Defining Dyslexia

By Dr Keith Greaney

There is probably no other area of the primary school curriculum that causes more public debate than the topic of teaching reading. There does not seem to be any controversy over how science, social studies, art, music, physical education etc are taught, yet there are continuing debates over the various methods of how we should teach reading. Nearly everyone has a personal view of how we learn to read and how teachers should teach reading in the classroom.

Although the methods of teaching reading are many and varied, there is no one single “best” method, there is now significant scientific-based research evidence from the combined disciplines of cognitive psychology, neuropsychology as well as education to demonstrate that most children who develop problems learning to read have inefficient phonological-based skills and knowledge.

Furthermore, a second controversial issue arising from poor literacy achievement concerns the definition of dyslexia. One area of controversy that stems from the definition relates to the supposed number of people who are identified as being ‘dyslexic’. Figures range from 20 per cent of the population to less than five per cent.

The reason for this wide discrepancy of occurrence arises from the many and varied definitions. For example, definitions that contain a ‘broad spectrum’ view of dyslexia are more likely to have a wider ‘catchment of potential candidates’ than a definition that contains a more restrictive range of components.

However, with the plethora of definitions of dyslexia (and related programmes) that are available, teachers often have difficulty differentiating between what is a research-based programme and what is not. Using the evidence from research-based literature, Professor Bill Tunmer and Dr Keith Greaney have recently published a paper in the international Journal of Learning Disabilities titled: Defining Dyslexia.

In recognition of the relevance and importance of this paper, the publishers noted in a personal email that “the article Defining Dyslexia published in Journal of Learning Disabilities was the most downloaded article in 2010 in this journal (of all articles published in 2009 and 2010)”. In the article the authors consider what dyslexia is and, just as importantly, what it is not.

This article is available in the following free download site:http://ldx.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/3/229?ijkey=yAIKU2VVhu2M.&keytype=ref&siteid=spldx&utm_source=eNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1J22

If you would like to know more about how children learn to read, why some have problems learning to read and what can be done about it, Massey University offers the following graduate and postgraduate papers in literacy education for teachers. All can be taken by Distance learning.

258.337 Teaching Students with Reading Difficulties
258.720 Foundations of Literacy Education
258.721 Teaching Students with Literacy Learning Difficulties
258.722 Nature, Prevention and Remediation of Literacy Learning Difficulties

For more information contact: Dr Keith Greaney (k.t.greaney@massey.ac.nz)