Perceptual-Motor Activities in the Treatment of Severe Reading Disability.

Abstract

I first read this article in preprint form while I was taking a course on the diagnosis of reading difficulties from Bruce Balow in 1968 at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (an experience that merits its own story!). Both in preprint form and in its published form, this article has continued to be a source of inspiration to me as a teacher educator and a member of the profession of reading teachers. What was so important for me at the time I encountered it was the framework it provided for evaluating all of the then current claims about various sorts of instantaneous cures for children with reading difficulties. Balow took a straightforward approach to program evaluation: If you want to make a claim about the magical powers of your program to eradicate reading difficulties, then show me your data. Using actual data from evaluations of one after another of these programs, Balow debunked myth after myth about the nature of reading difficulties and approaches that claim miraculous cure rates. In the final analysis, he did not object to the inclusion of some of these perceptual motor activities in the school curriculum as long as folks included them for defensible (they give some kids an opportunity to demonstrate competence in nonspecific behavioral activities) rather than questionable (they can remediate reading disabilities) reasons. Most important, he ended by reminding us that programs that genuinely help troubled readers discover their inner strengths and make progress toward competence and independence consist of careful diagnosis and careful teaching by competent and concerned teachers. To me, the article is important on two counts: (a) it reminds us that data are more important than testimonials or personal endorsements in evaluating claims about program efficacy, and (b) it reminds us that concerned, knowledgeable professionals, not magic potions, are the key to helping kids find a pathway to lifelong literacy. Those are reminders we sorely need in the current crop of curricular debates.

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