Davis Dyslexia Correction Programme
- reading
- listening
- comprehension
- letter confusions
- handwriting
- composition
- focus
- co-ordination.
Davis Tools – Individuals are given three ‘Tools’ or mental strategies to get to the root cause of the learning difficulties. These tools enable the individual to achieve accurate perception, regulate energy levels and relieve stress.
The Davis Dyslexia Correction Programme is one of the most widely used Dyslexia programmes in the world, with a 97% success rate.
Learner focussed
An individual’s learning goals relating to reading, spelling, listening, letter confusions, comprehension, writing, focus or co-ordination are addressed. A hands-on, visual, meaning-based approach called Davis Symbol Mastery is used. Smooth, non-gritty Plastilina clay is used in Symbol Mastery, allowing the person to use their natural talents and perceptions to learn. Clay is used to:
- Resolve confusions with alphabet and punctuation symbols
- Master non-picture basic words called ‘Trigger words’, such as the, and, home. The meaning for these words is created by the individual out of clay, together with what the word sounds and looks like. This enables the reading, spelling and writing of words without causing confusion.
Davis Reading Exercises
Using a visual-based reading approach, three steps to easier reading are taught to a person, so they achieve certainty and full comprehension.
For a Davis Dyslexia Correction Programme, individuals are provided:
- A no-obligation Initial Consultation
- An individualised, 30-hour, one-week programme with Rachel Barwell
- Support training for a family member or tutor
- Unlimited phone and email support with Rachel Barwell
- Davis Dyslexia Correction Kit with all materials required for follow-up work.
My 10 year old son, Lachie, completed the Davis Dyslexia Mastery course with Rachel in September 2022.
We noticed a positive change in his behaviour and interactions with others from day one, and knew
that this was going to be different to everything else we’d tried.
When Lachie started his course, he had an 8-8.5yr reading level and was at risk, was told that he would
need continuous support to meet the curriculum level of Stage 6 in Mathematics by the end of the year,
and was at a Year 1 (1B, beginning) writing level.
Now, just four months on, Lachi a year now to help our daughter master her dyslexia. Over that time, we
have witnessed incredible leaps and bounds in her reading, writing, and confidence.Rachel is patient, calm,
and caring. Her passion for helping people of all ages with dyslexia is an inspiration.
Sarah, mother of 8 y.o. son
Common Misconceptions About Dyslexia
Dyslexia is the most common learning disorder worldwide. According to the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand, an estimated one in ten New Zealanders, including 70,000 school children, have dyslexia. In addition, up to 20% of the population have either dyslexia or a related condition such as dyscalculia (maths), dyspraxia (clumsiness), or ADD/ADHD (focus, attention and behavioural issues). However, despite its prevalence, there are still many antiquated myths and misconceptions about dyslexia and people with dyslexia. At Master Dyslexia, I work with dyslexic individuals to harness their unique ways of seeing the world, overcome learning barriers, and provide dyslexia solutions to help them succeed in their education, work, and home life. I’d like to address some of the misconceptions around dyslexia and help people better understand the condition and its effect on the lives of dyslexic individuals.
What Is Dyslexia?
Dyslexic people tend to use a picture-based, visual, or kinaesthetic approach to learning. They perceive life as a motion picture, instead of the typical symbol-based approach to learning found in most schools and workplaces. Alphabet letters and words, maths numerals, musical notes and scientific symbols are non-picture 2-D symbols. Without proper connection to the 3-D world, they make no sense to the dyslexic brain. For example, the word ‘horse’ has a natural image associated with it, so it’s easy to visualise.
However, the meaning of words like ‘and’ or ‘was’ can’t easily be visualised and can cause confusion. When a dyslexic person visualises a bee, they can see the tiny insect from all angles, as they picture things in 3D. When they picture the letter ‘b’, they attempt to do the same thing, picturing 2D symbols as a 3D image. However, when you look at the letter ‘b’ from different angles, it may look like the letter ‘d’ or ‘p’ or ‘q’, so suddenly, a dyslexic person has a variety of images differing from the symbol on the page. This creates confusion, disorientation, and frustration, sometimes manifesting as dizziness, vertigo, nausea and emotional reactions. As the frequency of disorientations escalates with increasing requirements to read and write in school, children can start to develop ingenious coping strategies, such as a reluctance to read aloud, using pictures to interpret text, having someone else read or explain what was just read or said to them, telling creative diversionary stories, or simply refusing to read.
It’s important to remember that dyslexia isn’t a disability. Dyslexia affects a person’s ability to read and comprehend text and occurs on a continuum from mild to severe. Every dyslexic person experiences unique challenges and difficulties with standard learning methods. Some people struggle with phonemic awareness (matching sounds to symbols), some with phonological processing, and others with fluency, spelling, punctuation and grammar. While many dyslexic people experience multiple literacy difficulties, they do not experience an inability to learn – in fact they often have above-average intelligence and can be very quick and creative learners. Instead, they learn differently from neurotypical people. Dyslexia seems to run in families, and while it might be tempting to want a ‘cure’, who would want to change how these amazing brains naturally work? There are however, dyslexia management programs available for children and adults, such as the Davis Dyslexia Correction Programme, that help people with dyslexia learn to control aspects of their brain to enable easier and more effective learning with symbols – alphabets, words, punctuation, musical notes and numerals.
What Are The Common Traits Of Dyslexia?
As we mentioned, dyslexia for children and adults manifests differently in each individual. There are several common traits that may be experienced either in isolation or alongside other characteristics. To identify effective strategies for dyslexia treatment, it’s important to understand the traits of dyslexia and how they affect that individual’s ability to learn. People with dyslexia may present the following traits:
General Traits
- Appears to be bright, highly intelligent, and articulate but is unable to read, write, or spell at their grade level.
- Labelled as lazy, dumb, careless, immature, not trying hard enough, with behaviour problems.
- Has poor self-esteem and hides or covers up weaknesses with ingenious compensatory strategies.
- Easily frustrated or emotional about school, reading or testing.
- Talented in art, drama, music, sport, mechanics, storytelling, sales, business, architecture, design, building, or engineering.
- Seems to ‘zone-out’ or daydream often, losing track of time, tasks or getting lost easily.
- Difficulty sustaining attention.
- Learns best through hands-on experiences, demonstrations, experimentation, observation, and visual aids.
Vision, reading,
and spelling traits
- Complains of dizziness, headaches, or stomach aches when reading.
- Confused by letters, numbers, words, sequences, or verbal explanations.
- Reading or writing shows repetitions, additions, transpositions, omissions, substitutions, and reversals in letters, numbers and/or words.
- Complains of feeling or seeing non-existent movement while reading, writing, or copying.
- Reads and re-reads with little comprehension.
- Spells phonetically and inconsistently.
Hearing and speech
traits
- Has extended hearing, hears things not said or apparent to others, easily distracted by sounds.
- Difficulty putting thoughts into words, speaking in halting phrases, leaving sentences incomplete, stuttering under stress, mispronouncing long words, or transposing phrases, words, and syllables when speaking.
Writing and motor
skills traits
- Trouble with writing or copying, pencil grip is unusual, handwriting varies or is illegible.
- Clumsy, uncoordinated, poor at ball or team sports, difficulties with fine and/or gross motor skills and tasks, prone to motion sickness.
- Can be ambidextrous and often confuses left/right, over/under.
Memory and cognition traits
- Excellent long-term memory for experiences, locations, and faces.
- Poor memory for sequences, facts, and information that has not been experienced.
- Thinks primarily with images and feeling, not sounds or words (little internal dialogue).
Behavioural, health, development,
and personality traits
- Extremely disorderly or compulsively orderly.
- Can be the class clown, trouble-maker, or too quiet.
- Had unusually early or late development stages (talking, walking, crawling, tying shoelaces).
- Prone to ear infections, sensitive to foods, additives, and chemical products.
- Can be an extra deep or light sleeper, bedwetting beyond an appropriate age.
- Unusually high or low tolerance for pain.
- Strong sense of justice, emotionally sensitive, strives for perfection.
- Mistakes and symptoms increase dramatically with confusion, time pressure, emotional stress, lack of sleep, or poor health.
How Do I Know I Have Dyslexia?
Whether you’re researching for yourself or your child, before you seek out dyslexia treatment, it may be useful to have a dyslexia diagnosis. You can take a free online test or take it on behalf of your child. The results will give you an indication as to whether you need to pursue a diagnosis or a dyslexia program. You should also visit your GP to rule out any possible medical conditions such as vision or hearing impairments that may be mimicking the symptoms of dyslexia. You can also ask your doctor, or your Learning Support Advisor at school or university for a referral to a specialist who can provide you with an official diagnosis. You do not need to have a formal diagnosis of dyslexia however, to undertake a Davis Dyslexia Correction program.
Myths And Misconceptions About Dyslexia
As a professional dedicated to dyslexia correction programs, I come across many myths and misconceptions about the learning condition. I’m here to address some of those myths and provide the correct information about dyslexia for adults and children alike.
MYTH
FACT
Dyslexia is a problem with comprehension.
While it may seem like dyslexia impacts comprehension, dyslexia primarily affects a person’s ability to convert letter symbols into their correct sound and convert sounds to their correct written symbols. Incorrect recognition of letters and words impacts effective comprehension of text. Studies indicate that dyslexic individuals can however use higher-level language skills to support their reading.
MYTH
FACT
Dyslexia is a weakness.
Research from the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity indicates that dyslexic people experience a range of strengths due to their unique learning styles. Dyslexic people tend to have higher-level thinking processes, higher learning capacities, exceptional empathy, and the ability to focus on highly specialised, niche areas of study or work.
MYTH
FACT
Dyslexia can be cured.
Dyslexia isn’t a disease or medical condition, so it can’t be cured or treated as if it is one. It is a lifelong processing difference that affects each person uniquely. With the right support however, you can treat the root causes of dyslexia, supporting dyslexic people to learn how to use their special brains to learn on their own terms. A dyslexia programme like the Davis Dyslexia Correction Programme provides dyslexic individuals with the tools and mental strategies to powerfully manage their dyslexic traits and succeed in education, work, and life.
MYTH
FACT
Dyslexia will go away over time.
As there is no cure for dyslexia, the traits of dyslexia don’t fade away or disappear over time. However, with effective dyslexia correction, children and adults can learn tools and techniques to manage their dyslexia over their lifetime, using their unique way of thinking and problem solving to their advantage.
MYTH
FACT
Dyslexia can’t be diagnosed until well into primary education.
You can obtain a dyslexia diagnosis for children as young as five. However, to access the very best dyslexia support, it’s important to get a diagnosis as early as possible.
MYTH
FACT
Every child struggling with reading has dyslexia.
While most children with dyslexia will struggle with reading, not every child who struggles to read has dyslexia. Dyslexic children will often display other traits and signals besides reading difficulties.
MYTH
FACT
Dyslexia affects boys disproportionately.
Dyslexia affects both boys and girls, but boys tend to get a diagnosis at a younger age. This is because early dyslexia studies primarily looked at male subjects. The behaviours associated with dyslexic boys who are confused or struggling to understand, such as frustration and aggression, are identified far more easily. When girls struggle with their dyslexia, they tend to withdraw, becoming quiet to stay under the radar. Because of this, dyslexia in females can go undetected until high school or even university
How To Manage Dyslexia
While there’s no single solution to fix dyslexia, there are ways to manage the traits of dyslexia, teaching dyslexic children and adults alike strategies to succeed in their education, work, and life.
Dyslexic people are often easily distracted, so providing a quiet place to work on school or work-related tasks will help them focus.
A picture tells a thousand words aptly describes one of the best ways for many dyslexic learners to take in new information. Photos, films, videos, YouTube clips and live demonstrations are all fantastic ways to make learning easier and enjoyable for dyslexic learners. If a video has subtitles, switch those on, to increase exposure to text with audio and visual support.
As we’ve mentioned, dyslexic people have a remarkable aptitude for learning when materials are presented in an accessible format. Audiobooks are an excellent way for dyslexic individuals to take in stories or essential information.
When given the right tools for success, dyslexic children and adults can flourish in their learning environment. For example, if an activity calls for writing, many people with dyslexia prefer to use a computer rather than pen and paper. Or ask them to draw a mind-map of their ideas. When reading is required, covering up distracting text below the line being read can help with focus and comprehension.
If you or your child are dealing with dyslexia, Master Dyslexia can provide a Davis Dyslexia Correction Programme. This individualized, learner-focused program provides dyslexia correction in the form of strategies and tools to achieve accurate perception of letters, words and punctuation; regulate energy levels and relieve stress; and read and comprehend text accurately and fluently. The program has a 97% success rate in addressing dyslexia in children and adults and is one of the most widely recognised dyslexia programs internationally.
What Role Does Picture-Thinking Play In Dyslexia?
Most people think in either words or pictures. As visual learners, people with dyslexia tend to think in three-dimensional (3D) pictures. This preference can affect their ability to accurately see and understand 2D letters, numbers, and symbols, especially abstract words like ‘is’, ‘and’, ‘but’, and ‘was’. This is where picture-thinking learning activities and play can help.
01
It helps create meaning for non-picture words
Picture-thinking activities and play helps dyslexic learners create visual meaning for words like ‘and’, and ‘the’.
02
It’s learner-focused
Every individual experiences dyslexia differently, and picture-thinking activities help address a person’s unique learning goals.
03
It uses the strengths of dyslexia
As dyslexic people are such talented visual learners, this teaching method uses their strengths as a foundation to build understanding, competence and confidence.
How Does The Davis Dyslexia Correction Method Work?
The Davis Dyslexia Correction Programme is designed for adults and children over the age of eight who experience difficulties with reading, listening, comprehension, letter confusion, handwriting, composition, focus, and coordination. The qualified Davis Dyslexia facilitator will provide the following tools and strategies to address the root causes of learning difficulties:
Individualised programme
After an initial free, no-obligation consultation, learners will undertake a tailored 30-hour, one-week programme with Master Dyslexia’s facilitator, Rachel Barwell. During this week, Rachel takes learners through the Davis Dyslexia Correction Program, facilitating the mental tools and practices to transform a dyslexic’s reading, writing, and comprehension skills.
Meaning-based approach
The Davis Dyslexia Correction Programme uses a hands-on meaning-based approach called Davis Symbol Mastery. Smooth, non-gritty Plastilina clay is used to create a 3-D relationship with the alphabet and punctuation symbols, resolve confusions, and create visual meaning for abstract words and vocabulary.
Comprehensive support
Following the intensive week, learners will be supported through a 6-12 month follow-up programme by a trained family member or support person. Rachel provides three follow-up sessions and unlimited phone and email support.
Contact Master Dyslexia For Innovative Dyslexia Solutions
I’m passionate about helping individuals shift their learning difficulties into learning talents, to maximise their potential in all aspects of life. I adopt the highly effective Davis method to help neurodiverse people correct their perceptions of letters, words, numbers, space, and movement, empowering them to take control of their learning and succeed. If you’d like to learn more about dyslexia solutions, don’t hesitate to contact me today.