Dyslexia: The Davis Method - NéoSanté article

NéoSanté, a Belgian magazine devote to Global Health, includes a detailed article about the Davis program in a recent issue.

The article, written in French, is titled La Méthode Davis: Un espoir pour les dyslexiques (translation: The Davis Method: Hope for Dyslexia)

The article is written by Davis Facilitator Betty Rossitto. There are now more than 50 licensed European facilitators who provide French language services.

A Gift of Dyslexia workshop is scheduled in Paris from May 3-6.

More information;

• Contents of NéoSanté Issue #18 
• More Information 
• Apprende Autrement web site

Dyslexia: The Davis Method - Symbol Mastery

Davis Symbol Mastery — the modeling of words in clay – is based on the idea that each word has three parts: what it means, what it looks like, and how it sounds.

When all three parts are fully understood and learned, the word is mastered.

Brain research shows that all skilled readers make this connection, but the balance struck between sight, sound, and meaning may differ depending on the written form of language.

In languages that are phonetically consistent, such as Italian, readers tend to rely first on letter-sound correspondence (phonology).

Readers of a character-based alphabet, such as Chinese, rely more heavily on the correspondence between letter shape and meaning.

English uses an alphabetic system but an orthography (spelling system) that is influenced largely by word meaning (morphology). That is why English spelling is inconsistent.

Noted psychologist and research professor Uta Frith, explains that skilled readers make instant mental links between the sounds, appearance, and meanings of words.

English readers rely more heavily on the meaning element, because knowing the meaning is often also the key to knowing how the word sounds.

Dyslexic readers typically struggle because it is harder for them to make the connections automatically.

That is why the Davis system relies on modeling word meaning together with mastering the visual sequence of letters and the sound of the whole word.

Learn more:
Three Parts to a Word
Davis Symbol Mastery Support
Davis Symbol Mastery Kit

What Is Dysgraphia? - YouTube

Dysgraphia is a learning disability that affects writing, which requires a complex set of motor and information processing skills.

Dysgraphia makes the act of writing difficult. It can lead to problems with spelling, poor handwriting, and putting thoughts on paper.

People with dysgraphia can have trouble organizing letters, numbers, and words on a line or page. This can result partly from:

• Visual-spatial difficulties: trouble processing what the eye sees
• Language processing difficulty: trouble processing and making sense of what the ear hears

As with all learning disabilities (LD), dysgraphia is a lifelong challenge, although how it manifests may change over time.

A student with this disorder can benefit from specific accommodations in the learning environment. Extra practice learning the skills required to be an accomplished writer can also help.

Read more about Dysgraphia

Neglect Dyslexia - Left or Right

Deficits in reading may stem from disruptions of simple sensory impairments to more complex problems involving thinking related to language.

There are several subtypes of dyslexias and they can be categorized as either central or peripheral dyslexias (of which there are two, attentional dyslexia and neglect dyslexia), which result from impairment to brain processes that are capable of converting letters on the page into visual word forms.

There are two types of peripheral dyslexias called attentional dyslexia, and neglect dyslexia.

Neglect dyslexia is usually due to brain damage, and causes an impairment of reading because the affected person misidentifies letters in certain spatial regions of either a word or a group of words.

The defect for neglect dyslexia subtype is associated with the right parietal lobe.

Neglect dyslexia can be further divided into left neglect dyslexia and right neglect dyslexia.

In the left neglect dyslexia subtype, the affected person experiences difficulty reading initial letters of the word, which may cause a letter(s) to be substituted, omitted or added.

In the right neglect dyslexia subtype causes a patient to have letter errors at the end of the word.

Read more about the different types of Dyslexia here: Healthline

Children with Dyslexia Read Better with Free App

Parents who have children with dyslexia know the frustration they and their kids feel as they face the challenge of reading.

Now a French-Italian research team have discovered a simple way to help children with dyslexia read 20% faster and make much fewer errors, and you can try it with a free app.

You can help your child with dyslexia

Dyslexia is a learning disability that can interfere with an individual's ability to read, spell, write, and even speak in some cases.

Dyslexia is the most common learning disability among children, and it continues throughout adulthood.

The severity of dyslexia can range from mild to severe, yet it can be treated, and the sooner the better. Typical warning signs of dyslexia include

• Letter and number reversals. Although this is common in younger children, after age 7 or 8 it usually disappears. If it does not, children should be tested for dyslexia
• Difficulty copying from a book, computer screen, or board
• Difficulty distinguishing left from right
• Written work is generally disorganized
• May have difficulty moving to the rhythm of music

The research team, headed by Johannes Ziegler of the Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, discovered that increasing the amount of spacing between characters and words can improve how fast and how accurately dyslexic children read, and without any prior training.

What parents may appreciate even more is that these researchers also developed an iPad/iPhone application, which is available free of charge, that allows parents and dyslexic children to change the spacing between letters and test if this new approach to reading works for them.

What the dyslexia study revealed
The researchers came upon their finding by testing 94 children with dyslexia, ages 8 to 14 years, and their ability to read. The 54 Italian and 40 French children read 24 sentences with normal spaces and then wider than normal spacing.

When the children read the text with wider spacing, their reading speed was an average of 20% faster and they made half as many errors. This finding opens up great possibilities for children with dyslexia, for whom it typically takes one year to read what a "normal reader" can read in two days.

A free app for dyslexia may help
Parents can get the free app for dyslexia here. The free app is currently available in French and English, downloadable from Apple Store, and allows parents and children to alter the spacing between letters.

Children with dyslexia have an impairment in their brain's ability to convert images into language they can understand. However, this difficulty is not related to vision or hearing problems, nor is it caused by mental retardation or a lack of intelligence.

In fact, many highly successful and creative people had or have dyslexia. Some of them include Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Tom Cruise, Cher, Richard Branson, and Winston Churchill.

The authors of this new study report that "our findings offer a practical way to ameliorate dyslexics' reading achievement without any training." They note that "extra large letter spacing, which could even be optimized adaptively on an individual basis, can certainly contribute to achieving this goal."

Children with dyslexia can become easily discouraged by their difficulty in learning to read, and this can lead to development of low self-esteem, depression, behavior problems, and a dislike for school. A free app for children with dyslexia could be a new beginning for this population of young people.

SOURCE:
Zorzi M et al. Extra-large letter spacing improves reading in dyslexia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2012. doi:10.1073/pnas.1205566109

Learning About Dyslexia - YouTube

Many language-based disabilities go undetected. Doing their own research, sharing family stories, and extensive testing allowed the Giardinas to understand Michael's disabilities and learn how to help him learn and grow.

Apps for Children With Dyslexia - Gadgetwise

There is software out there designed to help children with dyslexia read (expensive software) but nothing yet in the way of an app marketed for that purpose (and there’s obviously no app that will “fix” dyslexia).
But just because there’s nothing actually marketed as helping students with dyslexia learn to better process in the classroom doesn’t mean there isn’t anything helpful out there.

Warren Buckleitner, who reviews children’s technology for The Times’s Gadgetwise blog, has posted his recommendations.

He suggests starting with a few really well designed letter and word-building apps on an iPad to get a child playfully constructing words and associating meanings.

One of his favourites for preschoolers is Toca Boca’s Paint My Wings, which lets children play informally with visual relationships in real time. For older children, he points parents toward Pocket Phonics, Montessori Crosswords and Word Wizard.

If you use any apps to help a child with dyslexia practice the skills she uses to cope, please, share in the comments. Which ones, and which skills do they improve? What works and what doesn’t when dyslexia is in the mix?

A Hand-Painted Typographic Experiment by Tien-Min Liao

A Hand-Painted Typographic Experiment by Tien-Min Liao

Handmade Type is a typographic experiment by designer Tien-Min Liao wherein shapes painted on her hands are transformed by gestures to create letterforms.

However she gave herself a unique constraint: the painted figures on her hands for each individual letter had to be utilized for all variations of the letter, both upper and lowercase and sometimes even italic and handwritten. See more examples and the full alphabet over on Behance.

Dyslexia: There is an upside

THE word “dyslexia” evokes painful struggles with reading, and indeed this learning disability causes much difficulty for the estimated 15 percent of Americans affected by it.

Since the phenomenon of “word blindness” was first documented more than a century ago, scientists have searched for the causes of dyslexia, and for therapies to treat it. In recent years, however, dyslexia research has taken a surprising turn: identifying the ways in which people with dyslexia have skills that are superior to those of typical readers.

The latest findings on dyslexia are leading to a new way of looking at the condition: not just as an impediment, but as an advantage, especially in certain artistic and scientific fields.

Tucker Nichols

Dyslexia is a complex disorder, and there is much that is still not understood about it. 

But a series of ingenious experiments have shown that many people with dyslexia possess distinctive perceptual abilities. 

For example, scientists have produced a growing body of evidence that people with the condition have sharper peripheral vision than others. 

Gadi Geiger and Jerome Lettvin, cognitive scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), used a mechanical shutter, called a tachistoscope, to briefly flash a row of letters extending from the center of a subject’s field of vision out to its perimeter. 

Typical readers identified the letters in the middle of the row with greater accuracy. 

Those with dyslexia triumphed, however, when asked to identify letters located in the row’s outer reaches.

The discovery of such talents inevitably raises questions about whether these faculties translate into real-life skills.

Although people with dyslexia are found in every profession, including law, medicine and science, observers have long noted that they populate fields like art and design in unusually high numbers.

Five years ago, the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity was founded to investigate and illuminate the strengths of those with dyslexia, while the seven-year-old Laboratory for Visual Learning, located within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is exploring the advantages conferred by dyslexia in visually intensive branches of science.

The director of the laboratory, the astrophysicist Matthew Schneps, notes that scientists in his line of work must make sense of enormous quantities of visual data and accurately detect patterns that signal the presence of entities like black holes. 

A pair of experiments conducted by Mr. Schneps and his colleagues, published in the Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society in 2011, suggests that dyslexia may enhance the ability to carry out such tasks.

Read more of this article here at NY Times

Dyslexia: It’s not all about Phonics!

There has been so much news about phonics and how it works lately that I thought I’d tell you that IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT PHONICS!

You wil find that sum childrn are sow ust to lerning fonics that thay downt tayk eny notis of wot the werds look liyk.

And in case you couldn’t read that it says: You will find that some children are so used to learning phonics that they don’t take any notice of what the words look like.

It’s a bit of a shame that all words aren’t spelt phonetically because then ‘we’ wouldn’t have such a big task when it comes to learning how to spell. This is why it can’t all be about phonics when teaching children how to spell.

Don’t get me wrong, phonics is an excellent place to start and when children can’t spell a word using sounds to work out what comes next is a great way to help them and even if the spelling is wrong it can still be read by them or others.

So what am I talking about?! After your child writes the word phonetically he or she needs to look at the word and ask “Does it look right?” Just asking that simple question can make all the difference.

Typophile Film: Brent Jackson

Typophile Film Festival 5 Opening Titles from Brent Barson on Vimeo.

Even though it’s been around for a few years, if you haven’t seen this wonderful video created for the 5th Typophile Film Festival by BYU design students, it really is an impressive piece of work, especially seeing as no CG effects were used in its production. Enjoy!

Sir Jackie Stewart: Dyslexia 'not a cruel fiction' - YouTube

Motor racing legend Sir Jackie Stewart has admitted that discovering he had dyslexia was like "being saved from drowning."

Speaking at a dyslexia conference, the Flying Scot said that he still could not remember the alphabet despite knowing the precise details of every racing course in the world.

Find out more at www.deadlinescotland.co.uk

People who Became a Noun - Video

This reminded me of a lovely illustrated children’s book called If You Were a Noun.

An Introduction to Letters, Numbers and Geography on the Apple iPad - Montessorium

Learn the shapes, names, flags and geographical locations of the countries in North America, through puzzles, challenges and drawing exercises. Based on the proven methodology of Montessori.

Your Child Will Learn

✔ To identify the countries of North America
✔ To discern the shapes of the countries
✔ To recognize the flags of North America
✔ The development of spatial relationships
✔ Fine motor skills and vocabulary

Read more and explore the information on Montessorium

Dyslexia: Letter Reversals - Bulldog demo video - YouTube

Let me introduce you to the Bulldog Letter Reversals, a downloadable games, worksheets and kinaesthetic activities pack for children aged 5-12 years.

The company claims that Bulldog, the adorable dog featured throughout this multi-sensory learning pack, helps children to learn and remember the difference between ‘b’ and ‘d’.

They also claim that introducing your child to Bulldog, will give him / her a strategy to remember the difference between ‘b’ and ‘d’ and in most cases it will resolve the problem entirely and you will have a happy smiling child again.

The company expects the Bulldog theme keep children engaged and motivated, helping them have lots of fun whilst they learn.

Check out the video below and decide for yourself!



Testimonial
“My students loved the games and materials! They would ask me ‘Can we play Bulldog again?’ Not only were the games fun for them, but they are confusing b/d far less now, and with more of the games (and flashcards) confusion will soon be a non-issue. The worksheets have also been popular with the children (and parents, for homework). Greatly recommended!”Debbie Took Primary School Teacher, Henley-on-Thames.

Check out the website  www.bulldogletterreversals.com

Dyslexia: ChromaGen lenses offer hope to some with reading disorders

Many endure hours of expensive tutoring or special education to manage the learning difficulty.

A dyslexic may see words in a very confusing way: Letters might appear to be backwards, upside-down, jumbled up, or jump off the page.

"It just gave me headaches," said 12-year old Sullivan Sheahan. "I would zone out and then I would try to focus too hard and then I would start seeing double and the words would get blurry."

That was before Sullivan slipped on a pair of special shades.

ChromaGen lenses are coloured filters that change the wavelength of light going into the eyes. In dyslexics, some experts believe both eyes don't process information at the same speed.

"The lenses work by synchronising the information between the left and the right eyes, so that it arrives at the brain in a synchronised fashion," explained inventor David Harris. "In that way, it makes reading easier for many people who have difficulty reading."

ChromaGen Lenses were developed at the Corneal Laser Centre for colour blindness at Clattersbridge Hospital, Wirral. The Lens is similar to ordinary soft contact lenses, but has a tiny speck of colour that is almost invisible.
Harris originally invented the lenses for people with colour-blindness. Then, eye doctors in England saw success in certain people with reading disorders.

On this side of the pond in Plano, Dr. Charles Shidlofsky decided to give ChromaGen lenses a try for some of his young patients.

"We have heard from kids who say, 'I see words in rivers,'" Dr. Shidlofsky said. "What happens is, you put on the glasses and the 'rivers' stop and they finally see the words standing still, so they are better able to view the words and read the words more efficiently."

The glasses are not a cure; some critics question if they help at all.

A pair of ChromaGen lenses will cost more than $700, and they are not covered by insurance. Many people spend thousands of dollars on various dyslexia treatments and tutoring.

The lenses made a big difference to Sullivan Sheahan.

"When I got them, the first six weeks I made straight A's," he said.

Sullivan plans to take his glasses all the way to the honor roll next year, in 7th grade.

You can find a list of these by going to our Online Directory, click on the assessment / test your requirements, which is on the left hand of the screen, and then click on the area you require.

Read more here about the NIH Paper Titled: The ChromaGen contact lens system: colour vision test results and subjective responses
 

Dyslexia: Using Food to shape the letters of the Alphabet

One of the great ways of helping children with Dyslexia learn and remember their letters is to use modelling clay or other materials that allow them to form the shapes.

Although it was not intended as such, this link takes you to a very interesting series of pictures showing how food can be used in the same way.

Check Garret Steider’s Flickr Stream for the entire Alphabet Collection! Carved Food Alphabet

How to Learn about Letters and their Sounds

Teaching children how to read is based on the concept of letters and sounds. There are a few ways that you can help your child learn to read using simple strategies. When your little one begins to read on their own, you will feel amazed at the progress and feel thankful for all the work that was put into it.

Make a Sound Connection
Before a child can read, they have to make the connection between the sounds that letters make and the letter itself. Once a child realises that the sound and letter go together, it can be a helpful step toward putting sounds together.

There are lots of phonic books available that can help your child learn the steps toward reading independently. They will first begin to recognise that letters have sounds and begin to memorise what they are. A book that features fun activities for children, will increase their motivation and make them want to learn more.

Words Worth Repeating
A good phonics reading material will feature lots of repetition, so that your child really understands what is trying to be taught. The more practice they have with letters and sounds, the more they will comprehend what they are doing.

One step at a Time
Often a book will be broken down into several teaching strategies, it is recommended that a child learn one area of reading before starting a new topic. When a phonics book is divided into separate components, it can assist the child with learning in a way that suits their learning needs.

Practice, Practice, Practice
The best way to have your little one reading, is to practice every night. You can help them do some work sheets during the day, and then read together at night before bed. The more that reading takes place together, the higher the chance of early reading. Helping your child learn to read, takes patience and time.

If your child has a hard time picking up a new skill, then just keep going over the same concept until they understand it. When a child feels successful at something, they will be more inclined to stick with it.

More.......

Dutch home-based pre-reading intervention with children at familial risk of dyslexia

Dutch home-based pre-reading intervention with children at familial risk of dyslexia

A research team investigation of children (5 and 6 years old, n=30) at familial risk of dyslexia who received a home-based intervention that focused on phoneme awareness and letter knowledge in the year prior to formal reading instruction.

The children were compared to a no-training at-risk control group (n=27), which was selected a year earlier. After training, we found a small effect on a composite score of phoneme awareness (d=0.29) and a large effect on receptive letter knowledge (d=0.88).

In first grade, however, this did not result in beneficial effects for the experimental group in word reading and spelling. Results are compared to three former intervention studies in The Netherlands and comparable studies from Denmark and Australia.

Understanding Dyslexia

The Background

In 1896, W. Pringle Morgan, a UK medical practitioner, provided one of the first descriptions of dyslexia. Prior to that, the disorder was thought to be a form of mental retardation and unfortunately that ghost has not been completely exorcised.

Published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) was Morgan’s case of a 14-year old boy who had extreme difficulty in reading, but he excelled in sport and achieved the same level of his peers.

This intrigued many scientists who had been studying the disorder for years. They finally realised that those who have the disorder could actually possess above average to exceptional intelligence.

Some, they found out, even excel in sports and the creative arts, because of this, the distorted opinion that dyslexia is a form of mental retardation, was finally ruled out in academic circles.

The Root of the word
From the Greek words “dys” meaning difficulty and “lexia” meaning verbal language, dyslexia can be defined as a specific learning disorder resulting from neurological and genetic causes.

It affects one or more of the basic processes involved in understanding spoken or written language.

This results in the difficulty of the brain in stringing words, numbers, and symbols at least average intelligence. Dyslexia may show up as a problem in listening, thinking, speaking, reading, writing, or spelling or in a person’s ability in math.

Letter and word reversal and disorganisation of word order are common symptoms. Problems with coordination, memory, depth, perception, and discerning left from right may arise.

This explains why most dyslexics find it difficult to transfer information exactly from what is heard to what is seen and vice versa.

Research
Much research has been carried ou on Dyslexia and some researchers have determined that a specific gene is responsible for dyslexia. This supports their claim that the condition results from a brain difference and site that the right hemisphere of the brain of dyslexics is larger than that of normal individuals.

This may be the reason why dyslexics excel in areas controlled by the right hemisphere of the brain – such as artistic and athletic; 3D visualisation ability, musical talent; and creative problem solving skills but are poor in perceptual, motor, linguistic, and adaptive—areas controlled by the brain’s left hemisphere.

The Organic cause
For years, the organic cause of dyslexia has puzzled doctors who have been studying the disorder.

A significant breakthrough, however, was provided in 1998 by Dr. Sally Shaywitz, a researcher at the Yale University of Medicine and author of the book Overcoming Dyslexia.

Dr. Shaywitz’ s findings revealed that areas in the back of the brain that are usually activated when readers sounded out words are significantly less activated in dyslexics.

Areas in the front of dyslexics’ brains show more activity than in those of the brains of normal individuals.

Dyslexia and Science
The Science pertaining to Dyslexia has seen great progress, aiding better understanding. Despite the extensive research that has been done, there is still no 'cure' or specific scientifically-based programs that work, reliably.

Finding the right school with the proper reading programs and well-trained teachers and supportive parents, is certainly essential. Dr. Shaywitz, in an interview, stated that “there’s a huge need to educate our parents and our teachers.”

Long Term
Though dyslexia is seen as a permanent condition, it does not mean that we should leave dyslexics unsupported or unaided, for the rest of their lives. Recognising the nature of their Dyslexia, discovering and accepting their limitations, form part of the first steps in dealing with the disorder.

Dr. Shaywitz’s advice is, “go get help. It’s remarkable. The news is so good. We’ve learned so much (and are learning more all the time) and people who go and get help can totally turn their lives around.”