Language disadvantage and dyslexia - Dyslexia International

Language disadvantage and dyslexiaThe development of skills, highlighting thegains to be made in cognition, and throughoutthe curriculum from multisensory teachingDr Harry Chasty, 2012

ContentsAbout the author 6Introduction 91The importance of language skills 112Languages and the incidence of dyslexia 12Evolution of languages 12Pace of phonetisization 15Extent of phonetisization 16Historical perspective: dyslexia first identified in the English language 17Phonological dyslexia as an acceptable world model of congenital readingfailure 18Phonologically ‘simple’ languages and the incidence of dyslexia 19Dyslexia in logographic languages 21Speech structures and reading failure 24The child’s synthesis of grammatical rules 25Idiosyncrasy of meaning from language 26Class differences in language usage 28Meaning from grammatical structure 29Language for representation of ideas and thought 30Causes of literacy failure 33Literacy failure and language disadvantage 332

ContentsCausality and literacy 34Prediction of reading attainment 35Language comparisons 35Incidence of deprivation in Europe 36Effects of deprivation and disadvantage 37Is increased criminality the inevitable outcome? 38Some positive effects of mothers working 39Quantifying language deprivation 40Cognitive/phonological difficulty 41Word reading competence index 41Deficiencies in learning or teaching? 423Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia; similar in form and treatment 45Causes of educational difficulties in language disadvantaged students 46Language disadvantage and dyslexia 47Differences between language-disadvantaged and dyslexic students 48Are total literacy expectations unreasonable? 48Historical perspectives 49Abilities and difficulties of the language-disadvantaged 51Speech and brain dominance 51Hemispheric specialism in normal children 53Test comparisons between normal and dyslexic students 54Language-advantaged and disadvantaged children 54Neurological differences in dyslexia 55Effects of Language development programmes 55Questions for further research 564Value of focused programmes to develop students’ skills 58Using educational resources efficiently 58Economic background 58Efficient use of educational resources 60Allocation of time 613

Contents5Accuracy of definition 646Confusions in terminology 64Development of definitions 65Other factors related to definitions of dyslexia 67Ongoing assessment 69Changing ‘static dyslexia’ into ‘dynamic dyslexia’ 70Dyslexia as a neurological condition 71Psychological assessment 737Profiles from psychological assessment 73Different kinds of thinking/problem solving evident in dyslexic profiles 74Implications of these profiles for identification and remediation of sub-types ofdyslexia 75Other reading failing students with competent word recognition but poorcomprehension skills 77School history, cognitive and literacy profile of a student with ‘late onsetdyslexia’ 78Special educational programmes should be directly focused to meet identifiedneeds 80The need for ‘value added’ 80Motor skills leading to aks linkages 81Speech skills 84Numeracy 86Memory 90Testing memory skills 90Working memory problems 93Perception 96Perception can be a very inefficient process 96The reading failing student’s different learning/thinking strategies in workingmemory 98Deficits in working memory 99Teaching memory skills 1004

ContentsEffective working memory skills 101Social and behavioural skills 103Complex social problems 104Different aspects of working memory 106Working memory and literacy skills 1078Structured multisensory programmes 111Metacognitive control and multisensory learning 111Principles of multisensory teaching 113Reading in a wider context 115Metacognition – the key to learning to learn 117Use of talents 118Improving cognition and examination performance 118Metacognition is a shared responsibility 119Overall Conclusions 122Postscript 127Literacy is for life … and work 127Glossary 129Bibliography 1355

About the authorDr. Harry Chasty has been a teacher, Principal Teacher of a local education authorityprimary school in a deprived area, and Head of one of the largest and most importantpreparatory schools in Ireland. Stemming from his interest and practical experience inthe development of child language and literacy skills, he held a research fellowship inthe Department of Psychology at Queen’s University, Belfast, UK, where he establishedthe relationship between the development of child language, and preferences in visual/verbal problem solving, leading to strengths and weaknesses in the acquisition of literacy.In 1978, he was appointed Professional Director of the Dyslexia Institute, UK. There heset up and developed the national psychological assessment and teacher-training provisions.For some years he was Chair of the British Dyslexia Association’s InternationalConference Committee. He also led in the establishment and validation of the bda’snational specialist teaching diploma. For this work he was awarded an honoraryA.M.B.D.A. He was a founder member of the Council for the Registration of SchoolsTeaching Children with dyslexia, and established its school visiting and classificationprocedures. He was Consultant Psychologist to several first rank English independentschools, carrying out all the psychological assessments, training the teachers, advisingon the teaching programmes, and monitoring and reporting on student progress forparents and the school.He has wide experience in education across Europe, working with teachers andpsychologists in Belgium, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Norway, Scotland and Sweden. He haswritten many articles and books, and has been a frequent contributor to conferenceson dyslexia. In a paper given at the World Dyslexia Forum at unesco, Paris, 2010, hereviewed the use of multisensory teaching procedures worldwide, and set out guidelinesfor more effective literacy teaching for dyslexic students.This paper builds on that presentation, taking a classroom rather than psychologicalresearch stance, to advance a forward-looking and practical perspective on readingfailure and dyslexia, initially examining the structures and processes of languageitself, to identify aspects which present particular difficulties to both dyslexic andlanguage-disadvantaged students. Worldwide variability in the incidence and symptomsof reading failure across shallow/deep orthographies is linked to the ease/difficultywith which the essential ‘vaks’ linkages are established across these language categories.The inter-relationship between language disadvantage and dyslexia is explored.6

About the authorThe efficiency of multisensory teaching methods is considered in detail, reading skillsgains are documented and compared with progress made by dyslexic students in theirprevious class teaching. Firm recommendations are made for achieving the maximumskills gain at a minimum cost of provision.In teaching reading skills, the need for multisensory teaching will be stressed, not justas an end in itself to develop literacy but also to make associations, allow skills transfersto improved cognitive competences resulting in more effective performance in thewhole curriculum.Detailed programmes for facilitating the development of working memory skills inchildren with dyslexia are discussed; the wide-ranging effects of the failure to developautomaticity in a range of developmental skills is advanced as the central core difficultyin dyslexia. The need to enable reading failing students to develop metacognitive controlover all the skills of learning is highlighted.7

AcknowledgementsDyslexia International is grateful to Matthew Standage, Alex Edwards and Dr RobertBanham, of The Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University ofReading, UK, for the preparation of this document.8

IntroductionFine words do not obviate school failure, nor the need forbasic teacher training.Despite the fine words from international and national bodies about the worldwideequality of educational opportunity, without basic teacher training in managing theeducation of students with language disadvantage and dyslexia, far too many studentsare failing in our schools. The daunting size of this failure is reflected in the arrestingstatistic given by unicef, that nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unableto read a book or sign their name, and two thirds of those illiterate world citizens werewomen. With the world population in 2000 being just over 6 billion, almost 17% of theworld population are illiterate and need literacy help.In the past, I have been a strong advocate for the need to identify and offer specialistteaching to all dyslexic students. This was necessary to counter the regrettable attitudeadvanced in some educational and political organizations that dyslexic students wereactually ‘stupid middle-class children.’ But as a former head-teacher who has kept a closeeye on educational developments worldwide, I have become increasingly concernedby the huge number of students, whether dyslexic or not, who fail in their educationsystem because they lack the lack the language and literacy skills required to workeffectively with the learning experiences provided there, and go on to swell the unicefilliteracy statistic quoted above. Consequently, I have given further thought to the kindsof problems faced by dyslexics and also those whose literacy failures are attributable tolanguage disadvantage, or the more modern attribute, language learning impairment.If we take an overview of causation, it is apparent that literacy failure results from interactionsbetween (i) limitations in the learner’s language background reinforced by poorcarer mediation; (ii) student cognitive difficulties, and (iii) teachers’ often idiosyncraticpresentation of literacy skills, and curriculum information.It is my opinion that there are similarities in the neurological, cognitive, and specialeducational needs underlying the language, literacy, and curriculum failures of languagedisadvantaged, language learning impaired, and dyslexic students, and in theclassroom, these similarities are much more important than differences, in determiningthe essential skills development programmes these students require. The supportingevidence for this will be presented later in this paper.In the practical background of the busy classroom, the teacher must be encouraged todeal quickly and effectively with literacy failure, whatever the causality, and without9

Introductionmaking ‘elitist’ distinctions between literacy failure arising from congenital cognitivefactors, and those arising from environmental factors in socioeconomic disadvantage.Whatever the causality, if untreated, the effects of these difficulties can be catastrophic,leaving the student totally out of touch with the learning process and their schoolcurriculum. In these challenging circumstances one must ask, in the United NationsLiteracy Decade, what do the inspiring unesco policies of Education for All, QualityEducation, and Inclusion really mean for the literacy failing student? Equally, whatdoes a national government’s stated policy of entitlement to a full national curriculumreally mean for the student failing in reading? Without basic training for all teachersin ordinary classrooms in what these difficulties entail, and what to do about them, thesuccinct answer to this question must be ‘Not a lot!’Whilst it may be agreed by everyone that such a basic training programme is necessary,in no sense is this paper intended as an essential initial training for class teachers.Those seeking such a programme will find it in Dyslexia International’s course, Basicsfor teachers: Dyslexia — How to identify it and what to do, directed by Dr. Vincent Goetry,the applicability of which goes much beyond the confines of dyslexia. (Ministries ofEducation are invited to contact Dyslexia International in order to access the course.)This paper aims to acquaint teachers who know something of reading failure, dyslexiaand the relevant assessment and literacy teaching methods with further details whichwould not be included in a basic training programme. Whilst mention will be madeof structured multisensory methods in developing literacy, the focus will be on usingstructured multisensory techniques derived from language learning in order toovercome the cognitive deficits underlying language disadvantage, language learningimpairment and dyslexia which interfere so significantly with the dyslexic student’swork in all the subjects of the school curriculum.Teachers must understand the different learning styles which children with languagedisadvantage/impairment/dyslexia bring to the acquisition of language, literacy and thecurriculum and, building on this, as the title suggests, enable students with these difficultiesto learn how to learn and, in doing so, to monitor, control and eventually direct theirown learning.What is important in this paper is not solely the identification and amelioration of theparticular complexities of phonological dyslexia, but understanding and providing forthe worldwide commonalities of the hereditary, environmental and pedagogic factorscontributing to the developing science of reading failure. The intention is to provide awider, more inclusive perspective on language disadvantage, literacy failure and dyslexiaand, in the light of recent research, pose questions arising from personal observationand experience for others to consider, follow up, and perhaps, after research and discussion,find more definitive answers.Note: ‘he’/‘his’ also refers throughout to ‘she’/‘her’s.’10

The importance oflanguage skillsChapter 1The importance of language skillsRegardless of the competences and preferences in representing and manipulating ideaswhich the student brings to learning in school, language and literacy skills are essentialfor success in education. We will leave ‘language disadvantage’ and ‘language learningimpairment’ for later consideration and start by looking at the concept of dyslexia.Whilst this will be reviewed in some detail later in this paper and full definitions of alltypes will be given, analysed, and directly linked to the profile observed from ongoingpsychological assessment, at this early stage in our considerations it is proposed that wefocus on the form of dyslexia most frequently observed in the English language, anduse the description given in the Glossary.Dyslexia is a different learning style, which is less effective within a verballybiased,literacy-based education system, but more effective within a visually/practically based working/thinking paradigm.Whilst in the previous sentence referring to a visually/practically based educationsystem would have given a satisfying balance, this even-handedness is impossiblebecause such a system does not exist. The education process is staffed, designed, operated,maintained, inspected, and reviewed by skilled verbal practitioners, who have beensuccessful examination passers, but are not particularly adept at the presentation ofessential information in visual/practical terms, nor do they really understand the needfor always offering that option as an alternative.At the beginning of the education process reading is the first major skill area to beacquired. Throughout the education process competent standards in speech and literacyare required. At the conclusion of this education process, students must pass verballypresentedexaminations, which require high levels of literacy skill. It is evident thatchildren with language disadvantage/dyslexia must learn, operate and be judged, pass/fail, within a school system which by its inherent nature and structure is biased againsttheir preferred thinking and information processing systems.For them, education is not about skillfully applying their preferred cognitive strategies,but about developing other options and approaches more in keeping with the establishedverbal system required in the education process with consequent losses in theiruse of visual representation and creativity. Evidence to support this will be offered later11

The importance oflanguage skills 1in the paper. It is not surprising that some of these students become frustrated, andgive up the struggle to communicate within what seems to them to be an alienschool system.Languages and the incidence of dyslexiaBefore looking at the problems language disadvantaged and dyslexic students experiencewhen learning literacy, the systems and structures of languages themselves mustbe considered to identify elements which will cause difficulties to less skillful auditory/verbal learners. Is the incidence of dyslexia consistent across all languages? Do studentswho are dyslexic in English show exactly the same symptoms as those who are dyslexicin German or Spanish? Do students who have been identified as dyslexic in Englishalways show the same symptoms in cognitive and literacy development? How do thevarying visual symbol-sound-meaning systems and structures of world languages affectthe incidence and forms of dyslexia? Do these structures present particular difficultiesto some learners and not to others? If so, why? These questions are important andin considering these matters later in this paper, the points raised are relevant to theEnglish language but other languages worldwide will present a lesser or greater range ofdifficulties. This variability in the onset of dyslexia and the symptoms observed acrosslanguages worldwide will be discussed in the next section.Evolution of languagesLanguage is a system of signs for encoding and decoding information. Languages haveevolved over a period of more than 100,000 years. They live, die, move from place toplace, change in structure and form with time, and when they cease to change are ‘dead.’It has been estimated that across the history of mankind as many as 500,000 languageshave existed, but at the last count, only 6,909 remain and half of these are threatenedwith extinction. With rapidly growing educational sophistication and increasingly fastworldwide communication, language diversity is diminishing with only some twentyimportant languages covering almost the entire world population. The most frequentlyspoken language is Chinese, with Hindi second, Spanish third, and English fourth.Because English is frequently used by speakers of other languages as a second languagechoice, it has greater world importance than its fourth place would suggest, but it shouldnot be forgotten that it is far from being the major world language. Reading researchwhich is based solely upon the English language, and advances in theories of readingbased solely upon the development of limited skills at the earliest stages of reading inEnglish (Anglocentricity) should be questioned for their relevance to all major languages.Spoken language takes the priority in man’s evolution, and also comes first in the developmentof the child. It has a complexity and carries information not readily reproduciblein other language forms such as print. The human speech apparatus can produce anenormous variety of sounds. No language uses anything like the full range. Each usesa small set of basic sounds called phonemes. Across all spoken languages worldwide thenumber of phonemes used varies from 15 to 85. English uses 45. These phonemes maybe used to represent words in a range of ways from very simple to very complex.In phonetic languages such as English, phonemes do not convey meaning. In English(but not all languages), meaning comes from patterned, organized sounds which make12

The importance oflanguage skills 1words. The sounds ‘p’, ‘a’, and ‘t’ can be used in different orders to make ‘pat,’ ‘tap,’ ‘apt.’Whilst the constituent sounds used are the same, the sound sequences are differentand, in each case, the meaning is very different. It is the order of the sounds leading tothe organized pattern comprising the word which conveys the meaning. The languagelearner must therefore be sensitive to the sequential order as well as the nature ofthe sound.Phonology is the study of the sound system of a particular language, and how thesounds are organized to make words and give access to the meaning. It includes aninventory of the sounds, their features, and the rules, which may range from verysimple to extremely complex, specifying how these sounds interact with each otherin that language to form words and convey meaning.For many thousands of years, mankind lived, thrived, and peopled the earth, withoutthe communication system provided by language. The problem with inter-personalspeech is that it is not recorded, and memory, which can be very fallible, is the onlyregister of the expressed meaning. Although there are recorded instances of veryimportant events/stories being carried in tribal collective memory for many centuries,for example Plato’s Atlantis, more complex material needed to be recorded. With increasingreligious, technological and social sophistication, there was a developing need forlanguage to facilitate the expression and recording of ideas. Consequently, languagebegins in the necessity to document information for others. Important events in thetribe’s history, key skills, techniques, procedures, predictions about coming events,the form of religious ceremonies, which had to be passed down to future generations,needed to be recorded.Anthropology has established that in these earliest stages of language development, themode of representation was always visual. Though initially local, and particular to atribe or nation, this visual representation could be just as meaningful to the Europeanwho viewed it centuries later as it was to the Aztec who made it. While speech was lostas soon as its trace was eliminated from memory, visual representation had the greatadvantage of conveying information clearly across cultures and down many generations.Figure 1The expedition of MyeengunLanguage can exist without speech, and visual representation can provide the structurefor a language. An example of the visual recording of information for the tribe andposterity is shown in Figure 1. This painting was engraved on a cliff near Lake Superior,13

The importance oflanguage skills 1Canada. It depicts an important expedition undertaken by Chief Myeengun. Beforereading the verbal description in the following paragraph, look at the picture, turn backto this page and then answer the following questions, treating this as a visual comprehensionexercise. Think about whether you answered directly (from visual memory) orwhether you had to keep looking back at the picture to use verbal systems ineffectivelyto answer visual problems. Such an approach would greatly reduce your efficiency andincrease your response times (just like a child with dyslexia inappropriately using visualskills when reading a complex verbal script).How many warriors were in the second canoe?How many warriors were in the fourth canoe?Who commanded the leading canoe?How long did the expedition last?How do you know that the expedition came safely to land?How do you know that the warriors behaved courageously?Now let us consider, in words, the meaning conveyed by that picture. Five canoeswere used to carry, in the first sixteen men, in the second nine men, in the thirdten men, in the fourth and fifth eight men. The leading canoe was commanded byKishkemuncsee whose totem sign is above it. The three suns shown under the vaultof the sky on the right hand side confirm that the expedition took three days. Theman on horseback on land is the maker of magic whose skills facilitated the successof the expedition. The land tortoise in the centre shows that the warriors came safelyto land. The eagle on the left symbolizes the courage the men showed. The monstrouscreatures at the bottom were invoked to lend their aid.This picture is certainly ‘worth a thousand words,’ conveying much information veryeconomically in a way which most children with language learning impairment/dyslexia would readily understand, but verbally skillful expert grammarians mightstruggle to appreciate the deep meaning. How well did you do? Were you a 2 correctout of 6, mediocre visual comprehender, or a 5 correct out of 6, visual star? How wouldyou make out if your future depended upon your visual skills?Whilst in the development of Homo sapiens, the processing of recorded informationbegan in the visual dimension; using systems similar to those shown in the depictionof Chief Myeengun’s expedition, over a lengthy period of time language representationmoved from visual to verbal. This modality shift has been observed and confirmedby anthropologists across the range of major ‘civilizations,’ Aztec, European,Egyptian, Indian, Japanese, Mayan, Mesopotamian. Despite visual channel dominancein everyday human relationships, natural selection/heritability favours the auditoryverbalchannel.If the development of the language form associated with one of the civilizations listedabove is followed historically, the language begins in the pictographic/logographicform, with the language signs (graphemes) directly representing ideas. Graphemesare not linked to the auditory form required for pronunciation and a ‘reader’ does notneed to know the sound required for pronunciation to understand the meaning. Apurely logographic script was simple, direct, but educationally impracticable becausewith developing sophistication of language content, the increasingly large numberof logograms used had to be memorized by rote, which presented great difficulties tothe learner.14

The importance oflanguage skills 1The move to ‘phonetisization,’ with the visual symbols representing language sounds,which could be synthesized into words required an extension of the auditorykinaesthetic-semantic(aks) system used for speech to the more cognitively complexvisual-auditory-kinaesthetic-semantic (vaks) modality linkages required for the writtenlanguage form.Mastery of the vaks language system is absolutely essentialfor competent reading.Pace of phonetisizationIn this process of linguistic evolution worldwide, variations in the pace and extent of theprocess of phonetizisation have important cultural and learning consequences.In most civilizations the development of phonetisization was a very gradual evolutionover many centuries, from shape representing a large, diffuse sound chunk, throughthe stage where the shape represented a much smaller more precise unit of sound, tothe final stage, where the shape represented a range of possible sounds, with the actualrepresentation being determined by syntactic, semantic and pragmatic language factors.The stages in this process are described as phonemes representing a:1. Sentence2. Word or phrase3. Syllable4. Sound5. Range of possible soundsThese changes were usually driven by educational and linguistic pressures from withinthe culture using that language, and over time led to notable cognitive and educationalbenefits. The relatively slow pace of development facilitated the preservation of culturalstability and integrity, and enabled the establishment and appreciation of a culturalliterature linked to increasing standards in literacy.Because of pressures from incoming societies with competing cultures, other languagesmoved from the spoken form to print extremely quickly. An example of this is the Maorilanguage, which was originally a spoken language and had no visual or written representation.This language system was entirely appropriate for spoken communicationwithin the tribe/family, and to facilitate the simple practical education system necessaryto teach growing children the skills required for adult life in that culture.However, in 1815, visiting English missionaries drew up a Maori lexicon, listing thewords they heard, using an English sound-symbol representational system. Later, in1824, using English university resources, a grammatical structure for the spoken Maorilanguage was drafted. The rationale behind this activity was to enable the missionariesto communicate more effectively with the Maori people and to develop their knowledgeof Christianity much more rapidly. The pressure from competing missionary groupswas so intense that within a few years 40,000 religious books in this extended Maorilanguage form were being printed each year in Northland, New Zealand. Whether15

The importance oflanguage skills 1reading in this precipitately extended Maori language developed equally quickly to takeadvantage of these ‘opportunities’ is not recorded and is very questionable.The current Maori language is therefore a recent, externally-motivated construct,deliberately created to bring about rapid cultural and religious change. With thewisdom of almost two centuries’ hindsight, the lack of appreciation by the Europeanmissionaries of the full effects of their actions would certainly be questioned byMaori cultural activists. Yet it must be said that by deliberately adding the visual andkinaesthetic orthographic elements to the pre-existing phonological/semantic languagestructure the questionable cultural effects were balanced to some extent by the resultingpositive cognitive representational benefits. For the Maori generations which followedthe availability of a visual-auditory-kinaesthetic-semantic representational system facilitatedthe possibility of equality within the national, verbally-based English languageeducation system.Extent of phonetisizationThe extent of phonetisization of languages affects the nature, frequency of occurrenceand point of incidence of dyslexia along the speech-language literacy continuum.Some phonetic languages developed to stage 5 (described above), which required a highlevel of phonological complexity, but others remained at stage 2, 3 or 4. Across phoneticlanguages worldwide, there are therefore, marked variations in the complexity/obscurityof the links between the visual symbol and the sound it conveys. Those with simple,direct links are easy to learn to read, show a later incidence of reading failure in learners,and a reduced incidence of dyslexia. However those with more complex and obscurelinks are harder to learn to read, show a much earlier incidence of reading failure inlearners, and an increased incidence of dyslexia. The English language is consideredto be amongst the most phonologically complex and difficult languages, so an earlyincidence of reading failure at the phonology word recognition stage, and an increasedfrequency of dyslexia may be anticipated in this language.Frost et al. (1987) classified orthographies according to phonological complexity asshallow or deep. ‘In a shallow orthography ... the phonemes of the spoken word are representedby the graphemes in a direct and unequivocal manner. In contrast, in a deeporthography, the relation of spelling to sound is opaque. The same letter may representdifferent phonemes in different contexts, moreover different letters may represent thesame phoneme.’Seymour et al. (2003) further developed this shallow/deep classification process byadding, as a second dimension, a measure of syllabic complexity ranging from simpleopen syllables to closed cvc (consonant, vowel, consonant) syllables, and frequent initialand final consonant clusters. This revised system was used by Seymour’s research teamto classify thirteen European languages according to the difficulty presented to readinglearners, with Finnish being simplest, and English the most complex. Later, Seymour(2005) demonstrated the clear links existing between levels of language difficulty, ageof reading skills acquisition, and error rates in reading tasks.Across all languages worldwide, depending upon the simplicity/complexity of the linksbetween the shape seen, the sound conveyed, the movement pattern to say or write16

The importance oflanguage skills 1it, and the implicit meaning, there will be differences in the stage of onset of readingdifficulty and the types of reading problems experienced by literacy learners. There istherefore, no single worldwide form of reading difficulty observed in dyslexia.This system of classifying languages according to their phonological/orthographiccomplexity opens the possibility of quantifying the level of difficulty presented toliteracy learners by a particular language and so facilitates the calculation of probableearly reading difficulty figures within that language. This will be considered in somedetail at a slightly later stage in this paper.Historical perspective: dyslexia first identified in the English languageBecause of its extremely deep orthography and complex phonological structure, itis only to be anticipated that it was in English that dyslexia was first identified anddescribed. Dyslexia was regarded as a phonological problem with the difficulty beingseen, initially, in the learner’s ability to tune into and manipulate the sounds of hislanguage, and at a slightly more mature stage, in connecting those sounds to the letteror word shapes to develop word recognition skills for reading. This led to a searchinganalysis of phonological awareness in reading learners, an area of study which quicklyachieved high prestige status in psychological research into reading failure. Though it isonly in the last forty years that ‘phonological awareness’ has become so popular, someof the ideas have been around for many centuries. In the fourth book of De RerumNatura by Lucretius (1 st century bc), key issues of the relationship between phonologyand semantics are raised: for example, ‘And so it haps that thou canst sound, perceive,yet not determine what the words may mean.’Vellutino (1979) reviewed the available literature on phonological difficulty and readingfailure in English. He concluded that dyslexia was characterized by weakness in phonological,semantic and syntactic aspects of language processing, and verbal memory.These views were extended and developed in a more recent study, Vellutino et al. (2004),which provides a very detailed and authoritative exposition of phonological dyslexiain English. This survey of the literature over a forty year period is very strong on theimportance of phonological awareness leading to linguistic coding competences, andis firm on the causality of reading difficulties.‘Specific reading difficulty (dyslexia) in otherwise normal children has been and continuesto be defined as a basic deficit in learning to decode print.’ And again, ‘There isabundant evidence that difficulty in learning to identify printed words is the manifestcause of difficulties in beginning readers, there is also abundant evidence that thisproblem itself is causally related to significant difficulties in acquiring phonologicalanalysis skills and mastering the alphabetic code.’But Vellutino et al. does not offer the same detailed insights into the next stage of theprocess of learning to read, how the auditory competences in linguistic coding areeffectively linked to visual coding to provide the word recognition skills which havebeen acknowledged to be deficient and are accepted in the reviewed literature as thecause of reading failure. ‘Linguistic and visual coding processes together facilitate theestablishment of firm associations between the spoken and written counterparts ofprinted words, in the interests of helping the child acquire a sight vocabulary.’ Teachers17

The importance oflanguage skills 1who have worked very long and hard with their dyslexic students on the carefullystructured ‘reading pack,’ that is look at the letter shape, then say the key word with itssound, and spelling pack, that is listen to the sound, now say it and drills to write it, willsmile wryly at the assertion that ‘linguistic and visual processes together facilitate theestablishment of firm associations …,’ and wish it were that simple, easy and seeminglyautomatic in the special education classroom.Phonological dyslexia as an acceptable world model of congenitalreading failureCriticisms of the directions taken in this work have been growing recently. Whilethe authority and accuracy of Vellutino et al.’s observations of the research literatureover the last half century are not questioned, teachers must look searchingly at thevery limited language sample (Anglocentricity) in that research, and should also beconcerned about the limited definitions of reading used by the researchers. Whilethey defined reading as ‘the process of extracting and constructing meaning fromwritten text for some purpose,’ generally across the research surveyed, reading isregarded as word recognition. These factors lead to a narrow definition of dyslexia(quoted two paragraphs above) and result in the formulation of research groupsheavily loaded with a particular type of dyslexic student. This results in a limited perspectivebased upon ‘early onset dyslexia’ as observed in a phonologically extremelydeep orthography which may be misleading when viewed from the wider internationalfield.Reading is not just recognizing and saying the names of words. It is about the extraction,storage, recall and effective use of the meaning of continuous text. Nor shouldany single sub-skill of reading be detailed as being more important than the others,or regarded as a ‘stand alone’ entity. Each sub-skill is an integral part of a very muchmore complex process described in detail later in this paper. The establishment of aparticular sub-skill should be achieved in a way which, at the succeeding stage of thestudent’s development, facilitates the construction of the next skill in the hierarchy,and ensures the effectiveness of the operation of the whole schema, minimizing theloading it places upon working memory.Clearly, in learning to read, the child must establish effective links between his visualcoding competences, and his phonological linguistic competences, so that the unitsof sound which comprise the syllable or word are recognized and said. There mustalso be an effective link to the semantic aspects of the visual symbol so that the childhas access to the meaning of the text, a requirement which is largely neglected in theliterature surveyed by Vellutino et al. At a slightly later stage, in literacy development,the motor movement patterns for saying the sound and writing the word must beintegrated into this evolving structure, so that language-reading skills facilitate writingand spelling to express the learner’s meaning for others.Some practitioners would regard this as enabling the development of effective vakscross-modal transfers by using multi-sensory techniques, but such terminology seemsto be at odds with the views reported by Vellutino.However, more recent work by the Cross-Modal Research Laboratory in theDepartment of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University and similar facilities18

The importance oflanguage skills 1in other universities emphasize the importance of multi-sensory learning in theestablishment of cross-modal linkages in subjects experiencing a range of cognitivedifficulties.In attempting to make sense of these issues, we seem to have reached a stage of cognitivedissonance rather than a more constructive dialectic, as the difficulties seem to liemore in the concepts and language used by groups of researchers and teachers, ratherthan in the actual structures and processes of language-literacy learning. We mustreturn to this point later in our discourse but will leave the discussion with the appositecomment that if it had been held in Old Uzbek it would certainly have brought tearsto our eyes …Phonologically ‘simple’ languages and the incidence of dyslexiaThere is evidence that in phonologically simple languages dyslexics show a lowerincidence of phonological deficits and consequently a reduced incidence of deficienciesin word recognition skills leading to early reading difficulty. This is touched onby Vellutino et al. (2004). ‘The prevailing view is that the core phonological deficitsof dyslexia are ‘harder to detect’ in children who have learned to read in transparent(phonologically simpler) orthographies such as German or Italian.’The work of Wimmer, Mayringer and Landerl (1998) supports the view that in suchlanguages, impairments can be identified most clearly on tasks that require the evaluationof verbal short term memory, rapid automatized naming (ran) and visual-verbalpaired associate learning, rather than on tests evaluating phonological awareness andphonological (letter-sound) decoding. Wimmer et al. report that German speakingdyslexic students show generally competent word recognition skills but read moreslowly and later show reading comprehension difficulties. Students who are dyslexic inGerman, Spanish, Portugese, Finnish or Greek do not show the early phonological andword recognition difficulties which have been documented in the literature as such amajor part of dyslexia in English. But they generally show later developing difficultiesin higher literacy skills.The comparisons recorded by Philip Seymour and his associates across Europeanlanguages are striking. In transparent orthographies such as Italian, Spanish orGreek, few problems are presented by the language phonology to young readers. Moreopaque orthographies such as English, French, or Polish, which give precedence tomorphological level over phonological level, are more difficult for learners to manage,and phonological weakness and early word recognition difficulties in reading are muchmore prevalent.Seymour et al. found that children from the majority of European countries learningto read in languages which were phonologically ‘simple’ become accurate and fluent infoundation level reading before the end of the first school year, but children learningto read in the phonologically opaque English language are more than twice as slow.Fluency in English spelling, which requires knowledge of more than three times thenumber of graphemes as most European languages, retards literacy progress in thatlanguage still further.It therefore appears that despite dyslexic students’ consistent underlying cognitiveproblems in motor skills and working memory, in transparent phonological languages19

The importance oflanguage skills 1they can cope with the simpler, early developing literacy skills leading to word recognition,but later developing and more complex schema manipulation required in readingcomprehension, reading speed, spelling, and the written expression of ideas is impaired.Depending upon the inherent phonological complexity of the language being used forinstruction, the symptoms of dyslexia which teachers observe in the classroom willvary from language to language along the phonology-speech-literacy-verbal thinkingcontinuum, with dyslexic students learning in opaque phonological languages showingearly word recognition problems, and dyslexic students learning in transparentphonological languages showing problems in the later, more complex stages of literacyacquisition. It is apparent that the key concepts of phonological dyslexia as summarizedin Vellutino et al. (2004) do not transfer easily into dyslexia in other more orthographicallytransparent world languages, and especially not into logographic languages.Growing reservations about the worldwide applicability of the ‘dyslexia is difficulty inphonological awareness’ model have been expressed in the literature. Considering thecognitive psychological implications, Bishop and Snowling (2004) state: ‘We suggest thatthe overwhelming emphasis on phonological awareness in studies of reading disabilitymay be misplaced and that factors other than segmentation may be implicated in thedifficulties children have in mapping between orthography and phonology.’ And later,‘although most of the emphasis in studies of dyslexia has been on phonological awareness,we suggest that phonological memory may be a more fruitful skill to investigatewhen studying the phonological origins of literacy problems in dyslexia and sli.’Approaching the discussion from the point of view of genetics, Pennington (2006)commented: ‘The consensus about a core phonological processing deficit in dyslexia asdescribed in Vellutino et al. (2004) suggests a single cause of dyslexia. A probabilisticmulti-factorial model forms a better explanation for the heterogeneity than a deterministicsingle cause.’Ziegler and Goswami (2006), raise issues about the relevance of the extreme developmentof the phonological deficit model to reading failure in other languages: ‘Englishlies at the extreme end of the consistency continuum with regard to orthographyphonologyrelationships, it might be that some of the most sophisticated processingarchitecture (e.g. two separate routes to pronunciation in the skilled reading system)may in fact, only develop for English.’Much stronger reservations have been expressed by David Share (2008). In his critiqueof current reading research and practice, he contended that ‘the extreme ambiguityof English spelling-sound correspondence had confined reading science to an insularAnglocentric research agenda addressing theoretical and applied issues with limited relevanceto a science of reading. The unique problems posed by the ‘outlier’ orthographyhave focused disproportionate attention on oral reading and accuracy at the expense ofsilent reading, meaning access and fluency, and have significantly distorted theorizingwith regard to many issues including phonological awareness, early reading instruction,the architecture of stage models of reading development, the definition and remediationof reading disability and the role of lexical semantic and supra-lexical information inword recognition.’It is apparent that the ‘phonological awareness deficit’ so prevalent in psychologicalresearch into reading failure in the English language over almost half a century, is not a20

The importance oflanguage skills 1universal attribute of dyslexia worldwide. The ‘dyslexia is phonological difficulty leadingto failure in word recognition’ paradigm seems to be applicable only to the languagesat the extreme end of the orthographic depth-syllabic complexity dimension describedabove, and appears to relate to a significant minority of the world population.Dyslexia in logographic languagesFrom the literature it appears that dyslexia in logographic languages is different fromthe phonological dyslexia described by Vellutino et al. But how significant are theobserved differences? From the preceding section we have seen that it can be misleadingto reach hard conclusions about the universal applicability of differences in aspects ofsingle skills acquisition in the beginning stages of reading in a single language. Theobserved similarities and differences between dyslexia as observed across the range ofopaque phonological languages, transparent phonological languages and logographiclanguages must be carefully evaluated.In the development of modern Japanese, two language varieties, Kanji and Kana, havesurvived and are still used today. Kanji, borrowed from classical Chinese, is logographicwith the meaning being directly apparent from the graphemes. Kana, derived fromearly Japanese requires the reader to transfer the information conveyed by the graphemeinto the syllabic (sound) form to gain the meaning. In the research literaturethere is evidence of learners who are dyslexic in Kana, but not in Kanji. This suggeststhat: 1) students who are competent in a logographic/ideographic language could bemuch less competent in a syllabic language requiring very different initial cognitive/neurological processing systems, which did not suit their particular neurologicallydetermined abilities, and consequently, 2) worldwide, dyslexic students’ processing andrepresentational problems in reading arise from the need to develop and apply effectiveinter-sensory vaks linkages to move incoming visual information from the page to thesemantic system in whatever order their language requires, through the auditory andmotor dimensions, to say the words and access the meaning.Wydell and Butterworth (1999) reported on a bilingual English/Japanese student withmonolingual dyslexia. The complexity of the auditory, visual, kinaesthetic, and semanticlinks required by the phonologically opaque English orthography determined theincidence of symptoms of dyslexia. In the Japanese language form used these essentiallinks were much more easily established by their student. They concluded that in anylanguage where the transfer from the orthography to the phonology was simple orwhere the orthographic unit was either a word or a whole character there should not bea high incidence of phonological dyslexia.I have recently confirmed their findings when working with a seventeen year oldSouth African student. His primary language is Zulu, but he has also been educatedin Afrikaans and English. He is fluent in speaking his primary language, Zulu, butalso speaks English very well, if a little slowly. He reads Zulu competently but has greatdifficulty with reading in English. Testing showed that he was of at least average intellectualability but had marked auditory short term memory problems, and was dyslexicin English, but not in Zulu.As a language, Zulu has near perfect letter-sound correlation, and is at the ‘simple’ endof the phonological complexity dimension described above. Data is available which21

The importance oflanguage skills 1confirms that because of this very simple symbol-sound correspondence learners findZulu a relatively easy language to learn to read, with some 81% of Zulu first languagespeakers showing greater competence in reading Zulu than other languages. The establishmentby the learner of the necessary vaks linkages is relatively easy in Zulu, andcould be managed by my student, even with his deficient auditory short-term memory.English is, however, a much more phonologically complex language. A clear exampleof this complexity is seen in the range of sounds and meanings conveyed by ‘ough.’ InEnglish, the essential links between the symbol shape, its sound, the movement patternnecessary to say or write it, and its meaning, are much more difficult to establish. Thisclarifies my student’s seemingly anomalous difficulties in reading English, but not Zulu.As Wydell and Butterworth (1999) predicted, my student was not dyslexic in the phonologicallysimplest language he spoke.The most frequently used logographic language, Chinese, has a pictographic writingsystem which uses a total of 20,000+ characters, giving learners an immense visualmemory task. Consequently, some researchers into dyslexia in Chinese have anticipatedthat Chinese reading failing students would show visual rather than phonologicalprocessing problems, but research has not fully supported this expectation.Ho, Chan, Tsang and Lee (2002) found that rapid naming deficit (ran) was the mostfrequently observed difficulty in their sample of Chinese dyslexic children, being evidentin some 60% of the students they studied. Most significantly, they observed that morethan 50% of their sample showed three or more cognitive deficits, and the greater thenumber of deficits the dyslexic child experienced, the more severe his dyslexia was.ran has been documented very frequently as a key deficit in dyslexia. (See the Glossaryand the comments of Wimmer, Mayringer and Landerl already referred to on page 19.)ran deficit has been described in the literature as a failure of automatization of verbalresponses to visual stimuli (i.e. the visual-verbal link), and Denkla and Rudel (1976)confirmed that failure in this skill differentiated English-speaking dyslexic children fromnormal controls and non-dyslexic learning disabled children. It is interesting to note itssignificant place in identifying children who were dyslexic in the logographic Chineselanguage, and also in the phonologically transparent German language.Wai Ting Siok (2009), University of Hong Kong, used functional magnetic resonanceimaging to determine whether Chinese children with dyslexia had difficulty in comprehendingthe essential visual details of their logographic language. Siok reported thatin her Chinese dyslexic group, ‘Disordered phonological processing may commonlyco-exist with abnormal visuo-spatial processing.’ She observed that Chinese people withdyslexia seemed to experience both visual and phonological problems.Other researchers, using similar techniques, have compared English and Chinese childrenneurologically when learning to read. They identified different and more diversifiedleft hemisphere processing in competent Chinese readers.These observed differences in neurological organization suggest that Chinese childrendevelop a different cognitive structure for processing reading and that worldwide thereis a range of different neurological organizations underlying reading failure acrossall languages.22

The importance oflanguage skills 1Drawing attention to the differences she observed between her Chinese dyslexicstudents and English children with phonological dyslexia, Siok stressed the need for a‘uniform theory of sufficient scope to accommodate the full complexity of the observeddysfunctions and interactions of the brain systems underlying (all) reading impairments.’At the World Dyslexia Forum, unesco, February 2010, Professor Alice Cheng-Lai reportedon her research with Chinese children with dyslexia and age-matched controls competentin reading. Using ‘logistic regression analysis’ she established that deficiencies invisual and phonological skills did not fully distinguish Chinese children with dyslexiafrom competent readers. She considered that morphological awareness, i.e. the abilityto recognize and process the smallest component of the Chinese word which carriedmeaning (i.e. the link between the visual unit in print and its semantic implications)was the strongest predictor of reading ability.Professor Cheng-Lai described the differences between the first steps young Chineseand English learners take in their approach to reading. In English, the visual units(the letters) represent sounds which, organized in sequence, give access to meaningand muscles are moved to say the words. In Chinese, the visual character represents amorpheme, i.e. the smallest component of a word which carries meaning. These haveto be integrated to construct the whole meaning, then muscles are moved to say thesounds. In Chinese, the reader has access to the meaning without saying the sounds.In English, meaning is accessed directly from print by skillful readers with automaticcontrol over vaks linkages, whilst poor readers are frequently observed to point and saythe words aloud, or move their lips appropriately to gain much slower and less completeaccess to the sense.The different initial linkage procedures required in phonetic and logographic languagesin order to begin reading are depicted in Figure 2.Figure 2Initial linkages in learningto read in phonetic andlogographic languagesmotor controlto say (or write)idea ormeaningEnglishshapemotor controlto say (or write)idea ormeaningChineseshapesoundsoundIt is misleading to base a theory of the nature and causes of literacy difficulty on wordrecognition in the beginning stages of reading, which is only one step in a long andcomplex spoken language-literacy-verbal thinking process. The ‘uniform theory’ whichProfessor Siok seeks will not be found by concentrating upon fine inter-language differencesin word recognition.Whilst clearly the initial approach to establishing the essential visual-auditorykinaesthetic-semanticcross-modal linkages is different for phonological and logographiclanguages, considered developmentally over time, this is not a matter of great cognitiveor linguistic significance. What is much more important is that in both types oflanguage, regardless of the different approach to creating the initial links across theseessential aspects of early literacy, good readers can move freely and easily from onesensory modality to access all the others, but poor readers cannot. It is the achievement23

The importance oflanguage skills 1of automatic control over the cross-modal transfer of information in reading whichdistinguishes good from poor readers in both phonological and logographic languages,and it is at this level that Siok’s ‘uniform theory’ can be found.Without automatic control over these linkages the acquisition of language and literacywill be slow, difficult and very inefficient. Later in this paper where the beginnings ofthe teaching of reading are considered, the contribution of Vygotsky to the understandingof this particularly important area of the young child’s development will be consideredand suggestions for remediation will be offered.Speech structures and reading failureWe have seen that problems in the child’s development of the structure of speechcontribute to his later reading failure.Animal communication systems can be identified and linked with regular meaningsso that the same movement pattern or sequence always represents the same meaning.This regularity is a key characteristic of their communication, but, as will be seen fromthe discussion following, this consistency does not hold for human speech, and it is inthis area of inconsistency in vocabulary, structure and usage that dyslexic and languagedisadvantaged learners have problems.For the young child learning his language, the first step in building a very complexstructure is to hear and make sounds. This leads him from phonetics to phonology,determining which phonetic sounds are significant, and how these sounds are meaningfulto the speaker. The next step in the evolving process is to develop competence inmorphology, the appreciation of how sounds are used to construct words. Then the useof words in a growing grammatical structure leads to an appreciation of syntax. Thisgives understanding of the expression of meaning in semantics, and at a very high levelof skill, the understanding of meaning and language usage related to speaker-addresseecontext in pragmatics. All these competences are structurally linked and each successivestage is dependent upon the integrity of the preceding level. Difficulties in phoneticsand phonology will lead to significant limitations in learner performance at the laterdeveloping, higher levels of semantics and pragmatics. In phonologically opaquelanguages effective understanding of the application of these skills to word recognitionis required for reading success.Generally, in learning his language, the child starts by producing and playing withsounds. Then, at the end of his first year, he uses sound patterns repetitively to formwords. The number of words which the child must learn varies from language tolanguage, because the total vocabulary of languages varies greatly, with English havinga huge lexicon of approximately 1,000,000 words, while some other European languagessuch as French use about 250,000 words.In saying a single word, it cannot be assumed that the child’s usage is similar to theadult’s. The child’s single word is ‘holophrastic,’ actually standing for a sentence. In thislanguage form the word ‘door’ can mean ‘open that door’ or perhaps, ‘what a nice door,’depending upon speed, pitch and tone of the utterance. Eventually other word formssuch as verbs are added, particularizing and clarifying meaning but the child’s developinglanguage has been described by most experts as being different from the adultlanguage model and may be classified as a language form in its own right. Vocabulary24

The importance oflanguage skills 1increases enormously with age, with best estimates being given of 2,500 words at age six,3,600 words at age eight, and 5,400 words at age ten.The extent of the child’s vocabulary knowledge is important because the research literatureshows that vocabulary knowledge in pre-first grade children is an accurate predictorof their later reading development. Snowling et al. (2003) is one of many papers offeringsupport to this perspective. Deficient vocabulary skills have been shown by Tabors andSnow (2001) to be a significant cause of reading failure in second language learners withlimited spoken English skills. There is one further area where vocabulary deficits arerelevant. Snowling (2000) has shown that vocabulary deficits are a significant cause ofreading comprehension problems in students with adequate skill in word recognition.The child’s synthesis of grammatical rulesAgain, international differences are apparent in simple sentence construction, with mostlanguages placing the verb before the subject, but this does not hold for English. Therelevant grammatical rules must be synthesized by the child from whatever backgroundlanguage experience is available.Towards the end of the child’s second year, following a period of rapid vocabulary growth,the child begins to experiment with word groupings, varying the original model eachtime, e.g. ‘Give me teddy’ ... ‘Give me the ball.’ Research by Berman (1969) and Bever(1971) confirms the importance for the learner of sentence models in both speaking andextracting the meaning from spoken words. Bruner (1957) also stressed the importanceof the quality of the language sample available to the learning child, and the necessity ofconstructing adequate models, but pointed out that in the time available it was impossiblefor the child to learn all the sentence forms that he would eventually be able to produce bymodeling. The child must work out the rules governing new utterances and modify theseconstructively, as experience, maturation and consolidation dictated.At this stage of the child’s language development it is evident that two key determiningfactors are necessary for the successful formulation of the required structural rules forspeech and, later, literacy. These are (i) a positive and helpful language sample availablefrom parents/significant others in the home/nursery background and (ii) the cognitivecompetences in perception and memory to make the necessary analyses of speech samplesand syntheses of the relevant structural rules. Limitations in one or both of these factorswill lead to phonological/speech/language difficulties with consequent negative effects uponthe later developing acquisition of literacy which is based upon this foundation.Bruner’s view of the importance of the establishment of structural rules was confirmed bythe fascinating research of Jean Berko (1958), who pioneered the use of nonsense syllablesto demonstrate the child’s understanding and use of grammatical rules. The child wasshown a picture of a small animal and told, ‘This is a wug. Now there are two of them.There are two ...?’ As the child had never heard of a wug before, and had no previousexperience of this plural form, his response ‘wugs’ was evidence of his knowledge of a rulefor the construction of the plural form synthesized from past experience, and which wasapplicable to this novel situation.Wiig, Semel and Crouse, (1973) reported significant differences between poor and normalnine year old readers on Berko’s Test of Morphological Usage, and concluded that languagedisadvantagedand dyslexic students were significantly delayed in the acquisition of25

The importance oflanguage skills 1morphological generalizations. It was thought that this deficiency was a cause rather thanan effect of reading difficulty. They recommended that remediation of these speech/cognitiveproblems should be undertaken prior to the approach to reading instruction.A further study supporting these findings was carried out by Vogel (1978) who comparedseven year old dyslexic and normal children on a range of speech skills: syntactic ability,oral syntax, morphological usage, listening comprehension, sentence repetition, clozeprocedure, and ability to detect melodic variations. She found that her reading failing groupwas deficient on 7 out of the 9 measures. Stark and Tallal (1988), also reached a similarconclusion, ‘the vast majority of children with reading impairment may also have somedegree of oral language deficit.’The developmental history of students attending a specialist school for children withspecific language impairment was monitored by Haynes and Naidoo (1991). They reportedthat only 7 out of 82 children attending the school showed no reading impairments.From all this work, it is apparent that in learning language and literacy in English, weaknessin phonology, limited vocabulary, poor knowledge of morphology and grammaticalrules, an inadequate structure of language, and deficient reading skills are causally relatedand have a common base in the quality and extent of the child’s early language experienceand cognitive development. There is also support in the literature for the inference thatthe learner’s inadequate structure in language leads to the different thinking/learningstyle, characteristic of language deprived and dyslexic students in their less than successfulinteraction with school’s curriculum.Idiosyncrasy of meaning from languageWhilst the primary function of language is communication, language has the veryimportant secondary function of providing mankind with a ‘thinking tool.’ This greatlysimplifies and facilitates his manipulation of ideas but does this tool actually distortthe ideas being manipulated? There is evidence to confirm that it does. It is generallyacknowledged that languages do not exhibit an absolute one-to-one correspondencebetween form and meaning. Meaning conveyed through language is more idiosyncraticthan we think.Initially the unanimity of acceptance of the meaning of single words across the rangeof speakers of the language must be considered. The organized pattern of sounds whichcomprise words mean something to the speaker and to the listener but the assumptionthat these sound patterns have exactly the same meaning for two different childrenfrom contrasting learning backgrounds, for a dyslexic and a skilled verbal learner, for ateacher and student, for a defendant and a magistrate in court, is unwarranted.Take the meaning of the word ‘book,’ and think about it carefully. Does it have a hardcover? Not necessarily, a paper back or soft cover will do. What size is it? It can be big orsmall, thick or thin. What about its contents? Does it have to contain a formal expositionof a learned subject? No, it can be a story, a diary, a collection of papers. How would youclassify Vercingetorix the Gaul? Is it a comic? But when may a comic become a book?What about print? Does that determine the concept of ‘book’? We might agree that abook contains words in print, but it can also contain figures, diagrams, pictures, musicalscores, spaces, and even blank pages. Is every book printed? Look at the Book of Kells in26

The importance oflanguage skills 1the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and the answer must be in the negative as booksmay be (beautifully) handwritten.Now let us apply this knowledge to define objects in our world as books and non-books. Ihave gone round a lecture group of teachers, lifting objects off their desks and asking themto say whether the object was a book or non-book, and found some surprising disagreements.I ask, ‘is this object a book?’ Some teachers say, ‘yes,’ but others say ‘no, that is alarge magazine, or an exercise book, or a note book.’ Practical testing demonstrates thateven in a very homogeneous group there is no unanimity on the full meaning of even themost concrete concepts. The understanding of meanings of more complex and abstractideas varies even more substantially. The ideas conveyed by the word ‘paradigm’ when usedby a linguist and when used by a psychologist skilled in experimental design are two totallydifferent things. If a further example is necessary, consider the diversity of meanings of theexpression ‘public interest’ as used by a defensive Home Secretary, a left wing politician,a ‘green’ voting street protester and Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. At this point, languagechoice by skilled users approaches ‘spin,’ where a statement deliberately clouds rather thanclarifies reality for the listener.The meaning individual listeners derive from words spoken by a speaker to an audiencevaries quite significantly and can be very ‘subject-context’ related. The conveyance ofmeaning from speaker to listener can never be a 100% effective procedure. As teachers werely very heavily upon this spoken communication process when imparting informationto the children in our care and we must be extremely careful about supposing it to be moreeffective than it actually is.The difficulties in formulating complex meaning into words so that another person withdifferent language experience can understand our thinking, is clearly seen in a ‘tonguein-cheek’report from the courts published in the Sunday Times in the 1970s. An illiterateresident of West Indian origin was summoned to a London court for the non-paymentof rates (the local council charge). When the magistrate asked him for an explanation, hereplied, ‘Man I don’t pay no rates.’ The magistrate was offended by this direct, forthright,statement and the dogmatic tone used and incorrectly interpreted what was said as adeliberate refusal to pay. He ordered that the defendant should go to prison. Fortunately forall concerned, a solicitor, also of West Indian extraction, attending for another case, spokeup and explained, ‘What that man was trying to say was, ‘the rates bill of the property inwhich I reside is not my financial responsibility because I pay a rent which is inclusive ofrates.’ This is a complex idea which requires considerable skill in formulation and expressionand more than a little patience and understanding in the listener. This illustrationshows not only the complexity of the problem, but perhaps more significantly, the need torecognize in the first place that a significant problem exists.It is clear that there may be a world of difference between what is heard by the listener andwhat is meant by the speaker. The meaning conveyed by the actual words spoken may alsobe modified semantically by other aspects of speech such as rhythm, pitch and tone, whichare not apparent from the printed word. Words and phrases may be marked with a declarative,emphatic, emotional or questioning tone, which modifies the semantic implicationsThis was shown by an acquaintance, who carried out an excellent piece of research on thebroadcast football results each Saturday evening on bbc radio. He demonstrated that it waspossible to predict the match result from the home team score and the announcer’s use ofpitch as he approached the second score.27

The importance oflanguage skills 1Manchester United 3 (rising pitch), Arsenal 2, 1, or 0Manchester United 2 (falling pitch), Arsenal 3, 4, or 5Manchester United 3 (horizontal pitch) Arsenal 3The same effect may be observed in television news where the presenter is dealing withan item which is happy, vivacious and joyful, and the speed of her speech delivery is fast,rhythmical with a relatively high pitch. Then the focus switches to something sad andunhappy such as children dying of cholera in an insanitary camp in Haiti. As the presenterapproaches the sad item, the pace and rhythm will slow, the pitch will fall and the mooddrops. She does not have to say, ‘And now for something completely different.’ Her use ofrhythm pitch and tone will have cued her listeners that this is a seriously sad item.These semantic markers require an understanding of the range of pitch of the spoken word,the comparative length of the utterance, and rising and falling cadence in the delivery ofthe segment of speech. Language-disadvantaged and dyslexic children are very limited intheir use of these skills in listening and speaking and years later lack this knowledge intheir reading aloud, where they read hesitantly often using only a single monotone whichmakes nonsense of the meaning of the text.Class differences in language usageWe have seen that the differences between the English language forms spoken bypeople from widely contrasting social backgrounds are so significant that the conveyanceof meaning from one to another may be very seriously limited. The exchange ofideas between teacher and students in the classroom can only be effective if the words,phrases, sentences, and the use of idiomatic expressions mean nearly the same things toboth speaker and listener. This simple point is often completely overlooked in education.Yet when teacher and learner come from different backgrounds, the assumption that thelistener totally understands what is being said is unwarranted.Basil Bernstein (1958) documented this variability in conveying ideas through speech/language in some detail. He observed that working class students were largely dependentupon what he called the ‘restricted code’ for all speech and communication, whilstmiddle class students, although having sufficient linguistic versatility to use both codes,were much more fluent in the ‘elaborated code.’ Bernstein described the restrictedcode as using short, grammatically simple, often unfinished sentences of poor syntacticconstruction, with a verbal form expressing the active mood, in a language of implicitmeaning. In contrast, he described the elaborated code as using a complex variablelanguage structure, with an accurate grammatical order, expressing the organizationof experience in a complex conceptual hierarchy.Bernstein’s description of the different language styles of middle class and working classstudents was questioned by some researchers who considered that he was describingdifferences in levels of language skill, not differences in language form worthy of thereifying name ‘codes.’ Despite this criticism, the position was summarized effectively byLawton (1968) who pointed out that ‘none of the subsequent research has produced anycontradictory evidence.’Bernstein quotes very interesting scores for his independent school boys and postoffice messengers on Ravens Progressive Matrices. Towards the end of their schooling,on the Vocabulary Scales, the independent school boys showed significantly superior28

The importance oflanguage skills 1scores, being on average, 24 iq points better but on the visual thinking required on theMatrices, the public school boys were some iq points ahead, but were not significantlybetter. Clearly the two groups were similar in visual thinking capability but, despite this,the middle class students were significantly better verbalisers. Following this testing,Bernstein concluded that either the mode of expression of intelligence was dependentupon cultural factors or the lower working class was genetically deficient in a factorwhich enabled the exploitation of complex verbal relationships.At that time, perhaps not unexpectedly, some practitioners objected strongly to the suggestionthat the working class was genetically deficient in anything. Bernstein’s work isnot cited solely for the answers it gives, but rather for the questions it poses on the relationshipbetween student language development and preferred problem solving options,genetically determined or not, which will be considered again later in this paper.Meaning from grammatical structureDeriving complex meaning from words in a sequential grammatical structure is difficultfor children with dyslexia and language-disadvantaged students.We have seen that meaning derived from words can be a highly individual thing. Thisproblem is greatly accentuated when we consider words arranged in order in sentencesaccording to grammatical rules. Whilst some languages use inflexions, altering the formof the word to convey meaning, in English sentence structure is an essential determinerof meaning. Our developed sense of sequence in a sentence leads to a clear understandingand general application of the sentence model:actor action recipientThis works for the sequence ‘man bites dog’ and indeed for ‘dog bites man.’ But thesemantic difference between ‘Jill kicked Jack’ and ‘Jill was kicked by Jack’ are verysignificant and the learner who relies upon the simple model without applying furthergrammatical analysis can be misled.This area of grammatical structure was researched by Noam Chomsky (1972) whoasserted that learners were engaged in searching grammatical analysis every time theylistened, spoke or read. He showed that the phrase structure of a sentence such as:noun phraseverb phraseThe maneats the cakearticle noun verb article nounThis analysis gives a series of language slots into which some kinds of words fit butnot others. Word position within a range of possible alternative structures determinesgrammatical function and meaning.29

The importance oflanguage skills 1Chomsky focused on two aspects of syntactic structure, surface structure whichis directly related to the phonetic form and deep structure which is represented inthe mind and is rarely indicated in the physical signal. He stressed that the rules linkingsurface and deep structure are highly abstract. Both the form and meaningof a sentence are determined by syntactic structures which are not directly representedin the sound signal and are related to it only at a distance through a long sequence ofinterpretive rules.With casual inspection, it is difficult to derive the meaning from sentences suchas ‘I like her cooking’ or ‘The head-teacher was instructed to stop excessive drinking.’Much more complex analysis, placing a heavy load on memory systems is necessaryand Chomsky referred to Miller (1962) to confirm that the amount of memory used toprocess and store a sentence reflected the number of transformations required to deriveits meaning. It is again clear that the complexities of deriving the full meaning in thedeep structure of a sentence from its surface structure will give language disadvantagedand dyslexic students serious problems. In demanding stressful verbal conditions,surface structure may be all they get.Similar limitations have been recorded in formulating and expressing ideas throughspeech. Christina Susan Fry (2002) found a significant positive correlation between thelanguage complexity used by the individual and his working memory capacity. She concludedthat people spontaneously tended to produce language at the level of maximumsyntactic complexity allowed by their working memory capacity. In these circumstances,language-disadvantaged and dyslexic students would be limited to short, syntacticallysimple statements.Language for representation of ideas and thoughtWe have established that there are very significant problems for language-disadvantagedand dyslexic students when using language for its primary purpose of communicationbut there are also major difficulties in the secondary function, when using language as athinking tool.Whorf (1956) raised significant concerns about the role of the learner’s languagestructure in organizing his knowledge. He considered language to be the lattice orgrid through which we cut up and organize our reality for representation of ideas andthought. Because of the idiosyncratic nature of the language structure used knowledgeIs organized in ways which are less meaningful to other learners, particularly thosewith a different or less adequate language structure such as language-disadvantaged anddyslexic students.Whorf said,‘The background linguistic system, (i.e. the grammar of each language) is notmerely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas, but rather is, itself, theshaper of ideas, the programme and the guide for the individual’s mentalactivity, for his analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental stock intrade. Formulation of ideas is not an independent process, strictly rational inthe old sense, but is part of a particular grammar, and differs from slightly togreatly between different grammars. We dissect nature along lines laid down by30

The importance oflanguage skills 1our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world ofphenomena, we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face;on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressionswhich has to be organised by our minds.’Evidence to support Whorf’s view may be found from language to language comparisons.Concepts which are important to a community have, in its language development,an appropriately large vocabulary and complexity of syntactic structure to support therequired detailed thinking. As Elif Batuman asserts in The Possessed, the poetic languageof Old Uzbek has one hundred words for crying.Water is very important to the Navaho. His language with respect to water is highlydeveloped, with a range of words and syntactic structures reflecting a range of statesof ‘water’: hot, cold, running, stagnant, foul, pure, solid. Whilst for us, who take theavailability of water for granted; it is simply a matter of what comes out of each tap.The camel is very important to the Arab. He therefore has a very extensive vocabularyrelated to this in his language structure. This facilitates many fine classification variants.But to the English standard language variety speaker, it is as simple as our partner’s tea,with the only important issue being ‘one lump or two?’Clearly the point which must be made from Whorf’s work is that the systems used forrepresenting the learner/thinker’s ideas are directly linked to his available linguistic system.It is therefore anticipated that language deprived and dyslexic students will showdifferent less verbally reliant cognitive procedures. Evidence supporting this inferencewill be offered later in this paper.31

The importance oflanguage skills 1SummaryIt has been established that:Some phonologically opaque language forms requiring complex and difficult crossmodaltransfer of information for reading appear to be more susceptible to the earlyincidence of dyslexia than languages with less complex vaks relationships.The ‘onset’ symptoms of dyslexia observed by teachers in classrooms across phonologicallyopaque, phonologically transparent and logographic languages varies along thephonology-speech-word recognition-reading comprehension-reading speed-spellingwrittenexpression of ideas continuum. There are observable differences in the readingskills affected in these language forms, and it therefore appears that there is no universalworldwide form of reading difficulty in dyslexia.The ‘phonological awareness deficit’ advanced as the key to dyslexia by psychologistsresearching reading failure in English is not a universal attribute of dyslexia in phonologicallytransparent and logographic languages.English and Chinese learners show initial differences in the first links established forreading. These differences are related to the contrasting structures underlying phonologicaland logographic languages. Regardless of the different establishment of earlylinks, in both language forms students’ failure in reading arises from lack of automaticcontrol over vaks cross-modal linkages.The language-disadvantaged and dyslexic learners’ problems under consideration in thisarticle are not primarily in reading but in (1) the appropriateness/inappropriateness ofthe early cognitive skills which the learner brings to the structure of his language, and(2) the quality of that language background for learning. It is these factors which giverise to the difficulty experienced in constructing the essential links between orthography(shape), its sound (phonology), its motor movement pattern, and its meaning.The extent of development of vocabulary skills in young children is an accurate predictorof their later reading development.Language does not offer a totally efficient person-to-person communication system. Norin the teaching/learning process does it offer a totally reliable procedure for representing,encoding, storing and recalling ideas.Teachers must be fully aware of these limitations in their use of language, and takeparticular care not to overestimate the efficiency of what they do. They must also thinkvery carefully about their own use of modality in expressing ideas, when working withdyslexic and language-disadvantaged students whose processing options are limited. Asa general rule, all teaching should be multi-sensory.32

Causes of literacyfailure 2Chapter 2Causes of literacy failureLiteracy failure and language disadvantageThere is a relationship between the major causes of literacy failure, language disadvantage,and dyslexia.Having considered and documented aspects of language leading to difficulties for learners,let us now take the reverse perspective and look at the experience and cognitiveskills necessary for the learner to develop literacy.My views on the difficulties experienced by children learning literacy skills stem frommy own experiences in education (Chasty, 1973). Much earlier in my career I was headteacher in a state school in a listed ‘educational priority area’ where the children camefrom very restricted circumstances. Homes were small, families were large and disposableincome limited. Few books or printed materials were available in the home, readingwas not a familiar everyday activity, and speech was not used explicitly for meaningfulcommunication between parents and children. If these pupils asked a question athome, all too frequently they were not answered effectively in words. Instead, theywere more likely to receive a gesture, a nod, a shake of the head, sometimes a clipround the ear, but comparatively few words. From that home background, the languageskills these students brought to learning in the early school years were very differentfrom the forms of language used to express ideas within the school system.Initially, many of these students struggled to acquire literacy skills. My teachers workedhard to develop their ability to listen to speech, extract the ideas and, in response,represent their ideas more effectively in words. Eventually, with the improved languagestructure available from their widened speech options, they slowly acquired literacyskills. Even though these students had good visual and practical thinking competencesand were very ‘street-wise,’ because they did not develop the necessary language infrastructurein meta-linguistic awareness, their development of literacy skills was late andrestricted. Some specialists would have classified them as ‘garden variety poor readers.’I have also worked with other children from bi-lingual or multi-lingual language backgrounds,for whom English was not the primary language of communication. Some ofthem also failed to develop the necessary auditory-kinaesthetic-semantic spokenlanguage structure in English required to facilitate reading and struggled with speechand literacy skills development in that language.33

Causes of literacyfailure 2Later in my career, I was Head of a large suburban school, where the students camefrom more affluent homes. These families were smaller and had greater disposableresources. The quality of language used there was generally high, with interested parentscommunicating widely and effectively with their children. A broad range of booksand printed materials was available to them. Reading was a commonly used everydayskill shared between parents and children.When these children came to school, the benefits of their rich and varied languageexperience were strikingly evident. They brought with them a much more resourcefuland fluent speech, which linked effectively to the language teachers used in school, andprovided a far more solid foundation to learning. Consequently, their development ofliteracy was much faster, more secure, and confident than that of their age equivalent‘restricted or different language environment’ peers.Yet within these language-advantaged pupils I identified a small sub-group of studentswho, though they came from homes providing very positive experiences, appeared tobe sufficiently competent thinkers and had wide language experience, struggled enormouslyto acquire literacy. From our pre-admission interview procedure, we noted thatat age four years, these students could not successfully complete the Three CommissionsTest from the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale. In this test the child had to rememberand carry out three simple instructions in sequence, ‘put this pencil on the table, putthe lid on that box and close the door.’ At that age, failure in this test indicated that thechild had an auditory short-term memory deficit. This interfered with the establishmentof the required auditory-kinaesthetic-semantic foundation to speech which under-pinsliteracy. The quality of their early literacy work was very similar to that observed fromtheir ‘disadvantaged or different language environment’ peers.Causality and literacyReading failure may arise from very different causal circumstances, but the effects uponliteracy learning are similar.To learn to read the child needs the right thinking equipment, the right experience,and the right mediation/direction/methodology from those who seek to facilitate thatlearning. Whilst all these groups failed in the early acquisition of literacy, the causes oftheir failures were different. The first groups of children lacked relevant positive Englishlanguage experience. The other group had good experience but lacked some of theessential prerequisite skills in learning, particularly in short-term memory necessaryto benefit from the wide ranging available experiences Whilst, as Bruner has confirmed,the appropriateness of background language experience is important, what the learneris able to do with it is even more relevant. Some children can learn on their own directlyfrom their experience but, because of information processing limitations, some cannot.Children with this limitation in language learning are found in all the backgroundsdescribed above and, for those who look carefully, aspects of this difficulty can beobserved before the learner attempts to read. Reading failure is a later developmentaleffect not the start of the problem we are considering.Although all the reading failing students considered above would benefit from structuredmulti-sensory teaching to facilitate the development of the necessary auditorykinaesthetic-semanticlinkages underlying literacy we shall particularly consider thecore dyslexic group, exploring the circumstances within which these students may be34

Causes of literacyfailure 2assisted to learn literacy skills most effectively and how that process, however slow,can be maximized. We will also consider how the structured multi-sensory learningskills developed for literacy may later be used to enable more effective remembering,improved thinking, and better curriculum performance.Prediction of reading attainmentThe student’s reading attainment can be predicted from the suitability of his languagebackground and auditory/phonological competences in relation to the complexity of theof the vaks linkages to be mastered in learning his language.At this stage in the development of our knowledge of reading in a range of environments,social backgrounds and languages worldwide, we can summarize the key factorswhich determine a learner’s success/failure in reading in a particular language/environmentalsituation. These are:1. The simplicity/complexity of establishing automatic control over the vakslinkages necessary for reading in the student’s language2. The advantage/disadvantage factor arising from the student’s particularbackground3. The student’s available cognitive skills in short-term memory and phonologyThere is strong evidence that the short term memory/phonology difficulties are a congenital(neurological) factor, whilst the advantageous/depriving language background isclearly environmental. In this analysis the hereditary and environmental components oflearning to read are being evaluated. It is possible to quantify each of these componentfactors, thus facilitating the prediction of reading attainment for a particular studentfrom a particular environment when learning to read in a particular language.Language comparisonsThis section considers the comparative difficulty in speaking and reading the majorworld languages.Relevant studies on the comparative difficulty of learning to speak the major languagesof the world have been published by the Defense Language Institute, Monterey,California, and Francois Micheloud (2009). These show relatively consistent findings,which facilitated the construction of Table 1 below.Studies carried out by James Randerson (2001) and Mark Pagel indicate that Englishis the most difficult language to learn to read. This view was supported in the mostauthoritative and extensive international study of comparative reading difficulty, carriedout by a team from Dundee University led by Professor Philip Seymour (2003). TheDundee study ranged across 15 European languages focusing on the early stages oflearning to read. It was concluded that students learning romance languages such asItalian and French made faster progress than those learning Germanic languages suchas German and English. Professor Seymour concluded that students seemed to findEnglish particularly difficult because the letter-sound relationship was extremely complex,very variable and often dependent upon context. At the other end of the complexity scale,Finnish was considered to be particularly easy because the letter-sound relationship wassimple and fixed.35

Causes of literacyfailure 2George Weber (1997) considered the following measures of the importance and frequencyof use of the major languages of the world:1. The number of primary speakers — up to 4 points2. The number of secondary speakers — up to 6 points3. The economic power of countries using the language — up to 8 points4. The number of major areas of human activity in which the language isimportant — up to 8 points5. The number and populations of countries using the language — up to 7 points6. The socio-literary prestige of the language — up to 4 points7. Achieving the status of being an official UN language — 1 pointHe used the points totals to identify the ten most influential world languages in order, andbeside them are listed the scores for difficulty of speaking and reading.Table 1.Weber’s top ten worldlanguages against levels ofdifficulty for speaking andreading (1 most difficult–10least difficult; see main text)Language(Weber ranking of globalimportance)Level of difficulty inspeaking(1 high to 10 low)English 1 1French 3 3Spanish 6 6Russian 2 1Arabic 2 1Chinese 1 1German 6 6Japanese 2 1Portuguese 10 10Hindi-Urdu 3 2Level of difficulty inreading(1 high to 10 low)Whilst the languages listed in Table 1 cover the major part of the world’s speaking/readingpopulation, it is clearly not complete. However, it provides a rationale which is easilyextendible to other less widely-used languages as required.Incidence of deprivation in EuropeThe European Commission Statistics Agency (Eurostat, 2012) reports that 23% of EUcitizens are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Some 16% of EU citizens are deemedto face a serious risk of poverty, 8% present an extreme risk, and 10% within the agerange 0–59 years live in a home where family members had only very limited employmentopportunities. Unemployment across Europe has become a serious problem, withthe average unemployment rate being 10.8%, but the less financially secure southernnations show extremely high levels, Spain 23.6%, Greece 21% and Portugal 15%. Youthunemployment has reached the level of being a political social and economic disaster,with the European average being 21.6%, while Spain records an astronomic 50.5%,Greece 50.4%, and Portugal 35.4%.When these statistics are broken down for member countries, the percentages ofpeople living in households where no working age adult is employed for more thanone day each week are: United Kingdom 13.1%, Belgium 12.6%, Germany 11.1%, Italy10.2%, and France 9.8%. The percentages of people living in what are deemed to be36

Causes of literacyfailure 2‘materially deprived households’ were Portugal 9.0%, Italy 6.9%, Czech Republic 6.2%,Belgium 5.9%, France 5.8%, and United Kingdom 4.8%. It is therefore clear that acrossEurope, significant numbers of children from deprived circumstances with parents andsiblings unemployed are currently in schools and experiencing marked educationalproblems. Teachers interested in the UK situation will note that though the unemploymentstatistics for this country are high, and currently increasing, this does not seemto be reflected in a commensurate level of material deprivation. The clearly evidentdiscrepancy between unemployment and deprivation in the UK appears to result froma comparatively favourable support/benefits system.Effects of deprivation and disadvantageThe recently published oecd report (April, 2011), Doing better for Families, looked atschool performance in relation to family circumstances in 34 major industrial nationsaround the world. It has much to say on child rearing practices across internationalperspectives and their effects upon later educational performance and later employability.Despite its constructive title this report presents page after page of depressingfigures to confirm the distressing picture of the negative effects upon children’sin-school performance of the developing break-down of family life in the major, worldindustrial nations.A key statistic is the percentage of mothers at work when their children are young. Thepercentages of mothers at work when their child was aged 12 months in Denmark is58%, UK 50%, US 49%, Canada 47% and Australia 44%. The later educational effectsof this parental choice are very important. Infants left with carers whilst mothers wentout to work performed significantly less well in school than those whose mothersstayed at home. The report confirms that children of these working mothers weresignificantly retarded in vocabulary, reading, mathematics, were badly behaved andat age seven years showed short-term memory/attention difficulties.In the UK mothers with jobs spend on average 1 hour 21 minutes a day looking aftertheir families and much of that time cannot be classified as quality learning time forthe child. Some commentators have interpreted the under-lying causality as a seriouslimitation in the valuable mother-child learning time and a reduction in the quality ofthe language sample available for the child’s learning arising from the mother’s worksituation, leading directly to diminished cognitive development, reduced languageskill, restricted reading attainment, fragmented behavioural control and limitedcurriculum achievement.A second predisposing factor resulting in school under-achievement is living andlearning in a ‘single parent family.’ This demographic feature has shown greatlyincreased incidence in the recent past and it is anticipated that it will increase by afurther 22% in the next twenty years. In the oecd study the UK ranks sixth in thenation’s frequency list.In the UK, recently published ‘Think Tank’ (April, 2011) studies confirm that childrengrowing up in a single parent family are 75% more likely to fail in school. Though thisfigure is a cause for concern, it is not the most alarming statistic in the study. Thesechildren are 70% more likely to become a drug addict, 50% more likely to have analcohol problem, and 35% more likely to be unemployed as an adult. These statistics,highlighting the long-term effects of home circumstances upon child learning, school37

Causes of literacyfailure 2performance and effectiveness in later adult life, are very revealing and give strong supportto my contention that very significant educational and life retardations arise from a‘language-disadvantaged’ background.Unfortunately these effects of deprivation and disadvantage are not restricted to onegeneration. There is a great deal of truth in the observation, ‘literacy is learned, butilliteracy is acquired from parents who are unable to read or write.’ Without significantpolitical action and massively improved educational intervention, deprivation anddisadvantage in this generation is likely to lead to equally or more serious deprivationand disadvantage in the next.Is increased criminality the inevitable outcome?In the literature, when such student characteristics as have been discussed above aretraced into adult life, one comes almost inevitably upon the inferred relationshipbetween deprivation, disadvantage, literacy failure, and the development of antisocialbehavior and criminality. This developmental ‘relationship’ has been documented inthe United States, Canada, Australia, and in European countries such as Sweden and theUK. The statistics quoted by researchers in this field are startling. In the usa 85% of alljuveniles passing through the court system are reported to be functionally illiterate, andsome 60% of the prison population in the usa have the same low literacy attainment.The US Department of Justice, reviewing the available statistics commented, ‘the linkbetween academic failure, and delinquency, violence and crime is welded to readingfailure.’ But in considering these matters we must be careful not to fall into the ‘post hocpropter ergo hoc’ logical fallacy.Looking at this problem more constructively, the statistics also show that prisoners whohave received literacy help show only a 17% recidivism rate, while prisoners who didnot receive literacy help showed a 70% rate of reoffending. The benefits of identifyingliteracy failing prisoners, and providing appropriate teaching are demonstrated by thefinding that those who receive such help are much more likely to find employmentwhen released into society.Similar statistics are available for the UK. Where it is reported that 70% of pupilspermanently excluded from school have difficulties in basic literacy skills, 25% of youngoffenders in institutions have reading skills below the level of the average seven year oldchild, and some 60% of the prison population are described as having serious difficultiesin basic literacy. These serious and significant limitations in literacy developmentare confirmed by the DfES (2005) study, which reported that 52% of male prisoners and71% of female prisoners were without school qualifications of any kind.Worldwide, it is clear that literacy levels found in young offenders’ institutions andprisons are significantly below those in the general population, but that is not a valid orlegitimate comparison. The prison population is very largely comprised of people fromlow socio-economic backgrounds. Prisoners should therefore be compared with groupsfrom a similarly low socio-economic background who have not offended and are not inprison. When that more relevant comparison is made, the results do not support theinference that prisoners have a significantly lower level of literacy than the populationfrom which they have come.38

Causes of literacyfailure 2Rice, Howes and Connell (1998) in the Prison Reading Survey report that in theprison population, the percentages of people with adequate reading comprehensionskills match or exceed those in the similar social grouping in the general population.Samuelson, Herkner and Lundberg (2003), found that prison inmates in Sweden hadreading and writing skills similar to those in the matching section of the Swedishpopulation. In an Australian study, Wheldall and Watkins (2004) found that most youngoffenders were no worse in literacy than their non-offending peers from similar socioeconomicbackgrounds.The evidence that prison populations are significantly retarded in literacy skills whencompared with non-offenders of matched socio-economic status is therefore verydebatable. Literacy development in penal institutions should not be advocated solely asa panacea for the reduction of criminal activity. But there are clearly evident benefits inliteracy improvement for offenders in developing their self-esteem, their employabilityand the quality of their interaction with the other members of society with whom theycome in contact. Rice and Brooks (2004) make the point very effectively, ‘Increasingliteracy skills in offenders in prison has the potential for restoring to society thosepeople who are excluded from full citizenship because they have yet to achieve functionalliteracy. In short, reading interventions for offenders are justified not by referenceto human wrongs but by reference to human rights.’It is evident that the genetically determined, environmentally reinforced neurologicalstructure underlying the literacy failure of deprived and disadvantaged students leadsto different, less conforming social behavior, but does not always lead to criminality.There are other factors triggering that condition. However, it must be stressed thatthe evidence that deprivation and disadvantage resulting from and contributing tolow socio-economic status are closely associated with literacy failure is unquestioned,and reaffirms the serious literacy problems of the more deprived and disadvantagedsections of the population, whose needs in the past, have all too often been neglectedand ignored.Some positive effects of mothers workingThe decision of mothers to work when their infants are young is not as totally negativeas the oecd Report, Doing better for families, would have us believe. Cheryl Buehler,University of North Carolina has monitored 1,300 women over a ten year period, andreported that mothers who worked part or full time had better health, and reportedfewer symptoms of depression. Similarly, Susan Harkness, University of Bath, in a papergiven to the Royal Economic Society Conference (2012) reported that while depressionamongst women in Europe had doubled since 1970, with 25% of women needing treatmentfor mental health problems, single mothers who worked were 15% less likely tosuffer depression than those who did not work.However, the problems of working mothers and the educational difficulties of theirchildren will not be helped by education professionals offering negative judgmentsabout the life-style choices made by parents, even though these choices have beenshown to have very profound effects upon their children’s education and later development.These parents are thinking people who have evaluated their own circumstancesin the testing and stressful political and economic environment in which they live andreached practical decisions which educationalists should respect. As skilled practitioners,we can observe and take note of the family developments taking place in the world’s top39

Causes of literacyfailure 2industrial nations. Then we can reflect upon what can be done by changing teachingattitudes and approaches in our pre-school, infant, and junior classrooms to redress thesignificant educational effects of these demographic developments.The oecd statistics may also be interpreted (more positively) as showing that untrainedmothers staying at home, and doing what comes naturally with their children, havebeen able to achieve much more effective development than current professional carers.This interpretation is supported by Rutter and Evans (2011) and Bryson et al. (2012), whohave confirmed that young children looked after in ‘informal childcare’ by middle classgrandparents develop better vocabulary skills than those children placed with trainedstaff in nurseries.For me the problem is not that mothers go out to work when their children are young.The problem is that the available alternative early childhood education has not beengood enough. The UK dfe has now recognized that the literacy and numeracy skillsof nursery infant teachers are too frequently below the required standard, and theirtraining should be reviewed. It is apparent that there are other early education systemswhich work better, for example the education system in Israeli Kibbutzim where formany years the problems of successfully educating the young children of working mothershave been resolved to a much greater extent.We have received and dealt with the bad news in the oecd statistics. The answer seemsto me not to coerce mothers to stay at home with their children until they pass theage of 7+ but to provide much fuller and more appropriate nursery education, directlylinked to the essential cognitive development of the young child.Some observers considered that a welcome step forward had been taken in the UKwhen a political initiative offered all three and four year olds 15 hours of free nurseryeducation for thirty eight weeks each year, at a range of ‘early years’ settings, includingnursery schools, children’s centres, day nurseries, play groups, pre-school facilities, andchild minders. Recent statistical reports have shown that the progress resulting fromthis initiative has been disappointing. It appears that those responsible for this verywelcome action had assumed that making a provision was enough to guarantee success,but it must be understood that course content and focus upon vital early cognitivedevelopment is all-important in determining progress.Now is the time to concentrate upon early childhood education, training teachers/carersto do a much better job in the cognitive/linguistic development of the young childrenin their care. The good news is that there is much that can be done by the enlightenedtrained and effective nursery/infant teacher working to a clearly defined cognitive/linguistic plan, and that is what this paper is all about.Quantifying language deprivationHaving detailed the importance and key effects of language disadvantage in the child’slearning, we can now begin to quantify language deprivation arising from the student’shome background, so that we can deal with it more effectively.I suggest that the following key points be assessed and scored:1. If student is on free school meals, or family income is below £16,000 (2010)40

Causes of literacyfailure 2per annum — score one point. In the usa in 2011, the poverty rate was set at$22,350 for a family of four. While this is a comparatively lower figure thanhas been quoted for the UK, it should be used within an American context.Teachers from other nations should research the particular figure for theircountry on Google.2. If family language (or home language) is different from the school’s languageof instruction — score one point.3. If the student does not have access to a computer at home — score one point.4. If there are fewer than 10 books available at home — score one point.5. If the student comes from a single parent family and has more than oneother sibling — score one point.This gives a total from 1–5, and enables the student’s environment to be evaluated onthe range 1, not deprived, to 5 seriously deprived.Cognitive/phonological difficultyThe next score quantifies cognitive/phonological difficulty.1. If the student has serious difficulty in listening to, and repeating increasinglylengthy sets of digits, and greater difficulty in repeating sets of digits inreverse order, or has a wisc Digit Span score of 7 or below — score 2 points2. If the student is unable to identify beginning, middle and end sounds insimple words — score 2 points3. If the student is unable to produce rhymes for given words — score 1 pointThis gives a total from 1–5, and enables the student’s cognitive/phonological skill to beevaluated on the range 1 (good skills) to 5 (very weak skills).Word reading competence indexI put forward for consideration the student’s word reading competence index as calculatedin the equation set out below:W.R. competence indexSimplicity of language VAKS system (1–10)=lang. disadv. factor + cog. skills diff. factor(scale 1–5) (scale 1–5)To determine the practicability of this equation let us now look at some calculations fordifferent students from different language backgrounds. Initially let us consider an eightyear old Portuguese student learning to read his own language. His language backgroundis limited and he has quite marked cognitive/phonological difficulties. With thisbackground and serious cognitive difficulties it might be anticipated that he has seriousearly reading problems, but this is not the case. Testing shows that he reads Portuguesecompetently for his age.10His reading competence factor is: = 15 + 5Now apply this factor to his age. We find at age 8, this student will be reading at 8 × 1 = 8,an age-appropriate standard, and the simplicity of his Portuguese language vaks structureconceals his underlying language disadvantage/dyslexia. These will most likely give41

Causes of literacyfailure 2rise to later difficulties when he is required to work at a greater level of skill complexitylater in his school career.Consideration of this student’s circumstances will convince teachers/practitioners whowork internationally that it is grossly misleading to define dyslexia as ‘a word recognitiondifficulty,’ because in certain languages with simpler, more direct vaks linkages, studentswith serious limitations in background and marked dyslexic learning problems will notexperience early word recognition difficulty.Let us now consider another student aged 10, working in Chinese, who has a very deprivinglanguage background and very significant cognitive/phonological difficulties.1His reading competence factor is: = 0.15 + 5When this factor is related to his age (10 × 0.1 = 1), it is clear that this ten-year old studentwill not have started reading. Even though he has similar environmental and cognitivehandicaps to the Portuguese student above, in the much more difficult Chinese language hewas learning these resulted in very much more significant word recognition retardations.Now let us look at my 17-year old South African student. In Zulu, his language backgroundfactor was competent but he had marked cognitive/phonological difficulties.10His reading competence index in Zulu is: = 1.32.5 + 5When this index is related to his age of 17 years it is evident that he is reading at a17 × 1.3, i.e. a competent adult level.Now let us do a similar calculation for him in English. In English his background is verydeprived but his cognitive/phonological difficulties remain the same.1His reading competence index in English is: = 0.15 + 5When this is related to his age 17 years (17 × 0.1), it is clear that he is not yet readingin English.These calculations show that the word recognition competence index is of some valuein making sense of the effects of language disadvantage and dyslexia across a range oflanguage complexities and opens up the possibility of recognizing and dealing withthese difficulties before they lead to catastrophic failure in class.Deficiencies in learning or teaching?Is reading failure attributable to deficiencies in learning or teaching?Whilst language-disadvantaged and dyslexic students show limitations in some aspectsof learning that are managed through a limited short-term memory system, the resultingliteracy failure should not be attributed solely to the complexities of the language beinglearned when associated with the perceived deficiencies in the student.Limitations in the presentation of the literacy material by teachers are equally a majorcontributory factor. A range of vaks variables affecting learning may be manipulated42

Causes of literacyfailure 2by both learners and teachers to improve the efficiency of the process. The responsibilityfor this essential manipulation must be shared by teachers and students. We willlook at this inter-relationship between teaching and learning, initially with referenceto language and literacy but later also considering the application of improved learningtechniques derived from literacy to the whole curriculum. We must consider andrespond to the key challenge:If this child fails to learn the way you teach, can you teach him the way he learns?As well as teaching him literacy, numeracy and curriculum skills, can you extendand facilitate the development of control over his learning competences, by teachinghim to learn how to learn?43

Causes of literacyfailure 2SummaryTwo major groups of young students were observed to fail in the acquisition ofliteracy, Students whose language background did not provide the essential experiencesnecessary for constructing the foundation auditory-kinaesthetic semanticlinkages required for effective speech. These students are referred to in this study aslanguage-disadvantaged.The second group showed cognitive difficulties, particularly in short-term memory andphonology which interfered with the establishment of the required aks linkages. Theyare referred to as dyslexic. These students show different causality, but similar effects inreading failure. It is stressed that reading failure is neither the start nor the nucleus oftheir difficulty.Students’ observed failure in reading is not attributable solely to difficulties in theirinteractions with the complexities of their language. Limitations in the delivery ofliteracy knowledge to these students by teachers is also a contributory factor.The hereditary and environmental components of literacy failure are evaluated tofacilitate the calculation of word recognition competence index.Levels of difficulty in speaking and reading the major world languages are posited.Statistics for environmental deprivation across Europe are evaluated to show thatsignificant numbers of children from deprived and disadvantaged circumstances, withunemployed parents and siblings are currently in schools and experiencing very seriouseducational problems.The effects of family circumstances upon school performance were considered and thevery significant social, linguistic and educational retardations of children of workingmothers were detailed to highlight the long term effects of home circumstances uponthe child’s learning and school performance.Prison populations are not significantly retarded in literacy skills when compared withnon-offenders of matched socio-economic status.The genetically determined, environmentally reinforced neurological structure underlyingliteracy failure of deprived and disadvantaged students leads to different, lessconforming behavior, but does not always lead to criminality.Reading interventions for offenders in prison are justified not by reference to reducingcriminality and human wrongs, but by reference to human rights and improved jobopportunities.The word recognition competence index is of some value in predicting student achievementacross a range of language complexities, assists with clarification of the definitionof dyslexia and the provision of appropriate teaching for the student, particularly inphonologically transparent and logographic languages.The observed failure in reading is not attributable solely to difficulties in the studentinteracting with the complexities of his language. Limitations in the delivery of literacyknowledge by teachers to these students is an equal contributory factor.44

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3Chapter 3Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia; similarin form and treatmentI have worked in the ‘dyslexia’ world for well over thirty years and in that time can saythat the two major obstacles to implementing more effective methods of teaching literacyinto schools have been:1. Lack of acceptance of the need for such programmes by the educationalestablishment2. The cost of making the necessary provisionBefore taking a detailed look at minimizing provision cost in the next chapter, we mustnow consider the current status of both these very relevant and powerful ‘elephants inthe room.’The restricting effects of ‘lack of acceptance’ are clearly described by Baroness MaryWarnock in the Daily Telegraph, 18 September 2010, where in her article ‘Cynical Betrayalof My Special Needs Children,’ she criticizes the prohibitions imposed by the then UKDepartment of Education on her ground breaking Special Needs Committee Report in 1978.‘We had been warned not to discuss the needs of the dyslexic, dyslexia being at thattime widely regarded as a condition invented by the middle class as a cover for thestupidity of some of their children. Nor, unbelievably, were we permitted to pointto social deprivation as the cause of many special educational needs, though thelink between deprivation and the development of language was as obvious then asit is today.’Dyslexic students and deprived children, who had common language and literacy needs,were treated in common by being singled out and deliberately omitted from considerationin this important policy forming report by the responsible government department. Ittook a protracted legal struggle through the courts and local education authority specialeducational needs appeals procedures (See Chasty and Friel 1991, Caught in the Act) toestablish that dyslexic children had needs under Education Act (1981) which must be identifiedand met. As an example of political bias and discrimination directed against failingchildren, leading to serious educational neglect, which successive education administrationshave struggled and failed to overcome, these prohibitions revealed by Mary Warnocktake some beating.45

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3Causes of educational difficulties in language disadvantaged studentsFurther consideration must be directed to the causality and amelioration of theeducational difficulties faced by language-disadvantaged students.Baroness Warnock is quite clear in her view that, just as Bernstein had demonstratedmore than two decades earlier, children from deprived backgrounds show limitationsin language development. Since the 1950s, politicians of all persuasions and leaders ineducation seem to have deliberately chosen to ignore the social class basis of languagefailure. Whilst even today many teachers and psychologists will hesitate to linklanguage difficulty with student social background, it is my view that it is much toonegative and ostrich-like to ignore such a causal relationship if it actually does exist.Much more detailed worldwide consideration of this aspect of language/literacy failureis long over-due.In January 2011, first reactions to recently published gcse statistics from theDepartment for Education, England, are relevant and interesting. These figures havebeen widely interpreted as giving support to the view that ‘language disadvantage’ is ageneral cause of educational failure. The figures show that in 2010 only 23.3% of whiteboys from disadvantaged backgrounds (receiving free school meals) achieved five gcsepasses. In comparison, 28% of white girls and 33.6% of black boys from disadvantagedbackgrounds achieved five gcses. The average for the year as a whole was 54.8%who achieved five passes.Commenting on these figures, Trevor Phillips, Head of the UK Equalities and HumanRights Commission declared that disadvantaged white boys should be made a prioritygroup. Other politicians have claimed that ‘the failure to teach reading and writingproperly to (disadvantaged) boys made them angry and resentful, and drove themout of school and into trouble,’ with lack of examination success being an inevitableconsequence.But there was one further statistical pearl in the dross, which most commentatorsneglected and failed to interpret. Most surprisingly, 60% of boys of Chinese originfrom disadvantaged backgrounds achieved five gcse passes. This result is well abovethe average for the whole age group, is clearly anomalous and must be given furtherdetailed consideration.Why should ‘disadvantage’ have such negative effects upon white and black studentsbut not Chinese students? As teachers and practitioners working in the field, we mustbe concerned by the significant under-achievement of the white and black disadvantagedstudents, but the extremely wide variability across all the disadvantaged studentgroups suggests that ‘disadvantage’ is not the key causative factor. It appears thatthere is another underlying causative factor common to some, but not all, languagedisadvantagedstudents.Some researchers have suggested that these students of Chinese origin benefitedfrom the ‘Tiger Mother’ parenting style (see The battle hymn of the tiger motherby Amy Chua) which simply refused to accept the possibility of failure and throughextreme parent–child interaction countered the negative effects of ‘language disadvantage.’Another explanation of the comparative superiority of disadvantaged studentsof Chinese origin which I find most compelling is described in recently published46

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3neurological comparisons of English and Chinese native speakers when reading andcalculating. Yiyian Tang of Dalian University of Technology, China, using brain imagingtechniques, demonstrated that native Chinese speakers used different parts of thebrain from native English speakers to process numbers.Hu et al. (2010) compared Chinese and English normal readers using functional magneticresonance imaging and reported increased left hemisphere activity for Chineserelative to English. They also confirmed that because of the different language processingdemands of English and Chinese writing systems, (already discussed), readingdifficulty/dyslexia has a different neural basis in English and Chinese populations. Ittherefore appears that Chinese first language speakers, even if from disadvantagedcircumstances, are more likely to bring more effective left hemisphere neurologicalorganization to speaking and reading English, and making calculations and thisappears to facilitate for them a significantly more effective curriculum and examinationperformance, as documented in the English gcse statistics referred to above. It isalso worth adding that a recent observer of the Chinese education system expressedconcern because Chinese students tended to work hard, showed strong left hemisphereconformity to school/university expectations and achieved good examination grades but,perhaps not surprisingly, appeared to be very limited in right hemisphere visuo-spatialawareness and creativity, skills which are increasingly required in a technological age.Clearly, in the final analysis, the immediate underlying causation we seek is not a class/disadvantage factor but is to be found in the congenital brain organization for language/literacy brought to learning in school. This will be considered in greater detail in thefollowing pages. Nevertheless, there remains an undeniable cultural factor, highlightedby the influential and rapidly growing field of cultural neuroscience, which provides anappropriate summary at this stage of our argument. Culture influences brain developmentand, with appropriate circularity, brain development over time influences culture.Language disadvantage and dyslexiaWhat is the inter-relationship between language disadvantage and dyslexia?In the Abstract of their paper Hu et al. cite their results as demonstrating the influenceof cognitive ability and early learning environment upon a common neural system forreading. From our own observations reported earlier, we concur with this view thatthere are two major factors leading to language/literacy difficulty:1. Quality of early language background2. The cognitive skills available to interpret, manipulate and learn from theavailable backgroundI have observed reading failing students showing one of these factors or both. Clearly,as can be seen in Figure 3, these are over-lapping conditions, with some languagedisadvantagedstudents showing dyslexic difficulties and some children with dyslexiashowing language disadvantage problems. There are therefore three reading failinggroups: the language-disadvantaged, the dyslexic, and the dyslexic from a languagedisadvantagedbackground. It would be psychologically and educationally naïve tooffer assessment, teaching and management for one of these closely linked groupsto the exclusion of the others. All these groups merit similar positive assessment andteaching help.47

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3Differences between language-disadvantaged and dyslexic studentsConsideration of the differences between these groups, suggests that the issue is oneof degree, with children with dyslexia showing more significant right-brain specialism.When considering the availability of relevant cognitive skills, the dyslexic seems to havemore serious weaknesses. The language-disadvantaged students had more significantearly language background limitations. These difficulties interfere with the developmentof the key aks cross-modal linkages.However, it must be stressed that these groups clearly overlap at the lower left hand endof the distribution. Teachers in ordinary classrooms concerned with what are generallyseen as ‘reading failing children’ are dealing with a mixture of: (i) children with dyslexia,(ii) language-disadvantaged students, and (iii) students experiencing both problems.This group divergence should not be ignored.Based upon observation, reports from past generations, and discussions with practitionersfrom developing countries, but without strong supporting statistical evidence, it is myview that the balance between these conditions is not 50/50, but varies depending uponthe relevant background environmental, socio-economic, and educational conditions.This variance must have significant implications for educational policy and course provisiondecisions, both across Europe and in the wider developing world.Figure 3The overlapping relationshipbetween languagedisadvantage and dyslexiaincreasing language skillQuality of early langauge backgroundDyslexicLanguagedisadvantagedand dyslexicnormallanguagegroupLanguage disadvantagedAvailable early cognitive skillsAre total literacy expectations unreasonable?Expectations of 100% achievement of literacy are a recent phenomenon. It is only inthe last century that Western societies have promoted reading to a mass population.The expectation that all children in education should learn to read competently is acomparatively recent view, which became generally acceptable in Western Europe, onlyin the later decades of the twentieth century. Look at education in ordinary schools in48

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3Victorian England and you will find many children who, for a variety of reasons, failedto read adequately. At that time this caused no great social concern. Even today largeareas of the developing world still do not have full access to reading for the majorityof the population. Other challenges take a more pre-eminent position in their list ofnational priorities. This perspective is confirmed by the unesco statistic of a billionilliterate world citizens at the commencement of the millennium.Historical perspectivesHistorical perspectives shed further light on the language disadvantage/dyslexia balance.When investigating this area, I asked my father about his experiences in school in theearly 1900s. He told me that when he was learning to read in a public elementary schoolin the dusty, noisy and grimy shades of the linen mills in working class Belfast, as manyas 30% of the students in his class showed literacy difficulties. I know that figures forthe incidence of dyslexia are generally considered to be in the range 5+%, dependingon the significance of the difficulty required to warrant the classification of the literacyfailing learner as dyslexic. Allowing for another 10% of students experiencing ‘languagedisadvantage,’ the figures he quoted, which were a further 15% beyond my anticipation,seemed exceptionally serious.I asked him to explain the high literacy failure rates and his reply shocked me. Hesaid that the vast majority of those students failing in literacy were ‘half-timers.’ When Iinquired what ‘half-timers’ were, I was surprised to discover that those children workedthe morning 7–12 shift in the linen mill, then went to school in the afternoon. A secondgroup had been in school in the morning, and worked the 1–6 evening shift (or laterwhen production demand required it). Half-school, half-mill, they were rightly named‘half timers.’ Generally they read, wrote and spelled very badly and it was not anticipatedby anyone that they should do well and become literacy scholars.In those very deprived and impoverished families their very small weekly wage wasessential to keep some food on the table. In that depressed environment, before thecosseted age of family allowances, benefits, pensions, and the welfare state, the pressingneed to eat to stay alive determined the balance of work/study possibilities. Short-termsurvival took precedence over the possible long-term benefits which might accruefrom a successful education. Clearly that was a ‘self-preservation society’ which, if itdemonstrably failed to develop in the learner the left hemisphere neurological connectionsnecessary to facilitate speaking – reading – verbal thinking, certainly succeededin developing two very large and supportive metaphorical feet upon which the learner/child worker was obliged to stand. My father summed it up by observing that deprivationand disadvantage were major causes of literacy failure in school, long beforeBaroness Warnock recognized it in 1978 and felt free to write about it in 2010.My own early education experience is also relevant, but different. In 1936 I was anewly enrolled pupil, sitting in the infant classroom of a recently rebuilt school, withthe neighbouring, noisy, dirty mills still churning out endless yards of linen cloth. Bythat time, the employment of child labour had been banned. All the children from thatarea were compulsorily in school, or the ‘attendance officer’ was called to issue a courtsummons with a threat of a fine to persistent absentees. The approach to reading wasclassic phonics. The alphabet was permanently displayed at the top of the backboard.49

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3That position and its place as a permanent fixture emphasized its importance. Theteacher drilled alphabetic knowledge from cards until we were perfect. Letter nameshad to be recited in order, then the sounds of each letter were learned, finally wordsoundfamilies were sounded out, b-a-t, c-a-t, f-a-t, m-a-t, r-a-t, s-a-t, and when we hadacquired a reasonable word repertoire, we started on a reading primer, read the knownwords, and sounded out and said the unknown words. A few of us did very well, mostread adequately, but some had great difficulty, fewer than in my father’s day, but stilla substantial group, making over 20% of the class.In taking my historical perspective, I thought about those students who failed in literacy.Despite thirty years ‘progress’ from my father’s days in school, the majority of literacyfailing students still came from the deprived and disadvantaged background he hadobserved, their every-day living problems being exacerbated by lacking the incomepreviously derived from child labour.Surprisingly, others, though fewer in number, came from good homes with adequateresources, shop keepers’ families, or skilled craftsmen’s children. It was apparent thata second causative factor should be considered but deprivation/disadvantage was stillstatistically the major cause of literacy failure.In my professional work I have continued to monitor the variability of these factorsin that school. In 1973, that district in Belfast had risen noticeably in socio-economicstatus. Analysis of available test scores from this school, confirmed that some 16% ofthe final year students showed reading difficulty, with roughly half being dyslexic andhalf showing language disadvantage. In my observation, as the area/regional/nationaleconomy develops, the incidence of reading difficulty diminishes and the balance offrequency in causality in reading failure shifts from disadvantage towards dyslexia.The conditions of disadvantage observed in working class Belfast before the first worldwar which led to such significant literacy retardation are replicated in other parts ofthe world today:South and Central America, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. Eventhe economically affluent G20 nations show pockets of this debilitating environmentin the inner city areas and ghetto suburbs. In such difficult economic and educationalcircumstances, teaching structures must be available to deal with the combined effectsof dyslexia and language disadvantage.This will only be achieved by training all teachers to identify the reasons for the child’sdifficulties, however complex and wide ranging, and to apply the most effective methodsto develop the child’s language, literacy and cognitive skills, making best use of thechild’s time in school. It is important that all the child’s resources in learning and theteachers’ skills in teaching are synchronized to be used most effectively. This paper aimsto give that reassurance. In this approach to literacy, all reading failing students willbenefit from the methods and approaches described.Whilst the distinction between the different learning styles of the dyslexic andlanguage-disadvantaged child is relevant for fine-tuning each individual programme tothe learner’s particular needs, for the busy class teacher this is not a matter of fundamentalsignificance in early cognitive skills, speech, and literacy development.50

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3Abilities and difficulties of the language-disadvantagedChasty (1973) documented the clearly evident contrasts between the language, literacy,and thinking competences of advantaged and disadvantaged students.Initially the abilities and difficulties of four year old children entering school fromadvantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds were considered. The Wechsler Preschooland Primary Scale of Intelligence iq scores for language-disadvantaged children commencingschool were significantly lower than the iq scores of language-advantagedchildren. These two groups of children were of broadly similar visual/practical problemsolving capability on the Performance Scale but on the Verbal Scale, requiring languageskills, and verbally mediated problem solving, the language-advantaged children showedsignificantly higher ability. The scores recorded with these two groups are entirelyconsistent with those Bernstein documented with his groups of post-office messengersand independent school boys at the end of their education. These differences were notedbefore the children entered the school system and therefore cannot be considered to bean educational effect. This suggests that the significant differences between these groupsin verbal problem solving capability are not an effect of the education system but mostprobably arise at a very early age from congenital neurological factors. Bernstein’s (1958)surmise of a ‘genetic deficiency’ appears to be sound.Tested again at age 8 years, the language-disadvantaged and advantaged studentsshowed similar levels of abstract visual thinking skills. But on measures of vocabulary,sentence construction, grammatical rules, reading and continuous writing, thelanguage-advantaged students were very significantly better. It is clear that three to fouryears of schooling had not significantly altered the visual/verbal problem solving trendsobserved at the commencement of their education process. Certainly by this stage inthe development of the language-disadvantaged students, their difficulties had becomea major educational problem. Their schools ought to have been aware of their verbalinformation processing limitations, linked to their significant language, literacy andcurriculum retardations, and a major skills development programme should have beenimplemented. Their problems in language and literacy had become an educational effect.With the clearly documented discrepancy between the good non-verbal intelligence(wppsi) of these language disadvantaged children and their significantly retardedlanguage and literacy skills, they could have been identified as having specific languageimpairment as described and defined by Tomblin et al. (1997) The work with languagedisadvantaged children which is described in this chapter was carried out in the early1970s long before the current sli literature was developed. For reasons of personalconvenience I shall continue to refer to these students as language disadvantaged, butreaders should note the very clear and direct link to specific language impairment.Speech and brain dominanceIt has long been accepted that the speech and higher language skills in which thelanguage-advantaged children excel are most frequently controlled by the left hemisphereof the brain. This is seen in 99% of right-handers and 66% of left-handers.Problems in the acquisition of speech and higher language processes such as thoseunder consideration here have been associated with lack of complicity with this pattern.It is only with the development of ‘no risk, low cost’ tests of ‘brain specialism’ that therelevance of this control procedure for the acquisition of higher language and literacyskills was established (Figure 4).51

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3Figure 4Brain hemisphericspecialisms withinfunctional asymmetryRight hemisphere function(in most learners) visualand spatial thinking controlof the non-dominant hand,foot, eye, ear. Divergentcreative thinking.65281974661 61Left hemisphere function(in most learners) speechlanguage control ofdominant right hand, foot,eye, ear. Convergentverbal reasoning.Doreen Kimura (1961) developed a cheap and very effective method of determiningbrain specialism known as ‘dichotic listening.’ The underlying principle is simple.Careful placing of auditory stimuli to a particular part of the brain and monitoring thechild’s responses enables deductions to be made about the hemisphere controlling andprocessing the given information.The construction of the test is technically simple, and well within the capability ofa good school/university technology department. Using stereo earphones attachedto a stereo tape deck, a stimulus (say, the number ‘six’) is fed to the child’s right ear,and simultaneously, a different number, say ‘four,’ to the child’s left ear. The childis then asked to say what he has just heard. Will he report ‘6 or 4,’ or ‘6 and 4?’ Thechild’s response will confirm which brain hemisphere is doing the work of processing.Naturally, one would hesitate to make judgments on the basis of a test containing onlytwo digits but the process is easily extended. Record a set of four digits on one track ofa stereo tape, say 6 5 2 8, allowing half a second interval between each digit, and matchthose digits with a different set, say 1 9 7 4, delivered simultaneously at the same, pitch,tone, and intensity of sound, recorded on the other track. Play one track to the rightear, and the other track to the left ear. Leave a five second space between each set for thechild to respond, whilst the tester writes down the child’s responses. Repeat the operation25 times, thus presenting 100 digits to each ear. Then reverse the tracks, to balancefor errors in tape and tape deck construction. Express correct responses as percentagesand compare successful response levels for each ear to determine the hemisphereprocessing speech and language.Using this procedure, Kimura (1969) established that right-and left-handed subjectswho were left brained for speech, demonstrated superior recall of digits presented tothe right ear. Conversely, those left-handed subjects who were right brained for speech,demonstrated superior recall of digits presented to the left ear. With dichotic listeningtesting Kimura (1963) also showed that for children in the age range 5–8 years, sex differenceswere apparent in the development of hemispheric specialism for speech, withgirls showing earlier and stronger right ear preference. This made sense of the commonobservations of teachers that girls tended to be better than boys at language and literacy.Most significantly, she also established that boys with reading difficulties failed to showthe ‘normal’ right ear preference.52

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3The association which Kimura reported between lack of development of left hemispherecontrol of speech and language, and the incidence of reading difficulties was strong andlater found positive support in the literature. However, some researchers working witholder students, particularly those who had received some specialist teaching, did notobserve the left-ear/no-preferred-ear effect.Having described the test procedure and some of the most important findings, we mustnow consider what the pattern of development of left hemisphere specialism for languageis in normal children who do not experience speech/language/reading difficulties.Hemispheric specialism in normal childrenA broad cross-section of normal school children was used to create the working samplefor this developmental study. Six experimental groups were set up to cover each agefrom 5+ to 10+ in a suburban junior school. In constructing each group, care was takento ensure that the mean iq was 100, that a normal distribution of reading ability waspresent, and that a balance was maintained between the sexes. This study did not relysolely upon comparing groups of children at successive ages but also monitored thesame children one year later, to see if they had showed any obvious progression. Resultsare shown in the table below.Table 2Dichotic listening scores ofnormal children aged 5+to 10+Age in 1 styearLeftear %correctRightear %correctRight− LeftAge in 2 ndyearLeftear %correctRightear %correctRight− Left5 (N = 11) 32.6 62.0 29.4 5 (N = 11) 19.0 66.7 47.76 (N = 11) 23.9 73.2 49.3 6 (N = 11) 28.2 64.0 35.87 (N = 11) 30.8 65.8 35.0 7 (N = 11) 33.3 68.7 35.48 (N = 22) 32.6 67.2 34.6 8 (N = 22) 40.3 67.9 27.69 (N = 22) 42.2 62.9 20.7 9 (N = 22) 37.0 71.0 34.010 (N = 22) 55.0 73.7 18.7 10 (N = 22) 52.9 67.7 14.8Examination of the individual results in the table shows that at each age, right earpercentage correct figures are consistently high. Experience of testing using thistechnology shows that the test as described above was quite difficult for five year olds,who concentrated upon the dominant right ear but had little spare ‘capacity’ for left earresponses. This results in an extremely wide Right–Left gap. The test was not nearly sodifficult for ten year olds, who concentrated initially upon the dominant right ear, andthen had more capacity for reporting left ear responses. Compared to 5, 6, and 7 yearolds, children in the older age groups show better responses with the non-dominantear but this is a test artifact rather than a reflection of their neurological organization.There is a strong right ear superiority at every age from 5 to 10+. At the age of five years,a level of left hemisphere specialism for language is already present and there is noevidence to suggest that the normal classroom teaching these children receive altersthat in any way. Nor does the usual teaching of reading or the development of literacyfluency alter the position. When the scores of the 5+ children who became 6+ and theother age groups are considered after one year, there is, again, no evidence to support aview of left hemisphere specialism for speech/language developing with age.53

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3Other studies in the literature support this finding and it is apparent that left hemispherelanguage specialism is present in normal children from a very early stage,probably before the age of three years, and does not develop differently to any measurableextent.Test comparisons between normal and dyslexic studentsIn another dichotic listening study, 27 children with dyslexia were compared with94 normal children. The initial aim was to match the groups on age, cognitive abilityand reading competence, but this proved to be impossible. The dyslexic group wassignificantly older, their mean iq was 10 points higher and their mean reading age was0.75 years higher. However these discrepancies were not considered to be a seriouslyvitiating factor in this particular study.The ‘normal’ group had a mean dichotic listening score of +28, indicating strong rightear advantage, i.e. well developed left hemisphere language dominance. In contrast, thedyslexic group had a mean dichotic listening test score of −21, indicating almost equallymarked right hemisphere language control. The differences already described betweenthe two groups in age, ability and sex should have had the effect of reducing the significantdifference between them.In the light of the figures shown for ‘normal’ children in the preceding table, wherethe scores range from +15 to +50, there is no possibility of considering such a scoreas that of the dyslexic group mean of −21 as falling within that normal developmentalcontinuum. The hemispheric specialism for language of the dyslexic children appears tobe so radically different that it should be regarded as an alternative neurological developmentwhich would result in very different information processing, much less efficient forlanguage learning, but much more efficient for visual/practical/creative thinking. Thesestudents would also tend to behave differently in a less conforming manner in everydaylife, as well as in the classroom.Language-advantaged and disadvantaged childrenUsing dichotic listening test procedures, significant differences were found betweenlanguage-advantaged and language-disadvantaged nine year old children, with thelanguage-advantaged children, as anticipated, showing marked left hemispherespeech/language control but the language-disadvantaged students showed either nohemispheric specialism or some right hemisphere specialism. It seemed that both thedyslexic and language-disadvantaged children showed a lack of left hemisphere specialismfor language, but the dyslexic junior school group which had not received specialistliteracy teaching showed stronger right brain dominance for language.The difference in hemispheric specialism for language between the normal group, andthe language-disadvantaged and dyslexic groups was significant and would result inmarked differences in information processing options and lead to the motor skillsuncertainties, phonological, perceptual, and short-term memory weaknesses observed.At this point, it is clear that we have identified a much more likely causative factor forspeech/literacy difficulties than ‘disadvantage’ per se.54

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3Neurological differences in dyslexiaThese findings are supported by Masland (1990) in a report given on the Orton BrainResearch project to the British Dyslexia Association’s International Conference at Bath.He described the abnormal collection of cells found in the language areas of the lefttemporal lobe of children with dyslexia, and confirmed the general finding that dyslexicbrains contained an increased number of neurons on the right side. Masland was firmin the conclusions he reached:‘There is no longer any doubt that there are demonstrable anatomical as well asfunctional differences in the brains of persons with specific reading difficulty.Dyslexia exists, probably not as a single specific entity, but as a group of disabilitieswhose nature varies with the severity and specific location of the abnormalities,the organizational pattern of the brain, and the individual’s developmentalexperiences.’Effects of Language development programmesIt was not possible to implement a structured multisensory literacy programmelasting several years because the schools involved would not accept such significantdisturbance in their routines nor could the researchers, who were very limited innumber, mount and sustain such a large scale programme. However, a languageintervention programme of two one-hour sessions per week over an eleven week termwas implemented with a group of nine year old ‘language-disadvantaged’ children. Aswell as developing language skills, cognitive and neurological effects of the programmewere monitored. The aim was to improve:1. Vocabulary2. Sentence construction3. Knowledge and application of grammatical rules4. Similarities, relationships and contrasts5. Verbal mediation of ideas6. The written expression of ideasThe programme was very heavily loaded on phonological/verbal processing. Significantprogress generally at the P < 0.05 level, was recorded on all the five spoken languagemeasures listed above.(Note on P < 0.05. in any scientific experiment the key issue is not whether the interventionbrought about the anticipated change, but whether the measured change isat a meaningful level where it may be said categorically that it is not coincidental or achance occurrence. Experimental data is always tested for statistical significance. This ismeasured by calculating whether the measured changes reach the commonly acceptedstandards of certainty. These are expressed at a 1 in a 1000, 1 in 100, or 5 in 100 level,with 1 in 1000 being the strongest level of significance. In this experiment there are 5chances in 100 that the results are coincidental or purely chance.)Some effort was made to carry over into written language the undeniable enthusiasm,vitality and fluency which these children developed in their oral language work but theirproblems were too great to be overcome in such a limited programme. At the end of theprogramme all the participants still showed serious problems in written language.55

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3This group of language-disadvantaged nine year old students had been shown to makegood oral speech/language progress when given appropriate specialist verbal/phonologicalteaching. Immediately after this successful programme, when retested using thedichotic listening procedure, they showed a marked shift to left brain dominance. Butfurther retesting of their visual skills confirmed that with the move to left hemispherespeech dominance they now showed significantly diminished abstract visual thinkingcapabilities and appeared to have lost much of their visual creativity. They had gainedin phonological–verbal skills required within the education system but had diminishedvisual/creative abilities which had a practical value in the artistic and working worldbeyond school.Simos et al. (2002) implemented a lengthy (8 week, 80 hour) phonological skills trainingprogramme with a group of eight seriously dyslexic students whose brain circuitry hadbeen established. At the end of their programme, testing of reading accuracy showedthat all students had made significant gains and were now reading at an average level fortheir age. Neural retesting showed a significant increase in the activation of left hemisphereneural circuitry generally employed by good readers. Unfortunately, Simos et al.did not test right hemisphere circuitry involved in creative visual thinking to determinewhether this was diminished.Professor Allan Snyder, University of Sydney, Australia has recently shown that low levelelectrical stimulation of students’ right temporal lobes, rather than their left, resulted inthem being three times more effective in creative visual thinking. It seems that brainspecialism may be altered by very intensive teaching or electronic stimulation. Theimportant question is whether these skills gains have lasting negative effects on theopposite hemisphere problem solving capability.Questions for further researchOne must ask if is there a price to be paid in the range of cognitive skills developmentby these ‘language-disadvantaged’ students for entry to the left hemisphere verballanguage-literacy club required in the education process, or can teachers counter suchan effect by using multi-sensory teaching procedures throughout the curriculum.Further research is necessary to clarify these very important issues.56

Deprivation, disadvantage and dyslexia;similar in form and treatment 3SummaryAs the area/regional/national economy develops and socio-economic disadvantage isreduced, the incidence of literacy difficulty diminishes, and the balance of frequency incausation shifts from disadvantage towards dyslexia.Bernstein’s much earlier findings of significant differences in levels of speech-languagereadingskill between language-advantaged (middle class) and language-disadvantaged(working class) students were confirmed but the significant differences were observedat the beginning of the education process, not at the end. It is evident that in theearly school years the diminished verbal ability, impaired speech and language skillsof the language-disadvantaged group are not attributable to inadequacies in theeducation system.The wppsi Performance Scale iq scores for the language disadvantaged childrendescribed in this study, when compared with their deficient oral language and literacyskills, shows that this group would have fallen within the category of children withspecific language impairment described by Tomblin et al. (1997).Language-disadvantaged and dyslexic students who had not received specialist language/literacy teaching did not conform to the normal pattern of left hemisphere specialism forlanguage. They showed no hemispheric specialism or right hemisphere specialism forlanguage. This neurological difference would have effects on the development of motorskills phonological skills, short-term memory skills, speech, and literacy. This appears tobe the underlying cause of the difficulties studied rather than disadvantage.With an appropriate intensive language training programme, it was possible for thesestudents to make gains in left hemisphere speech/language control with demonstrablyhigher levels of ability in speech/language/literacy attainments. But with this shift tothese much improved verbal attainments, a consequent diminution in previously availablevisual/creative thinking was recorded.57

Value of focused programmesto develop students’ skills 4Chapter 4Value of focused programmes to developstudents’ skillsUsing educational resources efficientlyIt is important that economic provision is directed to meet accurately defined individualneeds.Economic backgroundWe live in interesting financial times. Across the world, governments have struggled tomanage their economies. In the current climate of recession-depression, with importantEuropean nations still seeking to avoid national bankruptcy and the euro under threat,we must carefully examine the economics of making provision for students with readingdifficulties. If resources are limited, where should money be spent: on the most ableachievers, whose performance demands it, or on those who have fallen behind whoseperformance needs it? Both these conflicting demands seem to have merit, but whatdoes the literature say about the use of the substantial sums available to governments?The popular Keynesian strategy of spending the nation’s way out of recession resultedin vast sums being spent on education. Consistent with this approach, in the ‘giantstimulus package’ (February 2009), the US government, despite running a huge budgetdeficit at close to 10% of gdp, but in the face of unemployment rising from 5 to 9.6%,allocated $100 billion to schools and universities. US Education Secretary Arne Duncanexplained this action and the vast sum allocated by asserting, ‘If we want to be a strongeconomy again, the best thing we can do is have an educated workforce. Failure toimprove classroom instruction is morally unacceptable for our children.’ Worldwide,other nations have followed this practice.It is interesting to note that Duncan later used some of this money with sharp politicalskill as an incentive to States to weaken the grip of teachers’ unions on schools. In thecompetition between States for the additional $4.3 billion funding available, States getextra points for removing caps on ‘Charter Schools’ which are often non-union, and forallowing the use of gains in student test score for teacher evaluation. Duncan’s messageis clear. Teacher expertise should be judged by the skills gains of their pupils and,despite union opposition, he will pay to achieve this. Could you face this challenge? ...If not now, perhaps later!58

Value of focused programmesto develop students’ skills 4But the amount of money spent by governments is not the determinant of progress.How the money is spent is much more important. Over the past eight years in the UK,education spending has doubled to £80 billion. But student progress has failed to matchthis enormous investment. Recent figures from the Office of National Statistics showthat in this period school productivity fell by 7.5%. The most worrying statistic reportedwas that 40% of pupils were leaving primary education without basic grounding in the3Rs (reading, writing and arithmetic), and some 25% lacked the reading and writingskills necessary to benefit from secondary education.Greatly increased education spending has not maximized student progress. As onepragmatic politician with a wry sense of humour recently put it, ‘Throwing high qualitycarpet-tiles at the problems of literacy failure, is not the answer.’Ludger Woess, Professor of Economics of Education at the University ofMunich, Germany, stressed that merely raising per student spending across the boardhad zero effect on student achievement. He emphasized that to secure the requiredstudent progress a narrowly focused special programme was essential.In the appropriately named oecd (2011) report on the Need to Refocus Spending,Andreas Schleicher pointed out that the relationship between spending per student upto age 15 and learning outcomes in the education system at age 15 years, as measuredby the pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment, 2000, 2003, 2006) is, atbest, weak. Money available explains only 15% of the variation between countries. Otherfactors such as the appropriateness of the programme matter much more. Perhaps mostsignificantly for governments, Schleicher pointed out that the total cost of educationalunder-performance was greater than the cost of the financial crisis.A further oecd report Education at a Glance, published in October 2010, listed thenations of Western Europe in order according to the curriculum time allocated to theteaching of reading, writing and literacy to 12 to 14 year old students. Not surprisingly,Ireland headed the list with 28%, whilst England came last with 11% Even though thereis much talk in England about the need to improve literacy skills in schools, the necessaryskills directed provision is not being made.McKinsey’s (2009) study, How Education Affects the Economy is particularly relevant. Hefound that the largest returns on educational investment came, not from directing moremoney towards top or even average performers, but towards those students who hadbeen left behind. This is the key to improved student performance so frequently missedby governments, education planners, and providers.In the UK, despite the current climate of austerity and budget cuts, the ‘Pupil Premium’(£430 in 2011) to support the education of every child whose parents’ income is lessthan £16,000 has survived. This fund, currently costing £2.5 billion per year, is directedto funding the education of ‘disadvantaged children.’ Whilst broadly in keepingwith McKinsey’s recommendations, it would be more effective and provide greaterquantifiable benefits if this significant sum was firmly directed to facilitating thedevelopment of the auditory-kinaesthetic-semantic linkages, under-pinning effectivespeech in pre-school and junior school children, an area of development highlighted byBaroness Warnock as being long neglected and needing priority attention.59

Value of focused programmesto develop students’ skills 4Efficient use of educational resourcesHaving determined where the resources should be placed, we must now look at theeffectiveness of the special programmes to be implemented for these failing students. InEngland, the efficiency of special teaching programmes has become an important factor,following the implementation of Education Act 1981. This key criterion is of significanceto all governments and education bodies.In Section 2 (3) C, of this Act, it is stated that local education authorities, schools, orother educational agencies making a special provision, are required to ‘take due accountof the efficient use of resources.’ In response to this requirement, those interested in efficientspecial provision building considered that the important statistic was the student’sskill gain ratio per £provision cost.Further detailed consideration of programme efficiency is essential. In reading,progress is most effectively measured by relating the time the student has participatedin the special programme to the gains in skill recorded over that time on a relevantstandardized test of reading. For example, a child who has been in the programmefor one year, i.e. 12 months, and gains 15 months in skills validated by testing, has aprogress ratio of 1.25.Dyslexic students who do not receive appropriate specialist teaching fall increasinglybehind their age peers. In any academic year, they do not make 12 months progress, andtheir progress ratio is generally significantly below the break-even point of 1.0. Fromtesting carried out in Dyslexia Institute, I found that dyslexic students receiving onlythe same ordinary in-class reading instruction as other students of their age showed lowprogress ratios within the range 0.4 to 0.62.Dr. John Rack and Mrs. Jean Walker produced data for four groups of dyslexic studentsat the Sheffield Dyslexia Institute (UK), taught reading using a structured multisensorylanguage programme. In their four experimental groups containing a total of 184 students,they showed progress ratios of 1.14, 1.15, 1.16 and 1.36 over a teaching programmelasting just over two years.Hatcher, Hulme, and Ellis, York University, in a group of 32 students aged 6–7 years,receiving additional phonological training and reading experience in a twenty weekprogramme, showed progress ratios of 1.31 in word recognition, 2.05 in comprehensionand 1.73 in spelling.In a specialist residential school for 50 seriously dyslexic students in the age range8.3–12.8 years being taught on a structured multisensory programme over a threemonth term, an average word recognition progress ratio of 1.75 was recorded. On readingcomprehension the progress ratio was 3.48, and on spelling it was 1.47.These results confirm that with suitable, appropriately focused multisensory teachingprogrammes, dyslexic students can develop much more effective literacy skills, makingtwo to five times the progress previously achieved. Significant progress like this was alsoreported by the seven international experts who discussed ongoing work in their owncountries on the second day of the World Dyslexia Forum at unesco, February 2010.60

Value of focused programmesto develop students’ skills 4Allocation of timeIn determining progress, it is not just the type of programme which is important.The time allocated to the special programme each week is very significant and affectsprogramme efficiency. Variations in allocated time and intensity of teaching can resultin significant differences in the skills gains recorded and on the total programme cost.How many hours per week of structured multi-sensory teaching is most effective: twohours, five hours or ten hours? The data leading to the following considerations camefrom monitoring the effects of teaching in the Dyslexia Institute and a small schooloffering highly specialist management of the special needs of seriously dyslexicstudents, within a limited curriculum.The basic facts underlying this research in 1990 are that a school working year is 38weeks and at the time this study was carried out, the cost of a one hour lesson in a verysmall group setting (1:1 or 1:2) with a highly trained specialist teacher was £10. Theeducational criterion investigated, which had to be significant, was the time taken onaverage, and teaching cost entailed, to enable a seriously dyslexic student in the agerange 10–12 years gain one year in reading skill.This gain can be achieved in a wide range of ways, but the time allocated to theprogramme has implications for students, teachers and parents. In Figure 5 it will beseen that a one year gain in reading skill can be achieved in a teaching programme of1 hour per week, but on average, it will take 103 teaching hours over a two to three yearperiod, and cost £1,030. Whilst some might say ‘something is better than nothing,’ thisis a very inefficient and unnecessarily costly programme which would have debilitatingeffects upon student morale, and would eventually lead to the student finding himself ina ‘static lifelong dyslexia condition.’ It is not an efficient use of skilled teacher time andwould not be recommended by experienced special teachers.Hours ofspecialteaching perweekProgrammeduration(in weeks)Total teachingtimes(in hours)Cost(£)Comment11031031,030Slow and costly23876760Costs less31957570Efficient41352520Best510.452520Best69.557570Less efficient79.264.4644Costs more89.072720Too costly98.879.2792Too costly108.585850Too costly61

Value of focused programmesto develop students’ skills 4Figure 5Efficiency of programmeconstruction formultisensory teaching10090Total hours needed to gain one year in skill80706050403020101 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Hours of teaching given each weekThis gain in skills can also be achieved in a programme of two hours per week,taking 76 teaching hours on average, i.e. one academic year, and costing £760. It canalso be achieved in a three hour per week programme, taking half an academic year,and costing £570. It can be achieved in a programme of 4 hours per week, will takeone thirteen week term and will cost £520. This is fine, you think, let’s go on increasingthe weekly programme and reduce the total programme time and cost, but sadlyit does not work like that. At five hours per week the one year skill gain can be madein 10.4 weeks, i.e. 52 teaching hours, again costing £520. At six hours per week theprogramme took 9.5 weeks to achieve the required skill gain, requiring 57 teachinghours and costing £570. Clearly we have passed the equilibrium point with costsrising and programme efficiency diminishing.If a ‘quick fix’ is needed, the skills gain could be achieved in a programme of 8 hoursper week, taking 9 weeks and costing £720. The required skills gain could also bemade in a 10 hour per week programme, would take 8.5 weeks, needing 85 teachinghours, costing £850. This is effective from a ‘skills development’ point of view but veryinefficient financially. The conclusion must be that a programme of one 1 hour specialistlesson each working day is the most effective provision in terms of time taken tomake a significant skill gain, within minimum provision cost.62

Value of focused programmesto develop students’ skills 4SummarySpecial programmes should be sharply focused on the needs of dyslexic and languagedisadvantagedstudents.Using structured multisensory language programmes, dyslexic students can make 2 to 5times their previous progress in the development of literacy skills.The most financially and educationally efficient special programme should occupy onehour each teaching day.63

Accuracy of definition5Chapter 5Accuracy of definitionAccurate definition is necessary to facilitate appropriate teaching.We have identified the section of student population most in need of help, discussed theeffectiveness of a range of teaching programmes and the hours to be allocated to specialteaching each week. However, concentrating solely on the teaching of reading is not theanswer. To be effective, the definition used must be sufficiently precise to enable theidentification and investigation of all the student’s needs in the basic skills of learning,as well as on the skills required for the school’s overall curriculum. The teaching ofliteracy must be used as a base for, and be closely linked to, the cognitive the developmentof skills which the dyslexic student requires.This brings us to consider how definitions of dyslexia have developed to give therequired breadth of understanding of the student’s learning and literacy difficulties.At this stage we can also consider the second ‘elephant in the room,’ the acceptabilityof this concept of dyslexia as currently defined, to governments, education ministries,local education authorities, teacher trainers, special needs experts and head teachers.Confusions in terminologyInitially, let us try to make sense of the plethora of labels and terms that have beenused over the years by experts in this field. ‘Specific difficulties’ is an umbrella termcovering: dyspraxia, i.e. difficulty in controlling the pattern of motor movement necessaryto express ideas in speech and writing; dysgraphia, difficulty with the formationof letter shapes and words in writing; dysphasia, difficulty with speech and language;dyslexia, difficulty with reading, spelling and writing; dyscalculia, difficulty with thelanguage of number and calculation; adhd (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder),difficulty in maintaining the focus of attention on a specified task.In the past, within an assessment using a single ‘snapshot,’ all these conditions wereseen as separate and distinct syndromes. But increasingly, with repeated assessmentsevery two years, they are frequently seen as related developmental aspects of the sameunderlying learning difficulty. It is extremely unusual to observe a student having onlyone of these conditions in isolation. As they develop, many students are observed toshow, in succession, motor, phonological, perceptual, working memory, speech,literacy, numeracy, and social and behavioural difficulties. As they mature, they move64

Accuracy of definition5from one of these classifications to the next. For historic reasons, the term dyslexia hasbeen used to refer to this causally related group of specific learning difficulties.Development of definitionsThe first recorded case of dyslexia was described in the British Medical Journal (1896), byDr. Pringle Morgan, who wrote, ‘I have seen a very intelligent boy of twelve, who is unableto learn to read ... had all the lessons in class been oral lessons he would probably be thebrightest boy, but as it is, he is being kept back by what is possibly-shall we call it-congenitalword blindness.’ Whilst research interest in this theme developed quickly wider publicawareness, and suitable teaching arrangements, were slow to develop.It was only in the 1960s in England that educational charities and a few research unitsbegan to make a provision, which in the 1970s, following work in the ‘Word BlindResearch Centre,’ became increasingly informed and skillful. It owed much to the pioneeringwork of Samuel Orton.The neurologist McDonald Critchley (1970) who was involved in research into dyslexia,defined it as, ‘A disorder manifested by a difficulty in learning to read, despite conventionalinstruction adequate intelligence, and socio-cultural opportunity. It is dependentupon fundamental cognitive difficulties which are frequently of a constitutional character.’By the late 1980s, after use of structured multisensory teaching was observed to facilitateliteracy development but not to resolve per se the dyslexic student’s cognitive problemsreferred to in the Critchley definition, the focus of attention moved beyond the developmentof literacy, to identifying the deficient cognitive skills and other aspects of thecurriculum which might be affected. At that time, Chasty (1989,1990), defined dyslexia asin Box 1.Box 1Dr H. Chasty definition ofdyslexiaDyslexia is not simply a reading and/or spelling difficulty, but a learning deficiency whichrestricts the student’s competences in information processing in motor skills and workingmemory, so causing limitations in some or all of the skills of speech, reading, spelling,writing, essay writing, numeracy and behaviour.In this definition, the a priori cognitive difficulties are highlighted, and the curriculumeffects broadened to include a developmental continuum of language based multidimensionalskills, including numeracy and behaviour. Although at first glance these mayappear to be totally unrelated, separate skills, they are all rule-based, language related,need auditory–visual–kinaesthetic–semantic linkages, require accurate sequencedschema control which in competent learners is usually managed automatically in workingmemory, and are greatly influenced by prolonged consistent failure in class.To bring this consideration of definitions right up to date, in 2009, at the request of theprevious UK government, Sir Jim Rose (former head teacher, schools inspector, ofstedHead of Special Education and Training), reported on Identifying and Teaching Childrenand Young People with Dyslexia and Literacy Difficulties, detailing recommendations forimproving the education of dyslexic students. With his Expert Advisory Group, he setout an agreed definition shown in Box 2.65

Accuracy of definition5Box 2‘Rose’ definition of dyslexiaDyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate andfluent word reading and spelling.Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness,verbal memory and verbal processing speed.Dyslexia occurs across the range of intellectual abilities.It is best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct category, and there are noclear cut-off points.Co-occurring difficulties may be seen in aspects of language, motor co-ordination,mental calculation, concentration and personal organisation, but these are not,by themselves, markers of dyslexia.A good indication of the severity and persistence of dyslexic difficulties can begained by examining how the individual responds to intervention.A fuller description of dyslexia is given in the related SpLD Working Group (2005)DfES Guidelines for the assessment of students with SpLD/Dyslexia in Higher Education.‘Dyslexia is a combination of abilities and difficulties; the difficulties affect the learningprocess in aspects of literacy and sometimes numeracy. Coping with the required readingis generally seen as the biggest challenge at higher education level due in part to difficultyin skimming and scanning written material. A student may also have an inability toexpress his/her ideas clearly in written form and in a style appropriate to the level of study.Marked and persistent weakness may be evident in working memory, speed of processing,sequential skills, auditory and/or visual perception, spoken language and motor skills.Visuo-spatial skills, creative thinking and intuitive understanding are less likely to beimpaired and indeed may be outstanding. Enabling or assistive technology is often foundto be very beneficial.’The views of the Working Party as documented above and in the ‘Rose definition’ have thestatus, authority and prestige to gain wide acceptance and counter the residual ‘dyslexia isthe middle-class label for stupid’ misconception referred to by Baroness Warnock, which isstill alive and flourishing in some educational and political establishments.From our earlier considerations of dyslexia in phonologically transparent languages wehave seen that some students with quite marked dyslexic difficulties, learning to read inlanguages where the essential vaks linkages are easily established, do not show the problemsin decoding print usually associated with early reading difficulties. It is apparent thatsome of the definitions offered by other researchers have focused too closely and narrowly,solely upon word recognition skills, at the earliest stages of reading in the most phonologicallyopaque world language, English. It is hardly surprising that in these experimentalcircumstances phonological difficulties are identified, analysed and described, but such anarrow focus is likely to exclude other sections of the dyslexic/reading failing populationand lead to subsequent inadequacies and inaccuracies in teaching provision.Bishop and Snowling (2004) express similar disquiet about the effects of the definitionscurrently in use upon diagnosis and treatment. ‘Clearly whether we find similaritiesbetween dyslexia and sli depends crucially on how they are defined. We regard it asimportant to establish whether a child with language or literacy problems has (a) problemswith phonological processing and (b) problems with non-phonological languageskills. Contemporary definitions of dyslexia and sli tend to obscure this distinction.’We have reached a stage in our consideration of definitions of dyslexia that we lookruefully back to our earlier quotation from Whorf, ‘the grammar of each language is …66

Accuracy of definition5Itself the shaper of ideas ... The categories… we find in the world of phenomena …(reading failure) are the result of dissecting language and literacy failure along lines laiddown by our overly complex English language.’ Lilian Sprenger-Charolles expressed itvery succinctly, ‘Dyslexic subtypes do not occur naturally, they are artifacts of researchand teaching strategies.’In contrast with other definitions which mistakenly depict the key dyslexia difficultyprimarily in reading/literacy, the detailed description Rose gives, identifies the problemas being in learning as applied to literacy, with further effects in motor skills, concentration,language, calculation, and personal organization. This approach is very much inkeeping with the Chasty 1989, 1990 definitions, and it must be stressed that this levelof descriptive accuracy is necessary to facilitate the implementation of the requiredspecialist teaching programmes.Other factors related to definitions of dyslexiaThere are other relevant factors not discussed in these definitions.(a) Dyslexia as a heritable conditionFollowing Pringle Morgan’s (1896) description of his dyslexic student it was quicklyestablished that dyslexia is a heritable condition. C.J. Thomas (1905), Assistant MedicalOfficer (Education) to London County Council, is clear on the point that dyslexia affectsparticular families but not others. He reported, ‘In this connection it is to be noted thatit (dyslexia) frequently assumes a family type, there are a number of instances of morethan one member of the family being affected, and the mother often volunteers thestatement that she, herself, was unable to learn to read, although she had everyopportunity to do so.’Other researchers, James Kerr and Samuel Orton (1925), published works describingdyslexia as an ‘inherited condition.’ In Denmark and Sweden dyslexia has always beenregarded as ‘constitutional genetic condition.’ In the Dyslexia Institute, in 1992, in asample of just over 100 cases assessed as being dyslexic, just over 80% showed a familypattern of similar reading difficulties.Incidence of dyslexia in brothers, sisters and cousins is comparatively frequent, butin these days of relatively small families, the incidence of dyslexia affecting all fourchildren in a single family is comparatively rare. This is documented in the cognitiveprofiles of a family of three brothers and their sister, K.B., B.B., N.B., and H.B .All thechildren showed serious literacy retardations. At age 13 years 5 months, K.B. had a wiscverbal iq of 102 and a performance iq of 139. On the same day, at age 12 years 5 monthsB.B. had a verbal iq of 113 and a performance iq of 135. N.B. at age 10 years 6 monthshad a verbal iq of 108 and a performance iq of 132, H.B., a girl, at age 6 years 3 months,had a verbal iq of 103 and a performance iq of 133. All four children show very similarcognitive profiles, having broadly average verbal ability and high visual ability. Thethree boys, K, B, and N, show significant weakness in auditory short-term memory,whilst H’s problems appear to be in visual and visuo-motor short-term memory andfine motor skills. The similarities in cognitive profiles are clear. The differences betweenH.B. and her brothers in motor and memory skills may be due to masculine/femininedifferences in the neurology underlying dyslexia.67

Accuracy of definition5(b) A lifelong condition?If Google/Wikipedia definitions of dyslexia are investigated, quite a few state thatdyslexia is a ‘lifelong condition.’ This is particularly true of definitions given by parentgroups or dyslexia associations. Whilst the personal experience of some older childrenand adults with dyslexia may well justify their assertion that for them dyslexia has beena ‘lifelong condition,’ the important question must be asked, is it necessarily like that forall dyslexic students?With time, considerable variability is evident across the individual dyslexic’s profile.With good teaching, some students get better, with poor teaching or no teaching, somestudents get worse, others, usually the older students, stay the same. As has been establishedearlier in this paper, the rate and extent of change is determined by the quality,intensity, duration and appropriateness of the special teaching provided.Across the worldwide dyslexic population there are different degrees of severity. Somechildren with dyslexia are only mildly affected, a greater proportion of others aremoderately affected, still others are seriously affected, and a smaller number are veryseriously affected. I considered this distribution, in a group of over one thousanddyslexic students, in my work at the Dyslexia Institute.When severity of difficulty was plotted in a graph against numbers of students showingthat level of difficulty, as set out in Figure 6, the bell-shaped curve of normal distributionwhich resulted, indicated a few students showing mild difficulties, most showingmoderate difficulties and a few showing serious difficulties. This work was carried outin 1992 but was not published because the parents of the students surveyed had had topay a substantial sum for the psychological assessment and the distribution revealedmight well be an artifact resulting from parents’ unwillingness to pay for the assessmentof only mildly affected students. There may well be some more or many more studentsin the mild to moderately affected end of the distribution. Therefore the distributionshown in Figure 6 may not accurately reflect the actual distribution of degrees ofdifficulty in the ordinary population of children. For this reason, a possible alternativedistribution is also indicated in the figure.However, for the present considerations, the proportions of the dyslexic population ineach section of the distribution are not important; what is of significance is the mildmoderate-severespectrum.Figure 6Distribution of severity ofdifficulty in dyslexiaNumbers achieving level of difficultyIn ‘dynamic dyslexia’possibility of movingto the normal rangeLifelong conditionin ‘static dyslexia’mildmoderateSeverity of dyslexic difficultysevere68

Accuracy of definition5Most children with dyslexia (those from the middle left-hand side of the dimension to theextreme right-hand end) experience a condition at a level of severity which will be lifelong.They have a static form of dyslexia. However, the students at the extreme left-hand side ofthe mildly affected end of the dimension have the possibility of moving out of the dyslexiadimension into the ‘normal’ range. These students have a more dynamic form of dyslexia.Ongoing assessmentIt is important that the dynamic perspective obtained from ongoing assessment rather thana single ‘snapshot’ is used to create an accurate perspective on the student’s difficulties.Consideration must now be given to how it may be decided that a student who wasinitially confirmed to be dyslexic has made such progress that he can no longer beconsidered to be dyslexic. The initial finding of dyslexia may be made in an assessmentby a teacher, a psychologist or a neurologist, but always on the basis of test evidence. Inthe process of assessment of the student failing in literacy and the school curriculum,a set of questions must be asked and answered by the assessor, which will enable adecision to be made about whether the student is dyslexic or not.What are the student’s abilities and difficulties in learning?Are his language skills appropriate to age, background and ability?How significant are any speech, reading, spelling, writing, and numeracyretardations?Are causal weaknesses evident in fine motor skills, phonology, visualperception, short term memory skills?If the student’s cognitive test profile fluctuates, language skills are significantly retarded,and there are deficiencies in motor, perceptual and working memory skills, he is identifiedas dyslexic. This facilitates the construction of an individual programme which mustaddress all the student’s special educational needs in learning, literacy, and/or numeracy.If a programme of appropriate breadth is sustained sufficiently long, progress whichmay be of surprising extent will be made. This changing pattern is only revealed byfurther ongoing assessment.In these circumstances the ‘dyslexia’ such a student experiences is not static butdynamic, and continually changing. If we gave such a student a full psychologicalassessment every two years, from the age of 4, we would, initially, diagnose him asbeing dyslexic, but in the following assessments, would record different difficultiesas, with increasing maturity, he faced new difficulties in skills that develop later, withdiminishing problems in the areas previously noted, tested and found to be difficult.But later, with appropriate, skilled teaching help, he would master them. As this studentapproached the end of his education, at age 18 years, and prepared to take finalschool certificates, increased cognitive ability is seen, giving rise to higher iq scores.No residual difficulties are evident in fine motor skills, phonological skills, short-termmemory, perceptual skills, or processing speed. Literacy skills will be competent, but aresidual spelling/writing difficulty in fast, timed writing situations may persist, particularlyin a long and complex examination answer. Whilst at age 4 years this student had awide range of serious difficulties, at age 18, his difficulties are very much less significantand wide-ranging.69

Accuracy of definition5Show this final cognitive and literacy profile to 10 skilled psychologists working in thedyslexia field, and nine of them will say, ‘this student is not dyslexic.’ Show the profileto 10 local education authority psychologists, and 10 will say, ‘No problem, not dyslexic!’The vast majority of skilled professionals looking at this case history would confirm theshift from dyslexic to not-dyslexic. Residual difficulties of themselves do not keep thestudent in the dyslexic continuum; the residual difficulties must be at a level of severitycommensurate with the significant difficulty recorded in the initial assessment.Nor is this a single aberrational finding. If a sufficiently large group of very well taughtdyslexic students approaching their final examinations at the end of their school careerare tested, there will be some who do not show even the mildest of residual difficulties.It must be stressed, absolutely none. With my experience, I would not miss even thesmallest skill deficiency. It has to be said (often to the great annoyance of parents andteachers), ‘I am sorry/pleased to report that you do not qualify for the special concessionsavailable for students with dyslexia, because you have no problems in reading,spelling, timed writing, or processing information. There is absolutely no justificationin applying to the Examination Board, for special consideration, because with this datathey will refuse you, and ask me “what do you think you are playing at?”’In the course of my work, I have seen many students like this and the concept of thecondition ‘dyslexia’ must allow for students who were seriously dyslexic in their earlyschool years, after the right teaching, moving out of the dyslexic condition some yearslater. They do not bounce off the ‘normal wall’ back into dyslexia.Changing ‘static dyslexia’ into ‘dynamic dyslexia’The teacher’s aim must be to change the condition of ‘static dyslexia’ – a lifelong condition –into ‘dynamic dyslexia.’Other students will also show good progress and move from a seriously affected, to a muchless seriously affected degree of difficulty. So it must be stressed that the concept of dyslexiais not fixed, immutable, unchangeable. Well managed, it is dynamic and must take accountof the opportunities for change provided by some positive and very effective educationsystems which, sadly, are not/were not available worldwide to all dyslexic and languagedisadvantagedstudents.Worldwide there are a great many students failing in literacy who have not had the intensityof skilled teaching they needed at the time when they might have benefited from it.These are the kind of students who had the misfortune to be in schools at the time referredto by Baroness Mary Warnock, when children with dyslexia were regarded as ‘stupidmiddle-class.’ They will not have had a psychological assessment, nor received structuredmulti-sensory literacy teaching, structured multi-sensory numeracy teaching, training incognitive and study skills and help with the development of metacognitive training.As I have pointed out, (Chasty 1996), ‘The earlier the diagnosis, and the more immediate thehelp given, the less serious the damage to the dyslexic child.’ Without early diagnosis, andleft to themselves without specialist teaching, these dyslexics do not have the individualskills necessary to significantly alter the damage done to their education, leading to veryserious difficulties. In mature adulthood, they have the ‘lifelong condition’ described bysome observers, resulting in major problems in everyday life.70

Accuracy of definition5What has been noted and used in describing and clarifying the term ‘lifelong condition’ isa reflection of the serious limitations of the education system those students experienced.Will the education system always be that bad? Hopefully, not. With improving specialeducation, the incidence of static dyslexia as a ‘lifelong condition’ will decrease. If thenegativity of the term ‘lifelong condition’ is not deleted from definitions sooner it will haveto be ... later.We are looking at a dynamic variable condition, with possibilities of improvement andchange to the extent that, in some cases, the student no longer falls into the dyslexicclassification. With time and the marked improvements in the management of the educationof children with dyslexia that we all work towards, an increasing number of childrenwith dyslexia will move into the normal distribution. These words ‘lifelong condition’ areinappropriate in a simple definition of dyslexia, giving negative and misleading perceptionswhich limit and restrict both learner and teacher.A very clear and understandable description of this dynamic condition is given in the Rosedefinition Box 2, which we repeat, as being ‘best thought of as a continuum, not a distinctcategory, therefore there are no cut-off points ... A good indication of the severity andpersistence of dyslexic difficulties can be gained by examining how the individual respondsor has responded to well-founded intervention.’Dyslexia as a neurological conditionThis is the key causal factor underlying dyslexia. We have already considered someevidence relating to this point. Strong evidence was accumulated over the 1980s and1990s giving prestige support to this conclusion. A typical example is to be found inProfessor Albert Galaburda’s ongoing work. Galaburda A.M., and Kemper T.L. (1979)reported post mortem anomalies and anatomical differences in the language areas ofdyslexics’ brains.Figure 7Implications of the Rose‘continuum’With well-founded intervention, condition is neither severe nor persistent and progress is madenormal mild moderate severeSeverity of difficultyThis abnormal cortical development was considered to have occurred before the sixthmonth of pregnancy.Masland’s (1990) conclusions summarise this detailed ongoing research very effectively.‘There is no longer any doubt that there are demonstrable anatomical as well as functionaldifferences in the brains of children with dyslexia.’ Masland, and indeed many otherresearchers in neurology, have pointed out that these neurological differences will predictablyinhibit left hemisphere control of speech/language/reading and also cause cognitivedifficulties in aspects of motor control, phonology, perception and short term memory.71

Accuracy of definition5SummaryRepeated assessments indicate that dyspraxia, dysgraphia, dysphasia, dyscalculia anddyslexia are generally not separate and distinct difficulties but are related developmentalaspects of the same underlying disorder, which is dyslexia.Some researchers have focused too narrowly upon defining dyslexia as a phonologicaldisorder affecting word recognition skills, but in some phonologically transparentlanguages dyslexic students may not show word recognition difficulties.The similarities between the Chasty (1990) and Rose (2010) definitions, confirm dyslexiaas a difficulty in learning required for literacy, particularly motor skills, phonology, andshort – term memory. The severity of difficulty is confirmed by the student’s responsein measured progress to an appropriate specialist (multi – sensory) teaching programme.Dyslexia is a heritable neurological condition. Mild to moderately affected children withdyslexia who have received the right teaching programme can move into the normaldistribution. Therefore, dyslexia is not seen as a generally ‘lifelong condition.’Teachers must aim to change the static ‘lifelong dyslexia’ into ‘dynamic dyslexia,’ wheresignificant progress is possible.72

Psychological assessment6Chapter 6Psychological assessmentProfiles from psychological assessmentAssessment is the process of constructing a model of how the child learns, identifyingthe areas of success and failure present in learning, and current attainments in the basicskills relevant to the learner’s curriculum, with the primary purpose of establishingpriorities for change. In doing this, it is necessary to survey all the influences uponthe child’s learning, so enabling an appropriate teaching programme to be designedand implemented. The wider and more ‘in depth’ the process is, the more likely it isto convey an accurate picture of the range of abilities and difficulties determining thechild’s present learning. The real skill in assessment is in constructing the whole picturefrom the separate parts provided by a range of relevant experts.An assessment carried out by a chartered educational psychologist uses test batteriessuch as Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children or British Ability Scales, which comprise arange of sub-tests giving information about the student’s full range of cognitive competencesand facilitates comparisons between the student’s verbal and visual problemsolving capabilities.Using such detailed test procedures, dyslexics show a variable picture. Stephen Tylerand Colin Elliott (1989) used cluster analysis on the British Ability Scales subtest scoresof 121 dyslexic students. Within this large sample they identified three major groups; 30with mixed visuo-spatial and linguistic weakness, showing difficulties in visualizationand memory; 52 with sequential processing weakness, showing difficulties in speedand memory; and 39 with weakness in the holistic retrieval of information, showingproblems in word knowledge associated with visual memory.From my own work, I have analyzed over one thousand psychological assessments ofdyslexic students based upon wisc–iii to construct the profile set out in Table 3.73

Psychological assessment6Table 3Dyslexic profiles fromassessment on wisc–iiiVerbal scale(problem solving in words)Performance scale(problem solving by hand/eye)Group 1 2 3 Group 1 2 3InformationSimilaritiesArithmeticVocabularyComprehensionDigit span796910(5)1216101517(10)71481516(5)Picture completionCodingPicture arrangementBlock designObject assessmentSymbol searchingMazesVerbal IQ 88 124 111 Performance IQ 124 82 101Full Scale IQ 105 105 107VerbalcomprehensionFreedom fromDistractability927412810111780PerceptionorganizationProcessing speed1312121316(12)(15)124112967610(3)(4)867013761015(7)(11)10583The average age of this very large group of children with dyslexia is 11 years 1 monthand just under 75% are male. The age range of this sample was 6 years to 16+ years,and that very wide age range is essential to gain a full and accurate perspective on theprofiles and types of dyslexia experienced by beginning readers as well as more maturestudents in the later stages of their education.Within this very large group of children with dyslexia there were surprising differencesin cognitive abilities and difficulties. The standard deviation of subtest scores was veryhigh, and it was evident that the proper statistical management of this data requiredcluster analysis to facilitate reclassification into three smaller, but much more homogeneousgroups, showing much greater within-group consistency in patterns of abilitiesand difficulties.The profiles derived from this analysis are entirely consistent with the Chasty and Rosedefinitions given above. These confirm that dyslexic students are generally of averageability, have some learning skills developed to a competent standard, but show weaknessin fine motor control, auditory and/or visual short-term memory, leading to seriousretardations in some or all of the skills of word recognition, reading comprehension,reading speed, spelling, writing, and numeracy.Different kinds of thinking/problem solving evident in dyslexic profilesThe dyslexic student’s ability level may fall within a very wide range from iq 80 to 150.Within the very large group described, the average verbal iq was just under 107, performanceiq was just over 107, and full scale iq was close to 108. The full scale iq scoreswere all in the average range, but this is meaningless, because in the classroom thesestudents were not ‘average’ learners. What is significant is not the overall iq which givesa misleading impression of generally average ability, but the clearly evident patterns ofability and difficulty seen in every case.Children with dyslexia in group 1 showed broadly average vocabulary, comprehensionand verbal reasoning skills, but marked weakness in auditory short term memory and74

Psychological assessment6sustaining attentional skills gave rise to very low scores in recall of information, arithmetic(oral calculation) and digit span, which required recall of digits, both forwardsand in reverse order. The Freedom from Distractability Index of 74 confirms that thisgroup shows serious weakness in memory and attention. Overall verbal iq was in thelow-average range, in the 80s. For this group, visual problem solving was generallyvery skillful and performance iq was in the superior range, above 120. These dyslexicstudents were very effective visual information processors, and the visual modality wastheir preferred problem-solving option. With such a significant discrepancy betweenverbal and visual problem solving capability, a meaningful full scale iq score for thisgroup cannot be quoted. It should be noted that these students were fast, effective visualproblem solvers and despite their clearly identifiable dyslexic difficulties, showed wisc–iiiProcessing Speed scores in the ‘above average’ range.The second group shows a markedly contrasting profile, with average auditory shorttermmemory and well developed spoken language and verbal skills. Verbal iq is in thesuperior range above 120. Weakness is evident in visual sequencing, visual perception,visual short-term memory, and fine motor control, resulting in a Performance (visual) iqin the below average range at just over 80. With an index of 70, this Group shows seriousweakness in Processing Speed.In the third group, children with dyslexia show fluctuating abilities and difficultiesacross both verbal and visual problem solving. Their working memory skills are weakand their Freedom from Distractability Index of 80 confirms concentration and memorydifficulties . Weakness is also evident in Processing Speed. This group displays the classic‘acid’ profile (weakness in Arithmetic, Coding, Information and Digit Span subtestsfrom wisc test) researched by the Dyslexia Unit at Aston University, and subsequentlydescribed in the literature by Newton and Thomson.I have interpreted this data given in Table 3 as identifying three different patterns oflearning difficulty, reflecting different underlying clusters of cognitive difficulty withinthe wider dyslexic population. This conclusion is supported by the findings of Tyler andElliott, described earlier, and also Manis et al. (1996) who concluded that there wereprobably more than two sub-types of dyslexia which could be related to underlyingmultiple cognitive deficits.Implications of these profiles for identification and remediation ofsub-types of dyslexiaThe closely linked developmental schemata for speech, phonology, word recognition,reading comprehension, spelling, writing, written expression of ideas are very long andcomplex. These cumulative sequential skills must be constructed, implemented andcontrolled by students with cognitive difficulties in some or all of fine motor control,sequencing, auditory and visual short term memory or auditory and visual perceptualdifficulties. Breakdown in the establishment and control of these linked schemata canoccur for any skill along the continuum. The cluster of individual difficulties causinginitial phonological/word recognition difficulties is different from those causing middleor late breakdown. Also, the more transparent the phonology of the orthography of thelanguage of reading instruction, the more delayed will be the break-down for a particularstudent, with a particular cluster of cognitive difficulties.75

Psychological assessment6With the diversity of skills and difficulties evident across these different types of dyslexia,it is clear that grouping together psychometric test scores for very large numbers of dyslexicstudents conceals rather than reveals the important underlying patterns of abilitiesand difficulties, and perhaps more significantly, also conceals important concomitantvariations in language and literacy difficulties experienced by different sub-groups ofdyslexic students.Type 1 dyslexic students showed marked phonological and auditory memory difficultieswhich lead to evident weakness in speech, language development, word recognition, andlater developing skills of reading spelling, writing and the written expression of ideas.Type 3 dyslexic students show similar phonological and auditory memory difficulties,but to a lesser degree. They experienced similar problems in speech, word recognition,reading comprehension, spelling, writing and written expression as type 1 dyslexicstudents. Both these groups fall within the description of phonological dyslexia set outin Vellutino et al. (2004). Statistically, in the sample under discussion, the majority ofdyslexic students fell into these two categories.In contrast, type 2 dyslexic students showed visual short term memory, visual perceptual,visual sequencing, and motor skills difficulties. They showed good speech, effectivephonological skills, and broadly competent word recognition skills, but had later developingreading comprehension, reading speed, spelling and writing problems at a level ofseverity characteristic of dyslexia. It must be stressed that these type 2 dyslexic studentsdid not show the ‘classic’ early developing phonology word recognition difficultiesdescribed by Vellutino.I use the term ‘early onset dyslexia’ to refer to the significant break-down in theverbal language literacy continuum at its earliest stage in phonology/word recognition.I use the term ‘late onset dyslexia’ to refer to the significant break-down of the verballanguage-literacy continuum at the later reading comprehension/reading speed stage.I do not regard the absence of phonological problems and competent word recognitionskills as a reason to exclude these students with significant late onset literacy difficultiesfrom consideration as dyslexic.This finding that some students who are dyslexic in the phonologically opaque Englishlanguage do not show phonological difficulties is not unique. Beech and Harding (1984),and Johnston, Rugg and Scott (1987) report that poor readers in their studies hadnormal phonological skills for their age. Johnston et al. point out that there are a widerange of reading disorders and suggest that the findings of causality of reading failurein group studies vary according to the categories or types of reading failing studentsincluded in the research sample.The statistical frequency of incidence of each of the types 1, 2 and 3 dyslexia describedabove will vary from language to language depending upon the transparency of theorthography and also with the age/stage of onset of the observed difficulties. In Englishand other phonologically opaque languages, it is anticipated that the majority of dyslexicstudents will usually show type 1 or type 3 dyslexia. Young students needing assessmentat age 4+ years with word recognition difficulties will usually show type 1 or type 3phonological difficulty profiles. However, in phonological languages, whether shallowor deep, when the onset of significant dyslexic difficulties necessitating psychometricassessment comes later in the student’s educational career, at around age 10 or 11 years,with significant comprehension, spelling and writing difficulties, the type 2 dyslexia76

Psychological assessment6profile will usually be observed. No evidence of psychometric testing of dyslexic studentsin logographic languages such as Chinese is available for consideration. Furtherresearch is necessary to determine whether the above observations apply to dyslexicstudents in logographic languages.It should be recalled that Wimmer et al. (1998) noted that students who were dyslexicin the relatively transparent German orthography showed competent word recognitionskills, but read more slowly and later showed reading comprehension difficulties. Again,the absence of phonological difficulties did not exclude these learners from being identifiedas dyslexic.Other reading failing students with competent word recognition butpoor comprehension skillsBishop and Adams (1990) report that some sli children who have adequate wordrecognition skills, show comprehension problems, struggling to understand a text evenwhen they have read it accurately. Bishop and Snowling (2004) also considered in somedetail children who could recognize words and read a text accurately, but showed poorunderstanding of the meaning of the text. These students were recognized as a literacyfailing sub-group but Bishop and Snowling regarded them as being ‘the mirror image ofdyslexia’, possibly because they did not show phonological or word recognition difficultiesas set out in Vellutino et al.’s (2004) definition of dyslexia. These reading failing studentswere labeled ‘poor comprehenders’, and it was acknowledged that as a group, they seldomattracted clinical attention.Bishop and Snowling confirmed, ‘Children with dyslexia and poor comprehenders bothdisplay verbal working memory deficits and naming difficulties, but the nature of theproblem is different in the two disorders. Children with dyslexia have poor verbal shortterm memory span, whereas poor comprehenders perform well on such simple memorytasks, yet their memory span for abstract words is poor. Both groups of children find itdifficult to name objects with low frequency names, but whereas children with dyslexiamake phonological naming errors, poor comprehenders are likely to make visually basederrors or no response.’ It seems that in common with type 1 and type 2 dyslexic studentsdiscussed above, both these groups have different clusters of underlying cognitive difficultiesleading to early break-down and late break-down of the language-literacy schemata.Bishop and Snowling did not provide psychometric evidence about their ‘poor comprehenders’and it would be very interesting to see their cognitive profile on wisc–IV. Furtherevidence throwing light on their spelling competence and skill in the written expressionof ideas would help to clarify the full extent of their developmental literacy difficulties, andwhether their description as ‘the mirror image of dyslexia’ is appropriate.For me, it is the failure to establish and control automatically, the vaks links requiredfor speech, literacy and verbal thinking at every stage from phonology through wordrecognition, reading comprehension, reading speed, spelling, and written expression ofideas, resulting in significant classroom difficulties that constitutes dyslexia. That failurecan occur at the beginning stage in phonology and word recognition or at the later stageof reading comprehension. It is not the stage at which the initial failure occurs, its conformityto the phonological model, or its statistical frequency in a particular (prestigious)language form which leads to the description of the student as dyslexic.77

Psychological assessment6School history, cognitive and literacy profile of a student with ‘lateonset dyslexia’I have recently become acquainted with PB whose educational history provides a thoughtprovoking illustration of late onset dyslexia. PB comes from a good and supportive homebackground, where both parents are successful, verbally fluent, literate, numerate professionals.In early childhood he showed no speech difficulties and his speech was very welldeveloped. Books, reading materials instructional games and the usual technology wasavailable to him in early childhood. At age 4+ years PB joined a good local (fee paying)preparatory school, where there was much expertise in identifying dyslexic children, whowere then referred to the local Dyslexia Institute for psychological assessment, and ifconfirmed to be dyslexic, were released from their curriculum for two or three hours eachweek to receive special (multisensory) teaching, delivered by a specialist teacher trained bythe Dyslexia Institute, and holding the A.M/B.D.A. qualification.At age 5+ years, PB’s speech was well developed, he showed no phonological difficulties,and his word recognition skills in early reading were well developed. However, he showedpoor fine motor control, very limited hand skills, had an unusual awkward pen grip,and poor sequencing skills. He was observed to draw and paint (well) with his left hand,wrote poorly with his right hand, and displayed marked left right confusions which havepersisted into the final stages of his education process, and will probably be a debilitatingfactor throughout his life.While these factors might have been identified as part of a ‘dyslexic profile’, at thatearly age, they were not thought to be seriously debilitating, and were dismissed as‘developmental lag.’ When these deficiencies were balanced against PB’s good phonologicaland word reading skills, the school’s previous experience of literacy failing children led toa decision that he was not (at that time) dyslexic, and should not be referred for psychologicalassessment, a conclusion which at that time and in those circumstances,was understandable.At age 11 years PB was a good clear-thinking student in class, but his reading comprehensionskills were seriously retarded when compared with his effective word recognitionskills. Orally he contributed much to discussions in class, but was noted to be much lesseffective when asked to write about it. He worked hard at home, learned his spellingsassiduously every night, and in spelling tests which gave him time to focus his fullattention and working memory skills upon a single word, was able to write dictated wordsaccurately. However, when writing at speed in note taking, tests and examinations, heshowed much less effective spelling competence. Because of the contrast between his workin formal spelling tests and his use of spelling when writing quickly in a situation whereworking memory was stressed by having to organize and express complex ideas, he wasfrequently criticized as ‘careless’, and his reports always suggested he ‘could do better ifhe applied himself.’PB then moved with his parents to live in Spain, where he attended an InternationalSchool. In the wider curriculum available there, less attention was focused upon thedevelopment of his English reading comprehension and writing skills, but he developedvery effective skills in Spanish and German, languages that he read, wrote and spelled veryeffectively. It should be noted that both these languages have been classified (see Seymouret al. 2003), as having a much more regular and transparent orthography than English,78

Psychological assessment6with symbol-sound rules being much more straight-forward and predictable, and thereforepresenting significantly less difficulty for reading, writing and spelling than English.PB returned to the English education system at age 14+. He achieved a very creditable Agrade in Spanish gcse some 2 years early. Subsequently in his A level examinations, hisresults were characterized by a marked discrepancy between his oral and written performances.His A grade in Spanish was reduced to an overall B by inefficiencies in his writingof the language. In Drama, a subject where he shows much talent, he achieved an A gradein practicals, but his written work on this subject was only evaluated at a D grade. Despitethese contrasts in his oral-written performance, his overall A level grades were of sufficientlyhigh standard to gain him admission to a very well respected university. There, hehas shown considerable difficulty in reading (comprehending) his course materials, writingnotes, and producing written assignments at the required academic level for his tutors.Having considered the severity of his difficulties, and the errors in his written assignments,his tutors were unanimous in referring him for assessment, guidance, and special considerationas a dyslexic student.In the assessment process on wais–iii, the psychologist recorded PB as being of overallbright intellectual ability, with a verbal iq in the superior range, and a performance iq inthe good average range. His cognitive profile was consistent with the type 2 dyslexia shownin Table 3. PB had difficulty in working memory, visual sequencing and visual perception.On the Chasty dotting speed test, he returned a right hand time of 15.7 seconds for 20 dots,and a left hand time of 14.7 seconds. The right hand time is within normal limits, but themarginally faster left hand time indicates that he is ambidextrous. His pen grip is awkward,and he is slow and inaccurate on a code copying task.PB showed competent phonological skills on a range of tests and was able to immediatelysay non-words of up to four syllables with 100% accuracy. He also showed competentword recognition skills at an adult level. However his reading comprehension skills wereextremely weak. He was asked to read aloud a text about the psychology of reading, pitchedat a university level. He did this with commendable accuracy, achieving a 99% word recognitionaccuracy level. His only errors were in sequencing and saying the syllables correctlyfor ‘ambiguity’, ‘applicable’, ‘paradigm’, and ‘minority.’ He was then asked to respond to 10comprehension questions about the text he had just read, was unable to make any response,and it was evident that he had been unable to gain the meaning of the text.The text was then placed in front of him again, and the questions were repeated. It was onlyby placing his finger on the appropriate place in the text and following the words slowlyand repeatedly that he was eventually able to answer each question extremely slowly. PBhad very significant reading comprehension difficulties.PB’s handwriting is a rather artistic italic script which is produced extremely slowly at some6 words per minute. He sometimes omits the joins between letters, for example ‘literature’was written as ‘lite r ature.’ His appreciation of the relative heights of letters written acrossa line was deficient, with small letters such as ‘n,’ ‘m,’ or ‘r,’ being given the same relativeheight as ‘t,’ ‘b,’ ‘l’ or ‘h.’ This resulted in him producing written word shapes which werevery difficult to recognize without breaking the word down into its constituent letters.On a standardized test of spelling where he simply had to listen to a single dictated wordand represent it with letters written on paper within a broad time frame, he achieved astandard commensurate with his age and ability. But when writing a lengthy text by hand,79

Psychological assessment6containing a complex sequence of ideas related to his university course, his writing waspoorly controlled, difficult to read, produced extremely slowly, and contained frequentspelling errors. In the written assignments he had produced on computer (with benefit ofa spell-check facility) for his course tutors, his speed of production was extremely slow atonly seven words per minute which is only one third the rate usually anticipated for suchwork from a university under-graduate. His sentence construction was long and rambling,and he made inappropriate word choices to express the meaning he intended. He alsoshowed a tendency to type the same letter or word twice. It was apparent that PB hadmarked difficulties in expressing his ideas with the speed, clarity and precision required atuniversity level.PB’s difficulties in reading comprehension, writing, and the written expression of ideas,are seriously debilitating and are in marked contrast to his effective and accurate wordrecognition skills. Whilst at age 6, 7 or 8 he did not experience serious literacy difficultiesmore than 10 years later he has much more significant difficulties in later developingaspects of the speech-literacy-verbal thinking continuum. His cognitive and literacyprofile is consistent with late onset dyslexia.Special educational programmes should be directly focused to meetidentified needsIn the special educational needs classroom, teachers must look carefully at the widerange of abilities and difficulties underlying the problems experienced by the literacyfailing student. Teachers must question the ‘shot gun’ applicability of the special programmesadvocated in the psychological research literature, which make ‘unanimousteaching recommendations of combining phonological training with phonologicallybased reading instruction for all children at risk of developing literacy difficulties.’ Thiswould be suitable as part of the relevant programme for ‘early onset dyslexics’ learningto read in a phonologically opaque language, but would not be suitable for ‘late onsetdyslexics’ or for dyslexic students learning in transparent phonological orthographiesor in logographic languages, and that seems to me to be the greater majority of literacyfailing students worldwide.The need for ‘value added’In this very large sample of dyslexic students considered in Table 3 there are clusters ofabilities evident in all three groups, as well as areas of difficulty in learning. It must bestressed that the areas of ability and difficulty were not consistent from group to group.But all groups showed weakness in aspects of perceptual and short-term memory skills,with a further consistent factor being the consequent significant higher literacy weakness.But, on very careful examination, these groups showed qualitative differences intheir language/literacy failures, related to the contrasts evident in their learning difficulties.It is these patterns of ability and difficulty which are most revealing and indicativeof dyslexia.Whilst there were abilities and ‘potential’ in all these groups, up to the time of assessmentthese were undeveloped. In every group serious cognitive problems remained,which impaired language, literacy and curriculum performance. What value couldschool, education authority, or ministry of education add to these ‘failing’ students,in developing their learning as well as their literacy? Perhaps I may be forgiven for80

Psychological assessment6responding by misusing the well-known text from St. Luke, Chapter 12, Verse 15, in theversion of the King James Bible:‘The richness of a ... school or education authority ... consisteth not in theabundance of the buildings and quantifiable resources it possesseth, nor in itsexamination passes at A grade, but in the cognitive and literacy skills value itadded to each individual student.’That truly is what education is all about.The identification and amelioration of the fundamental difficulties underlying the dyslexicstudent’s cognitive and curriculum performance, will be considered in greater detail in thenext section of this chapter. The comments of Elliott (1983) are pertinent. ‘These tests canprovide considerable information on strengths and weaknesses in the cognitive domains(such as memory or visual perceptual activities) that may well have considerable relevanceto a child’s learning in school.’ All the literature on this subject directly points towards theimportance of the learner’s profile of abilities and difficulties (not his IQ) as being the keyto acquiring literacy and success or failure in the classroom later.Now let us look in greater detail at the skills areas listed above as causing difficulties forreading failing students.Motor skills leading to aks linkagesTo facilitate effective operation of the later developing higher levels of cognitive processing,the early developing lower levels must sort information accurately, and this beginswith motor skills which are essential in the establishment and control of aks linkagesrequired in speech.The beginnings of motor skills are found in the infant’s growing awareness of his ownbody, its position in space, and how through hand, foot, eye and ear the learner maycommunicate with the outside world in that space. Some literacy failing children donot achieve this easily and tend to be clumsy, bumping into chairs and other items offurniture with which other members of the family manage without difficulty. Thesechildren trip over their own feet much too often, spill spaghetti down their clothes wheneating, knock over the water jug when reaching for the salt, cannot catch a ball, do notknow where to begin on the page, and cannot control the pencil to make letter shapeson the page.Marian Frostig (1970) set out three constituents of body awareness (1) Body image,which is more than the sum of motor perceptions and experience and is best thought ofas the postural model of the body; (2) Body schema i.e. the action plans for movementand control in the static or dynamic position; (3) Body concept which is the totality ofthe learner’s knowledge of their own body. Frostig considered body awareness to be anessential prerequisite for the development of motor skills. A normal child develops bodyawareness during the second year. At the same time, postural equilibrium and movementsystems are developing.De Quiros and Schrager (1979) stressed the importance of these developments forhigher learning. They pointed out that the body is continuously providing informationto the brain’s ‘consciousness’ about hunger, pain, comfort, sensation position,81

Psychological assessment6movement, and many other life variables. Whilst the higher cortical levels can receiveand act upon all this information, the use of high-level processing capability for themaintenance and control of all these relatively simple bodily activities is not an efficientuse of the learner’s cognitive resources.Close observers of the procedures of European Union administrators in Brussels willbe familiar with the key management strategy of ‘subsidiarity’ as set out and definedin Article 5 of the Treaty. This requires that less important decision making and policyimplementation should be directed and managed in the localities as close to the ‘citizen’as possible, using local capacity and resources, rather than centrally at a high level inBrussels, thus leaving top level management in Brussels free to process and manage themost important and complex issues.De Quiros and Schrager point to a similar very important cognitive procedural developmentin children at age 3 years, so that ‘higher cognitive processes’ are not swampedby the minutiae of bodily function, movement, sound inputs and visual impressions.Instead of overwhelming high level consciousness with the processing and managementof simple aspects of motor, auditory and visual perception, these are integratedinto a multi-sensory unit and managed more efficiently and usually automatically at alower level of cognitive functioning. It is at this point that parents, carers, teachers andpsychologists must direct their attention to facilitate the establishment of links andcontrols between developing motor skills, visual skills and phonological/verbal skillswhich underpin the aks integrity essential for skilled speech and the later developingvaks systems required in literacy.This frees valuable, but often limited capacity for conscious cognitive processing tocarry out other important learning tasks. For language impaired students who lackbody awareness leading to effective motor control, the later cognitive development ofautomatic control over these schemata will be delayed, and will have limiting effectsupon later language and literacy learning.This has been shown by Viholainen et al. (2002), who compared 88 one to 2 year oldinfants at risk of familial dyslexia with a normal control group. At group level nodifferences were evident in motor skills development, but cluster analysis of the ‘at risk’infants identified two groups, one with fast motor development, and the other with slowmotor development. There was a significant (P = 0.03) difference between these groupson the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory and the ‘at risk’ children whoshowed slow motor development, were noted to have a smaller vocabulary and producedshorter sentences. For these children retardations in the development of early motorskills appeared to be a predisposing factor leading to limitations in effective speech andcommunication skills.The importance of motor skills in language learning has recently been demonstrated byMangen and Velay (2010). They compared the progress made by two groups of studentslearning an unknown language. The first group used motor skills to write the letters byhand and read. The second group typed the letters on a keyboard and read. The skills ofthe two groups in the new language were tested each week. The students who wrote theletters by hand showed significantly better skill in the new language. It was concludedthat the motor aspect of the vaks linkages necessary to learn the language effectivelywas best developed through sensori-motor control by handwriting, and this was a keypart of the language learning process. Keyboard typing did not facilitate learning andlanguage development to the same extent.82

Psychological assessment6From this it is clear that the importance of motor skills in facilitating the expression ofideas through language must not be underestimated. Muscles must be controlled insequence with considerable skill to convey meaning when talking. Get it wrong and youmay stammer, or say the word incorrectly. A different set of muscles has to be movedeffectively to express ideas in writing, and the intensity of fine motor control requiredover a prolonged period of time in a written examination answer is very stressful andadds greatly to the loading on concentration in working memory.Figure 8Chasty ‘Dotting Speed’ testThe dyslexic student’s motor skills are variable. When appropriate testing has beencarried out, (try the timed ‘Dotting Speed’ test in Figure 8, or peg moving with bothhands), speed, accuracy, error rates, and competences with two hands suggest they maybe much closer to ambidexterity than other students of their age and ability and haveunderlying fine motor deficiencies. Group 2 dyslexic students, discussed above, tend toshow a noticeable level of clumsiness and lack of motor coordination. In Groups 1 and3, generally competent gross motor skills are observed but fine motor skills are slowerand less accurate. Whilst parents seem to be aware of these problems, the students’class teachers are often unaware of these motor skills limitations, and their effectsupon learning and delivery of knowledge.Appendix 1: Chasty ‘Dotting Speed’ test1 Hand time secs2InstructionsWith you better hand1. Place a dot in circle 1, then 2 until you have placed20 dots in circle 22. You will be judged on your speed and accuracy3. Now take the pen in your other hand. Place a dot incircle 3, then 4, until you have placed 20 dots in circle 44. Do this as quickly as you can, but try to keep it in control3Hand time secs4Note: The distance between the centres of circles 1 and 2 should be 24 cms. While I am aware that thisNote: The distance between the centres of circles 1 and 2 should be measure 24 varies cms. according While to the size one I makes am the page aware on the computer that screen, this if teachers use ashorter distance, this will seriously alter left right comparison times, and test results.measure varies according to the size one makes the page on the computer screen, if teachers use a shorterdistance, this will seriously alter left right comparison times, and test results. See Appendix 1 (page 141) for ato scale print out.83

Psychological assessment6Speech skillsExpressive languageInitially, in expressive speech, the dyslexic student may have problems making certainspeech sounds. Usually in speaking, the high frequency sounds such as f/th, v/th, s/sh,are badly made and often poorly recognized and spelt.Difficulty is often evident in using sounds sequentially as parts of words. Many dyslexicstudents experience sequencing problems in speech long after other children of theirage have overcome this difficulty. Even in the secondary school they may still bemispronouncing words, saying ‘aminals’ for ‘animals’, or ‘suspectible’ for ‘susceptible.’They may report, ‘My dad was pushing the mow lawner across the grass’ or even ‘He lefthis car in the par cark.’Getting sounds in the wrong places is often regarded by others as amusing, and whendyslexic children are laughed at for producing such utterances they become very sensitiveand quickly learn not to expose themselves to ridicule by risking spontaneous communicationin class. Professor Tim Miles reported on a dyslexic student being taught inhis unit at Bangor, North Wales. The student had reached the ‘ff’ sound in his languagestructure. His teacher showed him a card with the word ‘cuff’ to read. He looked at theword for a long time, then turned to his teacher and said, ‘I cannot possibly say that.It is a rude word.’Despite generally competent vocabulary skills, the dyslexic student frequently shows nosense of the range of purposes for speech. Whilst he may chat freely, using a wide rangeof words usually these are not used with the required precision to express ideas coherentlyin words. When asked to look at the ‘chest of drawers picture’ shown in Figure 9and say what is missing his response is likely to be very vague and lacking in specificity,‘Its that thing there you would hold on to if you wanted to open it.’ (Bernstein wouldhave classified this as restricted code.) He does not describe the idea with precision,saying ‘The right hand knob of the second drawer is missing.’Figure 9‘Chest of Drawers’ test84

Psychological assessment6He tends to use mainly the ‘vernacular’ form, sometimes inappropriately, across a rangeof communication situations, showing a surprising inability in the important ‘representativefunction’ of language. His friends in the playground will understand him andhis mother will know intuitively what he means. But in the classroom, language such asthis will not provide the required basis for thinking, reading, and higher writing skillsrequired in examinations.He lacks the range of language styles, necessary to facilitate ‘language style matching’(lsm) described by Pennebaker and others in the Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology (2010). It is anticipated that this would have a debilitating effect uponhis ability to establish and maintain effective relationships in the normal range ofsocial situations.Receptive language problemsThe dyslexic student’s difficulties in receptive language are much less obvious but no lessserious. As we have already established, making sense of the words spoken by others canbe much more difficult than it seems. In school teachers tend to build lengthy sentences,giving spoken instructions in long sequential lists, and may speak too quickly. What theysay is often incomprehensible to the dyslexic student. (they get the surface structure butnot the deep structure which carries the full meaning.) Even a short instruction such as‘Before you go home, do your spelling corrections’, is misunderstood by such children whotake in the key words, ‘go’, ‘home’, ‘corrections’, react quickly to the sequential implicationsof those three key ideas, and head for the door with the other pupils, whilst teacherfuriously calls them back.A basic speech principle which is too often neglected by teachers is ‘order of mention.’ Theteacher must give instructions to the child in the order they should be done. If teacher variesthe order, as in the example given above, she gives the dyslexic student the additionalproblems of recognizing the obliqueness of the statement, and holding the instructionsin a less than effective working memory, whilst re-sequencing to the required operationalorder. This is an unnecessary complication to essential teacher-child communication.Literacy skillsTesting with standardized word recognition and continuous prose reading tests establishesthat the dyslexic student may show weaknesses in word recognition skills. Theseoperate very slowly, unpredictably and uncertainly, particularly when stressed, orunder heavy operating load. Comprehension skills are limited, with dyslexic studentsneeding to read even a simple text two or three times to gain the sense that his readingcompetent colleague gains at first reading. Continuous reading speed is generally veryslow, and when reading aloud, the use of rhythm, pitch and tone to express the implicitmeaning of the text, is very limited.Spelling is usually tested by means of standardized spelling tests. Generally, childrenwith dyslexia perform badly on such tests, but an even more effective way of testingspelling is to calculate the student’s percentage error rate in a piece of timed continuouswriting on a complex subject. On this measure, their error rate is very high.The writing of Pearse seen in Figure 10 makes the point. At age 8 years, Pearse is verybright, with a wisc verbal iq of 136, a Performance iq of 120. On the Vernon Graded85

Psychological assessment6Word Spelling Test he achieves a roughly age-appropriate standard of 7 years 10 months.Judged solely on the basis of this test, he would not be considered to have seriousspelling difficulties.Figure 10Writing on history by PearseYet on his free writing in history, about the Battle of Hastings, despite showing a commendableappreciation of the underlying battle strategies, he makes a very significant 45% spellingerror rate. This indicates that when his limited working memory is heavily loaded withideas and strategies in history, Pearse has little available capacity to manage the mechanicsof spelling and consequently produces a much higher spelling error rate than his spellingtest competence would suggest. What is important is not his level of skill in uncomplicatedconditions, but the efficiency with which he controls and applies that skill to the requireddelivery of his spelling knowledge in a complex situation. It is in such multi-dimensionalsituations that the most significant effects of his dyslexia will be observed.In writing, the dyslexic student generally shows poor letter/word formation, slow productionof written work, and weakness in the written expression of ideas.NumeracyWe have already established that for each word you have a shape, sound said, motor movementpattern to say and write it, to give access to the meaning, and this vaks structure isvery difficult for dyslexics, so for each number you have a similar set of vaks linkages whichbuild into a number structure, and must be mastered and applied automatically. This differentset of vaks linkages is also very difficult for dyslexics.Figure 13Working memory inlearningIdea:two objectsMovement patternto say or writeNumberstructureShapeseen2Sound (tu)86

Psychological assessment6Difficulties with the cross-modal vaks links for number cause similar problems tothose encountered in literacy. The assessing psychologist will observe that somedyslexic children do not show numeracy difficulties, but a significant proportion do.The best incidence figures available are those reported by Marion Klees (1976), whoshowed that 20 out of the 34 Belgian dyslexic children she studied had problems withall aspects of mathematical skills (i.e. 60%). She observed that ‘their calculating difficultiescould not be compared with those experienced by mentally deficient children,as their reasoning faculties were unimpaired, and often provided compensatorymechanisms of surprising complexity.’The assessing psychologist may observe that in numeracy/mathematics, the dyslexicstudent’s numbers are often poorly made and are subject to the same reversalsobserved in letters and words. Speed of production is slow, working in lines andcolumns is generally impaired and understanding of ‘place value’ is weak. The dyslexicshows poor retention of tables and number facts, difficulty in applying the stages of acalculation in the required order, leading to weakness in oral and written calculationsand deficiencies in mathematical reasoning.The parallels with literacy are so clearly evident that our approach must be to regardnumeracy as another ‘language.’ Whilst the required treatment may be organized andarranged differently, the underlying principles and practices are the same, managingthe underlying language and cognitive difficulties, then using multi-sensory proceduresto develop the structure of number.87

Psychological assessment6SummaryFrom the literature and psychological assessment data Chasty (Table 3), it appearsthat there are three major contrasting patterns of learning difficulty within thedyslexic population.Assessment data shows that children with dyslexia show clusters of abilities and difficultiesin learning, and it is these patterns which are most indicative of the type of dyslexiathey experience. The key question for all practitioners is, ‘What value can the teacher/school add to the dyslexic student’s yet undetermined potential?’Types 1 and 3 dyslexic students show marked phonological and auditory short termmemory difficulties leading to weakness in speech, language development, word recognition,and the later developing skills of reading, spelling and the written expression ofideas. They have ‘early onset dyslexia.’ Both groups fall within Vellutino et al.’s (2004)description of phonological dyslexia.Type 2 dyslexic students showed visual short-term memory, visual perception and motorskills difficulties. They showed good speech, effective phonological skills, and competentword recognition skills, but had later developing reading comprehension, reading speed,spelling and writing difficulties at a level of severity characteristic of dyslexia. They didnot show the phonological and word recognition difficulties described by Vellutino. Theyhad ‘late onset dyslexia.In English and other phonologically opaque orthographies, types 1 and 2 early onsetdyslexia will be more frequently observed, but in phonologically transparent orthographies,and probably logographic orthographies, type 2 late onset dyslexia will be morefrequently observed.‘Poor comprehenders’ described in the literature seem to conform to the cognitive anddevelopmental profile of late onset dyslexia.The observation from the literature of ‘unanimous teaching recommendations of combiningphonic training with phonologically based reading instruction for all students atrisk of reading failure’ would not be suitable for late onset dyslexic students, or studentsworking in phonologically transparent or logographic languages.Recent research confirms the importance of motor skills development in the acquisitionof reading,The development at an early age of the key strategy to control bodily and motor functionsautomatically at a lower cognitive level opens the way for the development andcontrol of a full range of higher cognitive functions, including language and literacy.Dyslexic students’ expressive language skills are generally limited, and broadly in keepingwith Bernstein’s earlier description of a ‘restricted code.’Dyslexic students’ receptive language skills are limited and impaired; they supportthe view based upon Chomsky’s earlier analysis that they are generally limited to the‘surface structure’ of language spoken to them.88

Psychological assessment6Literacy skills are weak, and characterized by failure to gain automatic control of themanagement of the sub-skills comprising each schema. The break-down in control ofthe reading schema is observed at the beginning, word recognition stage in type 1 andtype 3 ‘early onset’ dyslexic students, but at the later reading speed/reading comprehensionstage in type 2, ‘late onset’ dyslexic students.Some two thirds of dyslexic students experience difficulties in the cross-modal linkagesfor number similar to those observed in literacy. Slow speed of work production,limitations in working in lines and columns, poor retention of tables and number facts,and inability to manage in order the successive stages of a calculation are characteristicof the difficulty.In the assessment process, using cognitive profile tests such as the Wechsler IntelligenceScale for Children, or British Ability Scales, weakness is evident in aspects of the dyslexicstudent’s phonological and/or visuo-spatial awareness, and auditory and/or visualperception. Aspects of auditory, visual and motor short term memory are particularlyrestricted. These weaknesses in skills seriously limit the acquisition of literacy and otheraspects of the curriculum.89

Memory7Chapter 7MemoryTesting memory skillsIn the psychological assessment process described in the previous chapter, the DigitSpan Subtest is very important in the identification of the profile of abilities and difficultiescharacteristic of the literacy failing learner. In the first section of this subtest,the tester reads a series of number sequences to the student, at the rate of one digitper second. The student is required to repeat each sequence in the given order. Thesequences are administered in pairs, commencing with two digits, and the tester ceasesthat section of the test when the student has failed both trials. In the second section ofthe test, the student must hold the given digits in short-term memory, apply sequencingskills, and respond by saying the digits in reverse order. This is a much more complexprocedure, and literacy failing children generally show much greater difficulty in thesecond section of this test.Whilst the other frequently used test procedure, British Ability Scales, also has a ‘Recall ofDigits Subtest,’ this does not contain a section requiring digits to be recalled in reverse orderand, consequently, may not adequately reflect the memory difficulties experienced by thedyslexic. The capacities of the auditory and visual peripheral stores can also be investigatedusing procedures such as recall of increasingly lengthy and complex sentences, Kim’s game,recall of increasingly lengthy picture arrays, or sequential recall of designs.Test procedures which highlight the application of strategies in memory, or cross–modaltransfer of information are very relevant in giving clearer evidence of the memory difficultiesexperienced by dyslexic students. An example is the vads Test by Elizabeth Koppitz. Inthis procedure, aurally presented information must be recalled orally, visually presentedinformation must be recalled orally, aurally presented information must be recalled bywriting, and visually presented information recalled by writing.From their review of the literature, Bishop and Snowling (2004) suggest that phonologicalmemory is an important sub-skill to investigate in studying the problems of languageand literacy failing children. This tests the ability to recall and repeat unfamiliar polysyllabicsound sequences, e.g. sountarp, drimtrols, mintarsup, hargusint, gardilieras,which require the use of phonological short term-memory as described by Gathercoleand Baddeley (1990). This procedure can be very useful in identifying children at riskof language/literacy failure. While this form of test has been validated by research,90

Memory7the recent, (March 2012) suggestion that a test based upon these principles should beadministered to young children entering school in England has been strongly criticized byteachers’ unions.Other wisc subtests such as ‘Information’ which requires recall of general knowledge, canprovide very useful indications of the extent of memory difficulty in dyslexia. Let me givean example. In administering this test, the psychologist asks, ‘Who discovered America?’Johnny stalls and plays for time, saying, ‘Don’t rush me, it’s on the tip of my tongue …it’s coming ... it’s Col ... Col ... Col ... umbo … No ... he is a detective on television. LastSaturday I was watching one of his films. There was this lady ... in the bath ... she gotstabbed ... there was blood everywhere …’ Johnny has lost focus and gone off down a longirrelevant information track which will certainly not produce the required answer.The psychologist drags him back to the point by repeating the question. Johnny wrinkleshis face, thinks hard and, with a look of triumph, says, ‘Col ... Col ... Col … umbanus.’ Aglance at the psychologist’s face cues him that he is still wrong. He chuckles ruefully,acknowledging his own inefficiency, before explaining, ‘Father Mulcahy came into schoollast week, and told us all about Columbanus. He was an Irish saint. He travelled acrossEurope from Ireland. He opened a monastery at Bobbio in Italy.’ Fascinating, but stillwrong, the psychologist thinks. Johnny seems to have a wonderful fund of informationbut, like his reading and writing, it is not ‘joined up.’ His recall of the section relevantto the presented problem is flawed, and as the information incorrectly recalled gainsJohnny’s interest, he loses focus on the question he is addressing. Suddenly out pops therequired answer. ‘Wasn’t it Columbus?’ He asks. Johnny has taken some 3 minutes and20 seconds to respond. Teacher might answer the same question in half a second. Johnny’sclassmates will take a second.What is ‘knowing?’ Is it the ability to respond in half a second, one second, or 3 minutesand 20 seconds? Whilst for his very slow response, Johnny got his correct mark onthe Information Subtest, in many areas of the curriculum, response times matter, and3 minutes and 20 seconds would not be good enough. For example in the Neale Analysisof Reading Ability, if the student hesitates in reading, and cannot respond to the word in5 seconds, it is scored as an error. Clearly, Johnny’s literacy difficulties are directly relatedto the slowness and inefficiency of his processes in auditory recalling.Johnny’s overt efforts to find the answer, confirm that he is using his very inefficient auditorymemory system. The reason he used that system when his visual memory is muchbetter is because auditory memory was the system preferred and used by his teacher,when giving him the information originally. How the information is initially encoded willinfluence the modality used in recalling and the efficiency of the response. One might saythat Johnny’s ineffective reaction was caused by teacher’s unilateral choice to use only theauditory/verbal modality to present this information.If we had been trying to teach Johnny (who was a type 1 dyslexic) ‘Who discoveredAmerica?’ we would have been much more effective if we had used his superior visualmemory system, presenting the information as indicated in Figure 11 or taking accountof his interest in philately by using the Columbus stamp Figure 12. This visual presentationwould have been even more effective if supported by an attractively catchy jingle:‘Columbus crossed the ocean blue ... in fourteen hundred and ninety two ...’ The rhythmand tune provide great support to the sharp visual imagery to provide a properly91

Memory7multisensory vaks presentation. Given this input by his teacher, Johnny, like the otherpupils in his group, could have responded in a second.Figure 11Columbus going to AmericaColumbusAmericaSantaMaria1492Figure 12Columbus stampWith these clearly deficient memory skills, Johnny also finds spelling difficult, and hasestablished a reputation for ‘not learning his spellings.’ This judgement is unfounded,harsh, and based upon false assumptions of what the learning process is.As he leaves the classroom at the end of the day, the teacher will remind him, ‘Johnny,have you put your spelling book in your bag?’ He nods affirmatively and leaves with ahappy smile. That evening he spent twenty minutes on four words, sounding out theletters and with mum’s help, writing the words over and over again. Next morning hearrives in class very glum. Teacher fixes him with a piercing stare and asks, ‘Johnny, didyou learn your spellings?.’ He confirms, uncertainly, that he has. But teacher does notleave it there. When the class has assembled, spelling books are distributed and teachercalls out the four words for the children to write down. Johnny complies but when hiswork is checked he has none correct.92

Memory7What does teacher say? ‘Johnny, you did not learn your spellings!’ If you cannot deliver,it is self evident that you did not learn. In the classroom it is not accepted that learningmeans working to store the information in your head. It actually means storing the informationin a way which is accessible and retrievable, when required, with maximum speed andefficiency. Johnny may well protest, as he always does, that he spent half an hour workingon those words. (His judgement of time is always faulty, and a little exaggeration does noharm ...) His plea will fall on deaf ears, because teacher, and all the other pupils acceptwithout question, that the essence of ‘learning’ is demonstrable skill in the delivery ofthat knowledge.But despite his repeated failures, teacher did not offer Johnny the help he needed todevelop a more effective learning strategy. Structured multisensory presentation of therequired information to long term memory would have facilitated and enabled the developmentof the required level of automaticity in recalling and resulted in greatly improvedaccuracy and much faster response times. This is true in reading, spelling and writing, butalso generally across the curriculum. Johnny could not, and did not, work this strategyout for himself; the teacher needed to be aware of the problem and facilitate the necessarymemory development. Ineffective learning, stemming from limited understanding anduse of working memory systems, is as much a matter of inadequate teaching, which fails toacquaint the learner with the possibilities of multi-sensory encoding and representation ofideas, as it is a weakness in thinking and learning by the student.The point must be made, that whilst Johnny clearly had auditory short term memoryproblems which, if unrecognized and untaught, would have become a significant part of adebilitating lifelong problem. With appropriate assessment and teaching, these difficultiesaffecting all his learning could and should have been eliminated in the junior school. Thefrequently seen comment that ‘dyslexia is a lifelong condition’ is inappropriate because itis based upon observations of dyslexic performance in an inadequate education system,and is inaccurate when the students have received suitable detailed assessment andappropriate teaching, dealing in a carefully sequenced and structured way with allobserved difficulties.Working memory problemsAt this stage, we must give fuller consideration to the impact of these short term memorydeficits upon ‘working memory’ and how deficiencies in this process are of great significancefor literacy failing students, but they can be ameliorated by suitable skills-directed teaching.Because it is a familiar word in everyday use, and which we all know, clarification must bemade of the term, ‘memory.’ Generally we think of memory being the facility to recall fromour distant past up to the present, but that is only a small part of the concept. The classicearly text in this field, Bartlett’s Remembering, (1932) deliberately used the present participlerather than the noun to confirm that in memory we are dealing with the act of remembering,which is a process comprised of skills, not an organ. We have a head, a foot, an ear, butwe do not have a memory. It is impossible to go into the brain and identify a particularorgan which is our memory. It is a linked set of sub-skills related to storage and retrieval andthe better the linkages are, the more efficient the process become.Bartlett considered that in the infant, the beginnings of memory were to be found in theimportant motor schemata (sequentially constructed step-by-step plans for an activity orskill, such as crawling) which the child develops to control early physical movements. This93

Memory7was substantiated by subsequent research. In memory we are dealing with skills systemsand, as teachers, we must appreciate that where deficient, these skills can be improved.The more recent concept of ‘working memory’ was developed by Alan Baddeley (1986) andhis associates, who described an auditory-verbal system called the ‘articulatory loop’ and avisual system called the ‘visuo-spatial sketch pad.’ These skills systems are controlled in a‘central executive.’ Much work has been done through research and exposition to polish andrefine this model but this tended to lead to greater concentration upon the structure ratherthan its functions. In the light of Bartlett’s views on preferring participles to nouns, teachersmight be better to think of ‘working memory’ as ‘remembering for learning, thinkingand acting.’There are five major sense systems by which the student may receive information; auditory,visual, motor, taste, and smell. Whilst most information is handled in auditory and visualsystems, much early development is carried on through motor learning and motor memoryplays a significant part in the acquisition of speech, reading, writing and spelling. Taste andsmell are particularly important for students with handicaps in the other sensory systems.Therefore, when considering the role of working memory in learning, the concept should notbe limited solely to auditory and visual information processing systems.Figure 13Sensory inputs in workingmemory and possibleresponsesencodingstorage and retrievalResponse throughspeechTouching/feelinginput movementmotorResponse throughdrawing and writingspoken inputauditorycentralexecutivevisualseeing inputaccess to longterm storagetastesmelltasting inputsmelling inputFigure 13 illustrates the range of possible cognitive systems operating through workingmemory. In any learning situation an input can be made through auditory, motor, visual,taste and smell systems, if relevant. This incoming information is organized for encodingthrough the central executive and passed into long-term memory storage. Because we thinkof memory primarily as a store for the reception and handling of incoming informationfrom others, we tend to neglect its role in the expression of information to others. Teachersmust also give consideration to the reverse process, where outgoing material can be retrievedfrom long-term storage to the central executive, and a response made through auditory,visual or motor systems by speech, writing or drawing.This cognitive system has four major functions as seen in Figure 14. (1) to provide short-termstorage in the five sense areas but, in education, students particularly use the auditory, visualand motor systems. (2) to facilitate the skill developed encoding of incoming information for94

Memory7effective storage and retrieval from long-term memory. (3) to enable recall of material alreadylearned from long-term memory back to the central executive to facilitate perception andproblem solving needing past experience. (4) to enable the automatic delivery and control ofa previously learned skill, whilst simultaneously processing other material in auditory, visualmotor, taste and smell sub-systems. This should enable a spoken, written or drawn responseusing past experience to be controlled effectively within the limitations of the over-all capacityof the student’s working memory system. The efficiency of this process underlies successor failure in literacy and on the curriculum.Figure 14The role of working memoryin learningWe do not see with our eyes, hear with our ears, or feel with our fingers. We make sense of theinputs from our eyes, ears and fingers in our brain. Controlled storage and processing capabilityin working memory is necessary.sensory inputsauditory registermotor registervisual registerGustatoryregisterolfactoryregisterCentral ExecutiveApplies working memory systemsauditory loop episodic buffer visuo-spatial scratch padSystem limitationsUsing obligatory butinefficient modalityFocusing attentionInitial register durationonly a few millesecondsunless reinforced bywm systemsEarly fatigue onsetRegister capacity is7+ or −2Failure to clearirrelevancesDetermines strategiesEstablishes representationGathers relevantinformationBuilds cross-modal linksFacilitates perceptionControls application ofschema using minimumcapacity required by levelof skill development= =Teaching pointsChoose appropriate timefor learningTeach encoding skillsExtend register capacitiesDrill cross-modal transferTeach discardingSwitch modalities oftenMulti-sensory is bestMake input meaningfulLink to previous structureof learningUse a carrier systemUse memory pegsLong Term StoreHas infinite capacity, but fast retrieval is the problemNew material entering LTS is: Associated with oldknowledge (see Piaget) so the long termremembering is better: deliberately assimilated toexisting structure so that it can be more easilylocated and retrieved.With accomodation of new to old knowledge adeliberate reappraisal of existing schemata isactioned so that strategies in thinking and applyingknowledge and skills are modified, improved andworking memory loading is reduced.95

Memory7The operation of the working memory system is shown in greater detail in Figure 14. Thishighlights key areas of difficulty for poor readers and possible teaching approaches. Fromthe learning event in the child’s consciousness, sensory inputs arrive at the child’s fivesensory registers, auditory, visual, motor, gustatory and olfactory. Sensory registers shouldnot be thought of as boxes or containers, research using brain imaging procedures hasestablished that these are neural connections in the prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, anteriorcingulate and basal ganglia. It has also been confirmed that these systems are usuallydeveloped in the foetus by the second or third month after conception, and individualdifferences in these systems are usually congenital.These registers have only very limited duration, holding information only for a fewhundred milliseconds, and working memory systems such as the articulatory loop used torepeat the auditory sequence, the visuo-spatial scratch pad used to reproduce to reproducethe incoming visual information, or episodic buffer used to link incoming auditory, visualand motor information, are applied to reinforce and extend the duration of the incomingtrace. Learners should be taught to apply these boosting systems continually to allsensory information.Miller (1956) showed that auditory short term memory span of normal young adults wasaround seven items, regardless of whether the elements were digits, letters, words, or otherentities. Later research established that capacity depends upon the category of the chunks,7 for digits, 6 for letters 5 for words, depending upon the time taken to speak the contentsaloud and whether the words are known or not. When compared with these normalfigures, language disadvantaged/dyslexic learners show significant limitations in shortterm memory span.PerceptionThe incoming sensory information, however limited must be recognized in the processof perception which operates in the central executive of working memory. Perception isthe process of identifying something and making sense of it in terms of organized pastexperience. In the past, philosophers/psychologists considered that the child’s mind was aclean sheet (tabula rasa), but in the last twenty years neuroscientists, using brain imagingtechniques have established that the cerebral cortex is pre-programmed and neurologically,organized before birth to process sensory inputs, motor control, emotions and naturalresponses. (See Rakic P (1988), also Kalisman N., Silberg G., and Makram H. (2005))The ‘pre-programmed or not?’ debate has thrown up some very interesting suggestions,e.g. that speech and language may be pre-programmed in some learners but notothers. It may be that language disadvantaged and dyslexic students fall into the ‘notpre-programmed’ group. Steven Pinker (2002) argues that the brain is pre-programmed tolearn spoken language, but is not programmed to learn to read and write, and he contendsthat generally, human beings will not spontaneously learn to do so.Perception can be a very inefficient processPerception operates across all our information gathering and problem solving situations,and often is less effective than we think. Nietzsche (1888) rightly points out theinadequacy of perception, ‘There are no facts, only interpretations.’ Perception is seldoma 100% accurate process. It requires adequate skill in the basic senses of vision, hearing,touch, taste and smell, and sufficient spare capacity in working memory for the process96

Memory7to operate effectively. If we are busy or preoccupied, the process can be less accurate thanusual, and for reading failing students whose capacity and skills in working memory arelimited. In the classroom they can be subjected to severe stresses, placing an additionalrestriction upon storage and processing capabilities, and perception can be an extremelyinefficient process. Sympathetic repeated presentations of the sensory information to belearned are necessary for these reading failing students.So much information is constantly fed to the brain that if we paid attention to all ofit, our information processing competences would be so greatly over-loaded andswamped by the minutiae of the surrounding environment that we would understandnothing, and do nothing. Therefore the first step in perception must be the selectivefocusing of attention by the learner on major relevant aspects of the chosen stimulus,isolated from surrounding conflicting sensory information. With attention firmlyfocused upon the selected incoming sensory information, the process of identification/recognition can be implemented.There is a continuing debate in the literature (see Gregory 1987) about the extent towhich perception is an active process of hypothesis testing, or whether realistic sensoryinformation available to the student is rich enough to facilitate direct perception. Forstudents with literacy difficulties who have significant working memory limitations, itis very unlikely that perception is a direct process. They will therefore be involved inconstructing a hypothesis from recalled past experience of same or similar events, andby matching the perceptual data with this construct reach a decision about the identityof the incoming stimulus.Once the constructed hypothesis has been evaluated and matched, the incomingperceptual data is discarded and the student accepts that the construct is the event.Student expectations are very important in determining the outcome of this process. Anexperiment devised originally by Siipola (1935) and reported by Hardy and Heyes (1999)demonstrates the point. A group of subjects were told to expect words about animals. Asecond group was told to expect words about boats. Both groups were then shown thesame stimuli:sael, wharlThose who were told to expect animals read the words as ‘seal’ and ‘whale.’ Those whowere told to expect boats read the words as ‘sail’ and ‘wharf.’Similar predetermined responses are reported by Bruner and Minturn (1955). Theyshowed one group of students sets of letters, and a second group sets of numbers.They then gave both groups the stimulus:Those who had been shown letters reported the stimulus as ‘B,’ while those who hadbeen shown numbers, reported it as ‘13.’ It is apparent that what we ‘see’ is not what wehave seen, but what our previously organized experience determined that we should see.Also, what we hear is what our constructed expectations determined we should hear. It97

Memory7is clear that by careful preparation, the teacher can ‘create’ for the student the particularperception required for the learner’s immediate skill development.It must be appreciated by learner and teacher, that the meaning the learner attributesto the stimulus provided by teacher is not wholly derived from that stimulus, but fromthe student’s organized past experience used to construct the perception hypothesis.Hence the importance for both teacher and learner, particularly in language learning, ofa shared appreciation of sequence/structure, how what has gone before leads smoothlyinto what comes next, thus providing the learner with an over-view of the skill beinglearned. With this assistance the learner’s working memory executive actively andpre-consciously seeks to make the required sense of the incoming material, linking it towhat has gone before, and perhaps even more significantly, to what will come after.The efficiency of the perception process is built up over time by many experienceswith the object or situation until the learner has achieved a high level of skill in recognizing/perceivingthe particular stimulus. At that skilled performance level, a simplesensory cue in any of the auditory, visual motor, olfactory or gustatory modalities, callsup automatically, the whole linked group of previous associations, and we recognize thestimulus instantly from our experience. Inputs from olfactory and gustatory registersshould not be neglected, as recent research from the University of Utrecht has establishedthat a stimulus in these registers is more effective in recall of distant memories from longterm store than the other more frequently used auditory, visual or motor modalities.In facilitating this automatic level of competence in literacy and throughout the widerschool curriculum, our network of relevant past experiences must be organized andinter-connected multisensorily so that it is fully effective and operable in interpretingeach incoming piece of information. Your network will be different from mine, andthough we may achieve consensus on the simple perception of most stimuli, when weget down to in-depth comparisons, and the interpretation of significant details, therewill be differences between us on the finer shades of meaning. As Kant (1724-1804) sowisely observed, ‘We see things not as they are, but as we are.’We can summarize the perceptual difficulties usually observed in reading failingchildren as:1. Initial difficulty in selecting and focusing upon the essential relevant aspectsof the incoming sensory stimulus.2. The size/complexity of the perceptual load which can be handled by thereading failing student in his limited working memory.3. The retrieval and application of previous relevant material stored in longterm memory to facilitate the hypothesis matching situation.The reading failing student’s different learning/thinking strategies inworking memoryWith the working memory/perceptual difficulties described above, in any learning/thinking situation, the capacity of working memory determines the possibility of aresponse and its complexity, but not its simplicity and not its elegance.Limitations in working memory capacity restrict the size of the information-processingload that the system can handle at any given moment and reduce the speed andefficiency of the process. If a student has a 10-unit capacity in working memory and98

Memory7is dealing with a ten-unit problem he is able to comprehend, absorb and work on iteffectively. If however, the problem is of a twelve-unit complexity, he will be unable tomanage it. Scarce capacity in working memory expended in one activity is necessarilycapacity and attention not available for another.But limitations in working memory do not determine how cleverly the particular issueat hand is dealt with. Once the relevant information is available for consideration inworking memory, it may be thought about at a low or high level. Getting it in there(i), and retaining it whilst it is being thought about must be seen as a different issuefrom (ii) solving the problem intelligently. The different learning/thinking strategiescharacteristic of dyslexia are much more related to (i) than (ii). Teachers must take thesealternative-thinking strategies resulting from limitations in working memory capacityinto account in their teaching.Deficits in working memoryOver the past thirty years research into aspects of working memory has identified arange of difficulties which affect dyslexic students. These are set out in abbreviated formin Box 3.Box 3Working memory deficits indyslexia1. Children with dyslexia show restricted capacity in working memory. They retainfewer sounds, digits, words, phrases, sentences, instructions, shapes, movementpatterns, tastes, and smells over the short term. This results in poor immediatestorage of incoming information leading to fragmented and inefficient encoding,so that later retrieval is limited and uncertain.2. Children with dyslexia show restricted capacity in working memory, leading topoor processing and limited operational control of multifaceted skills, such asreading comprehension, essay writing, or complex calculations.3. Children with dyslexia show poor concentration and limited focusing of attentionso that all operations in working memory are unreliable.4. Children with dyslexia show a slower speed of perception of incoming information.5. Children with dyslexia are unable to discard information quickly from workingmemory. They are unable to free up valuable working memory capacity to get onwith the next task of taking in further information or applying previous relevantknowledge retrieved from long-term memory.6. Children with dyslexia show poor organization of material held in working memoryand lack of strategies to facilitate recall after 300 milliseconds.7. Children with dyslexia show limited control of sequentially ordered sub-skills inlong schemata operated in working memory.The act of remembering is not passive; after some 300 milliseconds, it requires theapplication of strategies for continued recalling and encoding which will necessitate thefocusing of attention, rehearsal, organization and grouping which the dyslexic seems tobe unable to apply, but could be taught to do so.Given a six figure string of digits to recall, an untrained learner will simply take themas heard or seen, 6 – 5 – 7 – 8 – 2 – 4, occupying six of the available spaces in working99

Memory7memory. However, organized in groups, and using rhythm, pitch and tone in encoding,this becomes:6 7 8 45 2These two linked groups are more easily managed, occupying only two spaces in workingmemory. Considerable information processing advantages accrue from ‘chunking’and giving the material rhythm and tune.Over the past thirty years, research has shown that memory skills can be improved byboth neuropharmacological approaches (drug treatments) and cognitive training. In thischapter we will concentrate upon the improvement of memory skills by psychologicalmanagement and teaching approaches.Currently in education teachers teach much factual material, in reading, spelling, writing,numeracy and the wider curriculum. This must be remembered by the student anddelivered back to teacher in tests and examinations. In Special Education we shake ourheads when we hear about the physics teacher who asserts, ‘Its not my job to teach Samhow to read, write and spell!’ but are we equally concerned when we hear of the historyteacher who asserts, ‘Its not my job to teach Sam how to remember dates and historicalfacts.’ The reality in schools has been that teachers have expected learners to developfor themselves a range of appropriate memory strategies unaided, by working withcurriculum material. Teachers have tended not to use a direct teaching approach to thenecessary skills of remembering. They have not explained what memory skills are, whatthey do, and how they work, so that they may be understood, applied and improved bythe learner.Teaching memory skillsThe direct teaching of memory skills is necessary.Whilst in our current education system direct memory training is not seen as beingnecessary or ‘politically correct,’ other education systems, functioning in other societieswith a less advanced technological base, have done it differently. Currently what weseem to be doing is rediscovering the vital principles and strategies used by other educatorsin earlier education systems, which lacked the technological advances of cheap andreadily available paper, writing implements, and computers. We take these for granted,and good though this technology is, and inarguably useful, it has fostered laziness inteaching and learning, because we assume that there is no need to remember what canbe written down, or stored in a computer, and carried with us. As a result, the skills ofremembering are not developed, resulting in further cognitive and curriculum deficits.In Greek and Roman societies, great writers and thinkers did not write much whenjudged by our standards. Their available technology simply did not support prolificwriting. The stylus and wax tablet did not fit easily into your toga pocket, papyrus wasexpensive, a luxury material in short supply, and the sand tray or stone tablet were verylimiting. So the well educated Greek or Roman was trained by his education systemto construct a long and complex argument in memory, and talk about his ideas veryskillfully and at length rather than write about them. A substantial memory trainingprogramme was part of the process. They were trained to visualize a house and put a key100

Memory7point in each of the rooms. This led to the practice of mentioning the points: ‘In the firstplace ...,’ then, ‘in the second place ...’ Scholarship, which was almost entirely oral, reliedvery heavily on memory for effective construction, storage, retrieval and delivery, andrequired memory training as a part of the education process. Somehow, in the secondhalf of the twentieth century, when teachers threw out the slates and chalks, they lostthe art of memory training in class.Effective working memory skillsThese procedures are summarized in Box 4.Box 4Teaching working memorystrategies1. Teach the skills of encoding, i.e. the grouping and organizing strategies neededto facilitate the representation of incoming information in a more meaningfuland user friendly form for (a) immediate storage and manipulation, and (b) longterm storage and recalling. Here, the application of the multisensory encodingdeveloped for literacy learning is essential, and facilitates both storageand retrieval.2. Teach the learner to develop greater use of capacities of the short-term stores,particularly auditory, visual and motor modalities. The skills of linking,organizing, and chunking are particularly relevant at this stage, and multisensoryencoding, maximizes use of available capacity.3. The cross-modal transfer of information must be drilled until it is a fluent skill.It is essential to ensure that the learner can represent sounds as shapes andmovement patterns, shapes as sounds and movement patterns, and movementpatterns as sounds and shapes.4. The fast removal of information already processed and dealt with from workingmemory should be drilled. Timed games requiring fast recall and repetition often auditory, visual or motor inputs can be played with the aim of significantlyreducing the required time with practice.5. Research has shown that in a learning task, with increasing time of application,there are significant fatigue effects in working memory in both auditory andvisual modalities. To keep working memory operating at an effective level ofefficiency, it is necessary to train the learner to be aware of this effect, and aftera period of time, to switch the encoding process into the alternative modality toovercome this inefficiency.6. In teaching children with literacy difficulties the concept of ‘structure’ is verysignificant in facilitating effective use of working memory. The new skill orpiece of information being taught should be directly related to what was taughtyesterday and to what will be taught tomorrow so that each new piece of work isclearly seen to have its place in the overall development plan. The shape of thatplan, and the location of today’s piece in relation to yesterday’s and tomorrow’sis an important part of the remembering process, This needs to be understoodby both learner and teacher. This deliberate linking and association (see Piaget)of new material with the already established body of knowledge in long-termmemory, is an essential part of ensuring that recall from long-term memory ismore efficient.101

Memory77. Mediation of the material being taught is very important. The more meaningfulthe material to be learned becomes and the more relevant it is made to thelearner, the stronger the processes of encoding will be and the more effective thelater processes of storage and retrieval will become.8. Frequent planned revisions of material covered are essential. Tony Buzan (1978),stressed that the effects of the ‘forgetting curve’ are very significant uponun-revised learning. This is seen in Figure 19. Initially, in the first ten minutesafter the course, there is a gain in the recalled material. This is followed by a verysharp loss in learned material with Buzan, by his own calculations, placing this ashigh as 80% of all learned material being forgotten in 24 hours. He suggests thatfour carefully planned revision sessions are necessary. The first, ten minutes afterthe course, should last ten minutes, the second, after one day, should last twominutes, the third, after seven days, should last two minutes, and the fourth, afterone month, should last two minutes. Buzan asserts that this should place thematerial effectively in long-term memory, and only minor reappraisal is necessaryto keep the material accessible at the level of automaticity.Figure 15The need for plannedrevisionImmediately after a lesson, the information retained by students rises slightly, thenfalls steeply. Buzan (1974) reported that 80% of the material from a lesson was forgottenwithin 24 hours.Material retained in memory75%50%25%R1 R2 R32 468 10Time in daysFigure 15 shows the deterioration of material retained over time, along with the reviewprocedure to keep material permanently accessible at the level of automaticity. The essentialreview sessions to keep recall of material high are:Review 1: Given 10 minutes after lessonReview 2: Given 1 day after lessonReview 3: Given 7 days after lessonReview 4: Given 1 month after lessonDuration: 10 minutesDuration: 2 minutesDuration: 2 minutesDuration: 2 minutesThis review procedure will keep material permanently accessible at a level of automaticity.Be aware of the use of memory pegs in facilitating more effective recalling. Memorypegs are the cognitive equivalent of catalysts in chemistry. They facilitate the actionbut are not themselves part of it. Memory pegs are particularly interesting chunksof information, relevant to a particular piece of learning, which, when inserted intothe learning situation hold it together, facilitate it and significantly increase thelearner’s possibilities of recalling it.102

Memory7David Crystal has given a neat example of this process. He noted that after reading thefollowing sentences, some children with dyslexia were unable to retain enough of the senseto answer even the most basic comprehension questions.‘The steam lorry was designed by Cugnot. Cugnot was a Frenchman. The workingmodel blew up. Some people were injured. Cugnot was sent to prison.’Crystal thought about the text, and inserted one historically inaccurate sentence, ‘Manypeople thought that Cugnot was mad.’ He then rechecked the comprehensibility of theexpanded text. When the readers were questioned on what the story was about they repliedthat it was about that madman, Cugnot. Following this, they were able to respond surprisinglyeffectively to questions which previously had been unanswerable. Because of theintroduction of an extraneous, inaccurate but interesting fact, all the other material in thepassage was retained and accessed much more efficiently.Train the learner to use a ‘carrier system.’ This technique is based upon the generallystrong effect of visual association in recalling. This system is simple, direct, and verypopular because it appears to work well for most people. Initially, the learner memorizesa list of unrelated items in a given sequence. This is easy because of the obvious rhymingand sequencing effects. This is then used as a framework for all other learning, particularlyif this is in ‘list’ form. The carrier list is: one, bun; two, shoe; three, tree; four, door; five,hive; six, sticks; seven, heaven; eight, plate; nine, wine; ten, hen. This framework providespegs in memory upon which other information to be learned can be hung. The learnerlinks the new material to be learned to this set of pegs seeking to create as strong a visuallink as possible.In applying this technique to learning the inert gases from the Periodic Table of Elements,the second item on the list is neon. The learner must create a strong visual image such asa large shoe-shaped neon sign flashing brightly in the gloom! For further details seeBuzan (1978).Social and behavioural skillsBecause of different brain hemispheric specialism, speech/language deficits and cognitivedifficulties, the literacy failing student’s social and behavioural skills are frequently limited,and further impaired by the impact of overt failure in class. In the assessment process, thismay be confirmed using the Children’s Personality Questionnaire, or for older students, the16PF Test. Children failing in literacy ttend to prefer small familiar groups to larger morecomplex social situations. Often a lack of conformity to social rules and their application togroup situations is evident.A high level of anxiety is sometimes observed, particularly in larger, more complex groupsor courses demanding literacy, where failure is anticipatedSusan Hampshire, the famous English actress, who is very creative but dyslexic and whohas worked since the 1970s tirelessly on behalf of children with dyslexia, has summed upthis profile very effectively, ‘It is a lonely existence to be a child with a disability no one cansee or understand. You exasperate your teachers, disappoint your parents, and worst of all,know that you are not just stupid.’103

Memory7Complex social problemsAre the occurrences which teachers categorize as behavioural difficulties another facetof working memory weakness in solving complex social problems?The true causal factors underlying ‘behavioural difficulties’ are often difficult to identifybut are important in facilitating a solution to the problem. Does the student fail toconform to teacher expectations because he does not want to or, because of limitedinformation processing competences, he is unable to do so? Failure to respond to instructionsmay not be deliberate disobedience, and should not be classified as such withoutmore detailed inspection.Whilst once on a lecture tour, I stayed with a family who had become my friends. Theywere very concerned by the educational problems faced by their dyslexic son. Though veryintelligent, at age 9 years, Sam was some three years retarded in reading skills. It was thisaspect of his development which occupied his parents’ and teachers’ attention and theyseemed not to recognize his other clearly evident cognitive and curriculum weaknesses.Sam’s problems were exacerbated by the fact that both parents were able, intelligentachievers but the father himself showed signs of reading difficulty/dyslexia which he didnot accept and continually denied. Consequently he could be less than understanding andsympathetic to his son’s problems. One evening, father returned late from work, tired andfrustrated by his stressful day. He went upstairs, took one look at Sam’s cluttered and untidyroom and shouted, ‘get this tip tidied up,’ a short terse instruction but what did it meanto Sam, and what did it convey of the complex problems he needed to solve and what heshould do in response?Sam stood at his bedroom door, uneasy but unmoving, his eyes fixed on the electronicgame in his hand, but not really attending to it. Five minutes later father returned, andwhen he saw that Sam had done nothing, his shout was even louder, referring very directlyand rather impolitely to Sam’s ‘disobedience.’ The effect of this on Sam was so catastrophicthat very reluctantly, and only after an initial apology, I interfered, advising father toobserve, and by implication, learn.I said to Sam, ‘pick up all the papers; sort them into two piles, those you want, and thoseyou don’t want. Put those you want in your desk, and throw the others in the waste-paperbasket.’ Because the instruction contained only six sequenced elements, which was within(but only just within) his auditory short-term memory capacity, Sam accomplished thiswithout trouble in a few minutes. ‘Now lift the pencils and crayons and put them in the boxon your desk.’ This instruction was also quickly carried out. I then said to Sam, ‘Now pickup all your clothes, sort them into two piles. Those which are dirty and need washing, putin the wash basket, and those which are still clean, put in the drawers in your cupboard.’Sam happily accomplished that in a few minutes. ‘Now pick up your toys and return themto your toy box.’ Job done! Sam happily resumed playing with his video game.Later, I explained to father, Sam cannot analyse and sequence into the appropriate order,the steps required to complete a complex task like that. Nor could he control the requiredlong and involved sequence of steps in his limited working memory capacity. This is one ofthe key problems in his learning which underlies his reading difficulty. Sam is a good ‘smallelement’ problem solver but is bad at managing large complex problems containing manyelements. He is certainly not disobedient. His difficulty is not the ‘won’t do’ underlying yourclassification of ‘disobedience,’ it is ‘can’t do,’ which is attributable to his working memory104

Memory7limitations. In the problem you set him he did not know where to start, how to go on, andhow to manage all the steps necessary to finish. This is an inherent part of his dyslexia. Tofacilitate his development, ask him initially to solve only ‘small problems,’ but graduallyincrease the size and complexity of the instructions you give him and the problems youask him to solve, explaining your meaning and the actions he should take where necessary.These are essential steps on his way to more effective problem solving, and better literacyand social skills.My observations on aspects of behavioural difficulty being related to underlying cognitiveand language problems are supported by the views which Janet Thompson expressed in herofsted Report, September, 2010, where, in considering the questionable practice in schoolsof identifying a greatly increased number of boys with special educational needs, shestated, ‘We did find examples of young people identified as having behavioural, emotionaland social difficulties which, if you unpicked the reasons for that, were actually around theinability to read and write.’In my view the most significant behavioural difficulty experienced by literacy failingstudents is the inability to predict the outcome of their own actions. This requires thatthe operating schema for the behavioural activity under consideration is held in workingmemory, and extended sequentially to a future hypothetical situation, where it has tobe evaluated against parental/school/society/legal norms, retrieved from long term store,which might apply to that particular event. This behaviour evaluating process is extremelycomplex, and requires well developed working memory capacity and operating skillswhich these students do not have. Consequently, they commence the activity, and withacquaintances find it amusing, extend and intensify it, and follow on without appreciatingthat by extending the activity they are breaking home/school/society’s rules. Unanticipatedsanctions follow which further alienate these students from the social group. Whilesociety’s response of some form of punishment is not questioned, an essential aspect of theresolution must be the development of metacognitive control over the student’s workingmemory competences, which is discussed later in this text.Automaticity the key issueThe failure to achieve automaticity in the control of complex multi-facetted skills isthe key issue.Sam was still a small, step-by-step problem solver, with a limited and restricting workingmemory capacity; he had not developed an automatic level of control over learning, literacy,and behavioural skills. These complex tasks, and their attendant requirements in informationprocessing, greatly exceeded his capacity to control the process effectively resultingin no response or very fragmented performance of the required skill. This brings us tothe heart of the problems caused by dyslexia. The central issue is failure to establish atthe successive stages of development, an effective level of automatic control (automaticity)over required skills. Automaticity is defined as the ability to do things without occupyingworking memory with the low-level processes required, enabling the activity to becomean automatic response pattern or habit. Automaticity results from learning, repetition andextended practice.In learning, achieving a level of automaticity is of great value to the student because itcompacts the skill, making it a smaller unit and enabling it to be controlled more easilyin working memory, thus leaving capacity free to think about other things or to carry out105

Memory7another activity. In plain language, it is developing such a level of control over skills thatyou can do two, three, or even four things at the same time. Are you such a multi-tasker?Research by Lyn Wadley et al.. (2009) establishhes that multitasking has been observed inhuman behaviour for some 70,000 years. But awareness of the implications of multi-taskingin learning and problem solving is much more recent. Watson and Strayer (2010) assertthat a substantial section of the population cannot manage two simultaneous activitieseffectively in working memory. There will always be a reduction in efficiency level in thedelivery of the required skills. Their research shows that for most of us, talking on a cellphone whilst driving, which requires already busy space in working memory, is dangerous.In this condition, braking was 20% slower, car gap was increased by 30%, memory performancedeclined by 11%, and calculation ability fell by 3%.Further research carried out by Dr. Nick Reed of the Transport Research Laboratory showedthat when drivers listen to a sports commentary, again competing for busy workingmemory space, their emergency stopping distance was 10% further than that achievedby drivers who exceeded the UK legal blood alcohol limit of 80 mg/100 ml of blood. Thisfinding confirms that when you exceed working memory capacity, by diverting attentionand capacity to other peripheral matters, your driving is even less effective than when youare drunk.For these researchers, the ability to multi-task is normally distributed, i.e., a few ofus are very good at it, the vast majority have more limited multi-tasking skill, and a few ofus are extremely poor at it. It is in this latter group with very limited multi-tasking capability,that we find the reading failing section of the population.In their 1988 paper, ‘Automaticity, a new framework for dyslexia research,’ Rod Nicholsonand Angela Fawcett compared 13 year old children with dyslexia with same-age controlson a test of motor balance. Each test was performed twice, once as a single task, and onceas a dual task concurrently with a secondary task. In all single conditions, there was nodifference between the two groups. In 19 out of 20 tasks performed in dual task conditionschildren with dyslexia were significantly impaired. Nicholson and Fawcett concluded thatthe reading deficits of children with dyslexia were symptoms of a more general deficit, thefailure to fully automate skills.Much work has been done in the usa on the importance of automaticity in the developmentof effective reading spelling and writing skills. One of many papers addressing this themeis Hook and Jones, 2002, The importance of automaticity and fluency for efficient readingcomprehension. Jones and Christensen (1999) have demonstrated the importance of automaticityin orthographic-motor integration in the written expression of ideas. Importantthough such research is, the automaticity topic has not gained the same attention fromdyslexia researchers in Europe.Different aspects of working memoryWhat are the effects of individual differences in aspects of working memory?There are individual differences in the relative capacities of the auditory, visual, motor, tasteand smell sub-systems in working memory; but learners also differ in their ability to usethe sub-systems together, i.e. multisensorily, and in their ability to co-ordinate and balancethe demands of remembering, recalling, and controlling activities. Consequently those with106

Memory7smaller temporary storage capacity in the auditory, visual, motor, taste and smell aspectsof working memory, (i.e. literacy failing children), will experience predictable problems inhandling large schemata, such as the skills of reading, spelling, writing, and numeracy.Working memory and literacy skillsThere are predictable effects of working memory limitations on literacy skills.The restricted working memory capacity of literacy failing children limits their ability tohandle the schemata for long complex skills such as speech and reading. Every learner hasa schema or recipe for reading, and we must now take a closer look at the complexity ofthat schema. Whilst no teacher would teach the activity in this rigid sequential way, all thelisted sub-skills set out in Box 5 must be controlled sequentially, to ensure effective performance.In temporal order, the major sub-skills are: move eyes in the appropriate direction,depending on the language system, to take in shapes, which may be letters, syllables, words,phrases, or lines, depending upon the learner’s skills. The visual chunk seen must berecognized, and the appropriate sound linked. In reading aloud, the sounds of that chunkmust be said. The sense of the chunk is extracted and stored temporarily. Finally, the wholemeaning is constructed, and recalled for effective action.Box 5Schema for readingThis consists of 11 sub-skills which have to be mastered, sequenced into the requiredorder, and controlled in a busy working memory system.Where do I start?Move eyes along text in required directionTake in shape(s)RecognizeLink soundSayExtract meaningStore temporarilyBuild whole meaningRecallUseBecause of inefficient working memory skills, literacy failing children find the applicationand control of the 11-element strategy difficult. Consequently, their eventual storage anduse of the meaning in the text is inefficient and incomplete.Successful performance of this schema places a heavy load on working memory. Whenimplementing this complex sequential schema, the errors made by the literacy failingstudent are understandable and, indeed, predictable. Ask any such student to read a givenpassage, count his word recognition errors, and then check the sense he retains fromthe passage. Then tell him he must read a passage of similar complexity, concentratingon getting the words right. This time he will make fewer errors of word recognition buthis comprehension will be much less effective. Now give him a third passage of similarcomplexity and tell him he must read it aloud and be sure to remember the sense. Inthis trial he will make many more word recognition errors but his comprehension will bemuch more effective than in trials 1 and 2. He can focus on, and improve one aspect of theschema he is delivering, but only to the detriment of other aspects.107

Memory7Similar errors brought about by student choices in the use of limited working memorycapacity are also evident in continuous writing. The schema for continuous writing is evenmore complex than the one already described for reading. It is summarized in Box 6.She writes, “The best part of school is the parties we have. In the middle of the night whenthe moon is standing like a swollen silver coin in the sky, we creep out of our beds andtip-toe downstairs into the basement. ‘Shall we have it under the table?’ says one shiveringgirl, her gaze falling upon the secure four footed plank”. She then goes on to describe theillicit mid-night party with humour and very creative use of visual detail.Box 6Schema for writingMotorWritingSpellingSyntaxSemanticsEyes register pen position in space and relate to pagePreferred arm stretched out required distanceHand moved into required positionFingers and thumb apposed to grasp penPen lifted and manipulated to give flexible movement in requiredposition onpagePen moved to make letter shapes which must be legibleLetters must be organized using spelling rules to construct words inrequired language sequenceSyntactic structure rules applied to build sentencesUsed to express idea organized in paragraphs to convey meaningcogentlyNote that the skills listed on the left are, themselves, ‘big skills’ made up of linked set of sequentially organizedsub-skills. Continuous writing is a very complex and its control in working memory is very difficult forliteracy failing students.Initially, the student must hold the pencil in the chosen hand, with thumb, index andfirst fingers providing a grip which is sufficiently flexible to facilitate writing. Then thestudent’s eyes must register the pencil position in space, and relate it to the requiredposition on the page. Then the chosen hand must be stretched out the required distanceand moved into position for writing. The pencil must then be moved to make a mark,which with practice becomes skilled to make letter shapes in the sequence requiredby the language to build words. The student must then apply syntactic structural rulesto build meaningful sentences and, finally, apply knowledge of semantics to expressideas in paragraphs which must be organized into a coherent sequence to provide therequired cogent written response.Again, the loading which this extremely complex procedure places on the dyslexicstudent’s working memory skills is much too heavy for effective management in theseinsecure processes. This can clearly be seen by examining Camilla’s continuous writingskill. This is shown in Figure 16a. She is very creative and has wonderful ideas but withher limited working memory competence she is a long way from achieving automaticcontrol over the continuous writing skill. When expressing complex ideas in paragraphscomprised of ordered sentences, with each word having to be spelled and each lettercorrectly formed, the task greatly exceeds Camilla’s memory capacity; she cannot controlthe schema and her loss of control is evidenced by the frequency of wrongly constructedletter shapes and a high rate of spelling errors.108

Memory7Figure 16aCamilla’s writingNote: What she is trying to write, “The best part of school is the parties we have. In the middle of thenight when the moon is standing like a swollen silver coin in the sky, we creep out of our beds and tip-toedownstairs into the basement. ‘Shall we have it under the table?’ says one shivering girl, her gaze fallingupon the secure four footed plank”. She then goes on to describe the illicit mid-night party with humourand very creative use of visual detail.In Figure 16b, it can be seen that when the load on her working memory is reduced byhaving to write only a single simple sentence, Camilla produces much more acceptableletter shapes in handwriting, and her spelling error rate is much lower.Figure 16bCamilla’s writingIn this section we have been scrutinizing the underlying profile of difficulties experiencedby the dyslexic child in learning and managing “big skills”. i.e. those containing asequence of elements which must be controlled and delivered in order. To sum up, it isevident that the failing student shows initial difficulty in mastering the component subskills.Then he has problems sequencing the sub-skills into the required order for thesuccessful completion of the activity. Subsequently, he shows weakness in integratingthe sub-skills into an efficient manageable unit. Difficulty at this level results in undulyslow delivery of the required skill. Finally, he has difficulty operating the sequence, ata level of automaticity when his working memory is busy doing other things. Theseuncertainties are observed in the development of motor, memory, speech, reading,spelling, writing, numeracy, and behavioural competences. This detailed analysisconfirms that the perspective observed from psychological assessments is accuratelydescribed in the Rose and Chasty definitions previously considered.109

Memory7SummaryTests of each component modality of short-term memory skills are documented, andthe need for detailed observation and analysis of memory deficits evident from otherstudent/teacher interaction situations discussed. It is stressed that the identificationof students’ working memory deficiencies is only the first step towards a much moresignificant action, designing and implementing the necessary direct skills trainingneeded to improve students’ working memory competences.The effects of working memory deficiencies upon social and behavioural skills developmentare considered with reference to a particular student, Sam. This facilitatesconsideration of the key cognitive difficulty for dyslexic students: failure to establishat successive stages of development an effective level of automatic control over multifacettedskills, with schemata comprised of complex sequential programmes of sub-skills.It is concluded that in any complex activity, literacy failing children showed initial weaknessin mastering the component sub-skills, later weakness in integrating the sub-skillsinto a cohesive manageable unit and, finally, difficulty in controlling and operatingthe schema automatically when working memory was busy doing other things. In thisparticular sequence of deficiencies, the central core problem of dyslexia is highlighted.Examples of the work of children with dyslexia showing the effects of lack of automaticityare discussed.110

Structured multisensoryprogrammes 8Chapter 8Structured multisensory programmesMetacognitive control and multisensory learningIt is important to apply ‘metacognitive’ control to multisensory learning.Reading is the ability to extract the meaning from the visual representation of the textin whatever sequential order the text requires, expressing the ideas aloud in words forothers, and storing them in memory for later evaluation, recall and further use. Wehave already considered the complexity of the necessary schema and now must turnour attention to how this is constructed for the learner.The start point for this schema is in the preschool years, at home, or in the nurseryschool. The child plays with motor skills related to the muscles of tongue, lips andteeth, to produce sounds, mimicking, copying, and experimenting, and after practiceand, sometimes, help from parents, uses controlled sounds to express meaning withincreasing precision. As has been discussed earlier in this paper, the establishment andstrengthening of these auditory-kinaesthetic-semantic (aks) links, freeing up scarceworking memory capacity for higher level thinking, is probably the most importantstep the child must make in cognitive development.This was confirmed by Vygotsky, founder and Scientific Director of the Institute for thestudy of handicapped children, Moscow, who said,‘In the course of intellectual development of higher psychological processes,the most significant moment occurs when speech and practical activity, twopreviously independent lines of development converge.’Vygotsky regarded the establishment of the link between the sound of the word and itsmotor movement pattern as a vital tool or process in the cognitive development of thelearner. He highlights this fusion of systems, facilitating the labeling, transfer and useof information from one storage bin or ‘modality’ to another. This enables movementpatterns to be represented by words and, eventually, ideas encoded as words to berepresented by movement patterns on paper, i.e. writing.This development gives rise to more effective, left hemisphere controlled, meaningfulspeech, a different, more education-friendly system for representing ideas, and more111

Structured multisensoryprogrammes 8efficient control over complex behaviour. If teachers are looking for one skill that leadsto better language, literacy, numeracy and behaviour, this is it. Like Baroness Warnock,I am amazed that on the way to identifying and reducing special educational needs inschools, the educational establishment has not given greater attention to the improvementof this key skill.Professor Paul Mellars of Cambridge University in a paper given to the Royal SocietyConference, (Sept 2010), established that historically, humans developed this particularskill only 100,000 years ago, and this important language development led to a markedincrease in symbolic thinking ability. This view provides support for my own finding,(Chasty 1973) of the close relationship between language development and the establishmentof abstract verbal thinking capability.Figure 17How aks phonologicalstructure learned forspeech underlies literacyacquisitionIn pre-school langauge development, young children must develop linksbetween object or idea, the sound made to represent it, and the movementpattern of tongue lips and teeth required to say.IdeaMuscle controlin speechStructureof languageSound saidTeachers use this phonological structure for speech regardless of itsintegrity in developing reading skills.IdeaMotor systems forspeech and writingPhonologicalstructure oflanguageShape seen(added by teacher)Sound saidWith growing control over speech musculature, and developing appreciation ofsound-meaning relationships, the child progresses to express his ideas in words, andlater, sentences. This gives him access to a phonological structure of language depictedin Figure 17. By operating this schema he can listen to words and turn them into meaning.He can also express his ideas as sounds in words for others.In school, at the beginning of reading instruction, the teacher must build upon thisalready established speech structure, whatever its integrity. If the child’s speech structureis absent or defective, the teacher’s approach to reading will be much more difficult.To accomplish this, eight two-way links must be established between the shape of theletter, syllable or word, the sound it represents when said, the movement pattern made112

Structured multisensoryprogrammes 8by tongue lips and mouth to say, or the movement pattern made by the student’s handto write it, and the meaning it represents, thus building a much more complex, butcognitively versatile (vaks) language structure.For the dyslexic student who experiences difficulty in motor skills, laterality, perceptionor working memory, the establishment and control of these essential cross-modal linkswill be difficult. Equally the language disadvantaged student, who because of unsuitablelanguage experience has not established the aks speech structure, will also find thesecross-modal linkages for reading difficult to develop. If these students are taught by‘look and say’ or simple phonics methods, they cannot build the cross-modal linkagesfor themselves and will fail in reading.Regardless of whether their literacy difficulty is hereditary or environmental, theselinks must be deliberately constructed by the teacher, using structured multi-sensorymethods to enable reading failing students to learn to read effectively. In structuredmultisensory teaching, there are regular daily drills with a reading pack, which requiresthe learner to look at the letter on the card, say the clue word, and repeat the lettersound. This enables the learner to develop a carefully structured, steadily increasing repertoireof letter-clue word-sound links. The second drill with the spelling pack requiresthe learner to listen to the sound, repeat it, name the letter representing that soundand simultaneously write it. This process is described in greater detail with accompanyingpractical activities in Dyslexia International’s course, Dyslexia: How to identify itand what to do. Using these techniques the learner builds up a developing repertoireof words which can be read and spelled accurately. Perceptual and working memoryadvantages accrue from the visual-auditory-kinaesthetic-semantic links established inthis process.Principles of multisensory teachingGroup sizeThis kind of teaching is most effective in a smaller group setting, but initially studentswith severe literacy difficulties may need ‘one-to-one’ teaching, with a specially trainedexpert teacher. Whilst such teaching is very beneficial, it is very costly. With appropriatetraining, teachers can manage structured multisensory teaching with larger groups.In the 1980s I was privileged to hold discussions on the effectiveness of multisensoryteaching with Agnes Wolf, an associate of Samuel Orton, joint author of the OrtonGillingham Stillman Programme, which was the seminal work upon which all otherstructured multisensory programmes are based. Agnes Wolf told me that Ortondeveloped the teaching procedure following his observations whilst travelling in theMalay States in the 1930s. He was staying at a rubber plantation, and came upon ateacher working with a group of over 100 Chinese labourers who had been recruited towork on the plantation. It was essential that these workers could speak and read someEnglish. The teacher’s job was to impart this knowledge quickly and easily.Orton observed the teacher instructing his students to look at the symbol written onthe blackboard, say the sound and make the necessary movement pattern to representit in the air. He watched fascinated, realizing the psychological appropriateness of theprocedure. He noted that the methodology was very effective, and even in this very large113

Structured multisensoryprogrammes 8group situation, fast progress was made. When he returned to the United States, Ortontold Anna Gillingham and Bessie Stillman about his observations and asked them toconsider the possibilities of this approach. The Orton Gillingham Stillman Programmeresulted. Whilst it has been most frequently used with children with dyslexia in smallgroup teaching situations, it should not be forgotten that it was originally a very effectivelarge-group teaching procedure with normal learners.Importance of sequenceReading failing students have difficulty in organizing the language material beinglearned in ways which facilitate its encoding and successful recall. What they retain of achapter can often be as disorganized as their bedroom.Teachers must preserve the essential sequence of their delivery of the required languageknowledge and skills to the learner, emphasizing and using it directly, to build for thelearner, a clear appreciation of the structure and form of the material being learned.This facilitates assimilation and accommodation of newly learned material to the previouslyacquired structure of language knowledge.Importance of structureFrom the above it is evident that building the structure underlying the learner’s competencein language and portraying this in full for the learner is a vital aspect of theteaching process.Teaching should be multisensoryI once knew a man who was too busy and as a result did not work as effectively as hewished in his office. Important letters and documents he had been working on sometimesgot misplaced. On one occasion his flustered and frustrated secretary searchedthrough the filing cabinet for three hours to locate a missing letter. Had it been filedunder the heading L for local education authority, K for Kent, the relevant county, S forSmith the student’s name, or J for Jones, the Chief Education Officer’s name. The possibilitiesare endless and very daunting. If you do not know how you put the informationinto store, you will be unable to get it back.After a long search, the secretary located the letter under A for ‘Appeals Pending.’ Shetook the letter to the man, looked at him very hard and said, ‘Next time you get animportant letter, take it to the photocopier, make twenty six copies and put one copy ineach alphabetical file!’ This advice is unrealistic when filing papers but makes excellentpsychological sense for the processes of learning literacy, particularly when the numberof usable filing cabinets is limited to three.The most effective presentation of literacy skills to reading failing students with workingmemory difficulties will be multisensory, giving the learner a simultaneous input in allthe major learning modalities (filing cabinets), auditory, visual and motor. This directlylinks these aspects of the stimulus in working memory, creating a multi-dimensionalschema for storage, which requires less ‘space’ in memory, is more easily linked to theexisting structure of language learning, and more quickly located and retrieved whenrequired for other activities.114

Structured multisensoryprogrammes 8Teaching activities should be brief and variedTeachers must be aware of the significant limitations in the reading failing student’sconcentration and attention. After just a few minutes of working memory activity, markedfatigue effects may set in, greatly reducing processing efficiency. Auditory, visual and motormodalities should be switched frequently to make maximum use of the learner’s limitedconcentration and attention.Transferable learning skillsStructured multisensory learning is just as psychologically appropriate for maths, science,biology, or history as it is for literacy. Teachers must point out to their students the transferabilityof the learning techniques that they have developed and used in literacy into allother aspects of the curriculum and stress the benefits arising from that action. This mustbe demonstrated practically until the student is convinced of the universal applicability ofthe process.Reading in a wider contextSaying the sound of the word and storing the sense is not the end of the reading story. Forolder students reading becomes a tool used automatically throughout the curriculum and ineveryday life, but direction and control of this ‘tool’ should remain focused, deliberate, andcarefully linked to the required outcome.Under stress, even skillful readers manage the reading schema very inefficiently. For helpwith the development of the reader’s control over the available sub-skills within the readingschema, look again at ‘Students use and misuse of reading skills: a report to faculty’ byWilliam Perry, published in 1959, in the Harvard Educational Review. This report is aground-breaking classic, and Perry’s whimsical humour is an added bonus.Perry had a job that many would envy. He was remedial reading teacher at Harvard, whereundergraduates were generally very skillful readers. Yet in their opening term, some ofthese students found themselves vulnerable, if not experiencing actual difficulty. Despitetheir high level of reading skill, serious inefficiencies became evident in their application ofreading to studying. Each day professors added more and more reading to their ‘homework.’Eventually so much reading had to be read, assimilated and structured into their developingsubject knowledge that there was not enough time in any given week to do all thenecessary reading. Overload had been reached. In the ‘overload’ condition as with literacyfailing children, who reach overload level at a very much lower level of task complexity, theHarvard students became inefficient in managing the reading schema in working memory.Perry’s students could not be considered to be handicapped in any way. He pointed outthat on a standardized reading test they read better than 85% of college freshmen in theusa. They are not reported to have any working memory deficiencies. But in the ‘overload’situation, when given a complex and arduous reading task, they did not survey their readingoptions in working memory, but simply applied without thinking, the simplest of theirmany possible reading strategies, which greatly increased their cognitive inefficiency.Perry commented:‘It is apparent that what (these) students lack is not mechanical skills, but flexibilityand purpose in the use of them, and the capacity to adjust themselves to the varietyof reading materials and purposes that exist on a college level.’115

Structured multisensoryprogrammes 8Perry was scathingly critical of an education system which conditioned its beststudents to begin a reading assignment at the first word, and read the second, thenthe third word, word by word, consecutively to the end, without reflecting upon thepurpose of the activity, and in the catastrophic absence of an executive decision in workingmemory about the most effective use of the student’s available reading strategies. Hepointed out that if these students had started by skimming the text, then read the finalsummary, their greatly improved knowledge of the structure and sense of the passagewould have enabled them to master its semantic complexities, and respond with greaterspeed and efficiency.There are a very wide range of reading strategies set out in detail below.Word recognition skills:1. Drilled structured multisensory word recognition developed throughfrequent reading pack activities.2. Look and say on known sight words developed from the Dolsch wordfrequency lists.3. Using word parts, roots, prefixes and suffixes.4. Using phonological symbol-sound relationships.5. Recognition derived from taught word patterns.6. Using context cues from surrounding words.7. Using syntactic cues from the grammatical rules of the surrounding text.8. Using semantic cues from the meaning of the surrounding text.Once the words are recognized, the reader must have a complete thought in workingmemory to interpret and store the meaning. Meaning cannot be derived from a limitedportion of text such as ‘words are’ and stored in working memory. The reader needs thewhole thought, and must change perspective and direction in working memory fromdealing with words on a word-by-word recognition focused basis, to making an accurateand rapid construction of the implicit meaning of the semantically viable chunk of textbeing considered. If reading aloud, the reader must use this implicit meaning to dictaterhythm, pitch and tone, to deliver this section in modulated speech to listeners. At thisstage, the comprehension skills listed below must be considered and applied:1. Determine the purpose for reading this text, and apply skim, scan or SQ3R(survey, question, read, recite review) techniques as appropriate.2. Activate relevant background knowledge from long term memory, so thatnew material may be linked effectively to older known material.3. When reading, question the text.4. When reading, make inferences.5. When reading, determine relative importance and prioritize information.6. When reading, synthesize information from the text to build newunderstandings.7. When reading, deliberately create mental images and strong feelings.8. When reading, make a deliberate decision to store the ongoing sense of thetext multisensorily.9. When reading, repair lost understanding by re-reading.If the student is to apply his available level of reading skill efficiently, he must initiallyuse working memory to decide the required outcome, then select the most suitable116

Structured multisensoryprogrammes 8reading technique from his available repertoire, and control and apply this effectively toachieve that outcome.If demonstrably good readers such as Perry’s Harvard students are so limited whentheir skills are stressed, how much more will literacy failing students benefit from thekind of metacognitive training recommended by Perry? Regardless of their level ofreading ability, all students need to become ‘active interrogators of the text rather thanpassive receivers of words.’ This report led to substantial changes in the thinking ofmany practitioners far beyond the walls of Harvard, and not just those dealing with theeducational needs of academic elites. For all readers, regardless of their level of readingcompetence, metacognitive control over the reading skills available is essential and mustbe taught.Metacognition – the key to learning to learnJohn Nisbet of University of Aberdeen (1984) in his visionary address to the ScottishCouncil for Educational Research, entitled ‘The Seventh Sense’ opened up this excitingfield for development. We have five senses referred to previously in this paper.Deliberate use of the executive in working memory gives understanding of how allthese senses may be used positively in processing, storing, recalling and directinginformation, strategies and skills. The term ‘sixth sense’ is usually reserved for the fieldof extrasensory perception. Nisbet defined his seventh sense as ‘metacognition, theawareness of one’s mental processes, the capacity to reflect upon how one learns, how tostrengthen memory, how to tackle problems systematically, leading to reflection, awareness,and perhaps ultimately, control.’Metacognition is the understanding, initially by the teacher, later shared with thestudent, of his particular abilities and difficulties in learning, which when related toan analysis of the learning task, enables the student to apply his competences withmaximum efficiency. The process of metacognition facilitates decision making, initiallyby the teacher, and later by the student, on the appropriate strategy or sequence of skillsfor that student. Later reflection upon the success or otherwise of that strategy, and itspotential for transfer into other aspects of learning different skills or other areas of thecurriculum, gives the student a transforming ability to learn how to learn.Nisbet touches on the heart of our problem when he raises the issue of education forstudents such as ours, living in a period of increasingly rapid technological change.Factual knowledge is now increasing exponentially, so that retaining all the requiredinformation and skills in memory is seen to be an impossible task. The concept of aformal education to age 18 years, equipping the individual with all knowledge and skillsnecessary for the rest of working life is now totally outmoded. In employment, trainingand retraining to keep pace with the increasing rate of technological advancement, hasbecome a fact of life.We therefore cannot tell what body of knowledge or range of skills will be necessaryfor the students currently learning in our schools, when they commence work in themid–21st century.In an age of expanding sophistication of information processing through personalcomputers, even the nature of ‘knowledge’ is changing, with the emphasis being117

Structured multisensoryprogrammes 8increasingly placed on knowing where and how to access it and manipulate it ratherthan retaining it in long term memory.The very best preparation we can give our students is to facilitate their developmentof metacognitive control over all available skills, fine motor control, working memory,speech and communication, reading, spelling, writing, numeracy, and social andbehavioural development.Use of talentsIn the development of the individual student’s skills, the parable of the talents fromSt Matthew, chapter 25, verse 14 and following (already discussed), makes excellentpsychological, educational, and personal sense. Read it again for yourself. The numberof talents initially available varies from learner to learner and ultimately seems not tobe of great significance. What is important is the achievement of ‘value added’ throughthe learner working with his available talents, to create new and wider opportunitiesfor learning. The aim must be to enable the learner gradually to gain control over thelearning process, shaping and manipulating it to form the cognitive structure which ismost efficient for him.In the parable, the recipient who did not use what was available to him, lost it. Thatmay seem like rough justice, but it happens distressingly frequently in education, andparticularly so for Baroness Warnock’s ‘middle class stupid’ children. Such students,deprived of the necessary assessment and skilled special teaching they required, showthe static ‘life-long dyslexic condition’ described by some observers and discussed earlierin this paper.The processes of learning should not be stationary for long. It is like building a complexbuilding. Whether it is a tower block or a pyramid, it needs foundations, and when thestructure is only partially erected, it is unstable, needs support, and if not completed, islikely to collapse. Forward planning and continuity are needed in the supply and use ofmaterials. Even the most skillful learners and practitioners cannot make bricks withoutstraw. This paper aims to provide straw for bricks ... for improving brick makers … tobuild pyramids in learning through the establishment of metacognitive control.Improving cognition and examination performanceThere is evidence that direct cognitive training improves both cognition and performancein examinations.In 1984, in a study reported by Adey, Shayer and Yates, King’s College, London, the caseProject (Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education) sought to raise the thinkingabilities of 11–14 year old students. These pupils came from ten classes in 6 comprehensiveschools. Over a two year period in years 7 and 8, or 8 and 9, they were given atotal of 30 special (case) science courses. Matched control students received only normalscience courses.The results of this study show that the case students made very significant progress,scoring higher on psychological tests of thinking, and achieving significantlyhigher proportions of gcse A, B, and C grades than non-case controls. Perhaps most118

Structured multisensoryprogrammes 8significantly, case students also did better in mathematics and English, and it was apparentthat these students were able to transfer their cognitive training into other aspectsof their curriculum. These results confirm the curriculum and examination benefitspossible from cognitive skills development.Metacognition is a shared responsibilityThe procedures leading to the establishment and application of metacognitive controlare a shared responsibility between student and teacher.Metacognition is a teachable skill and the mediating teacher must initiate this vitaldevelopment. Whilst the process starts with the teacher, who initially is in control, shemust gradually transfer that responsibility to the learner, who ultimately at the conclusionof the training programme must determine and control his own strategies andprocesses of learning.The start point must be the appreciation, shared between teacher and student, of thelearner’s present cognitive profile, the abilities which may be marshaled for use in theparticular learning situation, and the difficulties which must be overcome or by-passedby the adoption of different strategies.Learner and teacher together, must consider the demands of the particular learningtask faced, its place in the existing structure of the learner’s cognitive development, itslinks to what has gone before, and its place in securing what will follow. Together, theymust consider the extent of task demand in processing the necessary information. Thetime over which that demand must be sustained, must be quantified. This enables avery important joint decision to be reached, whether this activity or piece of learning isrealistically within the learner’s present cognitive competence level.If it is, this should lead to further joint consideration of the sequence of skills required,leading to the formulation of an appropriate schema/strategy for the activity.When the activity has been concluded, teacher and student should discuss the successof the schema, highlighting management points for streamlining the process so thatfurther work may lead towards automaticity in control. Joint discussion should alsoidentify the potential for transfer of the skill to similar learning situations, and later, toother aspects of learning. This will enable the establishment of the basic principles of‘learning how to learn.’‘Learning how to learn’In Box 7 the key points are summarized. With increasing maturity we would expect ourdyslexic learners to show:These are the skills needed not just to tackle literacy learning but to facilitate the masteryof the yet unknown tasks to be faced in the working world in the mid–21st century.119

Structured multisensoryprogrammes 8Box 7Metacognition leading to‘learning to learn’1.PurposeThe learner must always investigate the purpose of the activity. The question,‘Why am I doing this?’ must be asked and answered. This ensures that the activityis especially meaningful. This consideration leads directly to:2. An understanding of outcomeThe learner must carefully consider what the most effective end-product for theactivity might be. What is required at the end of the activity?This ensures the relevance of what is done and shapes the response appropriately.3. Positive application of previous relevant knowledgeThe previous relevant knowledge which relates to the task must be recalled andapplied to this new situation. The question ‘What do I already know about this?’must be asked and answered. This should lead to expectations and predictionswhich facilitate an approach to the solution of the activity.4. Devising a strategyHaving reviewed his range of options and considered his cognitive strengthsand weaknesses the learner is now in a position to formulate and implement anappropriate individual strategy.5. Monitoring the processThe student must then review the effectiveness of the strategy followed, makingdecisions about the relative success or failure of the activity.6. DevelopmentThe questions: ‘How can it be improved? Is the skill sequence right? Would othermodality options be more effective?’ must be asked and answered, with a notebeing taken of future changes to be made.7. TransferThe student must consider whether the activity can be transferred, initially toother similar learning situations and how, with modification, it might be appliedacross the full range of the learner’s problem solving competences.120

Structured multisensoryprogrammes 8SummaryWhatever aks linkages have been established by the child are used as the basis forthe development of the vaks linkages essential for reading. The effective use of theselinkages releases high level working memory capacity for higher learning and thinkingabout the language being processed.The principles of multi-sensory teaching are listed in detail. Perry’s reservations abouthis students’ lack of ability to assess a reading task and apply their reading skills withmuch greater efficiency lead to the appreciation of the necessity of applying metacognitivecontrol to reading and all multi-sensory learning.The efficiency and transferability of cognitive skills training is demonstrated by thecase project.Principles in teaching and applying metacognitive skills are documented leading to theestablishment of the key skill of ‘learning how to learn.’121

Overall conclusionsOverall Conclusions1. Some language forms, particularly those with opaque, complex visualauditorykinaesthetic-semantic cross-modal linkages, are more susceptible todyslexia than logographic languages or those with less difficult transparentvaks linkages.2. The onset symptoms of dyslexia observed by teachers in classroomsacross phonologically opaque, phonologically transparent and logographiclanguages varies along the phonology-speech-word recognition-readingcomprehension-reading speed-written expression of ideas continuum. Thereare observable differences in the reading skills affected in these languageforms, and it therefore appears that there is no single universal form ofreading difficulty in dyslexia.3. The ’phonological awareness deficit.’ Defined as the key difficulty in dyslexia bypsychologists researching reading failure in English, is not a universal attributeof dyslexia in phonologically transparent and logographic languages.4. The language-disadvantaged and dyslexic learners’ problems underconsideration in this paper are not primarily in reading but in theinappropriateness of the early cognitive skills which the learner brings tothe structure of language, and the quality of his background experiencefor language learning. It is these factors which give rise to the difficultyexperienced by these students in constructing the essential links betweenorthography (shape), its sound (phonology), its motor movement pattern,and its meaning.5. The processes and structures of language itself present greater difficulties tosome learners and lead to an undervaluation of those learners’cognitive strengths.6. The extent of development of vocabulary skills in young children is anaccurate predictor of their later reading development.7. Language is not a totally effective means of communicating ideas person toperson, and it should not be used unsupported in the teaching situation.Nor does it offer a totally reliable vehicle for representing, encoding, storing,recalling and applying information, ideas and skills.122

Overall conclusions8. Consideration of causes and effects of literacy failure has identified threeyoung student groups showing deficiencies in the establishment of thekey aks structure underpinning speech, two attributable to environmental(language) factors and one resulting from deficient working memory systems.9. Statistics for environmental deprivation across Europe were evaluated toshow that significant numbers of children from deprived and disadvantagedcircumstances with unemployed parents and siblings are currently inschools and experiencing very serious educational problems.10. Prison populations are not significantly retarded in literacy skills whencompared with non-offenders of matched socio-economic status.11. The genetically determined, environmentally reinforced neurological structureunderlying literacy failure of deprived and disadvantaged students leads todifferent, less conforming behavior, but does not always lead to criminality.12. Reading interventions for offenders in prison are justified not by reference toreducing criminality and human wrongs but by reference to human rightsand improved job opportunities.13. The word recognition competence index, which relates student languagebackground and cognitive competence to the phonological complexity of thelanguage of instruction to derive expectations of student word recognitionattainment, is of some value in predicting word recognition achievementacross a range of language complexities. It also assists with the clarificationof the definition of dyslexia worldwide, and facilitates the provision ofappropriate teaching programmes for students, particularly in phonologicallytransparent languages.14. The observed failure in reading is not attributable solely to cognitivedifficulties experienced by the learner interacting with the complexities ofhis language. Limitations in the delivery of literacy knowledge by teachers tothese students is an equal contributory factor.15. Without the cognitive self sufficiency resulting from, initially, aks linkages,and, later, vaks representational competences, the experiences providedby school may not be constructive, and may become negative and limiting.Students who do not develop automaticity in these links, fail, and that failureoften results in very unfortunate behavioural effects.16. wppsi intelligence test scores for four year old children from languageadvantagedand language-disadvantaged backgrounds entering schoolshow that whilst both groups had similar visual/practical problem solvingcapability, the language-advantaged group showed significantly superiorverbal problem solving capability. This confirms Bernstein’s much earlierfindings of class differences in language usage, but in this study thedifferences were noted to be present before the children commenced school,and therefore could not be an educational effect. These differences seemed tobe attributable to congenital factors.17. The wppsi Performance scale iq scores for the language disadvantagedchildren described in this study, when compared with their deficient orallanguage and literacy skills, shows that this group would have fallen withinthe category of children described as having specific language impairmentdescribed by Tomblin et al. (1997).123

Overall conclusions18. Wide variability across language-disadvantaged students’ gcse statisticspublished by the Department for Education, London, January, 2011,indicates that ‘disadvantage’ per se, is not the key causative factor forlanguage/reading difficulty.19. Language disadvantaged and dyslexic students who had not received speciallanguage and literacy teaching did not conform to the normal pattern ofleft hemisphere specialism for language. They showed no hemisphericspecialism or right hemispheric specialism for language. This neurologicalorganizational difference would have effects upon the development ofmotor skills, phonological skills, short-term memory skills, speech andliteracy. This appears to be the underlying cause of the difficulties studiedrather than disadvantage.20. With an intensive phonologically-based language training programme itwas possible for the language disadvantaged students to make gains in lefthemisphere speech/language control, with demonstrably higher levelsof ability in speech/language/literacy. But with this shift to significantlyimproved verbal attainments, a consequent diminution in previouslyavailable visual-creative thinking was recorded.21. The severity of dyslexia experienced by a student is a variable dependingupon (i) the level of his cognitive difficulty, (ii) the complexity/difficulty ofachieving automaticity in control of the cross-modal transfer of informationthrough the vaks linkages in the his particular language, and (iii) thequality/appropriateness of the special education provision which he receives.22. Observation suggests that as the area/regional/national economy develops,the incidence of reading difficulty diminishes and the balance of frequency incausality of reading failure shifts from language disadvantage towards dyslexia.23. The problems of both language-disadvantaged and dyslexic students respondvery positively to structured multisensory literacy teaching, enabling theessential visual-auditory–kinaesthetic–semantic links for reading to beestablished most efficiently.24. Special educational programmes should be sharply focused on the needs ofdyslexic and language-disadvantaged students.25. Using structured multisensory language programmes in an efficient specialprovision, dyslexic students can make 2 to 5 times the progress they havepreviously recorded with ordinary classroom teaching.26. The most financially and educationally efficient special programme shouldoccupy one hour each teaching day.27. Repeated assessments are much more effective than a single ‘snapshot.’ Withthis procedure it is apparent that dyspraxia, dysphasia, dyscalculia, anddyslexia are generally not separate and distinct difficulties. They are relateddevelopmental aspects of the same underlying disorder, which is dyslexia.28. The similarities between the Chasty (1990) and Rose (2010) definitionsconfirm dyslexia to be a difficulty in the skills of learning required forliteracy, particularly motor skills, phonology and short-term memory. Theseverity of a particular student’s difficulty is confirmed by his response (inmeasured progress) to an appropriate specialist teaching programme.124

Overall conclusions29. Dyslexia is a heritable neurological condition. Mild to moderately affectedchildren with dyslexia who have received the right teaching programmecan move into the normal distribution. Therefore dyslexia is not seen as agenerally ‘lifelong’ condition.30. Teachers must aim to change the static ‘lifelong dyslexia’ into ‘dynamicdyslexia,’ where significant progress is possible.31. There are three major contrasting cognitive patterns of learning difficultywithin the dyslexic population.32. Children with dyslexia show clusters of abilities and difficulties in learning, andit is these cognitive patterns which are most indicative of the type of dyslexiathey experience and the aspects of their literacy development affected.33. Type 2 dyslexics do not show the early developing phonological/word recognitiondifficulties usually referred to in the phonological research literature.34. The statistical frequency of the incidence of types 1, 2 and 3 dyslexia variesfrom language to language depending upon whether the orthography isphonologically opaque, transparent, or logographic. In English and otherphonologically opaque orthographies types 1 and 3 early onset dyslexiawill be more frequently observed but in phonologically transparentorthographies, and possibly logographic orthographies, type 2, late onsetdyslexia will be more frequently observed.35. ‘Poor comprehenders’ described in the literature seem to conform to thecognitive and developmental profile of late onset dyslexia.36. The recommendation made in the literature of ‘unanimous teachingrecommendations of combining phonic training with phonologically basedreading instruction for all students at risk of reading failure’ would not besuitable for late onset dyslexic students, or students learning literacy inphonologically transparent or logographic languages.37. The development at an early age of the key strategy to control bodily andmotor functions automatically at a lower cognitive level opens the way forthe development and control of a wider range of higher cognitive functions,including language and literacy.38. Dyslexic and language-disadvantaged students’ expressive language skills aregenerally limited, and broadly in keeping with Bernstein’s earlier descriptionof a ‘restricted code.’39. Dyslexic and language-disadvantaged students’ receptive language skills areimpaired and support the view, based upon Chomsky’s earlier analysis, thattheir understanding is limited to the ‘surface structure’ of language spokento them.40. Dyslexic students experience difficulties in establishing the cross-modallinkages for number, similar to those observed in literacy.41. The identification of dyslexic and language-disadvantaged students’ workingmemory difficulties must lead to implementing the necessary skills trainingneeded to improve their working memory competences.42. The key difficulty in dyslexia is the failure to establish, at successive stages ofdevelopment, an effective level of automatic control over longer skills with125

Overall conclusionsschemata comprised of complex sequential programmes of sub-skills. It wasconcluded that in any complex activity, children with dyslexia showed initialweakness in mastering the separate component sub-skills, later weaknessin integrating the sub-skills into a cohesive manageable unit and, finally,difficulty in controlling and operating the schema automatically whenworking memory is busy doing other things.43. The application of these learned multisensory procedures, reinforced byfurther developed strategies, leads to the establishment of metacognitivecontrol over literacy and working memory techniques, giving the studentaccess to the controlled and directed thinking that facilitates improvedbehaviour and more positive interaction with the school curriculum,resulting in better examination performance.126

PostscriptPostscriptLiteracy is for life … and workWith the much wider and more controlled skills battery outlined in this paper madeavailable to previously reading failing and dyslexic students we can be certain that notonly have we developed their literacy skills but that we have also responded positively tomy challenge, ‘If this child fails to learn the way you teach, can you teach him the wayhe learns? As well as teaching him literacy, numeracy and curriculum skills, can youextend and facilitate his development of control over his learning competences, teachinghim to learn how to learn.’This paper has not focused solely on the identification of literacy failure and the teachingof reading. Look at it more positively. We seek to teach children to think and learnbetter, and on that journey outlined in Figure 18, the child’s speech, reading, spelling,writing, numeracy and behaviour are revitalized, and brought under more effective selfcontrol.This provides a new perspective on the challenges to be faced in the curriculumand the working world, making these much less fearsome and more manageable.With this positive ‘skills building’ approach we can give the language-disadvantaged anddyslexic learner, who showed significant learning difficulties in their pre-school, andjunior school years, the cognitive tools required to move themselves out of the debilitating,static, ‘life-long dyslexic condition’ observed in older less well taught individuals. Inthis achievement both learner and teacher can share professional pride.Without such a programme, the current ‘education for employment’ position isunsustainable and unacceptable. In the working world prospective employers havevery specific requirements for their job vacancies which many school leavers simplycannot meet.In the UK managers seeking to recruit young people report (Sunday Telegraph, 30.1.11),that ‘school leavers are generally not well educated, have poor communication andliteracy skills, and do not know how to handle themselves in the manner requiredfor work.’ With the current youth unemployment rate at the worryingly high level ofover 20% it appears that unemployed young people are in a ‘no win’ situation, and aregreatly frustrated by the sharp reality that there are very few available jobs and that theyare totally unqualified to compete in the job market for these scarce work opportunities.127

PostscriptThe ‘we have no relevant language/literacy skills and they refuse employment’ syndromeobserved in the UK is most easily represented as the current ‘Anti-English Disease’.Instead of displaying the anticipated sense of superiority, leading to the mistaken beliefthat England is the best country in the world, which is characteristic of the ‘EnglishPatient’, these young people have a sense of inferiority that leads them to believe thatthey live in the worst circumstances in the world.But a similar ‘available skills/job requirements’ mismatch is evident in Europe, NorthAfrica, the Middle East and across developing nations world wide. It should not beforgotten that in Tunisia, a youth unemployment rate of 24% was found to be sounacceptable by the citizens that it became the flash point that triggered regime change,leading to the ‘Arab Spring’ and there is no certainty where the domino effect that hasbeen set in motion will end.Continuing inadequate education for language-disadvantaged and dyslexic studentsresulting, as it has, in high youth unemployment, must greatly increase social problemsand worldwide pressure for political and social change. Facing these challenges, we nolonger have the luxury of a lengthy time scale. The necessary training programmes areavailable. Action on behalf of language-disadvantaged and dyslexic students must beimplemented now.Figure 18Effects of managedcognitive development frommultisensory learning, asummary1. The young learner has access to a range of experiences and information from home, and later,school, which facilitates:2. Representational skills developed in surveying, analysing, focusing, sequencing,integrating, and recalling. These facilitate:3. Development of major leanring preferences in auditory, visual, andmotor modalities, leading to AKS linkages, required for effective speech.4. Establishment of VAKS linkages, necessary for required basicskills of reading, spelling, writing and numeracy.Application of these literacy and numeracy skills to thecurriculum is the crossroads leading to success or failure.Channel 1Structured multi-sensory learningleads to improved cognitive skillsand facilitates ‘added value’Metacognition leads to higherinformation processing skills andmore generalised learning skillsStudent achieves intelligentregulation of learning,self-monitoring and effectivestrategy selectionChannel 2Literacy is used to acquire andhandle an increasing burden of factsStudent sidetracked by fact mountainloses impetus, direction and controlDevelopment stagnates andconfidence is lost. Student reachesacademic ‘dead end’SuccessComparative failure‘Special teacher’ interventions at stages 3 and 4 above, enable individual cognitive developmentas set out in Channel 1. This does not follow from the laissez faire teaching usually offered in theordinary classroom, with the ensuing difficulties described in Channel 2.The student receiving ‘special education’ benefits from the acquired ‘value added,’ and cananalyse any task, assemble relevant data, and find a solution.128

GlossaryaksAnglocentricityAutomaticityCloze ProcedureWhen the young child is learning to speak, he listens tospeech sounds, learns to move muscles controlling tongue lipsand teeth to make these sounds, and links the meaning to thesound pattern. With the help of parents/carers/teachers he buildsthe essential Auditory-Kinaesthetic-Semantic (aks) framework forspeech, which enables him to listen to speech sounds, derive themeaning, and, in response, to express his ideas in spoken words.This aks framework which compacts information and skills to aless space-demanding level in working memory is the essentialfoundation to all later learning, and particularly literacy.Refers to the undue focusing by some psychological researchersupon the importance of phonological awareness and subsequentcomplex and sophisticated word processing architecture in wordrecognition in English, a language which is at the extreme end ofthe phonological complexity continuum. With the very limiteddefinition of reading used in this work, the equally narrowdefinition of what dyslexia is, and the resulting limitations in therange of literacy difficulties of the students tested in this research,its worldwide relevance to reading development in other lessphonologically complex languages is questioned.Requires the improvement of the performance of a skill to thehighest level, so that it becomes an automatic response patternwhich does not saturate working memory capacity, and can bedelegated to lower level cognitive processing, thus freeing greaterstorage capacity and higher level (conscious) processing in workingmemory to deal with other inputs and outputs.An exercise or assessment consisting of a portion of text with wordsremoved. The student must apply a range of language/literacyskills to replace the missing words.129

Cluster AnalysisA statistical technique which can be applied to data thatexhibit natural groupings. This procedure sorts through theraw data and links them into relatively homogeneous groupswhere the individual components are similar to each other.DfE, DfEE, DfES,and dfe (UK)cpq The abbreviated form for ‘Children’s Personality Questionnaire.’This test was devised by Professor Raymond Cattell andcolleagues in the UK, and enables the child’s personality to bedocumented along major behavioural dimensions.These acronyms refer to the government department controllingand directing educational policy and children’s servicesin England, UK. Administrative changes implemented bysuccessive governments have led to a confusing sequenceof titles and changing responsibilities. The Department forEducation and Science was created in 1964, and under itsSecretary of State (politician) and Permanent Secretary (civilservant) was responsible for some of the decisions concerningdeprived, disadvantaged and dyslexic children referred to inthis paper. In 1962, responsibility for science was transferredto the Office of Public Service, and the Department of Tradeand Industry’s Office of Science and Technology, and theDepartment was renamed the Department for Education.In 1995, the Department was merged with employment tobecome the Department for Education and Employment.After 2001, responsibility for employment was transferred tothe Department for Work and Pensions, with the remainderbecoming the Department for Education and Skills. In June2007, the department was split in two by Gordon Brown’s government,(i) the Department for Children Schools and Families,and (ii) the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.More recently, in 2010, in the government of the Conservative-Liberal coalition, Michael Gove became Secretary of State forEducation, heading a department called the Department forEducation (dfe).Dichotic listeningThis requires the presentation of two different conflictingstimuli to the subject through each ear, using stereo earphones.The particular aim is to determine the subject’sbrain hemispheric specialism for language.130

DyslexiaDyslexia is a genetically determined neurologically based differentlearning style showing cognitive strengths, and weaknesses whichinterfere with the acquisition and application of the long, verballymediated,structurally-cumulative schemata along the dimension:phonology, speech, word recognition, reading comprehension,reading speed, spelling, writing, and the written expression of ideasand verbal thinking. It results from the interaction of a clusterof cognitive difficulties, including weakness in fine motor control,sequencing, auditory/visual short-term memory, and auditory/visual perception, with the degree of complexity of the underlyinglinks between the letter/syllable/word shape, the implicit soundor meaning conveyed, and the motor movement pattern to say orwrite it, in the orthography of the language of instruction. Dyslexicstudents frequently show impairment in acquiring and applyingthe Auditory, Kinaesthetic and Semantic linkages for speech, andmuch greater difficulty with the cognitively more complex Visual,Auditory, Kinaesthetic, Semantic linkages required for literacy.Early and lateonset dyslexiaBreakdown in the establishment of the language developmentcontinuum set out in italics above, may occur at the beginning ofthe learning process, with young students aged 3–4 years at thephonology/word recognition stage. This may be described as ‘earlyonset dyslexia.’ However, with a different mix of the cognitive difficultieslisted in bold above, or when the loading on learning thesymbol-sound links in early literacy is reduced in a phonologicallytransparent language, students will show broadly competentphonology and word recognition skills, but at a later age/stage, failto acquire the later developing, more complex literacy processesof reading comprehension, reading speed, spelling and writtenexpression of ideas. This may be described as ‘late onset dyslexia.’The contrasting cognitive profiles of these two types of literacyfailing student are discussed later in this paper.gcse The abbreviated form for General Certificate of SecondaryEducation, UK. This is an academic qualification usually taken ina number of subjects by students aged 14–16 years in secondaryeducation in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and other formerBritish territories such as Gibraltar and South Africa. There is aninternational version igcse, which may be taken anywhere in theworld. Its standard is linked to level 2 (A*–C) and level 1 (D–G) in‘Key Skills.’LanguagedisadvantageA language background which fails to provide the child with theexperiences required to facilitate his development of phonology,auditory short-term memory, vocabulary, syntax and semanticunderstanding, so leading to difficulty in establishing the akslinkages required for effective speech, and resulting in laterliteracy difficulties.131

Language LearningImpairment (lli)Since the 1970s there has been a growing awareness that specificlanguage impairment and dyslexia stem from a similar causalityin young children. Increasingly, researchers have questioned therp division between these difficulties and suggested that they aremore usefully regarded as points on a developmental continuumrather than distinct and separate disorders. To obviate terminologicalconfusions, the term ‘language learning impairment’ is nowfrequently used in research reports to refer to children with earlyoral language and later developing reading impairments. (See Tallalet al. 1997, and Bishop and Snowling, 2004)Matthew EffectModalityPerceptionPhonetizationPhonologyPhonologicalAwarenessIs a sociological/psychological principle originally stated byRobert Martin in January, 1968, to explain how the reward andcommunication systems in science research were biased in favourof Nobel Laureates and prestigious researchers, rather than giftedunknowns. The principle refers to St. Matthew’s Gospel, chapter25, verse 29, ‘For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and heshall have abundance, but from him that hath not shall be takenaway that which he hath.’ The idea was later applied by KeithStanovich (1988) to learning to read, conveying the understandingthat those with abilities benefit from their abilities and add greatlyincreased dimensions to their capability, while those who arehandicapped fail to develop and lose their original competences.In the complex world of reading development there is evidenceto support the view that the Matthew Effect does not apply tostudents who have received appropriate assessment and skilledspecialist literacy teaching.Refers to a particular way in which any one of the possibletypes of sensation, such as touch/feeling, vision, hearing, tasteor smell may be processed and encoded by the learner, and/orthe representational format in which that information is storedin working memory.Is the process, act, or faculty of perceiving. It requires the storage,recognition, interpretation and processing in working memory ofincoming sensory stimuli for learning and long-term storage.In the evolution of a particular language; this is the process ofmoving from the historic visual representation of meaning to thecurrent phonic/syllabic representation of meaning.Is the sound system of a language, and particularly refers to thestudy of how sounds are organized and used in that language.Is the ability to tune into and manipulate the sound system ofthe language. It is a further learning step above hearing, auditoryacuity, and being able to say sounds.132

Rapid AutomatizedNaming (ran)Is a test procedure that measures how quickly students can saythe names of objects, pictures, colours or digits. This procedureevolved from early work by Geshwind (1965), where he hypothesizedthat the best predictor of the young child’s later readingskill would be his skill and speed in naming colours, becausecolour naming, like reading, requires all cognitive, linguistic, andperceptual processes underlying the retrieval of a verbal label foran abstract visual symbol without requiring letter/word knowledge.Later, Denkla and Cutting (1999) surveying the use of thisprocedure, confirmed that it assessed the integrity of visual-verbalneural connections. Variations in ran time in children provide astrong predictor of their later ability in learning to read, which isindependent of other predictors of reading failure, i.e. phonologicalawareness, verbal IQ, and existing reading competence. Lervagand Hulme (2009) have suggested that ran links to literacybecause reading depends upon the visual-verbal object namingcircuitry in the left cerebral hemisphere, which is recruited by thelearner to underpin word recognition abilities.SchemaIs the shape or plan of the organized, sequenced pattern of activitieswhich must be controlled for the successful performance of acomplex multi-facetted skill. In this paper we particularly refer tothe sequenced pattern of sub-skills necessary for reading, writingor spelling. The plural form is ‘schemata.’vaks There are three major senses used in learning: visual throughthe eyes, auditory through the ears, kinaesthetic through touchfeeling-movement,and these three aspects should be linked bythe teacher, and later by the learner to give direct access to thesemantic (meaning) aspects of the stimulus.In maximizing the learner’s skill in recalling the stimulus, it isimportant to use all four of these vaks modalities. In learning toread, the stimulus, (letter, syllable, or word) should be presentedvisually, auditorially and kinaesthetically, and the implicitsemantic-meaning element should be stressed. Teaching basedupon these principles is usually referred to as multisensory ormulti-modal.wisc Acronym for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. Thisspecialist test, which has been revised and reprinted many timesover the past sixty years, is restricted to chartered psychologists.It enables the range of skills comprising verbal and performance(i.e. visual-practical) intelligence to be tested and the patterns ofabilities and difficulties underlying the student’s general level ofintellectual ability to be recognized, thus facilitating the implementationof the required skills-directed teaching.133

Working memorywppsiRefers to a memory system used for the temporary storage,manipulation, and retrieval of information across the five sensorymodalities, auditory, visual, motor, gustatory and olfactory. It alsodevelops a control system for more complex cognitive activitiessuch as reading, which require both storage and processingcapability. Individual working memory capacity is limited, andthe imposition of excessive storage or processing demands in anycognitive activity can lead to a serious loss of information and/ora catastrophic failure in the activity being carried out. Languagedisadvantaged and dyslexic children have been shown to experiencesignificant working memory difficulties.Acronym for the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale ofIntelligence. This is the intelligence test from the Wechsler TestBattery which is administered to young children in the age range2 years 6 months to 7 years 3 months. Like the wisc Test describedabove, it enables the child’s verbal and visual/practical problemsolving capabilities to be determined.16PF Acronym for the Sixteen Personality Factor Test. Like the cpqdescribed above, this test, devised by Professor Cattell, enablesthe personality of the adult to be determined across sixteen keydimensions of personality.134

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Appendix 1: Chasty ‘Dotting Speed’ test1 Hand time secs2InstructionsWith you better hand1. Place a dot in circle 1, then 2 until you have placed20 dots in circle 22. You will be judged on your speed and accuracy3. Now take the pen in your other hand. Place a dot incircle 3, then 4, until you have placed 20 dots in circle 44. Do this as quickly as you can, but try to keep it in control3Hand time secs4Note: The distance between the centres of circles 1 and 2 should be 24 cms. While I am aware that thismeasure varies according to the size one makes the page on the computer screen, if teachers use ashorter distance, this will seriously alter left right comparison times, and test results.