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news | Published in TES magazine on 7 March, 2014
Last Updated:7 March, 2014
Section:news
I am utterly incredulous at the following statement from the headteacher of a Dyslexia School:The dyslexia label: lifeline or damaging distraction?
It may seem odd that I, the headteacher of a specialist dyslexia school, support Professor Joe Elliott’s claim that the word dyslexic has become meaningless (“Why the dyslexia label may do more harm than good”, 28 February). But dyslexia has come to be used as an umbrella term, covering a whole host of symptoms. Because of this, many people instantly associate any form of reading or writing difficulty with it.
The diagnostic process often determines how severe problems are by measuring how far behind a child is. This results in the assumption that underperformance defines dyslexia, when really it is an inherent difficulty with matching sounds to symbols.
Nowadays, the term means so many things to so many people that it has lost all educational relevance and perspective. Moreover, it encourages a “deficit” approach: focusing on what a child cannot do, instead of finding out what they can do and using this to enable their learning.
Labels can be useful. In this case, however, diagnosis fails to trigger a solution, which brings us to the real problem. If dyslexia is a fundamental difficulty with matching sounds and letters, why does phonics continue to be so prominent in mainstream education? If phonics ceased to exist, so would dyslexia.
Dr Daryl Brown
Headteacher at Maple Hayes Dyslexia School, Staffordshire
If dyslexia is a fundamental difficulty with matching sounds and letters, why does phonics continue to be so prominent in mainstream education? If phonics ceased to exist, so would dyslexia.
Have I misread and misunderstood what Dr Brown is suggesting?
I take it that Dr Brown is blaming the teaching of phonics in mainstream as causing dyslexia?
Or is Dr Brown making a more general comment that if phonics [teaching? writing systems?] ceased to exist, there would be no dyslexia?
What would Dr Brown advocate in place of 'phonics' or in place of teaching phonics considering we have a phonics writing system?
Would he have his pupils learn the thousands of words or our language printed word by printed word?
I am either totally misunderstanding the point being made in a general sense (that if there was no phonics code to the writing system - or perhaps no alphabetic writing system - then there would be no dyslexics: or if schools did not teach phonics when teaching reading and writing, there would be no dyslexics.??????
And this person is in charge of a school specialising in dyslexia?
Anyway, I've submitted a comment myself seeking clarification from Dr Brown.