11–20 of 63 posts
"Since the 1990s, the phonological deficit hypothesis has been the dominant explanation favored by researchers" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_deficit_hypothesi...
I’m learning Japanese, and I’ve started learning Chinese characters, both their meanings and how to read them. Reading them feels different than English... I have a hypothesis that our brains work differently when processing symbols that encode meanings as opposed to just sounds. English requires an extra step, where characters are translated into sounds and then into words.
With Chinese characters, you are immediately looking at the meaning; you don’t need translation into sounds. This feels like a more efficient process cognitively to me, even though I have to memorize to recognize more characters.
But the details of the new study seem to support exactly that original idea.
Perhaps a little more detail on why and what kinds of smart, but it was a pretty broad set of mental skills that mattered
[Not an expert] I met someone once who got very expensive glasses with some carefully calibrated prism to perfectly align both eyes. Like when you are exhausted you get double vision. His eyes were fine but with the glasses he could read all day as opposed to only a few hours. He only used them when his eyes started to tire. He said that anyone could have them made but was very curious how many poor readers could ben…
Something to check if you are getting older and not enjoying reading as much lately!
The article is strange, as it starts with "we used to think it was just that smart kids read well, but this new study etc etc" But the details of the new study seem to support exactly that original idea. Perhaps a little more detail on why and what kinds of smart, but it was a pretty broad set of mental skills that mattered
It would be interesting to see a study comparing languages where writing encodes sounds like English versus languages where writing encodes meaning, like Chinese. And also how a person’s visual and auditory capabilities relate to reading. Because languages like English need both I think. I’m learning Japanese, and I’ve started learning Chinese characters, both their meanings and how to read them. Reading them feels d…
They all activate different regions of the brain and clearly are being processed in different ways.
Restating the highlighted result: Gc ("Comprehension-Knowledge") had the strongest effect on both lexical and phonological decoding. Knowing a word makes it easiest to comprehend when reading. This is probably completely obvious, but the broader point is that rich conversations with students that involve teaching them lots of words will improve their reading.
Only partially supported interpretation/application - All this business about phonics will only take you so far if the adults in a kids life (including their teachers) are not talking to them richly about a lot of stuff. Asking teachers to do a lot of rote repetition risks cutting out the really important part of school where students are actually building vocabulary. Teachers that use/teach large vocabularies may be unexpectedly more effective at teaching reading.
[Not an expert] I met someone once who got very expensive glasses with some carefully calibrated prism to perfectly align both eyes. Like when you are exhausted you get double vision. His eyes were fine but with the glasses he could read all day as opposed to only a few hours. He only used them when his eyes started to tire. He said that anyone could have them made but was very curious how many poor readers could ben…
In my mid forties now reading without good reading glasses is absolutely awful, I could see some people struggling with enjoyment of reading if they weren't aware their eyesight is an issue. Something to check if you are getting older and not enjoying reading as much lately!
This has been the mainstream understanding of dyslexia since the 1990s. "Since the 1990s, the phonological deficit hypothesis has been the dominant explanation favored by researchers" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_deficit_hypothesi...