Physiological Development and Reading

Reading is both physical and physio-logical. Functions such as vision, hearing, and thought are possible
only through the organs of the body. If the organ is defective, the function is likely to be impaired.
Impairment, especially in the case of vision, hearing and thinking, lead to serious reading difficulties.
Generally, good health is conducive to good reading and poor health often causes reading difficulties.

Physical Health and Reading

No direct relationship may be said to exist between reading disability and physical health. However,
it is obvious that a child who is ill is not able to do well in school Physical inadequacies may result in
lowered vitality, depletion of energy, shower physical development and mental retardation.

Studies shows that children who are hungry abd malnourished have difficulty in learning because
they cannot concentrate, they also lack drive. Severe malnutrition in infancy may lower children's IQ
scores. The lack of protein in an infant diet may adversely his or her ability to learn. Other studies have
found that food additives may be a detterent for learning for certain children(Rubin 1982).

Perceptual Factors and Reading

Reading is a complex process and reading difficulty is usually due to multiple causes rather than a
single one. In learning to read children need auditory and visual perceptual skillsin addition to skills in
language and development.

Visual Adequacy

Since reading required sense of sight, a visual deficit is certain to affect a childs ability to read.
However, a visual problem is not always obvious and may not be detected.

Visual Acuity

You do not need to have a 20/20 vision to read well. After all, reading is I near-point task. You could
fail the visual acuity test at 20 feet but have good visual acuity at 16 inches. To read the average book,
you need only 20/60 visual acuity..

Dechant (1964) enumerated what a reader must do visually in order to read efficently:

 coordinate the eyes;

 move the eyes along a line of print;
 make proper return sweeps;
  see clearly and distinctly both near and far;
 change focus;fuse the impressions of each eye into a single image;
 have a visual memory for whatwas seen;
 sustain visual concentration;
 have good hand-eye coordination; and accurately perceive size and distance relationships.

Visual Defects

Even when children become visually ready, numerous visual defects may occur. These include
refractive errors and binocular difficulties.

Refractive errors. Many people suffer from errors in refraction, especially myopia, hyperopia, and
astigmatism. Myopia or nearsightedness is perhaps common among the refractive errors.

Hyperopia, or farsightedness, an individual has difficulty focusing farsightedness on near objects. The
hyperopic eye is too short and the image falls behind the retina. Convex lenses are prescribed for this
condition.

Astigmatism is an inability to bring the light rays to a single focal point causing sime parts of an object
to be focus while others are not. Vision is blurred. Thsi detect may cause uneven curvature of the front
from cornea of the eye.

Binocular Difficulties these visual defects commonly give the child a double image. Either the two eyes
do not aim correctly or the y give conflicting images. When the defect is minor the individual may
compensate. When the defect is major the child may see two of everything or the two images may be so
badly blurred he sees neither image clearly.

Starbismus or macular imbalance result from the lack of coordination of the muscles that moves the
eyeball. The eyes aim different directions. May one eye may aim to far outward to far inward or in a
different vertical plane from the eye.

Aniseikonia occurs when the size or shape of the two ocular images is not the same. Fusion is difficult,
resulting in tension, and headaches.

Symptoms of Eye Disturbance

Three types of symptoms of visual problems

1.Avoidance symptoms (avoiding reading task)

2.Behavior symptoms ( squinting, excessive blinking)

3.complaints(dizziness, double vision)

A reading teacher should have more than just a general knowledge of eye defects. She should be able to
recognize the danger sigs. Early detection of visual difficulty is imperative. When the visual difficulty is
corrected, the child will develop more favourable attitudes toward reading. School achievement will
most likely improve.

List of symptoms of visual difficulty that the teacher should look for( Rubin., 1982)

The child:

 Complains a constant headaches

 Has red or watery eyes or eyes with red rims, swollen lids, frequent sties
 Squints while reading
 Ask to sit closer to the chalkboard and cant seem to sit still while doing close work
 Holds the bookvery close to his or her face while reading
 Skips lots words or sentences while reading
 Makes many reversals while reading
 confuses letters
 avoids reading
 mouths and words or lips reads
 confuses similar words
 makes many repetitions while reading
 Skips lines while reading
 has difficulty remembering what he or she just read silently.

Visual Discrimination

- Visual discrimination is the ability to distinguish between written symbols. In learning to read, children
need to be able to make fine discrimination. Visual discrimination activities should herefore involve
letters and words rather than pictures or geometric figures. Transfer of learning is greater if the written
symbols children works with are similar to those they will meet in reading .As Aulls notes( 1982) practice
in reading readiness programs such as having children "discriminate between bunnies with long ears and
those with short ears only prepare children to observe jackrabbits in the zoo and have nothing to do
with becoming a reader.

Auditory adequacy

Auditory adequacy means three things: auditory acuity, auditory comprehension, and auditory
discrimination. First, an individual must able to transmit the sound waves from the external brain to the
auditory centers of the brain. He has auditory acuity if he can recognize the discrete of sound (Dechant,
1964). He must also be able to understand, retain and discriminate what he has heard.
Testing hearing

The most satisfactory way of measuring hearing in schools is through an audio meter. In such a test, the
child listens through an earphone and write down the numbers he or she hears. The numbers, spoken
with event degrees of loudness, are played on a special phonograph, and from the the child's written
answers the degree of bearing loss can be readily calculated.

There are two types of hearing loss. A conductive loss stems from an impairment in the conductive
process in the middle ear which reduces the child's hearing ability.Nerve loss is caused by an impairment
of the auditory nerve. The child hears the speech of others but may not understand what he hears. The
high-tone nerve loss prevents him from hearing and distinguishing certain speech sounds, especially f, v,
s, z, sh, zh, th, t, d, p, bk, and g (Dechant, 1964). Articulation is also affected- the child may speak too
loudly or may speak in a monotone. He show signs of frequently misunderstanding the teacher.

Symptoms of hearing deficiencies

A hard-of-hearing child is usually inattentive. He turns his head toward speaker, cupping his hands
behind his ears. He asks others to repeat what they say.When he listens to the radio or the TV, the
volume is exceptionally loud. He may also complain of ringing or buzzing in his ears. A hard-of-hearing
child may be mistaken as stupid because his face has a blank expression.

Some conditions that led to progressively increasing deafness can be cured if treated early enough.
Periodic tests of hearing should be part of the of the routine health procedures In schools. Teachers
should watch for signs of poor hearing in a child's general behavior Children with inflamed or running
ears should be referred for medical treatment.

Educational Implications

Reading retardation occurs more frequently among children with defective hearing than among
children with normal hearing. Deaf children will have more difficulty reading than the hard of hearing
(Dechant, 1964)

The teacher should not be satisfied with merely detecting auditory dificiencies. He cannot do much to
improve the child's auditory acuity, but he can do much in developing the child's auditory discrimination
skills. This means training in gross discrimination ( as between the sounds of a bell and a telephone)
and in making discrimination among simple speech patterns.

Reading and hearing impaired

Blind people read through the braille method. They do this by touching letters which are represented by
different arrangements of raised points.

As a hearing person, the ability to read crucially depends on sound reading or the ability to translate
printed letters into their associated sounds. (Exampl:e: sound recording - the translation of printed
letters into their associated sounds) you can imagine how difficult if this hearing impaired readers.
Hirsch-pasek and treiman (1982) - report the studies of which point to three stages when the hearing
impaired uses to his disability.

Recording into articulation- the hearing impaired who cam hear more spoken language and
moreintelligent . since this is involves in some combination of hearing ability, speaking ability, and lip
reading skill, hyou can only minority of the hearing impaired use in this strategy.

Recoding into sign - recoding into sign seems to be the preferred strategy of hearing impaired
individuals with less educational succes is a vialable memory code for hearing people, the american sign
language can serve a memory code for hearing impaired. Some of them can learned the same way that
hearing children learn a spoken language it has a lexicon of signs and borrowed words devices for
bulding complex word from simpler ones, and syntactic rules for sentence formation.

Recoding into finger spelling - this involves the use of direct mapping of the alphabet into a manual
system . hearing impaired children do not spontaneously use a fingerspelling but some strategy helps
them to identify printed words in their fingerspelled vocabularies. Hearing impaired children have
generally not been provided with the same language base on hearing children have.

Their reading skills can be promoted however, by capitalizing on their preferred recording strategies.
The two recoding strategies are suggested:

1.Use the recoding into articulation strategy for those capable of articulation(students with lesser
hearing loss)

2.Use finger spelling for more profoundly hearing Impaired children. Increase the finger spelled
vocabulary within the child’s sign language and teach directly the finger spelling if necessary.

The Brain and Reading

Reading requires a functioning brain that can process symbols and abstract concepts. Research
suggests that certain neurological deviations can affect the ability to read, such as brain injury at birth,
brain tissue injury during childhood, congenital or acquired brain defects, irregular brain maturation,
and inadequate brain functioning due to biochemical peculiarities. However, it is important to note that
not all individuals with brain damage experience difficulties in reading, and many children with brain
damage can still make progress in reading. The brain processes information received through visual,
auditory, and haptic senses, but sometimes the brain may struggle to organize this information.
Cerebral dominance - Humans usually initiate motor activity from one side of the body even though
they are bilateral or two - sided. These preference are called laterality or sidedness.

Laterality implies that one hemisphere of the brain is more important in behavior or functions more
efficiently than the other. The left hemisphere controls the right side of the body while the right
hemisphere controls the left side.

There are several types of cerebral dominance, as manifested by preferred use of hand, eye, ear,and
foot.

1. Left Dominance - The left hemisphere of the brain is dominant, making the person right - handed,
right - eyed, right - eared, and right - footed.

2. Right Dominance - The right hemisphere of the brain is dominant, these the person is left - handed ,
left - eyed , left eared, and left - footed.

3. Crossed Dominance - When people have a dominant hand on one side and dominant eye on the
other ( e . g. , right - handed , left - eyed)

4. Lack of Dominance - When people do not have a consistent preference for an eye, hands , or foot ,
implying no dominant cerebral hemisphere.

You can easily test whether a child he's crossed or mixed dominance. To determine hand dominance,
observe which hand the child uses to throw a ball , write, or open a door . To tell eye dominance
observe which eye the child uses to look through a microscope, telescope, or an open cylinder formed
by a roll of paper. For foot dominance, observe which foot the child use to kick a ball or stamp on the
floor with. For ear dominance, observe which ear the child uses in answering the phone or which way he
turns his head when listening intently.

Dyslexia : What, Why, How

There is no universal recognized definition of dyslexia but the one presented by the World
Federation of Neurology has won broad respect:

dys poor or inadequate (learning or mastery of)

lexia verbal language

"A disorder manifested by difficulty in learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate
intelligence, and socio-cultural opportunity. It is dependent upon fundamental cognitive disabilities
which are frequently of constitutional origin

The single most important hallmark of dyslexia is underachievement in writing and reading skills
(Orton, Dyslexia Society, 1985).
Dyslexics may be clumsy, or they may have beautiful coordination except for handling a pencil. They
often find organization managing their life- difficult. Homework instruction, sense of direction or time,
the sequence of things to do, often get mixed up. Frequently, they belong to families with members,
through the generations, who have found language hard to master various ways: reading, writing, and
especially spelling.

One thing we should remember: We should not label a child as dyslexic unless extensivuld not and
observations have been done. Dyslexia is a distinctive disorder. It is present, according to the Orton
Dyslexia Society, if the following conditions apply:

1. The affected individual exhibits the characteristics listed in Box 6-2;

2. As a result, he is an underachiever academically or underemployed (not up to his intellectual capacity

as a teenager or adult); and

3. There is a clear gap between his intel- lectual potential and his actual achieve- ment level in written
language skills especially.

 Delayed spoken language

 Errors in letter naming
 Difficulty in learning and remembering printed words
 Reversal of orientation of letters, or sequence of letters in words, when read or written: e.g., b-
d. was-saw, quite, quiet
 Repeated spelling errors
 Cramped or illegible handwriting
 Difficulty in finding the "right" word when speaking
 Slow rate of writing
 Reduced reading and writing comprehension of language.
 Similar problems among relatives

--The Orton Dyslexia Society

Etiology: What causes dyslexia?

Dr. Samuel Orton, an American neuropathologist and psychiatrist, is credited for having done pioneering
research on dyslexia. As early as the mid-1920s, he concluded that dyslexia was caused by an unusual
pattern of cerebral dominance, and that the difference was neurological rather than psychological. This
hypothesis was not generally accepted and was the cause of a lot of controversy. However, many of Dr.
Orton's original ideas are finding increasing understanding and verification through current research.
(O'Flanagan & Bauman, 1987)

Research on two on dyslexia since Dr. Orton's time has been pursued fonts: one nedyslexias the other
educational. Dr. Albert M. Galabsurda a neurologist Hoological, and, has been doing medical research.
dyslexia on the Logist from Hatter, hogical Foundations of Dyslexia. In 1979, he published (with Dr.
Thomas Kemper) a study about a young man who dyslexic at an early age. The patient's outstanding
problem had been a severe reading disability. He also met the following had been diagnosed as criteria
for developmental dyslexia: (1) his intellect had been within the average range; and (2) he had two
brothers diagnosed as dyslexic, displaying the prevalence of this disorder in his family history. The young
by these specialists so man's career record was compiled. When the patient died from an accident at
age 20, his brain was studied in depth in the laboratory.

"Dyslexia is not a "disease," but a product of a special kind of mind.

- Orton Dyslexia Society

Dyslexia: What to do

Diagnosis

To deal successfully with dyslexics, an early and accurate diagnosis is needed.

. Harrie & Carol (1984) gives a description of the usual diagnostic procedure for the detection of
dyslexia. First, the parent or the teacher becomes aware that a problem in reading exists. The child is
often referred to a physician who investigates the cause of the problem by conducting a complete
physical examination and obtaining a complete health history. If indicated, the child is referred for a
neurological examination. If dyslexia is suspected, further evaluation is made by a psychoeducational
specialist.

The major purpose of the diagnostic process is to isolate the specific difficulties associated with dyslexia.
Usually, the diagnostician uses a battery of assessment instruments that explore the relationship of
specific reading problems to the intellectual, achievement, perceptual, motor, linguistic, and adaptive
capabilities of the individual. Based on the results, an intervention plan is set up and implemented by a
special educator or remedial reading teacher trained in specialized reading techniques.
Intervention

Three main approaches have (Skoff, 1993) been identified in dealing with dyslexia:

(1) the developmental approach, based on the belief that dyslexic children may have slower brain
development, simply intensifies conventional methods of instruction;

(2) the corrective approach, which emphasizes the dyslexic's assets and interests; and

(3) the remedial approach which focuses on deficiencies.

By the time of his death, Orton had developed a highly-structured curriculum specifically for teaching
dyslexics. In the 1930s, Anna Gillingham, a teacher and psychologist, and her associate Bessie Stillman,
collaborated with Orton in publishing some specific reading strategies.

The Gillingham-Stillman approach is set out in much detail in their manual Remedial Training for
Children with Specific Disability in Reading, Spelling and Writing (1960, 1983).

The approach is a highly individualized, structured, and systematic instruction that makes use of the
alphabetic- phonic system and a synthetic-analytic method. A similar method, the Slingerland approach,
is currently in use.

More recently, an experimental program at Rutgers University Center for Molecular and Behavioral
Neuroscience used computer video games to treat language-impaired children. The children had
difficulty distinguishing among phonemes, especially those that begin with hard consonants. The
computer programs made the hard consonants easier to hear by elongating them, spacing them farther
apart and making them louder.

They are optimistic that such a program may eventually eliminate language impairment in a great
majority of children (Nash, 1996).

Special curricula and schools have been set up for dyslexics. In the Philippines, such a curriculum is
offered by Word Lab School in Mandaluyong. Individualized intervention programs for individual cases is
also being conducted by Reading Works Reading Lab in Quezon City

Educational research on dyslexia suggests that reading skills can be improved to some degree, but they
also indicate that problems tend to persist into adulthood