Dyslexia, for one thing, is often linked with the style of reading instruction. Phonics is a good way to teach people to see and understand each part of the word. Rates of dyslexia go down. But Whole Language teaches people to swallow the shape of the word and then pronounce it. Rates of Dyslexia go up.
It’s just awful what they have done to reading.
The proof is what happened to basic reading rates with soldiers/draftees from World War I, II, and Korea. By the time Korea came around, illiteracy rates had soared to over 15 per cent. The only difference was the method of instruction had changed. Phonics works, which must be why it is no longer utilized??
> Dyslexia, for one thing, is often linked with the style of reading instruction.
I believe there is a whole, vast and almost untapped body of knowledge surrounding the mechanics of reading instruction. I believe we have just barely scratched the surface on how the Human minds work, and that our teaching methods to date have catered to only a few learning styles, whereas the vast majority would probably respond better to being taught by other techniques. And I’d be willing to wager that most of these “other techniques” have yet to be fully explored or even discovered. After all, much of our brain’s capability and potential is thought to be untapped.
This has been my experience in my homeschool instruction. For a long time, phonics was the way to teach reading, and "dyslexia" was unknown. "Dyslexia" is just a way to label somebody who needs phonics instruction rather than "Whole Language"