The Reading Difficuilties shown by Types
- Author:
Helen C. Dalby, M.A., Ph.D.,
Lecturer in Education, Avery Hill Training College The retarded child is often greatly hampered both as regards his progress in school studies, and his mental development, by an inherent disability in learning to read. In no other school activity does it seem so urgent for him to aspire to at least a moderate standard of attainment. He must make suffic- ient progress to enable him to cope successfully with an environment in which verbal communication and personal contact are not always possible, and, even if they were, would not be sufficient to provide him with the mental experience necessary to enable him so to cope. A knowledge even of the elemen- tary steps of mechanical reading may be sufficient to enable the child to under- stand and translate into action written messages, and to comprehend certain elements in his surroundings whose meaning cannot be conveyed to him by direct reference to external objects. Ability to read places the child in the position of one who has the advantage of a shorthand mode of expression which may be regarded in the light of an extension of the understanding, just as a telescope, or wireless apparatus extend the possibilities of eyesight or hearing.
The child who is beginning to learn to read has necessarily to adjust him- self to a new mode of interpretation of his perceptual patterns. He must now become familiar with a whole group of visual patterns which he must associate in a definite way with certain equally definite auditory patterns, and with the movements of his tongue, lips, and vocal chords in speech. Further, these perceptual patterns are but symbols, and are required to arouse in the child’s mind the succession of images and the train of ideas of which they represent the meaning. This act of comprehension depends not only upon the meaning actuallv suggested by the printed matter, but also upon the content of the child’s mind, which contributes to it a stream of imagery determined by the immediately preceding matter, and enriched by the child’s past mental ex- perience. In the adult reader this mental content is rich and varied, and he passes immediately from the first visual impressions to the meaning conveyed by them. The intermediate perceptual stages may be, for him, implicit, but they arc not realised. For the young child or immature reader, however, these intermediate stages are of great importance, since the recognition and assimila- tion of the word, phrase, or sentence, necessarily follow more slowly upon the perception of the forms of the words. Again the child’s glance must be con- stantly directed from left to right in a horizontal manner, and the steady move- ments of the eye necessary for this controlled adjustment have to be acquired. The child’s attention must, therefore, very closely follow an ordered sequence ?f visual impressions which must be rapidly assimilated and apprehended in
language form. It will be realised, therefore, that in reading the child must develop a new modification of his perceptual capacities involving a closer con- centration upon form and direction than he has hitherto known. His power to recognise the meaning of these new percepts depends upon an expert discrimin- ation of fine differences in very small visual patterns, and the successful com- bination of these into new units whose meaning must be interpreted in terms of his mental experience. The whole process must be sufficiently rapid to keep pace with the rate of ordinary speech in order that the meaning may be readily grasped. Auditory patterns are thus associated with those that are visual, and the whole must be combined with the movements required in speech. Thus kinaesthetic imagery is also included. The child does not fully comprehend the meaning of the written word until he has passed through the preliminary stages of visual and auditory imagery.
These preliminary perceptual processes, so necessary for the mastery of the mechanical steps in reading, provide possibilities for several pitfalls when a child is mentally retarded. Apart from a lack of general intelligence, he may fail to master these mechanical elements for the following reasons.
He may have (i) Poor powers of visual discrimination, (2) Poor powers of auditory discrimination, (3) Weak associative powers. If these disabilities exist the interpretation of visual and auditory images in the terms of one another, and the association of these with the movements of speech is a matter of very great difficulty. A child of normal general intelligence may be handicapped in any of these three ways and may fail in reading for a considerable period. He is required to apprehend from the printed page the meaning conveyed by its language. In order to do this, he must not only recognise at sight, but translate into the sounds and movements of speech the small visual units presented to him by print. Until the stage is reached when these preliminary processes can be telescoped so that the meaning of the printed message is immediately clear, reading appears to the child a series of separate processes which he cannot unify, so that only by a great effort does he pass over to the comprehension of the written word. The absorption in these preliminary stages of the child retarded by poor visual or auditory powers hinders the development of the higher men- tal processes required for comprehension of the matter. If the child is of normal intelligence he is apt to be discouraged by the constant setbacks he receives, and to lose interest before he understands the message and its value. The task of becoming efficient in such fine sensory discrimination has no in- trinsic interest for the normal child whose mental make-up is of such a char- acter. He can only become proficient as a reader if a very strong incentive to overcome his initial difficulties can be provoked. Fortunately, it is possible to encourage the child to make the necessary efforts, by attacking reading from an angle which immediately awakens his interest. He should be given mean- ingful matter which he can easily understand and relate to his experience and mental content from the beginning. When the child is satisfied of the necessity for mastering the fine differences between words he is able to give his attention and interest to the finer perceptual processes. He can then proceed to the analysis of words and the sounds of letters with an insight which the more formal and logical methods would not have induced. Furthermore, a child so trained is prepared to make special efforts to overcome his difficulties, and will willingly undertake the special exercises in form and sound discrimination which are generally assumed to be of interest only to the younger children. If his specific defect is mainly visual there is no reason why he should be behind children better endowed visually for very long.
Among the earlier perceptual processes of reading there occurs the necess- ity of acquiring skill in a directional movement of the eyes from left to right in a horizontal manner which is continued downward, line by line, to the bottom of the page of printed matter. This particular skill depends, in part, upon accuracy of spatial orientation. The outside world is impressed upon the retinas of the eyes in inverted fashion, and this impression is corrected by the mind. Vertical relationships cause no difficulty, but lateral relationships are often not securely established when the child begins to read and write. The child’s concentration on the form of the small units now presented to him, results in a neglect of their correct spatial orientation, so that both letters and words are sometimes reversed in direction and letters are transposed in words. This disorientation sometimes persists longer than is convenient in the retarded child, and especially in one who is left-handed. It is sometimes so persis- tent as to be a stumbling block to such a child. The difficulty appears to be partly due to the fact that the first visual impressions are of ends of words rather than beginnings, and the motor co-ordination shows a tendency to follow the lead of the clearer imagery. The arbitrary nature of the sensori-motor co- ordination required for reading and writing proves more difficult in conse- quence of this peculiarity.
If visual defects are complicated by poor auditory discrimination, the difficulty of overcoming the mechanical processes is even more evident. It is probable that the young child’s form of mental imagery is in the main visual, and that he only gradually acquires the capacity to use the closely integrated visual, auditory, and motor imagery which is involved in die verbal imagery which he is encouraged to use at school. If his auditory powers are poor, he does not easily acquire this, and must therefore be provided with special exer- cises in order to help him over his difficulty. The disability may, however, be so great as to require clinical treatment. There are certain children who suffer from what is called “high-frequency” deafness. It is uncertain whether this condition is organic, or is a defect in auditory discrimination. These children are unable to discern fine differences in the higher-pitched vowel sounds. Rapidly spoken sentences sound to them a confused jumble, and only by long training and perseverance can they be taught to understand ordinary specch. In the early stages of school life their reactions to sound are hardly to be distinguished from those of a child who is ordinarily deaf. They there- fore naturally fall within the category of those who should attend a special school.
The child whose general intelligence is retarded presents a different prob- lem. He may be able to master the mechanical reading processes with com- parative ease. He reads words, successfully combines them into phrases and sentences, but the meaning which the words are intended to convey does not reach his mind. Of the multitude of impressions crowding in upon his senses, the small child, even when of average capacity, is able to attend to very few. These sense impressions are organised by the child’s mind into the mass of co-ordinated perceptual patterns which comprises his realisation of the external world. At first his perceptions are few and diffuse. His knowledge of the world is full of gaps. Associative processes enable him to organise this material until his percepts conform more accurately to the pattern of the world he views. The knowledge of the child of school age is still not securely synthesized,, and his percepts are only beginning to be organised and patterned. The child is only beginning to learn how to interpret his knowledge in language form. This interpretation requires a higher integration, for whatever may be the impressions that have been organised, they must be expressed as an association of sound and movement in spcech. The child’s imagery must undergo changes to correspond with this new integration. He must now become capable of forming a definite language imagery immediately upon the reception of sense impressions which formerly yielded mental images more or less like the objects he saw, or the sounds he heard. He must respond to the language he hears from others by translating it into his ordinary type of imagery. Progress in this change brings the child to the stage where the higher processes of con- ceptual thinking are within his capacity, and opens to him a new world governed by the play and interplay of ideas which can only be clearly realised and expressed by the use of language. It is also necessary for him to realise the increased possibilities of communication with his fellows which these mental changes make possible. The normal child’s mental content is suffic- ient to enable him to use the material provided in books, and to advance stage by stage to the use of his higher capacities.
The retarded child, suffering from a defective general intelligence, is by no means equipped for this type of activity. He gains very little from the wealth of sense impressions to which he is exposed. His perceptual patterns remain diffused and scattered, and his mental content continues to be ex- tremely limited in extent. His capacity for experience is poor. He who would teach such a child to read with understanding must find means for intensifying his experiences, and making them more vivid to him. Much may be done to effect this by constant repetition, by conversation, by the use of pictures, and., above all, by allowing opportunity for movement and action. The- reafter of ordinary reading books is for a long time a mere abstraction to such a child, though he may be taught to read the words. He should be given matter closely related to the ordinary daily events of his life, in order that he may relate his reading to his own experiences. He should be provided also with matter which he can interpret in action, so that he may realise that what he reads conveys a meaning which may have real value to him in the shaping of his own experience. Above all, he should be enabled to realise reading, and with reading, writing, as a means of communication. For this purpose, it is helpful for him to carry out written commands given him by his teacher or schoolfellows. Answers to his questions might be given him in a form which he has to read. If reading is made a part of the child’s life experience in this way, he may not be so expert in deciphering letters and words as the child who attacks ordinary books at an early stage, but he will realise that what he reads has a meaning which he can understand, and will pass more easily to the stage when he can read books adequate to his stage of mental development with understanding. Progress in mechanical accuracy can then safely be made one of his aims. It is possible that by such means what he reads may con- tribute to the child’s mental development, so that he at least achieves the full use of the capacity with which he is endowed. There is a chance also that his interest in printed matter may outlast his school career, so that he may read with profit and enjoyment matter within his comprehension in later life.
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