Jennie Sjursen 0:00
We keep being told that dyslexia means our child processes language differently than, quote, neurotypical kids. And then the term science reading or SLR keeps being thrown around. I get that my child's brain works differently. I just have no idea what that means. I'm Jenny Shearson. X special educator turned dyslexia interventionist. It wasn't so long ago that I too, was overwhelmed by balanced literacy versus structured literacy, education speak, and everything in between. That's forward after many, many hours of self driven education. And you'll see I've built a thriving dyslexia practice helping students from ages six to 18. My specialties, working with the quote unquote difficult almost always to the student, and breaking down the complexities of dyslexic to everyday language strategies and action steps. Before we dive in a quick reminder, we're officially in IEP season. To help you out we've put together an IEP snapshot to help you track all the important details, plus a 12 questions to ask at a dyslexia IEP meeting. With Answers podcast and matching PDF. We've linked to both PDFs and podcasts in our show notes below. Go ahead, hit pause bookmarked podcast and grab a copy of the PDFs. We'll wait for you. Did you know The brain is not made for reading. Unlike oral language, there's no one spot in the brain dedicated to reading. When a person learns to read, they learn how to repurpose or rewire areas of the brain changing some areas permanently. For example, people who are illiterate have stronger facial recognition abilities. When we learn to read our brain repurchases this area and our facial recognition abilities, weaken all of this is to say reading is not natural. It's not a skill that can be learned organically. Consider this. Before Gutenberg created the printing press reading was a very specialized skill used by only a few people. Before the printing press Dyslexics wouldn't have stood out for their reading skills. Their peers couldn't read either. It was the ability to mass produce books that changed everything. Now this is a good time to introduce the science of reading or SLR. SLR at its core is scientifically based research that studies reading and issues related to reading and writing. Researchers have been diving into the science of how their brain reads for decades. In the 1980s, researchers started using MRIs and functional MRIs. They use the MRIs to study the anatomy of the brain and the F MRIs to study how the brain functions. In the 1990s. They began to study post mortem brains. Through their research, they were able to see that not only is the Dyslexic brain structurally different from non dyslexic brains, their brains also function differently. Researcher Gordon Sherman from Harvard, looked at the brains of deceased Dyslexics, he discovered that the Dyslexic brain was structurally different from non dyslexic brains. brain development is finished in the fifth month of in vitro. At the end of those five months, the brain has six layers of cortex. Neurons go up through layers six through two, but not in layer one the top layer, layer one is the protection layer. Except in Dyslexics, the Dyslexic brain has neurons in all six layers. They are called the topic neurons or topia's. Most recently, researchers are using fMRI technology to try to understand how the brain processes written language. With an fMRI, they can watch the blood flow through the brain as performs a reading task. Researchers found that reading and writing happens on the left side of the brain. Good readers use different areas in the left side of the brain to read and write. The brain of a dyslexic reader tries to utilize both sides of the brain. If you look at an fMRI scan of a good reader versus a dyslexic reader, there is a noticeable difference between the two. A dyslexic readers brain shows under activation in areas where they have a weakness and over activation in areas that are trying to compensate for the weakness. One of the premier researchers studying how the brain reads is Dallastown he his lab just outside of Paris specializes in In viewing the brain through fMRI and other tools, he found that reading starts at the back of the brain in the occipital lobe, and moves forward towards the front of the brain. Reading a word starts as a visual stimulation, then quickly moves forward into the letterbox area, a small area at the base of the left hemisphere. It's called the letterbox area because it's the area of the brain where we store a recognition of letters. Once in the letterbox area, the information explodes into two different networks. One network accesses the meaning of the word and the other focuses on pronunciation and articulation of the word. Learning to read is primarily made up of recognizing letters and how they combine into written words, and secondly, connecting them to networks in the brain related to meaning and speech sounds. The network's for meaning and speech sounds already exists in the brains of babies for oral language, and eventually, it gets shared with written language. donahey believes that reading creates an interface between the vision and language systems in the brain. In effect, the brain trains the visual system to recognize the letters shapes, and then in effect, the brain trains the visual system to recognize letter shapes, and then connect those letters to speech sounds. The process of connecting these systems changes the brain. These changes happen in the brain, regardless of how old a person is when they learn to read. donahey believes dyslexia, along with ectopia, and possibly other factors, is an anomaly in these connections between the network's the first major change the brain makes when learning to read is in the letterbox. The letterbox area only becomes active when people learn to read. And it only activates for the letters, you know, reading also changes how the brain code sounds. There are anatomical connections being made between the areas that deal with letters, and the areas that deal with sounds that can actually track with brain imaging the fibers being made and reinforced. This is why systematic instruction of letters to sound is so important. The letter boxes original purpose was for facial recognition. As you learn to read your response to words increases, but your response to other stimuli decreases. So in essence, words are competing with faces for recognition, the brain has to make room and accommodate for the letter recognition. In order to do that the brain kicks facial recognition over to the right side of the brain. This repurposing of areas of the brain is called neuron recycling, basically, using existing areas of the brain for a new purpose. Well, let's go back to facial recognition for a moment. Facial recognition is also why some kids read and write left to right, and then right to left or backwards. The brain recognizes faces, regardless of which way the person is looking. Because this is the same area that is responsible for letter recognition. This is something our brain has to unlearn when learning to read and write. Letters are not the same when they change directions. The brain processes every single letter when reading, but simultaneously, when learning to read a child processes letters and decodes in a slow serial letter by letter way. Eventually, as they progress this fades away and gives the impression that one is reading the whole word at once. That right there in a nutshell, is why whole language doesn't work. Our brains do not process the written word as a whole unit. If you want to take a deep dive into the reading brain, Google stylus, Donnie, and you will find a wealth of information. I'll spell his name really quick. S T A NISLASDHAENE. He also has a book called reading in the brain. The book is packed full of scientific information, and one that I have to read a few pages at a time, walk away process, and then come back to the next few pages. If you have any further questions about dyslexia and how the brain learns to read, please feel free to sneak into my inbox. And if you loved what you learned so far, please give our little podcast a five star rating who would so appreciate it. Thank you
Until next time I hope you enjoyed this episode of literacy untangled. If you love this episode as much as I did, head on over and rate and subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you want to continue the conversation or share your takeaways head on over to our Instagram at literacy untangled, and comment on your favorite part. I can't wait to hang out with you again soon. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
