It confirms what I have always thought, and here is an article that explains it more fully. Actually, many parents have suspected this with their own children, and tried to find solutions at the school level, but it was quickly dismissed as foolishness of parents. Planning to put it in my file, ‘I told you so’ articles, where my suggestions at no cost to the school, were quickly dismissed. The one suggestion that I pushed each year, speak to her face to face, rather than from the side.

““It’s a beautiful study, in the sense that it’s so simple,” says Shirley Fecteau, a visiting assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and research chair in cognitive neuroplasticity at Laval University in Quebec. “It really seems like a very clear effect on voice recognition in people with dyslexia.”

The finding suggests that people with dyslexia may have even more trouble following a speaker than they may realize, Gabrieli says. This adds to the growing evidence that dyslexia is not simply a visual disorder.

“There was a big shift in the 1980s from understanding dyslexia as a visual problem to understanding it as a language problem,” Gabrieli says. “Dyslexia may not be one thing. It may be a variety of ways in which you end up struggling to learn to read. But the single best understood one is a weakness in the processing of language sounds.”
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/voice-recognition-0729.html

That’s not exactly what the study says, nor the conclusion that should be drawn from it.

The study set up five avatars and trained users to recognize the ‘voice’ of each avatar (all playing the same text recorded by different speakers).  Some of the avatars spoke Mandarin, others spoke English.  In this test, it is not the understanding of the text that matters but recognizing the incidental phonetics of the speaker’s pronunciation and voice gestures.

Normal English-speaking listeners scored about 70% and dyslexic English speakers about 50%.  (20% would be random chance, so the 50% isn’t all that good).

So the evidence is that there is a CORRELATION between dyslexia and voice recognition.  Of course, correlation does not mean causation, it’s just a relationship between poor phonological awareness and poor voice recognition.

What is really interesting is that both the Mandarin normal and dyslexic listeners scored around 50%, they were not different from English dyslexic listeners.  Many Chinese do not develop phonological awareness because it is not required for reading (students who start reading with Pinyin require PA).

So a more appropriate inference is that skilled (non-dyslexic) English readers correlate with better voice recognition. 

But if there is a causal arrow (and there may not be one), which way might it run? I don’t think that someone who is good at recognizing voices is more likely to become an English skilled reader.

My interpretation would be LEARNING TO READ ENGLISH develops your phonological awareness, which improves your ability to recognize voices. 

There’s nothing wrong with the dyslexic readers, they simply haven’t gained the benefits that learning to read confers.

This study would be a lot more clear if they ran the dyslexics through an intense phonics-based reading remediation, and tested them again.

Just being a parent who is dyslexic as well as having a child that is dyslexic, and educating myself on everything there is on dyslexia and the research. From my understanding,, and experience dyslexia children must be taught the phonemic sounds. Nor does the mere act on learning to read, will developed phonemic awareness and improve overall phonological awareness.

The Children of the Code will provide the important reading science developments, that has refute and disproved that whole language reading instruction should never be used. The Children of the Code are the world leading reading researchers for the most part.

Dr. Paula Tallal in an interview: “Knowing something as simple as how much time you need to organize the information that you hear is highly predictive of language development. Now those children who have very low thresholds - that means they could process very quickly this sensory information, beepbeep, something really fast – those children turned out to develop language more quickly than the children who seemed otherwise to do the task perfectly normally. They could learn it just fine, but they needed just a little bit more time, beep beep, something like that. And then there were other kids who needed a lot more time like hundreds of milliseconds. They needed something like beep   beep. They still were doing the task beautifully, but they just couldn’t hear those differences when they went any more quickly than that. Those children turned out to be, frankly, language impaired. But it turned out there was a whole continuum from those children who learned language very quickly to those children who appeared at least at the age of three months old to be at risk for real language problems. And of course now we’re going to continue following these babies up and see whether or not that also predicts whether or not they have difficulty learning to read.”
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/tallal.htm

As you can see, research in the audio or the processing of speech sounds, under the neuroscience field in particular. The good news, is that it does represent a breakthrough to the understanding of dyslexia, and how the dyslexic is processing sounds. As a parent, and for that matter any parent that has a dyslexic child, will observe and have to deal with numerous incidents dealing with the outcomes of sound processing problem. My journey started when my child was six months old, where she began hearing assessments and had one every six months after that for the next 4 years, and her last one at age of 7. 

Otherwise, your comments on, “There’s nothing wrong with the dyslexic readers, they simply haven’t gained the benefits that learning to read confers,”  If only that was true and based on the science, but it is not. The statement is based on subjective assumptions coming out of whole language that reading is as natural as talking. Children need to taught reading, just like the majority of children need to be taught the phonemic sounds of the English language, first before actual reading instruction commences.

nancy wrote:  “Otherwise, your comments on, “There’s nothing wrong with the dyslexic readers, they simply haven’t gained the benefits that learning to read confers,”  If only that was true and based on the science, but it is not. The statement is based on subjective assumptions coming out of whole language that reading is as natural as talking.”

Not correct.  I’m an unswerving advocate of strong phonics, and strong science.

Current evidence does not support that there is something ‘wrong’ with a dyslexic child.  Wimmer, Landerl, Goswami, and others have been hard at work on that problem. For example:  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=5DF39F7C6C801CDBA1BDD338F043E58F.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=55013

Tallal is the flag-bearer for claiming there IS something wrong with a dyslexic child.  But…

“Tallal’s theory was based on the average (group) performance of twelve aphasic children (nine boys, three girls) from the John Horniman School in England.  The same twelve children were used in studies by Tallal and Piercy (1973a, 1973b, 1974, 1975).  It’s not a good idea to base a theory on the performance of the same twelve children, especially children this unusual.”

From D. McGuinness “Language Development and Learning to Read” pp 426.  McGuinness goes on to document several methodological and statistical problems in Tallal’s work, her review is devastating.

oops:  link to Landerl paper times out.  try this one.  http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0142716400002058

Nancy,in the book Tom is referring to,Dr.McGuiness thinks that it`s flawed instruction in the first place that creates the dyslexia.
This is the exciting new field of neuroscience(50 years:)) and because we`ve left so much to a hope and a prayer in reading instruction,proper instruction in explicit systematic synthetic phonics that MUST begin with phoneme grapheme correspondence,as we know that means the speech sound letter connection,she feels dyslexia never rears it`s ugly head.

  There is the double deficit theory as identified by Maryann Wolfe,Tufts U.,that`s a group of 5%  approximately who have not only the phonological deficit but also have a magnocellular deficiency in the visual processing field.Dr.Reid Lyon also ,like Dr.McGuiness feels we can diminish reading problems in all sectors,rich or poor,to 10% of the population.
It is hard to believe teachers are taught at University that poverty is the cause of illiteracy.
It doesn`t get any more tragic than that!

There is friction between the researchers of Europe and other researchers from North America and else where the issues are differing opinions on what is important in learning to read, and what is needed to learn to read.

Saying that, there is a small fraction that believes there is no reading difficulties, just bad instruction. McGuinness, as I undertook to find her research, she does believe in good reading instruction starting with phonemic awareness, but she claims the research does not support phonemic awareness as being an important factor. Considering the paper was published in 2005, she is very clear, that phonemic awareness does not predict future reading difficulties. and than goes on the say, “This doesn’t mean that phoneme awareness is not important—far from it. Phoneme analysis and sequencing are essential for learning an alphabetic writing system. But the evidence is consistent that proper instruction in an alphabetic writing system has an impact on phoneme
awareness, and against the notion that phoneme awareness develops in order for a child to learn to read an alphabetic writing system! Instruction in
letter-sound correspondences at home or in preschool is strongly correlated to subsequent reading skill (values are as high as r ¼ :60). The most important phoneme-analysis skills are segmenting and blending. These skills need to be taught, and they are easy to teach in the context of good linguistic-phonics instruction (see Early Reading Instruction).”
http://npu.edu.ua/!e-book/book/djvu/A/iif_kgpm_0262134527.pdf

Completely ignoring the brain research in the last 15 years. And that phonemic awareness is one of the most important component needed to learn to read, as well as being the number one problem for dyslexics. She also spoke briefly on the biological aspect, because my brain scan looks exactly like the mind of a dyslexic. Apparently, regardless of the differences in brains, McGuniness states in the paper it makes no difference, because it is all about the instruction.

“Tallal is the flag-bearer for claiming there IS something wrong with a dyslexic child”
Stretching going back as far as 1975, when like other researchers over the years will adjust their theories as new knowledge is confirmed. Below is a video from the Children of the Code, of a number of researchers and in part the audio processing. Tallal appears also.
Look at Language Differences.
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/Tour/c3b/return_index.htm

One last point, McGuiness main interest is with children who had speech delays. I disagree with most of what she states, because it is not been my personal experience, nor the teachers back in the early 60s. I was a child who had not developed verbal language when I entered grade 1, and the first thing that was taught was the phonemic sounds, just like the other children. My biggest problem is phonemic awareness, just like my youngest child, phonemic awareness. I have difficulty in picking up the individual sounds of words, words that are unknown to me. I and others like me, would seriously questioned McGuiness and her theories. I learned to read, write and do numeracy well, with a lot of direct explicit instruction, lots of practice, daily grammar and spelling lessons, and the other writing processes. Many of these things are missing in today’s schools, which does make learning very difficult with reading, writing and numeracy deficits.

In my work I synthesized the research on extracting the speech sounds,organizing them and delivering them on a very organized Orton Gillingham,language triangle theory,lesson plan.It`s explicit,multisensory,simultaneous and synthetic(blend,segment,blend…).I worried about getting kids to fluency with repeated readings of the phonemes.Certainly we also have to articulate and write the phonemes.
I`ve been thrilled with how well it works and I`m now aware in my work with First Nations children that we can succeed in any environment with 90% of children.
I too resent the challenge that phonemic awareness
is not a vital component in teaching kids to read and spell.
Children of the Code bunch are the leaders in the field as is Dr.Linnea Ehri,Columbia.

Working with hundreds of teachers and children at this point,the fact is indisputable from all reports.

In my First Nations work,we`ve gone from a grade 1 and 2 where 1-2 kids learned to read to some classrooms where the teachers feel they all learn.

You have to make sure the code is broken down(segmented) at the articulation level.

Thanks Joanne. I was a little over my head because I have never read the work of the researchers Tom pointed out. But I am well aware of the in-fighting over the theories, especially the attacks on the findings in the neuroscience fields, by the researchers in the behavioural cognitive fields. It is a turf war, rather than serious divisions between both fields.

The turf war has spilled out into the reading and numeracy instruction in the schools. And my youngest was probably a victim of it, because it was commonly thought by the educrats, once a child has language, there will be no problems in learning to read.  By October in grade 1, I knew there was a big problem, despite the intensive speech therapy she had, but they kept on insisting that since her speech and vocabulary was great, there is no problem.

If only I knew all the things today, the educrats would have received phone calls from me, rather late at night to hear the temper tantrums of my child.. But than again, I would have done the smart thing, home-school despite the knowledge gap. and confidence factor.

I posed the question on future implications of research such as this because of work of Dr. Carl Kline and others.

Readers may be interested in the work of the late Dr. Kline of UBC, a clinical psychiatrist and an expert in treating children with dyslexia.

He said about 90 percent of reading disabilities were CAUSED by ineffective teaching and poor methodology. Only about 10 percent of the school population where true dyslexics and the rest were the products of whole language style teaching.

From Andrew Nikiforuk’s If Learning is so Natural Why am I Going to School:
  “At his Vancouver practice Kline soon found that the bulk of his referrals were not frustrated dyslexics but frazzled students disabled by poor reading instruction.  In other words, their varied emotional problems, all stemming from or exacerbated by losing battles with the written word, arose from substandard teaching or no teaching at all”

“For Kline, separating the teaching disabled from the dyslexic was a relatively easy task. With intensive phonics instruction, the teaching disabled (as he called them) quickly shed their emotional problems and learned how to read.  In contrast, dyslexics required ‘intensive one-on-one help. It’s a long haul.”

“To Kline, the lesson for North American educators, who now lord it over a sorry illiteracy rate anywhere between 25 and 35%, should be obvious: schools can and should be in the business of preventing rather that abetting reading failure.”

I think the number of dyslexics is about 10 % as well, but it is very hard to determined , because many go unidentified in the public education system. An interesting observation on my part, on the provinces that actually have the breakdown of the SE students, between 3 to 4 % on average are identified at the school level. Pretty consistence in the last 15 years for Canada.

Researchers, that have studied the stats have notice it as well as other irregularities. I believe, as well as other researchers, that dyslexia is not identified as often as it should be, because it would require a change to the reading instruction of whole language.

The severe dyslexics are identified rather early one, but the large bulk of the mild to moderate dyslexics are never identified. It is no surprise to me that there is more teaching disabled than the dyslexics. What is even more surprising, if extra funding is tied to dyslexics, the increase of dyslexics jumps to 10 % and higher. And most of them are reading disabled, and not dyslexic. .If there is no special funding, it stays at the 3 to 4 %., and most of them are dyslexics.

Yet both groups suffering tremendously because of the practices and instruction in reading, writing and numeracy. in our schools. Common sense would tell you, why not prevent reading failure through the use of intensive phonics instruction?  Not when there is money and future jobs at stake all done on the backs of children who have poor reading, writing and numeracy skills.

If ynemic awarenessou want another area where the educrats continue their educational malpractice just look at the aboriginal failure levels in literacy in this country.

Now that they have control over their own children and don`t have to put them in a public school system we can teach them with phonemic awareness instruction;last year in a school district that keeps their children hostage,doles out failure at a 75%level,they REFUSED to teach with phonemes,flatly,in spite of the failure.

There is no pressure for the educrats to be effective!

This educational malpractice and refusal to teach children that are failing in the early grades is the most
destructive to society.It includes,20 percent with no LD,many boys can`t learn without explicit,systematic phonemic awareness and phonics and 15% of children with an inherent processing weakness.Then there are the ESL kids.

This story came up on the UK RRF message board. My response chimes with ‘tom’s’ above.
http://www.rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4946

BTW, if you haven’t read Prof. Diane McGuinness’s books yet, please put them on your ‘must read’ list at once -you’ll never regret it!

“On the subject of hearing phonemes: Phoneme sensitivity is innate as all babies need it in order to acquire spoken language, but they are not consciously aware of this ability. ‘In fact, no one needs to be explicitly aware of phonemes unless they have to learn an alphabetic writing system’ (D McGuinness Language Development and Learning to Read p36) . People who have learnt to read using non-alphabetic scripts such as Chinese, which is based on the syllable unit of sound, lack phoneme awareness; studies ‘show the strong impact of the type of writing system and type of instruction on the development of phonemic awareness -an environmental effect, and restates the point that you do not acquire this aptitude unless you need it’ (D.McGuinness Why Children Can’t Read p135) The ease with which a child can be taught to consciously listen and unravel the phonemic level of speech in order to link each phoneme with its written symbol, appears to be heritable. ‘Good/bad phoneme-awareness runs in families, just as musical talent does’ (D.McGuinness Why Children Can’t Read p151) This unravelling is necessary because speech consists of co-articulated sounds blended into a rapidly produced sound stream.”

http://www.rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4946

Learning to read Chinese, requires to learn over 10,000 characters for basic. To have a high level of literacy in Chinese, it is 100,000 characters.

Susan,  I disagree because it is a cop-out for not teaching phonemic awareness, and making it a talent rather than a skill that must be taught. Had enough of that, hearing the reasons why my child’s math skills were poor. One of them, not having a natural skill in numbers, but I prove them wrong, by teaching my child in explicit instruction, minus the fuzzy math that is being used in the schools. Outcome, a solid foundation does wonders for math achievement.

By the way, there has been research in comparing dyslexics to other languages, including Chinese. Should read up on it, how many non-dyslexics become dyslexic when learning the English language. It is all about the instruction, and there is quite a bit of research concerning it.

hi nancy,

your position is actually very close to McGuinness’s.  what she was talking about was the theory of phonological development. 

originating with Liberman&Liberman; and continuing to present, there is a belief that phonological awareness develops from words to syllables to phonemes, as the child gets older.  this is the basis of the traditional explanation of dyslexia: that the child is missing something, or has a disability that prevents development along this ‘normal’ path.

McGuinness carefully reviews the evidence, and shows that there is no support for this position.  there is nothing ‘wrong’ with a dyslexic child, only in the disorganized way we teach him.

like you, she calls for the strongest possible phonics programs to be taught in school: her analysis suggests an extreme version of synthetic phonics called ‘linguistic phonics’, complemented with generous immersion in high-quality connected texts.

“originating with Liberman&Liberman; and continuing to present, there is a belief that phonological awareness develops from words to syllables to phonemes, as the child gets older.  this is the basis of the traditional explanation of dyslexia: that the child is missing something, or has a disability that prevents development along this ‘normal’ path.”

Now bare with me Tom, since I am not an expert in reading, although I have felt I could walk into an exam for reading instruction, and passed, my expertise is having dyslexia as well as one of my children.

Now to McGuinness’s statement - ” ‘In fact, no one needs to be explicitly aware of phonemes unless they have to learn an alphabetic writing system’ (D McGuinness Language Development and Learning to Read p36) .

Very true, up until the invention of the printed word, but the experts disagree once more on how phonological awareness develops, but the evidence is pointing that dyslexic children have major cognitive weaknesses in the phonological processes. Now McGuinness research is taken from children with speech delays, like Liberman who also work with children with speech difficulties. My problem with McGuinness she is declaring that there is nothing wrong with the dyslexia child, but the disorganized reading instruction. I agree with the last part, disorganized reading instruction, but I do not agree with the first part, there is nothing wrong with the dyslexia child.

Why I state it, because I know I have problems in phonological processing,  as well as seeing my youngest developing the same problems, starting in and around the six-month stage. We both share a speech delay, but our phonological weaknesses are different.

Why I believe that auditory processes plays a role, along with a combination of other variables, is what I and my youngest child cannot do.

My child - Can hear an unknown word, and be able to pronounce it, but she has great difficulty in trying to figure out the verbal sounds, and put it on paper.

As for myself - the opposite - The unknown word verbally, I have a hard time to pronounce it, but I can put the sounds on paper, and come very close to the correct spelling.

In order for me to pronounce a strange word, I need to hear it several times, practice, practice if I want to incorporate the word in my everyday language. The opposite for my child, where new vocabulary words must be seen in the printed version, and than practice and practice. My child would love to have my writing ability, and I would love to have my child’s verbal abilities.

There is other important aspects that are related to the audio processes, but it would require a few more posts. What I will leave you with, is a e-book called, Preventing Reading Difficulties In Young Children, by the National Research Council.
http://210.41.138.46:85/dmtzy/yy/7/wwdzs/Education/index142.pdf

My main concern on McGuinness’s theory, is that dyslexia is only referred to as a reading disability, but it encompasses so much more, than the reading difficulties. Since, I have not read the book, I am making assumptions here, that she is taking a page off the public education files and their research. They have done a real disservice to the dyslexics, when they used all kinds of progressive practices, with the best of intentions where they become the low achievers in the classroom. Although I am 110 % with her that reading instruction must change, but most of the primary and elementary instruction must change as well. Keep the progressive techniques in the older grades, once children are well versed on the 3 Rs, as well as the arts, music and sciences.

,

Nancy and others, here’s my article for SEN magazine, ‘Six myths about dyslexia’. I hope you find it interesting:

http://www.rrf.org.uk/docs/SEN49_Dyslexia_myths.pdf

http://www.childrenofthecode.org/Tour/c3/dysteachia.htm

Does Europe have the same whole language obsession which causes so many problems that we manufacture dyslexia in kids with no problems?

Diane McGuiness is one of the many heroes on the spectrum of trying to reverse flawed instruction.

Malkin Dare at SQE has been speaking out through the organization/charity she founded about such things for years.

I included a clip from Children of the Code,these North American heroes,I have watched age before my very eyes.

The Reading War is ferocious!

Susan, one of the better articles I have read over the years, that really gives a reader pause, but can be dangerous if one does not have prior knowledge of the other facets of research that is taking place. But the goods news, is not what or what isn’t dyslexia, it is the prescriptions of a solid direct explicit phonics instruction, or any similar instruction. So if a teacher from Canada is reading it, it certainly spells it out on the types of reading instruction, which is a hard sell coming from a parent to convince the powers to be to change their instruction. As I have experience when questioning the progressive instruction taking place in our schools.

Myth one - Not all dyslexics who appear to speak normally, have the ability to manipulate and hear the small phonemic sounds with ease. President Bush, in his term as President in the United States, mispronounce quite a few words, starting with I believe in a presidential address, the word nuclear. Although, President Bush has never admitted to being dyslexic, his brother Neil is a well-known dyslexic. Just yesterday, I was in an auto-parts store, butchering words once more. I pronounced the word ion as if it was eon. While the sales clerk was speaking to me, all I was thinking did he pick it up, does he think I am dumb, and a host of other thoughts.

That said, I believed she is incorrect when she states, “wired-in phoneme sensitivity becomes biologically unnecessary and it disappears into the background of the brain.”  I think the neuro-scientists are correct that the brains of dyslexics are wired incorrectly, and therefore the dyslexic reader must find a new route or detour to get to the part of the brain that contains the phonological processes. But on both sides, the prescription is the same, and the differences lie in the brain processes, and as I far as I know, still has not been determined, and where the theories are constantly evolving as new knowledge is learned.

I cannot see important and fundamental brain processes disappearing, or becoming biologically unnecessary, once a person reaches mastery. But at the end of myth one, I do agree with her - “They have inherited a great ear for sound and a good eye for patterns in words. In an environment full of books with helpful, literate adults on hand, they put the two together themselves and rapidly become readers. Most children aren’t so lucky and some find it very difficult indeed. Fortunately, all is not lost for those that have missed out in the nature
and nurture stakes as all the necessary knowledge and skills for reading and writing can be simply taught through the use of systematic synthetic phonics.”

Now that gives me pause, because in the stats of the English-speaking countries, a steady stream of poor readers are being produced in the education systems, and only a small percentage would be considered dyslexic. Dysteachia practices produces much of it, and the use of systematic synthetic phonics, or like programs would put an end to producing the steady stream of poor readers.

Short video clips on dysteachia, by the Children of the Code. And yes I do agree, it is all about the instruction. I will be posting on the other myths, because I feel it is important where I differ from McGuinness but agree 110 % the key is instruction.

http://www.childrenofthecode.org/Tour/c3/index.htm

Nancy,we reacted identically-go figure:)

I hope you look at CEA Ben Levin,How Do Children Learn to Read…

Canada`s Knowledge Mobilization team-
In their article,without saying so-they denounce phonics.

Myth 2 - “This means, of course, that all dyslexia
diagnoses are presently based purely
on professional judgement (opinion) or
intuition (guesswork).”

Very true, because the powers to be in the education systems, sees dyslexia as being purely a reading problem, and it is not. Throw in the current definitions of dyslexia, using the IQ as one of the bench marks, many of the mild to moderate dyslexics are never identified, or worse the severe to the mild are misdiagnosed. The advances being made in the science, are pointing that dyslexic is not purely a reading deficit, but rather a combination of variables.

The history of the current definitions of dyslexia, has its origins from the educrats of the public education system, to protect their precious progressive practices, whole language and to create profit within the public education system. As a parent,I have no options but to get the diagnoses of dyslexia for my child, to access SE services. I believe dyslexia is on a continuum, rather than clear cut-off points. The public education system has taken advantage of the state of LD and dyslexia definitions, and for that matter other disorders to prevent the instruction methods based on the research from entering the school. More to do with the politicization of education and the power structures that do not have the best interests of students and their education.

Myth 3 - “those professionally diagnosed as dyslexic need a particular type of remedial instruction which is different from that given to ordinary poor readers.” Considering the fact, that anything would be better than the whole language approaches which is the standard stock instruction for students who are having difficulties in the 3 Rs. And yes I do agree, “Unfortunately, due to a lack of knowledge and training, parents are unlikely to find schools with staff able and willing to provide such
a programme.”

The key is in the instruction, and not the dumbing down of the education of children who have difficulties in learning. And it is big problem within the NA schools on the training of the educators, and to provide multitude of various programs based on the science of reading for the remediation, rather than a reading instruction based on a philosophical stance, the whole language approach. Better yet, to provide the correct reading instruction such as systematic synthetic phonics in the first place, to prevent reading failure, and struggles in reading.

Myth 4 - “Myth four: the brain defect dyslexia
can be found world-wide.”

It is true, dyslexias can be found across all populations, countries, social/economic status but some countries are providing the correct reading instruction based on explicit synthetic phonics or a version of it, in languages that have a far less complex code to decipher, than the English language. As a result, the percentage of reading difficulties do not emerge, and will always have a much lower percentage of students with reading, writing, and numeracy difficulties,  than the English-speaking countries. The English-speaking countries will always have much higher percentage of students with reading, writing and numeracy difficulties, due to the high use of whole language approaches, other progressive methods that eschews spelling, grammar, and other important foundation skills, Not to mentioned once more, that in English-speaking countries, there is well over 40 % of adults with low literacy and numeracy skills.

Although McGuinness is correct, “it seems, is a function of the writing system, not a property of
the child” (McGuinness, 2004).”  The English language is considered a most difficult language to learned, and yet our public education system rather produced consistent percentages of low to middle to high levels of readers, using the excuse that low-literacy to medium levels of literacy, will not be needing high reading levels as adults. The problem with that reasoning, is the whole language advocates are confusing background knowledge to the reading skills. When I first started to advocate for my child, I read all kinds of papers, essays, and other material with ease, but my difficulty was not in the act of reading, but the content of the material. I realized I did not have enough background knowledge, to come to a deep understanding of the material. It was the start of another type of self-taught education, a world that I thought had the best interests of their students. Reading, writing and numeracy are the most important foundations for any human to have to navigate in this world, and to understand the world. And yet in NA, apparently reading, writing and numeracy difficulties are a property of the child, and never the instruction and the inherent difficulties of the code in the English language.

Myth 5 - “Myth five: dyslexics are naturally
compensated for their supposed lack of phonological ability by being genetically endowed with talents in the artistic/visual-spatial sphere.”

I agree with what McGuinness stated that, “What we do know is that those who struggle to read understandably avoid activities which are centred on
literacy and, instead, head for the arts and crafts, sports, drama or computing areas of education.”

In much the same way, as the blind develops heighten senses, other than their eyes, a dyslexic child often developed high creativity levels, imaginative minds, and become excellent problem solvers.

Myth 6 -” in addition to serious reading and spelling problems, true dyslexics experience a
number of co-occurring difficulties such as clumsiness, poor short term memory and concentration problems.”

I believe this myth to be true, where neuro-science and the cognitive fields are studying the soft signs of dyslexics that are shared by other subsets of the population. There is regular soft signs emerging that are consistent with dyslexics, such as formation of letters in writing, and the ability to make the same mistakes in writing consistently, and over time despite remediation instruction. It is a cop-out to use the reasoning of other parts of the population have the same problems. That could be said about other areas in society, or even in the health field.

Nor do the problems disappeared after remediation of reading difficulties, but that has more to do with the overall instruction found in schools, where the foundations of language and numeracy are eschew to favouring progressive approaches that do not include direct explicit instruction.