Word: shaywitz
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...made clear that their funding would go only to reading programs that are based on solid evidence of the sort that has been uncovered in dyslexia research. "In education, the whole idea that there is evidence that some programs are more effective than others is new," says Dr. Sally Shaywitz, a Yale neuroscientist who has written a fascinating new book, Overcoming Dyslexia (Alfred A. Knopf; April 2003), that details the latest brain-scan research--much of it done in her lab. "The good news is we really understand the steps of how you become a reader and how you become...
...addition to the proper neurological wiring, reading requires good instruction. In a study published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry, Shaywitz and colleagues identified a group of poor readers who were not classically dyslexic, as their phoneme producers, word analyzers and automatic detectors were all active. But the three regions were linked more strongly to the brain's memory processors than to its language centers, as if the children had spent more time memorizing words than understanding them...
...human brain is particularly receptive to instruction. Otherwise practice would never make perfect. Different people respond to different approaches, depending on their personality and the nature of their disability. "The data we have don't show any one program that is head and shoulders above the rest," says Shaywitz. But the most successful programs emphasize the same core elements: practice manipulating phonemes, building vocabulary, increasing comprehension and improving the fluency of reading...
...caught soon enough, can a child's dyslexia be reversed? The evidence looks promising. In her book, Shaywitz reports that brain scans of dyslexic kindergartners and first-graders who have benefited from a year's worth of targeted instruction start to resemble those of children who have never had any difficulty reading...
That doesn't mean older folks need despair. Shaywitz's brain scans of adult dyslexics suggest that they can compensate by tapping into the processing power on their brain's right side. Just don't expect what works for young children to work for adults. "If you're 18 and you're about to graduate and you don't have phonemic awareness, that may not be your top priority," says Chris Schnieders, director of teacher training at the Frostig Center in Pasadena, Calif. "It's a little bit late to start 'Buh is for baby' at that point...