As we keep up with the latest research in reading, writing and spelling and teaching our dyslexic students, it feels good to continue to find confirmation that Phonetic Reading with Silent Elephant “e”® has always been on the leading track teaching ALL children to read, write and spell in the way the is the best way for them to learn.
We have studied the latest research from Sally Shaywitz, one of the world’s preeminent experts in reading and dyslexia, which again supports all the processes and activities in Silent Elephant “e”®
Most recently we have enjoyed reading the book How the Brain Learns by Stanislas Dehaene. It was a fun read, though not a fast read, and one where I took many notes.
Dehaene is a cognitive neuroscientist who has done extensive research into how the brain learns to read.
Through using MRI scanning, he has watched how our brains process words and meaning, and he has observed how our brains change as we learn to read. He has also observed how a dyslexic’s brain creates and utilizes new pathways as it learns to read. His work has been an eye-opener for many educators.
Again, Dehaene’s work validates our own research and experience with the success our students have when they are taught to read, write and spell with Phonetic Reading with Silent Elephant “e”®.
I’m eager to share some of my notes from Dehaene for two reasons.
First, I think you’ll find his research interesting.
Second, I think his research is important for all of us as educators, whether homeschool, public or tutor. It’s important that we ALL know how to teach reading, writing and spelling the way the brain learns BEST.
Here are some highlights from Dehaene’s book, How the Brain Learns, that I think will be helpful.
Word processing (reading) begins in our eyes in the center of our retina.
When our brain receives what our eyes are looking at, it begins the task of decoding a word in this order of analysis:
-single letter
-bigram – pair of letters working together (blends, consonant digraphs, vowel digraphs/phonograms, vowel diphthongs)
-grapheme - written symbol of a sound
-syllable (I tell kids, “A syllable is like a “puzzle piece” of a word having only one vowel sound.”)
-morpheme - smallest meaningful unit of grammar with meaning that cannot be broken down into smaller units
-whole word
-mental dictionaries
This visual system of our brain progressively “mines” and “digs” for meaning, looking for the graphemes, syllables, prefixes, suffixes and root words in what it is seeing.
I tell my kiddos as they progress to learning prefixes, suffixes and root words, that researchers have proven that the best readers “excavate” for root words and affixes first when decoding a word. We pretend we’re miners looking for gold as we search for prefixes, suffixes, then root words!
The images that our eyes are seeing are sent as electrical energy to the part of our brain referred to as the “brain’s letterbox”, “word form box” or “visual word form area”. All our visual analysis, turning this electrical energy back into letters and words, is happening in this part of our brain which is located in the lower back left hemisphere in the temporal-occipital cortex.
As our reading ability grows, activation of our “letter box” grows and this increasing activation correlates with our accuracy and fluency and reading grade level. In other words, the more we learn the more this part of our brain can do what it does. It changes as we learn.
Amazingly, and simultaneously, our brain is converting what it’s seeing in print into sound. It’s “sounding out” the words.
When our brain has identified the letters and words, it transmits that information to 2 major sets of brain areas:
- our temporal lobe which encodes sound and
- our frontal lobe which encodes meaning.
Then, once the letter/sound recognition has been established, our brain begins to search for the meaning of not just the words, but phrases and sentences related to context. The meaning of words is found in multiple locations in the brain and every location contains a grouping of related meanings.
Now, we not only know what the word(s), phrases and sentences we are seeing are, but we know how they sound, and we know what they mean.
And this all takes place in a flash. There’s a lot going on in our magnificent brains.
OK! Now this was a particularly exciting part of Dehaene’s research!
Every person’s brain has neural circuits which can be recycled or reused for reading.
Our brain can change and adapt its structure and function! This is called neuroplasticity.
This brain’s plasticity allows anyone’s brain, INCLUDING a dyslexic’s brain, to find alternative brain pathways to use to learn to read WHEN they are taught in ways that activate their “letter box” and those pathways.
What exciting news!
We have always known that the way Phonetic Reading with Silent Elephant “e”® teaches is THE WAY ALL CHILDREN (INCLUDING DYSLEXICS) LEARN BEST because we wrote it from the research. But, knowing that their brain changes to facilitate their easy learning is so exciting. And having Dr. Dehaene actually see the changes in MRIs of both dyslexics and non-dyslexics makes it even more exciting.
From his research, Dr. Dehaene does suggest specific recommendations about teaching reading.
One of his strongest recommendations is that all learners, whether dyslexic or not, must have explicit teaching of correspondence between letters and their sounds to be successful. In other words, they must be taught phonics. (YES! We know this. 😊)
He shares that ALL students must have phonemic awareness and phonics including morphology and vocabulary development for their brains to successfully learn to read. Yes!
Also, a strong recommendation of his is that all reading skills must be taught with patience and in a thorough, step by step meticulous design building one skill upon another with built in constant review of previous skills. Yes!! This is how ALL children will be successful.
His research, and many others, has proven that the whole language approach to teaching reading is inefficient and ineffective, especially for dyslexic students. It leaves students thinking that reading is about guess work, some people guess well, and some don’t. It leaves them without any skills.☹
AND YES! We know this from our experience and that’s why Phonetic Reading with Silent Elephant “e”® teaches reading, writing and spelling the way it does.
It’s about their success. It’s about empowering their lives with reading, writing and spelling.
Keep a song in your heart!
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