Dyslexia & Reading Problems

Developmental dyslexia is a condition related to poor reading. Children with dyslexia have difficulty learning to read due to one or more information processing problems such as visual perceptual or auditory perceptual deficits. Many but not all children with dyslexia have difficulty with reversals of numbers, letters or words. New research points the way to specific methods of instruction that can help anyone learn to read well no matter what the underlying problem may be. Following the links will provide interesting new information as well as extremely effective solutions for all types of reading problems including developmental dyslexia.


What is dyslexia?
Children who have an average or above IQ and are reading 1 1/2 grades or more below grade level may be dyslexic. True dyslexia affects about 3 to 6 percent of the population yet in some parts of the country up to 50% of the students are not reading at grade level. This means that the reason for most children not reading at grade level is ineffective reading instruction. The dyslexic child often suffers from having a specific learning disability as well as being exposed to ineffective instruction.

Children may have dyslexia or a learning disability if they have one or more of the following symptoms:
• Letter or word reversals when reading. (Such as was/saw, b/d, p/q).
• Letter or word reversals when writing.
• Difficulty repeating what is said to them.
• Poor handwriting or printing ability.
• Poor drawing ability.
• Reversing letters or words when spelling words that are presented orally.
• Difficulty comprehending written or spoken directions.
• Difficulty with right - left directionality.
• Difficulty understanding or remembering what is said to them.
• Difficulty understanding or remembering what they have just read.
• Difficulty putting their thoughts on paper.

Children with dyslexia do not exhibit these symptoms due to poor vision or hearing but because of brain dysfunction. The eyes and ears are working properly but the lower centers of the brain scramble the images or sounds before they reach the higher (more intelligent) centers of the brain. This causes confusion as well as frustration for the learner.

When a child is having difficulty learning, a comprehensive neurodevelopmental exam is important. This includes testing of hearing, vision, neurological development, coordination, visual perception, auditory perception, intelligence, and academic achievement.

Often, perception problems can be helped with simple exercises which either help to improve a specific problem or teach techniques to compensate for a problem. These often can be done at home. In a few cases, a referral to an educational or speech therapist may be helpful.

A Word of Caution

Care must be exercised in using the N.I.M. method that you do not try to push your child beyond his intelligence expectancy grade level. For example, if a child has approximately 100 I.Q. and is in the fifth grade, it could be assumed that he would read up to the fifth grade level. Many times this grade level can be achieved within about 8 to 12 hours of the N.I.M. if the child has started at the third grade level. If you continue on with the N.I.M. after expectancy has been achieved, very little additional gain is to be expected. However, if you wish to spend a few hours of instructional time experimenting to make certain the child has reached his optimum level, this may be well justified. It will not harm the child if you are sure not to press for results beyond his capacity.





Make It an Adventure!

The attitude of the parent is going to make or break the success of the reading sessions. Your approach should be cheerful not business like. For example, "Okay, we are going to read for 15 minutes. I've been looking forward to it all day." Tune out any negative signals you may receive from the child. Simply get out the materials, sit down on the couch, and pat the place next to you where you wish the child to sit. The sessions are so short and so undemanding, we can promise that the child will cooperate, especially when he begins to notice signs of improvement in his reading-and he will notice.

Don't stint on praise-but keep it honest. A pat on the head accompanied by, "Wow! You were great today," will do much to keep the level of enthusiasm high.

Do not allow any interruptions. This is your time with the child for a specific purpose and he is not going to take it seriously if you bound up to take a telephone call or answer the door. Have another adult or a sibling posted to run interference during these important fifteen minutes.
Scheduling the reading session at the same time and in the same place every day helps not only to bring organization and structure to the commitment but also places a value on it. "This is the time when Johnny and I read together but I can see you in fifteen minutes."

It should be carefully noted that not every parent is capable of working with his child on an academic level. Very simply, some parents work extremely well with their children-others find it a frustrating, exasperating experience. If you are one of the latter, waste no time on feelings of guilt, we cannot all be all things to our children. (You're probably terrific in a number of other parent-child activities.)

Parents who can work well with their children and who want to help in the academic situation often don't know what to do or how to do it. Happily, the Neurological Impress Method of Reading is one thing a parent can do with confidence and with every chance of success.

Helping Your Child At HomeWith The Neurological Impress Method of Reading

by http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/

If you are a parent who enjoys working with your child, who finds that time spent together in academic pursuits is productive and rewarding, and if your child needs reinforcement in the area of reading, then you may wish to consider the Neurological Impress Method (N.I.M.) devised by R.G. Heckelman, PhD. This method has proved so successful it has been used by thousands of parents throughout North America. The reason for N.I.M.'s success is that it truly combines seeing/ hearing/speaking for simultaneous learning.

It is a particularly effective home method because no special training is required and the cost involved is negligible. All you need is reading material at the proper level for your child. Dr. Heckelman recommends 2-3 grade levels below the child's actual grade level. The material can be borrowed from the school or checked out at the local library.

Don't be misled by the simplicity of the N.I.M,. it works! And, it is particularly effective in the one-to-one setting of parent and child. Only fifteen minutes a day (on consecutive days) for a period of eight to twelve hours is required. Generally, positive results will occur at about the fourth hour of instruction. (If no gains have been noted by this time, there may be other interfering difficulties that are limiting the child's progress with N.I.M.)

Seat the child slightly in front of you so that your voice is close to the child's ear. Dr. Heckelman recommends that the parent sit on the right side of the child.




From the very first session, you and the child will read the same material out loud together. It is generally advisable in the beginning sessions that you read a little louder and slightly faster than the child is reading. Initially, the child may complain that he cannot keep up with you but urge him to continue and ignore any mistakes he may be making. An alternative is to slow down slightly to a more comfortable speed for the youngster. By re-reading lines or paragraphs several times together before going on to more reading material, this discomfort on the part of the child is quickly overcome. You will find that you and he will establish a comfortable rhythm in a very short time. In most cases, only two or three minutes of repetition is sufficient.

Very little preliminary instruction is necessary before the reading begins. The child is told not to think of reading since we are training him to slide his eyes across the paper. At no time is his reading corrected. As you and the child read together, move your finger simultaneously under the spoken words in a smooth continuous fashion at precisely the same speed and flow as the verbal reading. This gives the child a clear target, keeps his eyes from straying all over the page, and helps establish left-right progression.

If desired, the child may later take over the finger function. If he experiences difficulty, reach out and place your hand on his finger and guide it to a smooth flowing movement. Pay particular attention to the end of a line where the finger should move rapidly back to where the new line begins. It is common for people not to move their fingers back rapidly enough (something like a typewriter carriage returning to position at the end of a line).

Be sure that your voice and fingers are synchronized. Very good readers tend to look ahead and run their finger ahead of where their voice is. In using the N.I.M., it is absolutely essential that the finger movements, voice, and words all be synchronized.

Not only should you never correct the child's misreading of words, but at no time during the session should you stop and ask questions about word recognition or comprehension. The major concern is with style of reading rather than accuracy.

Usually, by the time it is apparent that a child needs some remedial reading, he has accumulated a number of poor reading habits and eye movements and has lost confidence, all of which produce inefficient reading pattern. He is apt to read word by word, and often that is accompanied by body rocking back and forth as he tries to force recognition and comprehension of each word as it comes along. One of the most important aspects of the N.I.M., as far as you are concerned, is to forget conventional reading approaches you may have heard of and think more in terms of exposing your child to a correct reading process.

Even after the child's reading has speeded up considerably, word recognition will probably improve somewhat more slowly. Word recognition lags behind the functional reading process by a year to a year and a half. Not to worry! Once your child has begun to read in newspapers and magazines at home voluntarily and has gained confidence in this new skill, he will make rapid strides in word recognition.

"Pacing" is another extremely important aspect of the N.I.M. Pacing means that the material should be periodically speeded up, and the youngster is literally dragged to higher rates of speed in the reading process. This is done only for a few minutes at a time, but probably should become a part of every reading session.

The material used is of extreme importance to the success of the N.I.M. As mentioned earlier, it is suggested that the child be started on material that is two to three grade levels below the child's actual grade level. But care must be taken not to spend too much time at the lower levels of the child's reading ability. Over-exposure to difficult words is far more important than under-exposure.One of the reasons for the success of the N.I.M. seems to be the enormous exposure readers have to words. An ordinary session of N.I.M. reading, for fifteen minutes, will run as high as 2000 words! It is not at all uncommon in elementary-level books to range from 10 to 20 pages of reading material in one session. Too little exposure is more detrimental than too much. There have been no instances reported where tremendous amounts of exposure to material have been harmful to any child.

10 Years Of Brain Imaging Research Shows The Brain Reads Sound By Sound

by www.childdevelopmentinfo.com

A dyslexia research team at Yale University's Center for Learning and Attention lead by Dr. Sally Shaywitz has found a window on the brain through a new imaging technique called functional MRI. These medical scientists have identified parts of the brain used in reading. By observing the flow of oxygen-rich blood to working brain cells, they have found that people who know how to sound out words can rapidly process what they see. This information has shed new light on dyslexia and how to help dyslexics.

When readers are asked to imagine "cat" without the "kah" sound, they readily summon "at." The MRI photographs show their brains lighting up like pinball machines. When the brain gets it, the light bulbs really do go on. However, the brains of people who can't sound out words often look different on MRI pictures. There is less blood flow to the language centers of the brain and, in some cases, not much activity evident at all. Scientist's are not sure why this is or what it means. But simply put, without the ability to sound out words, the brain is stumped.

Basically this research seems to be saying that the brain learns to read the same way it learns to talk, one sound at a time. When babies first learn to talk they may slowly say one sound at a time. Once they get the hang of it, they speed up. Our brain becomes adept at processing and our experience is that of hearing words but actually our brain is processing sounds (phonemes) and putting them together so we hear words. When we read the same process is in operation. Our brain is processing one sound at a time but we perceive it as a whole word. In good readers, the process is so fast it appears that they are reading whole words but in fact they are converting the letters on the written page into to sounds. The brain then recognizes groups of sounds as words.

Reading is not automatic but must be learned. The reader must develop a conscious awareness that the letters on the page represent the sounds of the spoken word. To read the word "cat," the reader must parse, or segment, the word into its underlying phonological elements. Once the word is in its phonological form, it can be identified and understood. In dyslexia, an inefficient phonological module produces representations that are less clear and, hence, more difficult to bring to awareness.

According to Dr. Shaywitz, "Over the past two decades, a coherent model of dyslexia has emerged that is based on phonological processing. The phonological model is consistent both with the clinical symptoms of dyslexia and with what neuroscientists know about brain organization and function. Investigators from many laboratories, including my colleagues and I at the Yale Center, have had the opportunity through 10 years of cognitive, and more recently, neurobiological studies."

Dyslexics (or poor readers) are very frustrated by the fact that they can understand what they hear but not what they read. Dyslexics have average or above average intelligence. Once they can properly decode words they can understand the concept. Decoding skills are the key to learning from written material.Years of educational research has shown that the use of intensive phonics is the only way to teach dyslexics and learning disabled individuals how to read. The new brain research shows why intensive phonics is also the best way for everyone to learn to read.

Raising Children Who Love to Read

By Carol Boles

If you’re wondering why some children grow up to become successful readers and possess a love for reading, the answer is simple. Their parents have made a commitment to their reading development.




Children can begin a journey to reading success and enjoyment when parents commit to:

• reading to children as young as six months old. Begin reading when they are barely sitting up and their eyes are beginning to focus. Select simple, colorful board books and read them aloud with expression. Point to pictures, identify characters or animals and talk about the story.
  
• a schedule for reading aloud until children are independent readers. Modeling good reading allows children to hear reading that is fluid and full of expression. Parents should allow children to select books as well as select books themselves. When parents introduce new books this helps children develop a sense of the kinds of books they like.
  
• to making visits to the library until children are old enough to go there on their own. Show children visiting the library will become a part of their lives. Help them choose books to read or have read aloud. If children are older talk about the books they’ve chosen. Parents should select books themselves and talk about what they’re reading as well.
  
• to taking their children to books stores in their strollers, through the elementary, middle and high school years. Buy them a drink or snack, and browse the colorful displays and shelves full of books. Both parents and children should leave with a book.
  
• to reading themselves. Children naturally emulate their parent’s behavior. When parents possess a love for reading their children usually do as well. Parent should always have a novel they’re reading and set aside time for “read ins” with their children.

When parents commit to their children’s reading education this nurtures reading development and an enjoyment of books. And, all the while those parents have had a great time enjoying great books themselves.

Learning To Read Should Be As Easy As Learning To Talk

Just watch how a preschooler will pretend to read a story you have just read for them. They are learning by imitation. Actually that is how children learn many things. Take speech for an example. Young children learn to talk by imitating the sounds made by their parents. They then learn how the sounds go together to make words.




When you helped your child learn to talk you both had fun. You probably made up games to stimulate them to talk. They interacted with you and that made the learning process enjoyable. You both smiled and laughed when they learned to say new words or phrases.

Reading and writing are simply talking on paper. Why shouldn’t learning to read be just as much fun as learning to talk? Here are some tips for encouraging your child to enjoy reading:

• Read to your child. No matter what age your child happens to be, he will benefit from listening to you read aloud.
  
• Discuss the books you read to your child.
  
• Be a good reading "model" by letting your child see you read.
  
• Introduce your child to books that discuss his hobby, interests, or new experiences.
  
• Buy books as presents for your child and he’ll learn to value books.
  
• Make sure your child has a library card.

Poor Reading Affects Many Children

A recent survey showed that 44% of the 4th Grade children nation wide are not able to read at or above the basic, or partial mastery, level on the 1994 National Assessment of Education Progress test. The extent of the problem ranged from 27% in Maine to 62% in Louisiana. In California 59% of the students are reading BELOW the minimum established proficiency level for reading.




Children with poor reading skills often:

• Receive poor grades
  
• Are easily frustrated
  
• Have difficulty completing assignments
  
• Have low self-esteem
  
• Have behavior problems
  
• Have more physical illnesses due to stress
  
• Don't like school
  
• Grow up to be shy in front of groups Fail to develop to their full potential

from http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/