I suppose I hadn’t given the actual process of reading or learning to read much thought, until now. I never think about how I learned to read, and I don’t recall struggling much while I was figuring it out. But looking at it now, dissected, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed when I think of a child trying to learn how do it with the added frustration of having a learning disability like dyslexia or language or auditory processing problems.
I think the explanation of phonics and whole language were helpful reminders about all the different parts that go into reading, and how important it is to maintain a balance of both. It will be good for me to keep in mind the early warning signs for children with reading disabilities. The earlier detected, the better.
I was totally fascinated with the video “Biomapping the Brain.” I was surprised to learn that reading disabilities can stem from a child having difficulty processing sound. If they can’t understand the sound, then of course they won’t be able to associate sound with written letters or blend sounds of letters together to read. It’s incredible to watch Dr. Kraus “map the brain” to see how it responds to sound and being able to detect that a child is unable to process sound fast enough, resulting in the child not being able to distinguish between (letter) sounds.
I was also intrigued by the idea that patterns of brain activity can be altered when neurons in the brain are structurally changed. With intense and carefully controlled instruction, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that brain profile activity can change and correct itself and be rewired away from reading disabilities like dyslexia. WOW!
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I do not recall learning to read myself or if I had trouble or not. The thought of learning to read, as a young child is hard enough to imagine - we all do it- but throw in a learning disability and its no wonder children hate learning to read. I do agree the explanation of phoncis was very helpful and a great thing to remember when dealing with children.
ReplyDeleteI also thought the video was fascinating about the "brain mapping". It was amazing to see the brain respond in such ways.
I thought all of the videos were pretty amazing. It blows my mind to think how far technology has come and how it can show us the exact brain activity of these children with learning difficulties. I hope that we can begin using it to our advantage more and more so we can figure out what is going on in the minds of the students and exactly what is causing their struggle. It is crazy to think that we have all had to go through the process of learning to read. I can't really recall it either but I don't remember struggling with it. I keep going back to the simulations and thinking of how frustrating it was. I can't even begin to imagine how frustrating a difficult task like learning to read must be when you have a learning disability!
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