So I left off yesterday by mentioning Lisa Spratt. She runs the NorthEast Alabama Dyslexia Center in Huntsville, AL. http://www.nealdc.com/ She introduced me to a concept called the Davis Method. Ron Davis is an autistic dyslexic and founder of the concept; he authored a book called, “A Gift of Dyslexia.” It is brilliant. And the more I read it, the more I found he was describing Martha. After talking with Lisa and reading the book, we decided that this was the program for us. (I also looked into Enlisten. I think that program has merit, but we just felt that at the time, the Davis Method would give us the bang for the buck. If you have a dyslexic child or family member, please look at all 3 programs and decide what is best for your situation.)
So Lisa and I decided that for Martha the Young Learner’s program would be best. Basically, it is the same program for older students broken down into small time segments so that younger children can manage. We started out at 3 hours a night. And for the first few nights that was fine. (Yes, we took breaks and we played to unwind.) And I am going to be totally honest here, after the first class, I thought this was just mumbo jumbo. I didn’t see how this was going to work. I remember calling my mom and crying because I just wasted money we didn’t have. Mom told me to give it a few more times and we can re-access. (I don’t know where I would be without my mom. She is one of the wisest women I know. Her mom being on the top of that list too!)
So I did. Martha and I and Ms. Lisa started working with clay. It was amazing to watch Martha and her work. Martha’s whole body manner changes when she is having to read. Not in a bad way. But it is her way of what I call turning off the dyslexia. They worked on the uppercase alphabet first. Martha would make the letters out of plain neutral colored clay. After she got all the letters formed. Ms. Lisa and her used a letter chart to make sure they were in the right order as well as facing the right direction. Martha once she “focused” was finding the misdirected letters all by herself. I was in tears. Martha would have never been able to do that even that morning. This is what they call “Mastering the Alphabet”. They played games trying to find triggers that caused letter confusion. They worked on those letters specifically. K and X were one of Martha’s uppercase difficulties. Then Ms. Lisa asked Martha to look at her alphabet and take a picture of it so that she can keep it in her mind. Then she asked Martha to close her eyes, focus, and tell her the alphabet backwards. We covered up the alphabet with a paper towel so Martha couldn’t peak. Martha was very methodical and repeated each letter backwards not missing one the first time.
But the uppercase really wasn’t where Martha was having trouble at. It was the lowercase. Boy oh boy! They worked on the lower case but it took us a great deal longer. We had a few melt downs. But we pushed on. There were so many more trigger letters for her in the lower case. Ms. Lisa and Martha worked and worked and worked. But they finally got it. After she mastered the lower case, we then started to work on word. Just to master the upper case and the lower case took approximately 20+ hours.
But the crazy thing is Martha started to improve in other areas without us telling her how to do things. For example, after she mastered the lowercase letters with Ms. Lisa. She started writing in her journal in lowercase letters. We had been working on a piece for her violin and it just wasn’t happening. After she was taught how to control the dyslexia (called focusing), she started reading her violin music. Her gymnastics coach noticed how improved her balance had become. Martha doesn’t have complete meltdowns any more when you open a book and ask her to look at it. In fact, she is always wanting to read with me. She is starting to write notes to people without me prompting.
Her self-confidence is back. As a baby, it amazed me at how fearless she was, nothing could stop her. Then that brick wall formed out of nowhere. And it just started eating her up and destroying her. And nothing I could do was helping her escape her prison. I still remember me asking her to sound out a simple word and the void that overcame her. I recognized that void as I had felt it myself growing up. The ability to understand the task the person is asking you to complete, but not having an inkling of an idea of how to do it. Martha could tell me the letter sound for each of the individual letters if you asked her to look at the word and sound out the letters, it just wasn’t going to happen. And won’t really ever happen. It isn’t the way dyslexic process words.
A month ago, Martha came home absolutely just ecstatic! Her teacher didn’t have to write the words under her sentence because they could understand what Martha wrote! I honestly believe that even though Martha has awesome teachers, that this would have been something Martha wouldn’t have been able to achieve without the help of Ms. Lisa and the Davis Method. The fog has cleared for Martha and she is soaring again. And it just makes my heart sing.
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