Over the past several years I have become increasingly concerned about older students. When I refer to older students, I include upper elementary students within that group. I have been frustrated that the tools and processes that I have been taught generally "start at the very beginning" and then move quite slowly through a scope and sequence. When working with very young students this is not as much of an issue; however, even then I often found the processes overly complicated. I felt many students got bogged down trying to remember complicated rules that most non-dyslexic readers will never learn.
I have spent the last couple of years researching a different approach, a speech-to-print approach. The most well known approaches for dyslexia intervention are print-to-speech approaches. This is what the Orton Gillingham approach is. However, language is first and foremost oral. Written language is imposed upon it. A speech-to-print approach to reading follows that logic. It begins with the sounds that we say and then correlates them to the letters that we see.
My research led me to Evidence Based Literacy Instruction (EBLI). Over and over again, I would come across this approach and I would turn away from it. Why? It seemed too good to be true. It begins at a much higher level than anything I have encountered and moves much more quickly. It does so without most of the very many and very complicated "rules" I had been told to teach my students. Rather than years of interventions, I was reading stories of weeks and months. Rather than a twice a week requirement (with four to five days recommended), once per week was encouraged. Again, this all seemed too good to be true.
But, time and time again, when I reached out to other dyslexia therapists and tutors who had originally came from an Orton Gillingham print-to-speech background, they assured me that they were having great success with EBLI, that their students were indeed moving much more quickly than they had in a print-to-speech based intervention. I did as much research into verifiable results as I could. I will freely admit there is not as much research as I would like. (The same is true of Orton Gillingham approaches.) What I was able to find, coupled with the experiences of other highly trained dyslexia therapists and tutors, was finally enough to convince me to pursue it.
I am so excited to be able to offer EBLI tutoring for students of any age, but I am most excited to offer this fast paced program to older students.
Let me know if you have any questions or if you have experiences you'd like to share.
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