In The Clutches of the Sight-Word Monster

EdFrontier ^ | Dec. 20, 2011 | Bruce Deitrick Prrice

[wintertime]

I wonder how much dyslexia is due to two factors:

1) Whole word instruction.

2)Starting reading instruction at earlier and earlier ages. Homeschooling moms with whom I have had contact have stressed, “Wait Until Eight”. This, of course, means providing a language rich environment but letting the child set his own pace until the age of eight.

By the way I was watching the science channel today, and they showed an experiment with a peanut floating in a bit of water at the bottom of a clear tube. Adult chimps could solve the problem of retrieving the peanut by squirting mouthfuls of water into the tube until the peanut floated into reach. Well...4 and 6 year old children could not solve the problem but the 8 year old children immediately solved it.

Is it possible that dyslexia is absolutely a real problem, even needed specially tinted glassed, because teaching malpractice has permanently damaged those centers of the brain needed to process reading?