Brain Scans Show Dyslexics Read Better with Alternative Strategies

[full article here]

Scientists studying the brain have found that dyslexic adults who become capable readers use different neural pathways than non-dyslexics. This research shows that there are two independent systems for reading: one that is typical for the majority of readers, and another that is more effective for the dyslexic thinker.

[reprinted with permission by Abigail Marshall]

South African Researchers Report Reading Success with Davis Methods

[full article here]

Researchers at University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, compared the progress of 18 dyslexic students who were given instruction using Davis Dyslexia Correction techniques with a control group of students from the same school. They reported that over a period of nine months, the Davis students performed significantly better on tests of word recognition skills and spelling than a control group of students taught with phonological strategies.

The effect of the Ron Davis programme on the reading ability and psychological functioning of children

[full article here]

South African educator René Engelbrecht worked with a group of 20 Afrikaans-speaking pupils in grades five to seven from a school for learners with special needs. These children had all previously been diagnosed with a reading disorder and had an average to above-average intelligence quotient. These children were randomly assigned to a control group (10) and an experimental group (10).

This study shows that over a short term the Davis techniques had a positive effect on the reading and spelling ability of the participants and on their psychological functioning. The effect was furthermore sustained after the intervention.

Decoding Dyslexia – preview

[full preview here]

Jennifer Poole, Ph.D. conducted a comprehensive study of 14 different methods for dyslexia, including Davis methods, and published her results in the book, “Decoding Dyslexia” ( Matador, 2008; ISBN 978-1906510510). She concluded that the key element for a successful approach to dyslexia was to resolve disorientation. She noted that the Davis method was the only approach that used the “orientation” terminology and was expressly based on recognizing and addressing disorientation.

Case studies conducted in the UK

[case study here]

There are several case studies about Davis methods, conducted under the auspices of the UK Department of Education and Skills, along with a descriptive overview:

Case Study conducted at the Universiti Sains Malaysia

[case study here]

Annie is a 9-year-old child diagnosed with dyslexia with major problems in the area of visual perceptual skills, which manifest academically in the area of reading and writing. The Davis strategies were used to help correct her dyslexia symptoms. The results suggest that the Davis Orientation Counselling method has helped to correct her visual perceptual problems, which in turn improves her reading and writing skills.

A collection of results found in Davis programs

[click here]

How Research Supports the Davis Reading Method

[full article here]

Spell-Reading and Sweep-Sweep-Spell are important because they build a vital center for reading in the brain. Beginning readers often rely exclusively on phonetic decoding strategies for all words, a process usually centered in the mid-temporal lobe of the left hemisphere, where letter sounds are connected to words. This is a workable means of decoding words, but it is slow – and it is particularly difficult for most dyslexics.

[reprinted with permission by Abigail Marshall]

Brain Science and Dyslexia: How the Newest Studies Show why Dyslexics Must Use Unique Strategies for Reading, and How Davis Methods Build those Strategies

[full article here]

Brain scan research shows that dyslexic adults who have overcome early reading problems and acquired strong literacy skills use different neural pathways than non-dyslexics.

[reprinted with permission by Abigail Marshall]

Research which supports dyslexics have special talents in the area of visualization

[full article here]

Brain Function, Spell-Reading and Sweep-Sweep-Spell

By Abigail Marshall – March 2005

This is not phonics or a phonetic process; it is simply letter and word recognition. – Ronald D. Davis

Two of the most important Davis tools for building reading fluency and word recognition skills are Spell-Reading and Sweep-Sweep-Spell.¹ During these reading exercises, the student reads a passage out loud in the company of his support person. When he encounters an unfamiliar word, he spells it out letter by letter; after he says the name of the last letter, if he recognizes the word, he says the word, and then moves on. If he does not recognize the word, his helper supplies it for him, and the student repeats the word – and then continues.

Spell-Reading and Sweep-Sweep-Spell are important because they build a vital center for reading in the brain. Beginning readers often rely exclusively on phonetic decoding strategies for all words, a process usually centered in the mid-temporal lobe of the left hemisphere, where letter sounds are connected to words. This is a workable means of decoding words, but it is slow – and it is particularly difficult for most dyslexics.

The Importance of Visual Word Form Recognition

Fluent readers use a different part of their brain to recognize familiar words an area in the rear left-hemisphere occipital lobe, dubbed by scientists the “Visual Word Form Area” (VWFA)². Essentially, this part of the brain is a storage bin for all of the familiar, known words – what teachers call “sight words”. It is located in the visual cortex – the part of the brain that responds to all visual stimuli – and for typical readers, it is the first part of the brain to activate when the eyes perceive a word. Thus, known words are recognized and understood in subliminal time, even before the reader is aware of having seen the word or capable of speaking it. Generally, the VWFA activates and completes its work of matching the letter string to a known letter pattern within the first quarter-second of exposure to a letter string.

From there, the whole word can be sent to parts of the brain where meaning is ascertained. For typical readers, this is probably the same left-hemisphere temporal region as where sounding out occurs; but with development of the VWFA the process becomes one of matching the sounds of whole words to their meaning, rather than sounding out letters or small word segments.

In typical readers, the VWFA is developed and begins to activate regularly in response to exposure to letter strings at around the age of 8 – the time most children are transitioning from early decoding skills to fluent and meaningful reading. But unfortunately, this is the part of the brain that doesn’t seem to work for uncorrected dyslexic readers. Research shows that this area is largely bypassed, with higher activity occurring in right brain and frontal regions, important for discerning patterns and solving puzzles.³ These areas don’t even begin to activate until after the VWFA has already done its job for more skilled readers.

So the brain picture shows us that while the typical reader relies on an instant word-recognition system, the dyslexic reader must use time–consuming, analytical thought processes. Where for others reading is a matter of recognizing the familiar, for dyslexics it is a constant and exhausting exercise in puzzle-solving.

Training the Brain

Davis Spell Reading and Sweep-Sweep-Spell are exercises for the eyes and brain. They are designed to train the brain to develop the instantaneous, visual word recognition system that non-dyslexics acquire naturally. These techniques are not intended to entirely supplant other strategies; ideally, the student will only practice Spell-Reading and Sweep-Sweep-Spell for 10 minutes at a time – just enough time to exercise and reinforce the important neural pathways that they build.

Many students are tempted to use their sound-it-out phonics skills at this time. However, the use of phonics at this time defeats the purpose of the exercises. As explained in The Gift of Dyslexia, if the student starts using phonetic strategies, the helper should say:

You don’t need to sound out the word. Only say the name of the letters one at a time. All we want is for you to name the alphabet letters in the order they are written. Then you say the word after I say it.

The problem with adding phonics to the mix is that it sends the brain down the wrong path. We are training the brain to use the vital short-cut that is the hallmark of all good readers – the ability to recognize a string of letters and match them almost instantaneously to a known word, a skill sometimes referred to as “orthographic knowledge”.

Every time the brain takes a detour to another path, we reinforce the pre-existing mental habits, and fail to build the short cut for visual word form recognition. This is the reason why dyslexic children schooled heavily in phonics have such difficulty transitioning to fluent reading: their phonic knowledge is strengthened and reinforced again and again, undermining the opportunity to develop the neural shortcut that ordinary readers have access to at age eight.

The Importance of Timing

It is not enough for the brain to merely “see” the series of letters that form a word – the brain must have a means of sorting and recording the order of the letters. FORM is not the same as FROM; TEA is not the same as EAT. When we look at brain scans taken with an fMRI, we are looking at images taken at one second intervals; whereas much of the work of the brain occurs in a time frames measured in tiny fractions of a second. To understand the process of word recognition, we need to do more than look at a picture of the brain; we also need to correlate the activity with the passage of time. This can be seen with the use of an EEG; which measures the rate of electric impulses generated by brain cells, which are in turn charted as oscillating waves showing the patterns generated by various areas of the brain.

Ordinarily when a person is awake and alert, the brain produces beta waves with a frequency of about 13-30 HZ. When attention is engaged for learning or retaining new information, brain activity increases to the gamma range, producing brain waves of about 40 HZ.

When the eyes fixate on an object, information is transmitted to the visual cortex of the brain, where different types of information are registered and evoke a response from different specialized sets of neurons. Information about shape, color, or position of an object is processed in different parts of the visual cortex. The process by which the brain reassembles the information is called binding. Scientists think that binding takes place when all neurons associated with the perceived object begin firing simultaneously, in a synchronized gamma wave pattern.

Thus, when looking at a word, the separate neurons associated with recognizing each individual letter will be firing simultaneously, in a uniform, synchronous wave pattern. In order for the letters in the string to be seen and remembered as a word, the brain must also have an efficient means of retaining information about letter order. Dr. Carol Whitney of the University of Maryland has proposed a specific scheme for encoding of letter order that she calls SERIOL: –sequential encoding regulated by inputs to oscillations within letter units–.¹¹

Dr. Whitney suggests the letter-order, word recognition skill is a matter of the timing of neural firing within short brain wave cycles, combined with a invocation of a mental grid which assigns a priority value to each letter based on its relative position. The grid is established through the ingrained habit of reading words from left-to-right, or from right-to-left in languages like Hebrew and Arabic.

Although the neurons for recognizing each letter are all firing, the brain’s internal prioritizing system will register the first letter in any series slightly before the second letter, the second slightly before the third, and so on. This process takes place very rapidly; each letter position is registered within successive sub-cycles of about 25 milliseconds for each letter, within an oscillatory period of 200 msec. This is long enough for the brain to process about 7 or 8 letters within a string, and will allow a person to read at a rate of about 5 words per second, or 300 words per minute, which is about average for skilled readers.

Because timing is so important, the ability to recognize letter order is impaired if perception of individual letters is delayed. For example, experiments have shown that as time intervals between display of letters are extended, the subject’s ability to remember letter order diminishes. These experiments are usually done with skilled adult readers; when the timing is off, the test subjects start making the same kind of mistakes that are typical for dyslexia: letters are perceived out of order, and the subjects are unable to form a mental picture of the whole word.

When exposure to letters is extended to 50 msec between letters, performance falls to 70% accuracy; at 125 msec., it falls to 50%. However, test subjects do just about as well at an interval of 250 msec. as at 50 msec; this shows the importance of the 200 msec. brain wave cycle. A 250 msec. delay results in recognition taking place at the 50 msec. point in a second cycle.

In practice, someone scanning a word slowly enough to restore accuracy — a delay of 200 msec. per letter – would also be forced to read at a painfully slow rate. This, of course, is what is often seen with dyslexic readers who read accurately but much more slowly than their non-dyslexic counterparts.

Davis Tools and the SERIOL Model

It is very possible that the Davis tools of Orientation, Alphabet Mastery, Punctuation Mastery, Spell-Reading, and Sweep-Sweep-Spell, work by their combined effect on the brain’s timing system and through training of the visual system to apply the priority gradient proposed by the SERIOL model.

With Alphabet Mastery and Punctuation Mastery we insure that the brain is able to accurately recognize each letter and punctuation mark. With Davis Orientation, we probably reset the brain’s internal clock so as to enable the simultaneous gamma wave pattern that is required for the binding process. This primes the neurons associated with letter recognition to fire in synch.

With Spell-Reading and Sweep-Sweep-Spell, we are exercising the letter-recognition neurons together with developing a habit of registering the letters in their appropriate sequential order, creating the internalized grid needed to assign a priority tag to each individual letter.

Given this goal, it is imperative for Sweep-Sweep-Spell to be done quickly, because the brain must be trained to be able to recognize a short letter string within the 200 msec. cycle required for accurate encoding. However, the exercise should not be so fast as to rush or pressure the reader; this would be counterproductive. Frustration would cause disorientation, which would probably disrupt the synchronization of neural firing needed for binding.

The oral spelling that is part of Spell-Reading would not be fast enough to match the speed required for mental recognition in the SERIOL model, but it helps build the habit. The speed of mental letter encoding is increased when the student moves on to Sweep-Sweep-Spell, where he is instructed to let his eyes sweep through the word, and then say the word, repeating the sweep a second time and spelling out loud only if the word is not immediately recognized.

It can readily be seen why this process is so important for recognition of the small trigger words such as the, for, and its. Dr. Whitney points out that the time frame for recognition of a 3-letter word is the same as for a 6-letter word – both occur within a single oscillatory sub-cycle. It is easy to see how disorientation disrupts this process and causes students to stumble over the small words, with frequent transpositions and reversals of letter order. Sounding-out strategies also lead to the same confusion: the slowing of the input of individual letters causes the mind to lose track of letter order. That is why the dyslexic student may be able to successfully sound out a word repeatedly, but be unable to recognize the same word when seen only a short time later, or may frequently confuse words with similar letters, such as confusing on/no, form/from, etc. The word simply has not been processed in the brain in a way that can possibly be encoded for retention of information about letter order.

Because Spell-Reading and Sweep-Sweep-Spell are primarily strategies for training the brain and building the capacity for visual word form recognition, we do not use it for study of word lists or as a vehicle for learning sight words beyond those encountered in the course of practice. Rather, we use Davis Symbol Mastery for its benefits in linking the way a word sounds and what it means to the way the word looks. This makes sense, as the mental processes for relating words to their sounds and meanings takes place in the brain after the VWFA has done its work.

Given this goal, it is imperative for Sweep-Sweep-Spell to be done quickly, because the brain must be trained to be able to recognize a short letter string within the 200 msec. cycle required for accurate encoding. However, the exercise should not be so fast as to rush or pressure the reader; this would be counterproductive. Frustration would cause disorientation, which would probably disrupt the synchronization of neural firing needed for binding.

References:

¹ Davis, Ronald D., The Gift of Dyslexia, pp. 213-219. Perigee, 1997.

² McCandliss B, Cohen L, Dehaene S., The visual word form area: Expertise for reading in the fusiform gyrus. {Trends in Cognitive Science}, 13:155–161, 2003

³ Shaywitz B, Shaywitz S, Pugh K, Disruption of Posterior Brain Systems in Children with Developmental Dyslexia. Biological Psychiatry 52:101-110, 2002.

¹¹ Whitney, Carol. How the brain encodes the order of letters in a printed word: the SERIOL model and selective literature review. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8(2):221-43, 2001.

Brain Science and Dyslexia:

How the Newest Studies Show why Dyslexics Must Use Unique Strategies for Reading, and How Davis Methods Build those Strategies:

By Abigail Marshall – July 2003

Brain scan research shows that dyslexic adults who have overcome early reading problems and acquired strong literacy skills use different neural pathways than non-dyslexics.

Typical, non-dyslexic readers rely on a brain system that begins with perception of the letter sequence or words via the visual cortex in the posterior region of the brain (Visual Word Form Area or VWFA), and continues in the auditory cortex in the left temporal (midbrain) region, where sounds of speech are ordinarily processed (Wernicke’s area). For more complex reading tasks, the left frontal regions involved in logical thought and speech production (Broca’s Area) are also invoked.Left side of brain

In contrast, dyslexic readers who become capable readers do most of the work of reading in their frontal lobes, relying on a more extensive use of left frontal systems, including Broca’s Area, and on corresponding right brain systems. Visual cortex activity is substantially reduced, as dyslexics do not invoke the VWFA system, and the Wernicke’s area is bypassed. In other words, the evidence shows that the non-dyslexic reader’s brain moves from sight to sound, quickly transferring the visually perception of the word to the parts of the brain invoked in listening to words.

This system is not effective for dyslexic readers; brain scans show that those dyslexics who follow this mental route for reading remain persistently poor readers through adulthood. For the dyslexic who acquires good literacy skills, the brain does not process the word in the visual cortex, but rather uses the speech production areas of the brain in combination with analytical thought systems. The left-brain systems are associated with logical though and analysis, whereas the right-brain systems are associated with resolving ambiguities and intuitive thought. So for the literate dyslexic, reading is a process of moving from visual perception to conceptual thought.

Science also shows that the dyslexic brain can be trained to rely more on the auditory areas used by non-dyslexics, and that even with very short-term intervention, such changes can be seen in brain scans as well as improved ability to relate words to their component sounds.

However, this does not translate to improved reading fluency or comprehension skills. Rather, dyslexic children who have been trained in such skills show evidence of reduced comprehension skills. Dyslexic adults whose brains reflect a visual-to-auditory pattern tend to be persistently poor readers.

The reasons for this disparate pattern may be due to physical brain structure; there is some evidence that the Wernicke’s area in the dyslexic brain is physically smaller, while right-brain areas may be larger, when compared to the brain of a non-dyslexic individual. It may also be developmental, perhaps influenced by genetic factors which govern the rate and pattern of brain growth and development, as well as environmental factors. Possibly it is also influenced by hormones, as studies indicate that about half of non-dyslexic women also rely on the right-brain frontal areas used by dyslexics for some reading tasks, and that estrogen levels influence the pattern of brain use.

Thus the evidence shows that, not only does the dyslexic brain function differently, but that it must function differently if the dyslexic is to acquire good literacy skills. Actually, there is both a disadvantage and an advantage to the functional difference in the dyslexic brain. The disadvantage as that the system used by non-dyslexics is quicker and more automatic, and also can be acquired at an earlier age; most non-dyslexic children can learn to read well at about age 6, when their mid-brain system for listening to and understanding language is already well-developed.

In contrast, the dyslexic brain system is primarily reliant on frontal areas related to analytic thought processes that develop later in a child’s life, and dyslexics who become capable readers and writers often do not acquire literacy until around the ages of 10-12, when their brain development has reached what Piaget called the stage of formal operations. The advantage for the dyslexic reader lies in the fact that, in relying more on intellect than on listening skills, the dyslexic has built a foundation for a deeper understanding of what is read and stronger abilities to analyse complex ideas and resolve ambiguities. Thus, while the dyslexic reading system is inefficient for the simple concepts typically presented in primary level readers and day-to-day reading tasks, it is primed for the complexity encountered as reading demands increase at the high school and college level. For this reason, dyslexics often follow the pattern of being “late bloomers” who struggle during early years, but often excel and are far better than their peers at integrating new knowledge at the high school and college level.

Unfortunately, because of misconceptions about reading and dyslexia, our educational system is geared primarily toward trying to teach dyslexic children to learn to read by exercising the subsidiary reading skills used by their non-dyslexic counterparts. Emphasis is placed on developing phonemic awareness and practicing reading through phonics, and on drill and repetition to memorize basic sight words. These strategies not only fail to help the dyslexic learner, but in the long run they may undermine the process of development of the frontal brain regions so desperately needed for reading, both because they reinforce neural pathways that are ineffective for the dyslexic reader, and often children receiving such instruction are simultaneously denied exposure to the enriched educational environment that would promote advanced intellectual development.

This dyslexic difference can be explained by the model of picture-thinking vs. word-thinking. That is, the dyslexic thinks mostly with visual imagery, whereas the typical, non-dyslexic learner thinks mostly with the sounds of words. Brain scan research does also show that individuals tend to prefer either primary language-based problem solving approaches or visualization-based approaches; that these are reflected in different brain use patterns; and that individuals tend to reinforce their favoured modality through their thinking and learning processes, building stronger neural pathways and gaining proficiency.

Because these differences appear to be persistent through life and tied to neurological causes, educators must recognize that dyslexic children will learn to read through different strategies and follow a different timetable for acquisition of strong literacy skills than non-dyslexic learners.

Standardized assessment tests of basic early reading skills may validly be used to develop a learning profile and direct students to appropriate educational resources, but they must not be used as barriers to prevent advancement in school, as such barriers deny children access to the age- appropriate and enriched classroom content and activities needed to stimulate growth in the brain regions that will ultimately be essential for acquiring advanced literacy skills.

Further, when children are struggling to learn to read, the focus of teaching should not be primarily on remediating weaknesses in basic skills, but on developing the intellectual skills that will ultimately provide the basis for advanced reading comprehension skills. Instruction in areas of weakness may be provided, but it should not be done in an intensive, systemized fashion, but rather offered in an integrated fashion with other instruction, so that the child learns naturally, in accordance with his or her own distinct learning style.

Brain scans show dyslexics need alternative strategies

By Abigail Marshall; © 2003 DDAI. (used with permission)

Scientists studying the brain have found that dyslexic adults who become capable readers use different neural pathways than nondyslexics. This research shows that there are two independent systems for reading: one that is typical for the majority of readers, and another that is more effective for the dyslexic thinker.
NIMH Study of Dyslexic Adults

Researchers Judith Rumsey and Barry Horwitz at the National Institute of Mental Health used positron emission tomography (PET) to compare regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) among dyslexic and nondyslexic men. The dyslexic subjects had childhood histories of dyslexia and continued to show some symptoms related to reading, but their overall reading ability varied. For some word recognition and comprehension tasks, the dyslexic men scored as well as or better than controls.

Research correlating brain activity with reading ability showed an intriguing inverse relationship between reading ability and cerebral blood flow patterns. For nondyslexic controls, stronger activation of left hemispheric reading systems, including the left angular gyrus, corresponded to better reading skill. For dyslexic subjects, the opposite was true: the stronger the left-hemispheric pattern, the poorer the reader. In contrast, increased reading skill for dyslexics was correlated with greater reliance on the right hemispheric systems.

The researchers explained:

“The rCBF–reading test correlations identified a region in/near the left angular gyrus as significantly related to level of reading skill within both groups. These correlations were uniformly positive for the control group and uniformly negative for the dyslexic group, indicating diametrically opposed relationships in the two groups….within the control group higher rCBF was associated with better reading skill and that within the dyslexic group higher rCBF was associated with worse reading skill, or more severe dyslexia.”

The researchers observed a similar pattern in the right hemisphere, in an area near the right angular gyrus. In the right brain area, the dyslexic men had higher activation levels than controls during the word reading tasks, which correlated positively to improved reading ability. For the nondyslexic control group, such activation pattern was negatively correlated to reading ability.
Comparison of Reading Outcomes among children followed since kindergarten

A team of researchers led by Sally Shaywitz at Yale University has confirmed that dyslexic individuals who become good readers have a different pattern of brain use than either nondyslexic readers, or dyslexics who still read poorly. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to evaluate brain activity among 20-year-old dyslexic men and women selected from a group that had been followed since kindergarten. All the dyslexic subjects had a history of severe reading impairment in early childhood. However, while some of the students continued to struggle with reading throughout their school years (“persistently poor readers”), others improved by their high school years, becoming accurate readers with strong comprehension skills (“accuracy improved readers”).

Dyslexic subjects from both groups as well as non-dyslexic control subjects were asked to perform reading tasks involving phonological processing (non-word rhyming test) and ascertaining meaning (semantic category test). During the non-word rhyming test [“Do leat and jete rhyme?], both dyslexic groups showed less activation of the left posterior and temporal areas of the brain as compared to the control group. However, the dyslexics who were improved readers also had greater activation of right temporal areas and both right and left frontal areas.

For the semantic category test [“Are corn and rice in the same category?”] the persistently poor readers showed brain activity very similar to the nondyslexic control group, despite the fact that their reading performance was significantly impaired. Like the control group, the persistently poor readers activate left posterior and temporal systems. In contrast, the improved dyslexic readers bypassed this area entirely.

This research suggests that for dyslexic readers, the left brain areas associated with phonetic decoding are ineffective. While a non-dyslexic reader finds such pathways an efficient route to reading, the dyslexic reader essentially becomes entangled in a neural traffic jam. In contrast, dyslexics who bypass these mental pathways, relying more on areas of the brain involved in nonverbal thought and in analytic thought, are able to become capable readers.
Impact of Findings for Education

These brain imaging studies show that teaching methods that may work well for a large majority of schoolchildren may be counterproductive when used with dyslexic children. Teaching methods based on intensive or systematic drill in phonemic awareness or phonetic decoding strategies may actually be harmful to dyslexic children. Such teaching might simply emphasize reliance on mental strategies that are as likely to diminish reading ability for dyslexic children as they are to improve it, increasing both the frustration and impairment level of dyslexic students.
Davis Theory and Methods

Davis Dyslexia Correction® emphasize a creative, meaning-based strategy for acquisition of basic reading skills. Children (and adults) use clay to model the concepts that are associated with word meanings at the same time as modeling the letters of each word in clay. At the primary level, these methods provide a route to learning to read that seems easier for students with dyslexic tendencies than traditional instruction. Among older dyslexic children and adults, these methods routinely lead to very rapid progress in reading ability.

Scientists know from other studies that the right brain hemisphere is where the mind connects written words to their meanings, and that it is where creative and imaginative thought takes place. Modeling words in clay can help build the mental pathways that brain scan evidence shows to be crucial for reading development among dyslexic students.

South African Researchers Report Reading Success

Reported by Abigail Marshall © 2010
South African Researchers Report Reading Success with Davis Methods hands on clay letters

My child couldn’t read at all. After the orientation counselling and symbol mastery, she could read fluently. She was so thankful and delighted that she almost cried and could not thank me enough. According to the classroom educator her spelling performance also improved a lot. [From Interview 7]

Researchers at University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, compared the progress of 18 dyslexic students who were given instruction using Davis Dyslexia Correction techniques with a control group of students from the same school. They reported that over a period of nine months, the Davis students performed significantly better on tests of word recognition skills and spelling than a control group of students taught with phonological strategies.

The researchers used a pre-test, post-test design, with matched experimental and control groups. Participants were Afrikaans-speaking dyslexic children in grades 4, 5 and 6, between the ages 10 and 14. Students selected for the study had average intellectual ability and a reading discrepancy of at least two years between their chronological age and their reading age. The groups were also balanced for age and gender, with 12 boys and 6 girls assigned to the Davis group, and 11 boys and 7 girls assigned to the control group.

Eight post-graduate education students were involved in the design of a literacy intervention program based on Davis methods. The program incorporated Davis Orientation Counselling to help students control their mental focus and overcome perceptual confusion, and Davis Symbol Mastery, using clay modeling to master alphabet letters and words. The graduate students worked one-on-one with their assigned pupils, for 30 minutes each week, over a period of nine months.

Students in the control group received no special intervention beyond the methods already used in their classroom. However, they did receive additional support from their regular teachers, meeting individually with each for 30 minutes each week, where the teachers continued to focus mainly on phonological strategies to build literacy skills. Thus, the students in the support group received the same amount of instructional time and individualized attention as the experimental Davis group.

Prior to intervention, pre-test results showed no significant difference between the experimental group and controls. However, after the nine-month program, post-test results showed that the Davis group performed significantly better than the control group on tests of word recognition and spelling performance.

In addition to relying on the quantitative tests, the postgraduate students who worked with the dyslexic students were also interviewed. Many reported qualitative observations of improvement in other areas, such as greater self-confidence or improved behaviour. One postgraduate remarked, “After just one month, I observed a great improvement in the learner’s concentration abilities and reading and spelling performance.”

Another volunteer tutor stated, “Initially, I was very sceptical about the literacy programme, but the results obtained in the end were very positive. The learner enjoyed the clay-modelling of letters and words and it resulted in better sound knowledge and word recognition and her reading comprehension skills also improved”

Another participant reported that one of her pupil’s had a severe problem with stuttering, but was able to read an entire page without stuttering after the orientation counselling.

Citation to Full Research Article:
van Staden, A., Tolmie, A. & Badenhorst, M. (2009). Enhancing intermediate dyslexic learners’ literacy skills: a Free State community project. Africa Education Review, 6(2), 295-307. doi:10.1080/18146620903274605 Cite this page as:
Marshall, A.(2010). South African Researchers Report Reading Success with Davis Methods. Retrieved May 01, 2010 from Dyslexia, the Gift. URL: http://www.dyslexia.com/science/freestate.htm

An Independent Case Study

ISSN: 0128-7702

© Universiti Putra Malaysia Press

Pertanika Journal: Social Sciences & Humanities 18 (1): 133 – 139 (2010) — Used with permission

The Davis Model of Dyslexia Intervention: Lessons from One Child

Lee Lay Wah Ph.D.

Programme Chairperson (Special Education)

School of Educational Studies

Universiti Sains Malaysia

Abstract
Ronald Davis developed a theoretical base for the Davis model of understanding dyslexia. The model describes the cause of dyslexia and prescribes certain strategies for intervention. The strategies consist of three main components. The first is the Davis Orientation Counselling procedure, while the second is the Davis Symbol Mastery procedure and finally the Davis Reading Exercises. Annie is a 9-year-old child diagnosed with dyslexia with major problems in the area of visual perceptual skills, which manifest academically in the area of reading and writing. The Davis strategies were used to help correct her dyslexia symptoms. The results suggest that the Davis Orientation Counselling method has helped to correct her visual perceptual problems, which in turn improves her reading and writing skills. Furthermore, the Davis Symbol Mastery was able to help identify and correct her problems with reversals. Finally, the Davis Reading Exercises helped her in tracking and in word recognition. Therefore, it is suggested that the Davis method offers a plausible explanation for Annie’s dyslexic symptoms.

For the full article click here.