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By Laura Kasbar
Founder, Chairman, GemIIni Systems
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An increase in both the rates of homeschooling and the expectations of children who are entering kindergarten means the burden of teaching our youngsters to read is falling on parents like never before. As a homeschooling mother of seven, I feel your pain! I initially thought teaching reading would be a slam dunk. How hard can it be? "Here are the letters, they make these sounds, put them together and you have a word. Right?"
Wrong.
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Or, I should say, "Right for about 10% of children, and wrong for the rest."
Although no two learners are exactly alike, in my experience, they fall into four categories:
1. The Natural: These children could teach themselves to read, and often do. They enjoy the idea of reading and have an insatiable yearning to learn. Parents who have these children will be wondering, "What is all the fuss about?"
2. The Plodder: These children embrace the concept of reading. The issue is the amount of time required for them to go from "learners" to "readers" is well beyond the patience of anyone (including both the parents and the child). When they do start to string the sounds together, they are so halting that they forget the sound of the first letter before they get to the end of the word. Teaching these children has the effect of nails on a chalkboard to anyone who is not accustomed to saintly mortification.
3. The Protester: These children are absolutely against the time it takes to learn. They don't generally rail against learning, just against sitting still for so long. The learning sessions inevitably end in a fight, and in tears (from the parent, or the child, or both). These children can become proficient readers in time, but parents are forced to use bribery, threats, and every trick in the book to get the job done.
4. The Escape Artists: Now we have my favorite — the children with tendencies that will later be diagnosed as ADD, or dyslexia, or both as there is about a 50% overlap between these two conditions. Although ADD (attention deficit disorder) is aptly named, the term "dyslexia" doesn't even begin to cover the fascinating characteristics of this condition. For the child with ADD, the child can be distracted not by just their environment but more importantly by their inner world. They fall into their imagination so readily that keeping them "present" is ninety percent of the task.
The child with dyslexia will often learn their sounds without much difficulty (lulling their parents into a false sense of security). When it comes time to string the sounds together, parents find themselves wondering if the child isn't just feigning confusion to get out of lessons. Many of these children appear to be trying, even trying really hard, and it can be more frustrating for the parents than the students as the parents wonder, "How can this kid be so smart, and still not be getting this?"
I have all four of the above learners in my own children. Numbers six and seven had both ADD and dyslexia, profoundly so. It is due to what we all suffered teaching number six, that I went on my quest to learn the most foolproof, effective, painless, and fastest way to teach a child to read.
It didn't exist, so I created it. For any parent that finds themselves in a similar position, there are lessons I learned that can help you create the right plan for your child.
Research
Research is a crucial first step in choosing the right solution for your child. I researched the various schools of thought from Direct Instruction, Lindamood Bell, Orton Gillingham, and the Wilson/David methods. I learned the downside to each of these is that they require quite a lot of time from both the instructor (at this point me) and the student and the cost would be upwards of $10,000 per month. I took the best from each and added in some of my insights as a person with mild dyslexia myself, and the Gemiini Reading Program was born.
Time
The next consideration is time. What kind of time do you and your family have to give to learning to read? For me, I found the amount of time a reading program takes from parents was a significant factor in building my program. I learned that it was possible to create a program that is video-based and passive. The child can learn when they are eating (perfect for the ADD kiddos), riding in the car, or just bopping around the house. I created the program for my sixth child once it was determined that he was dyslexic. You can't imagine my elation at being able to just "press play" on my tablet in car rides back and forth to daycare and watch as my dyslexic toddler learned to read like a "Natural."
Speech
It's also important for parents to learn about the different aspects of speech and auditory learning that go into learning how to read. Using what I learned, I made sure my program focused on close-ups of the speaker's mouth, as it trains the brain to both see and hear the sounds simultaneously.
As dyslexics also typically have auditory processing issues, seeing the sounds being formed up close is essential to deep and retained learning. Lindamood Bell's "Lips" program concentrates on this skill, but again, it comes with a huge price tag.
Parents should understand that at the heart of the nation's reading proficiency crisis is the toll that the digital age is taking on working memory. A chosen program should help strengthen working memory, where possible.
My understanding of speech also led to incorporating a method called "auditory bombardment" that helps to remediate speech problems before they are even noticed. This can be especially critical as fewer and fewer schools are able to accommodate the increasing number of children with articulation issues.
Over the years, I've applied what I've learned to help children learn to read through the Gemiini program. As well as it teaches the "tough cases," more typically developing children do even better. In a time when many people turn to homeschooling, and reading proficiency rates are on the decline, it's crucial to bring the knowledge and understanding of the process of learning to read and the programs available to the forefront. This is especially important for family peace. As a homeschooling mom, I understand the need to "keep the peace" at home and the less drama the better.
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