HOW TO BETTER UNDERSTAND DYSLEXIA
By Florence Jenkins Muse
Although this column will be on far lighter subjects, my editor has asked me to write several on “Dyslexia” since for more than fifty years I have worked with students with this condition.
Very little is written or known about dyslexia among most people. For example, the dictionary only says “bad reading”. One of my college textbooks which is How To Teach Elementary Reading only says that dyslexia is a generic condition or injury to the brain. You have probably seen many TV programs showing people with this condition but even these left you wondering about the cause of the condition. Well, from my fifty year textbook of experience and two tools given me by supervisors when I began this teaching, I will tell you of dyslexia.
First of all, it is a physical handicap of the brain and not mental. In fact, all people I have taught with dyslexia have far superior intelligence than normal people. With dyslexia, the visual image a person sees reflects backwards, a mirror image, on the brain. For example, this person see SAW as WAS or numbers like 3, 7, 5 etc. backwards. Naturally this causes reading and the language skills such as spelling to be almost impossible for them. One supervisor taught me that “tactile learning” was the only way to treat this condition and I found by experience that she was correct. Tactile means touch and is done by writing the word, letter, or number correctly on the back.
The sensory nerves then relay this correctly on the brain. Sandpaper letters and numbers, having students write on velvet or corduroy pillows is also a form of this tactile learning. It always works and even in a short time so that young students can advance several grade levels in reading in a short time. It is essential that children who have this condition be helped when they are young so they can go on with their learning and their lives. Yet, our society has let them, for the most part, slip through the cracks. When this happens, these students begin developing characteristics that are very harmful to them and others. For example, many who have this condition are ashamed of it and spend their lives covering up. I will discuss some of these characteristics in my next column. Meanwhile, dyslexics who openly admit their handicap usually do well and are wonderful people to be around.
It is important to point out that showing the dyslexia person the correct way a word or number should be has little effect. The tactile method is the only one I have found that really works. It even works in older students. Having had so much experience with this condition, I can usually detect a person with dyslexia after being around them a few times. How sad that more has not been done for this condition that affects so many of our population.
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HOW TO BETTER UNDERSTAND DYSLEXIA
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