Top Ten Recent Brain Research Findings in Reading

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Top Ten Recent Brain ResearchFindings in Reading
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10Pathways

• Dyslexic readers use different brain pathways
  than do good readers.
• Two neural pathways
• One for beginning reading, sounding out slowly.
• The other for speedier more skilled reading.

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9Findings in Older Students

• Imaging studies reveal increased activation in
  the frontal region.
• Demonstrating over activation in Brocas region
  (speech center).
• Students use systems in front of brain to
  compensate for disruption in back of brain.
• One way the student compensates is to sub
  vocalize as he reads. (Page 82) Overcoming
  Dyslexia, Shaywitz, Sally, MD

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8Early Identification

• Reading disabilities diagnosed after third grade
  are much more difficult to remediate.
• Early ID is important because the brain is more
  plastic in younger children and potentially
  more malleable for re-routing neural circuits.

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7Brain Repair

• One year after an educational intervention.
• The auxiliary pathways on the right side were
  reduced. (These pathways are associated with
  slower sounding out skills).
• There was further development of the primary
  system on the left-side (comparable to that of
  good readers).
• These left-side posterior circuits are essential
  for rapid automatic reading. Shaywitz Shaywitz

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Reasoning

• Dr. Bennet Shaywitz, theorizes that since the
  basic circuitry for linking letters to sounds is
  disrupted in dyslexic readers, they develop and
  come to rely on other neural systems not only for
  reading but for problem solving.
• They see things in a different way, are more
  creativethey think outside the box.

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6Siblings

• If one child in a family is dyslexic almost half
  of his brothers/sisters are also likely to be
  dyslexic.
• The gene research on this area has shown no
  single dominant gene, probably several involved.

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5Gender

• No significant difference was found in the
  prevalence of reading disability in the boys and
  girls we identified. Shaywitz, S. (Page 32)

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4Myth

• The deficit responsible for the disorder resides
  in the language system it resides in only a
  small part of the language system, the
  Phonological module. (Page 41)

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3Myth

• Children with dyslexia are not usually prone to
  seeing letters or words backwards.

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2 Reading is not in the genes.

• Speaking is natural, reading is not.
• Reading is not built into the genes, it is
  acquired.
• Reading has only been in existence for 5,000
  years, speaking has existed for far longer.

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1 Sounds vs. Whole word

• Everyone reads sound-by-sound.

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Early Warning Signs

• Delay in speaking
• Mispronouncing
• Misnaming
• Insensitivity to rhyme
• Talks around a word
• Word retrieval

• Understands meaning of words
• Difficulty with segmenting, blending, and rapid
  naming
• Difficulty knowing letter names, sounds

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Later SignsDyslexic readers

• Require many more exposures to a printed word
  over a much longer period of time.
• Has difficulty with the little words in, on,
  the.
• Reading nonsense words is the best measure of
  phonologic decoding skill deficit.
• Often do better on tests of reading comprehension
  than on decoding isolated single words.

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Key Elements of Effective Early Intervention

• Systematic and direct instruction in
• Phonemic awareness
• Explicit Phonics
• Practice in applying skills to reading/writing
• Fluency training
• Enriched language experiences

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Teaching SLD Students to Read

• use state-of-the-art evidence based
  instructional strategies and commercial reading
  programs.
• For more information see numerous reading
  programs reviewed in chapters 15 19 of
  Overcoming Dyslexia (as reviewed by the National
  Reading Panel).

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Oral Reading

• Once a student is fairly fluent and has received
  adult feedback, use Guided Repeated Oral Reading.
• To build up the numerous repetitions needed, use

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In the Future

• we may be able to more precisely target our
  interventions.
• we may be able to pinpoint interventions that are
  scientifically sound.
• we may be able to diagnose earlier and apply
  interventions that reduce reading problems in the
  intermediate years.