I came across your web page after searching for inductive/deductive reasoning. After putting off I have finally taken that English course I so very much need. I have put it off for so many years due to Dyslexia. It makes the written word an intimidating task. I am 40 years old and even writing a thank you letter can be a chore. If you gave me the task of speaking before 1000 people I would not have even close to the same anxiety as writing a short letter (I will proof read this several times before sending). So with that said I also read the blog on 10 Things To Do with Your Child Before 10. The Q&A on dyslexia, well you need to re-read your section on reasoning. May I suggested a book called the The Gift of Dyslexia by Ron Davis. As a dyslexic it was very helpful and you can use pictures to asst w/ reading/words/letters. Because that is how a dyslexics brain works. These people are not lazy, they think differently from you, consider yourself lucky and not right in your singular method of teaching. I never attended secular school and I also never got assistance with my dyslexia until adulthood. It made for extremely low self confidence and has effected the course of life. Through God’s grace he has lead me to the right people and resources to greatly decrease my feeling of being stupid. So I hope this helps, but phonics is not the only answer and combo will work best. –Kelley
Got to say, that although I would have been shocked to hear myself say it 20 years ago, I agree to an extent with Kelley. The intensive phonics I used with 6 of the 7 of ours we’ve taught to read so far, did not work well with our dyslexic.
We used some of Ron Davis’s ideas, but primarily those of Dianne Craft to help our son. It was revolutionary to me to realize that he needed to store the words in the graphics area of his mind, it was the way he thought. When we used her Brain Integration handbook, and added color and graphic intensifiers to the problem areas of words, he learned to read right away.
Although he didn’t read well until 10 or 11, as a high schooler he is now scoring in the 95+ percentile in reading. There are the exceptions that prove the rule. If a child isn’t responding as expected to intensive phonics instruction and backing off for a time doesn’t improve the situation, consider there may be learning glitches that need to be addressed. One real tip off is the child who gets it perfectly one day and the next day seems clueless. To the child seeing letters as a graphic, and whose mind is turning the letters around like 3-D sculptures trying to make sense of them, they are not always identifiable to them as the same thing they studied yesterday.
Live and learn. Wish I’d known that 15 years ago!