Hope For Dyslexics Essay, Research Paper

Ron Davis, at the age of 38 in 1980, discovered a way to overcome his own severe dyslexia. Davis found a way to quickly eliminate common perceptual distortions. Growing up Davis simply accepted that he would never properly read or write and believed people when they told him there was something wrong with his brain. He eventually noticed that there where times when his dyslexia was better or worse and it occurred to him that if he could figure out when his dyslexia was at its worst that maybe he could figure out how to remedy it.

As an armature sculptor Davis discovered that when he was at his artistic best, he was at his dyslexic worst. Upon this discovery he locked himself in a room for three days and practiced making his dyslexia worse, than on making it better with the help of his model clay. After three days he was able to comprehensively read a hotel room guest card. For the first time there where spaces between words, letters where all the same size and Davis could understand what they meant. Thrilled by his new found knowledge, Davis made a trip to his local library and picked up the book Treasure Island and read it cover to cover until the library closed!

Of cores locking every dyslexic person in a room for three days with some modeling clay isn’t the cure for dyslexia it was a start. After his important discovery Davis preformed some independent research, consulting experts from many fields, and perfected his program. In 1982 Davis and associate dr. Fatima Ali, Ph.D. opened the Reading Research Counsel to begin formally teaching dyslexic children and adults. With a 97% success rate Davis decided in 1995 to begin training others to perform the same work, soon there where Davis Dyslexia Programs all over the world.

The first step taken when entering a Davis program is an assessment to determine if the client is suitable for the program. The assessment takes half an hour to an hour and an appointment can be made at any Davis center near the prospective client.

The program itself is an intense one-on-one correction lasting one week. Most facilities run Monday to Friday weeks; 9:00 to 5:00 days. Through out the cores the student is offered many breaks to keep a positive attitude, crucial for this kind of training, and so as not to overwork the student.

There are two major components of the Davis Dyslexia Correction Program orientation counseling and symbol mastery. In dyslexic people there is a cretin mental state that leads to distorted and confused perceptions of letters, words, numerals, etc; orientation counseling helps students to eliminate the thought process that causes misconceptions through simple mental technique. The dyslexic student must learn to recognize when he or she is distorted and than return to focus. This technique allows students to relax their minds and focus on the task at hand.

Once Orientation is learned, the student is ready to build the conceptual skills that will allow them to overcome problems stemming from dyslexia. Resolving disorientation is necessary before the student can progress, because otherwise the student will continue to misperceive letters and words. This stage produces the most dramatic results in older children and adults, usually jumping several reading levels when completing. They may have already had years of education or tutoring; once disorientation is resolved, all their past experience clicks in to place, and progress is typically extremely rapid.

However, learning to control disorientations does not resolve dyslexia. All it does is resolve a key symptom of dyslexia, not the underlying cause. Until you fix the cause, the symptoms will inevitably recur.

The Symbol Mastery part of the program trains students to think with symbols and words rather than with pictures as most dyslexics do. This part of the program is where students should learn to read and write comprehensively without too much difficulty.

In the beginning stages of symbol mastery, students use clay to make out letters, punctuation marks and numbers to make sure they have an accurate perception of these symbols. By creating the letters and symbols themselves, students get a better understanding of how each letter is formed and sounds and is less likely to confuse letters with similar symbols, as is a common trait in dyslexics. Clay is used throughout this part of the program because it offers a three dimensional medium and triggers the creativity of the individual.

Since dyslexics are “picture thinkers” the Davis program tries to incorporate that. Many problems dyslexic people have when reading come about when the reader cannot picture the word being read. Short abstract words such as “the”, “at”, “to” and “it” give dyslexics trouble because they have nothing to picture when reading these words. The Symbol Mastery part of the program has the students create three dimensional objects in clay to represent these words and their meaning. The student now has something to picture while reading these words, and comprehension is much easer.

Davis’s theory is simple. Because all dyslexics are primarily “picture thinkers” they tend to use global logic. They look at the “big picture” and don’t focus on small mechanics. They also tend to be very strategic and creative. The Davis Dyslexia institutes heed to the creative aspect overall and help dyslexic students to learn using this talent or gift.

Most learning centers try to teach dyslexic students using instruction based on phonics, repetition or drill, large printed books, and even medication. Ron Davis is a dyslexic himself and understands how the mind of a dyslexic person works. With a 97% success rate and Davis Dyslexia schools popping up all over the world, there must be some indication of which methods are working and which are not. This is a relatively new approach to teaching dyslexic people to read and write but it seems as though someone finely “hit the nail on the head”.