Competence-the ability to do things in a smooth, effective manner-is unbelievably empowering. High tech devices may offer fun, but they do not provide the pride and confidence that come from having total mastery of a central skill. Mark Twain even went so far as to say, "Competence--that is the life that is best worth living."

Competence is particularly relevant to reading and ADD. As parents know, the problem is not simply that the children do not like to read or write. They also perform those activities in a far from stellar manner. Among their many difficulties are illegible handwriting, misreading words, error-laden spelling, and weak or non-existent punctuation.

The symptoms are so characteristic of children with ADD that they seem immutable. What we have generally overlooked, however, is the extent to which those symptoms have been fostered by the instructional programs the children are offered. Although it never was the intention, programs designed to help the children often work in an opposite manner.

While the idea of good intentions going awry is disturbing, it should be not surprising. Problems of this type exist in many fields. Medicine, for example, recognizes what are called "iatrogenic diseases." In Greek, iatros means physician and so iatrogenic is a term for diseases that are caused by the treatments doctors provide. Though it is not widely discussed, it is by no means rare. Current estimates are that iatrogenic disease is the third leading cause of death in our country.

Education has no comparable term, but a good candidate might be "scholigenic disorder"--meaning school-induced failure. We can see how this disorder might work by examining the way the two major systems of reading instruction impact children’s learning. The most powerful system is phonics--which teaches the sounds of words; the second, less influential but still prevalent, method is whole language--which concentrates on the meaning of texts such as stories and "journals."

While there is a range of phonics programs, all rely on teaching children to "sound out" unfamiliar words by assigning a sound to each letter. This technique has been so deeply ingrained in us that it seems the natural thing to do. Even parents who have never had an education course immediately say to a child who is confronting a troublesome word, "Well, let's sound it out. What sound does this letter make?"

Adults may feel certain that the instructions are helpful, but the same cannot be said of the children. Their reaction is far more likely to be, "Oh no, not that torture again."

As fate would have it, sounding out is not the extent of the problem. Even if you are willing to sound out any word that comes across your path, you won’t be able to. The vast majority of English words cannot be decoded by applying a sound to each letter. Try it with words such as bear, home, knife and see what happens. To enable children to read all the words they'll come across, they are asked to memorize rules--rules such as the "silent e" rule and the "double vowel" rule. The number of rules is impressive--almost 600 just to handle the words up to third grade reading.

For children with ADD, that is a recipe for disaster. Sounding out is difficult, memorization is even more difficult. Yet, these are the techniques they are given to use. Predictably, they don't use them. Their well-known impulsivity collides with the slow, deliberate analysis that the techniques require.

A common way children short-circuit the process is by guessing, based on the first one or two letters of a word (so that sweet might be read as short, water as wait, and so on). Teachers rightly interpret the resulting errors as signs that the techniques were not applied. So either via requests (e.g., "Now let’s sound that out") or questions (e.g., "Does that make sense?, What is the rule here?"), they try to get the techniques into play.

While under the teacher’s watchful eye, the children generally comply, reinforcing her belief that the system works. But once the adult moves away, the children’s inclinations take over, shoving the techniques back to various nooks and crannies in the brain. In brief, current phonics instruction is predicated on the children using techniques from which they recoil when they are on their own--leaving them bereft of ways to cope. Everything is in place for the "scholigenic disorder" to flourish.

If we consider whole language, we find that the situation is not all that different--even though superficially it seems to be. Central to that method is "invented spelling" where children are permitted, even encouraged, to write words in whichever way seems right to them (such as U for you, KOM for come, EGUL for eagle). The idea is that adult-imposed demands for accurate spelling constrain children, thereby interfering with their willingness and ability to express their ideas on paper.

At first glance, this technique would seem to be ideal. Instead of imposing demands that the children will not follow, the children are free to follow their impulses. Hence, there is no conflict between what the adults require and what the children do. The benign atmosphere is said to yield even more benefits. We are assured that when children are permitted to use their own natural patterns, those same patterns will steadily lead them to advance towards more mature forms. In other words, the children’s invented spelling will, without adult intrusion, transition into conventional (accurate) spelling.

As many a parent of a child with ADD can attest, the promised results do not occur. Instead, inaccurate, inconsistent spelling continues and even expands as new, complex vocabulary enters the scene. Things can get to such a point that even on a single page, a child may write the same word in several different ways (e.g., nite, night, knite, nihgt).

Given what we know about ADD, this is only to be expected. Admittedly, the children savor the freedom of not having to attend to details. But that in no way leads them to use this opportunity to strive for accuracy. They feel no call to abandon the less rigorous patterns they have been permitted to use. So they continue to write words in an inconsistent manner, choosing whatever combinations come to mind at a particular moment.

While the techniques of phonics and whole language seem diametrically opposed, at their core, they share a key similarity. Both assume that their instruction will lead children to develop a skill that is vital to effective reading--even though the systems themselves do nothing to directly foster that skill.

The skill in question is instant word recognition. It is the ability to look at a word and immediately know what it "says." This is the skill you are currently using. It’s what allows you to read this--and all other pages--effortlessly, without going through any conscious deliberation.

Once it takes hold, the skill of Instant word recognition is amazing. It enables you to "see" as totally distinct words that are almost identical. For example, consider the following pairs: kindle- kindly, sliver-silver, grid-gird, present-percent, value valve, slave-salve, stain-satin, quite-quiet, adult-audit, start-stare. Even though the words in each pair are similar in almost every possible way, it is instantly "obvious" to good readers that they are totally different. Word recognition skills are so powerful in experienced readers that they actually find it faster to identify whole words than single letters.

Both phonics and whole language acknowledge that instant word recognition is essential. They maintain, however, that it will occur as a natural outcome of the activities they have children do. In some cases, this does happen. As with any skill, there are children who independently and automatically extend what they have been taught. Jerome Bruner, a noted psychologist, termed this "the ability to go beyond the information given." Ironically, these talented children who require minimal instruction are often cited as proof that the system works.

For many, if not most, children, instant word recognition does not occur automatically as a by-product of some other, unrelated process such as "sounding out." It develops only through instruction specifically targeted to fostering an array of visually-based skills that includes scanning, sequencing, and memory.

Given their importance, you might be wondering why these basic skills have been ignored. The answer is to be found in our educational history. Back in the early 1900’s when reading problems were garnering attention, there was a pioneering figure--Dr. Samuel Orton. He maintained that visual problems (including reversals such as seeing b for d, or saw for was) were central to severe reading problems. Gradually, his idea was
discounted as people realized that many children, not simply those with problems, showed signs of those difficulties. The idea took hold that visual immaturities were a normal part of reading development--a valid notion. But that was not all. Since they were judged a normal part of behavior, it was assumed that the children will "pick them up" on their own--an invalid notion. Nevertheless, that idea took hold and a critical skill required for reading was cast aside, thereby opening the way for a "scholigenic disorder"

Clearly, the educational system needs to change. At the same time, it is unrealistic to expect that to happen quickly. In the meanwhile, what can be done? My answer is to place my faith in families. In my work over many decades, I have consistently been impressed by the dedication parents show for their children’s welfare. Their commitment is amazing. If some of the considerable time they spend with their children on school assignments is used to introduce new and better techniques, powerful change can take place.

To see what can be done, it's instructive to consider ways in which the necessary visual skills can be developed. These skills require high levels of accuracy--a difficult feat for children with ADD. However, its mastery is attainable by (a) using small amounts of material that the child can handle with relative ease and (b) requiring perfect performance on this limited, simple material. Essentially, these two features allow children to develop new habits--in place of large chunks of material executed haphazardly, there are now tiny amounts of material executed exquisitely. As the child’s skills improve, the amount of work is slowly and systematically increased.

Key components for fostering instant word recognition are:

The Material
Select a book your child can read relatively easily. That means the error rate should be 10% or less—so that out of 50 words, there would be no more than five errors. This step is vital because your child has to be near-accuracy in order to develop full-accuracy.

The Activity
1. Reading: Ask your child to read a connected set of three to five sentences. Correct any errors your child makes by telling him or her the correct word(s). Then your child re-reads the material. This pattern is repeated until your child reads the set of sentences with 100% accuracy.

2. Instructions to your child: Tell your child that (a) he or she is going to write one of the sentences (b) all the writing is going to be carried out from memory and (c) the price for error is high—any error, even if it is made on the last word, means re-starting from the beginning of the sentence. Provide a pencil and lined paper. If your child has handwriting problems, feel free to use a computer.

3. Writing single words: Show the sentence you have selected, point to the first word (so that your child sees a correct model), have your child say it, cover it and you ask your child to write it. If at all possible, discourage letter naming where your child names the letters in the words as an aid to writing. Unbelievable as it may seem, letter naming interferes with developing the visual skills that permit instant word recognition.

4. When correct: If the writing is correct (including punctuation and capitalization), move on to the next word. Before each word, you continue to show your child the word to be written. At no point, do you provide hints to your child about what is needed (so that you do NOT say, "Remember, you need to use a capital letter," or "This word has two e’s"). You continue on in this manner until the sentence has been completed.

5. When not correct: If there is an error, including errors in punctuation and capitalization, immediately stop your child, say an error has been made--but do not point out the error. Then take the paper away, provide fresh paper and start again from the first word. Before each word, you continue to show your child the model of the correct word--but you provide no hints for dealing with points of difficulty and you continue to remove the word before your child writes it.

6. Writing a complete sentence: Once the single sentence is completed one word at a time, your child re-writes the same sentence. This time, however, he or she does not see the visual model. You simply dictate the words of the entire sentence. If there is an error, you stop and repeat Steps 3-5. Then return to Step 6.

7. Moving on: It may take about three to four weeks for your child to handle a single sentence with total accuracy. One this level is attained, you expand the work one sentence at a time until your child is able to write four to five sentences with total accuracy,

8. Frequency: this activity should be carried out three to four times a week in sessions lasting 15-20 minutes. With this schedule, generally, within about two months, there is dramatic improvement in a child’s performance.

It may be hard to believe that children with ADD are capable of the diligence and accuracy that the activities require. But with the right structure, amazing things happen. The children begin to "see" the printed word in a new light and with that perception, "scholigenic disorder" is replaced with "scholigenic success." And as we all know, success is never "BORING!"