Sorry I missed the discussion on this one - because I really want to talk about "Scotopic Sensistivity." But let me back up a little...Despite her super-duper idealism (or maybe because of it) I have really been enjoying The Queen and her ideas thus far...but this set of chapters turned me off a little bit.
Chapter 7 was OK - I get her rationale for not labeling children, and I do think that sometimes the label gets in the way of progress because thekids or their parents or their teachers view it as a reason why the child can't be successful. However, I think that labels can be helpful - in the sense that knowing the psychological underpinnings of the problem is often a bridge to designing an appropriate program. My approach to teaching reading with a child who is very bright but dyslexic will differ from my approach to a child with Asperger's Syndrome or a child who has had a traumatic brain injury. Always the instruction has to be tweaked to match the child, but a diagnosis helps to narrow the field of options...
Chapter 8 was also OK - but I felt that it could have been left out and the book would not have suffered. That's all I'm saying about that!
Chapter 9 wigged me out a little bit - my initial thought was, "Oh, Lord - she's one of THOSE weirdos!!!" I got a copy of one of the books she was talking about - Helen Irlen's Reading By the Colors - maybe 14 (?) years ago. I think I bought it at a Job Lot...there's probably a reason why it was there, hmmm??? (OK, maybe I'm being a little harsh!) Anyway, I read the book - not the most arresting prose I've ever laid eyes on, FYI - and I got the concept. In fact, I even went out and bought myself some colored plastic 8 1/2 x 11 overlays, just in case...At the time, I was working at a rehabilitation hospital with children who had every reading disability under the sun and had not responded to other interventions - good test group, I thought. And my office had one of those icky flourescent lights, too! But I didn't see any evidence of it - never have. Granted, I was skeptical - coming from a strong clinical background in reading, I had (and still have) a hard time with the idea that changing the color of a page can dramatically alter a child's ability to read, not to the degree that its proponents claim is possible. I have encountered kids who really struggled and I have tried the overlays, and I will say that there seems to be something to the idea that it can reduce glare...I also have found that there are kids who just think it's cool to read a purple page instead of a white one, so I let them use it (why not, right?) but I have never seen a child's reading turn around because of it, and I really think it's bunk. At a minimum, it's a vision problem, not a reading problem - and I'm disappointed that it got so much attention from The Queen!
Anyway - I would love to know if any of you have ever seen evidence of a major turnaround based on the scotopic sensitivity theory!
See you in the AM!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I agree--there are some extremes in the book that made me sit there and say the same thing--"Oh, she is one of those.." (Like the ones who swear that the lighting in the school is leading us straight to hell...) However, I DO think that we have become somewhat conditioned to think that everything must be a diagnosis and that everything needs a pill. Without a pill, we can't change our kids. I think that needs to change. I think we abandon some of the behavior modifications too quickly and seem eager to go in the "medicate my child" path. So I commend her in seeking the less intrusive path before jumping into the medicate/doctorate/moneyate/IEPate path that we go along.
Post a Comment