Remedial Reading: Is It The Definition Of Insanity?
It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again always expecting a different result! Whoever said practice makes perfect was definitely not trying to teach a child with learning disabilities to read, write or spell! It suddenly struck me how true this definition is of traditional methods of remedial reading.
Now please don’t misunderstand, I am not accusing reading teachers of being insane (although if you spend long enough trying to teach a child with learning disabilities to read you may inch closer to it). Teaching children with learning disabilities is a noble and often painstaking profession. It takes a lot of time, energy, patience and skill to do the job well. Of all these, possibly patience is the most difficult to come by, because as you go over the same principles and reading texts again and again, teachers, parent and the children themselves become very frustrated, and very discouraged.
Surely There Must Be A Better Way!
Doing something over and over again can be beneficial if the person involved has the ability to change and learn rapidly. But what happens if practice doesn’t make perfect, it just makes huge amount of frustration? What happens if the child continues to make the same mistakes page after page, day after day, month after month. They’re trying hard, the teacher or parent is trying hard, but the only progress they’re making is destroying their relationship!
What if there was something you could do that would INCREASE the child’s ability to LEARN TO READ? Something that was not as painful as reading, something that you could see and measure progress in and something that the child could walk away from saying, “I can do this!”
The old story of the two axeman is applicable here. Remember the story of how one kept chopping wood, kept trying longer and longer and yet day after day he chopped less trees. The other took some time out of his busy day to sharpen his axe, and managed to chop more wood than his colleague. So perhaps it is time to take a break and sharpen your child’s axe!
The great news is that, as a practitioner working in the filed of learning disabilities for over 20 years, I have had enormous success caring for children with learning disabilities in my community. What has brought such success and stopped the painful remedial reading syndrome? Training the skills that are needed to do the job.
Vision is the dominant sense, with over 80% of all information in the classroom coming in through the visual system. So, it makes sense that, if we train these skills to be more effective, we can make the process of learning to read far easier.
This training goes beyond the simple ability to see: It involves eye coordination, focus, visual memory, sequencing, whole body development, left-right awareness and a whole host of visually related skills. All of these can be improved, usually very substantially, by doing the right therapies, and thus reading can be improved as a consequence.
Until recently this form of training has only ever been available directly from the practitioner. So, if you did not have a Behavioral Optometrist in your area, you could not help your child in this way. But I have spent the last year modifying my therapy program so you can do it in your own home for a fraction of what you would pay a qualified practitioner, anywhere in the world. It takes only 20 minute a day, it has clear and concise instructions and you will see your child improving within 6 months if you follow the therapies correctly.
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