Dyslexics have an amazing ability to analyze spatial objects from multiple directions. This allows them to come up with creative solutions to real problems. This same amazing talent creates problems when used when learning to read. If you look at a written word from all directions and mix up the letters, you do not gain more information about that word. It leads to confusion and some of the primary symptoms of dyslexics. Two confusing symptoms appear. Dyslexics appear to be slow readers. The opposite is actually true, but not apparent. The reader is busy sorting and resorting the letters incredibly quickly. And the result is, they are making mistakes in reading the correct word. The process of looking at objects from many directions I possible because of a process of disorientation. If you can look at an object inside your head, turn it around, look at the back of it, etc. You can make decisions from more information than the people who can't disorient themselves. Again, this only works well with real objects and not with learning to read. In the abstract world of the written word, the letters, their shapes and the words themselves cannot be turned around to learn more. The process of disorientation only creates confusion. As it gets more and more confusing, they can no longer get many of the words right. The really surprising thing is that many of the words that dyslexics mix up are the little simple ones, like may and her. Because they don't represent a real object, the dyslexic is searching for the meaning by turning the letters around in his head. The more of these abstract words a reading passage contains the more and more confusion the dyslexic experiences. They can actually reach a threshold of confusion. Remember many people with dyslexia learning to read are processing information faster than the average reader, but the appearance is of being slower and making mistakes. Often they have too much information. And not the right information. Dealing with the cause of the confusing words will remove the symptoms. Not the other way around. |
