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16 - What successful adults with dyslexia teach educators about children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

By
Rosalie Fink
Edited by
Kurt W. Fischer ,
Jane Holmes Bernstein  and
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Rosalie Fink
Affiliation:
Professor of Literacy Lesley University
Kurt W. Fischer
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Jane Holmes Bernstein
Affiliation:
The Children's Hospital, Boston
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
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Summary

Overview: A major problem in teaching dyslexic children is their learned negativity toward reading, built from multiple frustrating and embarrassing encounters with printed text. Fink suggests going beyond goals that treat reading comprehension and fluency as if they are disembodied skills, and argues for the importance of the motivating forces of affect and interest. Reading, after all, is about the skill of getting information through text. Based on her in-depth study of successful adult dyslexics, Fink suggests several affective hooks to draw in reluctant dyslexic children, especially emphasizing their individual interests and passions and catering to them. This essay provides a reminder that in the end, one major purpose of studying dyslexia is to translate the research into effective strategies to help learning-disabled children become successful adults.

The Editors

This essay analyzes development in 60 highly successful men and women with dyslexia and relates the boy William (Bernstein, this volume) to these adults' histories. The 60 men and women developed literacy three to four years later than normally developing peers (Fink, 1995/96, 1998a, 1998b, 2000a, 2000b; Mascolo, Li, Fink, & Fischer, 2002). They followed non-linear developmental pathways similar to a pathway found in children by Fischer and his colleagues (Fischer & Bidell, 1998; Fischer & Knight, 1990; Fischer, Rose, & Rose, this volume).

The men and women include professionals in a variety of fields that require sophisticated reading (i.e. law, medicine, business, and the arts and sciences).

Type
Chapter
Information
Mind, Brain, and Education in Reading Disorders , pp. 264 - 281
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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