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Summary: Read Gift of Dyslexia
Review: I was required to read this book for an educational training in using the Slingerland approach. I teach first grade students who have been pre-screened for the possibility of dyslexia. Teachers and staff do not make that medical diagnosis. However, it was extremely important to realize that students with dyslexia process language using a different part of their brain. Most importantly it emphasized that direct, systemaic teaching may pattern the brain and "rewire" it. A great book for educators and parents alike.
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Summary: Insightful Education
Review: I was required to read this book for an educational training in using the Slingerland approach. I teach first grade students who have been pre-screened for the possibility of dyslexia. Teachers and staff do not make that medical diagnosis. However, it was extremely important to realize that students with dyslexia process language using a different part of their brain. Most importantly it emphasized that direct, systemaic teaching may pattern the brain and "rewire" it. A great book for educators and parents alike.
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Summary: Good for parents as well as teachers
Review: I work with parents who don't understand what it means for a child to be dyslexic. I've looked at a lot of books on dyslexia, this one I heard about on First Voice (www.7to7.net). I think the author did a really good job of bringing people up to date on this subject.
You wouldn't believe the stuff people think about dyslexia.
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Summary: Required Reading!
Review: I, like all the other reviewers, can't say enough about this book. Diagnosis, scientific reasoning, remediation-- it has it all. And it's so well written that it is a joy to read. I wish I could require every educator and every education student to READ THIS BOOK!I also highly recommend it for any parent who is concerned about his or her child's lack of progress in reading, spelling, and rhyming.
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Summary: Read Gift of Dyslexia
Review: My friend, who's dyslexic, learned to sound out words in grade school, but she had never read a book until the age of 38, after finding the book, "The Gift Of Dyslexia". The way her brain works may have been described well in the book, "Overcoming Dyslexia", but Ron Davis' book is much more helpful overall. Also, the book "Right-brained Children in a Left-Brained World" by Jeffrey Freed was helpful and sometimes contradicts what Dr. Shaywitz suggests in her book.
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Summary: Extremely disappointing book
Review: Perhaps the problem with this book is its title. If it were called "Describing Dyslexia," I would not have been so disappointed. This book has nothing new to say about overcoming dyslexia.
In the first half of the book, Dr. Shaywitz painstakingly differentiates between dyslexic and non-dyslexic thinking and learning styles. After slogging through the excruciatingly detailed first part of the book, where the author makes a case for the different neurological pathways involved in dyslexic phonemic awareness, I was expecting a revolutionary approach to reading instruction for dyslexics. Instead, I was shocked to find that Dr. Shaywitz's reading suggestions seemed to be the very ones she asserts have proven so woefully inadequate to generations of dyslexics. I actually flipped to the end of the book, thinking I must have accidentally been reading a description of "traditional" teaching techniques and that there must be a section that would contrast Dr. Shaywitz's new approach. But, sadly, Dr. Shaywitz seems to have no new approach. She does have graphic descriptions of dyslexia and its biological, social and educational manifestations. But dyslexics probably cannot hope to overcome their conditions with her book.
I recommend The Gift of Dyslexia for anyone who wants to read about overcoming this condition.
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Summary: Overcoming Dyslexia a treat
Review: The Summer of 2003 has brought us a unique gift. It is a gift which has already and will undoubtedly continue to give the many children, adolescents and adults with dyslexia around the world, and those who support them, the recognition, understanding, respect and remediation they so richly deserve. Sally Shaywitz, M.D. is one of the world's leading experts on reading and dyslexia. Presently a neuroscientist and the codirector of the Yale Center for the Study of Learning and Attention , Dr. Shaywitz is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences , and of the National Reading Panel , mandated by Congress to determine the most effective reading programs. Since 1983, Dr. Shaywitz, along with a panel of scholars which has included her husband, Bennett Shaywitz, M.D., have conducted the most thorough, scientific and well-known Connecticut Longitudinal Study. By now, the study has spanned through 20 years, and has devoted itself to the understanding of the full scope of reading problems demonstrated by children. Approximately 90% of the students who first participated in the study in 1983-84, are still active participants and continue to contribute to the understanding of reading, reading disorders and their remediation. Overcoming Dyslexia draws on Dr. Shaywitz' extensive brain research derived, to a large extent, from this renown study. Dr. Shaywitz' book addresses it all! Its first part, The Nature of Reading and Dyslexia , explores the historical bases of dyslexia, the development of oral language and reading; "the big picture" of who is affected and what happens over time; why some smart people cannot read; "reading" the brain and how the working brain reads. Its second part discusses the diagnosis of dyslexia from early childhood to adulthood. It dispels many myths about dyslexia; emphasizes the importance of early diagnosis and treatment and offers some very concrete and applicable diagnostic procedures and criteria. Part III of Overcoming Dyslexia provides detailed, direct advice to parents. It is called Helping Your Child Become a Reader , and could probably stand on its own as "The Bible" for parents of children with dyslexia. In Part IV: Overcoming Dyslexia: Turning Struggling Readers into Proficient Readers the book reaches its peak by providing the clearest road to remediation methods; the use of technology; accommodations and special schooling designed to promote not only the reading and writing skills, but also the many gifts and talents of people with dyslexia. Dr. Shaywitz, who like this writer, believes that dyslexia is not necessarily a peril and that the brain of people of dyslexia is unique in its gifts, concludes the book with an epilogue of wonderful stories about gifted dyslexics. It is difficult to describe the excitement this book has brought to all of us who have been studying, struggling, parenting children with dyslexia and educating them and their educators. Not only does the book give us a wonderful tool for explaining, quantifying and presenting the incredible research in the field in a concise, concrete manner, but it also captures the essence of this unique gift, and the spirit of the many people who live with it. Despite not having dyslexia myself (but growing up in a family with a long lineage of dyslexia and raising a gifted child with the same), speedy and fluent reading in English (not my mother tongue), is still somewhat of an unaccomplished feat. For the first time in the thirty-some years I have been reading almost only English, I did what I often do when reading a wonderful book in Hebrew: read it from cover to cover in one day and one night!! In addition to its rich, unprecedented and unique clarity and the scientific knowledge it has given me - it was a brilliant summer read. This is the kind of book you read as though it was a personal letter sent to you by a friend. What a wonderful treat!!! So the message is: GO AND GET IT! And - since the holiday season will be upon us soon: here is a great gift for any parent, grandparent, your child's special teacher, that School Board member, Special Ed. Director, School Superintendent, School Psychologist or college professor you wanted to educate about dyslexia! Enjoy!
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Summary: disappointed homeschooler
Review: There is little here of help to anyone homeschooling their child. She doesn't even discuss the possibility that some children's difficulties will emerge in a homeschool setting and not public school and she offers no tips for this section of society despite the statistical probability (1 child in 5) that this will occur.I would aslo think it would be very frustrating for parents of children in school systems that have failed to co-operate with parent suggestions etc (and I have heard of many). It seems from this book that the only hope for dyslexics is to be found in the rare enlightened school system that would be willing to listen to the parent - I know people who have had to remove their children from school because the school incorrectly diagnosed their child's reading problem (private testing revealed dyslexia) and didn't want to consider any other possibilities.
Either this book should have simply focused on the scientific research (and not called itself *overcoming* dyslexia) or it should have tried to offer more concete tips to those who have to be their own child's advocate because resources are not available to them through the ps system. I'm finding that surfing the internet is doing a better job of that.
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Summary: Lots of good stuff here, but watch out for...
Review: This book contains large amounts of interesting and important information about dyslexia, much of which is not readily available elsewhere. It will be of interest to dyslexics, the friends and family of dyslexics, teachers, education administrators, and indeed to anyone who wonders about how people learn and how people think. One particularly attractive feature of the book is that it covers many areas of concern: not just the science of dyslexia, but also the techniques of testing for dyslexia and teaching to dyslexics, the social and personal implications of dyslexia, policy and administrative implications of dyslexia, effective advocacy for a dyslexic child, misconceptions about dyslexia, and so forth. A special treat is the epilogue, which provides the life stories of seven dyslexics who have been extraordinarily successful as authors, physicians, businesspersons, or politicians. I particularly note that many of these successful people regard dyslexia not as a burden to overcome, but as a gift that forces them to think where others rely on rote memorization. I bought this book because my son is dyslexic. After reading it, I am also nearly convinced that I am dyslexic. (Before you read too much into genetics, let me tell you that my son is adopted.) Other apparent dyslexics I know are my father (a self-made multimillionaire who has difficulty spelling words of four or five letters) and my Ph.D. thesis advisor (a highly creative theoretical physicist, winner of the Wolf Prize and the Boltzmann Metal, who told me not to fret overly about my poor spelling, because "the ability to spell anticorrelates with intelligence"). The book does not deserve five stars, however, because it is seriously schizophrenic. Most of the book, particularly parts I, II, and IV, takes the position that there are many different kinds of students, who enter school with a variety of backgrounds and a variety of objectives, and that this variety demands a variety of teaching approaches. For example: "Every child is different." (page 193) "There is no one perfect school environment that will suit every child." (page 302) "Good readers and dyslexic readers follow very different pathways to adult reading." (page 314) They are poor schools that "pride themselves on uniformity." (page 297) My observations, both as a parent and as a teacher, support the soundness of these conclusions. After all, every shirt manufacturer knows that it's *not* true that "one size fits all". If we need variety in such a simple thing as shirt sizing, isn't it clear that we also need variety in something as complex as thinking, teaching, and learning? Yet part of Shaywitz's book (much of part III) flatly rejects this need for variety and replaces it with a doctrinaire insistence that there is only one way to learn reading, namely phonics: "A young child *must* develop phonemic awareness if he is to become a reader." (page 51) The child "must understand that spoken words come apart" into short sounds. (page 176) "All children must master the same elements." (page 262) Fluency training "invariably works." (page 273) "It is only by reading aloud...that real gains are noted." (page 235) "There is no other way." (page 263) It is abundantly clear that such statements are dead false: deaf children do not -- cannot -- learn to read by associating letters with sounds, as phonics demands. Furthermore, I assure you that I do not read this way. I simply do not understand the complex rules about vowels on pages 200 and 201 -- rules that Shaywitz claims *must* be understood by second graders to enable them to read. (While reading these rules, I could only think that, in comparison, quantum mechanics is utterly trivial.) Perhaps this is related to the fact that I've never been able to play a musical instrument, or to sing, or even to hum. But surely I am a counterexample to this arrogant insistence that "there is no other way". Shaywitz claims that her insistence on phonics as the only way to learn is supported by the report of National Reading Panel. In fact, that panel draws exactly the opposite conclusion, namely that "Not all children learn in the same way and one strategy does not work for all children." It may well be that deaf people and I don't read as efficiently as other people do. It may well be that phonics is the most efficient place to start when attempting to teach a child to read. But to insist, as Shaywitz does, that it's the place to start *and* the place to stop is contrary to both common sense and the evidence. The book's dual-headed character is sometimes frightening in its contradictions. On page 358 Shaywitz recounts vividly how awful it is for dyslexics to be forced to read aloud in class. (The same can be said for those with speech impediments, for those with non-standard accents, for poor readers who are not dyslexic, and for those who are just plain shy.) And on page 235 she writes with pride that, due to her contributions to the "No Child Left Behind Act", soon all children will be forced to read aloud in class. The tragedy is that due to the adoption of the "No Child Left Behind Act", and due to impending changes in the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act", our country is moving away from the sound practice of "one strategy does not work for all children" and towards the one-size-fits-all doctrine of "there is no other way."
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Summary: Finally a book to turn to for guidance
Review: This is a fabulous book full of useful information for Dyslexics and their parents. It will help you understand dyslexia and how to help those who have difficulty reading.
PLEASE PUT THE BOOK ON TAPE TO HELP DYSLEXIC READERS ACTUALLY READ IT!!!!
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