About Hearing
Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness is one of the best predictors of reading success. But often schools fail to teach this crucial reading skill.
Most people with dyslexia have a problem hearing sounds in words, which is called the phonological deficit. For example they can’t hear that goat contains 3 sounds – g oa t. It’s just one blob of sound to them.
Nowadays reading is generally taught via phonics. I.e. your child is taught that oa makes the long o sound. And that they should blend g + oa + t to make goat. But if your child can’t hear that goat contains three sounds, then teachin g them phonics won't teach them to read.
Fluency Builder
Fluency Builder is a phonological awareness intervention, which improves the phonological deficit. Studies by Yale University have found that a phonological awareness intervention actually changes which parts of your brain are activated when you read. It helps you activate the parts of the brain which are necessary for fluent and effortless reading.
While you suffer from the phonological deficit, conventional phonics programs won't be effective. Because they require you to hear individual sounds, and blend them together to make words.
MRI scans have found differences in the brain between people with and without dyslexia.
Image courtesy of Society for Neuroscience and Guinevere Eden
Fluency Builder contains activities to practice hearing and manipulating sounds in words. These activities have been proven to change the regions of the brain which are activated when reading, and to not only make your dyslexic child more fluent but also to make them read more like a non-dyslexic child does.
Fluency Builder contains 50 lessons. Each lesson covers a new sound, plus exercises to improve the phonological deficit, plus an easy or hard reading passage that also teaches new vocabulary.
Phonics
Each lesson covers a new sound or spelling.
Listen to how the letters are pronounced. Sort words by sound or spelling, and practice fluent reading of common words.
Phonological Awareness
You need to be able to hear that goat contains 3 sounds in order to blend |g| |oa| |t| into the word goat.
You need to be able to hear that the difference between hop and hope is the middle sound.
Practicing phonological awareness is one of the most important activities to activate the parts of the brain needed for fluent reading.
Reading Passage
Nonfiction passages have been chosen to appeal to all ages. Each passage needs to be read four times to improve fluency. Twice the first day, and twice the next day.
Any word can be clicked on to hear it spoken out loud. This allows the passage to contain harder content.