The Persistent 4th Grade Reading Level Myth

I came across this article, Born deaf, a Pinellas County girl starts school - and hears the school bell. Then one paragraph I read made me think "not again."

“Unfortunately, people who have hearing aides only, really can only get to a fourth grade reading level," said speech language pathologist Sarah Wilson. "You can't get very far in school with that reading level. Research has shown people with implants can go in regular classes, graduate from high school, go to college. So, the impact on education is humongous."

Those who have hearing aids only? Just WHERE do they get that kind of info? Either that's what the audiologist said at the interview or the reporter screwed up majorly in taking interview notes. There's plenty of those who have hearing aids and have gone through college and their reading level and English skills are pretty high.

Karen Putz wrote in her recent Barefoot in the Burbs blog It's Not What You Can Hear, It's About Attitude. Dang... Definitely attitude and then some!

Here's one more on the myth: A Permanent Breakdown in Communication. Some good points are made in there, but this line:

"Prelingually deafened children raised using ASL or another of the signed English systems (which keep trying to force ASL to be more like English) have roughly a 10% success rate at reading English (or any other traditionally spoken language) on grade level above the 4th grade."

I'm pretty sure the number is MUCH higher than 10%. I was reading at or above my grade level and was reading and devouring books pretty quickly. So much so that my two brothers complained at times that I was reading too much!

So let's quit stereotyping the so-called "fourth grade reading level" bull droppings myth. We're smarter than that.

Growing up Deaf - Part 17

Extracurricular Activities/outside of school

I was usually doing some sort of activity over time with someone if not by myself. I spent time reading books. It wasn't unusual for me to zip through a The Hardy Boys book in less than two hours in one sitting. I went through the classics, fiction, and mystery. Alfred Hitchcock, Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, and many more authors' books I read, much of the time just once. It wasn't unusual for me to read the book and then watch the movie, as it would make the movie more understandable despite the differences with the movie and book.

I searched for all ten books in Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth series and finished reading through them in two months after taking time off work due to a knee arthroscopy. Stephen King's IT took a bit of time to read due to all the flashbacks and sudden returns to the present, which sometimes had me go back a chapter or a few pages. I've also got just about all of Zane Grey's books, but haven't quite been able to read them all. I've also read the first four Harry Potter books, and have noticed that Rowling wrote it in such a way, that even the late elementary school readers would understand it. But of course, since they kept getting longer and longer, it was getting a little harder to remember little details here and there at times. Not only that, but hard to put down once the real action started!

Now and then mom would say "...that book can't be *THAT* interesting!" when I didn't put it down to do something she wanted me to do. My brother would sometimes put his hands out like he'd be reading a book and put it close to his face and give it the 'up and down' reading look. I think I can make him do that again sometime...

All this reading is pretty much the reason why my English skills have been good. All through school through twelfth grade, I had English classes, never skipping a year. After school, I was home a lot since I was almost never invited places by kids in my classes, not even parties or anything like that. If I wasn't doing homework, I could be out playing some when I was younger, reading, watching TV, watching a movie, or some other thing.

Out at GMU, I took my hopefully-final English course, which was online. One assignment used a team of five people writing up something and then submit it to the leader to put together in the final report. I was the team leader. We did well, getting an A in our report.

A couple booksellers in Illinois and a librarian in Kentucky knew me well. Now to see if I can do it with one around the DC area.

Next - Teasing and Mistreatment