Rewriting the Book on the Reading Disabled

"I haven't set a good example," said the teary-eyed Jam Hsiao during a television interview. A song writer and musician who taught himself how to play drums and keyboards, Hsiao continued: "I'm full of regret that I've read no books and can write only a few characters."

Hsiao's agent explains that after hiring Hsiao for a television commercial, an advertising production company gave him a script that he simply couldn't read. The producers were forced to read aloud his lines over and over. It wasn't until the agent subsequently arranged for the singer to see a doctor that Hsiao finally realized he had a severe reading disability.

Research has shown that many children with reading disabilities have far greater talents with colors and drawing than with words. Pictures can be a lot of help in improving their reading comprehension.

Hung Li-yu, a professor of special education at National Taiwan Normal University, was pained to read in news reports that Hsiao hadn't worked hard at reading and writing as a child, because reading disabilities can be ameliorated. Yet because learning disabilities have no obvious outward signs, they are easy to overlook. Hung's research shows that about 10% of the school-age population, or about 200,000 students altogether, suffer from reading disabilities.

Reading disabilities are learning disabilities rooted in the way that the brain handles linguistic signals. In comparison with normal readers, dyslexics show different areas of brain activation when reading. What's more, those with reading disabilities have difficulty with phonological awareness and orthographic decoding regardless of the language being used.

"For students who have problems with orthographic decoding, the difficulties extend to writing, reading comprehension and oral expression," says Hung Li-yu.

Those with learning disabilities rooted in neuropsychological abnormalities have difficulties paying attention, remembering, understanding, reasoning, and expressing themselves, as well as difficulties with their perceptions or perceptual motor coordination. These extend to verbal issues when listening, speaking, reading or writing, and even to problems with understanding mathematics.

Dyslexics largely have IQs in the normal range, and their learning disabilities are unrelated to sensory or emotional disabilities.

Most people tend to think that hard work brings academic achievement, overcoming any deficits in intellectual aptitude. But for those with learning disabilities, the use of unsuitable methods is sure to lead to failure, with twice the work bringing half the results.

By taking alternative approaches to reading and writing, dyslexics can reduce their scholastic pressures and attain academic success.

Hung explains that in class students with reading disabilities frequently suffer from attention deficits or hyperactivity and have difficulties expressing their main points. What's more, they struggle with math. When you combine these issues with their insufficient reading and writing skills, their formal educations tend to turn into long journeys of suffering and woe.

For instance, a fifth grader named Xiao Yang (not his real name) is having problems concentrating and understanding.

Xiao Yang has long been able to distinguish between homonyms such as the yin that means cause (因) and the yin that means sound (音), explains Ms. Ye, the school's resource room teacher, who has been tutoring Little Yang since second grade. But Ye notes that he often drops strokes when writing characters, turning, say, the character for dog (犬) into the character for big (大).

What's more, Little Yang used to be exceedingly taciturn. When Ye, hoping to prompt an involved narrative, would ask, "Why is the janitor in the picture cleaning the room? What tool is he using to sweep with?" Little Yang would merely respond, "He's cleaning the table and sweeping the floor."

Now Little Yang's biggest problem is being unable to grasp abstractions, such as the meaning of terms like "treasuring," "being charitable," or "hazy."

"Other kids will quickly understand that 'to treasure' equals 'to cherish,' but for Little Yang you've got to be much more concrete," says Ye. "For instance, 'Saying that you treasure your pencil case means that you really like your pencil case, and what's more that you'll protect it and keep it from dropping and breaking.'"

"Sometimes, one sentence isn't enough, and you've got to cite more examples, and then ask Little Yang to make a sentence for himself." Yet Ye couldn't help but feel frustrated when Little Yang returned from summer vacation having forgotten half of the vocabulary he had struggled to learn during the previous school year.

Sinking in the vast ocean of the written word, dyslexics without a suitable learning method may not drown, but they will end up dazed and disoriented.

In Taiwan, almost all education from junior high school on up requires literacy. Under pressure to advance to higher levels of education, this phase of education is purgatory to those with reading disabilities.

Take Allen, a high school senior, and Katie, a ninth grader. They understand that academically they will never be the equal of their classmates. But they've come to understand that while they can't move mountains, they can change their own path. Consequently, both have focused their studies on their interests.

Before fourth grade, Allen Zhang was progressing nicely at school. In first grade, when he was first tested on the phonetic system used in Taiwan elementary classrooms, he scored a 96. He then went on to score around 80 in his monthly subject tests. His teachers didn't think he had any problem, but Allen's mother always felt that something wasn't quite right. "He got a lot of characters wrong," she says.

After Allen entered fifth grade, Mrs. Zhang discovered that he usually couldn't finish his math homework. After a year spent searching for the root of the problem, it was discovered that Allen did indeed have a reading disability. In junior high school, Allen's grades were even worse, and he often felt like giving up. "I've done all my homework already!" he would snap at his mother in frustration.

As Fate silently closed the door on Allen's book-learning, it also opened a window: Mrs. Zhang runs a flower-arranging store, and from a young age Allen enjoyed breaking apart the store's cardboard boxes and building structures with them. What's more, his spatial aptitude scores were always far higher than his verbal scores.

Based on his interest in art and design, Allen decided to enter a fine arts program in a vocational high school. In the first year of the program (tenth grade), Allen earned a Grade III professional license, and this year he is working hard to qualify for a Grade II license.

Katie Yuan is a rare student afflicted with a reading disorder who likes to write. Having harnessed that interest, she has made progress "by leaps and bounds" and prompted tears of joy from her mother.

One of Katie's homeroom teachers in elementary school, who stressed traditional academic achievement, gave her a negative assessment, saying that she "lacked diligence." Fortunately, Katie also encountered some teachers in non-core classes that gave her an opportunity to shine. They happily let Katie be a "little teacher." For most people, it might not have been particularly significant. But for Katie it served as a big reward and a source of great encouragement.

Katie's transformation occurred after the whole family traveled to Europe during summer vacation. Mrs. Yuan discovered that Katie was typing away on the computer, conveying her impressions of Europe in the style of a fantasy novel.

"Katie's writing was boldly imaginative. In her stories the people with red hair and the people with blue hair each had their own magic powers," says her mother, seeming only to half understand it herself.

Ms. Yuan recalls that Katie had been criticized by her Chinese teacher for "writing poorly." She has poor penmanship, with irregularly sized characters. What's more, the pressure of a test, with its word limits and demands for essay structure, shackled Katie's creativity. When she was little, Katie loved to read comics. "Although she'd read slowly, she would devote her full attention to them." With her interest piqued, she'd immerse herself in the fantastic world of Eragon.

"The learning disabled don't ask for much," says Guo Xinmei, director-general of the Taipei Parents' Association for the Learning Disabled. Guo's second son Geng Yanyao, now 27, was taunted as "stupid" back in elementary school. He was ridiculed for his mispronunciation of basic words such as "watermelon" and "teacher." When he left for the resource room, students would make fun of him as "a recycled resource."

One feature of resource rooms is that teachers will read test questions aloud, and as a result Yenyao's scores rose from the 20s and 30s to the 70s and 80s. It gave him a big boost in confidence-though it did cause the parents of others students to complain about "the special privileges of resource room students."

Because he was interested in electronics, Geng decided to pursue a technical education. After graduating from the electronics department of Taipei Municipal Da-an Vocational High School, he entered the Technology and Science Institute of Northern Taiwan. Apart from flunking English twice, which meant he had to retake the class, he was otherwise able to smoothly advance in his studies and graduate.

In the face of an educational process geared toward tests and scores, "the last thing those with learning disabilities need is scolding," says Guo Xinmei with great emotion. "If they can find an interest and then gain related employment, they deserve praise!" Her son is working at an electronics company now. Apart from reading reference material somewhat more slowly, his skills haven't proved to be inferior to those of his colleagues. And his success has gratified his mother.

Overseas, many people are open about their learning disabilities, including former US president George W. Bush, Hollywood megastar Tom Cruise, and former Singapore president Lee Kuan Yew.

Cruise is an example of someone who has battled with dyslexia from a young age. In an interview with People magazine in 2003, Cruise revealed that he was diagnosed with dyslexia when he was seven. He studied hard, but he would read a page only to find that he recalled next to nothing: His mind was blank. It made him feel anxious, bored, frustrated, stupid and even angry. When he had written homework to do, he would first dictate to his mother, and then painstakingly copy over what she had written. Although he was a poor student, he enjoyed performing skits for his mother and making her laugh. She always encouraged him, saying, "You have real potential as a performer. Don't ever give up." When he graduated from high school and went out into the working world, he kept his "functional illiteracy" a secret.

What remedies are available for the learning disabled, and how much of a difference can these interventions make?

Hung Li-yu says that if parents discover that their child is speaking slowly and has a small vocabulary, often answering with a simple "yes" or "no," or even merely pursing his lips, nodding, shaking his head, or shrugging his shoulders when the context would call for a spoken response, then they should take him to his school's counseling office for an evaluation.

"Like regular checkups for cavities or vision, the school ought to conduct regular evaluations of its students' reading abilities so as to protect the more than 100,000 at-risk students," says Hung. She notes that diagnosing these issues before third grade is best: The earlier the diagnosis, the earlier educators can develop an educational model well suited to the individual child.

In the early years of primary school the focus should be on strengthening the child's ability to distinguish characters. In the latter part of elementary school, the focus should shift to building suitable learning strategies (such as using illustrations to express one's meaning and practicing how to glean an essay's thesis). In junior high school teachers of students with reading disabilities may want to change their methods of evaluating homework and tests, encouraging dyslexics to find their strengths and pursue their interests.

Currently, elementary schools and junior high schools place disabled students, including those with learning disabilities, in resource room classes in addition to their regular classes. There they have access to special resources and are given special treatment, with extended times to take tests and having test questions read aloud.

But Hung Li-yu has observed that not all parents of reading disabled children want help from the resource room. The attitude of the parents is key. For every 100 children with reading disabilities, there is typically only one with parents who are willing to admit that their child has a problem of this kind, she says. Most parents respond, "The kid has just started school. How can you know he has dyslexia?"

The reality is that the curriculum in the lower years is simpler. With fewer abstract concepts, children with reading disabilities can muddle through. Consequently, parents may find it hard to tell that their child is really different. But once the difficulty increases in higher grades, and the child's test scores plummet, the parents discover belatedly that their child has a reading disability.

Hung Li-yu notes that although help can be provided for those with reading disabilities, the child needs to understand that "there is a lifetime of hardship ahead." They need to brace themselves psychologically as they face their futures.

Maryanne Wolf, the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, was drawn to this topic as a result of her own child having a reading disability. Because written symbols came relatively late in the history of human evolution, she argues that the brain isn't designed for reading. Although the invention of writing has reorganized the brain's complex wiring, reading is not natural behavior. That most people can learn how to read bears witness to the brain's plasticity. But brains that are structured in ways that impede reading may hold even more evolutionary secrets.

Dr. Wolf points out that many famous historical figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso are thought to have suffered with reading disabilities. But the point of researching reading disabilities and helping dyslexics isn't only to keep obstacles from blocking the paths of future da Vincis and Einsteins. It's also to ensure that we don't lose out on any child's potential.