A Study of Reading and Writing Improvements

On September 27, 2012 the Columbia Daily Tribune ran a front page article that said:

SCHOOLS LOOK AT BENEFITS OF KIDS WALKING

I found some of the numbers from a 2008-2009 study to be interesting. The study found that kids who walked to school daily increased their average reading level by 26.5 percent.  Kids who did not walk to school daily only averaged a 4.8 percent gain. That means there was about a twenty-two percent increase in student's reading level when some morning exercise took place.  Impressive! When we can improve a child's reading ability AND give them the benefits of being in the great outdoors, it's a win-win situation!

What about Writing?
The study went on to note that there was not a direct correlation between the morning walk and student writing. That's where the Davis Dyslexia Correction program comes in to play.

Right up front I have to confess that perhaps it's unfair for me to compare an entire study from a whole elementary school to only one (1) of my clients.  But here goes----

Recently a client's mother (her son, my nine year old client, is in the middle of a Dyslexia Correction program) told me how her son's school is totally amazed at the increase in her son's writing ability.  What kind of improvement you may be asking? Here's what she said---

"The teachers say his writing has gone from very illegible to very legible! They are astonished!

And we're in the middle of a correction program.
The Davis Dyslexia Correction Program is a 30 hour program that can take place over a matter of days, not a matter of years as others might.  

My young client does not walk to school daily, and he's yet to reach the point in the correction program where he's continuing our work at home with the Davis follow-up work.

He has learned how to get focused, which we call getting "On Point".  Being on point means he has the ability to independently maintain his focus in his classroom.

Davis Alphabet Mastery with lowercase letters

The picture to the left is my client's lowercase alphabet, the alphabet we're still working on. You'll notice a few things still out of order, that means we're still working on the triggers. A trigger can be compared to a glitch, a hook of sorts in the mind where an idea, a picture, an emotion...is causing us to make some kind of a mistake.

What does all of this mean? It means school districts are noticing changes to the way kids are reading when physical activity is involved.
It also means we're noticing improvements in a wide variety of ways when the Davis Program is involved! 

The Secret Super Powers of Dyslexia Continued

Chase and Dyslexic Super-Hero

Today I have more of the ongoing adventures of Dyslexic Super-Hero and his creator, and my friend, Chase.

Our story today goes like this:

Dyslexic Super-Hero has a team of super heroes who continue to guard our world using their armor of Dyslexia!

Who must they defend us from? Well, of course, evil Dr. File!
Our Super-Hero is joined today by his friend in armor, Alien-dyslexic-friend John! John can run faster and jump higher while thinking of great ideas better than others can.

Dr. File is out to destroy the heroes dyslexic abilities so they must be off now to fight evil and to defend our freedom in thinking! 

Super Hero Chase has some final words:

I plan on continuing to be a dyslexic super hero and in the end there will be others who have dyslexia who will also defend our world.  

And even more, he wants you to know that even though others don't have the same super powers he has, they too, have their own great powers.

Dr. File trying to defeat our Dyslexic Super-Hero

Super Powers of Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a super power,” my young friend and client Chase told me the other day.

Dyslexia is a good thing because I have fun with it.  I invent games and entertain my little brother with my dyslexia”

“I made up a game called ‘Junk Yard’. We pretend we’re in a fancy car that we restored from a junk yard and pretend we’re racing.”

He never ceases to amaze me with his creations.  By ‘creations’ I mean the inventions that appear after he grabs a chunk of clay; original characters and one-of-a-kind ideas take shape right before my eyes! I don’t know how many times I’ve looked away for a moment to find a pen or to jot down a thought only to look back and find he’s generated something new.

“My awesome dyslexic Super-Hero thinks fast, changes size and does things other people can’t,” he told me as he worked on a detail of his dyslexic machine.

In some ways, Chase is referring to the imagined super-powers of his clay figures. Here’s his collection of dyslexic characters with his dyslexic Super-Hero standing on top of it all!

In other ways he is referring to himself.

He is one of the most creative and talented people I’ve ever met. His ability to think creatively drives his world with ideas for playing, thoughts on life and new things to explore.

No, Chase can’t shrink from a nine year-old boy into an action figure like his fabricated super-hero can but he can do things that other people can’t. Like his dyslexic clay Super-Hero, Chase is a one-of-a kind!

aisle, ISLE, * I'll * explain dyslexia!

Do you always believe what your eyes are telling you? Here in the Midwest our fields and lawns are sporting that burnt-look.  Some of the scorch is a grass-fire burnt look (because it probably was a grass fire; they've been rampant.) Other scorch is a drought-burnt look (because we're in the middle of a serious drought!).

This Labor Day weekend while my husband and I were tooling around Boone and Audrain Counties here in Mid-Missouri, we passed Amish farms with rows of corn shocks already in place out in the fields.  And they've been there for some time. Reminded me of fall. (For non-farmer types, shocks are the remains of the harvested corn plant placed in the fields for livestock consumption.)

If I didn't know better (and if it wasn't going to be about 100 degrees F. today) I'd think it was late fall or early winter, if I was going to judge things on this drought-burnt look!

Yet other places, without rhyme or reason, have a lush-greenness that vividly declares 'Hey, it's still summer time here!'

Columnist Jan Wiese-Fales writes for the Columbia Tribune's  Lifestyle section with her weekly article called Fertile Mind.  Recently her column was about a heat-tolerant beauty of a plant called crape myrtle. Here's a description she wrote:

"clusters of frothy, raspberry sherbet-colored blooms...beyond gorgeous, especially in comparison to wilted browning and bloomless perennial flowers and shrubs...in other parts of the yard." 

Even this horrible drought cannot take the will to live away from the hardiest plants, like the crape myrtle. They thrive no matter what! At the same time other plants, ones that might even be in the same location, and have the same amount of fertilize and water, are fading away.

So, is it summer or fall?  Here in the United States it's the end of summer-time with the official start to autumn just around the corner. Look at a calendar and you'll have all the information you'll need.

Right?

Here's my point--it's not that easy!  I'm simply trying to draw a parallel to how words and symbols might look to a dyslexic learner. What one person sees unquestioningly, to how someone else, dyslexic of non-dyslexic, may see it in an opposite way. Some see fall when looking at a word, others see summer when looking at the same word...so to speak!

Recently someone Tweeted:

"Seriously, how can you not tell the difference between isle and aisle?!"  <----- that hurts!

Alright, I do understand. Spelling errors can be annoying.  But believe me, as a dyslexic I don't make spelling errors intentionally. We don't commit all kinds of mistakes because we're stupid or because we don't care. Aisle isle I'll let you no now know more when I detrmin figure ti it out! Thnks.

May I suggest you give the idea of dyslexia a try? Check out the 37 common traits of dyslexia and let us know what you discover.

HIGH IN IQ...can't complete kindergarten

"There's no such thing as dyslexia," someone abruptly told me recently and it didn't go over very well with me! Statements like that tend to bring out my stubbornness! (Ask my Dad, he still reminds me I'm a fighter!)

But, when I meet someone who has been living at the blunt end of those kinds of statements--that sends me over the edge! I've heard the 'no such thing as dyslexia' proclamation more times than I care to remember, and that's exactly what they said about my young friend 'J'. 

Here's part of the story I learned when I first met J: Earlier, when he was about to start kindergarten and needed to complete a pre-school screening with his local school district, he had been asked to count from one to ten.  

"Yee, uhr, sahn, suh...," he said. 

What? The screeners were mystified.  Instantly they decided J obviously couldn't count! How could he possibly be ready for Kindergarten...he couldn't count!

To top it off, the new to him testing-room had brought on quite a bit of anxiety causing him to feel fearful. In the end, receiving negative responses from the adults in charge, after he'd tried to impress them with his counting skills, brought the event to an end.

You see he wasn't trying to count to ten, he had counted to ten... in Chinese! Unfortunately, he was the only one in that room who knew Chinese! And after the adults reacted in the way they had---

He shut down. 

"High in IQ, yet may not test well academically; tests well orally, but not written,"  is one of the general traits of dyslexia on Ron Davis' list of the 37 Common Characteristics of Dyslexia. 

For J the high in IQ part is correct.  Even though the test was given orally, he was not able to overcome his anxiety and successfully give the adults the information they considered necessary for him to be a good candidate for their school program.  When the idea of dyslexia was brought up, they had the 'no such thing as dyslexia' statement ready to go. 

When he came to OnPoint Learning Center it was a different story.  He quickly showed me his talents and Gift of dyslexia and I knew how to help him.  

In the course of the 30-hour week of his Davis Dyslexia Correction Program this young man taught me more than almost any other client has every taught me.  

Sometimes he used words and at other times he used clay. 

Wait, I just realized what I typed: 'he taught me more than almost any other client'.  Not bad for someone who couldn't complete a Kindergarten screening! 

For more on the 37 Common Traits: http://www.dyslexia.com/library/symptoms.htm#ixzz25VjZOdXh