Review of Teaching Literacy by Hugo Kerr
Cognitive Psychology, Dyslexia and More...
If you're looking for a good introduction to some of the most basic concepts in reading instruction today, Hugo Kerr's new book on literacy instruction is a good place to start. The book, The Cognitive Psychology of Literacy Teaching: Reading, Writing, Spelling, Dyslexia (& a bit besides), is eight chapters, a total of 185 pages, and is available online for free in a PDF format.
Cognitive Psychology and Reading Instruction
After a brief but personable introduction, Kerr's first two chapters look at brain anatomy and function in the process of reading. The development of cognitive psychology and its application to reading instruction over the past decade or so has significantly changed the way educators think about the teaching of reading - especially when it comes to addressing problems with reading. Kerr provides a useful introduction to these topics for the uninitiated.
Chapter Three of Kerr's book looks at the "Reading Wars" - the struggle in the course of education's history over the last five or six decades to determine what role phonics and the "alphabetic principle" should play in instruction. Chapter Four looks at the purpose of reading (people read for meaning) and some of the problems weak readers havie The chapter examines the work of Frank Smith (Understanding Reading: A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Reading and Learning To Read, Lawrence Erlbaum publisher, 1994) in some detail. Chapter Five looks closely at spelling in English. Chapter Six looks at the role of meta-cognition (and related mental processes) in reading. Chapter Seven examines literacy and emotion - a powerful topic, especially in adult literacy work.
Chapter Eight - Kerr's View of Dyslexia
The last chapter of Kerr's book is by far the most controversial. Kerr's tone throughout the book has been personal (he writes in the first person). But in Chapter Eight he leaves the realm of instructional issues to discuss his personal views on dyslexia in some depth. While the first seven chapters averaged 12 pages each, Chapter Eight run to a hefty 27 pages.
Kerr's position on dyslexia is relatively simple: he doesn't believe it exists. He is open from the beginning on the issue and lets the reader know early in the introduction to the book that he doesn't believe in dyslexia. He complains (reasonably) that the concept is ill-defined. He spends several pages looking at competing definitions of dyslexia from a variety of sources.
Kerr also spends a considerable amount of space looking at the old IQ-Achievement Discrepancy Model. Of course, the Discrepancy Model was made largely obsolete for diagnosing learning disabilities in the U.S. when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was updated in 2004. Kerr devotes less than two paragraphs to Response to Intervention, the approach that has replaced the Discrepancy Model in U.S. schools.
Kerr goes on in Chapter Eight to look at several neurological issues generally theorized to contribute to dyslexia and he discards them individually as not being the cause for dyslexia. Kerr's conclusions are that the idea of dyslexia is still around because there are commercial interests that make money off of it (and, of course, there are) and that the publishers of science periodical and journals are biased.
The book concludes with a lengthy and useful set of chapter notes, five appendices, and a 19-page bibliography.
Conclusions
Kerr makes some reasonable points in the course of his book regarding the damage that a diagnosis of dyslexia can do to an individual given the fact that there really isn't a good working definition for dyslexia at the moment. It's a shame that he transfers that insight on practice into the theoretical realm. His assessment of dyslexia seems to depend on the idea that if some neurological basis for it existed, that would have been discovered by now. This seems particularly hard to justify in light of the continuing increase in technological tools available in neurology. Kerr also seems intent upon there being one cause for all dyslexia. The idea that dyslexia might be a multi-faceted disorder, or be a collection of disorders that science hasn't yet succeeded in separating, doesn't seem to be considered.
Despite the controversy over dyslexia, Kerr's book is a good introduction to some of the basic concepts surrounding reading instruction today. And since it is available online for free, the book is an excellent bargain...
About the Author
Hugo Kerr is a practicing veterinarian "in real life" (his words, from the book) who has also been actively involved in adult literacy work for over 25 years. He holds a Master's degree in education. Kerr has a number of previous articles on dyslexia and on reading instruction. He is a vocal member of the International Reading Association's Reading Teacher listserv. Kerr lives in Wales.
