Week 2: May 4th

Another great class and a feast for thought to be sure. I left thinking about my own education as a teacher and my instruction. As I am learning about how students learn to read and write, I am looking for ways to apply the knowledge to my practice and grow.

Here are my top three takeaways from class two!

1) A brain with dyslexia is simply wired differently and needs structured literacy instruction.

We took an in-depth look at dyslexia and how students learn to read with dyslexia. This was incredibly informative for me as I have never taught a student diagnosed with dyslexia and my Bachelor of Education barely touched on the topic! The videos we watched and discussion we had helped me to create a fuller picture of what dyslexia is, what causes it and how to support students.

The brain is not made to read-- that is an application we have developed to communicate. When we read, we employ several parts of the brain that work in a 'reading circuit'. Students with dyslexia are using more parts of their brains to read and have delays in the reading circuit. They are using their right hemisphere to read, while other readers are using their left hemispheres. The result is that the processing speed is slower. They also have difficulty breaking sounds apart and putting them back together.

Putting sounds together is more challenging for people with dyslexia.

Students with dyslexia need comprehensive phonics instruction. I did a bit more reading about how to teach for students with dyslexia and the key, according to the International Dyslexia Association, is "structured literacy instruction".

Structured Literacy instruction, according to the International Dyslexia Association

It is so frustrating to me that this is not the way many teachers are taught to teach reading and that we are not provided with the structure to effectively teach reading. As a beginning teacher, I was absolutely shocked at how little direction was provided to teachers by the curriculum and how little attention was given in teacher training to methods for teaching reading. My peers and I often wondered "When will we really learn how to teach reading?". I am still wondering that. I am a great fan of structured and systematic instruction in all subject areas, so I would love to see this approach used in Nova Scotia. I simply don't understand why we don't have a more detailed and standard approach to reading. I know many teachers seek out Orton-Gillingham training independently, and that is something I may do to improve my ability to provide sound and structured instruction. Like we saw in the video about the schools in Arkansas, it's time we learn how to teach reading!

2) The Four-Part Processing Model for Word Recognition

To that end of better understanding reading, we took a look at the processors used for reading. I like this graphic because it shows how important phonics are at the base of reading. We need to have a strong foundation of the relationship between the orthographic processor (what we see) and the phonological processor (what we hear). When the bridge of phonics connects those two and enables us to read the word, then we can recall its meaning. Comprehension occurs when the context processor puts the words together and understands the concept being conveyed. Decoding is the first step toward reading comprehension because it gives us access to the meaning recall and then an understanding of the word in context.

In contrast, the 'whole language' model looks more like this:

Phonics and decoding play a much smaller role as just one of many different cues to support comprehension. Prior to class, I had never heard of the whole language approach and was not aware that this was the approach we were using in Nova Scotia! Just looking at the graphics, the Four-Part Processing model shows that phonics is essential to structured literacy instruction and must come first on the pathway to comprehension, whereas the Whole Language approach is much less structured, with pathways to reading comprehension coming from multiple directions. My big takeaway from this is that phonics instruction is incredibly important and that I want to learn how to use it to support my students. As a Grade 3 teacher, many of my students all ready have strong reading and decoding skills, but I can see that some of them still struggle to decode and need more explicit, structured instruction on phonics to really get to meaning and context.

3) Writing is a highly complex neurodevelopmental process.

In the afternoon, we examined the writing process. Again, it's incredible to know how much is going on in the brain and body to support writing. It's so much more than moving the pencil on the paper! There are so many processes happening at the same time, some of which hopefully develop as we learn to write at school, and others which begin developing at birth (gross and fine motor coordination and motor memory for example). When students struggle to write, there are so many possible reasons why! Writing is something I really enjoy teaching so I am very motivated to help students who find writing challenging.

Both remedial and compensatory strategies are useful for students as the physical process of writing and the process of expressing oneself don't always need to be tied together. Many intelligent students have lots to communicate, but are restricted in there ability to write it with pencil and paper. Co-writer is a fabulous example of assistive technology which is compensatory and uses word prediction to support students as they express themselves. It reduces the barrier of the gross and fine motor skills, spelling, and attention because students can choose their words more easily and efficiently in the app. It uses pre-made categories and scrapes the web for relevant words. This one really wowed me! Lots of students can give you rich information orally, but then represent their knowledge very simply in writing. I'm sure that using Co-Writer would be freeing for them. This video provides a good overview of Co-Writer and could be useful for introducing it to students, parents, and teachers. I love the way it describes Co-Writer: "Co-Writer sharpens writing like eye glasses sharpen vision".

Many other apps were explored, but Storycubes also appealed to me because I often have students who say they don't know what to write about. Coming up with the idea is a challenging part of the writing process. I found a browser version here.

Looking forward to learning more about assistive technology after our break! Feel free to join the conversation below. What did your Bachelor of Education teach you about reading instruction?