Cognitive level

Typically dyslexics exhibit difficulty with: phonological awareness, (Goulandris et al., 2000), working memory automatization and slow processing speed. So what is ‘phonological processing’, its role in the development of literacy skills, and its link to working memory? During language acquisition children normally develop knowledge about the sound system of their language as well as learning to understand the language that is used around them. When they arrive at school and are expected to learn to read, most children have a knowledge of nursery rhymes, can make up rhymes, are aware that whole words (e.g. elephant) are made up of three syllables and some children can blend sounds (d/o/g/) to make up a word. Learners with dyslexia arrive at school with a good understanding of language and its meaning but experience difficulty when they are required to break down this meaningful language into ‘meaningless’ sound components in order to read and spell. As a consequence, this core skill needed for reading, writing and spelling takes longer to develop in dyslexic pupils and places heavy demands on their ‘working memory’ which is needed for both word recognition and comprehension. An analogy might be that of learning to drive. Initially new drivers have to concentrate on many skills – gear changes, looking in the mirror, predicting traffic movements, reading signals, etc. and this takes up all their available attentional space. Once these skills become ‘automated’ through practice and experience, the driver has much more ‘capacity’ to do other things, i.e. listen to radio, think, talk, etc. This specific problem with phonological awareness and processing results in dyslexics taking longer to acquire literacy skills than would be expected, given their overall level of ability in other areas of their work. Typically dyslexics might transpose sounds when writing, (i.e. ‘saw’ for ‘was’ because they remembered the sounds but not their order. Sometimes they spell, based on what the word ‘sounded’ like, e.g. ‘cumfert’ for ‘comfort’ and sometimes they use a combination of what the word sounded like and looked like. While not all dyslexics exhibit difficulties in learning to read, the majority do exhibit a residual difficulty with spelling and often with the ‘multi-tasking’ that is required within written language activities i.e., reading, memorizing, comprehending, analyzing and generating original written text. While not all theorists subscribe to the ‘phonological deficit hypothesis’ as a single causal explanation for dyslexia, it is supported by empirical findings (Snowling, 2000) and is increasingly used to plan teaching programs. The implications of cognitive explanations of dyslexia include:

■ It is important to remember that reading and writing places considerable attention demands on learners with dyslexia. It is important not to ‘overload’ them and ask them, for example, to listen, comprehend and write at the same time. When planning, it is advisable to break tasks down into component parts so that thinking, planning, writing and correcting are not done simultaneously as might be the case for more fluent writers. Specialist programs for learners with dyslexia are very structured to avoid ‘overload’. They also tend to be ‘multi-sensory’, using visual, auditory and kinaesthetic channels so that the learner has more chance of remembering the information given to them for processing. Dyslexics need additional time to become familiar with sound patterns and need time to generate their own ‘words’ from language sounds components. These may involve nonsense words or rhymes to give the learner practice in making up, and writing words from their sound components. Activities that support this include:

■ Rhyming activities: the learner is asked to discriminate between rhyming and non-rhyming pairs of words using a variety of game formats, e.g. cards, highlighting, etc.

■ Onset and rime activities: asking the learner to generate words with the same rime unit i.e. it, nit, pit, lit, etc. and then splitting words into onset and rimes and making links with the written word.

■ Syllable awareness and manipulation: breaking words down into component parts i.e. powerful = pow-er-ful; looking for words within words e.g. handbag = ‘hand’ and ‘bag’. More difficult is the task of segmenting words into separate sounds e.g. land = l/a/n/d and rebuilding them.

■ Memory: learners with dyslexia tend to have relative strength in reasoning and comprehension, i.e. the meaningful aspect of language. They have difficulty with the sound system of language because it is not meaningful and is difficult to place in long-term memory storage. It often helps to let the individual learner give his/her own meaning to the phonic sound they are learning. Some specialist programs have cards with the sound written on one side and the trigger word that the learner has identified as a cue, e.g. the sound ‘i’ might be triggered by a child saying ‘iglosaurus’ – not an easy word but meaningful to the child. Memory is also supported by the learner saying out loud (or to themselves if preferred) when they are writing – this helps prevent then from forgetting and transposing letter sounds.