Dyslexia is a hearing issue, not a reading issue!

This article explains the newly discovered connection between dyslexia and rhythm so well I am going to quote it.

Prof Usha Goswami found that “dyslexia is not caused by children reading words incorrectly, but instead, by their inability to hear the rhythm of words when they are being spoken. Brain scans show that the metre of words was out of phase with internal rhythms in the brain, meaning that youngsters struggled to encode the patterns, and therefore memorise speech.”

But keeping up rhythmic practice, including using nursery rhymes, will eventually help dyslexic children to read properly. This could have an enormous effect on the learning and early interventions in schools, not to mention the tens of thousands of children’s lives it could change.

In Australia, Dyslexia is estimated to affect some 10% of the population, which is deemed conservative whereas in other English-as-first-language countries such as Canada, the UK and the US it is estimated to be 20% (Source: Australian Dyslexia Association). That’s between 2 and 4 students in any Year 1 class of 20.

Just imagine if music learning could be used to improve the neural synchronisation of every child BEFORE they reach the age where they begin the Herculean cognitive task of learning how to read. How would our schools, families, communities and, way down the line, our criminal justice systems change?