A4
OPINION
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Alliance
offers exciting
potential
L
ast month a coalition
of agricultural and
environmental groups
announced an historic alliance
to recommend proposals to
the Biden administration to
address climate change.
The new Food and Agri-
culture Climate Alliance, or
FACA, brings together groups
typically pitted against one
another.
It’s exciting stuff, and the
participants have reason to
celebrate.
FACA was formed in Feb-
ruary by four groups that
co-chair the alliance: the
American Farm Bureau Fed-
eration, National Council of
Farmer Cooperatives, Envi-
ronmental Defense Fund and
National Farmers Union.
It was later joined by the
Food Industry Association,
National Alliance of Forest
Owners, National Associa-
tion of State Departments of
Agriculture and The Nature
Conservancy.
“We’re proud to have bro-
ken through historic barri-
ers to form a unique alliance,”
American Farm Bureau Feder-
ation President Zippy Duvall
said at a virtual press confer-
ence Nov. 17.
The goal, FACA’s leaders
say, is to have a hand in cli-
mate policy on the front end
rather than just fighting on the
back end. This way, they say,
farmers are less likely to get
hurt.
“Our goal from the start
was to be at the table with the
policy development process,
not sort of reacting after the
fact,” Chuck Conner, presi-
dent and CEO of the National
Council of Farmer Coopera-
tives, said.
Environmental groups
that signed on were similarly
impressed with the newfound
fellowship and the progress
that has been made.
“It’s been surprisingly cor-
dial. There’s a lot more we
could agree on than any of
us thought we could,” Callie
Eideberg, director of govern-
ment relations at the Environ-
mental Defense Fund, said.
FACA members have
developed more than 40 cli-
mate policy recommenda-
tions to hand over to the Biden
administration and Congress.
The coalition says the pol-
icies are all voluntary, incen-
tive-based programs designed
to simultaneously slow envi-
ronmental degradation and
support farmers.
That sounds good, and
there’s no doubt that this is
an unprecedented alliance. If
ag interests can have a hand
in crafting policy proposals
before they become law, then
the effort will be worthwhile.
A bit of skepticism might
be in order.
No matter how many envi-
ronmental groups join the alli-
ance, there will always be one
more that’s a little more hard-
core outside the group that’s
ready to file a challenge. The
real test of a friendship will
come when the lawsuits start
flying.
Nonetheless, we support
any effort that seeks common
ground and better understand-
ing between traditional adver-
saries. Dialogue is most often
preferred to debate.
New friendships always
require a leap of faith. But we
suggest all parties enter the
alliance with arms, and eyes,
wide open.
EDUCATION CORNER
Dyslexia — what is it?
D
yslexia is not simply letter
reversals or not trying hard
enough. With the advance-
ment of technology, researchers
have been able to observe the brain
while people who struggle with
reading are reading information.
From this research, they determined
people with the current definition
of dyslexia often struggle with lan-
guage development along with dis-
tinguishing sounds found in our lan-
guage and transferring them to text.
Language is a natural skill that
we all develop at different levels
whereas text has been created by
man. About 20% of the population’s
brains have difficulty processing
man-created symbols. There is no
correlation between intelligence or
creativity. Dyslexics are often very
visual and creative in their thinking.
Children who appear to be dys-
lexic often have a family history
of dyslexia. The spectrum of dys-
lexia is wide and a person may only
exhibit minor indicators whereas
others may exhibit many indica-
tors to an extreme. With early iden-
tification and interventions often,
the characteristics can be minimal-
ized making education and read-
ing easier for them. Not hearing
sounds in words and rhyming as a
pre-schooler is an indicator along
with rapidly reading colors, objects
or letters. With practice, pre-school-
ers and kindergartners have no prob-
lem mastering these skills and move
on to letter recognition and sound
representations.
Normal reading patterns go from
pre-alphabetic, partial alphabetic,
full alphabetic and consolidated
alphabetic. Pre-alphabetic begins in
preschool and increases during kin-
dergarten. This is when the child
begins becoming
aware that letters
have meaning and
begins to use visual
clues. Partial alpha-
betic is when the
child knows their
Dr. Scott
letter names (upper
Smith
and lower case)
and is becoming
aware of sounds in words and link-
ing them to the letters. This happens
most often towards the end of kin-
dergarten and during the start of first
grade. Full alphabetic awareness
should be strong by the middle of
first grade. Students understand the
phoneme/grapheme relationship and
are able to blend words of which
phonics skills have been taught.
Consolidated understanding should
be mastered by the end of first grade
and at the latest in the first part of
second grade. This means the stu-
dents are able to read decodable
texts fluently along with being able
to spell words applying their phonic
knowledge.
Dyslexic students often exhibit
other instructional difficulties such
as dysgraphia (inability to write
coherently), visual processing
issues, auditory processing issues,
attention problems such as ADHD,
memory struggles, language devel-
opment, mood swings and coordina-
tion. The dyslexic spectrum is wide
and a person may have many indi-
cators or exhibit just a couple. One
thing for sure is that dyslexia is not
a determination of intelligence.
Dyslexia is not just found in one
sex. It is equal, though how the dif-
ferent sexes display frustration with
dyslexia can be quite different.
Boys most often become frustrated
and become active, often lead-
ing to behavior problems. There-
fore, they are often identified earlier.
Girls many times become compla-
cent and quiet. They are often not
identified as having dyslexia until
upper grades or even in college.
Even though they have the same
struggles, many appear to be able to
develop coping skills and are able to
move through the system.
Dyslexia affects every per-
son differently and no two are the
same. They may have some of the
same characteristics but their brain
makeup is different. Often, they
have problems with spoken lan-
guage, reading, writing and other
subjects in school. But they may
also deal with self-image issues and
interactions with peers. It is some-
thing they deal with for life whether
it be dealing socially or needing to
read something aloud. They carry
that worry and anxiety with them
every day. Many times it leads to
depression later in life.
Though there are weaknesses
and struggles, many dyslexics have
strengths that others may not have
such as thinking outside of the box.
They are often able to imagine in
a three-dimensional mode and are
able to see the “big picture” when
presented with projects. They usu-
ally love to problemsolve. These are
all skills we need in every part of
our society.
Dr. Scott Smith is a Umatilla
County educator with 40-plus years
of experience. He taught at McNary
Heights Elementary School and
then for Eastern Oregon University
in their teacher education program
at Blue Mountain Community Col-
lege. He serves on the Decoding
Dyslexia — OR board as their par-
ent-teacher liaison.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The silence is
deafening
WHERE TO WRITE
GRANT COUNTY
• Grant County Courthouse — 201
S. Humbolt St., Suite 280, Canyon City
97820. Phone: 541-575-0059. Fax:
541-575-2248.
• Canyon City — P.O. Box 276, Canyon
City 97820. Phone: 541-575-0509.
Fax: 541-575-0515. Email: tocc1862@
centurylink.net.
• Dayville — P.O. Box 321, Dayville
97825. Phone: 541-987-2188. Fax: 541-
987-2187. Email:dville@ortelco.net
• John Day — 450 E. Main St, John
Day, 97845. Phone: 541-575-0028.
Fax: 541-575-1721. Email: cityjd@
centurytel.net.
• Long Creek — P.O. Box 489, Long
Creek 97856. Phone: 541-421-3601.
Fax: 541-421-3075. Email: info@
cityoflongcreek.com.
• Monument — P.O. Box 426,
Monument 97864. Phone
and fax: 541-934-2025. Email:
cityofmonument@centurytel.net.
• Mt. Vernon — P.O. Box 647, Mt.
Vernon 97865. Phone: 541-932-4688.
Fax: 541-932-4222. Email: cmtv@
ortelco.net.
• Prairie City — P.O. Box 370, Prairie
City 97869. Phone: 541-820-3605. Fax:
820-3566. Email: pchall@ortelco.net.
• Seneca — P.O. Box 208, Seneca
97873. Phone and fax: 541-542-2161.
Email: senecaoregon@gmail.com.
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
Published every
Wednesday by
To the Editor:
Your paper has been print-
ing up-to-date information regard-
ing new infections and deaths due
to COVID-19 — but the needed
accompanying facts are glaringly
missing. We went a long period
of time with few local infections
apparent — but also apparently
very low testing numbers. Then,
suddenly more aggressive testing —
and guess what, lots of new hidden
infections likely there all the time,
but no test, no evidence of infec-
tions. Now, likely in an effort to
bring official infection stats down to
appease business owners and par-
ents with school age kids, testing is
again limited, sporadic and tricky to
obtain. We taxpayers pay for health
department activity, and we sub-
scribers pay the newspaper to pro-
vide meaningful, well-detailed
info. So, telling us there are five
“new cases” of COVID is mean-
ingless without knowing how many
tests were done to get those num-
bers. What are the local age groups
most infected, and how many ICU
cases are being treated locally, or
shipped elsewhere, and where is
“elsewhere”? I’m not talking intru-
sion of privacy, but facts that make
the headlines meaningful. The
silence concerning detailed, mean-
ingful info is deafening, both from
the health department, and the
newspaper.
Gary Davidson
Canyon City
L
ETTERS POLICY: Letters to the Editor is a forum for Blue Mountain Eagle readers to express themselves on local, state, national or world issues.
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Editor’s note: The informa-
tion presented about testing is not
entirely accurate. After an uptick
of cases was already recorded in
Grant County, the health depart-
ment offered curbside testing in
early November, which identified
more cases. Since then, the health
department has been offering test-
ing Mondays through Thursdays.
The health department provides
daily updates when new cases
are recorded but does not pro-
vide the number of tests adminis-
tered in those daily updates. The
health department and hospital
have declined to provide informa-
tion about patient ages, intensive
care or transfers due to patient
privacy concerns, except at a
regional level, which the Eagle has
published.
Phone: 541-575-0710
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