In this talk, author and dyslexic educator Lois Letchford shares how her personal experience with dyslexia and her son’s reading struggles shape her approach to literacy instruction. She frames her discussion around Dr. Timothy Shanahan’s Simple View of Reading, which posits that reading comprehension results from the interaction of decoding and oral language comprehension. Letchford argues that for children who have failed traditional programs, the language component is often the root cause, so she begins instruction with oral‑language activities rather than decoding drills. She illustrates concrete strategies—tense‑practice dialogues, “slippery slide” physical activities, and contextual index‑card work on high‑frequency sight words—to build the oral‑language foundation needed for decoding. Drawing on research from Shanahan and Donald Bear’s Words Their Way, she emphasizes the need for small‑group, intensive instruction and warns against blaming the child for reading failure. The talk ends with a call to educators to adopt the science of reading, use these language‑focused methods, and share the message that all children can learn to read.
Chapters
Hello, I'm Lois Letchford, author of the book Reverse to Memoir and Literacy Problem Solver, talking about dyslexia and the science of reading. This week I've read an article, a blog by Dr. Timothy Shanahan, famous in the field, talking about what kind of reading intervention should we provide. And he gives an excellent article on the components of literacy. And I'm going to talk about what he talks about and how it relates to me and teaching and my students. Because as you know, I wrote the book Reverse because of my son, but I am also dyslexic and I grew up reading words I failed to comprehend. And that gives me a particular viewpoint when I come to teaching about reading. My son failed in every component of reading, and finally I ended up teaching children who'd failed numerous reading programs at all ages. So children come to me with very little knowledge of reading, and then I work out what do I have to do. And that's what I want to tell and share with you today. What are we as teachers have to do? Well, to begin with, Dr. Timothy Shanahan says he likes the Simple View of Reading because it has 2 components. It has a decoding component and a language component, you know, so there's the translation to print pronunciation and language comprehension. So he says the ability to understand the oral message. Readers can make sense of the text to the extent that they are able to render oral language from print, but then they must be able to understand that oral language. And that becomes a critical component for many reasons. He goes on to talk about reading a sentence in French. I won't even attempt to read it, but he said, I can decode it. And I can make sure that my decoding is good enough in French for French people to understand it. The problem is, although he read the words, he did not comprehend it. He said there's a gap in my knowledge of the French idiom that is a determinant. And it's an obvious example where places can go wrong. It's both in decoding and in language. I have specialised in teaching these children who come to me at all ages who have failed. Failed to learn to decode. The emphasis has been on more and more decoding because they didn't get it, they didn't get it, and they didn't get it. I start not with decoding but with the underlying issues, and they are always, for my students, language issues. That's where I start. So my book, I tell about teaching Nicholas, who got the label the worst child I've seen in 20 years of teaching. Decoding is absolutely dependent upon language, and there's a reason we start to teach children to read at age 5 or age 6. We don't teach a 2-year-old unless they're exceptional. We don't attempt to teach them to read. We can, we play with rhymes, we play with sounds, we read widely to them. That's what you do with 2 and 3 and 4-year-olds before you start connecting the oral language. So there's a level of oral language which we expect our children to achieve before we start to teach decoding. So it's dependent. Decoding is dependent on oral language to begin with. So what happens with my students? Many of my students have been in speech or have had speech challenges. That means they've not only had the articulation challenges but often language challenges. How did I notice this with Nicholas? The speech therapist gave us words that were the past and present tense and said to me, talk to Nicholas about them as you do things. What does that mean? She says, as you walk down the street, start by saying, I am walking down the street. When is it happening? Now. We are walking down the street. When is it happening? Who is involved? I am walking down the street is only you. We is you and I. And we shared this and we practiced this and we did it. Then we went to— from present tense to past tense. I am opening the window. I opened the window. When is it happening? Now or in the past? I am opening the door. I opened the door. And I used these words as we were doing things. Because past tense is instantaneous, which is why we use the words past, present, and future tense. Practice. It took lots of practice for Nicholas to get it. What do I do with my students? I do actually a very similar thing. I often take my students on slippery slides. And ask them to go down, take my camera with them and say, go down the slippery slide. And as you go down the slippery slide, you're saying, I am sliding down. When did you do it? Now. Get off the slippery slide. I was. Now you come up with the words was and were. W-E-R-E. Were is a really tough one because were and where All— they're very close and were is really hard, really difficult. And I then put 2 children on the slippery slide together and have them slide down the slide together saying, we are— get off— we were. We were. When is it happening? Now or in the past? In the past. And how many people are involved? And then as I hear children become more confident with it, they start to say, We was? No, no, no, no, we were. And they have to actually physically practice going, we were sliding, we were walking. These words are not just words that can be learned. They are words that need to have a context. And the more you do it, the more children practice with it, the easier it is for children to learn to read. And it's on a spectrum. Some people learn, many children learn just by having the words there and they make the connections to the oral language and what's going on. The children who struggle do not make the connections they need to make to have it accessible in long-term memory. And every time they come to a word like were, then it's It's it's a blank in their vocabulary. What did I read? I don't know. How do I know this? When you teach children who are struggling the most, they come up with things that happen in the literature, in academic literature. What do I mean? My sixteen-year-old student would read the word W H A T as w hat every time he would come to it. Hat. And then you do the activities and say, well, that word's what? And what is your name? And what do you do? And then he would get it. And they come back the next day and he's back to /w/ hat. That's when you know that the child hasn't got a clue what that word is. He's decoding it as a W and a hat. He can see that little word hat there, but what's the word? No clue. Never heard it. Language doesn't make sense to a child like that. So then I had to go back and take my time with that child to say, what is this word? And I had to have him read it in context. And I wrote little index cards. What is your name? What is in this bag? What is in this cup? What is in this pot? On and on and on until the child could go, ah, This is the word what. I know that word, I use it. Ah, it is in my language. But it takes a huge amount of effort at times for some children to make these connections. And because I have dealt with the children who struggle the most, these components, this oral language, written language component, is really obvious for my students. To teach children like I teach, it takes additional knowledge, it takes smaller group, and it takes longer. And that's also what the academic literature says. We need to have our children in smaller groups, smaller groups, and teaching them in a way that they can comprehend. So then I go to our Braid of Literacy, which is in Bear's book, Donald Bear's book, Words Their Way. What are the components of literacy? Bear and Shanahan are all saying exactly the same thing. You've got a language component as well as a decoding component. Both have to work together. And normally these jumps are made with such speed and with such accuracy that we don't have a problem. But when you deal with children who are failing, it's up to the teachers not to get a little bit right. You've got to get everything right. And it's that language component, the language component that I work on most in order to get our children reading. Why? Because Bear talks about a concept of a word. And that's what I'm working with, like a word like what. The little words, the sight words, are words with multiple meaning. They are pronouns. They are verbs to be. These are the words that my children struggle with the most, and they have to make the connection between the oral language and the written language to be able to read successfully. The science of reading tells us that we can teach children to read. Not only we can, we must, because we so quickly and easily as teachers fall into the category, category of blaming the child. And blaming the child gives a dangerous message that it's your fault. I work tirelessly To teach children who've struggled the most to become effective readers and writers. And my book is Reversed: A Memoir. Find out what I had to do to teach my son and to teach other children to read. And I pass on the message that we can and we must teach children to read. Hit like, hit subscribe, and share with others as we Use the science of reading and spread the message that we can teach children to read. Thank you.
