NLA Discussion: Learning disabilities, literacy and policy

[Audrey Gorman]

To follow up on the learning disabilities discussion, and especially on the
questions raised by George Demetrion, please look at the article called
Phonological Awareness by the late Bill Ellis at gopher://aed.aed.org:70. 
It's in the section on disabilities, sub-section from nichcy, subsection of
online documents/.newsdigests/.digests/.nd25/.pub  If you can't access
the article let me know.   I'll embed it in a personal message if you want.

I think that this information is critical to how various organizations shape
their policy and their practice with regard to combating illiteracy --
everyone from K-12 districts to adult literacy programs through various
national associations (like mine, the American Library Association) to the
congress and beyond to the UN.  Basically, if we don't know about the
research that is pointing the way, or refuse to believe it for any one of a
number of reasons, our thinking will be inherently flawed and our
actions will automatically preclude some people from ever learning to
read.

For those who want to learn more, I especially recommend the
following:

Liberman & Liberman (1990). Whole language vs. code emphasis:
Underlying assumptions and their implications for reading instruction. 
Annals of Dyslexia, 40, 51-76.

and 

Adams, M.J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Audrey Gorman 
<agorman at ala.org>