Pat.Goltz@f3.n300.z1.fidonet.org (Pat Goltz) (02/10/90)
Index Number: 6643
This is actually a response to the lady who had the very young son (3 or
so) who was reading on the third grade level but had dyslexia. I had to
log off yesterday before I got a chance to reply.
It is normal for a person of 3 to reverse words like "saw" and "was".
And I don't regard it as a sign of dyslexia even in older children. It is
only a problem if they reverse everything, consistently. A three year old
is still largely ambidexterous. So things are just as good forwards as
backwards.
I taught all my kids (7 of them) to read, and I taught most of them
early, around 4 or so. Some of them tended to reverse words like these,
but I had a particular technique I used to teach them to read from left
to right. From the very beginning, I had them READ from left to right,
because I always asked them to identify the letter they were learning in
this order. I pointed to that letter. I used phonics to teach them, and
began by pointing to one letter and saying its name, and then we found
all of them in a book. At first, when they pointed to the letters
themselves, they did it in any order at all. Sometimes they missed some
of them and went back to them.
A 3 year old who can read on the third grade level is emphatically NOT
dyslexic! My advice would be to continue to read together, and have fun,
and do it without pressure, as he is interested. Although it is not
customary for a child to read at such an early age, I see no harm in it,
because as long as it is done with love and without pressure, the child
has the basis for doing other early learning, and if he continues to do
so, will ultimately be smarter than most of us. The pitfalls include
putting him on display because he is a "prodigy", applying pressure, and
failing to follow up by giving him other things to learn early. Most of
the geniuses of the world (well, many of them, at least) had parents who
are doing exactly what you are doing. Although teaching them early is not
the ONLY way to achieve the goal of excellence, it is a good way.
I have been watching the Suzuki scene for some time now. Suzuki as
practiced in high-pressure Japan, where it originated, under ideal
conditions results in young violinists of barely school age who are
playing violin concertos, which are fairly advanced in difficulty. I have
sat in an audience listening to some of these youngsters play and cried
at the sheer beauty of one so young being able to do this. So often
excellence is denied to the very young, who must content themselves with
being inept at everything, with whatever this does to their spirits.
However, I have also watched American Suzuki students drop violin while
still children, never to take it up again, and I have watched them fail
to learn to read music because it is a rote method of learning. One
Suzuki student I know is incredibly tense and has been unable to learn
some of the more advanced violin techniques which require relaxation. Her
mother puts a lot of pressure on her, though she thinks she isn't.
I am also told that most Suzuki students in Japan abandon the violin as
adults. Japan is particularly bad about applying pressure.
I think the key here is attitude. As long as the impetus for teaching a
child to read comes from the child's desire (and there are ways to foster
this successfully), and pressure is NOT applied, then it is a reasonable
thing to do. The moment you begin to worry and to apply the pressure,
even if you don't realize you are doing it, you are setting the child
BACK, and he may never recover.
Pat
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