Teaching dyslexic children the English language

There are many definitions for dyslexia. One of them is: “Dyslexia is a learning disability”.

I disagree with this definition. How can one say dyslexia is a learning disability when there are many things children with dyslexia learn at a much faster rate compared with children without dyslexia?

They can solve puzzles (the kind where you fit cut up pictures to form a picture) at great speed. Most of the dyslexic children I teach can do them faster than I can. Lee Kwan Yew, Tom Cruise and Jay Leno are dyslexics and I would not dare say that they have a learning disability. Most of our “learning abilities” are nowhere near theirs.

Another definition for dyslexia is: “Difficulty in learning a language”. I believe that this definition has come about because most of the people who write about dyslexia are from English-speaking countries.

All the dyslexic children I have taught speak and learn at least two languages. They have to learn both Bahasa Malaysia and English. Most of them also had to learn Mandarin in school. I found that all of them had no problem reading Malay and Han Yu Pin Yin (romanised Mandarin).

How is it that they can read fluently (yes, fluently) in Malay and Han Yu Pin Yin and yet struggle with reading in English?

Is it correct to say that they have a language disability? I don’t think so. In fact, I completely disagree.

Recently, I met a friend who is working in Mozambique and he says the Portuguese language is also phonetic. He pointed out that the people in Mozambique also have a hard time studying the English language. I have had no time to check this out but I believe he must be right.

It is obvious to me that my students with dyslexia are very logical in their thinking and they don't have a problem learning phonetically-correct languages like Malay and Mandarin (in Han Yu Pin Yin). However, they have a problem learning the English language which is not phonetically logical to them.

Another definition is that dyslexia is a lack of coordination between sight and sound. I will let you decide if this definition is correct. If you say that the definition is correct, my question to you is, “Why is it then that my dyslexic students can coordinate between sight and sound and can read Malay and Han Yu Pin Yin with ease?

Are Malay and Mandarin not languages?

Another question that comes to my mind is, “Who are the people who coined these definitions?”

My guess is that the definitions were coined by those who do not know how to write nor speak in any language other than the English language.

Bahasa Malaysia

Let's take a look at our national language which all students have to learn.

The only letter that represents more than one sound in Bahasa Malaysia is the letter ‘e’. It can be pronounced ‘er’ or ‘ay’.

You pronounce “besok” as if it is “bay-sok” (meaning tomorrow) and “beruk” with the “er” sound.

If you have not heard the word previously you would not know how to pronounce it.

One can learn how to read the newspaper in Malay within a month of learning. Of course one would not understand what one is reading. Take any long word in Malay eg. “rambutan” (a local fruit) the sound can be broken down to ram-bu-tan, kewarganegaraan (citizenship) which can be broken down into: ke-war-ga-ne-ga-ra-an.

I remember being shocked when my son Fadhil, in Year One, read the word “Tahun taksiran” on an income tax letter he found in my car. When I asked him who had taught him to read those words, he replied, ”No one, Daddy. Anyone can read this.” That was an incident that occurred in 1987 and is still vivid in my mind.

Mandarin (Han Yu Pin Yin)

This is even easier than Malay. There are no exceptions as in the Malay letter “e”.

English

There is no way you can pronounce some of the words in English if you have not heard them before. A few words as an illustration would be: chalet, quay, island and bouquet.

Many words in the English language are irregular. They are not spelt the way they sound and this is basically why dyslexics have a problem reading English as opposed to reading Malay or Han Yu Pin Yin.

There are:

- Words with multiple pronunciation for the same spelling: wind (as in the winter wind) and wind (as in wind down the windows).

- Words spelt similarly and pronounced similarly: cut, but (however, there is an exception to this rule – put)

- Words with different spellings but are pronounced the same way: pear, pair; road, rode; hare, hair.

- Words with silent letters: Salmon, plumber, debt.

In English there are simply too many exceptions. Would I want to teach these kids the exceptions? The answer is an emphatic NO! Having taught about 20 dyslexic children over the last five years, I know that it is not necessary to burden them with this enormous task of learning the exceptions. They will learn the exceptions as they go along. It is a natural process.

I did not study English by learning what is a consonant blend or consonant diagraph and yet I can read very well.

Children should be taught the regular words and learn the others as they arise. From the onset I let my students know that many letters have different sounds and that we’ll learn them as we come to them. This is a very important point as far as the dyslexic child is concerned.

I believe that a dyslexic child is very logical in his thinking and his mind will “shut down” the moment you read, say, “A cat”. This is because the sound represented by “A” is “er” while the sound represented by “a” in “cat” is “air”.

I point out to them the different sounds the letter makes when we come to those letters as we read. I then compare it with the previous sound the letter had made in a different word. Once the dyslexic child learns that a letter has more than one sound (unlike in Malay and Han Yu Pin Yin) it will be easier for him to read in English.

* Luqman Michel @ Michael Palany, 57, is a retiree. He is now based in Sabah where he teaches dyslexic children. His blog can be found at www.parentingdyslexia.com.