Kalman R. Hettleman, Abell Foundation
February 2003
Since the early 1990s, researchers have made solid gains in understanding how children's brains develop, grow and produce uniquely human capacities. The insights now emerging from brain science are beginning to impact on education, but far too slowly, and nowhere is this truer than in the study of reading disabilities. The author of this report, Kalman Hettleman, notes that reading scientists have reached agreement that:
- Most reading difficulties, including dyslexia, are caused by core deficits in phonological awareness. In other words, children cannot make enough connections between spoken and written letters and words, blocking their ability to master the foundational reading skills of decoding and word recognition.
- Such deficits in phonological awareness are found among children with low as well as high IQs.
- These deficits can usually be identified as early as pre-kindergarten or kindergarten and effectively treated.
What these insights mean in practice is that the vast majority of reading disabilities are "curable" if identified and treated early. This matters greatly. Hettleman observes that "at least 20 percent of the children in Baltimore City public schools and other large urban districts can be called 'invisible dyslexics,'" which means they have treatable reading disabilities. But, despite our new knowledge, most of these children are not identified or taught using research-proven reading programs. To keep these children from being condemned to a life of bare literacy-and the poverty and crime associated with this-Hettleman advocates a "zero tolerance" approach to early reading deficits. This would require changes in special ed laws and a revolution in how educators approach reading. Hettleman writes that "the education establishment has been slow to respond to the new research consensus." President Bush's Reading First and Early Reading First initiatives are intended to help the nation step up its preschool and K-3 reading programs, but money lags behind policy. To see this important report for yourself go to http://www.abell.org/pubsitems/ed_invisible_dyslexics.pdf.
