“Highly effective and deceptively simple, the Easyread System succeeds in making learning to read fun.”
Rebecca Abrams
Daily Telegraph
Families Columnist

Easyread: A new attitude from Day 1, substantial progress in 3-4 weeks

Dyslexia and Reading Difficulty:

Understand the 7 main causes of reading difficulty

Find out the easy solution to each problem

And learn why very bright children can
find learning to read particularly hard

Introduction to Reading Difficulty and Dyslexia

We have found that there are seven main causes of reading difficulty, which are listed below. The key to making reading easy for your child is to understand why it is difficult.

That varies from child to child. So there is no point in suggesting a solution until we have got to the root of the problem. That is the same whether someone is dyslexic or not. Our focus is on getting people reading whether they are diagnosed as having dyslexia or not.

What is dyslexia? Is being dyslexic different? Can we help someone with dyslexia? We discuss all those issues towards the bottom of the page. But effectively we find no difference helping someone who is dyslexic or not dyslexic.

Instant Reading Difficulty Diagnostic Tool

Would you like an instant online assessment of the cause of your child's reading difficulty?

Just click the link below and we will start to explore what is probably causing the problem:

Instant Online Assessment

The 7 Causes of Reading Difficulty

Around 80% of the children we help are sight-memorising words and guessing the ones they don't know. This is because they are displaying an auditory deficit. You can see more on that through the first link below. Bright visual learners are particularly at risk of this.

But dyslexia can have a range of causes, so here is a look at all the main causes of reading difficulty and at least one solution to each of them:

Auditory Deficit in the Bright Visual Learner

Eye Tracking Problems and Dyspraxia

Poor Vision and/or Irlen Syndrome

Poor Short Term Memory Capacity

Word Meaning Blindness

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Stress Reaction

Of course you may find that a your child is struggling with a mix of these different factors. It is important to be open to the different patterns they lead to, so that the right help is delivered.

Symptoms/Problems/Solutions

Here is a chart of the main symptoms you will see, what the root of the problem is and one potential solution:

Symptom	Problem	Solution
"Recognises" some words and guesses others, using the context and first letter	Auditory deficit due to visual processing of the text, without engagement of the auditory cortex	Easyread is specially designed to deal with this.
Can read single words OK, but tends to struggle with a sentence or paragraph	Mild dyspraxia or eye tracking problems	Exercises built into Easyread.
Complains of the text "moving around" on the page	Irlen Syndrome	Coloured films or tinted glasses, obtained from a trained optician.
Is able to decode words, but only very slowly and struggles with long words and remembering the meaning in the sentence	Low short term memory capacity	Steady daily practice, delivered by Easyread potentially, to move the reading process from declarative to procedural memory.
Can read words and sentences quite fluently but does not understand what he or she has just read	Word meaning blindness	Activation of the auditory processing paths through the brain cortex, developed by a daily Easyread lesson
Enthusiastic but finds it hard to sit still and concentrate on reading	Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder	Heightened engagement through game activities and entertainment, delivered by Easyread
Can read OK sometimes, but tends to get into a stress spiral of failure-stress-failure.	Heightened stress reaction	Improved psychology developed through the support and encouragement delivered through a daily Easyread lesson.

A Truly Massive Problem

Globally around 1-in-5 English-speaking children reaches the age of 11 unable to read confidently.

Even after ten years of familiarity with that figure, I still find it amazing. If it is the first time you have seen it, you will probably be struggling to believe it. However, as you walk down the street of an average town in England, America, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, every seventh person you pass will be unable to read properly. Imagine doing 10 years at school unable to read the board.

It is a massive problem and there is a lot of confusion as to what the reasons are. For instance, it is difficult to find two definitions of dyslexia that are the same.

Some non-readers are "diagnosed" as dyslexic while others are not and I still cannot tell you why, even though I am an expert in this field. However, it should be noted that a diagnosis of dyslexia is often connected to a lot of financial commitments from education authorities and is therefore often resisted by those authorities.

What is Dyslexia?

I first got into literacy through my work in The Shannon Trust (www.shannontrust.org.uk). We developed a system to get literate prison inmates helping their non-reading peers to learn. 67% of prisoners could not read at that time. But we found that they could learn to read in just a few months with the right guidance.

So, there was no underlying reason why most of them had not learnt in the first place. Many of them cracked it in just 4-5 months even though they had thought themselves dyslexic. That is as fast as you or I did. In fact it is a lot faster than I did!

As a result of this revelation, I have spent the last few years investigating the nature of reading difficulties, why people are labelled dyslexic and what the real causes of difficulty are. That is the basis to finding solutions.

There are so many myths and misunderstandings surrounding Dyslexia, that it becomes difficult to see the wood for the trees. And "being dyslexic" is still something that you cannot get two matching definitions of.

Being dyslexic is also often viewed as an "untreatable" condition. Some people even say that it is even "unprofessional" to suggest that dyslexia is something that can be treated or helped.

The Truth About Dyslexia

In reality, what the word dyslexia means is " to have more difficulty learning to read and dealing with text than would be expected for a given cognitive ability ". So it is a specific difficulty with reading and words in relation to the person's general intelligence.

Anything more complex than that can be very dangerous, because it often begins to link dyslexia to one or more of the personality traits often seen in children who happen to also have difficulty with reading. That is a distraction from the actual underlying reasons for the difficulty.

For instance, high creativity is often sited as part of dyslexia. The reality is that many dyslexics are dyslexic because they are very strong visual learners. Visual learners are often very creative. However, being creative has nothing directly to do with reading difficulty.

The truth is this:

There is no single dyslexia cause or condition. There are several possible reasons why a child might struggle with reading. It is, after all, a very complex brain process.

When you understand in detail why an individual child is struggling to read it is usually easy to work out how to overcome the difficulty.

I have to confess to often getting worried when the term dyslexia is used, because it can lead to no further effort being made to solve the person's reading problem once someone is labelled dyslexic.

People often accept dyslexia as some sort of incurable disease. It just isn't, at least nine and a half times out of ten (in our experience). There is usually no reason why most dyslexics cannot read well with the right instruction for them.

What Do Dyslexia Organisations and Charities Do?

There are a lot of dyslexia organisations that can give you support. And they represent the voice of dyslexics in the media and with governments:

Dyslexia Online Magazine

http://www.dyslexia-parent.com/magazine.html

Articles about dyslexia for teachers and parents.

Easyread is a reading system designed for visual learners. It uses a short daily lesson online to teach a child to read over 2-6 months. It has proved highly effective with the most common form of dyslexia (auditory deficit syndrome). It is based on synthetic phonics.

We can also give advice on other foms of dyslexia such as Irlen Syndrome and Dyspraxia.

Getting children to read is our passion. Don't hesitate to call us with any question. But before you do, take the time to have a look around the site. There is a lot of information on literacy, dyslexia, the causes of dyslexia and ways to help with each type of dyslexia.

You can also check our blog to hear the latest literacy news.

Dyslexia and Reading Difficulty:

Understand the 7 main causes of reading difficulty

Find out the easy solution to each problem

And learn why very bright children can find learning to read particularly hard

Introduction to Reading Difficulty and Dyslexia

Instant Reading Difficulty Diagnostic Tool

The 7 Causes of Reading Difficulty

Symptoms/Problems/Solutions

Symptom

Problem

Solution

A Truly Massive Problem

What is Dyslexia?

The Truth About Dyslexia

What Do Dyslexia Organisations and Charities Do?

Dyslexia Online Magazine

Worldwide Organisations:

UK Organisations:

USA:

And learn why very bright children can
find learning to read particularly hard