, for that matter, a Government Minister.
I wonder, though. Does Mr Stringer also have the explanation for the ever increasing numbers of Autistic children?
That'd be good to read...
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Could you ask him why his hair is a lot greyer in the picture that the BBC News website is using?
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Dans (15), as I said in an earlier post, it is a quote from the website we link to - but it also, I think, fairly represents Mr Stringer's view as set out in the article.
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"Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself". Mark Twain
Now, if I substitute "the Sitting Member for Blackley" for "idiot" and "the House of Commons" for "Congress"...
Then, most importantly:
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please".
Mark Twain
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He's talking lobbocks
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To paraphrase dear Professor Brian Cox of The Large Hadron Collider fame:
"anyone who thinks that Dyslexia is a Cruel Fiction is a Twit"
While his arguments concerning literacy in schools in general (and the consequences shown in prison) have some merit, his views on Dyslexia are patently absurd.
If it's not too late Eddie - my question to Stringer would simply be: "Where is your evidence".
Ask him to prove it.
These people - it's such a shame we're paying their salaries when there are so many far more worthy and able people losing their jobs everyday.
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I see little point in worrying about whether or not 'dyslexia' exists - whether you blame a condition or otherwise, the single biggest indicator of a child's academic ability and success (along with health, career prospects etc etc) is wealth, so maybe we should be looking at this first and foremost?
My question to him would be, though, why this government continues to put more and more money into compulsory education at the expense of adult education? Why have we lost over 1.5 million adult learning places in the past few years? There will always be people who, for whatever reason, will not at the age of 16 or 18 have developed basic skills and, as he points out, this is still a high proportion of people in places such as north Manchester. It's never to late to learn and yet the current policy is that before you have got through a fifth of your expected lifetime, it is! For a developed country such as ours, this is draconian.
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nicoff (22) - Haha! (10/10)
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Ref #23 of mine
Of course, if I was cleverer, it wouldn't have taken me an hour to dredge up from the addled depths of my poor old brain what I really meant to say:
"anyone who thinks that Dyslexia is a Cruel Fiction is a Watt"
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Eddie. An MoP with thoughts?
Dangerous stuff.
How much is an MoP paid nowadays?
I asked because I swear I saw some country accuse another country send its "Gas" up the wrong pipe and £100,000 for "Ca-Ca" was it?
No offence footballer of similar name who wants to be a Milan captain.
Dyslexia is a myth? Yeah and I am a "Mr"!
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Graham Stringer is a brave man to take on the powerful dyslexia lobby! No other form of learning disability has anything like the same clout.
Mr Mair
It's a bit late, I know, but could your researchers find out how much the dyslexia industry is worth each year, how many dyslexia societies exist, that sort of thing? I think Mr Stringer is right to draw attention to the vested interests and incentives which may, I stress MAY, be leading to the overuse of dyslexia as a convenient label.
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How does Mr Stringer explain my brother's early propensity to write from right to left and completely inside out? Or to draw our house with the door on the wrong side of the building? (When held up to a mirror, it was perfect!) Fiction? Precocious youth? Party trick? Seems an awful lot of trouble to go to gain attention, especially as he was held back a year in school to correct the problem.
Dyslexia is often misdiagnosed, not a myth. Don't make light of the huge challenges some of us face.
Marianne
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Eddie 7, Did you mean to say '...regular communist...'?
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"Dyslexia is a cruel fiction, it is no more real than the 19th century scientific construction of ‘the æther’ to explain how light travels through a vacuum." I think that this quote from his piece justifies the "Dyslexia is a myth2 tag, N-N.
The man's argument is dreadful. In amongst all the conflated concepts and confusion about the difference between illiteracy and dyslexia, there may be some truth in what he says about teaching methods and, perhaps, the overdiagnosis of dyslexia by people without the experience and qualifications to do so. But, he undermines all of this by the poorly constructed argument he makes. If he lived with dyslexic, he would realise that difficulty with reading and writing are in fact one symptom of dyslexia and not the whole story at all. A dyslexic may also have enormous trouble learning to read music or with coordination. These are also symptoms of a brain disorder, as he calls it, and they cannot be attributed to a failure to use phonics in the classroom.
If this is the quality of his arguments, I fear for his ability to make decisions in other areas. As someone else said, I'm glad he isn't my MP.
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If only I could draw Venn diagrams here...
Just because some people who are "functionally" illiterate are dyslexic, it doesn't mean that all are.
Not all people who are "functionally illiterate" (whatever that translates as) are dyslexic, and not all people who are dyslexic are "functionally illiterate".
As for statistics...
There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up. ~Rex Stout, Death of a Doxy
The average human has one breast and one testicle. ~Des McHale
I abhor averages. I like the individual case. A man may have six meals one day and none the next, making an average of three meals per day, but that is not a good way to live. ~Louis D. Brandeis
While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will be up to, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician. ~Arthur Conan Doyle
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Is he related to Jerry Springer, but can't spell his name properly?
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I am a very experienced infant teacher who is a huge fan and successful teacher of synthetic phonics. However there ARE children who are not managing to learn to read, who are otherwise intelligent enquiring and in every other way should be doing well. We have all taught them-something doesn't "add up", and things require further investigation. Where I do think this MP might have a point is in the careless use of the word "dyslexia". There are unfortunately some children who are just not very bright. They are not dyslexic, but it can be a very convenient and face saving excuse to explain to the outside world why reading is not being achieved at the expected time. In the same way that colds are sometimes called flu and a headache is called a migraine, the same happens to dyslexia. It diminishes the importance of this very disabling lack of an important skill. This MP needs to remember that the teaching of reading is a lengthy process most of the time, and maybe he should listen to a few more professionals, and stop being an "expert" on something he needs to learn more about.
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As a properly tested and diagnosed dyslixic..
I find this whole thread and the PM newsletter today offensive!
Maybe we should ask this member of parliament to fight an election on this single issue. I for one am ashamed to live in a country that has elected someone with these views to be a member of its parliament! But I'm getting used to the shame of being British along with the shame of being born dyslexic.
I would love to be able to enjoy reading a book. I would love to not have to check every e-mail five or six times and still have it contain errors.
I work hard every day coping with my learning difficulty. Yet still have to laugh when people call me an idiot for making a simple, or "stupid" as some will say, mistake in a the written form. Then I have to sit down and work out what I meant in a note I've written to myself.
You really shouldn't be giving this idiot's stupid comments air time. But now I will have to listen and then take one of the blue pills for the resultant rage..
Squirrels have sharp teeth and claws you know.
Remind Mr crazy MP that we only have to make our "X" mark to vote and then send him on his way please!
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Having spent several years in the eighties researching definitions and social contexts of reading difficulty, I am convinced, like Graham Stringer, that dyslexia is a myth. Unfortunately, as the eminent educational psychologist, A T Ravenette, pointed out to me at the time, quoting Ichheiser, "the illusion is also reality." The dyslexia industry has made fortunes perpetuating this illusion. Although I am far from convinced that Mr Springer's enthusiasm for phonics is the solution, there is an urgent need to divert resources away from that industry into providing planned intervention for all young people who are struggling with the challenge of illiteracy.
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He's got quite a nose, doesn't he? What about asking him how many units a week he consumes?
Ask him also where his evidence is. My understanding of dyslexia is that it is a very rare condition. What we've got in our schools and society in general is an over-use of the word to cover all sorts of confusions with letters and learning.
I was once an adult literacy tutor and the "dyslexics" I met were anything but. They were confused, unconfident, and unfamiliar with words and their uses. They had been left behind by school and by employers, as a result. But they were not dyslexic.
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Wot a nidiot. The holocaust didn't exist either.
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I am dyslexic, however I am not illiterate, I have a degree and post graduate certificate and a studying towards a PGCE, specialising in special needs teaching. I would like you to ask Mr Stringer how his Chemistry BSc qualifies him to claim a learning disability does not exist? This seems like a shallow attempt to get his name in the papers. However, to try to ingratiate yourself to the ignorant judgmental members of society who are still live in the dark ages is an unfortunate decision. Maybe he is in the wrong party?
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I think dyslexia is real. I have a good friend abour the same age as me (36) who is colourblind-- that is a straight fact-- and dyslexic-- that is debatable. He is also one of the smartest people I know. He has no reason to claim to be dyslexic (for special pleading) except that he is.
I also knew a young child whose mother was French and father English. He could speak both languages fluently at the age of six (as well as any other six year old). But he would write out a repetitive poem and even though the words were aligned above and below each other he would spell them differently. He genuinely could not see the difference between them.
I think it can be exaggerated, but it exists.
Si.
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This is weird,but interesting
I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrinig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt.
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I have never heard so much rubbish in my life, I am 52 years old and learned phonetically to read and write in 1961 with janet and john. I have been to school in both England and Denmark and fluent in both languages and have more problems spelling english than danish. It was only when my daughter was diagnosed as being dyslexic that I realised I have been for so many years. It is certainly not related to intelligence, I hold a degree and have worked in high level industrial jobs for over 30 years, if it wasn't for computers these days (which highlight my errors) this blog post would e covered with errors.
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Well Eddie you asked in the recent interview "so what is the dyslexia industry all about?" It is the same question that I have been asking (and hope that shortly you too will ask) about the climate change industry. You can fool a lot of the people a lot of the time.
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if yuo culod raed my lsat pstiong yuo are one of the 55 plepoe out of 100 who can.
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Sorry but the MP is right. Dyslexia is a newly invented malaise (like adhd) designed to bolster the Special Needs movement. The lady was wrong about English being a difficult language, it is 70% 'good' (ie you write it like you say it), about the same as French and most other languages, plus it lacks all those silly genders etc. Every school can show you a Special Needs cupboard crammed with each year's magic (and expensive) gimmick which is going to solve all the problems. The movement's mantra is that "every child has special educational needs" - talk about a take-over bid!! The answer is proper teaching methods for all, not one-to-one lessons and squads of extra staff.
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ST 40, Sorry, but your friend isn't colorblind. He just hasn't been taught the right words for the colors.
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The Head Teacher from Maple Hayes School in Lichfield, a school that specialises in teaching children with dyslexia and other literacy difficulties refutes the MPs claims as mis-informed rubbish.
He says:
"In response to comments by Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley that ‘Dyslexia is a myth invented by education chiefs to cover up poor teaching methods” Dr Daryl Brown, Head Teacher of Maple Hayes School in Staffordshire that has pioneered revolutionary methods of teaching literacy to students with dyslexia says:
“As with any attention grabbing headline, there is an element of truth in what Graham Stringer says. He describes dyslexia as a cruel fiction. It certainly is cruel, but it certainly isn’t a fiction.
We agree with Mr Stringer’s assertion that a lot of money is spent compensating for a failure to teach these children to read and write, but we disagree with his solution.
Phonics is a good teaching method for many children but certainly not for all. Many dyslexics have such poor phonic skills that any attempt to teach them to read by sounding out words is doomed to failure. Even if they make some progress in reading by synthetic phonics the chances are there will be little, if any progress in their spelling and writing.
Mr Stringer says :‘to label children as dyslexic because they are confused by poor teaching methods is wicked.’ It would be even more wicked to condemn dyslexic teenagers to go back to the ‘baby level’ sounding out of words just because synthetic phonics is the latest fashion. Don’t blame “poor teaching” Mr Stringer. Give the teachers the correct tools to deal with the problem and don’t restrict them to techniques that don’t work for everyone.
What is really needed is early identification of the children who are struggling to learn to read and spell, then to equip teachers with a variety of teaching techniques that target the child’s particular difficulty. Don’t try to make one size fit all. Otherwise you will be perpetuating the problem, wasting even more money and still condemning some children to an illiterate future."
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In her comments on PM on 14 Jan 09 concerning why the South Koreans were achieving much higher literacy rates than the British the academic stated that this was not surprising since Chinese is a pictographic language. Apart from the fact that the Koreans do not use Chinese characters, it is quite clear that the lady has never tried to learn Chinese since, if she had, she would know that the modern characters usually have no pictographic connection with either the meaning or the pronunciation of the character.
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Having heard the man speak his own words on PM - I can only add that he should resign.
If an MP denied the validity of stating "Jewish" as a persons faith and used the existance of "Christianity" as evidence to support his argument would he not have to find a new job, if not career?
Faith really is a matter of choice, dyslexia clearly is not.
Should the "fact" that there are "no homosexuals in Zimbabwe" be used as "evidence" to justify homophobic behaviour in the UK?
What a dangerous and biggoted point of view this man holds. But he is a Labour MP! That should not be permitted really, it's just not right!
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Maybe it will have to be TWO of the blue pills..
Sorry, I am just so angry now!
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I have twins, both had same teachers in same classes and have identical, high IQ's. Both have qualified as doctors. One is dyslexic the other isn't. As others have said Mr Stringer does not appear know the difference between illiteracy and dyslexia. Skills and techniques taught to help dyslexics may or may not improve literacy, they certainly help dyslexics cope with their disability.
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Three cheers for Mr Stringer: I have been a teacher of languages, including English, for thirty years, here and overseas including Africa. Some children learn accurate reading and correct spelling more quickly than others. But 'dyslexia' is a fragrant myth, propagated by persons with a vested interest in the myth.
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"I think dyslexia is real. I have a good friend abour the same age as me (36) who is colourblind-- that is a straight fact-- and dyslexic-- that is debatable. He is also one of the smartest people I know. He has no reason to claim to be dyslexic (for special pleading) except that he is."
I work with "dyslexic" people to help improve their reading and I do partially agree with Mr Stringer - the current definitions of dyslexia as a psychological condition are a joke. Most are entirely subjective and many are contradictory.
The only common features I have found amongst the dyslexics I have met is a higher than average sensitivity to light and that they find reading from a white background difficult. Your friend's dyslexia is more related to his colour vision than any psychological component.
Dyslexia as a psychological condition is a myth, but dyslexia as a phenomenon that arises due to the bio-physics of data collection by the visual system is both measurable and fixable. I met 4 students today who walked away with their reading speed increased by between 30% and 250%.
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How can an MP find his way onto the BBC with such rubbish. To think that we trust these people to run the country. As a parent who has experienced severe dyslexia with a child I have clearly become confused about what was wrong with him according to this MP. I experienced a child with not only severe learning difficulties but colour blindness and a very poor sense of direction (left from right). Only with the outstanding support of the Dyslexia Institute at Farnham were we able to get through this difficult time. My son has taken this problem through his adult life and adapted well. To listen to this completely inaccurate view from an MP leads me to a point where he should be required to make an apology for his insensitive remarks.
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I brought up two children, a daughter who recognised words after seeing them only once or twice and a son, who would spell the same word three different ways on the same page, and who had to go over the elementary first readers over and over again. They had the same sort of teaching at school, and the same sort of help at home.
My son was extremely articulate; I never thought of him as 'thick' and I was proved to be right, since he graduated in Maths with a 2.1 and holds down a good job. However, I always felt sure he was dyslexic, even though I did not seek a formal diagnosis.
My husband also shows symptoms of dyslexia, and it seems to me that scientists and engineers are more likely to be afflicated in this respect.
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I am 57 and learnt to read with phonics but it still took me a long time and I was labled "stupid" before i got the hang of reading, which i love. I still have trouble with some pronunciations and i of course cannot spell, yes dyslexia does exist. I wish it didn't as it requires so much more effort to read and write what non dyslexis do easily. Dyslexis are not stupid, but often, very bright.
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How does Mr Stringer account for highly intelligent people whose business is words (e.g. Susan Hampshire) but who still have difficulty reading?
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Mr. Stringer obviously feels himself qualified to speak on the subject of dyslexia but to me his comments just come across as loudly proclaimed ignorance. So am I better qualified? Well my younger daughter is registered dyslexic and my wife is a special needs teacher.
To start with my daughter, her disability caused her to struggle at school until her dyslexia was identified but with help she has now gained her BA Honours, a diploma in Arts Management and is now working on her MA. In fact her dyslexia manifested itself as dyscalculia and dyspraxia, she never had any serious problems with reading and writing. This just goes to highlight Mr. Stringer’s ignorance when he equates dyslexia with illiteracy. Problems with reading and writing can have many causes and perhaps he would like to look at his own party’s social and educational policies for part of the cause of illiteracy in this country.
My wife has been teaching children to read for well over thirty years and during that time has utilised phonics to help dyslexics to read. Perhaps she is part of the “dyslexia industry” that Mr. Stringer refers to but she prefers to think of herself helping children that the mainstream educational system has failed. An educational system that abandoned phonics many years ago and has only recently rediscovered it.
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"Dyslexia is a myth"
Having read and heard the viewpoint of the esteemed MP for Blackley, all I can say is, I wish he was. A myth, that is...
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There is an element of truth in what the MP says. As a long term and experienced primary teacher and a teacher trainer specialising in the teaching of reading, I have come across far too many children labelled dyslexic when it was clear that that they have been disadvantaged by a too narrow approach when learning to read. Most children learn to read without difficulty if they have a competant teacher and put in a fair amount of effort. Others however need careful focussed teaching taking into account their optimum way of learning. There is a very small proportion of these children who will be unable to decipher print due to some neurological problems- these could truly be called dyslexic but they are far fewer in number than generally
accepted.
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As a student at teacher training college in the '70s, I was told that dyslexia was a myth by our psychology tutor - Tom Crabtree. As far as I remember, his theory was that it was a large umbrella under which various literacy problems were put, willy nilly.
I suspect this still to be true.
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My son has dyslexia - absolutely no doubt. He was taught by the wonderful teachers at the Dyslexia Institute in Staines and they managed to unlock his ability.
In 2005 he won a nationwide poetry competition in Ireland.
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I never understood why I could not 'see' words in the same way as other people.
My IQ is about 140, I was able to learn to speak French fairly well, but could not write it without mistakes in the spelling, and the weekly spelling tests at junior school would worry me into feeling sick and dizzy.
Many years after leaving education I happened to be with a Reception class teacher who had been given a test kit for dyslexia. She was familiarising herself with the method, and I went through it with her. She was furious when I could not pick out the correct set of abstract shapes, and accused me of 'being awkward' - Heaven help the poor little souls she had in her class.
I confuse left and right, and the letters p, d, q and p in isolation, and the numbers 6 an 9 when typewritten. I can read mirror writing or upside down fairly easily and can write the same thing at the same time starting in the centre of the page and writing backwards to the left and forwards to the right - though I am by nature left handed.
My brain is wired differently, it is a simple enough fact, and it has never been likely to make me illiterate, though I cannot read ordinary music despite every effort on my part. I can read shape notes, because there is that small extra something I need to make sense of it.
Someone really should explain to Mr Stringer what dyslexia really is, and how difficult it can make things.
I was lucky enough to go into the sciences and have no trouble with maths.
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I think the emotional level of some of the replies here show how difficult it is to raise this question, but I don't think that means it should not be raised - I guess a better approach would have been MP Asks, 'Is Dyslexia a Myth?'
The problem is that there is so much fog around the subject these days - I believe much of this is generated by the 'industry' which runs from some companies selling what turns out to be snake-oil, though organisations full of good intentions but whose existence now relies on dyslexia, to academics whose careers depend on it. It's just in too may people's interests that dyslexia is both real and at the levels suggested for us to get a clear, unbiased picture.
We must always keep in mind that the process of learning generally is still poorly understood and very difficult to experiment with when you want to 'prove' some point or another. This is as true for dyslexia as for many cognitive conditions. We are too used to cut and dried answers to many of our questions and sometimes need to accept that there isn't a simple answer, that sometimes the research isn't clear and that the solutions are actually only someone's best guess.
There's some interesting stuff coming along now we have these clever brain-imaging machines, and research in other directions that is narrowing things down, but I'd say anyone who claims that dyslexia is a describable, proven and treatable condition is on as wobbly ground as anyone who says it's a myth.
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That dyslexia is a myth is not new news.
Some 25 years ago there was an article in The Guardian along similar lines.
The writer pointed out that in his day children did not leave primary school not able to read and that the rise in dyslexia was due to middle class parents who did not like admit that their children were a bit slow.
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How typical of an MP to comment on educational methods when he clearly hasn't checked any scientific or psychological studies, and probably hasn't even spent any time in a modern classroom. The Ed Psych you interviewed earlier was spot on, but I would have loved to hear Stringer's response. The phrase 'put that in your pipe and smoke it' springs to mind...
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As someone who has struggled with dyslexia and it impact on my life. I take offence at your guest MPs comments on this disabling learning difficulty. Whilst any syndrome is open to abuse and commercialisation, this does not mean that this is a disability which does not exist. The level of my dyslexia and my determination to reach my potential despite it, has meant that I have achieved much in my life but it has been a struggle. I haven’t asked anything from the state towards this but begrudge no one assistance in dealing with this debilitating learning difficulty. Dyslexia does not reflect the intelligence of the individual, and I for one have hidden my difficulty all my life for fear of discrimination and pigeon holing. Life is difficult enough for people living with Dyslexia without cheap headline grabbing statements from politicians, which have no scientific or educational basis. Can I add that this email has taken 20 mins to write and thank god for spell check!
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Isn't this a case of the medicalisation of problems of living, as alluded to by Szasz et al?
My mate Darren was "diagnosed" as being "dyslexic" whilst at college trying to get Higher English, which was what stood between him and Art School. He scooped a laptop back in the era when they cost a month's pay. When he got to Art School, and specialised in Scultpure, just over three quarters of his classmates had been similarly labelled. A smarter guy you'll never meet, it just took him a lot of effort to read and write. Sudoku just swims in front of my eyes. Different strengths and weaknesses. A label of "dyslexia" didn't help, so much as additional support in sharpening up his literacy.
Mr Stringer has a point. I hope he is involved in mental health legislation, to rid that field of the medical model.
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He certainly got a lot of people hot under the collar. I think what he was saying really was that the 'Dyslexia Industry' is a cruel hoax, and whether dyslexia is real or not in a tiny number of people, it's become an easy diagnosis for kids who find difficulty with reading and writing, thus changing teaching methods seems to 'cure' this 'disability' which was once called illiteracy. Does anyone have an alternative explanation for the huge growth in numbers, and that also applies to the ADHD 'sufferers' who in the vast majority of cases really are badly behaved children and a direct result of parenting going out the window with child minding and working parents, disapproval of smacking and an abdication of responsibility for childrens' behaviour by adults.
A succession of amateurs [politicians] have fiddled about with the teaching profession for decades, all intent on making their mark, and adding to the difficulties of teachers, while producing a bureaucratic nightmare that apparently 'proves' everything has improved.
It seems some prefer a diagnosis to an improved English teaching method.
It's a difficult language to learn, of dear.
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It does not matter whether dyslexia exists or not. Illiteracy in the UK is a scandal. Phonic blends and one-to-one teaching, using reading schemes like Toe by Toe, will teach anyone who cannot read to overcome their problems -regardless of what label you give them.
LET'S GET ANYONE WHO CAN READ TO TEACH ANYONE WHO CAN'T - USING TOE BY TOE ON A ONE-TO-ONE BASIS.
Libby Coleman-Ainley, retired comprehensive school headteacher and volunteer for the Shannon Trust, which enables prisoners who can read to teach prisoners who can't, using Toe By Toe.
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I teach children of special needs as a social duty - teaching is in my blood.
One family of 4 talented children (5-13yrs) whom I have been tutoring for 3 years now are very mathematical but struggle reading. They are clearly dyslexic as borne out by the detailed tests for dyspraxia and dyslexia - no surprise there. My own children went to schools in Holland, Finland and now the UK - and changed first-languages 3 times. English is non-phoenetical, my daughter once asked the rule for pronouncing 'o u g h'. Cough, Bough, Rough, Although - no rule.
Reading English demands understanding context as well as reading the whole word before it can be pronounced.
Someone just sent me this:
"Cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can
be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorant!"
The human mind is very powerful. One wonders what is going on in the dyslexic person's word processing centre
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I was astonished that Mr. Skinner managed to talk at length (and with the characteristic Labourite lack of charisma) about his thesis without even a head-nod towards the significance of the writing system. How can he compare Nicaragua and the UK? Does he not know that Spanish spelling is (by and large) transparent and therefore guessable where English spelling (ALL dialects thereof) is not? THE ISSUE HERE IS OUR SPELLING SYSTEM. Clearly, there are some dyslexics whose dyslexia is unrelated to the problems of English spelling - but equally as clearly, discrepancies between the Anglophone and non-Anglophone worlds must be attributable to what is actually being written and read. Phonics will not help, as all it does is prime children to learn a regular system and then horrify them with the revelation that the system they will ultimately use is irregular. No parliamentarian will ever bother dealing thoroughly with this issue, despite the self-evident advantages of total spelling reform. That would require a spine, one of the few body parts seeming lamentably absent from our Houses of Parliament at the moment.
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How DARE he be so dismissive - equating dyslexia with illiteracy.
My son (now 27) was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of 12 when his English teacher picked up that he was clearly a bright child but had great difficulty with spelling in particular and reading in general. Even now he relies on a "spell-checker" on the computer and rarely reads for pleasure. Despite this he achieved a 1st class honours degree at age 21 and became a PhD at age 25.
How many illiterate PhDs does Mr Stringer know! (I'm sure my son isn't the only one!)
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The man is delusionary, an illiterate person is not necessarily dyslexic nor is a dyslexic person necessarily illiterate.
Dyslexia is just a different way of processing information and need not be a disadvantage.
Perhaps other educational systems that achieve higher levels of literacy teach their children the way they learn, rather than our education systems that makes children learn the way they are taught?
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I have an Honours Degree in Botany and a Diploma in Theology, my daughter has a Doctorate in Medieval History, an M.A. in Art History and a degree in Theology, yet both of us,and my granddaughter are all dyslexic. I agree that reading should by taught using phonic methods as I have taught many children who would never have learnt to read without it, however using this tool does not mean that dyslexia does not exist. Should Mr Stringer like to meet any one who has suffered from the difficulties which arise from the condition ,I and my very clever daughter would love to do so. Dyslexia extends to number order as well as letter strings and using phonics can hardly be expected to help there.
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Plenty people have commented on Stringer's error. There may be academic debate about the range of phenomena which can be identified as a single thing called dyslexia, but there certainly are real phenomena which seriously affect people's lives.
So a very minor point in comparison: Eddie asked him if phonetics was the answer, and Stringer agreed it was. I presume you meant to say "phonics": phonetics is the study of speech, not a means of teaching reading. Though, speaking as a phonetician (who's fed up of having to explain he doesn't teach people to read), I'm tempted to agree that phonetics is the answer. If only I could think of a question.
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I quite agree with him.
In fairness whether dyslexia exisits or not, it is certainly true that the literacy of this country is in decline. It is an easy label to mask poor teaching, and aquire easy grants.
If dyslexia does exist then the assesment of it needs to be more finely tuned, because there seems to be an extraordinary amount of it in society. Where does, whatever it is, come from.
I wonder what next he will uncover... what about the myth of ADHD or Food Intolerance - and these little money spinning industries.
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I went to school in the 60s when dyslexia did not exist, as I cannot spell or remember sequences of numbers I was stupid. I was doomed to low level low pay jobs. It was not until I had access to IT and spell check in the 90s that my life took off. I could write, I progressed in my career I now have a good job, respect and self esteem. However, according to this rude, self opinionated, idiot I am not dyslexic but just stupid.
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I was happy to believe that some parents needed a label instead of plain thick for their less able children, until that is; one of my brood had a wee problem. In a large family some can excel and some can get away with being just plain nice, it doesn’t really matter. However, it does matter when a younger sibling can finish a pile of thank you letters before an older child with spidery, illegible hand writing has even started. Tantrums around the kitchen table were inevitable.
The same child (with dyslexia) is now on a North American scholarship. His brain is frighteningly sharp but he still can’t spell. By 15 with the aid of spell checker he could write a mean story too.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/uk/newsid_2761000/2761373.stm
Schooldays are kind nowadays but older children must leave home with the ability to cope in the real world, where they have to work within the tighter schedules of the non dyslexic.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
People learn in different ways, the majority of people are left brain dominant and some people are right brain dominant. Unfortunately this is not always recognised in teaching.
Dyslexia is not a myth. It is more about learning styles, the English language and the way we teach our language.
Some people have a less well developed Wernicke's and Broca's area in the left hemisphere of the brain.
The teaching of the English language in the UK is often done in a way which is easily interpreted by those who are left brain dominant and/or have a well developed Wernicke's and Broca's area. But this does not mean those who are right brain dominant are any less intelligent or skilled - in fact they can be very intelligent lateral thinkers.
I can think of many people who have amazingly good reading and writing skills but appalling bad ability to understand anything practical or visual (and strangely can lack empathy). I can also think of people who are amazingly good at inventing, designing, understanding physics or being very good at arts but their reading and writing skills can be very poor.
Generally speaking if you are left brain dominant you are more likely to have better reading and writing skills but poorer visual and inventive skills. Leonardo da Vinci is a classic example.
The English language is not entirely phonetic.
Dyslexia in my opinion is the result of different ways of thinking/learning, the way the English language is tort and people not recognising this.
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http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/media/stories/story_8_45816_44300.html?
Check this website
Entrepreneurs five times more likely to suffer from dyslexia
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Mr Stringer is totally correct in everything he says, and yes, in reply to petepassword there is an alternative explanation for a whole number of so-called dys-abilities including dysgraphia, dyspraxia, ADHD, learned helplessness: they are all associated with a mis-match between the writing and the adept hand: the question is' are these simply co-morbid accidents or are they indicative of an underlying core-processing problem. The reason for the all pervasive consequences of the mis-match it is the simple fact that writing defines us human beings, uniquely different from every other animal and it provides the measure of personal academic success and school effectiveness - If anyone is in any doubt about the 'depth' and 'extent' of the consequences of this unacknowledged and therefore undiagnosed condition they could try reading Dr Barbara Sattler's The Converted Left Hander or the Knot in the Brain, unfortunately at the moment only published in German but in the not too distant future in English. Some years ago, I met a Primary School Headteacher who said, when confronted with the evidence that a pupil in her school was such a left hander, that she would rather be dead than be told she was left handed!
And more recently from the mother of an Asperger syndrome boy who was successfully manipulating unfamilar tasks with his left hand to tackle them with his right. When finally, asked, why she wanted him to use his right hand when he was performing very successfully with his left hand, "Well he has to do it right, doesn't he!".
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In general in the past dyslexics were usually classified a “dim” the male ones were genetically predisposed to be disruptive and there are claims that eighty per cent of males in prison are dyslexic or have an associated condition.
The American Government are now investigating the possibility that dyslexic entrepreneurs are capable of giving their economy a boost. This is the based on the Chumbawumba syndrome "Knock me down, I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down." This in my opinion has nothing to do with evolutionary changes in the dyslexics inner ear but with advance in assitive technology. Moores law measures speed of advances in ICT capacity. This progess have brigthened the “dim.” But did there language skills increase?
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I have a dyslexic son. When he was 9 years old he pointed to a word and asked me what it said. It was his name. He could not even recognise his own name on the page - something many toddlers can do! At the same time when we would go to the shop and I would buy certain items he could add them up in his head and tell me what the total would be. He has such a sophisticated understanding of the world that he can talk about Zimbabwe, Gaza or the economy at an adult level. This is because he is very intelligent and has managed to access the world in other ways besides reading. After several years in a special school he has now learned how to read and he is thriving in a mainstream school which caters for gifted children. I don't even feel angry about what the Minister said. He's just dead wrong. Dyslexia exists. It just does. Andrea in London
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As a person diagnosed with dyslexia myself I am very annoyed and unhappy with this unthinking man. I feel he is not only infering people with dyslexia are stupid, but he is insulting hard working teachers SUCH AS MY OWN MOTHER who work hard to help us combat this affliction ARE YOU CLAIMING MY OWN MOTHER TOLD ME I HAVE THIS TO COVER HERSELF?
It was not until high school that I was diagnosed and I suffered terribly through primary school. Being called stupid and constantly being talked down damages your self confidence. If he feels it is not real he should spend a day in my place and realise how hard it can be to deal with this problem.
A man in a position such as his should really think before opening his hole. He should be removed from office or have to explain his feelings to people like me.
P.S I had some one else type this to avoid misunderstanding, AS SUFFERING FROM DYSLEXIA I MAKE A LOT OF TYPOS.
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My toes haven't yet recovered from the excruciating curling they have just undergone listening to the embarrassing nonsense from Mr Stringer. He couldn't even correctly name the reading method he is presumably advocating, confusing 'synthetic phonics' with 'phonetics'. His ignorance was blinding. He evidently thinks he's the first to come up with this sort of twaddle. I thought the woman from the dylsexia centre was extraordinarily considerate to him in providing the correct terminology for him. My son's difficulties were evident to me from quite a young age but his primary school - a school of which I am a Governor and in which I generally have great confidence - felt very strongly that he was simply developing at a different pace from his peers. However, after two different and rigorous assessments (both three hours in length, one by the Local Authority) it was clearly demonstrated as we had suspected that he suffered severely from Dyslexia. There is a huge differential in his abilities in different areas. He is exceptionally gifted in areas of language, comprehension of the world around him, general knowledge, has the ability of a much older child in his breadth and use of vocabulary, construction of stories, has the amazing ability of many dyslexics to see situations and objects in three dimensions (they are often very good mechanics, architects, electricians as mentioned in another comment, business people) which also means he has a very developed emotional intelligence and empathy (jolly useful in society - MPs could do with a bit more of it) unusual in 8 year olds. But the letters on the page dance about frustratingly for him when he reads and spelling consistently is exceptionally difficult and exhausting for him. His functional literacy when tested was of a three year old. His balance was always a little compromised, his short term memory is not good and sequencing information makes some maths difficult and understanding concepts such as the passage of time very challenging. However, since he has been systematically taught with the synthetic phonics method (advocated in the Rose report 2 years ago - hardly brand new), he is making progress in Literacy and since he is an exceptionally talented gymnast his training in that field is helping with his physical weaknesses. All children, including dyslexic children, will benefit from the teaching of synthetic phonics, but it will not be a cure-all. My best friend - a top civil servant recently picked for training for top management by the government and with more degrees than Mr Stringer has had hot dinners - is dyslexic and still cannot spell for toffees, but with determination ( and in more recent history the spell-checker) she has overcome the disability of it. Illiteracy follows from the failure of our society imaginatively to deal with 'difficult' children - children in poverty, poorly housed, unsupported, fractured families, families with no proper aspiration, challenges of addiction etc - and is a national disgrace. Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty that can have many different manifestations but does not necessarily result in illiteracy. It is simply ill-informed to conflate the two. My son's future looks bright - with proper support he will not need to be disabled by his difficulties, and i hope I can teach him sufficient self-confidence not to feel disabled by the rankly offensive ignorance of people like Stringer.
>
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Language is my trade; it can be a precise compartmentalisation tool, the subtlest of knives, and also a word-hoard used by poets.
That children need the best teaching is not contentious.
The goal is for them to become independent - at reading, writing and thinking, as well as being healthy, fit and safe.
What is the best way to go about this?
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What a completely missed opportunity by the bbc to raise the issue of dyslexia in an informed and intelligent way. The MPs statements are incorrect, flawed, dangerous and insulting to anybody who with dyslexia. As a mother of an 11-yearold above average IQ, trilingual, dyslexic, I feel sick to the bottom of my stomac that somebody in a position of influence is given a platform to say these things. The only way I can explain to myself why the bbc allowed this rubbish to be broadcast is that they don't understand dyslexia - otherwise I would have to think it is sinking to the level of the tabloid press. Please prove me right by beefing up on dyslexia before you broadcast any more stories on this topic. Final remark: Richard Branson, Winston Churchill and Alexander Graham Bell are all proof that dyslexics can and often are specially gifted - I wonder what they would have to say about this piece.
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I have just registered as I feel very strongly about the comments made by Mr Springer. I remember a friend at sixth form college who struggled with spelling. He was a highly intelligent pupil and attained high grades in Maths & sciences, yet failed many cse english attempts. I find it insulting to call him illiterate.I think he would probably be diagnosed with dyslexia today & have deserved help & support.
Mr Stringer compares our situation with other countries yet in his article he has acknowledged the complexity of our language.This complexity would make reading much harder for dyslexics & slow their development, compared to other simpler languages.
In Mediterranean countries there was a higher than normal incidence of Beta thalasaemia..this is due to inheritance . This is well established. It may be that there is a causal link to dyslexia that would explain our high incidence.
Mr Stringer is correct in suggesting we should look at the teaching of reading and give extra help to struggling pupils but we should allow that some may have some genuine developmental problems,& not dismiss them as illiterate,
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Graham Stringer MP - you are a disgrace to the Labour Party. Please resign now. Your "article" is nonsensical. You are deeply confused. You cannot present an argument. Your arrogance and stupidity on the PM program was astounding. Your researcher should be fired. And next time you go to watch a European football match AEP (All Expenses Paid) please make a donation to the British Dyslexia Association. I call for you to apologise. I call for you to purchase The Concise Oxford Dictionary, and read between the lines. I call for you to understand the difference between literacy and numeracy. I call for you to understand that dyslexia is much more than "word-blindness”. I feel sorry for you - not. "The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind" - Albert Camus. Goodbye Graham Stringer - this time you really have blown it. Rejoice.
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The compassion of the MP was perhaps missed by some. His intention is to increase literacy which is a fine motivation. It is perhaps inadvisable to call Dyslexia an "industry" and to stay with the positive i.e. tht different teaching methods will help. However on the high literacy rates from some countries it is quite likely they are kinder to their children than we are. There are many children grown up today who are actually suffering from PTSD as a result of teacher-mistreatment. The ridiculous fads in teaching reading and the cruelty necessary to implement them are largely responsible. All will read if they are happy relaxed and above all read to by loving adults or siblings. It's so simple really.
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The Educational psychologist said on PM that the studies were scientific.
The government have said in the past they don’t collect evidence on dyslexic students in higher education.
The most important part of my disabled student allowance (DSA) was my support tutor. Which I could have done without.
I graduated in 2004. I don’t think there was a scientific study of what was beneficial to dyslexic student. Educational institution benefit from claiming they are supporting disabled students. Where is the evidence that technology and gadgets actually do help dyslexics? Scientific study?
Where is it? Where is the job agency for dyslexics?
Get a job. Better to have to access to social networks that middle class students have access to rather an then enhanced the DSA.
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Many of the posts here disagree with this mp. But as a lifelong educator myself I know he's right. Different people have different strengths and weaknesses. I don't play football. I can't draw a picture. I can't sing in tune. So I'll never be a famous footballer, painter, or pop-star. But I don't excuse my failure to scale those heights by giving my weaknesses a fancy name or a pseudo-science diagnosis: singing-exia, football-exia! Those people who read or write as badly as I play football or sing are equal to me in human value. They just have less interest or talent for reading or writing than I do. Maybe they have more talent in some other direction. Or maybe they don't. Who cares. Variety is a human, not a neurological, condition.
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I am really upset by this comment. What expertise does this MP have on the subject of Special Needs. My son could not speak until he was 7 and had difficulty in reading and writing until the age of 14. It was recognised that he had special education needs which involved dyslexia and with the support provided he made up for lost time. He is now studying A level English Literature as well as History, Sociology and Politics. Whilst he may not have the social skills needed to enter politics as an MP I really hope he does as we will need more people like him in this world rather than MPs who are clearly ignorant about the subject of special needs.
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Dyslexia has certainly been invented, by a society which insists on using the written word as the primary means of recording and expressing knowledge, especially in school. In the evolutionary time scale, reading and writing are very new inventions and as others have noted here, not everyone's brain is set up to process or produce written information efficiently.
Evidence for this is growing, in part from the significant number of brain-imaging studies which have shown that people with dyslexia tend to use different parts of their brains to process language than non-dyslexics. Usha Goshwami of the University of Cambridge recently demonstrated that this occurs across diverse languages including Italian, French, English, German and Finnish. Other researchers have shown similar effects in Japanese.
I wonder how Mr Stringer would explain this evidence. It is certainly hard to maintain that fundamental differences in brain organisation and function have been 'invented' by educationalists.
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Before MP Stringer offered comments on dyslexia I wish he had undertaken more research. For example, in 1982 Stevenson et al reported that 5.4% of Japanese children and 7.5% of Taiwan children were 'reading disabled'. Dyslexia is to be found in all countries irrespective of language or form of writing script.
Secondly, as the word dyslexia has been used for over 100 years it is not surprising that definitions change over time. In 1945 one of the UK's best-known educational pschologists [Schonell] described three different types of 'dyslexias' - it is an umbrella term.
Thirdly, dyslexia is much more than a difficulty with acquiring reading accuracy skills. If we think of the human brain as being akin to a computer - a very crude anaology I know - then dyslexics typically have much better word processing software and graphic cards than RAM and processing speed. That is, it takes longer to learn and it is easier to crash RAM. Consequently being dyslexic means many aspects of life's experiences are coloured and shaped by being dyslexic.
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I believe I am intelligent (even though my spell checker has highlighted 2 words so far) I have a medical degree and seem to be able to perform my job as a surgeon well.
My brothers who are 2 years younger than me could say the alphabet before me. At primary school I was top of maths, but never had lunch on a Wednesday as it was spell test day and couldn't go to lunch until all spelling mistakes had been written out 3 times.
I was told during my first week of my medical degree to 'forget this dyslexia thing' and indeed I have never revealed it on any job applications for fear of prejudice.
It annoys me that this non expert has voiced an opinion on this especially when he clearly has no idea what he is talking about (see other articles re his confusion).
Oh for the record I am also left handed cant tell b's from d's can't spell, but I my mind works differently. Sudduko is easy and I can solve problems other people can't. To be fair with spell checkers etc I feel my dyslexia is an advantage not a hinderence.
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Im 16 years old and i am hevaly dislexic and disprasic and i have had stuguled thrugh the first 16 years of my life with this problam not haveing bean able to pick up a book and read i didunt go to a a state seconday school for the fear of being bullied i went to a state primre school and all ways got left behined i was told not to bother joing in with the english work the rest of them got given but to do dot to dot and as a kida of about 10 years old was kind of dishartaning and to think that i am just a dum kid, but there is no way that it was bad teaching because i have reasuntly have meat up with some of the kids from there and the mijoraty of them got As and A*, i would not be the person i am today if it wasunt for ramalies hall school in cheadul, this school torght me every think i know this school is for kids from 4 to 16 that have dislexer and dispraxcer all the staff in that school desiver an aword for every thing they do with the kids there! And for this man to say that there is no sutch thing as dislexer is rediculase, i would just like to add for what i lack in the reading and righting i make up for in the practiul things and i am now studding a btec nashonl deplomer in hospitalaty and management and have a part time job! Zak Mackett!!!
ps sorry about the spelling
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At the risk of alienating many of the bloggers here, I have to say that, from my experience, Graham Stringer's comments are largely accurate. My experience comprises more than 20 years as a teacher/lecturer in English in the further and higher education sectors, the last 10 spent as subject head of English in an FE college in the North West of England. I currently work at a large university, also in the North West. In my career I have taught English on basic adult literacy programmes, foundation grade programmes, at GCSE, AS/Level, Access to HE courses, and at undergraduate and postgraduate level. The ages of the students I have taught over the years ranges from 15-89.
In light of the above, I hope that I am deemed qualified and experienced enough to offer my (I hope, objective) comments.
I began to be concerned about large numbers of FE students being assessed as 'dyslexic' in the early 1990s when the only discernible problems leading to a referral were a lower than average ability in reading and/or writing. As the numbers grew and grew, I broached the issue with the College Principal to voice my concerns. His response was to the effect that the college received substantial additional funding for students with learning disabilities, and although he was skeptical about many of the diagnoses, he would not take any action that would reduce the college's overall level of funding. He referred to dyslexic students as 'cheques on legs' - a phrase that might ring bells with many in the FE/HE sectors.
Part of the problem, I think, is that the term 'dyslexia' is used to mean so many different things - perhaps because of the multitude of definitions attached to the term. The poster who quoted Tom Crabtree earlier to the effect that 'dyslexia' is an umbrella term for a whole range of literacy problems is right, I think. However, all the credible evidence (and my own experience) points to a number of conclusions:
a) that the literacy problems experienced by people assessed as dyslexic do not differ in any material way from the problems experienced by poor readers/writers who have not been so assessed (ie have been assessed, but have have not been diagnosed as dyslexic);
b) that people assessed as dyslexic have their literacy skills improved out of all proportion by the systematic and intensive teaching of phonics in exactly the same way that non-dyslexic individuals with poor reading/writing skills do.
There are, of course, some individuals whose language difficulties are severe enough to suggest that they possess a linguistic processing deficit, and who cannot be helped by phonics. In the course of a 20-year career spent teaching English to thousands of students of all ages, I can only recall three such cases - and their difficulty was with writing rather than speech.
From my own research into students assessed as dyslexic I discovered two potentially significant findings. These were that many had had schooling between the ages of 9-13 interrupted by a long bout of illness or geographical relocation, and that symptoms of dyslexia do not appear to manifest themselves in the contexts of 'texting' (ie sending/receiving text messages by phone) and internet chat.
I'm sure that this debate will continue, so I'll cut short here and await the recriminations...
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It is hard to fault any comments that suggest our education system is failing those who leave it unable to read and write.
But to suggest that Dyslexia is a myth is quite something different! It is shocking and ruthless behaviour!
Where is the qualification and proof to back up such a ignorant statement! And I don't mean some unqualified and unsupported quak. I mean actual proof recognised by the suitable scientify / educational establishment.
I am dyslexic, thanks to my parents I was supported with the learning difficulty throughout my schooling. My school did not help - instead of PE my mother tutored me. As well as in school time this took place after school. Without it I am very certain the system would have totally failed!
The bigger question which should be asked is how does our education system support people with this disability? I fear that it may be too easy for a tag of "stupidity" or "lazy" to be given to such unfortunate children. This is not the case, intelligence is quite separated from learning difficulty and confidence of child is closely related to effort!
Hear is a dyslexic who runs a sucessful company and has various articles printed in trade press - not everyone with learning difficulties go to crime and jail. Such a suggestion is not only highly insulting but extremely dangerous.
There is (worryingly as a parent) proof to suggest that Dyslexia is hereditary - so does that mean if one of my daughters suffers the schools approach is to ignore the problem and just "teach harder" when there needs to a different approach - which is not treating the child as slow or stupid.
I fear that such Victorian tactics and views will only result in affected children having their confidence seriously damaged, the enjoyment of education destroyed and their future written for them - poor.
Perhaps family values and a culture that is not driven by greed would be a better place to start when considering how to reduce the population growth of criminals.
As Dyslexia is a registered disability it suggest incredible discrimination from the wondrous MP. As Dyslexia has no physical signs it makes it easy for attack - empathy from the general population is difficult. If he had attacked a different disability such as being in a wheelchair he would have created such bad press that he would have been forced into resignation.
It is a incredible shame that our media will let this horror go un-exposed!
I am totaly outraged!
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As a professional involved in education --well done to the MP. Anything with so many definitons is not a true sdyndrome/entity.If a child has a literacy need give approriate support,no need for a quasi medical term. The Lancet some years baclk advised doctors to leave "dyslexia" alone.
Jackie Murray is as can be seen on her school's website a headteacher, and she may have been at one time an educational psychologist, but she has not registered with the British Psycholgical Society. Membership of the British Psycholgical Societ is not compulsory but memebers have submitted their qualifications for examination and are subject to a code of practice. The society has also published advice on "dyslexia".
Concerned parentsshouldlook at Tommy McKay's work in West Dumbartonshire --the area mentioned in the article
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Silly man. I don't suffer from dyslexia myself, but have lived with it all my life. Mother is quite seriously affected as are both my siblings. Finally one of my three offspring. It is emphataically not a hook on which to hang low ability, it is a definite problem.
Mother didn't learn to read in both English and French until she was nearly 10, so language is not involved. Ditto siblings - we were brought up to be totally bilingual both at home and educationally.
Reading should be taught according to the child'a needs, not a one size fits all. My por child was inflicted with "real books" and had to learn to read by osmosis and a very didicated mother.
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OK I'm dyslexic it took until I was 30 to be able to say this to work colleagues without the stigma of being classed as dumb.
I got a C for English at GCSE level, I had a reading age of 7 when I was 13, and had to work extremely hard to pass this exam and to "overcome" the disadvantages of dyslexia. I was fortunate and had support of my family and the school that I went to was very good (but didn't identify dyslexia)
However I'm not thick, I've a degree in electronics with computing (I got a 1st) and currently studying for an MBA.
Living with dyslexia means that I need to put more energy into reading and writing than “normal” people, this means that simple things that “normal” people take for granted are extremely difficult, reading signposts while driving as when all the names of towns start with the same letters I get lost, filling forms in (no spell checker there), signing up to this forum, standing up and reading is my worst nightmare…
I also see various autistic characteristics in myself so I’m pretty sure that I am dyslexic even though it has never been officially identified (you should have seen the first draft of this post without spellchecking).
Comments and publicity like this assuming all illiterate people are dyslexic and the implication that both should not get any assistance as they should have learnt at school is disgusting. Even if Dyslexia does not exist then surely people who are illiterate should get help?
I’ve been extremely lucky that I have managed to find various strategies to cope with my dyslexia, Sat Nav for driving, spellchecker for emails, memorising what I need to talk about in presentations… this has taken time, technology and lots of effort. If I was born in another time I don’t think I would have made it also if I didn’t have a personality that enabled me to fights against dyslexia then I would probably be one of the illiterate people in prison. If dyslexia is identified and help is given to live with it there is now no reason why people should fall out of the system.
I do however think that dyslexia gives you some advantages, we have many attributes that “normal” people don’t have, we think thoughts not words, we generally are very intelligent (I’ve never met anyone who is dyslexic that is dumb), we can join the dots of highly complex problems and come up with solutions that others don’t have the words for. We use both sides of our brain and are creative, when we get together we can change the world.
I still come across prejudice or ignorance from time to time, comments like “they didn’t call people dyslexic when I was at school they just put them to the back of the room and gave the colouring in to do” don’t help. I now have the confidence to challenge this and correct the misconceptions.
Any publicity that would make even one person with dyslexia want to give up and op-out of society should be discouraged, it is hard enough to live in a world that is made up of words when you think in thoughts without being told that you are stupid as well.
I think this is irresponsible reporting and the BBC should be ashamed for even giving this air time, rather than calling for politicians to apologise for being positive about the C word (credit crunch) I think that the conservatives should be calling for this MoP to go on a dyslexic awareness training course
This is the most disturbing and destructive nonsense that I have EVER heard on PM (and that’s saying something). I don’t mind hearing others opinions that I disagree about (which is the norm for PM) but this seemed to be very much one sided and lacking facts.
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I think Mr Stringer is rihgt. and my typing awufl.
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I have just listened to the Labour MP on your programme saying that dyslexia doesn't exist and is just another name for illiteracy. Perhaps he would like to explain how this applies to my son and many like him. He comes from a highly literate family with graduate parents, one of whom is a primary school teacher, his IQ is in the top 2%, he has received a first class independent education and at age 9 has a reading age of 18yrs. However, he cannot spell. This is a specific learning difficulty. How can anyone say this is simply illiteracy? The gentleman is merely displaying his ignorance of the subject.
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I find Graham Stringer's thoughts extremely insulting. I was diagnosed with dyslexia aged 9 (currently 27). At that time I could barely read, and my spelling was well below what a 9 year old was supposed to be capable of. It was only through intensive tutoring from special needs teachers and my parents that I managed to catch-up. Far more effort in teaching hours than the average student requires from the age of 9 to 16. Mr Stringer's comments do those who helped me a real disservice.
I was lucky in some respects, reading seemed to click after a perhaps a year or so of reading with my mum at almost every opportunity. Suddenly I didn't need prompting as often.
However, my spelling has remained a problem, just writing this I have needed to check a number of words.
I have managed to come a long way. In the early days my teachers and parents worried that I would struggle to get even a couple of GCSE's, I managed 12 good results. Followed by 4 A'levels, a BSc, MSc, and I'm currently half-way through a PhD. Mr Stringer would no doubt put that down the extra time I was granted in exams and the small grant I received for a laptop and books at university. Nothing to do with the hard work I and all those who support me put in. I believe that Mr Stringer has a very superficial understanding of dyslexia.
Philip
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Dyslexia is like an iceberg... Named after the small visible/tangible part which relies upon the huge invisible part.
Graham Stringer demonstrates his bigotry here. He has no place in modern politics other than the far right!
I suffered undiagnosed dyslexia until assessed through uni and Leeds LEA DSA at age 50+, while studying towards a career change.
The BDA has been no help and nor has any of the dyslexia industry that feeds off child sufferers' DSA money. Neither has any of the convoluted lip-service programmes aimed at adults; so the playing field is never level after school.
Registering and posting this has taken me 80 minutes... Living with dyslexia is a nightmare, but at least I now know what it is; which more than this self-appointed expert does.
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I cannot beleive this ignorant man has a position of authority.
I am qualified to give an in depth explanation of the genetics, brain chemistry , aietiology and science of this condition.
Several others have already made good relevant comments .
I agree that milder forms of dyslexia, as it is a spectrum, are compatible with being able to achieve well academically.Severe forms result in an almost isolating disorder which affects speech, reading , writing, maths and the ability to communicate at every level and in all media.
This man should resign , now.
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Being an MP does not make him an expert on anything.
Being an MP doesnt add weight to any of his opinions.
Being an MP does NOT make him an authority on everything or indeed anything.
Being an MP in a safe labour seat just means he convinced a few party officials to make him the official labour party candidate.
Stop getting your knickers in such a twist. He is not supposed to know anything about anything. The fact that he proves that every time he puts pen to paper or opens his mouth should really come as no surprise at all! He is an MP!
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I listened to the show this evening and what struck me about Mr. Springer's interview was his inability to structure an argument with clarity or direction, his lack of understanding of the terms involved and his inability to follow the logic of reason. I was diagnosed dyslexic after floundering with similar problems in the third and fourth years of my five-year degree, four years ago now. Perhaps Mr. Springer should consult an educational psychologist himself? Or perhaps, as many here have suggested, he is merely ignorant of the diagnosis, definition (any of the 28 would have sufficed) and implications of dyslexia.
My particular diagnosis did not highlight any difficulties with literacy, vocabulary or numerical reasoning, indeed it went undetected for so long because I, like many other highly-capable dyslexia sufferers, developed 'coping mechanisms'. My problems primarily manifest in organisation of information and structured thought. My younger brother was diagnosed at a similar age, upon entering higher education, having spelt phonetically throughout his time at school, but showing exceptional ability in technology subjects. The initial, one-to-one support he received was so poor that when handed his dyslexia assessment report, he actually misinterpreted it, believing he did not have dyslexia, and paid out of his own pocket for a computer and the assistance he required with tutoring.
When I was offered assistance at university, I had to fill out my own applications for support and DSA, order my own equipment and file my receipts, and what help was available was restricted to a PC, mind-mapping software, and a basic literacy programme that itself cost £350, with the simplistic goal of making me 'phonically literate' - again - I was 23, entering my final year of an elite course with an intake of only 16 students per year, and with the majority of my final results already counted. Too little, too late, and wholly inappropriate.
I took umbrage at what the MP said about dyslexia in Britain, it seemed to me tantamount to that ignorance evidenced in the '70s when dyslexia was ridiculed as "a middle-class term for stupid", but perhaps what he should have highlighted was the inappropriateness of the response by the education system under Labour, who might have been encouraged to over-diagnose it, might even have thrown money at the problem, but have shown little inclination to understand it. Dyslexia is not a one-size-fits-all diagnosis, nor can there be a universal solution, but we shouldn't fail to approach it with a measure of common sense. PCs, software, funding applications, lengthy reports, none of these replaces the importance of time and care taken in tutoring to aid those with learning difficulties in overcoming problems. My mother is an occupational psychologist and also dyslexic (diagnosed at 11), and I am grateful to have been able to speak to her when I first received my diagnosis - I went from seeing myself as fully capable to suddenly 'having a disability', but it was her who pointed out that there is nothing inherently disabling about being dyslexic, as the benefits lie in other areas. Right-brained thinking, a lateral approach to problem-solving, creativity and expressiveness, these are dyslexia's legacy, and each highly desirable in the workplace (I wonder how much money Labour have spent on skillset training in these same areas?). Illiteracy should be eradicated as far as possible in our society, but we should embrace difference, recognise the potential in those diagnosed with learning disabilities rather than the disorder, and stop using dyslexia as a pejorative term, whether in the classroom or in politics.
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Reading through these comments I note that two or three are from teachers/former teachers tending to agree with the MP. This shows how the term Dyslexia has been abused. It is not a label for those who are a "bit slow" or who had schooling disrupted between ages 9-13. It is a condition where IQ is high but this is not reflected in reading ability. The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) states " A specific learning difficulty which mainly affects the development of literacy and language related skills. It is likely to be present at Birth and to be lifelong." I could go on. The other thing that less enlightened teachers forget is (Again from BDA) "that it is resistant to conventional teaching methods."
With a daughter (age 8) with dyslexia I know how much she struggles now and dread to think how she will get on in the conventional education system in the future. The "extra" funds for special educational needs have to be used for all those with SEN needs. So the budget schools have for dyslexia is actually none existent.
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Re #112
A few points:
1. There is no evidential link proven between high IQ test scores and a diagnosis of dyslexia.
2. The definition of dyslexia given above is not established fact, but is rather one of a competing number of definitions currently in circulation. Even established lobby groups such as the BDA and British Dyslexics concede that there is no definitive answer to the question 'What is dyslexia?'
3. Dyslexia is demonstrably not 'resistant to conventional teaching methods'. Apart from well-known examples such as West Dumbartonshire, I have successfully taught hundreds of people with diagnoses of dyslexia ranging from 'mild' to 'severe' to read, write and function as well as their non-dyslexic counterparts.
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Dyslexia is a term used to cover reading difficulties in children and adults, and some of the people diagnosed as dyslexic have not been taught properly and can be helped by best practice (synthetic phonics) teaching. Some are genuinely dyslexic in that their brains work differently. It is true that better teaching will reduce the dyslexia rate because it will address some of the 28 definitions of dyslexia quoted endlessly by Graham Stringer. There is research to show that pupils with below average IQ rates benefit from good teaching and improve at the same rate as pupils with higher than average IQs, but he is muddying the waters and being needlessly cruel by insisting that dyslexia does not exist. Has it not occurred to him that any syndrome/problem with 28 definitions is not susceptible of one cure. If dyslexia doesn't exist how does he explain a child with a high IQ and a measurable 7- year disparity between his verbal comprehension rate and his spelling ability, nor can he understand unless he lives through it the difficulties and frustrations these disparities engender? I should declare an interest in that I have 2 dyslexic children, one in mainstream schooling and one at Fairley House under Mrs Murray and her colleagues' excellent care.
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2 comments:
1. Autism is real and exists. It is a FACT.
2. Jacqui Murray needs to get her facts right - Korean does NOT belong to the 'Chinese group of languages' and is NOT a 'pictographic' language. It is proposed to belong to the Ural-Altaic group of languages, which include Finnish, Hungarian and Turkish. The written language is phonetic and definitely NOT pictographic. It is entirely UNRELATED to any of the Chinese languages, both written and spoken.
Can the BBC ensure that so-called 'experts' do not mislead the public with such utter rubbish?
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I am parent (yes, middle class) of a son with a moderate specific learning disability (yes, dyslexica for short). There is no doubt an industry out there trying to 'help' dyslexic people, and as a nice middle class parent I have spent quite a few pounds on flash cards, reading schemes, and a tutor. Whether Mr Stringer wants to call my son is dyslexic or thick, if he wants to campaign for better teaching of literacy for ALL pupils, he's got a funny way of going about it. The industry is out there because the education system is failing children with problems.
The best definition of dyslexia I had has been from the Dyslexia Research Trust who explained to my son it was about the difference between his reading, writing and spelling abilities and his general intelligence (reasoning, memory, problem solving ,spatial awareness etc.) - the bigger the difference, the more dyslexic you are. He son has, by the way, a good grasp of phonics, in fact his tendancy to spell phonetically is part of his problem. He has to work very hard to over come his dyslexia and keep up with his work.
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My previous comment (104) was done after listening to the radio and before I actually read his article, now I’ve read it I’m even more furious, are you trying to tell me that I’m just a bit confused about reading and that if I learn that ee is pronounced ee then I will be able to read?
“normal” people read word (as in the whole word by just looking at it), I read letters and convert them to sounds then join the sounds up, just like how you describe phonics, and I’ve been doing that all my life and it takes twice as long to read anything. It takes a huge amount of concentration to do this, for example I could never fall asleep reading, and when tired I find it far more difficult to read. However if I read something I remember it as I have spent so much brain power reading that it sticks.
This is the sort of comment that I had at school 30 years ago before there was any real awareness of dyslexia.
My blood is actually boiling at this point, I do not believe that someone is this ignorant and some of the comments on the forum are unbelievable, if you have no idea what you are talking about then you should at least investigate it and learn something.
Andrew
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It does reassure me that so many people see the point.. But I'm concerned at the teachers commenting as "experts" that they agree with this soon to be Ex.M.P. (They all are you know!)
Should we just pettition for Graham Stringer's resignation now? How does one do that?
I think this is more a reason to go than having a bit on the side with your P.A.
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Re #118
'I'm concerned at the teachers commenting as "experts" that they agree with this soon to be Ex.M.P. (They all are you know!)'
Hmm..Stringer is castigated for having no experience of dyslexia, and teachers who dare to agree with him are disparaged for commenting as 'experts'! Catch 22, anyone?
Some teachers, including myself, have encountered the phenomenon on a daily basis over many years, and have had wide experience of the 'dyslexia industry' in action, so perhaps we feel we can comment on the topic from a position of some knowledge.
That doesn't make us 'experts', but it does perhaps contribute a slightly more objective perspective on the topic than the merely personal.
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"To label children as dyslexic because they’re confused by poor teaching methods is wicked."
Having taken the trouble to read what the bloke wrote, rather than sound off about what I have vaguely assumed he must have said, I find that I agree with him there.
Does anyone here, with or without dyslexia or dislexic friends or relatives, disagree that calling someone dyslexic if what ails their reading skills is that they were badly taught is a wicked thing to do?
It is like saying that someone who has never been taught how to play the cello is tone-deaf. He or she may be, but the label 'tone-deaf' is not helpful.
'Has a [specified] problem with reading/writing' seems more to the point than 'is dyslexic'.
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Having been diagnosed with dyslexia at an early age I feel that the extra care and encouragement went along way in enabling me to carry on as any other child. I am a motivated individual and I believe this has always put me in good stead. These two combined have made it possible for me to always play to my strengths and try and go around the areas in which I feel weakest. As an individual who feels much more able at expessing myself verbally I have always been fascinated by the importance of the written word. I would dearly love to have the ability to write beautiful poetry or complex witty pros, but I know this is not possible. But why should someone who has those abilities not wish they had the ability to draw or craft as I do. Although i am aware that my education was very formal and may not be reflective of others experiences (it was very focused on academia) I always marvelled at how well systems put in place to cater to a vocation or skill could work. Although possibly a romantic notion i believe that if people are given the oppurtunity to do something for themeselves and actually achieve something that could not be 'marked' in the traditional fashion would lead to a more fulfilling school life and possibly future than constantly getting graded low on exams and course work)
I find the term dyslexia a hard one to use as I have often been ridiculed for being so. Not with direct taunts or cruel behaviour but rather the un necessary attention it gets. I believe the attention the MP wishes to flaunt on this is totally uncessary and sensationalist. His time would be better spent on improving the school system as a whole than making people who know (yet cannot describe or undestand) that their brains function in a different manner to 'normal' feel awkward.
There also seems to be on his part a confusion between 'dyslexia' and 'illiterate' and a child with ADHD and one who has had too much sugar. As an individual who had often felt like an under acheiver because whilst feeling so able also feeling totally unable to express this. I can assure any doubters that there is something that needs to be recognised as a difference or disability and if the best way is to generalise it as 'dyslexia' then this is the correct thing to do.
I hope I have not made this difficult to read as I know some of my spelling and grammer will be off. I am sure those who recognise dyslexia will totally understand. To others I can assure you that had we been speking face to face I would have thouroughly convinced you, but as I said words are not my strong point.
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The term Dyslexic is abused. That's the problem. It also seems true that one to one tuition helps those who are dyslexic but in actual fact that form of tuition helps all. Thats why middle class parents spend all the money. ANd no doubt I'll be doing the same soon with my child. Though having a teacher as a wife helps.
So what is actually needed is more funding in education in general. That will help all. The normal and the child gifted with dyslexia.
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#116 wegleg
'The best definition of dyslexia I had has been from the Dyslexia Research Trust who explained to my son it was about the difference between his reading, writing and spelling abilities and his general intelligence (reasoning, memory, problem solving ,spatial awareness etc.) - the bigger the difference, the more dyslexic you are.'
This definition is an excellent example of the lack of consensus re the answer to the question 'What is dyslexia?'
Compare the above definition with these comments:
' poor spatial awareness...can be a sign of dyslexia.'
(Elizabeth Henderson, headteacher of Oldfield Primary School, Maidenhead, [who]advises local education authorities and headteachers on dyslexia, quoted in TES)
'People who are dyslexic often have a poor short term memory for things they are told (auditory memory) or for things they see (visual memory).'
(University of the West of Scotland Enabling Support team web page)
There is, though, another difficulty with the DRT's definition that is not hard to spot. If an individual has excellent reading, writing and spelling abilities, yet has poor problem-solving abilities, poor short term memory and a lack of spatial awareness (almost a stereotype of the clumsy, absent-minded professor) is that individual likely to be classed as dyslexic?
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Perhaps the world needs myths when there is so much dark matter out there. But noone will know who is dyslexic or who not until we have an alphabet for writing / reading English that is at least as 'transparent' and user-friendly as the Spanish. Such an alphabet does exist. It's called the Exabet and can be used to compose documents in MS Word. It is 'backwards compatible' for reading purposes with traditional spelling, i.e., anyone literate in reading traditionally written text would be able to access meaning in Exabet text. It is also cursive compatible, meaning that it can, if carefully executed, be written 'joined up' without loss of distinctiveness in individual letter forms. Moves to adopt this alphabet as a standard would be costly, because they would involve technical advances in keyboard and printface (font) techniques. However, enabling Exabet for general use would in time yield numerous benefits, not least of which would be a 10% (at least) reduction in text-bytes, a possible reduction of two years in the time taken to achieve reading / writing literacy (true dyexics excepted perhaps) and, above all, the delivery of easier access to literacy for those students burdened with social disadvantage and 'hereditary' analphabetism - a voice for the voiceless. It would be a start if we put up street signs for place-names using this alphabet. We would then know that Braughing was actually 'braffing' and many so called 'illiterates' could know where they were. So ... funding please.
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To the Moderator: the ‘optometrist’, is my brother and to that extent I must declare an interest. I do however hope this consideration will not prevent the message being published. To that end I would be happy for it to be edited in any way you feel appropriate in order to make it conform to the rules regarding advertising.
Dyslexia does exist.
Hitherto there has been no scientific data proving its precise cause and nature.
A Midlands-based optometrist now has that data.
His theories were most recently proved in a pilot project at a school in an extremely deprived inner-city area.
The results were extraordinary.
The head teacher said in light of the results that a third of his 600 students would achieve significantly higher educational results were they tested and treated using the techniques the optometrist had developed.
He added that among those tested and treated there had been a dramatic improvement in their behaviour in class, self-esteem and their relationships with their teachers.
He believed the research to be of national and international importance.
I am dyslexic.
During a maths lesson at school I was told to add up a column of five, three-digit numbers.
Each time I got it wrong, the teacher standing behind me punched in the side of the head.
The sense of failure, uselessness and humiliation that type of treatment during my formative years gave me has deeply affected me throughout my adult life – I am now 56 years old.
When I sought out the optometrist he explained to me exactly the mechanics of what was going on in my brain and eyes that caused the problem.
He described precisely the visual defect that had made it practically impossible for me to add up that column of numbers correctly all those years before.
He told me why I, and other dyslexics, are overcome by exhaustion when we struggle to read and do sums - and why teachers in school condemn us as lazy and inattentive.
The simple logic and blinding brilliance of what he said was so obviously and self-evidently true that I still cannot put it into words my feelings at realising I now had the measure of the blight that had dogged my life.
The optometrist prescribed lenses that now enable me to do my sums and read fluently and accurately without fatigue.
My godson’s condition is worse than mine. He struggled to read one page of a book in an hour and afterwards had no comprehension of what he had read.
He now manages 30 pages an hour and absorbs every syllable.
The optometrist’s research spins off the emerging science of sports optometry, in which he has taken a national lead.
His findings not only predict and describe a patient’s pre-disposition to dyslexia, they explain why the standard eye test used by optometrists to assess a child’s eyesight cannot diagnose the condition.
Having looked into this subject at considerable length, it seems to me that the proper development and broad publication of this new science is being held up by vested interest and inertia within the profession.
It also appears that it is being frustrated by cost-cutting government measures aimed at downgrading the level of diagnostic expertise that high street optometrists are currently able provide for the public.
I urge anyone affected by this issue to keep digging.
There are a great many educational psychologists and behaviouralists who by definition cannot offer scientific data proving their theories.
And yet some succeed in providing dyslexics with strategies that are partially effective in overcoming the symptoms.
Ally their understanding with that of the optometrist who has now scientifically measured the condition and can prescribe lenses that can improve reading performance by 100 per cent and a complete solution may well be in the offing.
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The children I teach are all intelligent and their education is excellent, but they still have problems reading and spelling. Their dyslexia is certainly not a myth, it is very real, and they are working very hard to set up strategies to overcome the problems that their dyslexia have left them with. Perhaps this MP should experience dyslexia himself, then perhaps he would not make such dangerously stupid remarks.
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This is an opinion from my perspective as someone who struggled with education, but not due to any lack of intelligence or motivation to learn.
For me, dyslexia describes those kinds of ‘alternative’ coping and learning behaviours. By alternative, I mean those lying outside the accepted norms of our education system.
For this reason, I'm sure dyslexia is not a medical condition – just the resulting impact on an individual of not being stimulated appropriately in class.
I think it is no surprise that the level of literacy has remained unchanged at around 25% for at least a decade despite the best efforts of education chiefs and government – the system is not reaching a majority of students, and it is due to the ingenuity of many students to find adequate coping strategies that the figure is not much higher.
I believe that the absence of visualisation and hands-on learning experiences in later stages of education is the root cause – earlier stages are supplemented by more visual/hands-on learning experiences, and there is time for teachers to adapt to students preferred learning styles.
Later stages have less time for these ways, and the time pressure makes it difficult to teach in any other way than auditory as a primary method, supported (often but not always) by visual and kinaesthetic methods.
Any audit or analysis of earning styles is an eye opener - typically a class will have half kinaesthetic, quarter visual and quarter auditory. In other words, only half of students are being reached effectively during the later stages of education from year 7.
From year 12, students have a choice in how they progress in the world. For me, it was not until I undertook a degree that I really enjoyed learning as much as I did in primary school.
After all – learning has to be fun to be effective.
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FDFuchs (94):
You say you're "a lifelong educator" but I'm guessing (hoping) you're not an English teacher! You say:
"But I don't excuse my failure to scale those heights by giving my weaknesses a fancy name or a pseudo-science diagnosis: singing-exia, football-exia!"
The "exia" suffix doesn't imply an inability, that comes from the "dys" prefix (from the Greek). "Lex" either comes from the latin "legere" - to read, or from the Norse "lög" - to put in order, both of which clearly describe the condition.
Further, it is a common concept, even in mythology, that giving something or someone a name confers the power to master that thing or person. A label isn't "an excuse", it's the first step to dealing with a problem.
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#126 trishaone
'they still have problems reading and spelling.'
Many children (and adults) - including those assessed as non-dyslexic - experience problems with reading and spelling. This can be due to a wide range of causes, including visual (see #125 above, for instance), auditory and/or cognitive problems, or it could be down to factors such as poor teaching, unstimulating home environment, unsupportive/busy parents, etc. Just because a child experiences literacy difficulties, it does not mean that s/he is 'dyslexic', by whatever definition of that term you choose to adopt. Unfortunately, the pattern in educational establishments over the last 15 years or so has been to leap from identifiable problem to diagnosis, often without any intervening investigative stage.
'Perhaps this MP should experience dyslexia himself'
Is dyslexia optional?
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I take unbridge, Dyslexia is a recognised condition. Before the 1WW it was relatively unknown, then Vetrans returning from the war who had recieved head injuries were found to be suffering from a alphasia. It was then noticed that there were some people in society that suffered in a similar way. Dys- meaning without and lexia meaning word. There is eveidence to suggest it is a developmental problem. It is all to easy to disregard Dyslexics as Stupid when many test of intelligence depend on reading skills. Dyslexics find it hard to connect sounds with symbols, regardless of those symbols being either, letters of the alphabet or musical notation. The problem is the same, one could say that they have a perceptual hearing problem. Many Dyslexics are also Dysgraphic, thus having difficulty writing, this is a hand -eye co-ordination problem. Therefore consider how you would manage to learn to become a concert pianioist if you were tone deaf, ham fisted, and blind. Yet society regularly demands that dyslexics learn to over come the equivalant of these problems when they learn how to write, read, and spell. A phonetic system under which I learnt to spell and read, is best and can be incorporated into the education system, however there are insufficent teacher trained in this method, and lack of investment in providing such teachers. English is perhaps the most difficult of lanuages to learn, with 2 sound at least for each letter of the alphabet, then there are dipthongs on top of that and add the complexities that some letters have seven sounds and one sound could have as many as five different spellings. A simple defination of Dyslexia would be to think of the individual as having an avarage or above average intelligence and a below average reading and spelling age.
28 Years ago I walked into a psycologist office and was told that he did not believe in Dyslexia, this was before the 1981 education act. At that time if a county council could prove they did not have a dyslexic in their schools they did not have to provide the special educational means to educate them. This was the loop hole in the law. When the above M.P. begins to complain or use Dyslexia as one of societies scapegoats, I find myself wondering if he would like to divert money from education, education, education. At a time of econmic crisis. I feel this would be foolish, as many of the different skills that dylexics have would be lost, I am not saying that Dyslexics are any less or more intelligent but rather of a differnt intelltual ability, rember Einstine and Churchill were Dyslexic.
Further, as part of my training, I have spent time with the Drug Treatment and testing order, part of the criminal Justice services. True I have met individuals with learning difficulties. However, I seem to recall, though your at liberty to check but, 80% of koreas prison population are Drug users, Yet the formentioned M.P. suggested there was a link between drug use and illteracy, and yet korea had no illteracy problem?
Yours sincerely a Deep Developmental Phonic Dysgraphic Dyslexic.
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Most of the posts here are too long for a person with poorish eyesight to read, but has anybody mentioned tinted glasses and dyslexia?
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(63, 113) One form of high IQ dyslexia
I was at university with a highly intelligent dyslexic friend - on a scholarship and one of the top mathematicians in his year. His written vocabulary was just a few hundred words not necessarily spelt correctly. But he was genius level at mathematics by using sketches and his slightly odd way of seeing or rather not seeing assymmetry. I recognise the mirror and upside down writing trick (and I share that ability though I am not dyslexic).
However, it was possible to see some of the characteristics that made it hard for him to recognise words. Any of the letters that by reflection or rotation become another symbol could cause him trouble. So if you want to imagine what it is like to be a dyslexic reader consider what it would be like if you saw only one single indistinguishable token for each of these groups of letters:
ae, bdpq, B8, E3, lI1, mw, nu, oO0, sz, S5, 69
NB some of these are ambiguous for normal people too. But most of us can see b d p q as distinct (small children do mirror writing though and some dyslexics never learn to see the difference). There may also be a variant where letters appear permuted or suffer even more phantom matches.
I doubt if this is the only variant, or whether this attempt at a description is entirely accurate but it may help prevent people like this terminally ignorant MP from confusing "illiteracy" and "dyslexia". He should learn to use a dictionary before opening his mouth.
I don't doubt that there is now an industry that exists to label middle class slow learners as "dyslexic" diagnosed for the purpose of playing the system. But that does not mean that there is not a real underlying condition in some instances.
I will leave you with one word encoded using the dyslexic symmetry rules above.
nupecobaqle
And another that dyslexics may be able to read but normal people usually cannot.
asequoow
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STRONG SWEEPING STATEMENT
There is poor teaching, DYSLEXIA is a new name for parents and teachers to give a child of poor spelling or underacheivement due to such high competition for children to attain top marks due to S.A.T.S tests. They don,t consider the child may not be so bright.
There are children and adults who are genuinely dyslexic and they do not have brain disorders! They are not just poor spellers but have sequencing problems and some a poor sense of time. For example a dyslexic may not readily ever learn the order of the months of the year but they will work it out when need be but won't tell you. They never learn their tables as expected but 7x7 is worked out very quickly as 5x7=35+2x7=14 add together =49. They learn these startegies is this illiterate or bright?
I have noticed myself parents use dyslexia for a child not acheiving as well as THEY expect, using the excuse poor spelling = DYSLEXIC.
But please don't penalise those who are really dyslexic, generally these people are verbally very bright but have poor secretarial skills.
There are some very good specialist teachers as there are children who need this speacilaist teaching.
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I am dyslexic, and was fortunate to be diagnosed as early as the age of 8. I spent the years prior to this believing that I was 'thick' - I could only manage to write about two lines of text in a two hour lesson, badly spelled and in terrible handwriting.
After diagnosis, I was lucky enough to attend what I knew as 'The Centre', in Ward End, Birmingham on three mornings a week for two years. Without the work of the people at this element of what Mr. Stringer terms 'The Dyslexia Industry' (along with the time and determination my parents put in at home), I fully believe that I would not have been able to acheive the level of education and consequent quality of life that I have.
The possibility that work such as that which was carried out at the Centre 25 years ago, might be curtailed by the uneducated rantings of people like Mr. Stringer fills me with horror for any children who would be denied the opportunities granted me.
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I don't profess to be an expert on dyslexia or know how many are affected by it, but I do have an exceptionally bright sister who has been frustrated by it all of her life. She is very gifted and has with help learnt to deal with her Dyslexia and not let it slow her down. I am very proud of her and her strength of character for overcoming such a hurdle.
Mr Stringer's comments are insensitive and show a lack of social awareness. He obviously hasn't done his homework or even bothered to talk to the British Dyslexia Association or anyone who is Dyslexic. I can only hope that he (like Baroness Vadera) learns to take his foot out of his mouth and engages his brain before speaking in future.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I think graham Stringers comments outrageous, i have a 9yr old who has dyslexia and short term memory problems. Does he think i enjoy seeing my daughter cry because she cant read, it breaks my heart when the other children make fun of her. I have a younger daughter who is learning ok so whats the difference they are both in the same house, treated the same, there are literally hundreds of books in my home and as an avid reader i have given the best i can to my children. Dyslexia is real and causes heartache to many parents.
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(71) simulated symmetry based dyslexia.
The mangled English example lends itself as a test piece for applying the simple rules of symmetry based ambiguity I described in #132 as one form of dyslexia. It is no longer easy to read - but I suspect that real dyslexics will be able to read it at about the same speed as the original text. It looks a lot less different to them than to normal readers.
Sowaoua jnst saut wa this:
"Cbunolt dlvaiaa teht I clnob enleclty nasbueturb meht I mes rbeuiag. Tha qheouwuael qmaor of tha hwneu wuib, eoccbruig to e rschaaerch et Cwedrigba niuarvtisy, it bsauo't wteatr iu meht oarbr tha lttaras iu e mrob era, tha oluy iqroewtut tihug is teht tha frsit eub lset lttaar da iu tha rghit qclea. Tha rsat ceu
da e teotl wsas eub yon ceu sitll reab it mhotnit e qdoarlw. Tihs is dcnsaea tha hnewu wuib baos uot reab arvay ltatar dy istlaf, dnt tha mrob es e mloha. ezeuwig hnh? yeah eub I emlyes tghnhot slqaliug mes iqworeut!"
Tha hnweu wiub is vary qomarfnl. Oua moubars mhet is goiug ou iu tha byslaxic qarsou's morb qrocassiug cautra
NB the above is not gibberish. Strict edit cipher substition rules were used to alter the orginal letters to the ones that dyslexics tend to misidentify.
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davis (131). There is somethimg Colorimetry which shows that reading rate can be improved in some individuals (some of these being dyslexic) by the use of coloured filters or coloured lenses. Lots of reasarch done at the Institute of Optometry in London. (Bruce Evans).
It is NOT a cure for dyslexia it is an aid.
The same goes for behavioral Optometry that a previous post mentioned. However, the bottom line is that often the improvment seen is due to the intensive support recieved.
With my Optometry hat on. An uncorrected spectacle precsription can often make reading harder. So before anyone goes down the Dyslexia route get the person concerned to an Optometrist.
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I was functionally illiterate until about the age of 12, I was told i was dyslexic, statmented, told i had an IQ of 140+ and given support. I was taken out classes for 'special needs' extra lessons. The whole thing is humiliating.... I basically, fudged through 5 GCSE's (couple of c's and b's) hated school, hated education.. then did jobs i didn't like, got variably depressed, somwhow got accepted for a bsc psych, got interested and learned.....
i have to say i agree 100% with Graham Stringer. The same applies for much of the mental health system. Its like that story of the emporers clothing; there are so many people who have a vested interest that support the myth. We have a culture that admires and reveres experts, so noone challenges, but instead just accepts their version of the truth. All that is really happening is that our society expects normality from its citizens, our education policy makers say 'heres what works on average for n=x-million children, so we'll apply it to all children' then for convience's sake we pathologise those that don't fit..
for those dyslexics that find grahams comments abrasive; he's not invalidating any struggles we my have had at school, he's not saying that this struggle or subsequent unhappiness doesn't exist.. if anything what he's saying is the first sensible thing i've heard for years on the matter. he's saying that theres nothing wrong with you, that the fualt is in the expectation our education system has of people's learning styles....
blagh blagh blagh... rant over
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#130
'English is perhaps the most difficult of lanuages to learn, with 2 sound at least for each letter of the alphabet, then there are dipthongs on top of that and add the complexities that some letters have seven sounds and one sound could have as many as five different spellings.'
Sorry, but there is no evidence whatsoever for the contention that any one language is more difficult for a native speaker to learn than another. In terms of its phonetic, alphabetic or grammatical complexity, English is far 'simpler' and more straightforward than many other languages.
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...anyway, heard the one about ... a man walked into a bra....
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SM 139, Thank you. That's what I meant.
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(139): That colour can be an aid or not is correct: eg. black text on a yellow background can be difficult for a dyslexic person.
I hope someone at PM has been in touch with the Dyslexia Institute in Staines/Egham to get their response to this idiotic statement by Stringer. If one of his children had dyslexia I'm sure he would feel differently - he would also, perhaps, be less ignorant.
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Now before I say it, and it might have already been said, and the old ones are the best ones, I had dyslelia as a kid, a misspelt youth.
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Did I say 'dyslelia'? Make that 'dyslexia'. Or 'glossolalia'.
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What is the term for 'number dyslexia' - being unable to get the sequence of, eg, phone numbers correctly? I've been told it's dyspraxia, but then again I've also been told that it's not.
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Oh, and apologies if this has been covered, but there are so many posts on this thread that I got a bit eye-weary.
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DOES DYSLEXIA EXIST
This article was published in the high IQ society Mensa Magazine a few years ago.
I faced this problem using the example set by Richard Feynman "The Great Explainer" using "clear thinking and clear simple presentation". First "write down the problem". In the dictionary Dyslexia is "impaired ability to read not caused by low intelligence". Second "think very hard". The part of the Brain used for literacy is the same as is used for speech, only in the last 200 years has Britain had a literate majority, so this cannot have played any part in the evolution of the Brain, so we must see this in terms of the evolution of our ability to speak. After we learn to speak these abilities diminish as other parts of the Brain like intelligence become more important, for those of us labelled Dyslexic this has more efficiently evolved than for others because we start school just as these facilities begin to diminish, later still some are taught a second language, few could speak read and write fluently and escape the symptoms of Dyslexia in the language they are learning, for instance few Japanese people learning English escape confusing their L,s and R,s. Thirdly "write down the answer". Synthetic Phonics, It is the only teaching method in sympathy with the way we learn to speak, you are taught which letter goes with which sound, all other methods force you to guess, when confused, you make a wrong guess, if uncorrected, this error becomes ingrained for life, when we become aware of the error we consciously try to correct ourselves, our brains are ten times more active than those without these problems. Synthetic phonics improves children's reading skills by almost three years and is the most successful treatment for those labelled dyslexic in later life, in foreign languages with newly introduced roman letters in line with the sounds there is much less Dyslexia. I remember the frustrations and dislike of English and thanks to Julian Elliott have only with this exercise worked out what the problem was. It is in the interest of Government and the teaching profession to deflect criticism of poor literacy in Schools by labelling us Dyslexic as they used to label us thick, Dyslexia does not exist because its symptoms can be explained away as only normal for people who are the victims of bad teaching methods and incompetent teaching, It must also be pointed out that the Dyslexia industry is dominated by teachers not scientists.
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Frances O (147):
Dyscalculia (which sounds more like an ineffective vampire to me).
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I taught at an independent school for some years and it was an open secret that for less than £100 an Educational Psychologist would write a certificate suggesting dyslexia entitling the holder to a very handy 25% more time in exams.
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it's unfair for someone who doesn't have a condition to blame those why may have it. The problem is the style of teaching he is talking about. It teaches to the test, it rewards pupils who give the right voice response to symbols on the page without any requirement for the brain to be otherwise engaged, for the pupil to understand what he is reading. In that situation you can have a high success in tests without anybody learning anything and so implying that dyslexia doesn't exist.
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it is time people understood dyslexia better. Dyslexics not only struggle with reading and writing but have processing difficulties. A lot of our communication is written so most dyslexics stuggle with this and this is what most people associate with dyslexia. Understanding a sequence of instructions and remembering information is also an aspect of dyslexia that people like Stringer choose to ignore.
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the trouble with dyslexia is that it's not obvious by the way you look. If someone has one leg, you know they have a problem walking without some kind of help.My daughter is dyslexic and looks as if she can read and write, she is bright, verbally skillful, highly intelligent, and extremely sociable. She has just finished a BA honours degree and has her first job. However, she has great difficulty with reading and spelling, some days more that others. It isnt easy to understand if you dont have this problem. My daughter doesnt understand what its like to read and spell without difficulty. I began to understand her problem when she was tested and when putting on some special glasses, she said, 'Oh, the letters have just stopped falling off the page'. That was just the beginning. Without the superb help of remedial departments my daughter would still be struggling to prove she isn't stupid.
Discussions like this are extremely discouraging as people without dyslexia, especially experts on reading, are so sure they are correct in their views, and perpetuate the already determined opinion that dyslexics are stupid lazy money wasting frauds. The best help she ever had was to be told there was no remedy for dyslexia, so she just had to learn to accept it, and get on with the job of coping.
This coping is not helped when the suggestion arises again that dyslexia is a myth.
I'd love my daughter to talk to you, but she just gets on with what she has to do, because nothing she can say will alter some peoples minds.
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The MP says: "There can be no rational reason why this 'brain disorder' is of epidemic proportions in Britain but does not appear in South Korea or Nicaragua."
There is plenty of evidence that an "obscure" [one might say antique]orthography like English is a hindrance to learners when compared to "transparent" systems like Hangul [Korean], Spanish, Finnish, Turkish, Italian etc. [Any one interested can look up "psycho-linguistic grain theory".] Dyslexia is not noticed - and diagnosed -nearly so much in students working in these languages because the system is user-friendly and the ABCs are relatively quick to learn. We have a system riddled with silent letters and other archaisms and where poor spelling is the norm. English has gone through a simplfication process with its grammar but not with its spelling.
Apologies for the any bad spelling.
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Not all children who struggle to learn to read and write are dyslexic, but all dyslexics will find learning to read and write a challenge, however good the teaching! I'm sure that it is a useful excuse for some parents, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist! An obvious early indicator is a gap between verbal and written ability, despite good teaching. One issue is that dyslexia can include many things and no 2 dyslexics will have exactly the same difficulties. I'm sure in years to come, as we understand more about this learning difficulty, it will be further subdivided into more explicit types. To say it is a modern invention is unfair - in the past, far too many children were labelled as thick and written off, simply because the condition wasn't understood. Some of these children have been lucky and had second chances as adults and have gone on to be extremely successful thanks to modern understanding and teaching methods available today.
Also, to think of dyslexia as just being to do with reading and writing is being too narrow. It can include problems with organisation, short term memory difficulties, visual processing issues, retrieval from long term memory - perhaps including speech (ie thinking of the word you want to use) etc...
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Why is Dyslexia such a difficult word to spell?
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SSC @150:
I vaunt to sack your bleep! :-D
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A few thought on dyslexia.
I am dyslexic.
How do I know I am dyslexic?
Because; I think that my intelligence level is above average, but, I still struggle with reading and writing. This is despite making an enormous effort to learn how to read and write fluently.
I did not reach, what I consider to be, a functional level of literacy until I was in my teens.
I left school in 1976 with one qualification in woodwork. I returned to education in the mid 1990s knowing that I had some sort of difficulty with written language. I left Higher Education in 2000 with a BA hons first class and a PGCE.
I still find writing hard, and spelling sometimes impossible.
When reading I need to concentrate intensely.
Computers are wonderful.
I would not want my brain to be 'wired' any differently than it is.
Dyslexia does exist.
There are people who use the term to cover up; illiteracy, poor teaching, low intelligence, dysfunctional social behaviours etc.
To deny that dyslexia exists is wrong.
A denial would exclude many from getting the support that they need.
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I have a dyslexia diagnosis, I also have a 2:1 and a masters degree which I did as a mature student without any additional support.
It always struck me as strange that I seemed to take so long to write essays, why I could never write seviceable notes. It wasn't until I tried to sustain graduate level employment that I was forced to face up to my difficulties. At university I was able to do things in my own way, with my own deadlines and by basically working my butt off. If I had access to some of the read/write software that's available now, I think it would have helped a lot - at university I did well but I think could have done better, it would also have given me a working knowledge of this technology which would be useful in a work context.
Since my 'diagnosis' I've been thinking about things. To start with i discovered I could trace a dyslexic line in my family which got me thinking about dyslexia and dyslexic spectrum so called disorders like ADD/ADHD etc and genetic inheritance. Then I found an article based on some research done amongst members of the traditionally nomadic Ariaal tribe in Kenya http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/06/080609195604.htm
In the research, Body Mass Index was used as a measure of wellbeing with a comparison drawn between members of the tribe possessing the DRD4 gene associated with ADHD to the rest of the population. When members of the tribe lived according to the hunter gatherer tradition of the tribe, those possessing the ADHD associated gene scored more highly in terms of their BMI, whereas when the same comparison was made amongst members of the tribe who had moved to live in an urban environment, the oppposite was the case. This led the researchers to conclude that "these findings suggest that behaviour differences associated previously associated with the DRD4 gene, such as ADHD, are more or less effective depending on the environment".
This really got me thinking. In Europe as I understand it, people started to settle into farming communities around about 10,000 years ago, script based text began to be used in the Middle East about 5,000 years ago, mass literacy became a policy goal in the second half of the 19th Century. In terms of human evolution, these are relatively recent events.
So script based communications technologies; be they carved stone tablets, books, pen and paper, newspapers or email and the word processed report can be thought of as a recent innovations. As the majority people are not dyslexic, is it not plausible to suggest that these technologies have devoloped in the way they have because they suit the majority? They may not on the other hand suit people with the dyslexia gene, which puts us at a disadvantage.
To my way of thinking this would indicate the need for there to be more, not less attention paid to the needs of the section of population displaying symptoms associated with dyslexia/ADD/ADHD such as earlier and better diagnosis, genetic screening even and certainly much more research.
This is especially the case because of the way that the modern workplace is developing. In my work in the mental health field for example, far more of my time is spent on admin than direct client contact. It's the whole time consuming business of being accountable - support plans, risk assessments, record keeping, sorting out benefits etc and that's pretty much true for just about every job, isn't it?
I hope someone finds this posting useful, it's taken me two and a half hours to write.
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@ my post at 136. At a rough guess, the mods either didn't like me quoting from Wikipedia, or linking to a website (they don't tell you which house rule you've broken)...
As others have said, the definition of dyslexia is rather fuzzy, and has probably been used as a convenient label for a whole spectrum of conditions whereby people have difficulty in reading and/or writing, but not necessarily other areas of intelligence. When the term was first coined in 1887, it was used to refer to the case of a young boy who had severe difficulty in learning to read and write, although his intellectual and physical abilities in all other respects were normal. (Paraphrased from Wikipedia).
Especially in cases where it may be unclear what the cause / precise nature of the child / student's condition is after a single afternoon's assessment, the child / it's parents / education professionals may find "it's dyslexia" more convenient / acceptable than "We don't know what it is, further assessment will be needed to precisely identify it" - especially as in the case of the DSA, the child will often be required to be assessed at a central location (e.g. Coventry).
-oOo-
The segment of Mr. Stringer's comments that really irritated me was his assumption that the DSA only covers aids and adaptations for supposedly dyxlexic students. In fact, as the name Disabled Students Allowance suggests, the fund is there to provide aids and adaptations for a wide range of disabilities / conditions - including both general and specific visual, aural and mobility difficulties. And as others have said, the whole point of the DSA is not to give disabled students an unfair advantage, but to even out the playing field so they are not unfairly disadvantaged.
-oOo-
"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy..."
This is partially true, but the relevant research was actually carried out in Nottingham University - the meme seems to have originated from a letter in New Scientist: "randomising letters in the middle of words had little or no effect on the ability of skilled readers to understand the text."
Performing an internet search on the phrase above, I discovered a website written by a chap called Matt Davis. He apparently works for the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge, and has written a (plain English!) analysis of the meme, including links to genuine research.
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Mr Strinnger is confusing Dyslexia with illiteracy. I am dyslexic but by no means illiterate. because I have been assessed as having Dyslexia I have been provided with aids and software that is allowing me to undertake an Open University degree course. I am a prison officer by profession and can confirm what Mr stringer says about our prison population. a significant amount of prisoners have difficulty with reading and writing and I believe that this is down to the appalling one size fits all method of education that seams to pervade our schools.
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The trouble with any perceived mental disability is it is always more difficult to understand and categorise than a physical one. People can see physical disability and therefore feel less ambiguity in their categorisation of it and how they react to it.
Dyslexia like OCD and Depression are rather catch-all terms that refer to a varied set of conditions that manifest themselves in different ways and to different extremes. Many people may have mild forms of any of these and not necessarily recognise it because it is not severe enough to really impact on their daily life and often they have coping mechanisms that they have built up over many years.
As science has advanced so has our desire to understand more of these conditions and their causes and thus the ability to identify them has increased. This has led perhaps to some people's perception that suddenly we have a whole load of sufferers of something that never used to exist, it always existed but there were not previously the same means to diagnose and treat it. Just because people used to think the Earth was flat and do not any more does not mean it used to be flat until we discovered otherwise.
I have been educated to a decent standard and have a language degree, my dyslexia is quite mild but I do still have problems that non-sufferers might find difficult to understand. I know the difference between the words your, you're and yore just as I do the words their, they're and there but on occasions I write an incorrect one and because my mind presumes I will have written the correct one it doesn't pick it up on a proof-read, and of course neither does a spell checker.
Similarly common words like 'separately' no matter how many times I look up its spelling my brain cannot retain it for the next time I need to use it. This is not about illiteracy or a lack of ability it is about little foibles in the ways our brain learns and holds information and in turn learning how best to work within those parameters to make the best of what we have. If more emphasis was put on identifying what people can do and nurturing it rather than excluding them from what they cannot perhaps we would not be having this rather eugenic-like discussion where those who have been given many advantages try to justify their position by claiming that those who have less have only themselves to blame.
In the 1970s my parents were told I was educationally sub-normal. I wasn't but the effect this could have had on my education would have been profound had my mother not moved me to a different school. I sincerely hope we are not going back to the educational dark ages again.
And by the way whoever invented the word dyslexia was clearly not a sufferer themselves!
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One quick comment: please don't let's confuse help for dyslexics with changing the whole english language. Rationalising the spelling will help some but hinder many, and will also have the effect of cutting us off from all the books published before the change: publishers wouldn't bother with translating anything old that wasn't a classic like say Jane Austen, and a great deal of stuff would be lost.
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I was diagnosed with Dyslexia at the age of seven, which would have been way back in 1967. I have no medical notes (it not being deemed “medical”, presumably?) that refer to this but I continue to have severe problems with learning, memory, sequencing, organisation, time management, reversals, inversions, numbers and structuring ideas. As a child I attended sessions at the Helen Arkell Dyslexia institute for a number of years and although well intentioned, they made no appreciable difference. I received no priority help at schools; no extra time for exams and many aids taken for granted now, had not been invented. Dyslexia, in my experience is a problem with the processing of stimuli; not a problem with literacy per say, although literacy is often a problem for dyslexics: much as a limp is the result of, but not the broken leg. Dyslexia can be looked at as a broad spectrum of associated problems; it seems very often to be inherited genetically; my mother is clearly dyslexic. When I was younger, her difficulties in teaching me, and our shared frustration often had us both in tears. She was not a bad parent. You do not “grow out of dyslexia”, dyslexia is not a childhood thing; it does not go away. Sometimes some specific problems may get easier to deal with, many and most, don’t. Dyslexia is not a “gift” that anyone would willingly give to another person, I wish people would stop implying it is, it is very unhelpful. I also wish that successful dyslexics names were not brought up as a gestural panacea of implied genius. For those poor souls currently residing in vast numbers at Her Majesties Pleasure, doomed to unremitting condemnation whilst wholly neglected by the woolly “Gift” brigade, who do them disservice. Dyslexia often leads from hopelessness to despair; that is a fact.
I was sorry to read in BBC PM Blog, that some poor child was repeatedly hit over the head for adding up wrongly at school. I had similar experiences and my self-esteem was damaged very early by these unsympathetic actions, the sidelining and neglect often meted out to those who for, whatever reason, fail to be perceived as ‘normal’ and this by the teaching staff. I remember, many times, being held back after class to learn spellings: impossibility for me. I was given a minus mark for every mistake I made. After repeated attempts I fared no better, even after trying all the possible variations. To be marked ‘minus twenty seven, out of ten’ can be crushing to a nine year old. Eventually, after writing my name at the top of the page I put down my pen and consequently received a comparatively higher mark, having made no mistakes at all, this only by writing nothing. I received a zero, the best mark I’d ever had. Dyslexics have to find strategies to cope. Looking back, this particular strategy was an intelligent and political response for a nine year old. It exposed a flaw in the system of grading and teaching.
Although I worked incredibly hard at school in an attempt to keep up, I left school with very poor self-esteem, low exam grades and a tendency to quite serious and disabling depression and anxiety from which I continue to suffer. My depression and anxiety link DIRECTLY with the multiple and daily problems I encounter through my disabilities. I am functionally unemployable, functionally illiterate. I am currently self-employed, though, accounting for my activities and all the bureaucracy associated with it remains an almost intolerable burden and with no support, it compounds my depression. I am under constant threat from the state and am fined regularly because I cannot fulfil their beaurocratic demands; I have to rely on the goodwill of friends and even sometimes strangers, for assistance. When that assistance is not forthcoming I become very depressed an am unable to work. There is no access to support of any kind without A/ The accredited piece of paper (Statement?) that I do not have, or B/ Money, which I also do not have. I am totally exhausted and perpetually in a state of anxious despair.
I have managed somehow to support myself. In only two years have I entered into the income tax threshold and that only from poor accounting on my part. I am forced under threat of fines, prison or repossession of my home to pay council tax that should not be due. This I pay because on my own I can’t jump through the bureaucratic hoops demanded of me. I would therefore consider myself, poor. As I remarked to my local labour MP, “If I don’t get some help or support with my problems soon, I may have to consider criminality as an option to survive”. Criminality often goes entirely without paperwork or bureaucracy and I can see it as an option for many in my position who find it hard to cope in what has become an infernal maze of procedure, red tape and paperwork. I have been unable to access any help or benefits, as I can find none that are applicable to one in my situation. I am not entitled to the relatively recently introduced Working Tax Credits, because I do not work sufficient hours. I can’t claim Disability Living Allowance due to my problems with my learning difficulties because they are not accredited, this would only be possible after an assessment by an Occupational Psychologist. I have been advised by my GP that this is not available through the NHS and would have to be paid for privately at a cost of £400 / 600. Last year I earned less than £2500. I was recently not able to afford more than one meal a day for over a month, whilst sometimes going without food entirely. Obviously £400 / 600 for a private assessment is well beyond my means. In this way I am caught between a rock and a hard place. I want very much to remain independent, but I do need help. I was given this computer by a friend.
Of course Mr Stringer’s comments are interesting for an around the dinner table chat, but he seems to lack any understanding of the very real problems many dyslexics face and he seems also to have come to totally the wrong conclusions. He should not be making such comments in public, nor defending them at all. A couple of years ago I wrote to my local MP a long letter explaining the lack of access to assessment or social support, pointing out that I had not been able to access any support as an adult dyslexic. I also pointed out that the very high incidence of dyslexics in Her Majesties Prisons could well be a result of the lack of understanding, help or support for dyslexics in the outside community. I found quite a lot of statistical evidence from the prison service on the www to show that dyslexics were more likely than any minority group in the country to become involved within the criminal justice system. I used their own figures in my calculations. I don’t have those statistics before me now, but if between 30/40% of the prison population are dyslexic or have other ‘Hidden Disabilities’, then from a conservatively estimated population average of 5/7% who are dyslexics or with ‘Hidden Disabilities’ whatever one chooses to call them (The name is immaterial and quite abstract; their difficulties are very real), the assessment of the situation and implications are shocking! The cost to the country of housing inmates in prison is about £600 per week, the cost of the legal profession, police, court running costs, etc are presumably extra. The compounding punishment on the vulnerable in a society that offers no assistance to them in the wider community is a disgrace. There is a real opportunity here for helping people, reducing cost financially, reducing offending and reducing the levels of our prison populations (proportionally the highest in Europe) by recognising the social implications of these disabilities now, and offering access, support and assistance to the vulnerable in the wider community.
In response to the letter I sent to my MP, I received a very polite reply from the Prisons Minister, assuring me that help was available to Dyslexics IN Her Majesties Prisons. Sadly, it seems that this is the only place where help would be currently available to myself. For this MP to make statements like he has done may be interesting to him and let us politely assume that he is concerned for greater things than his own standing. Let us not forget, however that one of the Nazis first actions of persecution, were towards the disabled. We should know that, by targeting the vulnerable, marginalizing them, reducing their status, denying the value their very existence, making scapegoats of them and bringing public opinion against them as leaches on society, is a very dangerous president. That this MP is verging on promoting these ideas from a position of some influence is worrying and some may think may be a precursor to later (or current, considering the situation within the criminal justice system) penalties, withdrawal or denial of rights, the invalidation of previous scientific evidence… Hark! Do I hear the gassing van coming to my door? … I am functionally illiterate.
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I believe dyslexia does exist, but only in a tiny proportion of the people claiming to have. In most cases those supposedly suffering from dyslexia have adopted the label themselves because it's less embarrassing than admitting to being stupid, or have been told by someone who is trying to protect them from the upsetting truth that they're just not very bright. The net effect is that it undermines and discredits the small number of people who genuinely suffer from it.
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In the modern world it is a great disadvantage not to be able to read and write. For anyone who cannot read and write the rest of schooling is a waste of time. The important thing is to use the most effective method to teach reading. It is surprising with all the years of reseach in education that there was not a proven best way of teaching children to read english many years ago. The Dunbartonshire scheme not only used synthetic phonics but was rigorously applied in a particular way. The scheme achieved spectacular success compared with other areas of the country and seems to be the best system available at the moment. The government should enforce its rigorous use in schools appointing specialist reading teachers if necessary. Those very few children who do not make progress in the first couple of years should be identified, extra help should be given and the reasons investigated. In this way literacy should be close to 100% and some of the problems later in school life reduced.
Teaching spelling is a very different matter. Those of us who have a brain which does not wish to commit spellings to memory long term combined with the vagaries of english spellings and poor pronunciation have had to come up with our own strategies for passing exams and writing reports. Thank goodness for the spell checker.
Dyslexia probably does exist for a very small number of people and you could guage this number by looking at the numbers who have difficulty with reading and writing where their native languages have set ways or representing sounds with a letter or group of letters such as German.
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Looking at more of the comments the point is that you do not nead to be diagnosed as dyslexic to be helped. The best method of teaching should be applied from the start and everyone behind by the middle of their second year at school should be given extra help and the cause investigated.
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SSC (150), thanks. Ineffective vampire syndrome it is.
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Wow!!! We have stupid politicians in Denmark, but this has to be the stupidest statement I've heard for years!
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I am Very disgusted with Mr Stringer and his comments regarding Dyslexia and I have to argue with him and say Dyslexia is not a myth as I live with it every day.
Did Mr Stringer say that to Ruth Kelly who we all know is a labour MP when she removed her son from a state school to a £15,000 a year school to help her Dyslexic son
I am a Dyslexia adult and have did very well for myself I have a very rewarding job which I love working with young adults with A.S.D, but dont get me wrong I have learnt to cope with my Dyslexia and that took a lot of years, but when a was at school no matter how hard I worked to do my school work or tried to understand what my teachers told me I just couldnt do it so all I was told by my teachers I was stupid and would never amount to anything but OH how I'v proved them wrong, but dont get me wrong I would be lost without my spell check on my computer and having to ask my husdand to help me out with words i cant break down as my brain just cant do it.
Now its my son turn to try and learn by the same education department that failed me.
My son is 14 years old with Dyslexia, when he first started school everything seem fine but by the time he was ending his primary 2 year I could see the signs of Dyslexia everytime I went to the school to speak to the teachers they told me they couldnt see anything wrong but i didnt let it lie there and kept asking and was still told the samething untill one night when my at that time my 9 year old son ask me "why god had made him as he was not the same as everyone else as his other class mates could just get on and do the work as by the teacher he couldnt so god was wrong in letting him be in the world.( i cried myself to sleep that night and told myself that was it no more mrs nice guy with the education department this was war).
We pushed the education department and eventually we got him tested and true enough he was Dyslexic but they still would not give him any extra help in school it took a visit to our local MSP for him to be given a part-time classroom assistant by that time it was to late his primary years had gone.
when it was time for him to move to secondery education I met with the education department and told them to have everything in place before he started school or he would be there as they had fail him in his primary years no way was this going to continue.
My son now is coping very well with secondery school due to the support for learning staff and is sitting his standard grades this year and we are so proud of him he is working very hard all his report cards have been wonderful his teachers comments are full of praise for his work, and we are very thankful to the support for learning staff at his school as for without them he would just be sitting in his own world being told by teachers he was lazy or stupid but to get this help I'v had to kick down a lot of doors.
I dont care how much support for learning cost within the education department as it is worth every penny as it allows and gives the chance for evey children to show their full potential and under the terms of the children for scotland act that is the duties of the education department. NOT TO FAIL THEM.
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Excuse me for asking, but do all dyslexics write extremely long posts?
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DMcN, there is no way of telling whether all the long posts are by dyslexics, or whether all the dyslexics have sent long posts, without going and checking every post, but I *think* someone up there somewhere who said s/he was dyslexic did it in three fairly short paragraphs that all fitted onto the screen here at the same time, if that is any help?
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As an academic in Higher Education, my overall experience of the 'dyslexic' is those who are indistinguishable from the stupid; those who don't turn up for exams, those who are deemed as 'special needs' by the 'department', those who don't turn up yet again for the resits, and thus take over 50% of our resources.
I am not exaggerating - those who have 'long or short memory problems' are 'special needs'. Those who have 'probems with remembering information in the long or short term' are 'special needs'. Many other categories meet the criteria of 'special needs' .
That's 'thick'. Don't you think so? Of course, we need an industry to take care of them, and the 'Special Needs Department' tell us when and how they should be assessed. We have to fit in with them, and not the other way around. I'm seriously depressed with HE for this reason and I think it denigrates the genuinely needful dyslexic and the geninely talented.
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Further to 125:
What rich comment on dyslexia!
But gentles all, look no further.
The case is cracked.
No more need for surmising.
Dyslexia is nailed.
Its cause scientifically identified and measured.
Data exists. Solutions exist.
But how to spread the message?
Dyslexics see at once what is meant.
Others appear deaf.
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Just been sent this link.
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
This suggests that Ophthalmologists believe in Dyslexia
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I have mild dyslexia as do my father, two sisters and a brother. My mother could never understand why none of us could spell, she was a very good speller who had tought herself to read at 3.
All of us can read fluently and could do pre-school. Our reading level was always a few years ahead of our peers in ealy primary. However we could not spell at all, when tired words and numbers become very jumbled. Sometimes I find it difficult to recognise words as being 'correct'. This can last for up to a year with one word and even though I know it is correct it doesn't seem right.
When in primary school I recieved remedial spelling lessons, the teacher tried a version of 'early' phonics with me. I could not hear or understand what she was trying to get me to do and still struggle to hear the sounds in words. Whilst I can identify the initial sound and the end sounds the middle sounds still confuse me. I can rhyme etc no problem but can only spell by learning the word or learning new spelling rules.
Do I believe dyslexia exists? Yes! Do I believe that phonics work for all people? No! I teach phonics everyweek in primary school and still have to go over the sounds myself before I start. Does this make me a bad teacher? I would hope not as I teach them as I am meant to but I can realate to those children who cannot hear the sounds.
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I can't help asking - are you a slow reader?
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