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Reading Problems: Preventing and Overcoming Reading Problems |
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Without doubt, reading problems are debilitating to children and adolescents. In their book Introduction to Learning Disabilities, Hallahan et al. say that students with reading disabilities fall behind very rapidly in nearly all school subjects. They are likely to develop negative concepts of themselves and lose any motivation to succeed that they may have had. They have limited access to the rich world found in books. Furthermore, reading has become nearly essential for adult employment and is almost a necessity for obtaining a driver’s license and other adult “privileges.” |
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Reading problems can be identified by a number of symptoms, such as reversing letters or words, omitting letters, losing one’s place, reading un-fluently or inaccurately, remembering little of what one has read, or reading with poor comprehension. Most problems can only be solved if one knows what causes the problem. A disease such as scurvy claimed the lives of thousands of seamen during long sea voyages. The disease was cured fairly quickly once the cause was discovered, viz. a Vitamin C deficiency. A viable point of departure would therefore be to ask the question, “What is the cause of reading problems?” Learning is a Stratified Process When teaching, it is imperative to take note of the fact that learning is a stratified process. One step needs to be mastered well enough before subsequent steps can be learned. This means that there is a sequence involved in learning. It is like climbing a ladder; if you miss one of the rungs of the ladder, you will fall off. If you miss out on one of the important steps in the learning process, you will not be able to master subsequent steps. A simple and practical example of this is the fact that one has to learn to count before it becomes possible to learn to add and subtract. If one tried to teach a child to add and subtract before he had been taught to count, one would quickly discover that no amount of effort would ever succeed in teaching the child these skills. In the same way that the ability to count must be acquired first, before it becomes possible to learn to add and subtract, here are also certain skills and knowledge that a child must acquire first, before it becomes possible for him to become a good reader. Basic skills like concentration, visual discrimination, accurate perception and memorizing, skills of association, auditory memory and interpretation of position in space are all functions that form the foundation of good reading and spelling. Until a child has mastered these basic skills first, reading will remain a closed — or, at most, a half-open — book to him. Audiblox teaches the basic skills that form the foundation of good reading and spelling. Case Study In June of 2002 Nita Brist from Ellensburg in Washington State started using Audiblox for her three sons, Brentley, Kennon, and Kameron (see photo below). Six months later, Nita wrote: “I just would like people to know how wonderful it is to have something at last that works for the child! “Kennon and Kameron are 10 year old twins, who have had trouble with reading since 1st grade. Phonics just did not work. Last year they did not improve in their reading level all year. We started Audiblox in June and already in the first 9 weeks of school they have increased over 2 1/2 years. Because their focus is so much better we have less homework and what we have goes quickly. Their spelling has greatly improved and learning new words has become a game, not the dreaded chore it once was. In November the boys both got to call me from their reading class, because Kameron read at 4th grade level at 175 words a minute and answered all the questions correctly. Kennon read at 4th grade level, 166 words a minute, with all the questions answered correctly. So they will get bumped a reading level. “Bentley is 14 years old. He has always been an excellent reader but has had problems with focusing and getting the information from his thoughts down on paper in an orderly manner. There often was not enough time in one evening to get his homework all done, because he couldn’t keep on task. Bentley started Audiblox this last summer. He was able to do all his work independently this quarter at school and with very little homework left. Bentley has noticed a great improvement in his balance. This has even helped him in riding horses.” After seeing the results with her own children, Nita Brist became a certified Audiblox tutor. Pilot StudyIn November 2001 an Audiblox pilot study commenced at Trinity CE Junior School in Keswick, a small town in Cumbria, UK. Eleven children, with an average age of 9 years and 9 months, and at the time the poorest readers in the school, were selected for the study. An abbreviated version of the complete Audiblox program for classroom use, of which the training is video-based, was used as the method of intervention. (Please note: This abbreviated version is no longer available.) Four times per week, for half an hour before school, these children attended the lessons. When the study ended a few days before Good Friday in 2002, a total of 56 half-hour lessons had been conducted. At the end of the pilot study the parents were sent a questionnaire and asked to judge their children's progress in various areas on a 5-point scale, “1” indicating no improvement and “5” indicating an astounding improvement. Areas that had to be judged were reading fluency, reading comprehension, willingness to read, enjoyment of reading, attitude to homework, ability to concentrate, spelling, handwriting, memory and self-confidence. Below are the average scores that were allocated to the various areas:
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