Durham Local Educational Authority study suggests Omega-3 fatty acids have real benefits for a pupils with a range of specific learning difficulties including dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD.  read more

What are Autism Spectrum Disorders? (from the National Institutes of Mental Health)      Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), also known as Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDDs), cause severe and pervasive impairment in thinking, feeling, language, and the ability to relate to others. These disorders are usually first diagnosed in early childhood and range from a severe form, called autistic disorder, through pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), to a much milder form, Asperger syndrome. They also include two rare disorders, Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder. read more

Children must understand how speech sounds work to be ready for instruction in reading and writing. There are many activities that you can do with students to help them understand how speech sounds relate to letters. read more

One of the scientists leading the effort to understand exactly how infants go about learning language told a White House Summit on Early Childhood Cognitive Development ….that the fundamental steps in language acquisition later play a critical role in the ability to read. (…..from Science Da             ily. read more

Reprinted from Perpectives, Winter 2006, The International Dyslexia Association

Beginning with the end in mind, I like to ask parents about their goals for their child. Most say that they want their child’ to love reading’,’ to be a reader’, and ‘to go to college’. Such responses suggest that parents’ goals typically go far beyond the goals of the typical public school. Naturally, schools have a more short-term, micro view of student goals than do parents. To track the child’s language-literacy growth, parents need to combine observations from home with information from the schools – and other helping professionals (reading teacher, psychologist, speech-language pathologist). Persistence is generally required, but the effort is usually worth it. read more

Phonics skill contributed the largest component (62%)  to reading speed

"In work that may one day narrow the gap between speedy, voracious readers and slower, disinterested ones, researchers at New York University (N.Y.U.) have determined that three different mechanisms are used to decode the words in a particular sentence.

The three processes: phonics (a letter by letter sounding out of words); contextual clues (earlier parts of sentences that help readers anticipate upcoming words); and holistic word recognition, or the physical shape of words."  … from Scienticic American.com read more

Emergent literacy resources (birth – 2nd grade) from the West Bloomfield Public Library read more

"Some dyslexic children can't read well because their brains don't properly process rapidly changing sound, according to a new study coauthored by a Dartmouth researcher. However, special training can help these children develop more normal brain responses and also improve as readers, the study shows."  … from Dartmoth College News Service read more

"For the first time, researchers have shown that the brains of dyslexic children can be rewired — after undergoing intensive remediation training — to function more like those found in normal readers." "Neural deficits in children with dyslexia ameliorated by behavioral remediation: Evidence from functional MRI."  From the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition read more

from ScienceNews.org…..

A new brain-imaging study indicates that a specially designed program for second and third graders deficient in reading boosts their reading skills while prodding their brains to respond to written material in the same way that the brains of good readers do. The same investigation found that the remedial instruction typically offered to poor readers in the nation's schools doesn't improve their skills and fails to ignite activity in brain areas that have been linked to effective reading.

"Good teaching can change the brain in a way that has the potential to benefit struggling readers,"

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