Beat synchronization in preschoolers aids learning and reading skills

A team of researchers with Northwestern University in the U.S. has found that an ability to synchronize with a beat may be an indication of how well preschoolers will later do when developing reading skills.

In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes a study they undertook that involved testing for beat synchronization and sound recognition in preschoolers and what they found as a result.

Devising a test for reading aptitude prior to teaching children to read, it is believed, would help children of all levels learn better.

If a teacher knew beforehand that a child was going to have a reading disability, for example, that child could be placed into a program developed specifically for their needs, hopefully offering a better long term outcome.

Likewise, children with an exceptional aptitude for reading could be put into an accelerated program to prevent boredom.

Unfortunately, there is no such test, thus parents and teachers are left to discover a child's reading abilities on their own.

In this new effort, the researchers devised a study to find out if beat synchronicity skills might be used as the basis for such a test.

Reading specialists have suspected that there is a link between beat synchronization and both language and reading ability, reading and speech are both timing based after all.

To better understand that link the researchers arranged to test preschool volunteers.

In the first test, 35 children were given a toy drum and asked to beat it in time with an adult beating on a similar drum.

Those that could do it well were described as synchronizers, those that could not, as nonsyncronizers.

The same group of children then had electrodes pasted to their scalps to measure brain waves, as the researchers watched monitors, the children listened to sounds the researchers played, such as "da" and "ba" with no other sound, and then with background noise.

In studying the data, the researchers found that the children dubbed synchronizers in the first part of the experiment processed the played sounds with greater precision than did the nonsyncronizers.

Further tests revealed that the synchronizers did better on overall language abilities than the nonsyncronizers, which suggests that it might be possible to use the same process to test children as young as infants for later reading ability.

The researchers plan to continue monitoring the same children in the study for five years to see if their testing method is viable.

More information: Beat synchronization predicts neural speech encoding and reading readiness in preschoolers, Kali Woodruff Carr, PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1406219111

The boundaries of reading apps for children

A series of binary discussions has been plaguing early reading instruction for quite some time now: phonics versus whole language, reading for pleasure versus reading for learning, digital versus paper books and it seems that there is a new tug-of-war on the educational horizon: spritzing versus slow reading.

Spritz is a recently developed programme that brings speed-reading to the untrained eye. Its makers claim that users can ultimately read 1,000 words per minute.

Their goal is to have 15% of the world's texts available in Spritz format by 2016.

But a message is coming from the other direction too. Those who revere and often romanticise printed books argue that we need to slow down.

They warn that the digital age has made us shallow readers who flit from text to text without taking anything in.

We have a clear conflict here. On one hand, lots of people want to read faster, especially now that there is more to read out there than at any other time in human history.

On the other hand, we hear that children in the digital age do not read in depth and the often cited culprit is the device in their hand – the technology that distracts them from picking up a good book.

Is a middle ground possible?

Reading and writing always come hand-in-hand. If readers whizz through rather than engage with texts, this will ultimately be reflected in the type of texts made available to them.

Spritz certainly responds to the zeitgeist to read fast in order to cope in a text-saturated era. You can also see this tendency in the proliferation of listicles on news websites and contents pages that tell you how long it will take you to read an article.

Some say that the only way to cope with large email volumes, is to binge-read our inboxes. Spritz could be thus seen as another invention that panders to our growing tendency to read more but in less depth.

At the same time, readers, be they young or old,need to be given time to pause and think with the author of a text.

Slow reading is, for many, synonymous with deep reading and reading for learning and there are in fact technological developments happening to help readers improve their deep reading, almost the antidote to Spritz.

There are reading annotation systems with built-in interactive discussion to help readers, students in particular, to better understand what they are reading.

These slow them down in their reading by asking them questions or prompting them to pause and take notes.

Similarly for younger readers, there are read-to-learn apps that explain vocabulary and thus help with reading comprehension.

So which approach is better for the contemporary reader? We can now whizz through every page on the internet by installing Spritzlet on our web browser.

It may not be long until slow reading widgets will become available to help us highlight information in onscreen texts, underline unfamiliar words, unpick abstract metaphors and provide links to facts.

In thinking about how to teach children to read effectively in digital age, we need to stop thinking in terms of slow and fast.

There is a difference between reading an email or a chemistry textbook or a novel. We use different reading formats for different contents, and different contents & formats for different purposes.

These different purposes come with different personal investments and hence different reading techniques.

There is already a disturbing disconnect between the content and format of reading happening in schools and outside the classrooms. Let's not increase this gap with another fictitious dichotomy.

Mobile devices enable reading in those with dyslexia - Dr. Matthew H. Schneps

Dr. Matthew H. Schneps

The widespread advent of electronic books is beginning to break down barriers that previously restricted access to high-quality content for education, needed to support the economic betterment and well being of peoples worldwide. 

Even as electronic books promise to improve access to text, many will nevertheless be unable to benefit from these advances because of neurological disabilities (e.g., dyslexia) that make reading a struggle.

In this presentation Dr. Matthew H. Schneps describe new research that shows; when handheld mobile devices capable of displaying text (e.g., smartphones) are configured in prescribed ways, many with dyslexia are able to read with less effort and more quickly, with better comprehension, making fewer errors in reading.

Virtually no training is required on the part of the reader to benefit from this effect on mobile devices.

However, for the method to work, text material must be prepared and displayed in specific ways, and this requires an understanding of the relevant parameters at play.

The Smithsonian Institution in the US has initiated an outreach program to help educators learn how to use mobile devices in this way, and are seeking help and guidance from participants of UNESCO Mobile Learning Week 2014 to help disseminate this information outside the US.

Watch the Presentation here - Matthew H. Schneps

Biography
Dr. Matthew H. Schneps is the director of the Laboratory for Visual Learning (LVL) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

A founding member of the Science Education Department there, Schneps has been carrying out research and outreach in science education since 1983.

He is well known for his work in educational television media that includes the award-winning programs "A Private Universe", and "Minds of Our Own" broadcast worldwide (famous for scenes of Harvard and MIT graduates struggling with concepts about the seasons).

In recent years he has been conducting research in cognitive psychology to investigate how individual differences in neurology, including those associated with dyslexia, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorders, effects how people learn science.

An outgrowth of this work is the development of an innovative technique for reading for people with dyslexia using mobile devices, research carried out through funding from the National Science Foundation in the US, and other sources.

Schneps was awarded the George E. Burch Fellowship in Theoretic Medicine and Affiliated Sciences in 2010 – 2012.

Schneps has been continuously employed at the CfA since receiving his PhD in physics from MIT in 1979.

Assistive technology: Samsung Galaxy Core Advance

Samsung Electronics introduced a trio of accessories that are designed to help users who are disabled and visually impaired, those with partial or greater loss of vision.

Their smartphones can be transformed in this way into tools that enable easier handling of messages and more.

The three newcomers are called the Ultrasonic Cover, Optical Scan Stand, and Voice Label.

The three are designed for the Galaxy Core Advance mobile device.

Samsung said that the accessories are already available and are offered separately from the device.

To be sure, smartphone handling, not to mention struggles reading small-screen text, have been barriers for those with special needs for vision support.

Back in December, Samsung had already revealed its intentions of providing an Android smartphone with accessibility options.

Assistive technology was on its agenda. The company referred to the Core Advance, which it said would be available early 2014.

At the time, it spoke of an Optical Scan which "can automatically recognize text from an image and read it aloud to disabled and visually impaired users."

Samsung officially described the three on Friday as the Ultrasonic Cover, which allows users in unfamiliar places to detect obstacles and navigate by sending an alert through a vibration or TTS feedback.

"By holding the Cover in front of the user," said the announcement, "it can enhance a visually impaired user's awareness of their surroundings by sensing the presence of a person or object up to two meters away."

The Optical Scan Stand positions the device to focus on printed materials; doing so automatically activates the Optical Scan application, which recognizes text from an image and reads it aloud to the user.

With the Voice Label, users can make notes and tag voice labels on-the-go.

"With NFC technology enabling a seamless connection to their smartphones, users can record, stop and access their notes.

This feature can also help a user distinguish how to use electronics by allowing them to record a short explanation."

In the United States alone, approximately 10 million people are blind or visually impaired, though estimates vary.

Samsung said the accessories are the result of research and in-depth interviews, resulting in their being specially designed with the needs of specific communities in mind.

Among the tech sites responding favorably to Friday's announcement TechCrunch made the point that "these hardware add-ons really show Samsung is committed to provided the best phone experience possible for those who might ordinarily find smartphone operation frustrating."

Reading before a nap benefits learning for toddlers

Reading before a nap benefits learning for toddlers.

A connection between sleep and learning has already been identified as beneficial for adults and older children.

Now University of Sussex psychologists Dr Jessica Horst and PhD candidate Sophie Williams have shown that three-year-olds who take a nap after having stories read to them will also perform better later in word-learning tasks.

Their study, published in Frontiers in Developmental Psychology today, involved 48 British children, half of whom took afternoon naps, and half of whom didn't.

They were read either the same story, or three different stories, but were exposed to the same number of unfamiliar words.

When tested two and a half hours later, 24 hours later and a week later, those children who had been read the same story before their nap performed significantly better than those who hadn't had a sleep.

Significantly, those children who had been read three different stories before their sleep performed 33 per cent better than those who had stayed awake after hearing those stories.

On subsequent tests, the researchers found the wakeful ones never caught up with their peers in word recall.

Jessica Horst

Previous studies by Dr Horst have shown that being read the same story rather than different stories was more beneficial to learning new words.

But the new study shows that sleep can have an additional significant advantage, especially when the children are exposed to different stories.

Dr Horst says: "Overall, all of the children in the study did very well—reading is always good, at any age and any time.

But, children who were learning something particularly difficult (new words from several stories) especially benefited from hearing the stories right before sleeping.

In fact, these children ended up learning the words as well as the children who had heard the same stories again and again, which we knew would be easier."

Dr Horst points that many studies have shown young children are now sleeping less than ever before and consistently less than recommended guidelines.

Chronically short sleep is significantly related to poorer vocabulary scores, childhood obesity and externalising behaviours, such as tantrums.

"Many preschool children take an afternoon nap, yet classroom naps are increasingly being curtailed and replaced due to curriculum demands," she adds.

"Given the growing body of evidence that sleep consolidation has a significant effect on children's learning, such policies may be doing our children a huge disservice."

"In fact, findings like those from the current study indicate we should be encouraging young children to nap and should take advantage of the period right before they nap for instruction in key academic areas such as word learning and arithmetic."

More information: "Goodnight Book: Sleep Consolidation Improves Word Learning via Storybooks." Sophie E. Williams and Jessica S. Horst. Front. Psychol. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00184

More Reading, more talking, and longer sentences help babies' brains

The sooner parents start explaining the world to their baby, the better.

That does not mean flash cards for tots, or merely pointing out objects: "Here's an orange. That's a bowl."

New research shows that both how much and how well parents talk with babies and toddlers helps tune the youngsters' brains in ways that build crucial language and vocabulary skills—a key to fighting the infamous word gap that puts poor children at a disadvantage at an even younger age than once thought.

The idea is to connect words and meaning, so the brain becomes primed to learn through context: "Let's put the orange in this bowl with the banana and the apple and the grapes."

Anne Fernald

"You're building intelligence through language," is how Stanford University psychology professor Anne Fernald explains it.

And forget dumbed-down baby talk: Longer, more complex sentences are better.

Erika Hoff

"The advice I give mothers is to have conversations with your babies," said Erika Hoff, a psychology professor at Florida Atlantic University.

"Children can hear lots of talk that goes over their head in terms of the meaning, and they still benefit from it."

The research, presented Thursday and Friday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, comes amid a growing push for universal preschool, to help disadvantaged youngsters catch up.

But it also begs the question of whether children from low-income, less educated families need earlier intervention, such as preschool that starts at age 3 instead of 4, or higher quality day care or even some sort of "let's talk" campaign aimed at new parents to stress talking, singing and reading with tots even before they can respond.

That can be difficult for parents working multiple jobs, or who may not read well or who simply don't know why it's important.

Scientists have long known that before they start kindergarten, children from middle-class or affluent families have heard millions more words than youngsters from low-income families, leaving the poorer children with smaller vocabularies and less ready to succeed academically.

Fernald said by some measures, 5-year-olds from low-income families can lag two years behind their peers in tests of language development, an achievement gap that's difficult to overcome.

Kimberly Noble

Brain scans support the link, said Dr. Kimberly Noble of Columbia University Medical Center.

Early experiences shape the connections that children's brains form, and kids from higher socioeconomic backgrounds devote more "neural real estate" to brain regions involved in language development, she found.

How early does the word gap appear? 
Around age 18 months, Stanford's Fernald discovered when she compared how children mentally process the language they hear.

Lower-income kids in her study achieved at age 2 the level of proficiency that more affluent kids had reached six months earlier.

To understand why language processing is so important, consider this sentence: "The kitty's on the bench." If the youngster knows the word "kitty," and his brain recognizes it quickly enough, then he has can figure out what "bench" means by the context but if he's slow to recognize "kitty," then "bench" flies by before he has a chance to learn it.

Next, Fernald tucked recorders into T-shirts of low-income toddlers in Spanish-speaking households to determine what they heard all day—and found remarkable differences in what's called child-directed speech.

That's when children are spoken to directly, in contrast to television or conversations they overhear.

One child heard more than 12,000 words of child-directed speech in a day, while another heard a mere 670 words, she found.

The youngsters who received more child-directed speech processed language more efficiently and learned words more quickly, she reported.

But it's not just quantity of speech that matters—it's quality, Hoff cautioned. She studied bilingual families and found that whatever the language, children fare better when they learn it from a native speaker.

In other words, if mom and dad speak Spanish but aren't fluent in English, it's better for the child to have a solid grounding in Spanish at home and then learn English later in school.

Next, scientists are testing whether programs that teach parents better ways to talk to tots really do any good.

Fernald said preliminary results from one of the first, a program called Habla Conmigo that enrolls low-income, Spanish-speaking mothers in San Jose, California, are promising. She analysed the first 32 families of the 120 the program will enroll.

Mothers who underwent the eight-week training are talking more with their toddlers, using higher-quality language, than a control group of parents—and by their second birthday, the children have bigger vocabularies and process language faster, she said Thursday.

Parents: Reading Picture books to children is good for them

Parents who read picture books to their two-year-olds could improve their children's language skills, regardless of whether the book contains long sentences or just one or two words, according to new research.

Dr Thea Cameron-Faulkner and Dr Claire Noble from The University of Manchester say simple books with just one or two words per page, like Jez Alborough's Hug, are as beneficial as more traditional storybooks, such as Kipper by Mick Inkpen.

And the key to success, they find, is as much about talking about the books with children as the text itself.

The child language researchers' study of 23 parents reading both books with their children is good news for mums and dads who struggle with reading themselves.

Parent less likely to read books to their children themselves because of poor literacy skills, they say, will still help their children even if they use books which are easier to read.

When the researchers looked at the language in the books in combination with the language the parents used when discussing the books, both simple and more traditional storybooks were equally valuable sources of linguistic input.

Kipper's more complex dialogue was stimulating, so less discussion was needed ,whereas the more simpler text of Hug stimulated more complex discussion.

Both books generated more complex language than a free play situation in which the parent and child played with a toy kitchen, they also found.

Dr Cameron-Faulkner, who is based at the University's School of Arts, Languages and cultures, said: "It's pretty well established that sharing books with young children improves their vocabulary and literacy development, and that language skills are linked to academic attainment generally – including maths.

"Recent studies indicate that one of the key predictors in children's mathematical skill is early language experience, and so the rich linguistic experience associated with shared book reading may have benefits above and beyond language development.

"But what hasn't really been understood is how it impacts on children's ability to learn grammar – a hugely important part of their language development.

"Our research shows quite clearly that books are a valuable source of language input: the language used when sharing books contains more complex, structurally rich constructions than everyday child directed speech.

"And because a simpler book is just as valuable as a more complex one, this is good news for parents who may struggle with their reading."

A previous study by the team of twenty picture books best selling on Amazon,aimed at 2-year-old children, also revealed the types of utterances found in children's books It compared the books to utterances used in everyday speech to children, and is just published in the journal First Language.

The books contained many more utterances important in the development of children's grammar than everyday speech to children, showing the value of reading books to young children.

Dr Noble, who is based at the University's Max Planck Child Study Centre said: "The overarching message of our study is that reading to kids is a good thing to do – and gives children a rich language experience which may not be found in other situations."

"Young children's books often consist of a predictable story, with illustrations acting as cues to aid understanding of the language in the text.

"There's a strong debate in child language research between those who believe language development is innate and those who think it is learned.

"Our view is that language isn't innate, which is why reading to children is such a crucial way to develop their language.

"But children have a range of cognitive skills which in combination with exposure to their native language helps them to learn grammar. This research provide strong evidence for the value of book reading in language development."

Dyslexia Help Website - Success Starts Here?

Credit: Dyslexia Help

A step-by-step approach to dyslexia
As you are probably most aware, a large number of bright, intelligent, and talented men and women, through no fault of their own, experience difficulty learning to read and write.

This is known as dyslexia. Given its complexity, dyslexia can feel overwhelming and frustrating.

At this website, our goal is to give you a step-by-step approach to help you understand what dyslexia is (and what it is not), develop an action plan, begin to get help, and become your own best advocate.

We understand that it can be challenging. Therefore, we provide you with guidance, guidelines, and such tools as an extensive glossary to help you understand all of the terms, assistive software programs, and study 'tips' that focus on organization and time management.

There are also many success stories on this site that are very motivating and inspirational. Let's begin your journey. Success starts here!

Visit Dyslexia Help here

British children's on-screen reading overtakes books

For the first time British children are reading more on computers and other electronic devices than they are reading books, magazines, newspapers and comics, according to a study of nearly 35,000 youngsters.

For the first time, British children are reading more on computers and other electronic devices than they are reading books, magazines, newspapers and comics, according to a study of nearly 35,000 youngsters published Thursday.

Some 52 percent of children say they would rather read on electronic devices while only a third (32 percent) would rather read a hard copy, the National Literacy Trust said.

It added that the trend could be "detrimental" to children's reading and urged a "healthier reading balance" between books and electronic devices. Nearly all children have access to a computer at home and four out of 10 now own a tablet or a smartphone, said the trust, an independent charity promoting literacy.

The number of children reading e-books has doubled in the last two years, from six to 12 percent, it added. The research among 34,910 young people aged eight to 16 also found that girls are significantly more likely than boys to read in print—68 percent versus 54 percent.

Girls are also more likely to read on a range of on-screen devices including mobile phones (67 percent of girls versus 60 percent of boys), e-readers (84 percent versus 69), and tablets (70 percent versus 67).

However, those who read daily only on-screen are barely half as likely to be above-average readers than those who read daily in print or in print and on-screen (15.5 percent versus 26), the research said.

Jonathan Douglas, the trust's director, said: "While we welcome the positive impact which technology has on bringing further reading opportunities to young people, it's crucial that reading in print is not cast aside.

"We are concerned by our finding that children who only read on-screen are significantly less likely to enjoy reading and less likely to be strong readers. "Good reading skills and reading for pleasure are closely linked to children's success at school and beyond. We need to encourage children to become avid readers, whatever format they choose."

Reading with your Child: Poster

Reading and Dyslexia in Deaf Children

Many deaf children have reading difficulties but there are no reading tests designed specially for deaf children.

Research at City University London will produce scores for deaf children in Year 6 on a number of deaf-friendly reading tests.

This will hopefully be the first step in developing a standardised reading test for deaf children which teachers may use in the future to check on the reading progress of deaf children in their class.

As part of the same project, they are investigating dyslexia in deaf children which is currently difficult for teachers to spot.

This means that deaf children with dyslexia are not identified and cannot benefit from the specialist help that other dyslexic children receive.

The first stage has focused on the reading skills of deaf children who use spoken language.

The next stage of the research will look at deaf children who use British Sign Language (BSL) to communicate.

There is no written form of BSL and so deaf signers face completely different challenges when learning to read English.

Children and families who take part in the project will be contributing to a bank of data which we hope will help deaf children in the future receive the help they need at school.

Participants will also be provided with a summary of the project's overall findings at the end of the study.

The project is being run by Ros Herman, Penny Roy, Fiona Kyle and Catherine Barnett with funding from the Nuffield Foundation.

Overcoming Reading Problems: How Can We Stlil Raed Words Wehn Teh Lettres Are Jmbuled Up?

Researchers in the UK have taken an important step towards understanding how the human brain 'decodes' letters on a page to read a word.

The work, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), will help psychologists unravel the subtle thinking mechanisms involved in reading, and could provide solutions for helping people who find it difficult to read, for example in conditions such as dyslexia.

To read successfully, readers need not only to identify the letters in words, but also to accurately code the positions of those letters, so that they can distinguish words like CAT and ACT.

At the same time, however, it's clear that raeders can dael wtih wodrs in wihch not all teh leettrs aer in thier corerct psotiions.

"How the brain can make sense of some jumbled sequences of letters but not others is a key question that psychologists need to answer to understand the code that the brain uses when reading," says Professor Colin Davis of Royal Holloway, University of London, who led the research.

For many years researchers have used a standard psychological test to try to work out which sequences of letters in a word are important cues that the brain uses, where jumbled words are flashed momentarily on a screen to see if they help the brain to recognise the properly spelt word.

But, this technique had limitations that made it impossible to probe more extreme rearrangements of sequences of letters.

Professor Davis's team used computer simulations to work out that a simple modification to the test would allow it to question these more complex changes to words. This increases the test's sensitivity significantly and makes it far more valuable for comparing different coding theories.

"For example, if we take the word VACATION and change it to AVACITNO, previously the test would not tell us if the brain recognises it as VACATION because other words such as AVOCADO or AVIATION might start popping into the person's head," says Professor Davis.

"With our modification we can show that indeed the brain does relate AVACITNO to VACATION, and this starts to give us much more of an insight into the nature of the code that the brain is using - something that was not possible with the existing test."

The modified test should allow researchers not only to crack the code that the brain uses to make sense of strings of letters, but also to examine differences between individuals - how a 'good' reader decodes letter sequences compared with someone who finds reading difficult.

"These kinds of methods can be very sensitive to individual differences in reading ability and we are starting to get a better idea of some of the issues that underpin people's difficulty in reading," says Professor Davis.

Ultimately, this could lead to new approaches to helping people to overcome reading problems.

Reading Foreign Languages

Recent research into how we learn is set to help people in their efforts to read a second or foreign language (SFL) more effectively.

This will be good news for those struggling to develop linguistic skills in preparation for a move abroad, or to help in understanding foreign language forms, reports, contracts and instructions.

The ability to read a second or foreign language can be of great benefit to academics, business people, politicians, professionals and migrants trying to master an unfamiliar language.

Surprisingly, little is known about how an ability to read in another language develops.

To address this, the research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), led by Professor Charles Alderson at Lancaster University, set out to identify the factors that determine how this skill develops in a number of different languages and what factors in people's first language influence progress in reading.

"Research into the diagnosis of the strengths and weaknesses of learners in SFL reading was virtually non-existent, making this research highly innovative. We've followed SFL reading ability development over several years and studied which cognitive and linguistic tasks are most promising for predicting literacy skills in several languages," says Alderson.

"Progress has already been made in understanding first language reading problems -- so we co-operated with psychologists who studied a group of dyslexic readers over many years. We used their instruments to see if the things that predict first-language dyslexia can help in understanding SFL reading and its problems," Alderson continues.

Contrary to much belief, the researchers found that ability to read in a first language is less important in SFL reading than proficiency in the new language being learned.

It was concluded that the size of SFL vocabulary and understanding of text influence one another: vocabulary growth promotes comprehension and comprehension helps a reader to learn new words.

Findings will help language teachers devise more effective strategies for assisting learners and influence the accuracy of tests that predict SFL reading abilities.

From data gathered from many countries and languages, the research suggests that reading well in one language has little bearing on the development of reading abilities in another.

Linguist, Professor Scott Jarvis, Ohio University, USA, says, "This study was perhaps the most impressive yet on SFL reading abilities. A remarkable job was done of identifying and measuring a range of cognitive and linguistic abilities, and also of tracking these variables over time and linking them to improvements in learners' second-language reading proficiency. The findings are valuable for language teachers, and the research design is likely to serve as a model for many future SFL studies."

Further information: Click on www.esrc.ac.uk/

Dyslexia in Children: Mobile Apps Make Reading Fun

A recent study claims that Mobile apps and daily visual activities can encourage children with dyslexia to participate in reading exercises, says Lenin Grajo Ed.M., instructor of occupational science and occupational therapy at Saint Louis University.

"Reading has always been looked at as a skill you should be able to master," Grajo said.

"My approach basically focuses on participation. I look at how much you like doing a task rather than how well you can do it."

Dyslexia is a learning disability, in which children have a neurological disorder that causes their brain to process and interpret information differently.

But with the help of educators and therapists, kids with dyslexia can develop and enjoy reading and writing activities, and build confidence.

Children with dyslexia usually dislike highly-structured reading tasks, and therefore avoid taking part in reading activities.

But with the latest technological innovations, kids with dyslexia have started using tablet and smartphone apps that make reading and writing more fun.

"This is the multisensory approach that makes books very interactive," said Grajo, who got his training in assessment of dyslexia and reading difficulties at Harvard University.

"If you ask a child with dyslexia to read a book, they will say they can't. But through these apps, children actually like doing these reading activities."

Some of these interactive books have a built-in camera and recorder that engage kids. These apps play a big role in developing a child's reading, writing, spelling, studying and organizing skills, which eventually increases their self-confidence in the classroom, Grajo says.

Grajo says that parents and teachers should also incorporate arts and crafts into routine activities as kids with dyslexia are often instantly attracted to them. Instead of asking a child to read a book, he suggests involving them in a playful activity that includes lots of visuals as well as some reading and writing.

For example, parents can create a treasure hunt for their children and ask them to read the clues to find the hidden items.

Another way to encourage children to read is to cook with them. Parents can read the recipes with the kids and make cooking a fun process.

"Through these exercises, the child is reading without realizing it. This is the occupational performance approach to dyslexia," Grajo said.

"When you realize you enjoy doing something, you participate in it more and become better with it."

The apps and routine activities form a strong foundation for dyslexic children, which enable them to develop their own strategies to read and write as they begin to like these activities.

"Once they are confident, they feel they can do these tasks without the help of a parent or teacher," said Grajo. "As therapists, we are empowering and enabling them to be able to do what they couldn't do earlier."

Dyslexia and Video Games: They can 'help reading in children with dyslexia'

Playing video games may help children with dyslexia improve their reading skills, research suggests.

A study of 10-year-olds who played 12 hours of an "action" video game found it improved their reading speed without any cost to accuracy.

The effects were equivalent to more than a year's worth of reading development, the Italian team reported in Current Biology.

But more research was needed before games could be considered a treatment.

Their work builds on earlier research in which they linked dyslexia with early problems in visual attention rather than language skills.

They selected a fast-moving game requiring a high degree of perceptual, cognitive, and motor skills as well as being unpredictable and involving peripheral processing.

Ten children spent nine 80-minute sessions playing the video game, which consisted of a series of mini-games.

And their reading and attention skills were compared before and after with 10 children not exposed to the game.

Speed and accuracy
The researchers found those who had played the video games had better attention skills than before.

And they were able to read faster without losing any accuracy, the team from the University of Padua reported.

Study leader, Dr Andrea Facoetti, said: "Action video games enhance many aspects of visual attention, mainly improving the extraction of information from the environment.

"Dyslexic children learned to orient and focus their attention more efficiently to extract the relevant information of a written word more rapidly."

He explained that attention should be thought of as a "spotlight" that can be moved, and adjusted in its size, in the visual field.

When the spotlight is on a portion of the visual field, the details will be enhanced, the contrast improved and so on, while everything that is outside of this spotlight will be inhibited.

The video games may be working to train the part of the brain responsible for attention and motion perception, he added.

"These results are very important in order to understand the brain mechanisms underlying dyslexia, but they don't put us in a position to recommend playing video games without any control or supervision," he said.

The team are now planning to look at the effects of video games on the prevention of dyslexia in children before they learn to read.

Dr Kate Saunders, chief executive of the British Dyslexia Association, said it was a complex condition but for some individuals part of the problem may include difficulty with aspects of visual perceptual skills, and visuo-motor coordination and attention.

She added that more research was needed to establish whether repeated play on some targeted computer games could help build certain visual and attention related skills.

"There are questions, however, as to the extent that skills transfer from one situation to another and would be retained in the longer term."

Dyslexia: Music Ability Helps Reading

Playing a musical instrument from a young age appears to create new pathways in the brain that process written words and letters, reports Ann Lukits in the Wall Street Journal.

The findings, which may help children with reading disorders such as dyslexia, appeared in the journal Neuropsychologia.

“Fifteen professional musicians who had played an instrument since childhood and 15 control subjects who couldn’t read music participated in two experiments in Milan. Subjects were 26 to 31 years old.

In one experiment, subjects pressed a button if they recognized the notes E, F, G, A and B (mi, fa, sol, la and ti on the musical scale) which randomly appeared in 300 short musical scores flashed on a computer screen.

In the other experiment, they pressed the button when they spotted the letters B, G, L, M and S in 300 randomly selected words. An electroencephalogram (EEG) measured brain-wave activity. Musicians recognized notes significantly faster than controls; letters, only slightly faster. Musicians made fewer errors in both experiments.

But EEG results showed striking differences. In musicians, reading musical notes and words activated both the left and right sides of the brain, whereas in controls, only the left side responded to words and the right side to notes.

Language is normally a left-brain function and music a right-brain function. The involvement of the right side in a typically left-sided function probably resulted from reading music, researchers said. Musical training may be quite helpful for children struggling to read, they said.”

Read more here

Overcoming Dyslexia, Finding Passion - Piper Otterbein

Piper Otterbein is a senior at Cape Elizabeth High School. Piper was born in New York, but she has lived in Cape Elizabeth for the past eleven years. When Piper was in first grade, she was diagnosed with a learning disability.

While Piper struggled throughout elementary school, it was not until 7th grade that this disability was identified as dyslexia.

Piper and her family spent a great deal of time and resources trying to fix her dyslexia; during her middle school years, Piper spent countless hours after school in tutoring programs.

Although she was determined to be successful in school, work took a long time to complete, and she frequently found herself frustrated and exhausted.

When Piper entered high school, she had a revelation; rather than focusing all of her energy on the challenges in her life, she decided to alter her outlook and focus instead on her strengths.

While she remained a conscientious student, Piper threw herself into what she loved most: the arts, event organizing, and community involvement. Today, Piper has a strong presence in the CEHS community.

She juggles painting, ceramics, and drawing with her involvement in student council, SEED, the planning of the TEDx youth conference at CEHS, and her part-time jobs working in a furniture store and babysitting.

All of Piper's talent and hard work has paid off, she will be attending the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she will study interior design and accessory design.

Does Sight-Words Prevent Reading and Cause Dyslexia? - Video

English letters appear in many confusing variations. Nobody can memorize them all as designs (lower case, UPPER CASE, italic, handwriting, and countless typefaces).

There are actually MANY reasons why Sight-Words are a cruel failure. This video presents the main one--designs must appear in one predictable form. English letters appear in many forms.

Dyslexia: Computer Based Learning - Read Fast not Slow

“Slow down. Sound it out.”

This is the mantra for most dyslexic students learning to read, but results from a new computer training program suggest that the opposite may be true for dyslexics once they’ve learned to read—going faster could improve reading skills and comprehension.

Researchers in Israel compared the reading skills of dyslexic and non-dyslexic university students, before and after using a custom computer training program.

The program’s premise is this: a sentence appears on the computer screen, which the participant is supposed to read silently.

One by one, the letters disappear off the screen, from left to right, pushing the reader through the sentence.

When the entire sentence has been removed from the screen, the user is prompted with a question about the content of the sentence he or she just read.

This ensures that the participant did not just read the sentence, but actually understood what it meant.

If the participant gives the correct answer, the computer program raises the stakes a little.

The next sentence that appears on the screen will be erased at a slightly faster pace—two milliseconds (the equivalent of one eye blink) less time per letter.

The reading and questions continue to alternate, getting a little faster after every right answer, for a total of twenty minutes per session.

So how did the program’s prodding impact dyslexic students’ abilities to read? After two months of training three times a week, participants read faster: the average reading rate dropped from about 135 milliseconds per letter to about 75.

Comprehension went up too, and these improved outcomes lasted over time. Six months after the training sessions ended, participants still enjoyed improved reading skills, according to the results published in Nature Communications.

Non-dyslexic participants also showed some improvement in reading speed and comprehension, but not as much as dyslexics.

The researchers aren’t sure exactly why the computer program works, but when they removed the time element, the training proved ineffective. So whatever the mechanism, time is of the essence.

Dyslexia: The Davis Method - NéoSanté article

NéoSanté, a Belgian magazine devote to Global Health, includes a detailed article about the Davis program in a recent issue.

The article, written in French, is titled La Méthode Davis: Un espoir pour les dyslexiques (translation: The Davis Method: Hope for Dyslexia)

The article is written by Davis Facilitator Betty Rossitto. There are now more than 50 licensed European facilitators who provide French language services.

A Gift of Dyslexia workshop is scheduled in Paris from May 3-6.

More information;

• Contents of NéoSanté Issue #18 
• More Information 
• Apprende Autrement web site