Why Easyread Works

Most reading systems do not work. That is obvious from the results they get.

But Easyread is different.

The reason is that most literacy systems misunderstand why the child is struggling. Once you understand why a child is struggling, the solution becomes quite obvious and simple.

First, You Need to Know Why Most Bright Children Struggle With Reading

This is a bit technical, but extremely important. So stay with me!

80% of poor readers display an "Auditory Deficit". That is a well accepted figure and we see it all the time.

An Auditory Deficit means that the child does not use the auditory cortex in their brain while reading. The signal goes straight from the visual cortex to the pre-frontal lobe for analysis. A standard reader will pass the signal to the auditory cortex for linguistic processing first and then to the pre-frontal cortex.

So most experts view a failure of the auditory cortex as the root problem of the child's reading difficulties. What we have found is that the Auditory Deficit IS NOT the cause of the reading difficulty in most cases.

You see, most bright children have a very strong visual cortex.

The true, underlying problem is that bright visual learners naturally tend to process the text in a very visual way. They memorise words like pictures, rather than seeing the text as an auditory code representing the spoken words.

Because they rely on their high visual intelligence in this way, their auditory cortex is being bypassed, even though there is no reason why it shouldn't be used as a standard reader does.

We just treat this true underlying issue and everything then drops into place.

It really isn't rocket science! I am an engineer and it is a simple, engineering solution that we apply in a fun, non-engineering way.

So Your Child's High Intelligence Can Cause Difficulty:
It Leads to Memorisation and Guessing

A high proportion of the children we help are very bright.

We all have different learning styles. They are usually grouped as Auditory, Visual, Kinaesthetic and Digital.

The problem that we see again and again is that the naturally visual children use their visual intelligence to shortcut the reading process. They memorise the alphabet. Then they memorise the first words that they learn. Then they read by visual recall of the words and guessing the ones they don't know. Everyone seems pleased when they do this, because they seem to be reading. So they do it more.

In fact, many reading systems actively encourage this approach because it gives the impression of progress.

But the children are just memorising and guessing. That is different to decoding text into auditory patterns.

It can seem to work when they are 5 or 6. The text is simple and has an obvious picture.

When they reach 7 it starts to fail them because the text gets too complex. You will see more and more wild guessing and then a collapse of confidence. Your child is now on a reading plateau and hardly progressing at all.

You will now see more and more resistance to even trying to read. Schools often say to parents "just do more reading with your child...". But that is going to be more of what has already failed.

The child has worked hard and cannot understand why it has been so difficult.

Every child knows how many children are ahead of them in the class. It is easy to spot with the dreaded colour-coded reading books. It becomes very demoralising. So the easiest option becomes to just reject the whole thing ("I don't want to read!").

If your child is 7 or 8, you may already be familiar with this pattern!

That is when we end up helping many children. Of course, it is better if they head down the right path from day 1 when they first start to learn to read. That saves a lot of frustration and heartache.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS? Good news... We have the solution for you!

Redirecting The Children Onto The Right Track

The children have no reason not to be able to read fine in the normal way. Many have already been diagnosed as "dyslexic" when they come to us. But all we do is show them another way to process the text and then they progress quickly.

We are not "curing" anything. They never had anything to cure.

It is just that they have headed down what seemed a good path into the woods and then find themselves lost. We take them by the hand and show them back onto the main track.

The irony is that it is their intelligence that has taken them down this wrong path. They see the easy shortcut and it makes sense for them to take it. And the brighter they are, the further they can go down this path to disaster.

Two Basic Elements of Success

Easyread is based on two things:

1. In order to be able to develop really strong literacy, most of us need to develop an understanding of the sound structure (known as phonics) of words and how that relates to text.
2. Once that is secure, we believe reading is a skill and is developed by short, successful reading sessions every day. We have developed a system to make that possible for your child, even without adult help using our unique TrainerText.

So we have unique systems to allow both elements to take place.

If you want more technical detail, read the Science Behind Easyread

Fixing the Reasons For Failure Other Than Auditory Deficit

Although most children with an auditory deficit have followed the pattern described above, some children have a genuine auditory difficulty, which is making reading difficult. You should certainly get your child's hearing tested if you have any worries.

And then there are other possible causes of difficulty too. The Auditory Deficit only accounts for 80% of reading difficulty.

In addition there are three other main causes. They are Dyspraxia , low declarative memory and Irlen Syndrome.

The good news is that we can help with these issues as well and once the main wood has been cleared, these lone trees are very easy to spot. We will look for them at the appropriate moments in the course.

All the remaining issues seem to account for around 1-3% of the children we work with. And you are really moving into the zone of general learning difficulties with most of them.

Learning Difficulties and Special Needs

Although we can help children with more general learning difficulties, one has to be realistic about what the ultimate goal is. Yes, we often help them learn to read and that can be a huge boost to their lives and I believe it is hugely worthwhile. But the limit of their reading ability will always be in line with their underlying general abilities. We cannot change that.

Our aim is to get a child able to read. What happens from there is a question of how much they go on to read and their basic levels of mental function.

Children Just Starting To Learn

If your child is just starting to learn to read, all this talk of reading failure may seem irrelevant. There is a 2/3rds chance that your child will learn to read OK. You may feel that Easyread is unnecessary.

You can certainly leave it and hope for the best. Or you can use Easyread as a foundation course and make the process easier.

My only comment is that we all end up in boxes. Boxes that we are put in by others and boxes we put ourselves in. It is surprisingly hard to jump out of them. I am the non-literary member of my family and always will be.

If your child learns to read quickly and easily, positive emotions towards reading will be laid down early and forever. Your child will be solidly plonked in the "good reader" box. That is by you, teachers, grandparents, friends and by him or herself.

That is a pretty valuable thing because we all like doing what we are good at. And the more you like reading, the more you read. My daughter was literally reading a book-a-day at the age of 8. Many children are the same. They devour books.

How can someone who is resistent to reading compete without that sort of daily input?

Becoming a great reader is a life-changing thing.

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