Our Dyslexia Program

A dyslexia diagnosis can be overwhelming.  But those that consider it a life sentence, a permanent condition that needs to be coped with or worked around, are wrong or just plain out-of-date.

Dyslexia stems from cognitive skill gaps that can in most cases be repaired.  Cognitive skills -- learning skills -- are not hard-wired.   Like muscles, they can benefit from the right kind of exercise, meaning that the window to change how someone reads does not close at any age.

Therefore, dyslexia should not be thought of as a permanent diagnosis, although it can be a lifetime affliction if the underlying cognitive weakness is not treated.

Most Common Cause of Dyslexia

Dyslexia problems most often stem from difficulty processing sound, called an auditory processing disorder or CAPD. This is sometimes evident in early language skills, but just as often is not.  Hearing "cat" as one sound for spoken language is much easier than hearing it as three sounds |c|-|a|-|t| as is required for reading.

If a child cannot clearly process these individual sounds inside words -- the phonemes -- then reading is going to be a challenge.   In later grades, this difficulty morphs into an inefficient reading style that is exhausting and diverts brain capacity needed for reading comprehension.

How Gemm Learning Helps Dyslexia

Gemm provides dyslexia help using Fast ForWord. This program identifies the cognitive skill gaps causing dyslexia in children and adults and strengthens them using adaptive exercises that build speed and complexity in incremental steps.  

More efficient auditory processing creates the ability to hear the individual sounds inside words more clearly.  This improved listening accuracy improves word memory integrity and makes it easier for the brain to make automatic matches to the text when decoding, thereby making reading less exhausting, and a lot faster.
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Once a cognitive foundation is in place, Gemm's individualized protocol aims to rebuild a student's reading  mechanics. Bad habits are eradicated and the fundamentals of spelling, language structure and vocabulary are revisited as needed.

Our goals are reading fluency, reading comprehension and finally, reading with metacognition.  This is the ability to read and think about what you ar reading and self-correct as you go. This critical skills cannot even begin to develop until reading is automatic.
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Reading With Automaticity

If the brain is listening more accurately, decoding will be more automatic.  If decoding is automatic reading is less exhausting and thinking resources can be devoted to comprehension.  Hence better reading comprehension, less re-reading and more reading enjoyment.  It's a virtuous cycle once you are on it!

To find out if we can help your child complete this online questionnaire. We will follow up in a day or so with a recommendation.