Specialized program gives kids with dyslexia a unique approach to learning

From Vancouver Courier in Canada:

As a little boy preparing for school each morning, Tyler Norton's stomach would clench up and a string of nerves would tighten in his ribs. When it came time to reading aloud in Grade 3, the knots in his stomach twisted ever tighter. Matters weren't helped when some of his classmates yelled out, "Tyler's next, Tyler's next" hoping they'd see him melt with crushing embarrassment at his inability to read like the rest of them.

School was hell.

"I got a lot of stomach aches from stress in elementary school, which I still get today so I don't last very long reading," Norton recalls. "When I was six, I realized there was something wrong with me. I thought I was the dumbest kid."

At 14 and having just failed Grade 8, Norton was finally assessed as dyslexic. He's 29 now and, by anyone's measure, a success in life, working for Grouse Mountain ski patrol, organizing summer camps for kids with self-esteem issues, facilitating youth workshops and organizing workshops at a recovery centre.

But the slender, athletic North Shore resident still has trouble filling out forms, writing and reading. "To pick up a book and really enjoy reading it, that's what I'd love to be able to do," he says.

He believes he doesn't read well not only because of dyslexia, but also from low self-esteem and lack of confidence resulting from a stressful school experience. Although his reading skills were extremely poor, Norton was always passed through to the next grade--even at a private school specializing in dyslexia. He was 21 when he picked up his first book.

"It was Body for Life by Bill Phillips," Norton says. "It's about fitness training and was just lying around my house."

Norton is about to start a little-known but unique one-week program specifically designed to help dyslexics fulfill their potential. He's hoping the simple, but intense one-on-one program will be as successful for him as it has been for other dyslexics he's met and connected with.

Why is he doing it now at age 29?

"I don't see dyslexia as a disability. It's an area I'm challenged in and I've learned to ask for help," says Norton.

He'll be working with Sue Hall, a Davis Dyslexia Correction Facilitator who uses the Davis method, based on the experience and work of Ronald Davis, an American who went through his own personal hell as a child growing up unable to read in the late '40s and '50s. Davis's books include The Gift of Dyslexia and The Gift of Learning. (Davis speaks Aug. 22 at the Unitarian Sanctuary. Info at http://www.dyslexiavancouver.com/.)

As much as she enjoys working one-on-one with students, Hall has a grander dream for the Davis method. She wants to see the Davis method introduced in kindergarten or Grade 1 at all public schools--or at least one school district to start. She believes the Davis system can quickly identify children with learning difficulties, which can then be addressed and corrected, leaving no child behind.

"I believe all children are able to learn--we just have to be aware of how they learn," says Hall, who founded the non-profit The Whole Dyslexic Society. "[This program] would help even out the playing field and help identify not just dyslexics, but kids with other learning issues."

What is dyslexia? Most people think it's simply getting letters and numbers mixed up. It's more than that. Hall defines dyslexia not as a learning disability but a "teaching disability." In fact, the Davis method considers dyslexia a gift due to the dyslexic's ability to utilize the brain and alter perceptions and to think and perceive multi-dimensionally by using all five senses. Unfortunately what typically happens in the traditional educational process is the suppression of these abilities, Halls says.

Or as Norton puts it, "Schools have an agenda that you need to meet--mentally and emotionally you need to be at a certain place at a certain time and that is the same place as the other students. There is the assumption that people are the same without acknowledging that some people learn differently."

Dyslexia, as defined by the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, is the general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters and other symbols, but that do not affect general intelligence. Other symptoms include time and space confusion, disorganization and difficulty with comprehension. It's estimated that five to 15 per cent of the population is dyslexic.

"There are many sources [for that figure]," says Hall.

"I would generalize and say that a third of the population is predominantly sound-based learners, a third image-based learners and a third use both ways of thinking," she adds. "It is possible to have this natural ability of altering perception without officially attracting a label. It just depends where you are on the continuum."

Hall didn't know she was dyslexic, but her coping mechanisms were good enough to get her through school by mindlessly memorizing and photographing words.

"There was no meaning and very little understanding, but the memorization enabled me to pass exams," she recalls. "Even I thought I was a good student. But do I feel cheated? Yes, now I know how I learn, I'd like to have understanding, too."

In his books, Davis explains that dyslexics tend to share similar traits. Because they think primarily in pictures instead of words, dyslexics are described as highly creative, intuitive and insightful. Famous dyslexics include Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Whoopi Goldberg, Cher and Steve Jobs.

Dyslexia is also genetic. Norton's father and one of his brothers are also dyslexic. Hall is a mother to a "severely talented" dyslexic son and was to married to one for 30 years.

Her son motivated her to do something for dyslexics 11 years ago.

"I sent a little boy to school who loved to learn and remembered every story we'd ever read to him," Hall says. "The only subject he connected to was math, everything else was miserable for him. After his Davis [program], he said to me, 'Mum, dyslexia is like a wound and in the past, they've given me bandaids for it, but now I can heal myself.'"

Hall, a soft-spoken U.K. transplant with a gentle approach, latched on to the Davis method because she says it's respectful of the dyslexic's natural abilities, such as altering perception.

"The methods I use do not attempt to make the image-based learner who can alter perception become a sound-based learner," she explains. "We show the individual how to control their natural ability, use it to its full advantage, and learn in the way they were born to learn. You deal with the cause of the problem, then the problem ceases to exist, and there is no requirement to deal with the symptoms."

As a one-on-one facilitator, Hall works with people aged six to 80, though the majority are in the nine to 11 age range, when "all the old solutions or coping mechanisms are in place and have disabled the dyslexic's natural learning process."

She says she officially has a 98 per cent success rate--based on the students having the perceptual ability, knowing their challenges and wanting to do something about them--but prefers her students determine how successful they are.

"Their own definition of success is more important than mine. The students grade themselves at the start of the program and we gather their own comments at the end."

One of those students is 11-year-old Nicole Wisdom, whose father is also dyslexic. Despite that knowledge and the fact that her mother Alicia worked as an infant development consultant with access to good information, finding the right program to help Nicole was an exasperating experience.

"Nicole was extremely advanced in any skills that required spatial awareness," Alicia Wisdom explained. "But there was one test criteria that she was not able to do at all. At the age of three and a half, a child should be able to recognize the letters O and X. Nicole didn't, so I tried teaching them to her. A year later, I was still trying to teach her just those two letters. By kindergarten, she knew them, but that was all."

Learning her Os and Xs might have been a problem, but a three-year-old Nicole busied herself building elaborate cities made out of Lego, complete with SkyTrain, suburbs and houses with little toy cars.

Despite this, an extremely shy Nicole was labelled immature (because she liked to use her hand as a puppet to talk to strangers in stressful situations) and was told she required speech therapy during elementary school. Wisdom begged Nicole's teachers to foster her daughter's other gifts and not solely focus on spelling and reading. "In Grades 1 and 2, I felt like my opinions about my own daughter were entirely disregarded and that the pressure she had to 'catch up' and learn phonics was so stressful for both of us that I considered homeschooling her," Wisdom recalls.

Nicole didn't like school much either, except for phys-ed. Unfortunately, she was often pulled out of her favourite class as that was the only time the learning assistant was available.

"I felt embarrassed when I had to go to a learning support class to work on reading," says the sparkly-eyed, long-haired brunette. "It was hard at school and I had lots of frustrations."

Like Norton, Nicole thought she was dumb and would get so sick to her stomach her parents took her to the doctor who found nothing wrong, but asked if she was undergoing any extreme stress.

"At first I thought about how relaxed she generally was at home and couldn't think why she would be so stressed," her mother recalls. "Then summer came and she'd be fine again. But as September approached, mid way through August, the symptoms would come back again. And Nicole started begging not to go back to school."

When Nicole was in Grade 5, Wisdom attended a Davis lecture and thought his methods might help her daughter. She signed Nicole up for the weeklong program about a year ago. At $3,000, it was a huge expense. Wisdom applied for a bursary from the society to help offset the cost.

One the first day of the program, Hall teaches students about the "mind's eye" and to orient at will to ensure their reality and perception agree. "When seeing, we use our real eyes for our real view," Hall explains. "The 'gift of dyslexia' is being able to disorient--to send the mind's eye, the place that does the looking when we imagine, or visually perceive, anywhere we want to. We have a perceptual ability to see a 3D image from any angle we wish. In the 3D world this leads to many talents--in art, design, architecture, landscaping, carpentry, Lego, or putting IKEA furniture together without the instructions.

"However, when looking at 2D images, alphabet letters, math symbols etc. we need our perception--the view from our mind's eye--to coincide with the image from our real eyes. The 2D shape u becomes- from 180 degrees, d becomes p etc. It is vital to be able to orient at will when facing alphabet, numerical symbols and words."

Another major component of the Davis procedure is getting students to make 3D images with plasticine clay for the words that do not have corresponding images--words such as in, the, at, leave, hers, with, enter, as opposed to dog, cat or tree for instance. These are referred to as trigger words that cause disorientation for the dyslexic. According to The Gift of Dyslexia, there are about 200 trigger words.

"If reading is a goal, they learn a method based on spelling, rather than sounding the word out," Hall explains. "Being primarily image-based thinkers, they learn to make 3D images for [the sight words and concepts] so that they are able to fill in the blanks in their film."

Hall believes this aspect is what sets the Davis method apart from the plethora of other methods out there, including the popular Orton-Gillingham method. She agrees that it must be very confusing for parents to find help for their child and suggests they first read The Gift of Dyslexia before choosing a method.

"All the other methods out there come from the sound-based world, even if they have multi-sensory facets, they are still based in sound [phonics]," she says.

"They are still making what I feel is an arrogant assumption that we should all learn with sound, and are still doing their best to make us image-based thinkers become sound-based thinkers."

Hall's work doesn't end after a week and neither does the student's. There are also 10 tutoring sessions with a Davis tutor, three review sessions with Hall as well as endless communication via phone or email and visits to schools. The students are also given their own homework to continue working on the trigger words, either with the clay or in their heads.

As it turns out, Nicole now loves reading so much that her mother has to tear her away from books to get her chores done or to come to dinner. Wisdom says she saw a change in Nicole within two days of her working with Hall.

"To be honest, Nicole didn't really like doing the program, but it was a short period of time and it was life altering for her," Wisdom says. "She doesn't like doing it at home much these days either. She told me, 'I don't enjoy doing it but it really helps me and now I've been able to just do it automatically in my head without doing all the clay modelling.'"

Nicole admits to being a bit slower at reading than others, but she's fine with that.

"I actually kind of like it that way because I get to enjoy the book more. I do a lot of visualizing," she says. "But I really don't have any difficulty with it and recently I read two short books in one day."

Favourite books so far include the Harry Potter series and the Chronicles of Narnia.

Donna Doerksen (pictured) isn't surprised to hear Nicole improved her reading within a couple of days. A retired Vancouver public school teacher and distance educator, Doerksen first heard about the Davis method 10 years ago when one of her Grade 4 students in her distance education program went through it.

When Doerksen got a call from the Squamish family saying their son could finally read, she hopped in her car and drove straight there, unable to believe her ears.

She had attended a Ron Davis seminar but didn't believe what the man was saying. She quickly changed her mind. As a teacher, Doerksen assumed that if a student couldn't learn to read, he or she must be stupid or lacked the gene for learning.

"I'd say words louder, slower and repeat them and wonder why can't they get it," she recalls. "Yet in other aspects of their life they'd function perfectly fine. I don't think in pictures at all. I had never heard or could conceive that people perceived the world differently from me... that's when my education re-started."

Like Hall, Doerksen wants to see the Davis methods introduced in elementary school. "It would eliminate confusion right from the start of two dimensional symbols. Imagine classrooms where all the kids can learn to read, write and learn to have fun while doing it," she says. "The education system is resistant because it's filled with people like myself, but what we need is a pilot program in B.C. that will reveal the success of this program in meeting the needs of all students."

Norton has completed his week with Hall. He doesn't feel much different from before he started, but he feels good.

"The program met my expectations," he says. "It's a different style of looking at things. For me, there were two parts to it--the hard tools and the style of the facilitator, which is very important to the program. Sue doesn't have an agenda. The agenda of the Davis program is to give you tools. I won't say that once I did the five-day program my academic skills just jumped right up, but now I have the tools to jump right up. Honestly, my academic skills jumped when I got out of high school."