DyslexiaLouise Barnes's fascinating account of how she approaches dyslexia. Warning: may contain traces of alien-octo-spider and blue bacteria.
I'm a former primary teacher, now giving all my time and energy to working with dyslexia. My students often have additional needs like ADHD, ASD or dyspraxia alongside their struggle with literacy. Many of them suffer from anxiety and a lack of self-confidence because of their dyslexia. I've been doing this, in my own unique way, for fifteen years with great results for students aged 6 to 55 worldwide.
I really value the sharing of ideas and information. SEN magazine is a wonderful resource for that. I know I've benefited from reading different perspectives, practical advice and new ideas as well as personal stories. So I'd like to contribute something of my own. I have a distinctly different way of working with dyslexia. I'll try and give you a brief overview:
Before teaching a child how letters and words work, it's critical to make sure they experience them as still, single, stable images, and that they can store and retrieve them. Otherwise, it's extremely hard for them to progress. Every struggling reader I've ever worked with needed to re-train their brain to experience letters and words differently. And that's what I do.
It's a super simple process. We work with an imagined creature. I ask questions about it, which gives me a good indication of how they are experiencing letters and words. Then we work together to adjust the imagined creature as required until it is clear, still, single and stable. By doing so, a new neural pathway begins to form. When that's done, we transfer the idea to letters and words. It's a total gamechanger, and it's done in a few hours. It's a lot of fun too!
Then I can put my teacher hat back on and fill in the missing information about reading for the student. Because they can now clearly see, store and remember how the letters, words and phonics look, they can learn and retain them as easily as most other children do.
And now for a bit more detail. Letters and words are images. To read and write, we have to easily recognise these images and store them in the right part of our brains. All the struggling readers and spellers I've ever worked with have a problem doing that. You could call me a dyslexia detective because the first thing I always do is to discover exactly what's causing that problem. Let's assume I'm working with a child rather than an adult for now.
First, I check whether the child can visualise something really familiar. Usually, I ask them to picture someone they know well, having made sure that person isn't actually sitting next to them. If they can do that, I ask them to change the colour of that person's hair to something outrageous. This simple check lets me know if the child can retrieve an image from their brain and then if they can change it. Most can, although in the past few months I've worked with one teenager and one adult who could not. This is known as aphantasia and it's a huge block to literacy (and often maths as well). In both cases, I had to work with my clients until they could picture simple objects, colours and so on before we could move forward. While I'm doing this, I'm also watching their eyes to see what processing system they are using. Some dyslexic children don't use the visual part of their brain and rely on the auditory system, which makes it very hard to read and write.
Assuming the child can picture a person, and alter something about them, I take the opportunity to point out how clever this is. Installing a positive belief, and proving it is very powerful. In this case, the child has remembered a picture and also changed it. Then I ask who is in charge of the pictures in their brain and extract the answer "I am". Young children have been known to say Mum or their teacher is in fact the person in charge so we have to talk about that. Later on, this is very important.
Then the fun begins! Dyslexic children are some of the most intelligent and creative humans around. I have a theory about this but perhaps that's for another time. I ask them to imagine a creature. It can be a real-life animal, a fantastic creature or something they make up. Anything at all. Choices range from a cat to an alien-octo-spider so far. One student (dyslexic, ADHD and ASD) chose a blue bacteria. More about that later.
For now, let's use a unicorn (quite a popular choice). I ask a series of questions about it, beginning with where it is. It's important I choose my language very carefully and don't influence answers, so I'll use a phrase like "if your unicorn was around, where would it be?" The aim of the game, so to speak, is to get the unicorn in front of the child. Why? Because so many struggling readers have got so stressed by letters and words that they have subconsciously blocked them from view. If we can get the unicorn in front of us, we have already started to build a new neural pathway that allows the brain to 'see' letters and words. People who have suffered trauma often exhibit similar issues with images and memory.
The time this takes varies, depending on the child. I find the older my student is, the more time is needed. Sometimes the unicorn goes on quite a journey to get into the 'correct' position. Commonly, creatures like hiding in cupboards, sitting under things, positioning themselves behind the child or disappearing altogether. It's all a fun game though. Our brains love metaphor and interesting things, so we use that to our advantage. I ask the child what they can use to bring the unicorn closer. Magic wands, tempting unicorn treats, spells, sci-fi gadgets, whatever works for them is acceptable and if the first few things fail, we try, try, and try again! When things take a while, I refer back to that positive belief we established right at the start —you are in charge of the pictures in your brain, so you're in charge of the unicorn.
Once that's achieved and the unicorn will remain in front of the child, we continue to ensure it is what I call 'stable'. After all, letters and words are very hard to read when they move, jump about, blur, disappear, get very big or very small (all common experiences in dyslexia, although most children can't articulate this because they don't realise it's happening to them — it's normal).
To me, stable means that the unicorn is in front and nothing is blocking it from view. It's as still as a statue, all parts of it can be seen clearly, it is the right size and there is only one.
I once worked with a KS1 child who had severe ADHD as well as suspected dyslexia. He had no problem imagining his creature. It was a bird and he told me about it in fine detail. Soon after, I noticed he looked quite distressed and anxious. His eyes were darting all over the room. "Is there one bird or more than one?" I asked him. He answered there were hundreds, a good indication he was also experiencing multiple letters and words when processing text. In the end, he caught all of the birds except the one he'd identified as his favourite. He moved around the room grabbing at them and we opened a window for him to put them out of. The relief on his face when there was only one left was clear, although it did take quite a while. The poor boy had been totally overwhelmed by the number of images constantly in his mind. By doing this, his brain had begun to learn a new behaviour, to see one image at a time instead of many: crucial when reading.
The blue bacteria I mentioned earlier kept disappearing. Nothing would persuade it to stay. Eventually, my incredibly bright and creative 6-year- old, by now quite fed up with the unruly image, told me it wasn't blue any more, it was red. He hadn't just changed the colour though. He went on to explain it was now a boy bacteria because the other one was a cheeky girl and so he sent that one away and let a good one come instead. Genius.
15
Letters or parts of words disappearing is quite common in my students, although they often don't know it's happening until it stops. I worked with a 14-year-old boy whose reading age was 6 years despite being highly articulate and clearly very, very bright. During the process, his image stubbornly refused to remain in the room. It took a couple of sessions until he had it under control. However, once his image was stable, it was as if something magical had occurred because he suddenly started to read easily and confidently. I asked him what had changed and he replied, quite nonchalantly, "Oh, the words don't disappear anymore." He's now consistently scoring over 80% in exams and is a great reader.
If I ask the child "is your unicorn still?", and it is indeed as still as a statue, we move on. If not, I ask if they can make it still. Some can straight away and that's an indication there's not an issue here. For others, the unicorn doesn't want to stop moving. They've been known to dance, flap their wings or blink their eyes. As with the other parts of stabilising the image, it can be stubborn and take multiple attempts, or the child can make it still immediately. It's an organic process because every brain is different.
Sometimes dyslexia gets missed because the child appears to read easily. In these cases, it can be the spelling and writing that causes anxiety, or in the case of the child with the bacteria, a refusal to write and a reputation for being naughty. I don't believe in lazy or naughty children. There is always a reason for negatively perceived behaviour, and it's often due to a struggle with literacy. The issue here frequently turns out to be that although the child appears to be reading, they are actually memorising the shape and look of a whole word. They can't see the letters within words clearly and have no idea how words work. When this happens, they struggle to write. Writing doesn't give you clues; there's no context, no chance of guessing what's going on. For the boy with the bacteria, his high intelligence meant he'd developed amazing methods of memorising and decoding text on a page, none of which used phonics, but he had no way of storing and then finding letters or phonics for use in his writing. I'm happy to report that now he loves writing and doesn't get into trouble.
Another common problem is that the person appears to read the text, but they can't recall anything they've just read. It goes under the radar very easily. This is usually resolved once the image is in front of the student. It's improved even more by strengthening the visual processing muscle; a technique I teach after the image is stable. It really just involves looking up for a while to read or learn a spelling, and then looking up again to remember.
And so we work with the image creatively, having fun until it's stable. By doing this we build new neural pathways that allow children to experience letters and words that are readable. We also make sure they can store the letters and words correctly, so they can retrieve them quickly and easily. It's a total gamechanger. Children who simply couldn't make sense of letters and words before, are now able to do so.
The next steps depend on the age and needs of the individual student. Some need to link letters to images by imagining a cat and then imagining the words 'cat' written on it, removing the picture and leaving just the letters behind so they can 'see' the letters. Others turn out to have no concept that words are made up of sounds and that letters are the way we represent the sounds. So we begin there. For some, just stabilising the image means they can remember what they've read, which has been life-changing in some cases. Wherever we need to go, I pop on my teacher hat and begin the process of filling in the gaps. Things like phonics, which had previously been a total mystery, now easily make sense because the brain has the right way of taking in and recalling the information.
Visit my website for details of how to work with me.
Louise Barnes is an experienced teacher and dyslexia therapist working with families and schools.
www.unlock-learning.co.uk