Research in the Teaching of English Nov 2018

“What If We Were Committed to Giving Every Individual the Servicesand Opportunities They Need?” Teacher Educators’ Understandings,Perspectives, and Practices Surrounding Dyslexia

Jo Worthy ; Catherine Lammert The University of Texas at Austin ; Stacia L. Long ; Cori Salmerón ; Vickie Godfrey The University of Texas at Austin

Abstract

Educators and researchers from a range of fields have devoted their careers to studying how reading develops and how to support students who find reading challenging. Some children struggle specifically with learning to decode print, the central issue in what is referred to as dyslexia.However, research has failed to identify unique characteristics or patterns that set apart students identified as dyslexic from other readers with decoding challenges. Nevertheless, an authoritative discourse that speaks of a definitive definition, a unique set of characteristics, and a specific form of intervention saturates policy and practice around dyslexia, and teacher educators are under increasing pressure to include this state-sanctioned information in their classes. Literacy educators’ experiences teaching reading in schools and preparing literacy professionals can add valuable perspectives to the conversation about dyslexia; however, currently their voices are largely silent in conversations around dyslexia research, policy, and practice. The current research was designed to address this gap through an intensive interview study, in which we employed a Disability Critical Race Studies framework, along with Bakhtin’s notions of authoritative and internally persuasive discourse to explore the perspectives, understandings, and experiences of literacy teacher educators regarding dyslexia.

Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Published
2018-11-15
DOI
10.58680/rte201829864
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
discourse analysis teacher development qualitative research literacy studies disability studies
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (67)

  1. Specific learning disorder
  2. Annamma (2013)
    Dis/ability critical race studies (DisCrit): Theorizing at the intersections of race and …
    Race Ethnicity and Education  ↗
  3. Baglieri (2011)
    Disability studies in education: The need for a plurality of perspectives on disability
    Remedial and Special Education  ↗
  4. Bakhtin (1981)
    The dialogic imagination: Four essays
  5. Barquero (2014)
    Neuroimaging of reading intervention: A systematic review and activation likelihood estim…
    PLoS ONE  ↗
Show all 67 →
  1. BéDARD (2016)
    Development of reading remediation for dyslexic individuals: Added benefits of the joint …
  2. Bishop (2013)
    Research review: Emanuel Miller memorial lecture 2012 - Neuroscientific studies of interv…
    Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines  ↗
  3. Cassar (2005)
    How do the spellings of children with dyslexia compare with those of nondyslexic children?
    Reading and Writing  ↗
  4. Compton (2014)
    Have we forsaken reading theory in the name of “quick fix” interventions for children wit…
    Scientific Studies of Reading  ↗
  5. Connor (2014)
    10.4135/9781446282236.n9
    The SAGE handbook of special education  ↗
  6. Eklund (2016)
    Cluster failure: Why fMRI inferences for spatial extent have inflated false-positiverates
    Proceedings of the National Acacdemy of Sciences  ↗
  7. Elliott (2014)
    The dys-lexia debate
     ↗
  8. Ellis (2014)
    10.4324/9781315785035
    Reading, writing, and dyslexia: A cognitive analysis  ↗
  9. Ellis (1997)
    Are dyslexics different? IV. In defence of uncertainty
    Dyslexia  ↗
  10. Emerson (1995)
    Writing ethnographic fieldnotes
     ↗
  11. Ferri (2004)
    Interrupting the discourse: A response to Reid and Valle
    Journal of Learn-ing Disabilities  ↗
  12. Fierros (2002)
    Double jeopardy: An exploration of restrictiveness and race in special education
    Racial inequity in special education
  13. Frankel (2010)
    Reading comprehension and reading disability
    Handbook of reading disability research
  14. Gibbs (2015)
    The differential effects of labelling: How do “dyslexia” and “reading difficulties” affec…
    European Journal of Special Needs  ↗
  15. Gunderson (2001)
    The evils of the use of IQ tests to define learning disabilities in first- and second-lan…
    Reading Teacher
  16. Harris (1981)
    Dictionaryof reading and related terms
  17. Hikida (2018)
    Holding space for literate identity co-construction
    Journal of Literacy Research  ↗
  18. Hoffman (2016)
    Does thoughtfully adaptive teaching actually exist? A challenge to teacher educators
    Theory Into Practice  ↗
  19. Hruby (2011)
    Neuroscience and reading: A review for reading education researchers
    Reading Research Quarterly  ↗
  20. Hudson (2007)
    Dyslexia and the brain: What does current research tell us?
    Reading Teacher  ↗
  21. Hurford (2016)
    The dyslexia dilemma: A history of ignorance, complacency, and resistance in colleges of …
    Journal of Childhood and Developmental Disorders  ↗
  22. Dyslexia at a glance
  23. (2015)
    [Fact sheet]
  24. Larson (2005)
    Becoming a teacher of literacy: The struggle between authoritative discourses
    Teaching Education  ↗
  25. Wikipedia
  26. Lopes (2012)
    Biologising reading problems: The specific case of dyslexia
    Contemporary Social Science  ↗
  27. Macias (2013)
    [Motion picture]
    Embracing dyslexia
  28. Moats (2014)
    What teachers don’t know and why they aren’t learning it: Addressing the need for content…
    Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties  ↗
  29. Mcdermott (1993)
    The acquisition of a child by a learning disability
    Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context  ↗
  30. Moats (1993)
    Learning disabilities in the states: Advocacy, science, and the future of the field
    Journal of Learning Disabilities  ↗
  31. Morson (2004)
    The process of ideological becoming
     ↗
  32. Norton (2012)
    Rapid automatized naming (RAN) and reading fluency
    Annual Review of Psychology  ↗
  33. Parsons (2016)
    George Masonuniversity Content Analysis Team.
    Journal of Literacy Research  ↗
  34. Ramus (2008)
    What phonological deficit?
    Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology  ↗
  35. Reid (2004)
    The discursive practice of learning disability: Implications for instruction and parent-s…
    Journal of Learning Disability  ↗
  36. Reutzel (2014)
    50 years of Reading Research Quarterly (1965-2015): Looking back, moving forward
    Reading Research Quarterly  ↗
  37. Richlan (2009)
    Functional abnormalities in the dyslexic brain: A quantitative meta-analysis of neuroimag…
    Human Brain Mapping  ↗
  38. Ritchey (2006)
    Orton-Gillingham and Orton-Gillingham-based reading instruction: A review of the literature
    Journal of Special Education  ↗
  39. Rubin (2011)
    Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data
  40. Scanlon (2005)
    Severe reading difficulties—Can they be prevented? A comparison of prevention and interve…
    Exceptionality  ↗
  42. Shaywitz (2003)
    Overcoming dyslexia: A new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level
  43. Shaywitz (1992)
    Evidence that dyslexia may represent the lower tail of a normal distribution of reading ability
    New England Journal of Medicine  ↗
  44. Shaywitz (2008)
    The education of dyslexic children from childhood to young adulthood
    Annual Review of Psychology  ↗
  45. Shepard (1987)
    The case for bias in tests of achievement and scholastic aptitude
    Arthur Jensen:Consensus and controversy
  46. Simon (2013)
    Activist literacies: Teacher research as resistance to the “normal curve.”
    Journal of Language and Literacy Education
  47. Sleeter (1987)
    Why is there learning disabilities? A critical analysis of the birth of the field in its …
    The formation of school subjects: The struggle for creating an American institution
  48. Stanovich (1994)
    Does dyslexia exist?
    Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry  ↗
  49. Tanaka (2011)
    The brain basis of the phonological deficit in dyslexia is independent of IQ
    Psychological Science  ↗
  50. (2014)
    The Texas dyslexia handbook- Revised 2014: Procedures concerning dyslexia and related disorders
  51. Toste (2016)
    How does the magic happen? Preparing America’s teachers to meet the needs of students with dyslexia [Blog post]
  52. Subpart D—Evaluations, eligibility determinations,individualized education programs, and educational placements
  53. Vaughn (2003)
    What is special about special education for students with learning disabilities?
    Journal of Special Education  ↗
  54. Vaughn (2013)
    Adaptive teachers as innovators: Instructional adaptations opening spaces for enhanced li…
    Language Arts
  55. Vellutino (2004)
    Specific reading disability (dyslexia): What have we learned in the past four decades?
    Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry  ↗
  56. Washburn (2014)
    What do preservice teachers from the USA and the UK know about dyslexia?
    Dyslexia  ↗
  57. (2010)
    [report]. US Department of Education
    Studentswith learning disabilities
  58. Wonder-Mcdowell (2011)
    Does instructional alignment matter?
    Elementary School Journal  ↗
  59. Worthy (2016)
    Teachers’ perspectives, understandings, and experiences around dyslexia
    Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice
  60. Worthy (2017)
    A critical analysis of dyslexia legislation in three states
    Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice
  61. Youman (2013)
    Dyslexia laws in the US
    Annals of Dyslexia  ↗
  62. Youman (2018)
    Dyslexia laws in the US: A 2018 update
    Perspectiveson Language and Literacy
CrossRef global citation count: 2 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related Articles

  1. The Peer Review Sep 2025
    The Writing Center as a Rebel Space: Stories of Tutoring and Writing with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ↗
    Ghada Seifeddine
    discourse analysis teacher development writing centers peer tutoring empirical research multimodality literacy studies race and writing disability studies editorial matter
  2. Pedagogy Oct 2023
    Contributors ↗
    rhetorical criticism first-year composition writing pedagogy writing across the curriculum two-year college teacher development collaborative writing assessment writing centers qualitative research multimodality literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies affect and writing literary studies book reviews editorial matter
  3. Written Communication Apr 2023
    Addressing an Unfulfilled Expectation: Teaching Students With Disabilities to Write Scientific Arguments ↗
    Susan De La Paz; Daniel M. Levin; Cameron Butler
    discourse analysis teacher development argument quantitative research literacy studies disability studies
  4. Pedagogy Apr 2023
    A Mighty Cooperative ↗
    Jennifer Horwitz
    discourse analysis decolonial rhetorics writing pedagogy teacher development argument qualitative research digital rhetoric multimodality online writing instruction race and writing disability studies place and space editorial matter
  5. Pedagogy Jan 2022
    Contributors ↗
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism genre theory discourse analysis african american rhetorics decolonial rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy basic writing writing across the curriculum graduate education teacher development argument collaborative writing transfer assessment portfolios writing program administration writing centers peer tutoring technical communication professional writing archival research digital rhetoric social media grammar and mechanics literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies public rhetoric community literacy literary studies editorial matter