Learning To Read Is Harder For Visual Learners

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Written by David Morgan

Sunday, 08 June 2008

It is something that every teacher will have seen.

by DavidMorgan

It is something that every teacher will have seen.

There will be bright children in the class, who work hard but struggle to read.

Initially everything can seem OK. But, while other children's reading progresses steadily, these children will hit a plateau at around 6. As the text they are expected to read gets more complicated, they will get more and more confused, often guessing wildly.

Eventually their confidence begins to crumble. They can feel the frustration and concern of the adults around them, but don't know what to do.

Sometimes this leads to a diagnosis of dyslexia, which is quite wrong.

Dyslexia suggests a fundamental problem with reading, despite normal intelligence.

But these children are usually just trying to read the wrong way. There is no reason why they should not be able to read.

Here is what's really happening.

A very visual child will find the alphabet easy to memorise. Then the first words they are show they will memorise as well. Everyone praises their progress and as far as they know, they are reading. The early reader books feed into this by using a very limited vocabulary that repeats a lot.

So their parents and teacher believe all is well.

But problems develop as the text starts to use a broader range of words. Some children will naturally switch to scanning the words phonetically.

The rest stay with their natural visual approach, unless carefully guided away from it. They just cannot hear the phonic structure of the words without the right help.

And these are the children that get stuck.

They become more and more addicted to wild guessing, using the context and the first letter of the word as cues.

They are baffled by their predicament and have no idea why it has gone wrong. They can feel people's frustration, but have actually been working hard.

One in five children reach the age of 11 unable to read properly and these children make up a large proportion of that group. It is a disaster for their academic career and working life.

And that is a tragedy for each of them because they are just trying to read the wrong way. We routinely see them successfully crack it in just a matter of weeks.

The label dyslexic is very dangerous. It lets everyone off the hook of actually finding a solution. And still consigns the child to a lower and tougher track through life.

About the Author:

For more information on helping every child learn to read have a look at our site. There is a range of information on techniques to fix most causes of dyslexia. It's often quite easy!

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