Addressing Learning Difficulties

As we begin the new school year, Rabbi Yehuda Adelist, MS SpEd, director of Cheder Darchai Limud, presents a series of comprehensive articles about dealing with learning difficulties.

Part 1: kriah difficulties in the frum community, part 1 of 3.

Summer was a lot of fun, but is coming to an end, and school is soon back again. For children with learning difficulties the coming year can create anxiety. Why do some children struggle with learning?

Many myths surround learning difficulties. “If he would try harder, everything would be different”, “If only the Rebbi was more stimulating. Everything is so boring in that class”, “In her class, she is never given a chance to learn and participate”. In the coming series, I will attempt to present a comprehensive view of the various learning difficulties one by one. Knowledge is power. Parents and educators who are informed have a much better chance at navigating and possibly curing the various learning difficulties out there.

Learning difficulties have played a big role in children going off the path of Torah and Mitzvos. When a child struggles with learning, self esteem can be compromised and a distaste of learning and yiddishkeit can develop. It is so important that parents and educators display empathy, understanding, and develop methods to help such children succeed. This helps foster a love of Torah and Yiddishkeit.

Although learning difficulties are universal, this series will discuss it in terms that relate to us in the frum community.Throughout, I prefer to replace the word ‘disability’ with ‘difficulty’. Disability implies unable, whereas difficulty implies able but difficult. Not only is this more positive it is also more accurate, as in truth the learning is more difficult but with various techniques, success is possible.

I will begin with Kriah/Reading Difficulties as that is a foundation for all textual learning and is one that is often misunderstood. This is divided into three parts. Identification, Treatment (Intervention), and Prevention.

Kriah/Reading Disabilities (difficulties)
Kriah/Reading difficulties are also known as dyslexia or developmental reading disorder. The exact definition of dyslexia is controversial and many think of dyslexia as an extreme form of reading disability. Therefore the term dyslexia will not be used throughout this article.

Identification – What are Kriah/Reading Difficulties?

Definition – Reading difficulties are a result of a delay in the way the brain processes sounds with symbols. The exact cause of this will be discussed below.

This is not the result of reversal of letters as has been thought of in the past. Rather, the mistakes and lack of fluency in people with reading difficulties are a result of the above delay which becomes magnified as the reading tasks become more complex involving multiple sequential steps.

Let us take an example as a form of illustration. The word, ‘לְפָנֶיךָ’ is made up of a few parts ‘לְ-פָ-נֶי-ךָ’ in addition to each sound being a combination of a letter and a נְקוּדָה. For the average child this is all processed in less than one second. For a child with a reading difficulty, each step may take 2.3 seconds with enhanced concentration multiply that by 4 syllables multiplied again by the 2 parts to each sound, it may take 16 seconds to get the entire word. We must also bear in mind that there are rules the child must remember along the way; some letters close the syllable and some begin a new one, and sometimes there are unique rules as well. It is no wonder, that many a time, a child with a reading difficulty will produce a word with numerous mistakes as so much mental effort is required of them. If such a child must do this multiple times a day, the experience and embarrassment must be so frustrating it is hard to expect that they will not shy away from anything remotely connected to reading.

English Reading- There is the advantage that it is easier to learn words by sight when the children know their meaning eliminating the need for decoding. However, the road to reach this point is still very far for a child with a reading delay in the brain which will affect processing sound to symbol in any language. In addition, English by far has many more reading rules and exceptions over Loshon Hakodesh.

Symptoms
· Slow or delayed in learning letter shape recognition.

· Difficulty reading isolated pages of single letters with nekudois that are not patterned despite normal instruction (even mediocre)

· Difficulty reading isolated words previously untaught and unfamiliar, but carry rules that have had normal instruction (even mediocre)

· Difficulty knowing where to break up words into syllables.

Weaknesses in reading that do not prove evidence of a reading difficulty
· Not interested in reading activities

· Procrastinating between words but not within words.

· Lacking fluency and speed but able to read a word correctly and easily when motivated

· Making small errors on a page that do not repeat themselves and do not show a pervasive pattern.

Possible Causes

Research is yet to determine an exact cause of a reading difficulty that is accepted universally although a biological and sometimes genetic component is agreed upon. The following are some of the theories of the cause of reading difficulties. While not proven, they help us get a better understanding of what a reading difficulty is which in turn help us find the right path for treatment.

Impaired function of the brain
The area of the brain responsible for reading is impaired. Although theories that blame dysfunction in other cognitive areas also report impaired brain function, the question is what causes what.

Sound speech production
Reading ability is based primarily on an understanding of how individual sounds are produced in the mouth. This theory presumes that when the child will understand how the ‘Beis’ is produced through the lips for example, there will be a faster processing speed of the ‘Beis’ sound when seen in print.

Phonological Awareness
This is often misinterpreted as letter sound knowledge. Phonological Awareness is the ability to isolate sounds embedded within whole words. For example, mentally understanding that ‘Och’ and ‘Rov’ both begin with the same nekudoh (vowel) without seeing the words printed is the ability to isolate individual parts embedded within words. Children with strong phonological awareness can produce a mental image of each letter amd nekudoh of a word and are usually good at spelling.

Multi Sensory Approach
Some children need to process reading symbols with senses other than vision. The two main senses are tactile and handwriting as an alternative way of processing the symbols to sounds.

Visual Discrimination
This method suggests that the processing of sounds to symbols relies primarily in the eyes. Poor visual discrimination means longer processing time from symbols to sounds translating into slower reading.

Visual Tracking
Similar in principle to visual discrimination that the eyes control processing time. This places emphasis on the eye’s ability to follow movement rather than zoning in a particular shape.

Mental Focus – ADD/Auditory Processing
While the brain may be able to process sounds to symbols normally, mental focus is needed to navigate all the complex tasks of reading; sound to symbol to sound for multiple letters at once together with all the rules and their exceptions (for example, ‘Aleph’ is sometimes silent).
Mental focus as a result of ADD is a pervasive lack of focus in life skills. Auditory processing is a lack of focus for heard language. ADD and Auditory Processing do not always cause reading delays, but they can have an effect. (ADD and Auditory Processing will be discussed at length in future installments B’Ezras Hashem)

Most of the theories above have some merit. Not every reading delay is the same and different reading delays may be caused by different reasons. At times, all the above may be interacting as well.

In the next installment I will discuss treatment options.

Rabbi Adelist, MS SpEd has been working with children with learning difficulties for over 10 years and is the Director of Cheder Darchai Limud, a program in Crown Heights for boys age 6 and up that teaches children to learn how to learn. For an evaluation or consultation contact 347 743 6132.