Deer Reflector Pilot Program Is Unsuccessful

Thanks for the thought.

You were doing okay until the last two sentences. I hope that you will consider that it is difficult to affect positive change if people stop listening to you.

These kinds of statements are not productive and the level of sarcasm is difficult to continually endure. Those on parent BB’s might disagree with me.

Susan,

My point was that even if a study was done they would probably say it wasn’t their techniques that were problematic but something wrong with the dyslexic children in the study.

In the study that was done no one implied that the problem was with the deer.
I am sorry if that concept is offensive.

Linda

Not if the study was properly designed with control groups and the like. If students were randomly assigned to different methodologies then you couldn’t “blame the student” for their progress. The design issue isn’t particular to education. Look at all the press on hormones after menopause. All the recommendations prior to now were based on studies that showed that those with hormonal treatment had lower rates of cancer ect. What they didn’t know is if the women selecting hormonal treatment were different in some systematic way that could account for these different outcomes (rather that hormonal treatment). The present student randomly assigned women to different treatments (hormonal, placebo, and nothing, as I recall). There are no alternative hypotheses now.

Now it is still possible to “blame” the student or anyone else when they don’t operate the way the “average” case does. Case in point—my son was tutored by a LIPS therapist this summer. She had successfuly used her approach on a number of students. LIPS is clearly clinically proven to be successful. So when my son didn’t respond as expected—it was him–he had learned helplessness.

I have had the same experience with PG. I took him to an Intensive. His lack of progress was due to him having done Fast forward first.

Even clinically proven programs are based on averages. Some of us (me for one) don’t even manage to have an average LD student. I do think that you are right that blaming the kid does go on.

Now really really good people have seen my kid as a challenge—one to figure out, not to blame. Just haven’t had one of those who has taught reading—yet.

Beth

Yes, Beth really good professionals will see your child as a challenge. You need someone really good to help him knock down that wall, if you could only find out what that wall is made of.

I had a miserable experience with my son’s swim coach who certainly thought his deficits insurmountable.

His golf instructor is a dream come true. He has moved him from a left to right handed swing after carefull study of his skills with both hands. I wouldn’t have expected such expertise in someone just 22. I almost fell over today when he said my kid was a natural. I had to look around to see if maybe he was talking to the mom behind me. Who me, my son a natural, really?

You never know where you are going to find that special someone or someones who will help your child.

On the other point:
I agree a well designed study would diminish the possibility that the results would be attributed to extraneous factors like the child’s deficit.

Beth - I like your last word, “Yet”. Keep on trucking.

Unfortunately, the whole language folks firmly and devoutly believe there is research to support what they do, and there is some. (Since lots of kids will learn reading pretty much any way it’s presented, research can pretty much say any program is effective. If you’re in that group that it failed for, too bad so sad… but whole language advocates will swear that Those Special Needs Kids Can Get The Help They NEed… )
I did a paper on it when I was trying to figure out the strenghts of different reading philosophies…. I was surprised at what passed for “research.” It’s at http://www.resourceroom.net/myarticles/wlpaper.htm if you’re needing to sleep :)

Hi , just an aside but there is an alternative hypothesis. The hormones that were given were mostly horse hormones. Those that are derived from pregnant mares (PreMarin etc..) There are synthetic hormones that are identical to the hormones in human women. There are also Many different types of estrogen,thankfully only one real progesterone. These have NOT been tested. We only know that the ones tested have the negative results.

As someone who has advanced degrees in both math (where the highest standards of logical proof are required as a daily rule) and education (where the understanding of science is variable but often breathtakingly low), I can tell you that much of the stuff that is passed off as as “research” in education circles would not pass as a freshman paper in most science and technical schools.

I keep recommending that everyone read the NIH/NICHD summary study of effective reading methods, available from LD In Depth. One wonderful point about this study is that the people running it decided from the start that they wanted a scientifically-acceptable result. They went over fifty years of reading “research” and pulled out all the studies they could find that met *minimal* standards in any other field — unbiased measurements, numerical and factual rather than opinion reports, control groups, etc. I forget the exact numbers, but I believe that only about 10% of the published work met even minimal criteria.
As educators, we should be ashamed to be working with theories that are weak by the standards of seventeenth century alchemy.

“Whole-language” people are merely the worst of the uninformed — if people are accepted into education studies with essentially no requirements in science and math (any two high school classes at any difficulty level with any grade above F, in most states) and then are pumped full of dogma by the authorities who themselves are unqualified to make scientific judgements, how can we expect them to take an objective scientific view? The problem lies not so much with the ignorant, misled students, but with the structure of education programs and certification regulations.

Remember this the next time someone on this board presents the next miracle-working self-promoter who can cure anything including botts, glanders, and the hives. Many of these methods have some small truth in them which is why they work for some people some of the time (and there are always other outside influences, like a grandma or auntie who actually teaches reading) but something is *better* and worth buying into only when it is proved to work *better* by actual measurable results. For a school system, there is a complicated formula involving comparing experimental (new program) and control (standard program) groups. For an individual, the question is whether he’s reading better after a reasonable amount of time in the program, or not. And this measurement should really be made by an unbiased outside test, not the tutor.

Blaming the victim is always popular. I feel it’s important to steer a middle course on this one. Some teachers don’t know all the techniques that work with various populations; some so-called teachers are very poorly educated themselves and know very little. Some teachers have bought into — literally, hugely expensive “training” and certifying programs — a certain system and if it fails or isn’t enough they don’t know where to go next. So yes, teachers often fail. On the other hand, some kids are very very difficult to work with. Some have personality issues separate from their reading issues. Some have family issues (mother can’t bear to have anyone ever say no to her child). Some really do have low verbal ability and reading is not going to be the field where they most shine. Some have such an ingrained habit and methodology of failure that they don’t know how to be a success. These kids can take a long, long time to turn around.
I was very very concerned a while ago when someone posted that “students never fail to learn, it’s the teachers who fail to teach.” This may sound nice, but if you think about it it’s an impossible standard. As a parent, do you want to be blamed for everything the kid does wrong? Holding anyone, teacher OR parent OR student to a standard of perfection is a way to guarantee failure. Be happy with small increments of improvement, and they will add up.