Introduction
The majority of human being doesn’t bring back much knowledge from memory about learning to talk. It merely appeared to come in a natural or normal manner. Without much doubt human being does not bear in mind to a great extent with reference to how they learned to interpret something written or printed also.
However, as grown-ups, reading appears so effortless and operating with minimal human intervention that we frequently presume it ought to be an uncomplicated attainment for nearly any child to gain knowledge or skills of. But that is not the case. Learning to speak is an innate ability supported by some specialized area of the brain, and is automatic for almost all children raised in normal circumstances.
According to Sousa (2005), for many children, learning to read is a long, complicated task requiring years of conscious effort (p.1).
There has been series of question on what the brain goes through when reading. But the human brain is an astonishing structure, a cosmos of never-ending possibilities and mystery. It continuously shapes and reshapes itself as a result of experience, yet it can blast-off independently without the outside world. Although in the process of reading the eyes scans the squiggly lines and curves called the alphabets and group them into the word as indicated on the page. Then, certain areas of the brain work to associate the written symbols with the sounds of the language already stored in the head. As this alliance transpires, other neural networks decode the writing into a mental message for understanding.
Incredibly, the brain can process and grasp an entire sentence in a few second. Furtherance to this, reading is a result of an elaborate process that involves decoding abstract symbols into sounds, then into words that generate meaning.
Analyzing problems in reading acquisition: Dyslexia
Dyslexia is defined as a difficulty in reading and spelling, learning to read despite the presence of intelligence, motivation, and education necessary for successful reading and in the absence of any obvious neurological or sensory disorders. Detailed critical inspections have shown that the reading deficit of children with developmental dyslexia persists into puberty and even adulthood. Dyslexia is perhaps the most common neurobehavioral disorder distressing children, with prevalence rates ranging from 5-10 % in clinics and schools identified samples to 17.5% in unselected population based samples (Shaywitz, 1998).
However, researchers believe and agree that “dyslexia is a reading impairment with underlying genetic, developmental and neurological causes” (Frith, 1997). In Frith’s long-familiar description, dyslexia is seen as a cultural phenomenon which has cognitive and biological bases. Moreover, a consensus among many researchers is that dyslexia is branded by difficulties in phonological processing, and more distinctively phonological awareness which is the aptitude to recognize and manoeuvre the sound structure of words (Fawcett, 2001). Furtherance to this, individuals with dyslexia have impaired phonological skills, including the ability to differentiate rhyming sounds, count the syllabus of words and also identify novel or “pseudo-words”.
Consequently, phonological awareness is an excellent predictor of early learning and reading ability. Moreover, the impairments to phonological representations are implicated to in at least (if not all) some cases of dyslexia.
Additionally, there is a debate that the impaired reading ability of the dyslexics is due to the deficit in the phonological processing. These phonological complications manifest themselves in different tasks including test of phonological awareness, rapid automatic naming, verbal short-term memory, and speech perception. However, reading acquisition requires the child to learn the mapping between orthography and phonology, moreover, problems with the representation and use of phonological information inevitably leads to problems in reading acquisition (Goswami and Bryant, 1990).
However, because of the mentally or physically unfit ability to analyse written words by the dyslexics, they find written languages difficult and unable to identify words.
Shaywitz, (1998) noted that “this low-level phonological deficit thwarts words from complying with high level linguistic processing which would allow the reader to gain meaning from the text”. Nonetheless, having integral power of retaining and recalling past experience and systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols and the ability to understand the meaning or importance of something by the dyslexics are dormant for the fact that, there activity of causing to have energy and be active is only when phonological dispensation has been recognized by a verbal command for action.
How memory affects learning to read
Memory is involved in mastering the alphabet code and in reading comprehension. Nevertheless, memory has many parts and many modes of access (auditory, visual, and kinaesthetic) and too few studies to provide an in-depth assessment. For the most part, research has been primarily devoted to the relationship between verbal memory and reading skill. And while visual memory is clearly important, individual differences in reading skill has not been attributed to visual memory. In line with this Sousa (2005) stated that reading is a far more complicated skill involving a number of brain systems (p.48). However, when reading a word, the decoding process breaks the words into its segments and, while being retained in the working memory, the phonemes are blended to form words that the reader can recognize. Nonetheless, the ability to retain verbal bits of information is referred to as phonologic memory. Moreover, when reading sentences, the visual and memory system of the brain must decode and then retain the words at the beginning of a sentence for a period of time while the reader’s eyes moves to the end of the sentence. Besides, the brain must pay attention to syntax and context in order for a sentence to be accurately understood (Sousa, 2005, p.49).
The structure of language: Phonemes, morphemes, syntax, and semantics
Language is made up of many components that relate to one another in structured ways. These components include Phonemes, morphemes, syntax, and semantics (Train, 2007, p.266).
Accordingly, phonemes language is formed in the brain by the universal unit of sound called phonemes. Phonemes are represented by either a letter such as the ‘o’ sound in ‘go’ or by a combination of letters, such as the ‘sh’ sound in ‘should’. The human brain is capable of recognising approximately one hundred of such basic sounds and no single language uses all of these sounds. However, phonemes alone do not carry any meaning, but they are grouped in sets sequences to create words, prefixes (such as ‘un-‘and ‘pre-‘) and suffixes (such as ‘ed’ and ‘ing’).
Morphemes
Phonemes this may be combined in a definite and orderly sequence in the brain to form morphemes, which are the least unit of a language which is significant. Morphemes can express (communication) a single concept, such as love or they can be added to a word to change its meaning.
Morphemes can be combined in the human brain to form words that represent complex ideas, such as psycho-logy. The words formed by morphemes can then be combined into phrases and sentences that can express even more complex ideas.
Syntax
The set of rules about how the brain combine words to form grammatically correct sentences is referred to as syntax.
Semantics
The term semantics refers to how the brain assigns meaning to the morphemes, phrases and sentences that we use. Some semantic rules say how a word may refer to an object. While other semantic rules say determine how different combination of morphemes can change the meaning of a word. Additionally, semantic and syntax are two of the main components of a language’s grammar. Hence, grammar is the rules for structuring sentences and their meanings.
The rules of grammar allow us to perform the transformations between the surface and deep structure of a language. The surface structure of a sentence refers to the words and phrases that the sentence is made up of at first glance (or first hearing), while the deep structure refers to the underlying meaning of the sentence.
Nonetheless, the meaning of a sentence does not only depend on the words it contains and how they are arranged, but also on the social context in which the statement is made. The branch of semantics concerned with the relationship between language and its social concept is called pragmatics.
Gender differences in language processing
Recent discoveries by neuroscientist which was made with functional imaging proved that there are differences in the way male and female brain process language. According to neuroscientist, the male brains tend to process language in the left hemisphere, while most female brains process language in both hemispheres (Sousa, 2005, p.14). Interestingly, the large bundle of neurons that connects the two hemispheres and allows them to communicate (known as the corpus callosum) is proportionally larger and thicker in the female than in male. Accordingly, this implies that information travels between the two cerebral hemispheres more efficiently in females than in males (Sousa, 2005, p.15).
Sousa (2005) further noted that the combination of dual-hemisphere language processing and more efficient between-hemisphere communications may account for why girls generally acquire spoken language easier and more quickly than their boy’s counterpart.
What researchers are saying about the role of the brain with relation to dyslexia
Research shows that the brains left hemisphere is involved in most reading activity, hence the three regions function together during reading process (Stern and Rief, 2010). However, in the front hemisphere phonemes are processed, the region of the brain behind the front region is involved with connecting sounds to the letters that represent them. Furthermore, the third region is used to store words that have been read and learned so that they can later be recognized automatically, without needing to decode sound by sound (Stern and Rief, 2010).
The most prevalent issues discussed within dyslexia
The most prevalent issues discussed in respect to the topic is the introduction of the strephosymbolia, or simply put, the problems with reversing letters and words. Researchers further proposed that there was a relationship between cerebral dominance and reading, which opened the door to viewing reading problems as due to more than just visual processing. Moreover, researchers noted that the right hemisphere/spatial issues and the left hemisphere/linguistic deficits are possible causes of dyslexia. However, researcher’s groundbreaking work at the Haskins Lab helped to identify difficulties in phonological processing as a root cause of reading problems. The presence of phonological processing problems in poor readers has been replicated in numerous studies and is now a well-established element of current conceptualizations of dyslexia (Brock, Christo and Davis, 2009, p.5).
In conclusion, as a teacher, teaching the children phonological awareness skill as well as phonics and fluency strategies will help activate the region of the brain involved in automatic recognition of word. Teaching, instruction in phonemic awareness and reading skill that is intense, explicit, and systematic should be considered, because these will have an impact on brain of a person with dyslexia. The use of assorted teaching strategies must be implemented because focusing on just one area of reading, one program, or one type of teaching is less effective in helping dyslexic students improve their reading skills. In essence, the phonemic awareness and systematic phonics should be taught. Guided oral reading is an effective strategy for increasing reading fluency in that children receive guidance and feedback as they read aloud. The goal is to train children to read efficiently and fluently. “Children need instruction in reading comprehension techniques and application strategies so that they will be able to understand the material they read”.
In practice, there is the introduction of one new skill or focus of instruction at a time. There must be specific procedures for introducing, practicing and reviewing skills. Explicit teacher modeling and a high degree of guided practice whereby the students understanding will be checked frequently. However, there must be immediate corrective feedback by reviewing and checking for retention and mastery of previously taught skills and wherever there is lapse, the re-teaching of the subject. Lastly, the students must be encouraged to engage in independence practice and they must be active throughout the lessons.
Reference List
Brock, S. E., Christo, C., & Davis, J. M. (2009). Identifying, Assessing, and Treating Dyslexia at School. New York, NY: Springer.
Fawcett, A. J. (2001) Dyslexia: Theory and Good Practice. London. Whurr Publishers.
Frith, U. B. (1997). Mind and behaviour in dyslexia. London: Whurr Publishers Ltd;
Goswami, U. and Bryant, P. (1990). Phonological skills and Learning to Read. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Shaywitz, S.E. (1998). Dyslexia. The New England journal of medicine 338: 5, 307-12.
Sousa, D. A. (2005). How the brain learns to read. California. Corwin Press.
Stern, J. M. & Rief, S. F. (2010). The Dyslexia Checklist: A Practical Reference for Parents and Teachers. John Wiley and Sons.
Train, B. (2007). Introduction to psychology. Cape Town. Pearson South Africa.