Reading Disabilities: Why Some Children
Struggle to Learn to Read
By SUSAN DU PLESSIS
Plato, the great Greek philosopher, once said that the direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life. In modern Western society mastery of basic academic skills — reading, writing and arithmetic — is a necessary prerequisite for success in both school and employment settings and society at large. However, due to learning disabilities, and especially due to reading disabilities, the futures of many children are put in jeopardy.
Although there is a large number of other “disabilities” to be found within the field of learning disabilities, a reading disability remains the most common. Estimates of learning-disabled students being reading disabled vary between 70 and 85 percent. Some experts are of the opinion that this percentage is even higher, so much so that labeling a child as learning disabled is understood to include a reading disability. If one evaluates the importance of reading in the learning situation, this opinion probably comes close to the truth. Reading is regarded as the most important skill that a child must acquire at school, because one must learn to read in order to be able to read to learn. The implication of this is that the child who is a poor reader will usually also be a poor learner.
A plethora of theories has arisen as to the cause of reading disabilities, ranging from brain dysfunction through uncoordinated left/right hemispheres, overconcentration of trace elements, imbalance of the inner ear and so on. One man, however, has a different opinion. He is Jan Strydom, a doctor in education. His theory is the result of years of study of the known facts about the way we learn. His analysis led him to a dynamically different view of the true nature of a reading disability.
“My work began many years ago when I prepared my own children for school. I then did a master's degree in pedagogics and it struck me that parents needed a kit to use in the home to help prepare their children on the intellectual aspects of school.
“After thorough testing I produced one, named it ‘Audiblox’, and it worked very well. It also produced fantastic results when used with so-called learning-disabled children. That was when I began to look into this field, eventually producing a kit designed to address reading disabilities.
“I question, as others have, why we assume that if a child is not learning or reading properly, there is something wrong with the brain.
“I focus on two basic characteristics:
no human being can do anything he hasn't learned to do;
the learning process is a stratified process — it proceeds one step at a time.
”If you miss out on one of these steps, you can't simply go on to the next and hope you'll understand that. You never will, until you retrace your steps and master what you've missed.
“A child who hasn't learned to count will never be able to add or subtract — it's as simple as that. The real consequences of moving on before a step has been fully grasped have never been realized. And just as some adults find learning to drive extremely difficult while others sail through their driving tests, so do children differ. They don't all learn the same thing at the same time in the same pace and in the same way.”
In a nutshell, Dr. Strydom's message is, “There's no such a thing as reading disability — all there is, is an inability.”
How does Audiblox work?
“There is no magic in this. It is a scientific method that works only with perseverance.
“No testing of the child is required beforehand. The parent or teacher receives a kit comprising books, a DVD and various other materials. By working steadily through the kit, dramatic improvements are usually seen within a few months. I have seen as much as 10 years made up in 11 months. Teachers, however, need to be trained to implement Audiblox in a group setting.”
Below are a few selected case studies of learners who were in the process of overcoming reading disabilities, or who have already overcome them:
Audiblox can be applied one-on-one and in a group setting.
For more information on Audiblox visit Audiblox2000.com
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