Successful intervention depends on understanding the causes of a problem. Throughout history, many serious conditions remained unsolved until their underlying causes were identified. Scurvy, for example, claimed the lives of thousands of sailors during long sea voyages. Once the cause — a vitamin C deficiency — was discovered, effective treatment quickly followed.

This raises an important question: What causes reading disabilities?

For many years, researchers have proposed that reading disabilities stem primarily from neurological differences. Others have emphasized genetics, noting that reading difficulties often run in families. Studies have shown that a child’s risk of developing reading problems increases significantly when a parent has experienced similar struggles.

However, the fact that reading difficulties run in families does not necessarily prove that they are determined entirely by genetics. Language itself also “runs in families,” yet children learn to speak the language they hear and use daily. Environment, instruction, experience, and practice all play essential roles in learning.

Neurological and genetic factors may indeed contribute to reading difficulties, and modern research has greatly improved our understanding of how the brain processes reading. Yet an important question remains: Are brain differences always the original cause of reading difficulties, or can some differences also develop as a consequence of limited reading experience and inefficient learning pathways?

Rather than viewing dyslexia or reading disabilities as fixed and permanent limitations, it may be more useful to view them as learning challenges that require specialized instruction, appropriate support, and sustained practice. Neurological differences and genetic predispositions may increase the educational responsibility of parents and teachers, but they do not eliminate the possibility of improvement.

With effective instruction and sufficient practice, many struggling readers can make substantial progress.

Learning is a stratified process

To understand this perspective on reading disabilities, it is important to recognize two fundamental principles about learning.

First, human beings are not born knowing how to perform complex skills. Reading, writing, spelling, and mathematics are learned abilities. A child must be taught these skills through instruction, practice, and experience.

Second, learning is a stratified process. New skills develop upon previously learned skills. This principle is so fundamental that it is often overlooked.

Educational systems throughout the world are built upon this idea. Children begin with foundational concepts and gradually progress to more advanced levels. If learning did not occur in stages, there would be little reason for structured grade levels or carefully sequenced instruction.

Yet many modern theories of learning pay surprisingly little attention to the layered nature of skill development.

More than a century ago, researchers and educators recognized that complex abilities depend upon the development of more basic abilities. Baldwin (1896), for example, described learning as hierarchical, with higher-level abilities resting upon foundational processes such as perception and memory.

Similarly, the educational philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart emphasized that people understand new information in terms of what they already know. Effective learning, therefore, depends on establishing the correct background knowledge and foundational skills.

This principle can easily be seen in mathematics. A child must first learn to count before addition and subtraction can become meaningful. Attempting to teach arithmetic before a child understands counting would lead to confusion and frustration. Foundational skills create the readiness for more advanced learning.

The same principle applies to reading.

Before a child can become a fluent reader, certain underlying skills must first develop sufficiently. These may include phonological awareness, visual processing, attention, memory, sequencing, language development, and the ability to automatize learned patterns.

When these foundational skills are weak, reading often becomes slow, effortful, and frustrating.

Skill development before performance

Some educators argue that children become better readers simply by reading. Practice is certainly essential, but practice alone is often insufficient when foundational weaknesses are present.

The situation can be compared to learning soccer.

Soccer consists of many smaller skills: passing, ball control, dribbling, shooting, heading, and goalkeeping. Before children can successfully play a full game, they must first develop these individual skills through focused practice. As these skills become automatic, coordinated performance becomes possible.

Reading operates in much the same way.

Reading is not a single skill, but the coordinated integration of many smaller skills working together automatically. Until these foundational skills become sufficiently developed and automatized, a child may continue to struggle despite considerable effort.

In this view, effective intervention involves more than simply increasing reading practice. It also involves identifying and strengthening the underlying skills that support successful reading.

When foundational weaknesses are addressed systematically and consistently, meaningful improvement becomes possible.

Edublox clinics specialize in cognitive training designed to improve learning readiness and help learners learn, read, and process information faster, easier, and more effectively. The classes focus on developing the following foundational skills:

• Concentration: Focused and sustained attention.

• Perceptual Skills: Visual and auditory figure-ground differentiation; visual and auditory discrimination, synthesis, and analysis; form discrimination; and spatial relations.

• Memory: Visual, auditory, sequential, iconic, short-term, long-term, and working memory.

• Logical Thinking: Deductive and inductive reasoning.

• Academic Skills: Reading, spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension.

References and bibliography:

• Coles, G. S., The Learning Mystique (New York: Pantheon Books).
• Bartoli, J. S., “An ecological response to Coles’s interactivity alternative,” Journal of Learning Disabilities, vol. 22(5), 292-297.
• Kronick, D., New Approaches to Learning Disabilities. Cognitive, Metacognitive and Holistic (Philadelphia: Grune & Stratton), 6.
• Lerner, J., Learning Disabilities: Theories, Diagnosis, and Teaching Strategies (4th ed.), (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company), 173.
• Lipa, S. E., “Reading disability: A new look at an old issue,” Journal of Learning Disabilities, vol. 16(8), 453-457.
• Mursell, J. L., Successful Teaching (2nd ed.), (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.), 210-211.