Dyslexia science moves, and almost none of it is written for parents. These are summaries of papers we think are worth knowing about, covering what each study found and what it changes for your family.
French researchers had 30 dyslexic university students and 30 typical readers read a short story on paper and another on a Kindle, then asked them about it. In print, the dyslexic students did as well as everyone else, and on one measure better. On the Kindle, they scored lower than the typical readers, mostly on remembering where things happened and in what order. The typical readers did the same on both.
Researchers from SRI sat in on 111 reading comprehension lessons in four districts that had been using highly rated, knowledge-rich curricula for at least five years. Teachers used the materials almost every day and kids were participating. But in two out of three lessons, the work never got past finding and labeling things in the text. We think that matters for dyslexic kids in particular.
For the first time since 2002, the International Dyslexia Association has rewritten its definition of dyslexia. The new version drops two ideas that have kept kids from being identified for two decades: that dyslexia has to be 'unexpected' given a child's intelligence, and that a phonological deficit is always at the root of it.
