The nonsense of teaching nonsense words
Dyslexic children often experience difficulty with phonetic decoding. Researchers and educators use nonsense words - also called nonwords or psuedowords…
Research Update: Morphemes, Meaning, and Dyslexia
In recent years, several separate teams of researchers have issued a series of groundbreaking studies, focused on the reading strategies…
“Evidence Based” — But does it work?
Parents who are seeking help for their dyslexic kids usually have one question uppermost in their minds: will it work?…
Why Tyrannosaurus but Not If?
"I don’t understand it: he can read tyrannosaurus, but he gets stuck on if!" This question from the mother of…
Reading Fluency in Dyslexic Brain: Low Level/ High Content Books
Practice makes perfect. Better said, practice makes progress. Learning a new skill requires repetition to automate it. Similarly, every beginner…
Phonological dyslexia? Not so much….
Two new research studies cast doubt on the role of phonological processing difficulties in dyslexia. One study, from the UK,…
Two New Books from a Davis Facilitator
Davis Facilitator Barbara Hoi of Sydney, Australia has recently published two books sure to delight parents and teachers. The…
Picture It! Teaching Visual-Spatial Learners
Davis Facilitator Crystal Punch has teamed with educator Betty Maxwell to write a new book geared to teachers and homeschoolers.…
Three Parts to a Word – an Explanation from Brain Research
Davis Symbol Mastery -- the modeling of words in clay - is based on the principle that each word has…
Research Update: “Nonresponders” and dyslexia
A new study confirms that the children who fail to progress with traditional, phonics-based interventions are highly likely to be…
Phonemic Awareness: A different take
Are dyslexic kids better at hearing the discrete sounds of language than others? That assertion would fly in the face…
Is your child a “nonresponder”?
What happens when a child cannot learn to read through phonics? Educational researchers have a word for those children: they…
Why it’s tough to learn to read through phonics:
This engaging video from top educators explains why so many kids are confused when taught to "sound out" English words.
Can you read this?
It probably looks impossible at first. But as you scan through the page, the words seem to materialize. As you continue…
Those trigger words!
Research shows that the most common word found in English-language books is "the." Matjaž Perc at the University of Maribor in Slovenia…
Breaking a myth: Dyslexics can become readers!
A mom writing in the New York Times expresses grief: her first grade daughter has been diagnosed with dyslexia. The…
Reader/Writers for Students – A blessing or a curse
Recently I interviewed a young man who had successfully completed a degree at university. He was looking to pursue the…
How do you read to your child?
Reading story books to small children is fun, but did you know that the way you read can make a…