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Educational perspectives offer an alternative to both psychomedical and social analyses of learning disabilities. In the past 3 decades, experts have been remarkably productive in identifying key factors that underpin success in learning and in developing instructional programs that enhance the learning of all students--including those identified as having learning disabilities.

From an educational perspective, because children vary on multiple dimensions that affect learning along a continuum, failure to learn arises from an interaction of children's individual characteristics and the instructional programs provided to them. The appropriate response to failure is not a psychological or educational "treatment" but implementation of programs with demonstrated efficacy in promoting achievement.

In the case of reading and learning disabilities, the continuum of necessary skill acquisition is the same for children identified with learning disabilities or dyslexia as for all other children. The key to learning to read is phonological awareness, the ability to detect and manipulate the sound structure of language. Phonological awareness develops before the ability to read and is a powerful predictor of later reading ability. Sensitivity to rhyme is one of the earliest phonological skills to develop, followed by awareness of initial sounds. Among both children with learning disabilities and those without learning disabilities, poor readers often demonstrate core deficits in phonological processing. However, explicit instruction in phonological awareness can address these deficits and promote reading for both groups of students.

A second reason that many children fail to learn to read is the nature of early reading instruction. Effective reading instruction should teach children how to use their knowledge about letter-sound correspondences to work out unfamiliar words (phonics). Students need a systematic, structured program that teaches how to decode text. Phonics-based programs can successfully teach students to read, regardless of their assigned categorical label.

Other effective instructional approaches include minimizing distracting elements in programs so that children can focus easily on the key elements of the task. Finally, teachers should ensure that students have sufficient practice in skills so that they master each step in the learning sequence.

Bibliography:

1) National Reading Panel. 2000. "Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction." NIH Publication No. 00-4769. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

2) Spear-Swerling, Louise and Robert J. Sternberg. 1999. Perspectives on Learning Disabilities. Boulder, CO: Westview.

3) Stanovich, Keith E. 1986. "Matthew Effects in Reading: Some Consequences of Individual Differences in the Acquisition of Literacy." Reading Research Quarterly 21:360-407.

4) Torgesen, Joseph K., ed. 1990. Cognitive and Behavioral Characteristics of Children with Learning Disabilities. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

5) U.S. Office of Education. 1977. "Education for All Handicapped Children Act." Federal Register 42.

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