DYSLEXIA, LITERACY DIFFICULTIES AND INSTRUCTION Peter Johnston The University at Albany Donna Scanlon The Child Research and Study Center The University at Albany Literacy Research Association Literacy Research Report Draft October 28th, 2020 Request for comment This is a draft of a Literacy Research Report for the Literacy Research Association. We encourage LRA members to send constructive comment and critique to either author (
[email protected] or
[email protected]). We will attempt to engage any critique in the document's revision and in the presentation at LRA. Dyslexia, Literacy Difficulties anD Instruction There is no doubt that some children experience more difficulty than others becoming literate, often at great emotional, intellectual, social and economic cost, to themselves but also to those who love and care for them, and for society at large. The causes of those difficulties, and what to do about them, have been the source of vast research and sometimes heated disagreement among researchers and educators – disagreements that, in one form or another, go back well over a century. The current focus of this attention, from the media, some researchers, parents and politicians, is on the construct dyslexia – a term used to describe learners who experience extreme/serious difficulty with the word reading aspect of the reading process. In 2019 alone there were expositions about dyslexia on National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting Service, The New York Times, Education Week, and numerous other major outlets, each asserting with certainty that dyslexia is a central cause of reading difficulty and asserting a singular instructional solution. Promoted by a coalition of certain researchers, parents, politicians, and private, for-profit and non-profit education entities, this proposed solution, which they refer to as “the science of reading” (SOR), calls for an approach to reading instruction for beginning and struggling readers that focuses on a particular, almost exclusively phonics-based, approach to developing skill with word identification.