Dyslexia Intervention for Ages 6 through Adulthood
Children and Teens
If you suspect that your elementary public school-age child may have dyslexia, you may have several options.
First, you may ask the school to screen him or her in order to determine whether there is enough evidence to merit proceeding with a full dyslexia evaluation. This process may be quite time consuming for public school evaluators who sometimes become backlogged with various evaluation requests. Depending on the state, province, or federal law where you live, the school might not be legally required to screen children by the end of kindergarten and/or by the middle of first grade, as some states do.
Secondly, if you suspect that your child has a reading problem, but cannot convince the school to do a screening, you may email us. Time allowing (!) – we can schedule a free screening which may take up to 30 minutes or so. If the screening indicates that your child is struggling significantly with phonics and decoding, you may then take the screening results back to your school administrator and request that either a screening, or a full dyslexia evaluation, be administered by the school.
Thirdly, if the school administrators still deny your request, you may: 1) appeal to the district's Special Education Office, 2) pay for a private evaluation by an educational diagnostician or psychologist, or 3) you may hire a Special Education advocate who is knowledgeable as to the requirements of state and federal special education law.
In some U.S. states, dyslexia intervention must be provided from grades 1 through 12 to all who qualify. However, each state has its own rules.
Private School Students and Adults
If your child is attending a private school, or being homeschooled, you may have to pay out-of-pocket for private dyslexia intervention services such as we provide at LifeEnglishCoach.
If you are an adult struggling reader, or you have an adult loved one who is, please feel free to click on the button below and request a free screening via Zoom. Even adults with dyslexia can see their reading skills improve, step-by-step, after beginning intervention services that are based on the Science of Reading!
PREVENTION VS INTERVENTION
If you have a family history that includes dyslexia, and you have very young children – or expect to have them in the future, this section has very relevant information for you! When young preschoolers are introduced to literacy skills during "the Sensitive Period" for language development, and with age-and-stage appropriate methods and materials, life-changing results can and do ensue! Read on!
DYSLEXIA: NATURE OR NURTURE? - OR BOTH?
In the introduction at the very top of this page, we discussed how one's primary language – or perhaps we should say one's primary language and literacy environment - may play an important role in determining whether or not an emerging reader displays symptoms of dyslexia. For example, because the writing system of Italian is - comparatively speaking - very phonetic, the pronunciation of the words is more predictable than in semi-phonetic written languages such as English. Consequently, the rate of dyslexia in Italy is perhaps as much as 70% to 75% lower than it is in English-speaking countries!
However, Nature may also simultaneously influence both the presence and severity of dyslexia. Dyslexia tends to run in families. Because dyslexia is also a spectrum disorder, its symptoms may be more challenging for some and less challenging for others – even in the same family!
On the Nurture side, we know that children who are taught to read - using a logically sequenced phonics-based system - are far less likely to develop reading problems. Furthermore, if children between ages 3 to 4 are introduced to phonetic reading – starting with letter sounds– they are even further less likely to display difficulties in reading. For those of us who have used the individually-paced, teach-each-step-to-mastery Montessori phonetic method in mixed-age classrooms for 2 ½-6-year-olds, we know that relatively few of our young pupils end up with reading problems. This fact may also hold true even when English is the student's second language!
By age 4, many Montessori children have begun spelling phonetic words with a Moveable Alphabet.
A child who is genetically predisposed to have only a mild form of dyslexia - but who receives phonics-based literacy instruction during the optimal early childhood years for language and literacy development – may display few symptoms, or even no symptoms at all!
By contrast, in traditional schools, among the children who are genetically predisposed to dyslexia, most will not likely even be identified until towards the end of that optimal period for learning to read – typically not until the middle of first grade at the very earliest! Thus, from a Montessori perspective, the optimal "Sensitive Period for Learning" is under-utilized in mainstream education where it routinely devolves from a precious golden opportunity into an opportunity lost. [Note: Recent studies have shown that first-grade reading scores can predict a child's future reading ability when he or she reaches age 40! In other words, there is statistical evidence that a late start in reading, combined with ineffective reading instruction, will follow many children well into their adult years.]
On the other hand, there are children whose dyslexia symptoms are so challenging that even a typical Montessori literacy program may prove insufficient to meet their needs. However, even here, we may rejoice in two reassuring facts.
First, dyslexia can be identified earlier in a Montessori classroom where most children are already starting to read basic phonetic words between ages 3 ½ and 4, and can read phonetic books by around 4 ½. Bob Books and Primary Phonetics are two examples of phonetic book series that have stood the test of time, and have helped several generations of preschoolers get off to a great start in reading.
Bob Books and Primary Phonics have helped children start learning to read while in preschool.
In Montessori schools, a lesson on a particular phonetic sound can be followed up with an introduction to a short phonetic story book that is written to reenforce the decoding skill for that same phonetic sound. In this way, very young children can easily develop reading fluency as other sounds are incrementally added. As children are given ample opportunity to read and re-read such decodable texts, their self-confidence is enhanced, which typically makes them eager to attempt the next level after they have been properly prepared for it!
Furthermore, because children are allowed to progress at their own individual pace, they may learn to mastery at each step, rather than being pushed to try phonetic patterns and vocabulary that they're not yet ready for, which might only overwhelm and frustrate them. In Montessori schools, the child's individual needs and readiness reigns! Montessori mixed-age classrooms allow teachers to respond better to children's individual needs, acknowledging that a particular 3-year-old might progress faster in reading than a 4-year-old whose academic strength may lie in math! Hence, we would not desire to stereotype children according to age any more than we would their race or gender. And the results of NOT stereotyping children according to chronological ages can prove to be astonishingly wonderful!
Accordingly, in a Montessori environment, "early" reading is considered normal and, usually, relatively easy to accomplish! Furthermore, even if a particular child is struggling with reading in such a child-friendly Montessori reading environment, the teachers are more likely to be better prepared to take note, assess the student's struggles, and then they may further individualize the child's instruction by opting to give lessons in smaller bites and with more repetition, and then continue to monitor the child's progress. And all of this can be done in a timely manner, increasing the chances that the modified lessons will prove to be more effective and less stressful for the child.
Secondly, the Montessori community has become aware of the fact that children who have a more challenging form of dyslexia may need a further modified Montessori reading curriculum. Fortunately, quite a number of Montessori teachers have already begun to adapt their lessons to meet the needs of such severely struggling readers.
Two Recommended Resources for Applying the Montessori Method to Special Needs
1. Powerful Literacy in the Montessori Classroom: Aligning Reading Research and Practice, by Susan Zoll, Natasha Feinberg, and Laura Saylor
This book provides Montessori teachers with an opportunity to review the breadth and depth of the Montessori literacy curriculum and to explore how it can be adapted to meet specific literacy challenges. It also serves as an update to teachers' Montessori literacy instruction training. This volume reveals the great strides the authors have made towards integrating the Science of Reading with the Montessori reading curriculum. Logically sequenced and very insightful, it will serve as a useful guide for practical classroom applications for many years.
2. The Montessori Approach to Classroom-Based Interventions: A Handbook for Educators, Administrators, Service Providers, and Families of Children Whose Development is Impacted by Delay or Disability by Pamela Shanks
In this book, Chapter 1 introduces the reader to "Montessori Classroom-Based Interventions". Then, the next 10 chapters are each devoted to describing a specific learning difference category, which is accompanied by advice (based on the author's many years of experience) as to how to address such needs in a Montessori environment. Chapter 6 covers "Developmental Language Differences". Montessorians will want to read this book, and then keep it close at hand for quick reference. After all, not even a typical neurotypical teacher's brain will be able to recall all of the helpful details provided to address all of the specific needs covered in this 295-page volume! Teachers should remain vigilantly mindful of the fact that any one of those special needs may unpredictably arise at any time when a new child walks through your school's front door! Be prepared! Be proactive!
The Journey from Limited Reading Skills to Fluent Reading with Good Comprehension
This journey ideally starts in preschool and continues, uninterrupted, into adulthood. The Reading Rope provides a clear picture of all the major strands of reading skills that must be interwoven in order for reading pilgrims to make steady progress on their pilgrimage towards becoming fluent readers - who understand what they are reading!
For students with dyslexia, this journey can seem quite arduous, or even impossible. Even good reading instruction methods that may work with neurotypical children – and maybe even with some who have a mild form of dyslexia – may be of little help to those with more serious forms of dyslexia. However, there is a category of interventions that do work. They are called:
Evidence-Based Interventions
Evidence-based interventions are structured literacy approaches, which include the following features:
- Explicit phonics instruction
- Multisensory teaching techniques
- Systematic and sequential instruction
- Regular practice with decodable texts
- Cumulative: That means that while students are learning a new concept, they're also continually practicing ones that have been previously introduced, so that they won't forget. This practice also fosters:
- Automaticity – the ability to instantly recognize words one has already learned to decode, a key ingredient to developing fluency in reading, which is necessary for comprehension. (The sentence a reader reads -either silently or aloud - must sound like someone speaking to him or her. Otherwise, it won't make sense.)
At LifeEnglishCoach, we use a detailed and very effective Structured Literacy Approach to Dyslexia Intervention that was designed by highly respected and experienced experts in the field.
