Do you know someone who reads by guessing, substituting words, skipping words? There may be nothing wrong with them.
They simply may be doing what they have been taught in school!
Can Dyslexia Be Artificially Induced in School?
Yes, Says Researcher Edward Miller
Researcher Edward Miller Blumenfeld in March, 1992 wrote in the above-named article:
"Ever since The New Illiterates was published back in 1973 we have known that the chief, and perhaps only cause of dyslexia among school children has been and still is the look-say, whole word,or sight method of teaching reading."
Pat Doran, M.Ed. agrees. Over the past several generations, tens of millions of students have been taught to read using ineffective, experimental reading methods. These reading methods may cause readers to have "symptoms" that resemble dyslexia symptoms.
Non-phonetic methods often require students to memorize long lists of words and then to guess at words, substitute words, skip words, or pronounce the first few letter sounds and then make up the rest of the word as long as it makes sense.
In primary grades, words are simple and there are many opportunities for the reader to rely on picture clues. Therefore, non-phonics strategies may appear to be effective reading, when in fact they are laying the foundation for future problems. It becomes apparent as the reading matter becomes more difficult, comprehension suffers and test scores fall.
Yes, often times, parents or teachers assume that the reader is making mistakes on his or her own because of some personal deficiency. In fact, the reader may be using ineffective strategies that he or she has been taught to use or may have developed as a "survival strategy." Likewise, readers frequently feel there is something wrong with their own reading capabilities.
In some cases, the readers may be erroneously labeled as dyslexic or learning disabled. Those who label these students assume that since the struggling student has been taught "phonics" there must be something wrong if phonics is supposed to be so effective. However, one can not assume that the instruction has been correct.
Often phonics instruction is mixed or blended with other strategies. When this happens, it is confusing to students like asking them to pat their heads and rub their bellies or rub their heads and pat their bellies. They don't know when, how or why to do which strategy? For many students, it is highly confusing to know which reading strategy to use and when. For example, should they "sound it out," "use a sight word," "look for little familiar word in a big, unfamiliar word" and so forth. When students are confused or misread, a common analysis of the problem is that the student must be "dyslexic" or "learning disabled."
Pat Doran has taught dyslexic and "learning disabled" students with reading deficiencies to use the phonics Code of the English Language to sound out and write words from left to right, from beginning to end with accuracy using her PHONICS STEPS TO READING SUCCESS!