Edvocacy's goal is 100% literate America.

THE PROBLEM

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Words are made up of sounds. The ability to blend sounds into words, and then analyze and manipulate the sounds within words, is essential to reading. Although our brains have an innate ability to process sounds, written language is a more recent evolutionary innovation. Indeed, there is no specific neural network dedicated to dealing with written words. Instead, the brain breaks words down into units of sound and recognizes them as elements of a phonetic code.

By age seven, most of us learn to derive meaning by assembling this code from the characters and symbols on a page. But those who struggle to read often have great difficulty decoding these visual clues (characters, symbols, letters, "squiggles on a page") into sound and, therefore, meaning. These difficulties in decoding written language have nothing to do with intelligence or motivation.

For many who struggle with these issues, reading, writing, and spelling involve a continuous struggle to "hear", analyze, and separate the individual units of sound within words. Yet, these challenges can be overcome! The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) reports that over 90% of reading-impaired children can learn to overcome their reading challenges, if only they are provided with appropriate intervention at an early age; and that reading failure caused by disabilities such as dyslexia is preventable through direct, explicit instruction in phonemic awareness. With proper identification and remediation, we can enable all children to apply their considerable skills and talents to enrich their own lives and to contribute successfully in the world we all share.