What helps dyslexic students read at the most rapid rate?
There are some programs that take years for students to make yearly progress. And universities are creating a 3-year program for teachers to be trained to work with dyslexic kids. They all have their merits, but I have something to jumpstart teacher training and student learning by using music with phonics. “I have researched and proven that using music to help retrain the brain of dyslexic kids is the way to go and students are making 1-3 year gains in only 6 weeks with this method!
Step By Step Dyslexia Solutions is Breaking the cycle of illiteracy and removing the dysfunction of dyslexia with the power of music.
Therapists will discuss the many parts of the brain which work together to build the neuropathways to help kids read. But I never hear anyone talk about the left and right Angular Gyruses. Or the Corpus Callosum. The research is there. Dr. Roger Sperry won a Noble Prize on the Split Brain Theory which severed the corpus callosum of seizure patients. Using music isolated to the left hemisphere while spelling is played in the right ear (each crossing over to the area of the brain it was intended to be in) bypasses the corpus callosum. (Try it here on your IOS. Try it here on your Android). Some have said it strengthens a weak corpus callosum. The music is sent to the right angular gyrus so it doesn’t take over the reading, sending over wrong information (from rather than farm, slit rather than silt, etc),. Now with this dichotic method of learning, and the left angular gyrus is trained for phonological awareness.
This is how music can really impact the brain and rewire the dyslexic brain to read. It doesn’t remove the creativity of the brain, but helps kids read so that they develop their literacy skills, realize their full potentials, and positively impact their communities!
My reading program, Step By Step Reading, is Orton-Gillingham based created with the dyslexic student in mind. I created it, after being an educator for two decades and teacher trainer of OG curriculum nationwide. I developed an accompanying app called Dunking Dyslexia which plays classical music in the left ear, while spelling exercises play in the right ear, each crossing to the opposite side of the brain. In my private practice ten years ago, students were making 1-3-year gains using a similar reading program with music in only 6 weeks. My Program has 9-Steps which daily in each step is teaching phonological awareness, the pillar of reading.
Figure 1 is from my Doctoral research, students were taught by college interns over a 12-week period and made those same 1-3 year gains!!!!! Click here to learn about why music helps.
Table 1 is from my Private Ed Therapy Practice for over three years. The numbers reflect the highest % increases of multiple students in multiple grade levels. The growth was remarkable! These interventions were only 6 weeks and taught by college interns and displaced teachers and subs teachers. |
Table 1. Data over three years in low-income districts.
~ The music app is based on the neuroscience of the brain how music positively affects the learning and reading of phonics. The app is the culminating activity (Step 9 of the program) after every 60 -minute intervention. Students also use music during other parts of the program. Music is sent in the left ear to the right angular gyrus giving it a job it LOVES. ~Throughout the entire reading program, the right angular gyrus is being strengthened with phonological awareness, like Pilates of the brain.
~ I captured 13 of my personal testimonies working with dyslexic kids, some with music and some without. Compare the difference. Read my book, A Message of Hope, How Music Enhances Reading for Dyslexic Students, available where books are sold. This is an excellent read for all teachers to learn about dyslexia and the use of music, and how they can help students.
I am seeking sponsors who would pay for tutor/teacher training, in my reading program, to teach dyslexic kids tomorrow! I offer an affordable alternative to the expensive prices schools are paying.
Be reminded that dyslexia is not so much a learning dysfunction but a learning difference that can be overcome by the power of music and phonics. |