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It is something that every teacher will have seen. There will be bright children in the class, who work hard but struggle to read. They will often do well at first, learning the alphabet and simple words quite easily. But then, as other children progress, they start to struggle, hitting a plateau by the age of 7. With the text using a wider vocabulary, they resort to more and more wild guessing as they become confused. And then their confidence collapses under the pressure. They can feel everyone's concern and don't know what to do to fix the problem. Sometimes this leads to a diagnosis of dyslexia, which is quite wrong. Dyslexia suggests there is some underlying problem that cannot be overcome. But these children have no real reason not to be able to read. They are just approaching it in the wrong way. Let me explain what's happening. A very visual child will find the alphabet easy to memorise. Then the first words they are show they will memorise as well. Everyone praises their progress and as far as they know, they are reading. The early reader books feed into this by using a very limited vocabulary that repeats a lot. So everyone thinks it is going fine. But problems develop as the text starts to use a broader range of words. Some children will naturally switch to scanning the words phonetically. Others cannot make the switch without careful instruction. Their auditory perception just isn't up to hearing the phonic structure of the words. And these children are heading for failure They become more and more addicted to wild guessing, using the context and the first letter of the word as cues. They are baffled by their predicament and have no idea why it has gone wrong. They can feel people's frustration, but have actually been working hard. Of the one in five children who reach the age of 11 unable to read properly, around 80% are in this group. It virtually destroys their chances of a good academic career and severely limits their working options. And that is a tragedy for each of them because they are just trying to read the wrong way. We routinely see them successfully crack it in just a matter of weeks. The label dyslexic is very dangerous. It lets everyone off the hook of actually finding a solution. And still consigns the child to a lower and tougher track through life.
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To read more detail on how to help a child learn to read visit our site. You will find a mass of tips on ways to cure almost every form of dyslexia. There is usually a solution!
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