Gemm's Dyslexia Program

Most dyslexics and struggling readers do not process language efficiently.  Sometimes this is evident in a child's early language skills, often it is not. 

In early life, weak auditory processing means a child cannot hear the individual sounds inside words, the phonemes.  In later grades, this difficulty morphs into an inefficient reading style that is exhausting and soaks up brain capacity needed for reading comprehension.  This is a lifetime affliction if not treated.

Early Signs

If a young child cannot hear "cat" as "c-a-t," sounding out words is not going to be easy, and decoding will require much more effort than it should.  Children switch d's and b's not because they see them the same, but because they hear them the same. 

Looking for Early Clues

Slow auditory processing also impacts working memory and a number of other language skills that impact reading.  The fact that language processing is the most common cause of dyslexia is not surprising.  Language is lightning fast -- "one, one thousand" is one second, but there are 12+ separate sounds in there to be processed, heard and understood. 

Auditory Processing and Reading  

Later Diagnosis

Many children get to 4th grade or even later before dyslexia or reading issues are discovered.  These children have been able to get by with memorization and/or an ability to multi-task (concentrate on decoding and comprehension) as long as the text is relatively simple.  But as the reading comprehension gets challenging their reading problems "suddenly" surface.   For high level reading, decoding has to be automatic.

Middle and High School Reading Comprehension

Gemm's Program

If the brain can learn to listen more accurately, decoding will be more automatic.  We provide help with dyslexia by making that happen, using Fast ForWord software.  

Fast ForWord builds auditory processing skills in tiny incremental steps.  Faster, more effective auditory processing creates the ability to hear the unique sounds inside words more clearly.  This improved word memory integrity makes matches to text more comfortable when decoding, thereby making reading less exhausting, more automatic.   By doing this we treat the cause of reading difficulties rather tutoring around them.

Learn more  

Defining Dyslexia

Dyslexia is an "unexpected difficulty with reading."  It is not a condition of the brain, but rather a simple description of a learning difficulty. 

Dyslexia does not mean that a child is below grade level with their reading, especially in earlier grades.  It means rather that there is a discrepancy between performance in other academic areas and reading, a discrepancy that can persist.  According to Sally Shaywitz, author of Overcoming Dyslexia, up to 40% of children do not take to reading easily.  This is not surprising -- reading is not natural.  It is a relatively new human invention and so there it no reading region in the brain. This is why development of reading skills is so unpredictable.

For more information on our CT and Westchester reading help, read testimonials from parents and students.