tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post131031855700291835..comments2023-10-25T03:22:30.728-06:00Comments on Ragamuffin Studies: IRD Term II Week II: The Engineering Geek Has an Epiphany!Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-87192677088481152382008-07-26T22:36:00.000-06:002008-07-26T22:36:00.000-06:00Hey, Ellie!I knew you would love Wolfe's book "Pro...Hey, Ellie!<BR/>I knew you would love Wolfe's book "Proust and the Squid"! I hope all of your readers take the time to read that book if they read nothing else this year. It answered so many questions and explained so much that I- and surely many other parents of dyslexic children have struggled to understand. Helping D. learn to read fluently was the most difficult and time-consumning task I've ever undertaken. I am grateful and honestly astonished that D. now reads above his grade level. That's great, and of course I am proud of his success at school. More importantly, though, he also reads for pleasure- for the sheer joy of reading. His is the best of outcomes, but it was a long, hard road and I wish with all my heart that every parent of a dyslexic child, and every elementary school teacher bar none, would read "Proust and the Squid." Far too many teachers give up on kids who can learn to read, and far too many parents willingly cling to various self-flattering theories of their struggling child's "exceptional qualities" rather than doing the hard work needed to open the world of literature that is available to every child.<BR/>Anyway, I'm really glad you recommended Wolfe's book here.<BR/>--MadgeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-85834039833365798112008-07-22T19:55:00.000-06:002008-07-22T19:55:00.000-06:00Wow, Chrtistine, you really took the time to consi...Wow, Chrtistine, you really took the time to consider a lot of questions in your comment.<BR/><BR/>I think I read the Freed book a number of years ago. The problem I have with the whole concept of "right brained" and "left brain" is that it is so innacurate. Although males have more lateralized language (almost totally in the left hemisphere), most functions are not right or left. I think the concept of the Maverick mind is better, although Florance does not get into the actual brain areas at all, because much of the research is so recent.<BR/><BR/>I disagree with you about something you said.<BR/>You wrote:<BR/>I think it gets touchy when any educator says "you must learn this way" or "you must do or not do that thing". Who gets to say what is right or wrong? People and brains are different and if something is working then why not let them do whatever they want? <BR/><BR/>For Mavericks, auditory working memory and verbal sequencing tends to be underdeveloped. But it can be developed through training. In order for Mavericks to function in the world and communicate, and read well, they need to train themselves to use these pathways for certain tasks. This simply gives them the ability to switch when needed--it does nothing to hurt their amazing visual gifts. <BR/><BR/>I do agree that such people are often misdiagnosed--frequently with specific LD, ASD and/or ADD. The Auditory Processing Dysfunction however, is real, and can be ameliorated by the training mentioned above. <BR/><BR/>As for the jerkiness--I was talking about the hand movements used with speed reading. Speed reading techniques, regardless of who teaches them, involves eye-hand techniques that need to be smooth. That's because the brain of a proficient reader takes in maybe 1 in 5 words directly; the rest is brought in periferally via a smooth sweep of the eye across the line. <BR/><BR/>Proust and the Squid has much that is technical in it, but it is written for the interested party, so you don't have to be a neuropsychologist to read it. Wolf does reference the actual research papers in her notes for those of us who can and wish to read them.<BR/>I am not even through Chapter 2 yet, but I highly recommend the book! <BR/><BR/>I'll be headed over to your blog to see how you review Freed.Elisheva Hannah Levinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-53044517960679158862008-07-22T07:07:00.000-06:002008-07-22T07:07:00.000-06:00What an interesting post.I am almost finsihed read...What an interesting post.<BR/><BR/>I am almost finsihed reading "Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World" by Jeffrey Freed. Have you read it? This is written primarily for parents of right-brained learners and also parents of ADD kids. If you have not read it I think you should and you'd probably go through it quickly. I say you should read it if not for any reason other than many teachers are reading that book and getting their ideas from it. Whether the ideas or good or bad I don't know but maybe you'd have opinions on that.<BR/><BR/>Freed feels that most if not all ADD labeled kids are right-brained learners and that some are misdiagnosed with ADD when they are just exhibiting right-brained learning strength.<BR/><BR/>On the topic of reading Freed discussed speed reading and that all right brained learners should be taught to speed read. He does not use the term sub-vocalization or discuss that.<BR/><BR/>I had never heard of sub-vocalization, the term you mentioned, and poked on the web to find out what it was. I cannot imagine doing that since I 'hear the words in my head'. Freed discusses that right brained learners see pictures in their head, if they read a word they see the image of the thing, whereas if I were doing a spelling test, I'd "see" the word spelled out, floating in my mind.<BR/><BR/>Freed also says to make a person read orally is terrible for right brained learners especially, have a hard time with it and it slows them way down and makes them read jerky and not with inflection, monotone etc. He argues that bad sounding oral reading is not a true indicator of the person's abiltity to read silently. He stresses right brained learners should read silently (even young kids). <BR/><BR/>I think it gets touchy when any educator says "you must learn this way" or "you must do or not do that thing". Who gets to say what is right or wrong? People and brains are different and if something is working then why not let them do whatever they want? <BR/><BR/>Now regarding the jerky eye movements have you considered an eye tracking problem? The issue would be a narrowed, abnormal smaller field of vision that allows a reader, in some cases, to see clearly (not double vision, not blurred) one or two or three words at a time. The eyes go to two words, read them, move over, refocus, read those, move over, refocus, read those, etc. That makes smooth reading impossible and in all the refocusing and pausing the movements are 'jerky' and the reading comprehension can be lost. <BR/><BR/>Normal fields of vision allow us to see more words in focus at one time and the more we can see the smoother and faster our eyes can sweep across the page. This reading ahead is what helps us be able to read orally<BR/><BR/>I also learned through Dianne Craft that the mixed eye dominance can be an issue. If a person is left eye dominant they have trouble reading English since we read left to right. She said when beginning to read a line of text the head is turned to the left and the brain must force the right eye to be dominant and to lead across the page. This person might also then have "eye tracking problems". It takes extra effort for the brain to let the right eye take over, then when they get to the middle of the page, where the left eye is physically more lined up to the page, the brain can kick in and let the left eye take over. In doing so sometimes the place on the line is lost and the have to find where they left off. Also when that left eye is reading across the rest of the line, when they get to the end of the page, they turn and have to go back to using the right eye as the dominant eye. This sometimes causes the person to lose their line and they begin to read the wrong line, skipping lines or starting back to something they already read. Then stopping to find their place, they again lose their train of thought and the reading comprehension can suffer.<BR/><BR/>A theory is that many right brained learners are mixed eye dominant.<BR/><BR/>Craft mentioned in a lecture that many people on the Autism spectrum and also ADD, ADHD happen to be right brained learners.<BR/><BR/>Dianne Craft was a special ed teacher who took a break from it to HS her only child, now is working with special ed again. She is linked with HSLDA. She gives talks at HS conferences to parents. She also has an OT manual for parents to do OT at home with their kids to address various LDs. She has a website with handouts from her talks and she sells some stuff for parents to use.<BR/><BR/>It seems to me you are working on researching things on a higher level of academic writings and so on. I wanted to share more of the resources for the layman (parents) and teachers to use, where these ideas are broken down into more simple language and focus on practical applications for parents, teachers (and homeschooling parents).<BR/><BR/>I am interested also in possibly what the academia may know about this stuff and then how the people who water it down for the layman apply it. Are the writers such as Freed doing the topic justice? Are they leaving things out? <BR/><BR/>Freed also discusses our changing culture and technology and in the beginning of the book he shares how the use of screens may over-stimulate the right brain in young children to then pave a pathway for them to be right-brained learners. Then when most of those kids are thrown into a public school setting based on left-brained learning techniques their brains are not wired properly to take in and do well with that type of learning. If that is true we are in deep trouble as the public schools don't seem to be open to changing their teaching methods any time soon yet the kids are nearly all on a very different pathway, with being introduced to TV in infancy, video games, hand held game devices, PCs and even music that stimulates the brain in the same way.<BR/><BR/>I was imagining in a better world we'd have magnet schools for right-brained learners to go to. Let the old fashioned public schools keep doing their left brain teaching, but let the right brained learners go to special schools where everything is taught differently for right brained learners. I don't see right brained learners as abnormal so I don't see those as being 'special ed'. Imagine the possibilities if right brained learners had different methods to teach much of the same information as typical public schools. THen add in classes on topics for the strengths of the right brained learners and we could end up with some very capable people with abilities that the left-brained learners may never be able to do with themselves! <BR/><BR/>By the way people (parents, teachers, homeschooling parents) are grasping for info on teaching right-brained learners. There are not enough books on the market for this topic and it is a niche that needs filling. People need to start writing more books on this topic!<BR/><BR/>The idea of wrongly medicating children (labeling them with a disorder if their only issue is they are more visual learners), when the medication may have negative side effects on their health and mind, just becuase a school system is outdated and refuses to change when change is needed makes me feel like I'm living in the Twilight Zone. SCARY.<BR/><BR/>I can console myself only because my own kids are homeschooled so they will not be at risk of being misdiagnosed or mislabeled or forced to take medication just for the way their brain works (right brained learners). <BR/><BR/>While at an amusement park a couple of weeks ago I found out that my ten year old, after one ride, had memorized the entire roller coaster ride. He can tell you exactly what turns and twists it takes, in what order and so on. I was on the rides with him and I could never do that, I barely can tell you which ride had a barrel roll, how many loops it had and so forth. He memorized all eleven roller coaster rides he went on. He said he was putting himself to sleep by re-riding the rides over and over in his head. That any brain can do that was beyond my imagination. I could never do that and the idea that he can 'replay' the entire thing is a bit hard for me to believe. <BR/><BR/>However I do believe it because he has been re-telling me stories and things we've seen and done, the earliest being him telling me over and over about the time he watched our bathroom get wallpapered, we'd hired a wallpaper hanger, and I let him sit and watch it being done. I can't recall his exact age, it was somewhere between 12 and 15 months old. I have a photo of him sitting there I should find it and blog that story.ChristineMMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17388497877158577422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-71205191861676325132008-07-22T06:44:00.000-06:002008-07-22T06:44:00.000-06:00Fascinating! I have my own engineering geek that r...Fascinating! I have my own engineering geek that reads slowly. I think I'll ask him about mental voices & sub-vocalization & see what he says. He's said things about my own reading speed more than once that make me think that he'd be interested in reading a bit faster. Espcially since he's taking a bunch of continuing ed classes right now and the reading is killing him! What an interesting post!Ritsumeihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06283473059747130843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-53578635649932033552008-07-21T16:01:00.000-06:002008-07-21T16:01:00.000-06:00How cool that the EG is taking your class! :-) I a...How cool that the EG is taking your class! :-) I am so glad your teaching is going well.<BR/><BR/>http://tribeof3feistykids.blogspot.com/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com