Friday, December 18, 2009

British government: Children with reading problems often wrongly diagnosed with dyslexia

From The Telegraph in the UK:

Children with common reading difficulties are too quickly diagnosed with dyslexia, according to MPs.

A focus on the neurological condition at school is “obscuring” a wider problem with reading in the classroom, it was claimed.

The Commons science and technology select committee said Government reforms designed to help young suffers had been “led by pressure from the dyslexia lobby rather than the evidence”.

Teachers to face five-year checks In a report, it insisted that 4,000 teachers being hired as specialists in dyslexia should be renamed as experts in “literacy difficulty”.

The comments will reignite the debate over dyslexia which is said to affect up to 700,000 school-aged children in England.

Earlier this year, Graham Stringer – Labour MP for Blackley and a member of the select committee – described the condition as a “cruel fiction” and insisted it should be consigned to the “dustbin of history”.

He said that to label children as dyslexic was “wicked” and said most pupils were simply “confused by poor teaching methods”.

The comments provoked fury from the British Dyslexia Association which claim as many as one-in-10 of the population suffer from the condition.

In the latest study, MPs criticised a recent review of primary education carried out by Sir Jim Rose, former head of inspections at Ofsted. The report – endorsed by the Government – called for £10 million to improve treatment of dyslexia, including funding for specialist teachers. All children under five will also be monitored for early signs of the condition.

The report described dyslexia as a learning difficulty that undermined children's ability to accurately read and spell. It said characteristic features included difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and processing speed, adding that it occurred across children with a range of intellects.

But the select committee said: “The Rose Report’s definition of dyslexia is exceedingly broad and says that dyslexia is a continuum with no clear cut-off points. The definition is so broad and blurred at the edges that it is difficult to see how it could be useful in any diagnostic sense.”

It added: “There are a range of reasons why people may struggle to learn to read and the Government’s focus on dyslexia risks obscuring the broader problem. The Government’s support for training teachers to become better at helping poor readers is welcome and to be supported, but its specific focus on ‘specialist dyslexia teachers’ is not evidence-based.

“The Government’s focus on dyslexia, from a policy perspective, was led by pressure from the dyslexia lobby rather than the evidence, which is clear that educational interventions are the same for all poor readers, whether they have been diagnosed with dyslexia or not.”

In the latest study, the select committee assessed the evidence used by ministers when devising reforms designed to boost children’s reading skills. It focused on a Government scheme designed to improve reading by giving pupils intensive one-to-one tuition.

But the report said plans were based on “worryingly low” standards of evidence. It said that Wikipedia was more informative than official guidance on carrying out research trials.

The report also criticised the fact that synthetic phonics – a back-to-basics method of teaching reading – was not a full part of the one-to-one tuition.

Under the synthetic phonics method, children are taught to break words down into constituent parts and work out how to pronounce them for themselves.

Ministers have accepted a recommendation from Sir Jim Rose that synthetic phonics should be at the heart of reading plans.

But the study said: “This is in conflict with the continuing practice of word memorisation and other teaching practices from the ‘whole language theory of reading’.”

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "It is simply not true to suggest that our dyslexia policy is not evidence based. Sir Jim Rose’s [report] lists 117 pieces of research.

"Children with specific difficulties such as dyslexia need extra support in their reading. Dyslexia teaching is personalised in terms of the pace of learning and in terms of adapting to specific difficulties the learner may have. Dyslexia teaching courses are accredited by the British Dyslexia Association, giving specialist teachers the expertise and skills they need to meet the unique needs of dyslexic pupils."