These are the quotes that Mike Matvy often use when speaking or writing about dyslexia along with notes.
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, 2nd ed., Penguin Random House, 2020, 86)
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-679-78159-2, eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-55889-3
Context:
” … in translating the existing scientific progress into policy and practice.
The greatest stumbling block preventing a dyslexic child from realizing her potential is widespread ignorance about the true nature of dyslexia. The remainder of this book is devoted to eradicating this ignorance by applying scientific knowledge to the diagnosis and management of dyslexia. We can do it. We must do it.
PART II … ”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, 2nd ed., Penguin Random House, 2020, 177)
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-679-78159-2, eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-55889-3
Context:
“CAUTION: Be aware that many tests that are labeled as “cognitive” measures may not be fully tapping into and measuring some of the essential qualities that converge to bring about brilliance, creativity, or perseverance.
In a dyslexic student, so-called average scores on reading tests cannot measure the extraordinary effort that went into reading each word, to laboriously pronouncing it syllable by syllable, to rereading it over and over again until it began to sound right and make sense. What a juxtaposition: the tremendous cognitive strengths and conceptual ability of the bright dyslexic young adult on one level, and on another her ongoing struggle, at the most basic level of language, to try to decode and identify the printed word. Here she is, all geared up, her powerful intellectual equipment waiting to be fed its nourishment of words so that she can assimilate and feast on the ideas and the thoughts they contain, but to get to the basic substrate, the printed word, she must first decode and identify that word. What a frustration. What perseverance. A new study, …”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, 2nd ed., Penguin Random House, 2020, 425)
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-679-78159-2, eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-55889-3
Context:
“Attention is intertwined with dyslexia for two important but very different reasons. First, as you have read, dyslexic readers are not automatic; to them reading remains effortful. I have referred to them as “manual” readers. This means that they have to dip into and soon use up their reservoir bucket (see here ) of attention in order to read, so that they become attention-deprived. As a result they appear to have an attentional deficit, so that after reading a short time they become easily distracted. Second, there is …”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, 2nd ed., Penguin Random House, 2020, 443)
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-679-78159-2, eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-55889-3
Context:
“DIGITIZED TEXTS
Just how helpful it is for dyslexic students to be able to listen to digitized or recorded text is exemplified by stories of dyslexic students who endured years of struggle before they began using text-to-speech technology. For example, as one relieved dyslexic college senior explained:
I could remember just about everything I heard, but read too slowly to keep up, and so much effort was put into trying to get the words out that I had little comprehension afterwards. Once I began using text-to-speech technology, everything changed. I started to feel much better about myself. I really was learning the material and I no longer made excuses to avoid doing my work because it made me feel bad. The audio changed my life. For the first time ever, I got straight A’s.
Beyond schoolwork, dyslexia tears at the independence of the maturing adolescent. Having his texts digitized and available for text-to-speech technology helps give the student back his sense of independence. Accordingly, once a dyslexic child is in middle school or high school, plans should be made to have his textbooks digitized. Listening to the digitized books allows the student to participate in courses and to study at his level of understanding rather than be held back by his slow reading. Furthermore, digitized texts and text-to-speech technology introduce him to vocabulary words that he may not have encountered in his otherwise limited reading. Listening and following along with the text in front of him allows a student to actively dig into his reading, underlining, taking notes, and highlighting—important reinforcement activities that were never even considered when he was totally focused on deciphering the words on the page.
Building a bridge to success for the maturing dyslexic student requires three basic ingredients: …”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, 2nd ed., Penguin Random House, 2020, 439)
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-679-78159-2, eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-55889-3
Context:
“Accumulating scientific evidence shows that typical readers and dyslexic readers follow very different pathways to adult reading. For typical readers the route is smooth and orderly: Their phonologic skills increase with age, they become more accurate and more automatic in their reading, and they generally identify words without any need to rely on context around the words. By fourth grade typical readers are no longer using context to figure out a word. The dyslexic, however, must take an alternate, indirect, and demanding route. This secondary pathway will get him to the same destination, but it will take a lot longer. He learns to read accurately, but to achieve the same level of reading as his nondyslexic classmate, he must read much more slowly and with greater effort. The automatic route to reading is unavailable to him. Consequently, if he is to identify many of the words on the page, he must pause and rely on the support of his higher-level thinking skills. He must survey the context and get to the word’s meaning by this slower and more indirect pathway.”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, 2nd ed., Penguin Random House, 2020, 443)
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-679-78159-2, eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-55889-3
Context:
“Listening to the digitized books allows the student to participate in courses and to study at his level of understanding rather than be held back by his slow reading. Furthermore, digitized texts and text-to-speech technology introduce him to vocabulary words that he may not have encountered in his otherwise limited reading. Listening and following along with the text in front of him allows a student to actively dig into his reading, underlining, taking notes, and highlighting—important reinforcement activities that were never even considered when he was totally focused on deciphering the words on the page.”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, 2nd ed., Penguin Random House, 2020, 444)
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-679-78159-2, eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-55889-3
Context:
“Remember the goal: Maximize your strengths, minimize your weakness. Your plan is based on understanding that dyslexia is a problem accessing the basic sounds of spoken language that affects reading, writing, and speaking. Here are the five basic consequences of dyslexia for you and what you should do about each.”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, 2nd ed., Penguin Random House, 2020, 438)
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-679-78159-2, eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-55889-3
Context:
“If you are a dyslexic reader, accommodations represent the bridge that connects you to your strengths and in the process allows you to reach your full potential. By themselves, accommodations do not produce success; they are the catalysts for success. They grow in importance as a dyslexic progresses in his schooling. As he advances, his strengths—in thinking, in reasoning, in vocabulary, and in analytic skills—mature. At the same time, his academic challenges increase as well. Consequently, with time it becomes even more crucial for the dyslexic reader to access his strengths in order to compensate for his phonologic weakness.”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, 2nd ed., Penguin Random House, 2020, 84576)
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-679-78159-2, eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-55889-3
Context:
“Lack of fluency is the only true index of dyslexia in a bright adult. How the person reads aloud is a critical measure of fluency: Does he stumble over words, hesitate, mispronounce, omit, or add words as he reads? Does he read with prosody (expression)? Prosody is a key criterion for fluency, often overlooked and underappreciated. Prosody provides insight into how well the reader understands what he is reading. Does he adjust his reading to reflect the meaning, reading faster or more slowly, raising his voice or whispering, depending on the message being conveyed by the words on the page?”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally E., M.D., The New England Journal of Medicine: DYSLEXIA, v 338, #5, pp 307-312 )
Context:
“Assessment of Bright Young Adults
The developmental course of dyslexia has now been characterized. First, dyslexia is persistent; it does not go away.10,11 On a practical level, this means that once a person is given a diagnosis of dyslexia there is no need for reexamination after high school to confirm the diagnosis. Second, over the course of development, the ability to decode words becomes more accurate and automatic in skilled readers; they do not need to rely on context for word identifica- tion. The skills of readers with dyslexia, too, become more accurate over time, but they do not become automatic. Residua of the phonologic deficit persist,13,14 so that reading remains effortful, even for the brightest people with childhood histories of dyslexia. (51) The failure either to recognize or to measure the lack of automaticity in reading is, perhaps, the most common error in the diagnosis of dyslexia in accomplished young adults. …”
(51. Lefly DL, Pennington BF. Spelling errors and reading fluency in com- pensated adult dyslexics. Ann Dys 1991;41:143-62.)
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, Penguin Random House, 2003, ppp)
Vintage ISBN: 0-679-78159-5
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, Penguin Random House, 2003, 338)
Vintage ISBN: 0-679-78159-5
Context:
“How earl should accommodations begin?
Once a child is expected to write, to complete time-consuming class or homework assignments, and to take standardized tests, consideration should be given to providing accommodations. By second or third grade, children struggling to read can be introduced to Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic and to learning to type on the computer. Teachers should be instructed to grade a dyslexic student’s essays on the basis of her creative writing and not her spelling. If homework seems to go on for hours, the student should be allowed to reduce her assignment, such as completing every other question. Reducing the time required for completing assignments is critical; it is demoralizing and self-defeating for a student in third or fourth grade to spend hour after hour struggling to complete her work at home.”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, Penguin Random House, 2003, 338)
Vintage ISBN: 0-679-78159-5
Context:
“You will remember what you have heard much better than material you have read. In addition, try to join a study group when preparing for a test. Talking through the material and listening to the group often helps much more than sitting alone in your room trying to read volumes of material.”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, Penguin Random House, 2003, 320)
Vintage ISBN: 0-679-78159-5
Context:
” … another dyslexic student said, “What it means when you can’t read for yourself is that you have to totally rely on your parents and your friends who do it at their convenience.
Parents and students should contact RFB&D of Princeton, New Jersey, as soon as a reading difficulty is detected. The recordings can be a student’s passport to the world of the reader. Listening to books on tape or CD-ROM allows the student to participate in courses and study at his level of understanding rather than be held back by his slow reading, Furthermore, tapes introduce him to vocabulary words that he may not have encountered in his otherwise limited reading. Listening and following along improves reading itself and allows a student to actively dig into his reading by underlining, taking notes, and highlighting important reinforcement activities that were not even considered when he was totally”
Source:
Dyslexia and the Americans With Disabilities Act: A Q&A with Dr. Sally Shaywitz
Putting Science before Mythology and Misunderstandings (11/8/2008)
http://dyslexia.yale.edu/article_print.php?a=Policy_QA
Context:
(as of 3/23/23 the link to this interview no longer works)
Source:
(SALLY E. SHAYWITZ AND BENNETT A. SHAYWITZ, Paying attention to reading: “The neurobiology of reading and dyslexia”, Development and Psychopathology 20 (2008), 1329–1349 Copyright # 2008 Cambridge University Press Printed in the United States of America doi:10.1017/S0954579408000631)
Context:
“Extraordinary progress in functional brain imaging, primarily advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging, now allows scientists to understand the neural systems serving reading and how these systems differ in dyslexic readers. Scientists now speak of the neural signature of dyslexia, a singular achievement that for the first time has made what
was previously a hidden disability, now visible. Paralleling this achievement in understanding the neurobiology of dyslexia, progress in the identification and treatment of dyslexia now offers the hope of identifying children at risk for dyslexia at a very young age and providing evidence-based, effective interventions. Despite these advances, for many dyslexic readers, becoming a skilled, automatic reader remains elusive, in great part because though children with dyslexia can be taught to decode words, teaching children to read fluently and automatically represents the next frontier in research on dyslexia. We suggest that to break through this “fluency” barrier, investigators will need to reexamine the more than 20-year-old central dogma in reading research: the generation of the phonological code from print is modular, that is, automatic and not attention demanding, and not requiring any other cognitive process. Recent findings now present a competing view: other cognitive processes are involved in reading, particularly attentional mechanisms, and that disruption of these attentional mechanisms play a causal role in reading difficulties. Recognition of the role of attentional mechanisms in reading now offer potentially new strategies for interventions in dyslexia. In particular, the use of pharmacotherapeutic agents affecting attentional mechanisms not only may provide a window into the neurochemical mechanisms underlying dyslexia but also may offer a potential adjunct treatment for teaching dyslexic readers to read fluently and automatically. Preliminary studies suggest that agents traditionally used to treat disorders of attention, particularly attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, may prove to be an effective adjunct to improving reading in dyslexic students.”
Source:
(Dr. Shaywitz interview with Learning Ally http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owi2hd9zMvA)
Sally Shaywitz, M.D., Co-Director, Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, “Dr. Sally Shaywitz on Dyslexia, Assistive Tech and Learning Ally,” Iinterview at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owi2hd9zMvA )
Context:
As of 4/15/25 this video was available on YouTube and some other platforms.
——-search for “skilled readers ” in David Kilpatrick’s quotes from Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties.
Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties (Essentials of Psychological Assessment) 1st Edition,
[Kilpatrick, David A.]
ISBN-10: 1118845242, Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Publication date: September 8, 2015
By contrast, skilled readers devote all (or nearly all) of their working memory resources to comprehending what they read. This is because word recognition is generally accurate and effortless.(31%, P1 25).
Skilled readers develop orthographic mapping skills naturally, simply by interacting with letters and words. By contrast, students with word-level reading difficulties do not naturally develop orthographic mapping.(21%)
Skilled readers are familiar with all, or almost all, of the words they read. For them, the word-reading process is automatic and performed without effort or conscious awareness.(20%)
However, literally hundreds of studies have demonstrated that skilled readers instantly and effortlessly recognize any one of the thousands of written words they know when those words are presented in isolation
Skilled readers have instant, effortless access to all, or almost all, of the words they read. This allows them to focus on comprehension (Fletcher et
P29
“skilled readers primarily read by instant recognition based on a large sight vocabulary.” David Kilpatrick, essentials… P41
“Thus, regardless of the method used to teach beginning readers, all individuals who become skilled readers eventually develop phonic knowledge simply by interacting with written words (Liberman & Liberman, 1990; Tunmer & Chapman, 2002).” (P1 83, 44%)
71.9
The end of Mike’s quotes.
Dyslexia Coffee Talk Podcast, David Kilpatrick
David Kilpatrick interview
He hears the snowblower across the street, and says that he has auditory memory for that sound…
2:13
Phonology has to do with sounds related to speech
30:20, skilled readers don’t rely on context, the words jump out at them instantaneously”(dyslexia Coffee Talk interview 30:20)
31:40
The reality is weak readers are the ones that rely on context
Weak readers, so they’re not good at sounding out words, and they’re not good at remembering words, so what’s left? Using context.
34:08
Word level reading functions on at least two levels, One level is the ability to to sound out an unfamiliar word. That’s the most effective way to determine a new word. The context is quite unreliable. we have a lot of studies to show that. and then, we have to remember words. sounding out unfamiliar words and then remembering words and you don’t have to sell them out again. Those are well-established in kids who are good readers.
34:35
There are plenty of people, I can’t give you a number, 40%, 50%, maybe 60% have enough phonological skills that even if they’re not taught the code, they figure it out pretty quickly. … buy third grade, they can read nonsense words.… how can you read? Nonsense words if you haven’t been taught the code, you figured it out on your own.
…They figured out what they were not taught, and that’s how they became a good reader.
45:46.(Sound segmenting and sound blending by end of first grade)
If a child can’t sake me at a word, tell me all the sounds in cat,, or a child can’t blend, tell me what word I am saying, R-A-T, if they can do that, that is an ending first grade skill. …
?If you get items in there, fast enough? that correlates with reading
Instant responding/not whether you got it correct or not(get into the section there’s some good stuff here) 47:02
The data exists on a phonemic awareness task Not for whether you get it correct or not
(doesn’t interrupt your comprehension)
49:24
In that split second we’re connecting the phonemes in speech to the phonemes in the word, that’s what orthographic mapping is. … we need automaticity, it can’t happen without automaticity. … aromaticity of phonemic skills. is essential for becoming a good reader. and that’s what skilled readers can do.
(the words don’t talk and we don’t see the sounds in words)
51:03
Phonemic awareness is not enough
We don’t have children who are good readers that lack phonemic proficiency (phonemic proficiency is his term he says is the same as phonemic automaticity)
And that’s what’s important when it comes to remembering words when we come across them
50:52
We have to distinguish between phonemic awareness and phonemic automaticity or as I call it phonemic proficiency
50:39
It’s not enough to do well on a classical sound, blending or segmentation task
Phonemic awareness is not enough… But they didn’t have the automaticity and proficiency and that’s what’s needed in terms remember words when we come across new words
51:14
