[AAACE-NLA] Advocacy and the CBO

[Laurel Kaae]

I just listened to this woman speak at a conference.
You might want to check out her website and contact
her for more information on dyslexia.

http://www.brightsolutions.us/

Laurel

--- AWilder106 at aol.com wrote:

> Colleagues:
> 
> I am trying to reconcile different points of view,
> professional opinions, and neuroscience.  I haven't
> come up with this reconciliation yet, but here is
> where I have gotten to.
> 
> I think (not believe) that most schools and most
> teachers (k12) in the lives of the current adult lit
> population taught to the vast middle--those maybe
> 97% who can learn to read and write without the
> teacher doing back flips.  Some of those 97% of
> students ran into serious roadblocks in school in
> the manner of untrained teachers, large classrooms,
> bad family situations, and so on.  Maybe that
> knocked the number back to  85%. Reid Lyon thinks
> it's lower than this, so I will have to check.
> 
> So the people who land in adult literacy programs
> are those who have been poorly taught using
> conventional methods, and those who learn
> differently--Shaywitz's dyslexics. The dyslexics
> mostly (not all)have a phonological deficit, they
> learn differently, and they can be retrained, as can
> the conventionally "taught" adult students who never
> caught on to something or other in the learning to
> read progression.
> 
> This puts the onus on the teacher of adult students
> who through teacher training and the use of good
> computer programs can retrain their students.  The
> teachers themselves must be able through their own
> training to assess the students' needs.
> 
> Part of the students' need is strengthening of
> self-concept.  They already have some confidence or
> they wouldn't have shown up at the program.
> 
> A person's emotional needs must be met if they
> impede learning.  One way of doing this is through
> effective teaching, meaning rapid learning. 
> Effective teaching comes through teachers who have
> excellent training and ideally computers at hand. 
> Can't get around the excellent training.  Excellent
> training must include the latest learning that can
> be gained through neuroscience. 
> 
> 
> Let's suppose Sally Shaywitz has identified neural
> patterns characteristic of poor  readers.  She then
> searches around for ways to change the neural
> patterns.  She (and others) test a variety of
> teaching techniques.  She looks for the neural
> patterns to change to those characteristic of good
> readers. 
> 
> If you've read this far, you have noticed the
> medical model at work.  Sally Shaywitz is a medical
> doctor, as is her husband and fellow researcher.
> 
> So what tools and techniques do adult teachers have
> at hand, if not fMRI's?  If they are trained and
> experienced they can probably figure out some of
> what is going on with their students through
> informal assessments which should if it is possible,
> include a writing sample, and might also include
> list reading, color naming, and listening to a story
> and telling what happened. List members have
> mentioned other informal techniques, like newspaper
> reading and golden books. Heide Wrigley had some
> good input here. 
> 
> The reading material can be designed to retrain the
> students.
> 
> If there is anybody out there who disagrees  with
> what I have said for reasons I have not already
> covered, I would be very interested in hearing from
> them, so please write.
>   
> 
> Art uses the TABE to measure progress.  The major
> problem with the TABE seems to be that it is a timed
> test.  There may be some other technical
> construction problems, too. The biggest difficulty
> with the TABE, though, for those who rail against
> it, is the format--it looks standardized, as in fact
> it is.  Can't get around that.
> 
> Andrea
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> AAACE-NLA mailing list:
> AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.org
>
http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nla
> LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and
> goodies for literacy
> http://literacytent.org
> 



		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. 
www.yahoo.com