The Complexities of Reading and Writing

The fact that people learn to read is amazing. In the video The Secret Life of the Brain - The Child's Brain, Syllable from Sound reading was described as "a high wire balancing act..reading never just happens...one of the most complex everyday performances that happens..." It is a complex process where "the child has to learn to put these hundreds of concepts together to learn to read". With so many components to reading it is not surprising that challenges can develop. As educators we need to be aware of the many components of the process, teach them, assess them and address them. A big job! Assistive Technology can be a useful tool in developing the reading process and assisting students when faced with a challenge. It can be as simple as Bailey's Book House or more complex like Kurzweil. However, before chosing to use AT with our students we need to remember, as Barb explained it, " AT gives us another tool to expose students to different experiences..We need to understand the processes involved in the reading process so that we can identify where the student is having difficulty in that process so that we can match the AT to the person..." Which again brings us back to Shearer's MPT model. It is easy to get caught up in the wonders of all the programs out there and forget the essential components of Milieu, Personality and Technology. We need to match the AT to the person while addressing the MPT.