[AAACE-NLA] "Success" thresholds

[George demetrion]

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

GD:  Not from her point of view. She's engaged, making progress, and supported at home and at school.  In short, her achievements are life-enhancing.  I say that without minimizing or, hopefully, exaggerating the problems that someone who has no problem reading might point to.

A.W. 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?

G.D. First question, no.  Second question, mostly?  Third question, possibly and worth a try.

A.W. Even these are just first steps, and not conclusive. 

G.D.  Correctamundo

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

G.D.  Though I don't want to categorize here, the diagnostic is an accurate (partially as it is) interpretation of a persisting problem this student has.

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

G.D.  Clearly, and she draws on both with varying levels of success.  While her segmenting skills are not well developed, as stated previously, she is making good word pattern associations, which is a somewhat recent development

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

G.D. Yes, this is quite difficult for her.  Marilyn Adams suggests working at the onset-rime rather than the more single phonemic level for students who have difficulty here.  Thus, in the former, one would separate the word "cat," as c-at (2 sounds, the first consonant and the rest if the syllable from the first vowel on.  This is in contrast to the each and every phoneme articulation--c-a-t. She argues that the onset-rime association is more psychological congruous with the way learning takes place, even as she does note that single-sound phonemic mastery is essential to independent fluency at a decent (you define it) level of reading ability.  Her critical argument is the importance of "successive approximation" (my quotes) in which both word pattern associations and onset-rime competency are manifestations leading to the promised land.  So, in my view, are the broad range of techniques and approaches such as assisted reading and sight word memorization all of which play a functional role in facilitating the process, most likely in different combinations with different learners


A.W. 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.

G.D.  I would say. Fortunately, she has a very supportive boyfriend who reads with her extensively.

A.W.  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.

G.D.  Yes, this issue has also been raised on the various lists and has been incorporated into the ALE Wiki. I agree with the general tenor of what you say, though I think some of the latter, in incipient form, is applicable at this level.  However, there is clearly a gap.  Whether there's a great divide, which there probably isn't, I would agree that there is a substantial transformation that needs to take place before the sound/symbol dynamic is internalized.  That is a process that requires a combination of substantial amount of pure behaviorist-like practice and a great deal of inference making.  For many students at this rudimentary level (as I am defining it), there is a practical limit as to how far along the process they will likely go.  To this pessimistic observation, on my assumption that there is an infinite space between points A and B, there is much growth that may take place as a result, which may or may not be measurable on the Richter Scales utilized by standardized measures.  Much empirical evidence is, in principle, available, to undertake such longitudinal case studies that could illuminate much about how reading and related learning takes place as well as what the stumbling blocks are, but such efforts, to merit the time needed for their competent analysis require legitimacy and resources to carry them through, particularly if the research is to be done by the same person who is running the program who has a multitude of other responsibilities and priorities.


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