Davis Dyslexia Method

[Motherkathy]

I am wondering why there is no reference to the book by Ron Davis, The Gift of Dyslexia. These coaches who study and use this method have incredible success with helping people with dyslexia. It is so much more than just a reading disability - it is an ability of so many other attributes. a resource that is helpful is www.dyslexiacanada.com.

[straw]

I want to know more about this too. I could relate so well to the book, but have been hesitant about the therapy. Has anyone done the therapy and can vouch for it?

[yumimumi]

I also would like to hear from anyone that has undergone the therapy and how affective they felt it was. Ron Davis has a very refreshing way of showing how to turn what is percieved to be a disadvantage, to an amazing advantage that can aid the lives we want.

[JP]

I know this post is fairly long. I think however some background is necessary. I don't think I can say with certain the extent how the program helped me directly. Although, I do feel it has been helping me indirectly.I believe the program does depend on the persons perseverance and aptitude. But my no means do I still position my minds eye in the way I was taught my the program. (refer to "the gift of dyslexia", p. 187)

I have gone through the weeks worth therapy sessions so let me explain my experiences concerning the Ron Davis methodology. You need to understand elementary school was horrible for me. Teachers kept asking whether I had studied for the test. (I did). They were worried about my horrible grades on spelling test amongst other things (low comprehension in lectures...). At this time, my saying was "just go with it". I wasn't in a state of learned helplessness but I could definitely foresee my future academic performance. Wasn't exactly motivating. This went through middle school as well.

At this point, I had seen about three speech therapists, and two learning disability specialists. One of these specialists began to teaching me to visualize what's happening in my reading. This worked wonders for my reading comprehension but I was too young to discipline myself that visualization was what I needed to do to understand text. I was also referred by a school that I should do a thorough IQ test. To everyones amazement I did as poorly as one could possibly do on an IQ test and if this test were valid I would be labelled as mentally retarded with no possible potential. This isn't exactly what they stated but it was what I inferred from the situation.

Through all of this my mum knew this IQ test could be attributed by a cultural differences (we were a living abroad) and the possibility I did not understand what the psychologist wanted me to do. I think at this point this was when my parents wanted a different perspective at dealing with me. After all my mum knew there was some bright features in me. I had reason. I questioned the validity of our religion. I had also a knack for understanding others. I was a keen observer. So after my parents reading the Ron Davis method they wanted to try this unusual method.

So I did. I went to the Ron Davis clinic for a week from 8:30am to 4pm. The instructor thought me how to place my minds eye, trained me to spell words by mentally visualizing them (both frontwards on and backwards), I also played with play dough for tactical learning of the words. It's possible this made it easier to help imagining the word. (not certain though).

After this week long therapy by no means did I have a sudden change in behaviour or school performance. Although I changed school from a French school to an English one. This is where my grades changed. I finally had passing grades. Although this is uncertain whether the school knew of my disability and over-compensated by given me (false) passing grades but they were passing ones. (Besides 2 classes). My grades by no means were high, I was in the 50-60% range. I also had to take summer school because I would fail math classes. I took them in the summer with more an hands-on approach and passed. These teachers told my parents however that I would never be able to attend college and so they suggested I should look for hands-on training or work.

During the last year of high-school is when I said to myself I need, I need to go as hard as I possibly can. I didn't necessarily want to go to college but I believe this was just myself being protective and avoiding failure. My view was that this was my last bullet in the gun and if I wanted to open future doors in life this was it. So I tried my best. What helped me most was my law class. As it turned out, I was a great spoken debater. My average in this class was an 82! This was my first 82 or anything beyond that number. Wow. Most other classes I took were in their 60s. While another in 75% as it was a tech class and I was fairly good with computers. This ended to average out to 72%. That was great since what I needed was a 70% to apply for colleges. One factor to my college acceptance was having lived abroad for an extensive period of time which deemed me an attractive candidate and so I was accepted.

After deeply struggling in my first two years of college. Depression hit me and I knew I would have to change if I wanted to do well in college. My reading comprehension was roped. This brought me back to the therapy sessions I had taken at Ron Davis. So, in my deep helplessness I had a slight hope, I went straight to a library to get the book the gift of dyslexia. At this point giftedness was the last adjective on my mind for dyslexia. I knew however, naturally I was bright but having consistently contradictory results is hard for your psyche.

After reading this my approach to studying was different. I would try to visualize the concepts for my classes instead. I would read carefully and try to make a diagram on paper for the concept. Then I visually attempted to recall the picture. This worked a little bit. Made studying more fluent at least. So, I had also tried to loci method which worked okay. I pictured the information in specific physical locations and to recall them I would picture the location in space. Surprisingly this worked. After this I started reading novels something with more imagery. This helped me a bunch. Slowly but surely my reading comprehension was much better. After a year of trying I had gone got into my fourth year at college. Now in my final year of college my average on the first tests have been 86%, 74.5% and 84%. And am looking forward to keeping this up. As I've found an ease with studying now. With this, I wouldn't mind trying to look into graduate school as I found out what I do best in school is research.

I also went for another IQ test, subtests from the WAIS-IV. The psychologist said I did not have dyslexia. I had average or slight below average performances on most subtest. Beside a 1st percentile in the working memory component which to me as a psychology student should be a red-flag but not to him. He had denied me possible use of a computer during exams. I had struggled all my life and noticed the difference among myself and others. I didn't think this was a valid statement since I knew dyslexia couldn't be outgrown and the fact I hadn't understood a books comprehension until I reached my second year is proof of this. I can go on about this but it's beside the point.

This program probably helped but I'm uncertain the extent of the help. Although without this program I would have no thoughts about visualization as a helping factor which I do value now. It is possible the program gave me the tools indirectly. When I think of a word now, I do visualize and have little problem with spelling. I believe introspection has also helped with using visualization. Also, I did begin to have better visual memory recall and visual-spatial manipulations thereafter. This might be a contributing factor to my thought process now.