ThatReadingThing

Not all ThatReadingThing students are disaffected and disengaged.

Working with an adult “visual learner”
A recent post on the Reading Reform Foundation discussion forum.

Pete is in his twenties recently and formally diagnosed as severely dyslexic. He reads well but his spelling is a huge embarrassment to him. He’s accomplished in many other areas and can clearly explain his strategies for reading and writing. Reading: “I know all the words by sight”. (and he does) Spelling: “I just remember what they look like” (but he doesn’t) “I’m a visual learner.” (who needs to use his ears)

His initial assessments predictably indicated problems with blending, segmenting and manipulating phonemes but his word reading was perfect. I explained to him that words are made up of sounds: he said his head hurt because he’s a visual learner. We did a couple of sorting exercises and, for some reason, the word “catch” came up. “Now I could read that but I couldn’t spell it.” We’d hit the appropriate wall. I showed him that there are 2 ways to write the sound “ch” at the ends of words: ch and tch. I read out a list of words with “ch” at the end. He instantly knew that the only way he was going to figure out the correct spelling was to write them down and “see” which was correct. He found that he could spell 16 of the 18 words that I gave him.

The next week I asked if he’d been able to use his new strategy at all. “Once I thought I couldn’t spell a word then thought, that’s one of Tricia’s “ch” words, wrote it down and knew it was right.”

The 2nd session we looked at ways to write “ee”. Again, it was entirely around spelling and he had to choose the correct spelling of the “ee” sound in the word. I read the word taxi. “I don’t know which part’s “ee” but I do know how to spell it.” With that he wrote t a i x.
What’s the first sound? “t” second? “a” next “don’t know” (gave him “ks” and he knew to write x) and the last sound in taxi is? “ee”. How do you write that? “Ahhhh, I get it”

I tried to come up with an analogy of what happens when visual learners don’t use their ears. Let’s say we need at least 15,000 words to communicate in the adult world. For a visual reader, this is like being able to recognise and name any one of 15,000 people. (For anyone over 40 who can no longer name their own children, it’s easy to see why people give up on reading) For spelling, it gets worse. A visual speller must be able to name and draw each person, getting each one of their features correct and in a certain order. You can see why taxi becomes taix.

Last example from our lessons. We’re talking about syllables and Pete says, “spelling remember is a nightmare.” OK, how many syllables? “3” What’s the first one? “re” Can you write it? Next syllable? “mem” and last? “ber”
He writes it perfectly and laughs. We’re still working on getting him to use his ears to assist his eyes, but that “nightmare” is over.