My name is Luqman Michel and I teach dyslexic children 3 languages. All my students have no problem reading fluently in two of the languages and yet are dyslexic in English. My article is to challenge the more than 30 years old theory that phonological awareness deficit is the cause of dyslexics being unable to read.
 
I hope to get some feedback from educationalists and researchers. 
 
The National Institute of Neurological disorders and stroke defines dyslexia as:-
“Dyslexia is a brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a person's ability to read. These individuals typically read at levels significantly lower than expected despite having normal intelligence. Although the disorder varies from person to person, common characteristics among people with dyslexia are difficulty with spelling, phonological processing (the manipulation of sounds), and/or rapid visual-verbal responding.”
I do not support phonological processing as the cause of dyslexia. Dyslexia is a language barrier and not one of phoneme.
Let us examine phonological processing in depth.                                                    
 
Phonological processing/awareness refers to knowledge of the sound units (phonemes) used in a language, including the abilities to hear and produce separate phonemes.
•        Phonological awareness also involves knowing that words are composed of spoken sound units and that sound units can be combined to form words. For example, the spoken word "mat" consists of three phonemes: /m/, /a/, and /t/.Phonological awareness refers to (1) the process of breaking a spoken word into its sound units-such as being able to discriminate the sounds /m/, /a/, and /t/ when the word "mat"' is spoken-and (2) the process of producing and blending sound units to form spoken words-such as being able to produce and blend these three sounds when one wants to say the word "mat."
 
•        Students are classified as phonologically aware if they are able to break a spoken word such as "mat" into its three constituent sounds; to combine the /s/, /k/, /il/ and /l/ sounds to create the spoken word "skill"; and to say "kill" when asked to delete the /s/ sound from the spoken word, "skill". This is an example of phonological awareness assessment (referred to respectively as phoneme segmentation, phoneme blending, and phoneme deletion).

Other common assessments for phoneme awareness include:-

1. phoneme isolation (e.g., "Tell me the first sound in 'mat' ")
2. phoneme substitution (e.g., For 'boy' change the /b/ to /t/).
3. phoneme identity (e.g., Tell me the sound that is the same in 'cat,' 'cow,' and 'cot' ) and
4. phoneme categorization (e.g., Tell me which word does not belong: 'bat,' 'boy,' 'mug') 

As detailed, all assessments of phonological awareness involve spoken words and sounds and never involve printed words or letters. What happens when a child cannot answer some of these questions? He is branded as a child with ‘phonological awareness deficit”.
If the questions are only verbal the researchers may be able to differentiate dyslexics from a non dyslexic but does it mean that those who cannot do these exercises have a “phonological awareness deficit?”  I look forward to answers for this question.
In the late 1950’s, students in Malaysia were never questioned like this. They were read to and asked by teachers to read aloud. Those who were weak were given extra classes and more reading until they too became good readers. Perhaps this method of teaching, wherein there is more reading in a class, should be reintroduced.
“The most common barrier to learning early word reading skills is the inability to process language phonologically (Liberman, Shankweiler, & Liberman, 1989). Moreover, developments in research and understanding have revealed that this weakness in phonological processing most often hinders early reading development for both students with and without disabilities (Fletcher 1994).”
The above was written in the 1980’s and 1990’s and every other researcher and many dyslexics believe in this statement without questioning. The same thing continues to be written to this day.

For at least the last 30 years researchers have been talking about the contribution of phonological awareness to reading acquisition. The questions to ask are:-

1.      Is the literacy level, world- wide, any higher than it was 30 years ago?
2.      Is there explicit instruction in letter-sound correspondence? Are children who learn English taught that many of the letters in English represent more than one phoneme (sound)?
3.      Is phonological awareness the culprit in students not being able to read?  Could it be something else? (Refer to articles on shut Down Learners) (Note 1)
4.      If phonological awareness deficit is what makes reading difficult then how is it that  dyslexic students can read fluently in Malay and Romanized Mandarin?
5.      Would all the students who were classified as able to process English language phonologically, based on the above study, be able to read the following words if it was the first time they have seen it and have never heard the words before? – said, island, quay, which, salmon and hundreds of other similar words. About half of the common Dolch words also fall into this category.

Many dyslexic students can read fluently in Malay. They can read as well as any other child. Why is this so? Plainly stated it is because all words in Malay are phonologically consistent. (Except for the letter ‘e’) (Note 2)
The dyslexic students  who read in HanYu Pin Yin (Romanized Mandarin) can read fluently in this language. The question posed is why? The letters used in both Malay and Romanized Mandarin are the same 26 letters used in English.
These dyslexic students can also read a list of individual words as fluently as any other child in English.... provided that these words are phonetically correct. Despite their ability to read fluently in Han Yu Pin Yin and Malay these students are certified as dyslexic due to their inability to read English books fluently. By this premise, are non readers of Han Yu Pin Yin and Malay also dyslexic? 
I do hope that some experts out there can please help me with this question - Is phonological awareness deficit the problem with dyslexic students having a problem reading in English? If so what about all the research reports by the various researchers which say that dyslexics can read fluently in orthographically consistent languages. (Note 3)
I am concerned that the research findings about phonemic awareness is being misused or over generalised. I believe that we can reduce the illiteracy level by more systematic instruction and engagement with language early in preschool, and kindergarten classes.
I am passionate about teaching dyslexic children and success in teaching dyslexic children to read is my goal. If Liz Dunoon (Note.4) can teach dyslexic children to read in 6 weeks then there has to be something that she is doing that is different from some of the other teachers. It has to be something different from ‘phonological awareness deficit’ for dyslexic children to be able to read in such a short time.
I have spoken about ‘Shut Down Learners’ and how they shut down when something illogical is taught to them (Note 1). I believe that most of the dyslexics fall into this group of shut down learners. If we teach them in a way appropriate for them they learn to become good readers.
Talking about dyslexics having a phonological awareness deficit and trying to figure out a solution is like pouring petrol into a diesel engine and  asking why  the engine is not working. The problem is not the engine it the fuel. A dyslexic child needs to be taught in a different way - in a way acceptable to him/her. It has nothing to do with having phonological awareness deficit.
It is high time that we do away with the more than 30 years old theory that dyslexics are unable to read because of phonological awareness deficit.

Luqman Michel

http://www.parentingdyslexia.com

Notes

1.http://www.parentingdyslexia.com/2010/06/discourse-with-drrichard-selznick.html
2.http://www.parentingdyslexia.com/2010/02/dyslexia-malay-mandarin-and-english.html
3.http://www.parentingdyslexia.com/2010/02/research-reports.html
4.http://www.parentingdyslexia.com/2010/09/informed-parents-key-to-beating.html#more