Help for Dyslexia

Getting help for dyslexia can be difficult. Dyslexia is a highly misunderstood learning disability. Most people think that it is simply seeing letters or words backward, but there’s so much more involved in this learning disability. Children with dyslexia are usually verbal and intelligent. Because of this, people often assume they should be performing better than they do.

The Downside of Dyslexia…

One in five people have dyslexia.  And, sadly, they are usually overlooked because they are so bright, creative, and intelligent.  To top it off, it is difficult to get a firm diagnosis of dyslexia because there is a cross-over of symptoms with this condition and other neurological disorders like ADD/ADHD, visual processing disorders, and auditory processing disorders. 

Keep in mind that there is no blood test for dyslexia or ADD/ADHD. Many of the tests are subjective in nature, and the symptoms of different conditions can mirror each other. Is it dyslexia or ADD/ADHD? Is it a combination of both? Or is your child just having a bad day when the testing occurred?

There are so many variables to consider when getting help for dyslexia!

Do you have a bright, creative, verbal child who struggles with reading and writing? Have you noticed reversals in reading and writing that just won’t go away? Is your child’s schoolwork messy? Are you constantly told that your child isn’t working to his or her potential?

Is this your dyslexic child?

Have you nagged teachers for help? Homeschooled? Begged administrators to test your child for learning disabilities, only to be denied? Has your child been tested by the schools, but you were told your child was too bright to get help?

Maybe you’ve hired tutors, but the expense is weighing you down, and the minute you take the tutor away, grades plummet. Even worse, your child is feeling bad, dumb. Stupid. Self-esteem is in the dumpster, and you don’t know what to do.

The Sensory Component of Dyslexia

Keep in mind that a student with dyslexia can perceive an image in forty different ways, so that’s why information can seem new when it was previously mastered. The poor dyslexic student has images swirling around, not even stationary at times, and we are asking that child to read a book when the print is moving all around the page.

In addition, these kids struggle desperately with visual memory, which is the ability to hold a visual image in your brain after the image is gone. It’s as if there is no glue in their brains to hold that image, and we are asking these kids to decode and read and retain information when lower-level skills aren’t even in place.

That doesn’t even make sense!

Children with dyslexia struggle with other visual processing issues like visual closure, visual discrimination, and tracking their eyes across a page.

“These are just skills,” Lisa explains. “Like riding a bike or swimming. You must build a learning foundation, which can be done for any child, even one with dyslexia. Those visual skills need put into place step-by-step, like bricks building a house.”

You might stutter and stammer, too!

If you were asked to read aloud in front of the class, your heart thumping because you knew the words and print were going to move and come in at angles or have halos wrapped around it, you might have a difficult time with fluency and comprehension as well!

But there’s more on the poor dyslexic student’s plate.

Where once this condition was thought to be primarily visual, newer research reveals an auditory component as well. So, the dyslexic student might hear reversed words or sounds. They might hear a small sound in the back of the room loudly, like a jet engine. Or the scraping of a pencil on paper might send your child through the roof, making it difficult to concentrate.

The auditory information comes into a student’s brain, becomes jumbled, and the output isn’t what it should be. 

Dyslexia won’t just go away on its own…

Kids don’t outgrow dyslexia. It doesn’t just go away. Yes, some people learn to make a success of their lives without treatment. But they must work hard to push through every day. For them, it’s like climbing Mount Everest when they only need to scale a hill.

Of course, you want to get help for dyslexia! Did you know that with proper treatment, dyslexia can be “tamed”? Your dyslexic child can learn to perceive auditory and visual information correctly. Images and sounds can be stilled in the brain, can be taught to move in proper channels.

With correct reading instruction, like that of Bravo! Reading, the system Lisa developed especially for kids with dyslexia, as well as treating sensory issues, memory building, and brain integration exercises, kids with dyslexia can soar.

Reading can become an easy activity. If the right set of tools is used!

Sadly, schools usually offer a set of old tools that just don’t work. That antiquated toolbox simply won’t work for the dyslexic child.

These traditional reading programs might have worked for you or your other children, but they won’t work for a dyslexic child. This is like asking them to speak a new language without a bit of instruction or help.

Dyslexic children are unique learners, and because of this, they need a unique program that meets their unique needs.

At Harp, we deal with the whole child, not just bits and pieces. We deal with academics, taught in a way your child can understand, not the other way around.

We teach your child to process visual and auditory information, so it makes sense, so there’s a clean circuit of learning. Your child will hone visual and auditory memory skills so information can be retained instead of blowing away on a dusty wind.

We can help your child learn to integrate the left and right hemispheres of the brain so “whole learning” takes place, so that your right-brain dominant learner won’t suffer in a left-brain dominant world.

These are the building blocks of a strong learning foundation, one the dyslexic child desperately needs, not only to navigate school, but life.

But left alone, dyslexia turns into a wildfire out of control.  Each year that passes without help is a year that compounds. For instance, if your child is in the fifth grade and doesn’t get proper help, the two years behind grade level can become three or four in a few short years.

It’s hard to dig yourself out of a hole that deep, and all too often the dyslexic child simply gives up!

Children with Dyslexia are Smart!

Forty-eight percent of the United States prison population is dyslexic? 

How can that be?

Well…to start with, it’s because these people are so intelligent, and because of this, they’ve learned coping mechanisms that aren’t always the best.  At times, these kids will do almost anything…to keep from being thought of as dumb or stupid.  They will do anything to not be thought of as dumb or stupid.

Symptoms of dyslexia appear as early as preschool. But all too often, help isn’t sought out until the third or fourth grade. This is due to many reasons.  Print becomes smaller by this time, which causes reading and other subjects to become more difficult. 

The Three Pillars of Poor Reading Will Help with Dyslexia

The dyslexic student usually learns to read by memorizing instead of decoding. For instance, the student might be able to read the word dinosaur, because he has memorized the word. He can easily put a picture with this word when thinking about it.

But what does the poor reader do when coming come to a new word? The child ends up guessing, taking wild stabs and guesses, which isn’t a firm strategy for reading.

If you show a child with dyslexia an easy word like “for” or “saw”, and she might fall apart.  There are no pictures she can pull out of her hat to tie to the word. Once again, she guesses at it.

The problem with guessing is that it’s often wrong, and it’s not a sound strategy for learning, especially with reading, where comprehension is so critically important to meaning.

The Three Pillars of Poor Reading

1. Guessing at words

2. Memorizing words

3. Trial and error learning

These three pillars hold readers – especially those with dyslexia – back from learning success!

It isn’t difficult to correct the Three Pillars of Poor Reading, as they are primarily just bad habits that need fixed. It takes about three weeks to stop a bad habit.

Dyslexia is a Processing Problem

Dyslexia isn’t really just a reading and spelling problem – it’s a processing a processing problem.  We process visual information with our brains but take in light and focus with our eyes.  Likewise, we process auditory information in our brains but take in sounds with our ears. 

Children with dyslexia are often inconsistent in displaying what they do know. Or they seem to know information one day, but it seems like new information the next day.

They View the World Differently!

The main problem is that the dyslexic student takes in information incorrectly.  Because of this, students with dyslexia view the world differently than others. Kids with dyslexia are so verbal and bright. Because of this, it seems difficult to understand that reading and spelling are so difficult for them!

Dyslexia has been around for over one hundred and thirty years. Yet, all too often, these kids fail to get proper help for dyslexia.

A law passed in the United States in October of 2015. The law ensures student testing for dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia.  This is certainly a coup, but in reality, children rarely receive acceptable therapies to help them read and spell with ease.

If children with dyslexia qualify for an IEP (Special Education), these kids will often receive a watered-down curriculum. In addition, when children leave a traditional classroom for Special Education, they miss important teacher instruction. In addition, these kids receive teasing or even bullied for going to special classes. They pick up mannerisms and behaviors that aren’t ideal.

Often, students with dyslexia do well in school until the third or fourth grade.  This is because the print becomes smaller, and the words become more difficult.  Dyslexic students often learn to read well by memorizing words.  For instance, when it comes to sounding out multi-syllable words then they don’t have a way to decode.  These kids are weak in phonemic awareness. 

Dyslexic students struggle to read and spell. They desperately need help for dyslexia since these kids often omit or misread small, easy to read sight words, have poor fluency, poor decoding skills, and often struggle with comprehension.  

One of the most difficult things about dyslexia is that it isn’t outwardly visible, so the expectations are higher.  Couple this with a high vocabulary and high intelligence, and this leads to a student with a low self-esteem and who is functioning poorly in school.

Early recognition is important for getting help for dyslexia. So, what are some symptoms of dyslexia? 

Symptoms of Dyslexia:

• is classified as a language processing problem
• difficulties exist in getting help in the form of proper testing for the dyslexic student
• dyslexia is a learning disorder that has been studied for years, yet few people have proven results that will fully cure it.
• there is a 50/50 chance that a child will be dyslexic if someone in the family also struggles with dyslexia or another learning disability, diagnosed or undiagnosed
• the brain structure of someone with dyslexia is different than others, however, that only means that the person will process information differently; it has nothing to do with intelligence
• dyslexic students struggle with a multitude of different issues that are difficult to pinpoint and treat, although with recent brain research, we have been able to look at PET and CAT scans and use that research to properly rewire the student’s brain. 
• new neural pathways can be created in the brain at any age

Common Learning Differences Exhibited by a Dyslexic Student:

• directionality issues, such as left, right, up, down
• a tendency to look at the shape of the word and not the word as separate letters coming together to create meaning
• the use of the same first and last letters with the same shape, such as “gril” for “girl”, “who” for “how”.
• pulling down other letters from lines being read, especially l’s and r’s.  For instance, if the student is reading and an l is in the line above the word bow, he could read the word as blow or bowl.
• reading multi-syllable words but struggling to read, one syllable sight words
• difficulty with spelling words within a sentence, even though that word was previously learned and thought to be memorized in a spelling test
• difficult time pronouncing multi-syllable words like helicopter, hippopotamus, elephant, cinnamon, aluminum, or consistency
• mixing up the pronunciation of words; “aminal” for animal, “ephelant” for “elephant”, “ambliance” for “ambulance”, “pasgetti” for “spaghetti”
• visual and spatial issues, avoiding puzzles, mazes, hidden pictures at an early age
• avoidance of reading, writing, and spelling
• verbal but not matching skills when it comes to reading and writing
• higher level thinking skills, but lower-level academic achievement
• poor phonemic awareness
• understanding what is read to them by pictures or other clues but not be decoding
• reluctance to play memory games
• the ability to recall and retell a movie in great detail but displays the inability to recall simple, basic information that was presented
• poor test taking skills
• spending hours on homework or other academic duties when less time is needed

Strategies that Don’t Help the Dyslexic Students​:

• telling the student to try harder
• alluding that student he is lazy
• performing repetitious activities
• drill and kill worksheets
• putting more pressure on an already exhausted learner
• adding more homework or academics to the student’s regimes
• allowing self-esteem to suffer
• waiting too long for interventions, thinking that it is something the student will outgrow
• allowing hours of homework on top of an already exhausting school day
• failing to acknowledge the student’s strengths
• holding back positive things, such as a sport or extra-curricular activity that the student is good at due to poor grades
• disciplining and basing the student’s worth on report cards
• telling to practice more
• giving more reading time without instruction or help; this only sets in poor reading skills

Strategies that Work for the Dyslexic Student:

• telling directions in more than one way, slowly and clearly
• positive encouragement for activities, life skills, etc. that are achieved
• a goal-oriented project, sport, or program where the student can start with achievement and success
• organizational charts, calendars, color coding
• hands on, tactile methods of learning
• an individualized plan for success – not gauging the student’s success as compared to others
• a skills mastery program where the student doesn’t move up until a skill is mastered, from there build upon the skills already achieved
• when the student is old enough, introducing mazes, cross word puzzles, puzzles, word search puzzles, find the hidden picture, and other similar activities to help build visual skills
• using color, rhythm, music, and movement in conjunction with academics to drive in skills that are weak
• getting a diagnosis and understanding of dyslexia so that you can help the child
• role playing or acting out social or academic skills that are weak
• teaching the student cursive, since this method of handwriting flows with the brain and is difficult
• giving directions one step at a time until auditory memory skills are built up
• a strong phonemic awareness-based program to teach reading and spelling rules
• a multi-sensory approach to teaching reading and spelling skills
• limited video and computer time; this just feeds into their already right brain dominant systems

Gifts Portrayed by the Dyslexic Child

• often extremely athletic
• are very artistic
• gifted and talented thinkers
• many are musically gift
• highly developed social skills
• very sensitive and endearing
• extremely curious
• many are highly intuitive
• mechanically gifted
• creative thinkers
• uncanny 3-D visualization skills
• global thinkers
• are able to problem solve

Some Famous Dyslexic People:

• Tom Cruise
• Whoopie Goldberg
• Justin Timberlake
• Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter)
• Jay Leno
• Henry Winkler
• Steven Spielberg
• Jennifer Aniston
• Richard Branson
• Cher
• Galileo Galilei
• Steve Jobs
• Anthony Hopkin
• Keira Knightley
• Ozzy Osbourne
• Pablo Picasso
• Nikola Tesla
• Bella Thorne
• Jules Verne
• Guy Ritchie
• David Rockefeller
• Keanu Reeves
• Salma Hayek
• Alexander Graham Bell

​

Those Creative Kids!

Keep in mind that the creative side of our brain has been responsible for most of the truly magnificent and wonderful things that have happened in history! From paintings, sculptures, writing, poetry, bridge building, scientific phenomena, strategic war missions, technological advancements and designs, works of art, dance, and music, and a multitude of others.

Cutting School Programs Hurts Kids with Dyslexia

​Schools today have cut art, physical education, sports, music, plays, automotive technology, and a host of other crucially important classes and activities that have helped carry the dyslexic student through a school day.  Where would we be today without Steve Jobs, Alexander Bell, or many of the other brilliant dyslexics who have created so much in the world?

Nurture Your Dyslexic Child!

Nurture your dyslexic student or child and value his gifts.  Who knows where they just might lead.

Few people realize that the brain has plasticity throughout our lifetimes. Performing specific exercises over and over forms new neural pathways in the brain. For children with dyslexia, this is crucial. Performing these activities over-an- over again builds new neural pathways in the brain.

Help for Dyslexia Takes Some Digging Around

Have you ever taken the time to ask dyslexic students how they view the world?  For starters, their world is in motion. They view the world as if it is a motion picture. Or, it may be upside down, slanted, or wavy.  These kids might actually tell you that the words on their papers are wiggling.  

They will retreat and fail to step out into the world because it is moving, and they can’t find a safe way to navigate. Others might be bolder, trying to keep up with the motion of their world. These kids are active and often wrongly misdiagnosed as having ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Often, children with dyslexia receive medication, which does nothing to truly help them overcome dyslexia.

More Help for Dyslexia

Kids with dyslexia have gifts and talents that go unnoticed and unappreciated. Moreover, these children view the world differently than others do and often portray skills that others can’t do. Many architects, creatives, and craftspeople are dyslexic.

Here’s the good news! Recent research reveals this condition is treatable. With proper exercises, dyslexia can be overcome. It takes work and a specific treatment plan, but it does not mean that these intelligent students should fall through the cracks and not receive the help they need.  

Additionally, we specialize in helping dyslexic students not only develop crucial reading and spelling skills, but also helping the dyslexic student navigate a world that can be extremely frightening without appropriate intervention measures.