It is recognized that there are two types of poor readers\u2014Garden Variety and Dyslexic. ‘Garden-variety’ poor readers show intellectual or cognitive processing problems in many areas, and not only in putting things in sequence as already discussed. They may also experience problems in seeing relationships among words, objects or pictures, in sustaining attention, and\/or in the ability to organize and plan ahead.<\/p>\n
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In a garden there are all sorts of plants, including weeds, and it is difficult to organize them in any specific order. What grows in the garden might not fit into any particular order or category, and we could say that the reasons for the garden variety of reading difficulties are similarly mixed.<\/p>\n
Within this group are children who are culturally disadvantaged, that is, books and reading materials are not commonly available in their culture. There are those who lack motivation and role models for good reading; this is the case in communities where most children do not go to school but start working as soon as they can, from the age of seven or eight. Also there are many children with emotional and sensory problems, such as difficulty in hearing or in seeing (hearing impaired or visually limited), who are likely to be poor readers.<\/p>\n
Thus, we have to revise our set of causes for garden-variety poor reading\u2014not all causes involve intellectual deficiency. Some of the children may be perfectly adequate in terms of their intellectual and cognitive functions but do not have the cultural advantage of urban middle-class children in a “print-enriched community”. Within a few months of being exposed to a literate environment, such children overcome their reading difficulty and may begin to learn to read well.<\/p>\n
In contrast to the garden variety of poor readers, there are the dyslexic poor readers who show specific deficiencies in only a limited number of intellectual or cognitive processes. The most important deficit, as mentioned before, concerns the ability to sequence, that is, to put sounds and words in order.<\/p>\n
Thus there are three kinds of poor readers: (a) those who have some disadvantage due to an external factor, including poor instruction; (b) those who have a general cognitive deficit; and (c) those who have a specific deficit in only a few of their cognitive or intellectual functions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"