Step One in Preventing Dyslexia — Talk Your
Child Clever: Question and Answer

QUESTION:

My eldest child was read to every day. We were constantly in the library, checking out stacks of books. Her preschool teachers laughed that they almost never picked up a book to read to the class that she hadn't read, and couldn't summarize accurately. Nevertheless, she's dyslexic….

ANSWER:

Please note that the article’s heading is Step One in Preventing Dyslexia: Talk Your Child Clever.

Language is at the very bottom of the learning ladder. Its role in reading can be compared to the role of ice-skating in the game of ice hockey. One cannot play ice hockey if one cannot skate. One cannot read a book in a language unless one knows that particular language. I cannot speak French, therefore I cannot read French. I can understand a little bit of German, therefore I can only read German with great difficulty.

It is clear that your child does not have a problem with Step One.

However, there is also a Step Two involved in learning to read, just like there is a Step Two involved in learning to play ice hockey. Step Two in ice hockey comprises skills such as stick-handling, positioning, passing and shooting. Step Two in learning to read mainly comprises non-verbal skills, which are extensively discussed on the Audiblox website, and taught by means of the Audiblox program, such as:

• Concentration;
• Visual discrimination, synthesis, and analysis of foreground/background, form, size, position in space;
• Auditory discrimination, synthesis and analysis;
• Decoding and integration of information;
• Visual closure;
• Imagination;
• Visual memory of forms and sequence;
• Auditory memory;
• Short-term and long-term memory, etc.

Once the child has mastered Step One and Step Two, he will be ready for Step Three, i.e. the actual act of learning to read.