[AAACE-NLA] "Success" thresholds

[AWilder106@aol.com]

Hi George,

If any of this is repetitive, just delete, and apologies.

The idea of your student spending hours, over years, at the lowest level is just awfully sad.  

We  talked about this a bit last winter (!) on the wiki.

I can't remember all the tasks on the DAR, BUT:  Can your student read single-syllable nonsense words that are phonetically regular?  That would start to get at a phonological deficit.  Can she say the sounds of individual letters?  If she had plastic letters in front of her, could she pick out and assemble the ones that make up words?

Even these are just first steps, and not conclusive. 

The classic phonological dyslexic has poor speech perception, thus will not have a clear, precise auditory representation of the word in storage.  

The brain can access two routes for reading;  in brief:  one can read a word without phonemic awareness. Fortunate!  Many sight words are not regular.  

The other route is used for sounding out words, matching sound and symbol.

If you put your hand over your left ear, the thumb would be in the area for reading sight words and the index finger in the area for sound/symbol coding. 

( There can be a visual deficit also, less common.)

I am guessing your student could use taped books to great advantage, to build up her vocabulary. Reading is easier when a person  knows the words they are likely to read, ahead of time.

Last winter I said I thought the 2-3 grade plateau is a marker for the place where visual memory will falter, and sound/symbol needs to take over. It's not the whole story, but a good part of it, I still think.

Andrea