01 NRDC Dyslexia 1-88 update - Texthelp

Developmental dyslexia in adults: a research review 77
attention to the morphological principles underlying inflections and derivations.
A third element is semantics, with which the study of morphology is necessarily linked.
Semantics makes an important contribution to reading comprehension (Nation & Snowling,
1998; Rego & Bryant, 1993; Vellutino et al., 1995), so long as the semantically associated
words have similarly close associations at the neurological level (Pulvermüller, 1999). Tutors
can gain insight into this process when testing for verbal or semantic fluency—for example,
while administering the Dyslexia Adult Screening Test (Fawcett & Nicolson, 1998). Normal
performance may reveal systematic patterns of morphological association (such as ‘swim’,
‘swimming’, ‘swimmingly’ and ‘swimmer’) or semantic association (such as ‘sieve’, ‘rolling
pin’, ‘bowl’ and ‘blender’). This process, which is automatic, is called ‘priming’: a given
stimulus activates mental pathways which enhance the ability to process subsequent stimuli
if they are connected to the original stimulus in some way. When complex networks of
semantic and morphological associations are established in the brain, priming takes place
more easily and assists comprehension.
A fourth element is the structure of language and especially its syntax—‘the capacity to
integrate different content-bearing items into a single thought’ (Carruthers, 2002). Speech is
usually accompanied by non-verbal signs and non-semantic meanings that are part of the
speaker’s intention (Levinson, 1983) and so a simple transcription of speech is likely to
under-represent the speaker’s intentions (Olson, 1994). Every reader needs an understanding
of the different ways in which written words can be combined in phrases, sentences and
paragraphs in order to convey different meanings or shades of meaning. Where there might
be ambiguity, a knowledge of syntax can help writers to avoid it and readers to resolve it
(Rego & Bryant, 1993).
There is no ‘silver bullet’ for adult literacy teachers to fire.
Students may need help to develop phonological awareness in a way that informs their
understanding of the spelling system.
Students may need help in understanding the principles that underlie the inflections and
derivations in the English language, with additional help in understanding the
morpho-phonemic basis of English spelling.
Students may need help in understanding the ways in which the meanings of words are
conveyed through roots and affixes.
Even for single-word reading, students will need a knowledge of syntax in order to be able to
detect and resolve ambiguity.
The tutor therefore needs a knowledge of linguistics.
Methods
How should the grapeshot be fired?
It is one thing to know that—to possess declarative knowledge that, for example, a word is
spelled with a certain sequence of letters. It is quite a different thing to know how—to have
the procedural knowledge which enables people to write the word on paper or (by using