One is to a develop a much more structured and knowledge-rich curriculum. Another is to require regular testing of primary students in literacy and numeracy, to identify and assist those falling behind.
National would also focus teacher training and professional development much more tightly on science-informed methods. That means adopting a structured approach to teaching – one that recognises the limitations of human memory and attention.
Guy Pope-Mayall from the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand (DFNZ) was interviewed on Newstalk ZB about the likely impact of these policies on young people with dyslexia.
I found the interview odd. Pope-Mayall criticised National’s policy platform, calling it “an old-school approach”. Curiously, though, he went on to tacitly endorse its key elements.
Pope-Mayall identified inconsistent teaching across schools as causing difficulty for some dyslexic children. National’s policy to strengthen the curriculum would bring much greater consistency. It would provide a common framework for education, to be followed by all schools.
Another issue Pope-Mayall identified, was that dyslexic children are often not diagnosed soon enough. He commented, "We certainly need early intervention and also early identification, and then we need the right interventions.”
Quite so. National’s testing policy is explicitly designed to identify children struggling with literacy learning as early as possible. Children making insufficient progress can be given further diagnostic tests to see whether they have dyslexia.
But what are the “right interventions” that Pope-Mayall mentioned, when dyslexia is diagnosed? A preponderance of research evidence shows that structured teaching of literacy provides the best assistance to dyslexic students.
Pope-Mayall recognised that. He called structured literacy “a dyslexia friendly approach”. In fact, structured literacy is not only dyslexia-friendly, but also the most effective way to teach literacy to all children. And structured literacy is just what National wants to introduce.
Pope-Mayall made a final point. Teachers usually have very little training in structured literacy. Again, he is right.
And again, National’s policy platform would help, by emphasising structured learning in teacher training and professional development. This, in my view, is the most important of National’s policy announcements.
A strong curriculum and plenty of data would provide important support for teachers. But training teachers in structured literacy is the best way to ensure that children, especially those with dyslexia, learn to read and write.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
I found the interview odd. Pope-Mayall criticised National’s policy platform, calling it “an old-school approach”. Curiously, though, he went on to tacitly endorse its key elements.
Pope-Mayall identified inconsistent teaching across schools as causing difficulty for some dyslexic children. National’s policy to strengthen the curriculum would bring much greater consistency. It would provide a common framework for education, to be followed by all schools.
Another issue Pope-Mayall identified, was that dyslexic children are often not diagnosed soon enough. He commented, "We certainly need early intervention and also early identification, and then we need the right interventions.”
Quite so. National’s testing policy is explicitly designed to identify children struggling with literacy learning as early as possible. Children making insufficient progress can be given further diagnostic tests to see whether they have dyslexia.
But what are the “right interventions” that Pope-Mayall mentioned, when dyslexia is diagnosed? A preponderance of research evidence shows that structured teaching of literacy provides the best assistance to dyslexic students.
Pope-Mayall recognised that. He called structured literacy “a dyslexia friendly approach”. In fact, structured literacy is not only dyslexia-friendly, but also the most effective way to teach literacy to all children. And structured literacy is just what National wants to introduce.
Pope-Mayall made a final point. Teachers usually have very little training in structured literacy. Again, he is right.
And again, National’s policy platform would help, by emphasising structured learning in teacher training and professional development. This, in my view, is the most important of National’s policy announcements.
A strong curriculum and plenty of data would provide important support for teachers. But training teachers in structured literacy is the best way to ensure that children, especially those with dyslexia, learn to read and write.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
5 comments:
I comment as a parent who raised one dyslexic child. I found the only thing that worked for her was to challenge her mind.
As a well trained "teacher" in New Zealand currently is one who can recite "Brown people are superior and deserve all our hard earned money" in two languages (English and Gibberish) simultaneously I doubt Most New Zealand trained "teachers" are up to this task.
Certainly the "teachers'" teachers aren't.
Training the parents and siblings may be easier.
National may need to rethink.
Phil Blackwell
First things first. Dyslexia is a specific condition, not a fancy general word for kids having difficulty learning to read. Diagnosis is critically important with regard to planning interventions and should be left to child psychologists. Teachers are not trained to do that. Their job in the first instance is to report suspected cases to the admin of their school so that expert evaluation can be carried out. Their job after that is to intervene as per that child's requirements. If all kids having some reading difficulties are tarred with the same brush, problems will often be exacerbated rather than ameliorated.
It was my bete noire, Marie Clay, who pontificated in her writings that dyslexia was imaginary and no student ever needed to be instructed in explicit phonics. This was particularly cruel for failing students Who desperately needed just that, but instead were verbally chastised by all and sundry that they were not trying hard enough and or retarded.I am therefore, pleased the Dyslexic Foundation have highlighted dyslexia,but would come to similar conclusions as DEB(evidenced based)and the International Dyslexic Society on their websites.
There seems to me to be an inviolable tenant of progressive education that nobody is allowed to find anything of value in traditional education. Yet the method of intensive phonics used in teaching reading pre 1950 in NZ does come under the umbrella term of structured literacy.I have studied it in depth and my mother Doris Ferry used her knowledge as an infant teacher in the 1930s and '40s
when she successfully taught 1500 reading students failures of high decile Kapiti schools from 1975-2005. Hundreds of these students were dyslexic and many had been failures of SPELD,Reading Recovery, the Mana Reading Clinic, Puketiro Centre,special needs teachers, psychologists, school inspectors,the Davis Method,and a professor of education. Those seeking her help also included those children with most of the neuro diversities.
She visited Macquarie University's special school(Sydney) and discovered her methods coincided with what was being done there with respect to intensive phonics and tough love in handling struggling readers. Like Macquarie, she did little testing but believed phonics was the overarching solution to all struggling readers. Her comprehensive reading lessons included irregular sight words, comprehension and language instruction,spelling and written work.
Her specialty was to instruct parents or carers, in one 30 min. lesson per week, how to teach their own child at home every day. She even taught semi literates how to teach their own child.
Unlike the Dyslexic Foundation she did not tell students they were gifted but did tell them they were special and unique.She emphasized they would have to work hard and be compliant with the work required and their parent's instructions. She reassured them they would definitely read in time which they did and recording no further dyslexic symptoms. Mark Seidenberg a neuro scientist also does not agree that dyslexics are gifted.
Did the Ministry ever Visit? Of course not they were obsessionally focused on Dame Clay and did as much as possible to destroy Doris's teaching as recorded on a 20/20 Programme in 1997.
My wife was a Reading Recovery teacher/tutor at the time the Ferry successes hit the headlines. As one brought up on phonics in the 1940s I was bemused. The standard criticism is that phonics does not cope with the words with exceptional pronunciation ie tough etc. My wife's mother who had taught pre war said that such relatively few words were separated and taught as "look and say" words, which Clay effectively applied to all. Twenty years ago I sat in on some of my son's school composition writing sessions and gravitated to assisting the few who struggled. under the teachers frown I used phonics with them, to effect. A great virtue of phonics is that it works in reverse for writing whereas Clay crackpot osmosis method does not. And it is so basic that the simplest of parents are able to assist their children at home.
Education has been cursed by persons desirious of advancing their career. so they formulate some new idea and construct an empire to apply it. Education of the masses had been developed to a very high level by 1940 using basic methods which enabled solitary teachers to progress very large classes. None had any degrees in Maori Studies or other diversionary twaddle.
Re: those words that are not voiced the way they are written, I found over many years of teaching 2nd-language students that a historical note often helped. For instance, 'knight' comes from Middle German 'knecht' (middle English 'knave', servant) which included (and still does) a guttural 'g' sound. Most students found this kind of explanation interesting and useful (admittedly older students in my case).
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