At 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, January 22, a voluntary collection of cable networks will simulcast the Hope for Haiti telethon to raise money for earthquake relief.

Actor George Clooney, Musician/singer Wyclef Jean (himself a Haitian) and CNN journalist Anderson Cooper will cohost the programming.  Scores of celebrities seem to be rearranging their schedules as we write this in order to appear at one of the three venues.

Laudable as this event will no doubt be, Friday is six days away.  People are in desperate need now, today.  We encourage our readers to find an organization you trust (examples: Doctors Without Borders, the American Red Cross, UNICEF) and give now.  Don’t wait.

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Chris Wondra was effusive in his praise of the post and this blog.  We appreciate it, and recommend this carnival to anyone interested in education issues and blogs. 

We’ve been less active here at Readers With Autism this month because Sara has been in New York.  But she hasn’t been lying around, she’s working on a book!  More on that later.

Richard 

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Our New Years Eve was hectic.  We got hacked and had to restore both our websites, this one and The Demanding Classroom.  Readers With Autism is now back up and running and we’ve added security measures that should make us less vulnerable to a repeat performance.

Sorry if anyone was inconvenienced during the time we were offline.  Everyone (except that one guy, who knows who he is) have a happy and prosperous 2010.

The Finegans

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Our very first post, on August 15, 2009 (just four months ago), was titled “Hello World!”  At the time, with no one even knowing we existed who wasn’t a blood relative, it seemed a little pretentious.

So no one is as surprised as we are today to notice that in the past 10 days alone we have had visitors to Readers With Autism from:

• India
• Sweden (Sara är född i Uppsala)
• Australia
• The Philippines
• Great Britain
• Malta
• Panama
• Israel  (ken, anachnu yehudim, ve Sara makira et ha-aretz tov-tov)
• Canada
• and more than a dozen U.S. states

Most of the visitors come looking for information about anaphoric cuing, and we are proud to be in the forefront of websites talking about that strategy, and perhaps the only one showing teachers and parents how to use it to help a struggling reader.

We are happy you found us and we want to help anyone who is attempting to improve the reading comprehension of a child with autism, Asperger Syndrome, or hyperlexia. 

Leave us your comments.  Tell us about your experience teaching a reader with autism?  What has worked for you?  What has not worked for you?  What is your experience with anaphoric cuing?  If you are a student yourself, do you have questions about this technique that our posts haven’t answered? 

We have found this small niche for ourselves in the huge internet and we like it, so let us hear your thoughts about anaphoric cuing.  We’ll be happy to share them with the world.

Related posts:

1. FAQs about anaphoric cuing and reading comprehension
2. Anaphoric cuing: Asking clarifying questions
3. Autism and hyperlexia, part 2: Helping Bobby read

We also participate in Google AdSense and if you choose to click on one of those ads that also gives us a small financial benefit.  After the first couple of weeks of participation that amounted to a whopping $1.68.

Aside from these arrangements, we have been compensated in no way (neither in cash nor in kind) by any manufacturer or publisher of any book or product we may have mentioned in this blog.

If we should in the future enter into a financial or other compensatory arrangement with any manufacturer or publisher whose product we endorse and/or advertise, we will disclose that, if and when it happens.

Why do we bother mentioning all this?  Because the Federal Trade Commission, in its wisdom, has instituted regulations to protect you from unscrupulous flacks who will endorse snake oil if someone pays them to do it.  That’s not why we are here or what we are about.  If it was income we craved, we chose an odd profession.

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Here’s an excerpt from our first post:

There’s a misconception among many in the field of education about special education.  To many, “learning disabled” means “unable to learn,” or “limited learning capacity.”  The focus is on the “dis” part of “disabled” instead of the ability part.  They ask the wrong questions:  “how smart is he?” rather than “how is he smart?”   

We’re all guilty of this to some extent, and the result is that in more cases than not, the special education classroom is one where the learning is “dumbed down” and expectations are too low to inspire growth.

When this happens, our students become dependent on us for learning and information rather than independent thinkers.  When we lower our expectations because of assumptions about learning capacity or processing strengths, the kids learn not to think hard, think deeply, or use their strengths. 

Parents and teachers who are interested in more than teaching reading are invited to take a look.  We welcome your comments.

Related posts:

1. Role of the classroom aide: To help the child toward independence

Several people have asked me recently which program I recommend to teach kids the mechanics of reading:  decoding and phonemic awareness.  I’m having a hard time answering. 

My problem isn’t choosing between a variety of programs, or determining which is the most successful at helping kids learn to decode the letters and their sounds. 

My problem is that I’m not convinced that decoding is as important as everyone seems to think it is.    Before you start throwing rocks at me, let me explain. 

If you spend any time at all thinking about how you read, you are undoubtedly going to realize that you actually use your phonemic skills to decode words less than 10% of the time.  Maybe less than 5%.  I did a little survey of myself (it was fun, being both the subject and the observer!) and discovered that in 847 pages, I only had to decode one word. 

How can this be?  Isn’t the foundation of reading the ability to put the letter sounds together to form actual words?

Not…..really.  It may be so at the beginning, but I’m wondering if it isn’t a really limited period of time in the life of an emergent reader. 

 What do readers do, really, at all but the primer stage?

 We recognize words. 

 My theory, and it is untested and will not necessarily be particularly popular among reading researchers, is that sight words are more important than decoding skills.  I think that good readers are people who recognize words when they see them.  I think that the difference between any level of reading in elementary school through middle school has more to do the expansion of one’s personal bank of sight words than anything else.  The more words we can recognize and know, the more words we can read.

 Don’t get me wrong:  I still spend time with my students on basic phonemic skills.  I don’t allow people to leave my class without knowing the basics, more or less.  But we spend a lot more time on word recognition, which we work on in a variety of ways.  Much of what we do is outlined in the Reading Category on our other blog, The Demanding Classroom (www.thedemandingclassroom.com).

 Over the years, I’ve had numerous students enter my classroom in the fourth grade and up who still do not know their vowel sounds and blends, and are not able to decode any words that have more than one syllable.  These students have been given intensive interventions, either in self-contained classrooms or in pull-out sessions in the Resource Room, but despite at least four years of work, still have not been able to learn basic decoding skills.

Now, my school’s Resource Specialist is a gem among gems, an incredibly talented teacher with endless patience and know-how.   Teachers in the primary level of our self-contained classroom at our school had more training than I  in reading instruction, and a good many more years of experience.  If they couldn’t get a child to competent decoding levels, there  isn’t a lot I can do. 

It has seemed like focusing intensively on the phonemic skills was not working.   I’ve come to the conclusion that in cases such as these, we need to approach the reading from another angle, and the angle that seems to have the most success is addressing word recognition and reading fluency.

In the coming weeks, I’ll try to post some more about what we do, and why.  In the meantime, check out The Demanding Classroom!

Related posts:

1. Irresistible reading: Stories starring our kids as characters
2. Hearing the story in your head: The role of expressive reading
3. Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?

You’ll notice that I always refer to my students with autism as “students with autism” or “readers with autism.”  I don’t use the word “autistic.”

It’s my personal preference and also, I think, is a best practice we educators should adopt, referring to the person first, and then the disability.

If we place the disability before the child, then we are sending one of two messages:

1.  that the child is the disability; or
2.  that the disability is the main descriptor of the child.

If all we see of a child is the autism, we are missing something huge.  We’re missing the person, and if we let the autism obscure our view of the person, we are not going to teach the child.  We’re going to teach the autism.

I’m not interested in doing that.

A child may have autism, or live with autism.  She’s a child first.  The autism she has is a feature, much like her hair color, sweet tooth, or athletic ability.

When a child enters my classroom, I look right at him.  He’s my focus, not his disability.  It’s the child to whom I commit myself, whom I love and hope to nurture, not the condition he lives with.

Related posts:

1. Why I object to the term shadow

If you are teaching a college or university course, and would like to arrange a question-and-answer session between your class and me or Richard, hit the “contact us” button.  You’ll be directed to our email and we can take it from there.  

If you are teaching a course in the San Diego area, and would like to have us give a live talk to your class, email us with a list of possible dates and times.

If you’re on the East Coast (New Jersey, New York, Connecticut), please make a note that Sara will  be in the New York area between January 2 and January 18, and for much of the months of April and August.

Related posts:

1. Stories they help us write
2. Role of the classroom aide: To help the child toward independence
3. Finding the words: Helping a child with autism talk about reading

In general, we tend to stay in Southern California during most of the school year.  However, Sara is in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut area for three weeks each January, several weeks in April, and on the East Coast for the entire month of August. 

We have also received inquiries about including articles or posts from our blog in newsletters.  In general, we have no objections, provided that you include the link to our site.  If you would like an article or blog post on a specific topic that we haven’t already covered, post a comment with a question, or email us.

Related posts:

1. Reader with autism and figurative language, part 1
2. When a reader with autism needs to respond to literature…
3. Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?