PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Attention to Detail

        Reading With Dyslexia, LLC teaches students to read by introducing letters that regularly repeat and slowly introducing letter clusters using an approach called linkage.  Students learn to code and recognize syllable patterns that allow them to decode words.  Each lesson builds upon the previous lesson's sounds and patterns.  A letter deck is used along with sound/symbol cards, sliding tiles, and a tapping method to build phonemic awareness.  

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The rationale behind using a multi-sensory method of instruction is to assist dyslexic students whose underlying language skills are often weak in speech, such as phonological, and orthographic, as in print.  Using this method aids in "building brain pathways that connect speech with print." (IDA).  

Spelling is taught in conjunction to reading.  I apply the principles of learning to students, as taught by Edward Thorndike:  participation, repetition, relevance, transference, and feedback.  Using these principles of learning, students then apply their newly acquired skills using the phonetic sounds they have been taught, discovering base words and forming derivatives of those words taught in previous lessons, as well as using a tapping method.  These skills allow students to spell words and to form the correct pronunciation of words.  A spelling deck is used in each lesson to reinforce the relationship between sounds and symbols.  New ones are added as students progress throughout their lessons.  The International Dyslexia Association stated, "The brain pathways used for reading and spelling must develop to connect many brain areas and must transmit information with sufficient speed and accuracy."  

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Handwriting is also taught in conjunction with reading and spelling.  As students learn new letters, digraphs, and trigraphs, cursive handwriting is introduced for lowercase letters.  Many learning modalities are used to assist students in preventing them from transposing the order of their letters when writing or reading.   

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There have been many articles written about the benefits of cursive.  The International Dyslexia Association encourages cursive, as Dr. Diana Hanbury King stated in "Why Bother with Cursive?" "Never forget:  Writing exercises the brain, keyboarding the fingers" (2015).   A graduate of Harvard University and a Ph. D., David Sortino, stated in "Brain research and cursive writing" that within approximately six months his students were developing "one to two years academic growth in word attack, reading fluency and reading comprehension as defined by popular achievement tests" (2013).  Reading With Dyslexia, LLC is committed to providing clients with interventions using a systematic multi-sensory approach to assist in reading.  

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