VII. A FOUR-YEAR STUDY OF A NON-READER
From February, 1918, to May, 1922, the present writer studied and taught a non-reader, a schoolboy.
X was brought to the Psychological Laboratory at Teachers College, in February, 1918, by his mother. The complaint was that the child could not learn to read, and on this account he had been suggested by his teachers for the ungraded class, in which feeble-minded children are taught. His mother, an intelligent woman, could scarcely believe X to be feeble-minded, because he “is very quick about things around home, is keen and capable about doing errands for money, and though he cannot read, gets around the city by himself.” She felt, however, that a boy who after over six years of instruction still remained totally illiterate must require special advice of some kind.
Accordingly, when the suggestion in reference to the ungraded class was made, the mother took X to the Neurological Institute, where an examination was made, in the Psychological Laboratory. The report was then given that the child was not a proper pupil for such a class, and the matter was referred to Teachers College.
X was born on September 23, 1906. He was therefore 11 years and 5 months old when he was first seen by the present writer. His school history showed that he started to school in kindergarten at the age of 5 years, and went into the first grade at 6 years. He had been “left back” in nearly every class, after the study of reading began. He spent three terms in 1A; one term in 1B; two terms in 2A; two terms in 2B; two terms in 3A; and was, when first examined, repeating 3B. In 3B he was reported as “deficient in everything except conduct.” In conduct he was rated always as B+ or A. The teachers said they could not teach him.
When X was about 7 years old, the matter of his difficulties was first taken up, with the family physician, who said he would “grow out of it and be all right.” As years passed, and the child continued to be untaught, the physician finally advised the visit to the Neurological Institute.
The teacher’s opinion was that the boy must be feeble-minded, since five different teachers had tried to instruct him in reading and spelling, yet he had failed to read or spell any word, except his name. He could recognize his name among other words, and could draw it fairly well, much as he would draw a house or tree. He could not spell his name.
Vision and audition had been tested at the Manhattan Eye and Ear Infirmary, and the report was that no significant defect of eye or ear existed. Motor tests showed the boy to be right-handed, so that interference in word-management, possibly due to change in “handedness,” was eliminated.
The developmental history of X as an organism reveals nothing atypical, except defects of speech and difficulty in reading. He was born normally, walked and talked before he was two years old, and was normal in dentition. But he did not talk plainly till he was about 6 years old. He had a speech defect, stuttered, and could not say “l”.
His medical history shows that he had whooping cough as a baby; that tonsils and adenoids were removed at the age of 5 years; that he had an abscess in the left ear at the age of 4 years, which lasted about two weeks, but did not impair hearing; that he had diphtheria at the age of 11 years, a bad case, followed by temporary paralysis of the soft palate; that he had never had any convulsion or loss of consciousness; that he had never had chorea, or other disease of the nervous system. Physically he was well developed, measurements on February 14, 1918, being as follows: Standing height, 59.8 inches; sitting height, 29.6 inches; weight (with ordinary clothing on), 86¼ pounds; cranial circumference, 21.2 inches; right grip (Smedley), 20 Kg.; left grip, 18 Kg.; lung capacity (wet spirometer), 130 cubic inches.
As for family history, X is the youngest of four siblings, all others of whom learned without difficulty to read and spell. His sister graduated from high school with a state scholarship, went through college, and is now a teacher in a high school. An older brother graduated from the elementary school at 14 years, in spite of the fact that he missed two semesters through illness. He also had a speech defect “about the same as X,” but outgrew it. Another brother had reached 8B by the time he was 13 years old. Of thirteen cousins attending school, only one had ever been “left back.”
The mother had graduated at the usual age from common school. The father had been troubled in boyhood by a speech defect, which disappeared. “He could not say certain words and letters.” On this account he did not like school. As an adult he reads the newspapers, and “can write a straight letter.”
X had never known any language other than English, so that interference of habit from other languages was ruled out. No attempt had been made to teach him reading at home, until after the reports of his disability began to be made from the school.
General intelligence was measured by the Stanford-Binet Scale, with a resulting score of 9 years 9 months mental age, and IQ 85. It was thus seen that general intelligence was quite sufficient for learning to read. From general intelligence of this degree, in a child under ordinary instruction for six years, one would usually be justified in predicting close to a fourth grade score on tests of reading.
In this case, however, scores of zero were yielded on all tests of ability to read. No word or letter on any scale could be read. There was, therefore, no question of making an analysis of the child’s difficulty through the use of such tests, since all scores were uniformly zero.
X was anxious to learn, and was becoming self-conscious because of his failure to go ahead. At this time no speech defect was noted by the examiner, and it was supposed to have been “outgrown.” He could copy writing, with some errors, and, as seemed strange, could transpose print into writing, though slowly and with errors.
Since sensory capacity was normal, general intelligence was developed well beyond the minimum at which reading can be taught, and character traits, such as promptness, reliability, and fidelity to duty, were reported to be better than average, it was decided to undertake to teach the child to read. Upon being asked whether he could travel alone from his school in Brooklyn to the office at Teachers College, both he and his mother replied without hesitation in the affirmative, “for he has ways of finding out where he is, without reading.”
Accordingly, from February to June, 1918, X came three times a week to Teachers College, and received special instruction in reading and spelling from Miss Sara Fisk, at that time a graduate student in the Department of Educational Psychology. After some experimentation with the attempt to teach by the word and sentence as units, Miss Fisk decided to begin by teaching first the alphabet, and to proceed with the letter as the unit. X thus learned to read, by spelling out the letters, and “sounding” them as he went. In this way, by the first of June, 1918, he knew and could sound and could write every letter of the alphabet, but could not write the capitals; and he had a reading vocabulary of eighty simple monosyllables. He was advised to study through the summer vacation, if he could.
In October, 1918, X returned to the College, seeking instruction, but Miss Fisk had discontinued her studies, and no teacher was available at the moment. In March, 1919, X’s mother reported that he had “done nothing” in reading and spelling at school, though he was not deficient in geography or arithmetic, and asked for assistance. Upon this report, X was invited to come for further instruction, which was given thereafter by the present writer.
The method previously undertaken was continued. The Riverside Primer was mastered, between March and June of 1919. Each new word was learned by spelling aloud and sounding. After several repetitions of this process, a new word would be assimilated into the vocabulary which could be read at sight, with the word as the unit of perception. In June of 1919, X could read any word in the Riverside Primer, either at sight or by spelling, and could write without error every letter of the alphabet, both small letters and capitals. He could also read simple matter which interested him in daily life, such as the weather reports, from newspapers.
From October, 1919, to June, 1920, X came for one hour each week, to be instructed. The Riverside First Reader was studied through. He made steady progress, as may best be seen from the repeated measurements on Trabue’s “Language Scale A,” which are illustrated in Figure 6 (page [77]).
In September, 1920, X entered grade 5B, being 14 years of age, three years retarded in school status, by the New York City age-grade norms. His speech defect was again noticeable. All through this year, till June, 1921, he came for one hour each week to take instruction in reading and spelling. The series of Riverside readers was now abandoned, in favor of the history and other books used regularly in grade 5B. Toward the end of that school year, some reading was also done from boys’ stories, in which X had spontaneously become interested during the summer of 1920.
From October, 1921, to May, 1922, stories written for boys were used as material for the reading lesson. X brought with him whatever book he happened to be reading at the moment, and the lesson was taken from it. By this time X had become so fond of silent reading as a pastime that several difficulties in oral reading, not previously present, developed. One of these was the tendency to guess at new words, without waiting to perceive them accurately, in order to get on with the story. Another was the tendency to leave out all well known and unimportant monosyllables, such as “and,” “the,” “but,” “of,” “who,” and so forth. These words he knew unerringly when he could be induced to look at them, but in silent reading he had evidently formed the habit of neglecting them altogether. These faults were corrected by practice in reading backwards, which offers no incentive to skip words.
Samples of X’s tests in reading are reproduced in Figures 6, 7, and 8, in order that an accurate idea may be conveyed of his growth in power to gain meaning from the printed page.
X’s account of a week’s reading, reproduced in Figure 9 (page [86]), gives an idea of the amount of outside reading regularly done, and at the same time an idea of proficiency in writing and spelling words, attained in January, 1922.
A partial list of books read for pleasure, on his own initiative by X, between December, 1921, and May, 1922, gives an idea of the practice he had in silent reading outside of formal instruction. This is presented on page [85], as follows.
Fig. 6—Part 1.
The five parts of Figure 6 show how X improved as measured by Trabue’s “Language Scale A,” from Feb., 1918, to Dec., 1921.
Fig. 6—Part 2.
Fig. 6—Part 3.
Fig. 6—Part 4.
Fig. 6—Part 5.
Fig. 7—Part 1.
The two parts of Figure 7 show X’s improvement in silent reading, from April 15, 1921, to Dec. 2, 1921, as measured by Thorndike-McCall “Reading Scale,” Form 1.
(On the latter date, X answered 23 questions correctly, scoring 52 points, which is the norm for the end of grade 6B.)
Fig. 7—Part 2.
Fig. 8.—Showing X’s ability to get meaning from printed words, in May, 1922, as tested by Haggerty’s “Sigma 1,” for grades 1 to 3. This does not represent X’s maximum ability, but is presented as a sample of his work on this scale.
Two Young Patriots. E. T. Tomlinson.
Ralph on the Overland Express. Allen Chapman.
Scouts of Stonewall. J. A. Altsheler.
Army Boys on the Firing Line. Homer Randall.
Among the Malays. G. A. Henty.
Ralph in the Rocky Mountains. Allen Chapman.
The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point. Quincey Allen.
Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain.
Andy at Yale. Roy E. Stokes.
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle.
Repeated mental tests of X resulted as follows:
| Stanford-Binet | Feb. 14, 1918. | M. A. 9–9. | IQ 85.[[11]] |
| Dec. 5, 1919. | M. A. 11–3. | IQ 85. | |
| Jan. 6, 1922. | M. A. 12–7. | IQ 82. |
Pintner’s “Scale of Performance Tests.” Dec. 26, 1919. Median M. A. 11–0.
Healy’s “Pictorial Completion No. I.” 446 points. (11-year performance). Dec. 26, 1919.
Healy’s “Pictorial Completion No. II.” 55 points. Dec. 26, 1919.
Stenquist “Mechanical Tests,” Series I. Feb. 3, 1922. Raw Score, 54 points. T score, 61.
It is of interest to note that a scale like Stanford-Binet, against which has been repeatedly brought the a priori objection that it depends on verbal acquirement, is capable of differentiating a non-reader from the feeble-minded. It is also interesting that the Pintner “Scale of Performance Tests,” which does not include ability to read at all, gives almost exactly the same result as the Stanford-Binet, in this case.
Fig. 9.—Showing an account written by X of his week’s reading.
X is a boy of superior character. He never missed an appointment with his instructor, and was never tardy except once, unavoidably. He gave up pleasures, such as trying out for baseball, in order to learn reading. When asked why he did so, he replied that “You most probably can’t get a living playing baseball, but you can get a better living if you can read.” These qualities of perseverance and fidelity to duty were undoubtedly very important factors in such success as was achieved.
Why did X not learn to read as children of his general character and endowment usually do, in the ordinary course of schooling? After four years of studying and teaching him, the present writer cannot give a definite answer to this question. He was finally taught to read by a method in which the letter is the unit of perception, and in which words are read in the first place by spelling them aloud. This is not the method used in the schools where X attended, nor in any modern school.
Still, the possibility of teaching him by some method other than that which succeeded, has not been excluded. It is even possible that he might have learned to read by the very method used in the schools, under individual instruction, where each habit can be scrutinized as it is being formed. In a class of forty or fifty children, each demanding attention, a teacher cannot succeed with an individual pupil, by any method, as well as with that pupil alone, by that same method.
It was observed throughout the teaching of X that he constantly made appeal to his ear. He could always grasp a difficult word more easily by hearing it spelled aloud, than he could by seeing it. In order to obtain some quantitative statement of the extent to which auditory perception showed an advantage over visual perception in his case, the following experiment was tried.
In the spring of 1922, on four successive weekly appointments, 27 paragraphs, comprising 4131 words, were read by X, both (1) through the ear, the teacher spelling the words, and X pronouncing them without seeing them, and (2) through the eye, X seeing and saying the words, in the usual way. The order of these procedures was reversed for alternating paragraphs, so that no advantage to either method of perception would accrue from practice.
Errors are of two kinds—misreadings and omissions. Omissions in sight reading were not counted, since, according to the method whereby the teacher spelled successive words to X, no omissions were possible. Misreadings only were counted. In reading these paragraphs, X made 162 errors through the eye, and but 57 errors through the ear, in perceiving the same words.
This great reduction in error through auditory channels might, however, be due to the fact that by that method only one word was presented at a time, whereas in the ordinary visual reading the whole page of words was presented, acting as a distraction. In order to check this possible error in interpretation, one hundred isolated words were presented to the eye and to the ear, reversing the procedure alternately for every ten words. The ratio of error was nearly the same as in the first experiment. X can now, in fact, pronounce almost any puzzling word in ordinary reading matter, such as is found in newspapers, by spelling it aloud.
It seems reasonable, therefore, to infer that there are certain specific attributes of the auditory elements in reading, which were especially important for education, in this boy’s case, and which were not much utilized by the method of teaching employed. By teaching him the letter, with its various possible sounds, as the unit of perception, we supplied him with a tool which enables him to construct words for himself, through the channels which are easiest for him. This has not rendered him fluent, but it has rendered him literate. Altogether, he had from us about a hundred and fifty hours of special instruction. The present writer believes that with several times as much practice as X has had, he will become a reasonably fluent sight reader, dropping out the spelling almost entirely.
This case is very much like those referred to by Hinshelwood, and it is interesting that the teachers adopted, after trial and error, the same method adopted by Hinshelwood, without being familiar at that time with Hinshelwood’s contribution.
Inasmuch as a certain practical interest attaches to the final outcome of educational adjustment in such cases, it may be stated that X at the age of sixteen years will leave the elementary school, having completed grade 6B. He will then seek admission to a trade school, maintained by one of the great industries.