The Right to Read

Chapter 8
Learning and the “Learning Disabled”

Whenever one is confronted by any problem, and one wishes to discover a scientific solution to the problem, one should make sure that proper scientific methods are followed. Unless the recognized precepts of scientific method are strictly adhered to, one cannot lay any claim to having found a scientific solution.

Williams has already pointed out in 1928 that any scientific theory or hypothesis must be proven first possible, then probable, then certain. This suggests that, when embarking upon an effort to discover a scientific solution to a certain problem, one should first try to discover all the possible solutions. To achieve this, one must determine the exact nature of the phenomenon one is dealing with. For example, if one desires to rescue an animal that became trapped in a poacher's snare, the possible methods of effecting such a rescue would very strongly depend on the kind of animal. Similarly, before possible solutions to the plight of the child, who has difficulties in the teaching/learning situation, become ascertainable, one should first try to determine the exact nature of the situation.

What is it that really happens in any situation where a child is being taught? Careful consideration of this situation will reveal that essentially it is a communication situation. There is a communicator — the parent or teacher, there is a message — the knowledge that is being passed on to the child, and there is a recipient of the message — the child. This is exactly in accordance with the so-called communication triptych² that characterizes any communication situation. Like any other message, the message that is being passed on to the child has a very specific purpose, viz. that the child must learn. If the child does not learn, then it means that the message somehow failed.

This suggests that we should start by looking at the possible reasons why any message can fail. In any communication situation, there must be at least two reasons why the message can fail:

1. There may be something wrong with the receiver of the message. For example, if one tried to talk to a deaf person, then there would certainly be the possibility that the message would not be received.

2. There may be something wrong with the way in which the message is passed on.

If a person, who is blind, or unable to read, tried to read the message contained in this book, then the message, that we are trying to convey, would probably fail. On the other hand, however, it is certainly our responsibility to make sure that our message is passed on in accordance with certain principles that will ensure successful reception, or else it will certainly fail. Misalnya, kalau kami menulis dalam bahasa asing... This message is directed at readers of the English language, and if we therefore wrote in a language other than English, the message will probably fail. We must also be careful that we write in accordance with English grammar, syntax and orthography, otherwise the message will probably also fail. If we rote in mjutilayted vurzhion of langwidge, or we if not put do words the logical order in a, then we can certainly not blame our readers if our message does not succeed. However, as the reader will presently see, that is exactly what we are doing when we blame children of “learning disabilities.”

Most people have so far jumped to the — very hasty — conclusion that the first possibility mentioned above is the one that applies. However, from the above arguments it should be clear that there must be two possible reasons why some children fail to learn. There may be something wrong with the child, as is the assumption in LD, but there is also the possibility that the message fails because of the way in which it is passed on.

The purpose of the message in any teaching situation is that the child must learn. This means that the message must be passed on to the child in such a way that it will be possible for him to learn, which means that the message must be passed on according to learning principles — and this is where we have a big problem. What are the principles of learning that should be observed in such a situation?

As was indicated in the previous chapter already, most of what is “known” about learning today, has been gleaned from experiments with animals on “learning” — Thorndike with cats and rats, Skinner, Tolman and Miller with rats, Pavlov with dogs, Guthrie with cats, Harlow with monkeys and apes, Hebb with rats and chimpanzees, et cetera. The problem about such experiments is that they are based on the assumption that what we observe in humans and interpret as learning is the same as that which we observe in animals and that appears to us to be the same phenomenon. Because “no one had bothered to figure out what learning really is,”³ we do not know whether in fact animals learn or not. The behavior that we see in them and that is interpreted as learning may, for all we know, be something quite different. Until such time as it has been verified that human learning and animal “learning” are indeed identical, we have to be very suspicious of animal experiments. Therefore, for the time being at least, learning theories that were based on, or that were perhaps influenced by such animal experiments, should be viewed with reserve.

Even stronger reason to be cautious about existing learning theories, is their very multifariousness. Many have attempted to define learning. Sutaria quotes quite a number of different definitions of learning, and then states, “It is obvious from the above samples that there are probably as many definitions of learning as there are of learning disabilities.”⁴ Because there is a large number of, generally conflicting, definitions on learning, there are also a large number of, equally conflicting, theories on learning. Hergenhahn (1982) describes eleven major ones with countless variations.⁵

If one drives from Los Angeles to San Francisco and one's car suddenly stalls and stops, there cannot be eleven different explanations of why this happened. There also cannot be eleven different explanations — with countless variations — of how human beings learn. Although it is true that all theories on learning are certainly not wrong in their entirety, it is equally true that there is as yet not one theory that adequately explains learning. The net result of this is that we must accept that we still know very little about learning. This means that jumping to the conclusion that the cause of a learning problem is intrinsic to the child, must at least be regarded as scientifically highly questionable. The shoe may well be on the other foot. We contend that we should all confess our ignorance and acknowledge that the second possibility should be considered very seriously indeed.

The symptoms and phenomena, that are noticed in the so-called “learning-disabled” child, have so far been misinterpreted as a “disorder” inherent to the child, for the simple reason that the learning disabilities theory is based on sensory observations, and its conclusions are in the form of correlations of observations.⁶ The tendency prevails to focus on the appearance of these phenomena, instead of on their reality.

Whenever observations are made, it is always necessary to interpret such observations, and to draw conclusions about them.⁷ The reason for this is that one must be able to distinguish between veridical impressions, i.e. those that are reflecting the true state of affairs, and those that are illusionary, i.e. those that are not in accord with the actual state of affairs.⁸ We have all experienced that “the moon appears to be moving when it is visible through a cloud passing in front of it. However, we know that this is an illusion; the moon is not really moving through the clouds and so its apparent movement must be disregarded by the astronomer.”⁹

There is only one way in which one can know that it is not the moon that is moving, but the clouds, and that is by interpreting the sensory impression in terms of prior knowledge and past experience. In the same way one has to interpret the phenomenon of the child who has difficulties in the learning situation. Because too little has so far been known about learning, it has been misinterpreted as a “disorder” inherent to the child.

In his research, Jan (coauthor) has discovered three learning principles that play a vital role in learning, and holds the key to unlocking a learning INability:

Human Learning is a Stratified Process

This is a self-evident fact, yet its significance in the situation of the “learning-disabled” child has apparently never been fully comprehended. Throughout the world in all educational systems it is commonly accepted that a child must start at the lower levels of education and then gradually progress to the higher levels. If human learning had not been a stratified process, if it had taken place on a single level, this would have been unnecessary. It would then not have been important to start a child in first grade. It would have been possible for the child to enter school at any level and to complete the school years in any order.

Even more astounding is that this very important principle of learning is hardly noted in any of the present-day theories on learning. In fact, when this principle of learning is mentioned, it often happens by way of an en passant reference to discarded notions from the past:

When this principle is noticed, then its significance is often distorted by reductionist thinking such as, “Cognitive abilities develop in a sequential fashion that cannot be altered,”¹¹ or, “Another prerequisite for reading includes a certain level of physiological development of the brain.”¹²

The stratified nature of learning is an age-old — but ageless — principle. This principle was already pointed out by Herbart (1776-1841), and it is based on the further principle that

By way of a simple and practical example we have to remind the reader of the fact that one has to learn to count before it becomes possible to learn to add and subtract. Suppose one tried to teach a child, who had not yet learned to count, to add and subtract. This would be quite impossible and no amount of effort would ever succeed in teaching the child these skills. Conceivably people who abide by the “learning disabilities” idea would also then conclude that the child “suffered” from a “minimal brain dysfunction,” or from “dyscalculia,” overlooking that the ability to count must have been acquired first, before it becomes possible to learn to add and subtract.

In the same way, there are also certain skills and knowledge that a child must have acquired first, before it becomes possible for him to benefit from a course in reading. Bartoli, who says that it is “the actual practice with the real task of reading that leads to more skilful reading,” is only partially correct. “Of course,” she adds, “any soccer, tennis, or basketball coach will tell you the same thing: If you want to get better, you have to play the game — not just practice skill drills.”¹⁴ Now, we know very little about tennis and basketball, but we do happen to know about soccer. The game of soccer consists of many fragmented elements or skills — passing, control, shooting, dribbling, goal keeping and heading. Before any child is expected to play in a full-game situation, he should first be trained to pass, head, control, dribble and shoot the ball.¹⁵ In fact, until these skills have been automatized, the child will have two left feet on the soccer field.

The reading “game,” just like the game of soccer, rests upon certain skills and until these skills have become automatized, the child will have “two left eyes” in the reading situation. The important thing, of course, is to know what these skills are.

Glenn Doman, whose work was mentioned earlier, eventually recognized this fact that human learning is a stratified process. In fact, his breakthrough in treating seriously brain-injured children can be attributed to this insight.

Children, treated by Doman and his team, were so severely disabled that they couldn't even walk. Initially, a multiplicity of techniques were used in their treatment, such as heat and massage of the affected limbs, exercise, orthopedic surgery to transplant muscles or to change bone structure and electrical stimulation to help maintain paralyzed muscles.

During 1950 the team decided to evaluate the results of their work. By that time they had been treating a group of a hundred brain-injured children for a number of years. The children themselves ranged in age from one to nineteen years. The results of this evaluation proved how tragically inadequate their methods were. Many of the children had not improved at all. What was even more discouraging was that many of the children were actually worse. The progress of those who had improved was so minimal and slow, that they were most probably going to be old aged before they could walk.

To justify their work in any way, they started to compare these hundred children in treatment with children whom they had evaluated but who did not return for treatment. Mostly they were children who were in some way underprivileged and whose parents could not afford the charges. The parents of others simply did not care enough to undertake treatment. After reevaluating these children, they came to an absolutely astonishing conclusion. The children who had been without treatment were almost overwhelmingly better than the children they had treated! Their conclusion: through all these years they had applied symptom-therapy, and never addressed the cause of the problem.

Their research now entered a new phase. They now focused their research on the normal child. They asked themselves the question, how do normal children develop until the walking phase, and the answer to this question explained why previous results were without avail. Along the road to walking, there are four important stages: The first stage begins at birth, when the baby is able to move his limbs and body but is not able to use these motions to move his body from place to place. This first stage Doman called “Movement without Mobility”.

The second stage occurs later when the baby learns that by moving his arms and legs in a certain manner with his stomach pressed to the floor, he can move from Point A to Point B. This stage Doman called “Crawling.”

Sometime later, stage three occurs, when the baby learns to defy gravity for the first time and to get up on his hands and his knees and move across the floor in this easier, but more skilled manner. This stage was called “Creeping.”

The last significant stage occurs when the baby learns to get up on his hind legs and walk, which was, of course, called “Walking.”

Parents sometimes report that their children did not creep. Doman answers: “Do you mean that this child simply lay in his crib or pushed himself on the floor until one day he jumped to his feet and then walked?…There [is] no way [for any child] to travel this road without passing each and every milepost, [but there can indeed be] a difference in time factors.”¹⁶

If these basic stages were slighted, Doman discovered, as for example in the case of a child who had begun to walk before he had crept enough, there would be adverse consequences such as poor coordination.

The observations that followed left the team completely aghast: The children undergoing intensive training were almost everywhere except where they belonged. They were in braces, in casts, in wheel chairs, in standing tables, on crutches or canes, or in their mothers' arms. In short, they were every place except on the floor. This explained the results of the underprivileged children — the mother had placed the child on the floor and had allowed him to travel down this road in the normal manner.

Having made an error it was necessary to correct it — to put the brain-injured child on the floor, to stop all other treatment and to see what would happen. The results of this experiment, Doman says, were

Another point of interest is that Doman and his team only advanced in their field after focusing their attention on normal children. In the LD field, researchers should perhaps take note of Adelman and Taylor who (with our italics) say that we need “to base LD theories…on normal human development and functioning.”¹⁸ Until now they have been based on abnormal functioning, as a result of the work of Strauss and Werner.

The Ageless Principle of Repetition

A second learning principle of great importance is that learning cannot occur without repetition. As far as one can go back in history, repetition — also called rote learning or drilling — has been the backbone of successful teaching. But this is no longer the case:

One consequence of Dewey's influence was that repetition, rote learning and drilling became swear words in education. Today this form of learning is considered to be “out of style,”²⁰ “ghastly boring”²¹ and even “mindless.”²² “Having to spend long periods of time on repetitive tasks is a sign that learning is not taking place — that this is not a productive learning situation,” says LD expert Bartoli.²³

We would like to ask the critics of repetition and drilling if they have a driver's license. If they have, we would like to know how they got it? Did they just jump in the car one day and off they went? No, the fact is that they repeated over and over — drilled and drilled and drilled — the same actions up to a point where they became automatized. Only then were they able to drive a car successfully. Why then, do they expect from children to learn successfully without repetition and drilling? Repetition creates confidence and builds a basis, a kind of springboard for them to conquer higher cognitive skills. One has to build that first and then branch out into “creative” and “critical” thinking and other approaches. They need a base for the higher functions. Today, however, children are required to think “critically” (a sacred cow in education) while they haven't learned anything to think critically about. As Professor Roger Shattuck so rightly states, public schools in the United States — and elsewhere — have put the cart before the horse.²⁴ Maybe what they really did was that they drowned the horse and burned the cart.

In recent years, neuroscientists have discovered that repetition is important in the “wiring” of a person's brain, i.e. the forming of connections or synapses between the brain cells. Without these connections, the brain cells are as useless as batteries standing in a row next to a torch. Only when the batteries and torch are connected, can they make a shining light.

The thing that wires a child's brain, say neuroscientists — or rewires it after physical trauma — is “repeated experience.”²⁵ Without such repeated experience, key synapses don't form. And if such connections, once formed, are used too seldom to be strengthened and reinforced, the brain, figuring they're dead weight, eventually “prunes” them away.²⁶

But mere repetition is not the end of the story. There must be enough repetition for a beginner learner. A beginner learner must start by repeating a limited amount of material many times over and over. Gradually, less and less repetition will be necessary to master new skills and new knowledge. This principle is especially noticeable when teaching mentally handicapped children. Since 1993 we have been actively involved in research in this area.

When teaching the mentally handicapped we follow a very intensive program, with counting being one of the first things to teach them. Especially in the initial stages, a great part of the daily program is used for this activity. This activity is also a good example to illustrate the above-mentioned principle.

When Chrizan B., an 8-year-old who had an IQ of 65 at the onset of intervention, was taught to count, it took three full days to teach her to count from one to three and back. On the fourth day, “four” was added. Chrizan immediately became completely confused and could no longer count from one to three. It again took three full days to teach her to count from one to four and back. When “five” was added, the same thing happened. She became completely confused and could no longer count from one to four. Again it required three days to teach her to count from one to five and back. Gradually, however, less time was required to add new numbers and she no longer became confused when new numbers were added. From eleven onwards, it took two days to add a new number and from twenty onwards, more or less one day was needed for every new number. From thirty onwards it was possible to add more and more new numbers on a daily basis.

The point is that much repetition was needed before Chrizan could count from one to three, one to four, and one to five. Gradually, however, it became easier and easier, until very little repetition was needed to add new numbers. No doubt it is the same with normal children, as the following story, taken from Nurtured by Love: A New Approach to Education by Suzuki illustrates:

This means that, if one systematically and regularly does repetition with a learner, it will gradually become possible for the learner to learn more and more with fewer and fewer repetitions. It is almost as if a “pyramid of repetition” has to be constructed first.

The importance of this “pyramid of repetition” is also seen in the learning of a first language. According to Dr. Beve Hornsby, it has been found that a child who is just beginning to talk must hear a word about 500 times before it will become part of his active vocabulary, i.e. before he will be able to say the word.²⁸ Two years later, the same child will probably need only one to a few repetitions to learn to say a new word.

Without building this “pyramid of repetition” first, later learning will always be time consuming and prone to failure. Unfortunately educators have ignored this learning principle and have removed most of the repetitive work that used to form part of education for so long. With few exceptions, this change is seen as a step forward. Doreen Kronick, in her book New Approaches to Learning Disabilities, stated that we “overlooked what our common sense told us, which was that the poems that we had learned in school were useless for helping us to remember what we needed to buy at the supermarket.”²⁹

It seems that people, like Kronick, who regard this as a step forward, are wrong. Maclean et al., for example, found that knowledge of nursery rhymes among 3-year-olds was a significant predictor of later prereading skills even after the children's IQs and their mothers' educational levels were partialed out.³⁰ Even stronger evidence of Kronick's wrong assumption is the “explosion” of “learning disabilities” all over the Western world.³¹ One of the reasons for this explosion is that repetition or drilling has been dropped out of the school system. As Kronick said — the memorizing of poems would not help you to remember what to buy at the supermarket. What she does not realize — and many others too — was that by reciting and repeating these poems over and over we were building this pyramid of repetition. Therefore it was not useless at all!

Educators should take into account that the learning material, that children are expected to master, continually becomes more, and more difficult, year after year. Unless the teaching methods take note of this ¾ and due to the removal of repetition or drilling modern-day teaching methods do not ¾ it is inevitable that they will start battling, sooner or later. One can compare this to the story of Milo, the famous Greek wrestler from the sixth century B.C. He is said to have carried a calf on his shoulders every day from its birth and eventually to have carried the grown cow around the Olympic stadium. Like the calf inexorably grew and therefore became heavier and heavier, the learning material, that children are confronted with year after year, also becomes more, and more difficult. The fact that Milo carried the calf every day, however, made it possible for him also to carry the grown cow. The repeated carrying of the calf had a permanent effect on Milo. In the same way repeated learning experiences also have a permanent effect on the learner.

In regards to building a “pyramid of repetition” there are two very important factors that should be kept in mind: The first is that there is great individuality among different people, and even within the same person, in the amount of repetition required to learn something. The amount of repetition that is enough for one person, may not necessarily be enough for another. The amount of repetition that a certain person requires in mastering a certain skill, may not necessarily be enough to master another skill. Mrs. Butler might need ten lessons to master the skill of driving, Mrs. Brown might need twenty, Mrs. Lane thirty and Mrs. Jones forty. Mrs. Jones, who struggled to learn to drive, may, on the other hand, need only ten lessons to become expert at sewing. One should note, however, that Mrs. Jones was not diagnosed as “driving disabled” because she needed forty lessons!

The second important factor is that one should not lose sight of the stratified nature of learning. If a child has not yet mastered the skill of counting, ten thousand repetitions in adding and subtracting will not teach him to add and subtract. The child needs to learn how to count first, although he may need more repetitions to master this skill than other some children.

Application

The third important learning principle is that there must be opportunities for application. Even while a child is learning to master the fragmented elements of soccer, he can and should already be given opportunities to apply these skills in an actual game. In the same way, while learning to master the skills that form the basis of reading, a child can and should already be given opportunities to apply these skills in the act of reading.

An important point is that these three fundamental learning principles should be looked upon as a whole and should not be viewed in isolation. Any botanist will tell you the same thing: it is the whole of the amount of water, sunlight and fertilizer that will cause a tree to bear large, juicy fruit. If you only water the tree six weeks after you have hoed the fertilizer into the ground, you are bound to return to a withered tree.

Notes

1. McClellan, J. E., Philosophy of Education (Englewood-Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976), 55.
2. Van Schoor, M., Bestaanskommunikasie (Bloemfontein: Uitgewery P. J. de Villiers, 1977).
3. McClellan, Philosophy of Education.
4. Sutaria, S. D., Specific Learning Disabilities. Nature and Needs (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1985), 85.
5. Hergenhahn, B. R., An Introduction to Theories of Learning (2nd ed.), (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1982).
6. Cf. T. Z Lavine, From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest (New York: Bantam Books, 1984).
7. Dane, F. C., Research Methods (Pacific Grove, California: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1990).
8. Rock, I., An Introduction to Perception (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1975).
9. Ibid., 2.
10. Kronick, D., New Approaches to Learning Disabilities. Cognitive, Metacognitive and Holistic (Philadelphia: Grune & Stratton, 1988), 6.
11. Lerner, J., Learning Disabilities: Theories, Diagnosis, and Teaching Strategies (4th ed.), (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1988), 173.
12. Lipa, S. E., “Reading disability: A new look at an old issue,” Journal of Learning Disabilities, 1983, vol. 16(8), 453-457.
13. Mursell, J. L., Successful Teaching (2nd ed.), (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1954), 210-211.
14. Bartoli, J. S., “An ecological response to Coles's interactivity alternative,” Journal of Learning Disabilities, 1989, vol. 22(5), 292-297.
15. Spindler, T., & Ward, A., Knowabout Soccer (Hampshire: The Automobile Association, 1990).
16. Doman, G., What to Do About Your Brain-Injured Child (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1982), 46.
17. Ibid., 50.
18. Adelman, H. S., & Taylor, L., “Summary of the survey of fundamental concerns confronting the LD field,” Journal of Learning Disabilities, 1986, vol. 19(7), 391-393.
19. Kramer, R., “Inside the teachers' culture,” The Public Interest, 15 January 1997.
20. Bremmer, J., “What business needs from the nation's schools,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 19 April 1993.
21. Bassnett, S., “Comment,” Independent, 14 October 1999.
22. Dixon, R-C. D., “Ideologies, practices, and their implications for special education,” Journal of Special Education, 1994, vol. 28, 356.
23. Bartoli, “An ecological response to Coles's interactivity alternative.”
24. Skube, M., “Professor out to put 'learning' back into education,” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 12 March 2000.
25. Nash, J. M., “Special report: Fertile minds from birth, a baby's brain cells proliferate wildly, making connections that may shape a lifetime of experience. The first three years are crucial,” Time, 3 February 1997.
26. Polaneczky, R., “How kids get smart: The surprising news,” Redbook, 1 March 1998.
27. Suzuki, S., Nurtured by Love: A New Approach to Education (New York: Exposition Press, 1969).
28. Hornsby, B., Overcoming Dyslexia (Johanesburg: Juta and Company Ltd., 1984), 43.
29. Kronick, New Approaches to Learning Disabilities, 9.
30. Maclean, M., Bryant, P., & Bradley, L., “Rhymes, nursery rhymes, and reading in early childhood,” Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, vol. 33, 255-281, cited in K. E. Stanovich, “Learning disabilities in broader context,” Journal of Learning Disabilities, May 1989, vol. 22(5), 287-297.
31. Kramer, “Inside the teachers' culture.”