Just wanted to share some great news with our EasyRead team. Today in class, the teacher asked if anyone would like to volunteer to read aloud. Boldly, D. raised his hand. He selected a book and, although softly and quietly, read to his class! I was so excited to hear this news today.
Thank you EasyRead Team for helping us. This would not have been possible without your help.
- T
Our eyes are perhaps the most important, yet often neglected, aspect of our healthcare regime. After all we only have two. Without even one of them, the world changes. Without both, our life changes radically.
While the general perception of optometry is that it is conducted through complex apparati, VisionCare Optometry recognises that vision has a lot more to do with our brain than many realise. Business owner Ruth Perrott uses behavioural optometry to give a full and insightful diagnosis of what’s going on ‘behind the scenes’ in the brain’s communication with the eyes. Her training in the behavioural side of vision allows her to provide an alternative approach to sight problems.
“We don’t see with our eyes, we see through our eyes,” said Colin Perrott of VisionCare Optometry. “The way we see has a lot to do with how the brain works – it’s important to have an understanding of how the brain and the eye work together. Our brain is built on visual experiences, which has a lot to do with neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability adapt to changes in the nervous system due to behaviour or environment.
“Some people have issues with recognition and aren’t able to remember certain shapes, as encountered in letters and words. Others suffer with Irlen Syndrome, where their vision is unsteady. Coloured overlays or precision tinted glasses can be used to help steady their vision, making tasks like reading free from visual disturbances.”
Ruth’s journey into optometry stemmed from her own vision difficulties in earlier life. Ruth is short-sighted in one eye and long-sighted in the other, a problem that is often treated with glasses that magnify sight in one eye and minimise it in the other. Colin explains that this solution can be counterproductive.
“By magnifying sight in one eye and minimizing it in the other, the brain may have difficulty fusing the two images together, and shut down the sight in one eye, thus causing amblyopia (or a ‘lazy eye’.)”
By using behavioural optometry techniques to diagnose the problem, VisionCare can use a variety of techniques to combat amblyopia, including prescribing specialised contact lenses and a programme of vision therapy to help re-establish the vision in both eyes, improve eye coordination and help restore stereo vision.
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VisionCare Optometry is situated in Castleford and York and is the only behavioural optometry practice in the Leeds area, providing a unique service across Yorkshire. Ruth is one of only 50 behavioural optometrists in the UK, with an abundance of experience in her specialist field. According to Ruth, the standard NHS sight test does not measure how well you see when reading , evaluate depth perception, eye coordination or the other numerous visual skills required at work or at school. Behavioural optometry goes much further than the basic NHS eye test, providing alternative diagnostic techniques.
VisionCare with Ruth Perrott has been in operation for 21 years, their excellent reputation assuring clients that their vision is in capable and experienced hands. For a clearer diagnosis of your sight problems, call in to VisionCare and book an eye test today – a visit to VisionCare could change the way you see the world forever.
Testimonials
“I just wanted to put into words what a difference my new glasses have made to me. Since being diagnosed with Basilar Artery Migraine, one of my big concerns has been the effect this would have on my eyes, as when an attack starts the blurred vision and complete sensitivity to light make some of my great pleasures – reading and being outside – unbearable. When my neurologist identified certain lights as on of my migraine triggers and suggested coloured lenses would help I was so relieved. Not only did Ruth know exactly what I was talking about, (which I didn’t at the time!) she had my new glasses made quickly too.”
“You have changed my life forever – thank you so much. I am now doing a talk at different schools about dyslexia and doing very well at school, all thanks to you.”
Whilst its early days yet I think Sebastian is developing more of a ‘Can Do’ approach to reading. As regards the Easyread story he he is much more fluent, when the words are there he can read fluently so we do not tend to re read, but I do make him do this for normal reading. The hardest bit (and therefore the least enjoyable) for Sebastian is the reading without the letters and just the pictures, but he often gets the words before I do! I know this is trying to ensure he is decoding and not guessing, which he will still revert to when he is tired, however this is more of an issue with normal reading rather than Easyread.
He enjoys the games particularly Letter Quest and the Fighter Pilot. We have got into a routine of doing Easyread just after breakfast and most of the time he is happy to do it! Outside of Easyread both my husband and I have noticed that he is starting to pick up (factual) books by himself and read/look at them, even telling his younger brother something about the book – so it is all heading in the right direction.
So in summary it is early days yet but there are some encouraging signs and I think your system does make it more fun than ‘normal’ reading, so that they learn/reinforce without realising.
- S
Just to update you on how Joseph is getting on, he’s still doing OK with the lessons although we did miss a couple of days at the weekend as we were really busy (enjoying the sunshine!). I have noticed a difference in the fluency of his reading and he has a much more advanced book from school (by ‘advanced’ I mean that there are chapters and about 5/6 lines of writing on each page. His current book has 60 pages which is a first and he doesn’t seem fazed by this either.)
- V
Charley Boorman is a world-famous motorcycle enthusiast who has made several travel documentaries with his friend and actor Ewan McGregor. As a TV personality, he has taken audiences around the world by motorcycle: from New York to London, from John o’Groats to Cape Town, and from County Wicklow Ireland to Sydney Australia.
And Boorman has dyslexia.
He was born in Ireland to a costume designer mother and film director father. He struggled in school from an early age, though it was his father who first recognised the signs of dyslexia. He had to fight throughout his primary and early secondary years to get his learning difficulties recognised by his teachers.
“I found I was being pushed to one side and I was being ear-marked as being thick, which is a very damaging thing to be told as a young kid. (They said) you’re thick and you’ll not amount to much.”
He laughs remembering it now, and describes how he used to play the class clown in order to cover for the embarrassment of not being able to read.
In his teenage years he left Ireland to attend a school in England where he could receive support for his educational needs. He always felt that his teachers were looking for his weaknesses so much that they missed his strengths.
He left school and spent a few years acting in some of his father’s films before moving on to television and travel after making a movie with Ewan MacGregor. Despite the fact that he still has reading problems, he’s written several books about his adventures.
Boorman has served as president of Dyslexia Action since 2009, where he frequently visits schools and acts as an advocate for everyone – children and adults – who is struggling to read. One of his passions is about making sure teachers receive the right training to be able to help dyslexics in their classrooms.
“While they’re being taught to be teachers, they need to be taught to identify dyslexia … so that that child can then be earmarked and say, ‘right, that kid needs a little bit of extra help’. That was the kind of battle I had. I knew what I had, but my teachers didn’t.”
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Sarah Forrest has ridden a motorcycle once and that was quite enough. She is a System Coach for Easyread, an online phonics course that offers a revolutionary approach to resolving reading difficulties for kids with dyslexia, auditory processing disorders, highly visual learning styles and more. www.morganlearning.com
Thought we might give you an up-date on Hannah. We are really proud that she has passed the 100 lesson mark and her enthusiasm for each lesson is still great. She is happy to read through the story at least twice, and we have noticed the reading with the words is really coming on, and without the words she has no problem decoding the images (we still get stuck!).
In her everyday reading, there is much improvement. She does not wildly guess at words and if she knows the word doesn’t make sense she takes her time and tries to decode. She reads notices/posters/sub titles on the TV without prompting.
We know that if we hadn’t found Easyread when we did, things would be a lot different and Hannah’s confidence with all her learning, not just reading, would be very low.
There is still a way to go but we are definitely on the right track and are so pleased and proud.
- S
Closing the literacy gap: how artistic Ailsa’s reading went from stop to go, go, go!
The Problem
Ailsa loved stories. From a very young age, mum and daughter started the routine of sitting down together each evening to devour a bedtime story. Katherine, Ailsa’s mother, was delighted to see how hungry she was to be read to, learn new things, and engage her vibrant imagination in tales of magic and adventure.
However, reading on her own was something Ailsa never wanted to do. In fact, she hated it.
This contradiction really started to confuse and worry Katherine when Ailsa was 7 years old, because it was getting steadily worse. Ailsa also became intensely frustrated with any homework that involved reading, and pretty soon all homework became torturous. The whole family dreaded it.
From what Katherine could tell, Ailsa’s reading was incredibly stilted. She would re-read lines over and over, lack any kind of fluency and finish a page with a very thinly veiled understanding of what she had just been reading. Not to mention tears and tantrums.
Spelling meanwhile, seemed to have come to a complete standstill.
So Katherine set to work looking for a solution. At first they came across the Toe by Toe system, and decided to give it a go. The phonetic approach seemed helpful in theory. But pretty soon it became known to them as “death by Toe by Toe”! The dull as dishwater approach left creative-minded Ailsa feeling utterly unmotivated.
It was during a routine Google search that Katherine then came across Easyread. After just a few minutes on the website, she really felt that this system would fit the bill for her daughter – scientifically informed, built on experience and credible. She had a clear sense that a lot of thought and planning had gone into the whole setup, which was reassuring and counter to other systems she had found.
The Solution
From the very first lesson Ailsa was head over heels. And so was Mum! The value of being able to call the team any time and discuss concerns and strategies was incredibly helpful. The Easyread Support team knew what she was talking about, and offered confident practical advice. No longer did Alisa’s reading conundrum seem strange and baffling; Katherine now understood why her child had experienced these problems and what she needed to do to change that.
As the weeks went by, Ailsa’s decoding ability was coming on nicely, and she looked forward to her lessons and prizes. Easyread was part of the furniture! But something was then unearthed that Katherine had NEVER considered as being a potential issue for her daughter: eye-tracking weakness.
The team recommended a set of simple physical exercises, and Ailsa’s reaction made it clear that this was an issue for her. All this time she had been struggling to move her eyes from one word to the next. No wonder reading had her clenching her fists in frustration!
It was a revelation. Ten days later, following a good dose of determination (and some Sylvanian Families bribery), Ailsa was back on track.
Having a background in medical science, Katherine found David Morgan’s research, findings and general philosophy on helping children learn to read, revolutionary. Learning more about the auditory processing system and how the brain performs the complex act of reading was incredibly useful in allowing the mum of three to help her daughter effectively. Since completing this program, Katherine has used her newly acquired understanding of the value of decoding to help steer her younger child down the correct reading pathway.
Of course Katherine knew that generating positive psychology was going to be important in helping her daughter to learn. And yet, the Easyread team took this method to a whole new level…and boy did it work! To start with, the verbal encouragement and physical reward system was a real driving force for Ailsa. As time went on and she became more capable, the initial rewards became less of a requirement. From an emotional perspective, this was something Katherine was incredibly happy to see. Ailsa was now comfortable in her own skin, trusting in her ability to read.
The Result
Ailsa can now read aloud fluently and with expression. She has excelled in the reading programme the school have been using, having accelerated like a rocket through the various levels. So much so that she recently qualified for a school trip to a book festival!
She enjoys nothing more than sitting in her room reading independently. Her spelling is also steadily improving. Since completing Easyread Accelerator, they have begun working Ailsa through the Spellmagic booster materials as well, which she is enjoying enormously.
Before beginning Easyread in 2011, Ailsa was between 1.5 and 2 years behind with her reading and writing. In her other subjects such as Maths and Science, she was at least 2 years above the average. Now, her reading has come so far that she is comfortably average for her age. And what’s more, Katherine knows that this is far from the end of the story!
So what is Mum’s final word on Easyread?
“I cannot thank you enough David, and all your staff, for setting up such an incredibly helpful and effective system. I have recommended this to several people since, including teachers. To my mind there is a distinct lack of awareness, along with endless queues for educational psychologists. But this system really empowered us within our home to make a huge difference to our daughter’s life. Now pass me the hankies (and champagne)!!”
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Laura O’Sullivan has enjoyed watching Ailsa shine, in her role as a System Coach for Easyread, an online phonics course specially developed for children with highly visual learning styles, dyslexia, auditory processing problems and more. www.easyreadsystem.com
- S
