Hear From Our Dyslexic Community

My seven year old son's self-esteem and confidence has been given a great boost since your assessment. Your passion, expertise, and experience made our family feel that this disability is actually a blessing. We are thrilled to have dozens of things to try to help him with his reading and we are already seeing results. Thank you.

Dear Howie and Karey; Our daughter felt very comfortable with the assessment and after working with Karey and Howie she is starting to embrace the dyslexia. We've seen immediate results with the spelling methods. We're looking forward to using all the tips and methods presented to us. Thank you!!

Thank you for keeping me in the loop. Your article about yellow paper and red or black ink is very interesting and a method that I shall experiment with. When I was going through all the upheaval of having Tamsin assessed for "special needs" she worked with various colour overlays with an orthoptist to see if the overlays improved her reading both in speed and accuracy. Over about a 12 month period we found that for Tamsin a dark blue overlay slightly improve her speed and accuracy. Hence she then went to a special optician who had certain machinery who could hone in on the exact shade of blue and glasses were made for her to her prescription with the coloured tint. Sometimes she choses to wear them for reading and sometimes she choses her clear prescription glasses. I shall try the yellow paper to see if can aid with memory. Great tip and one well worth trying. Karen, just an update with Tamsin - I took her out of school January 2009 after receiving all your wonderful books, they gave me the courage to take the plunge as school once diagnosed a "problem" had no intention nor staff to teach her with dyslexia in mind. They offered only a one year remedial reading program using the same program used in primary school! We have not looked back. - Tamsin is now a very happy learner and I bring as much visual learning to her lessons as possible. It's like opening doors every day! One thing she does struggle with, however, is linking sentences to make order and sense. We build up a noun list of a scene, then she builds simple sentences around those words to help flesh out her scene (eg dog sat by the fireside) she then adds interesting describing words but linking them together to make a very short simple story is not there at all and I do an awful lot of editing to help her make sense of what she has written. Tamsin is going on 13 now and is much happier in her schooling. Thank you for giving me the knowledge, understanding and the courage to teach my daughter. With sincere best wishes for you and your family.

This is such a helpful website! My 8 year old daughter is dyslexic, and I am looking for tools to help to teach ... her strategies to do better in school. Even with her past work with an educational therapist, her current work with a tutor and a great teacher (at least this year), she still needs something else to help her. She ... is reading at grade level but has to work 10 times harder than the other kids. Today, she broke down into tears because she felt she didn’t do well in her spelling test. .... she can only spell if she memorizes the whole list. .... she disintegrates if she messes up on even one word and then can“t go on to spell any of her other words, even if she has already successfully spelled them. Reading your website really clarified things. Thank you. I will be coming back here again.

This is such a helpful website! My 8 year old daughter is dyslexic, and I am looking for tools to help to teach ... her strategies to do better in school. Even with her past work with an educational therapist, her current work with a tutor and a great teacher (at least this year), she still needs something else to help her. She ... is reading at grade level but has to work 10 times harder than the other kids. Today, she broke down into tears because she felt she didn’t do well in her spelling test. .... she can only spell if she memorizes the whole list. .... she disintegrates if she messes up on even one word and then can“t go on to spell any of her other words, even if she has already successfully spelled them. Reading your website really clarified things. Thank you. I will be coming back here again.

The Dyslexia Victoria Online method identified how my son learned and gave him confidence. It provided teaching solutions to his learning problems when there was no one else who could help him. The schools were very unwilling to recognize his learning difficulties and forced him to work on his own.

Your website is “stellar”!! The information this website offers on how dyslexic kids learn in wholes is the most valuable teaching tool I have! I will be able to use the information this fall with my students. Your hard work is going to benefit so many kids, tutors and parents alike. Thanks and Congrats to you on all the great new books and the fantastic website. It is superb.!!! Love, Carol

All the teachers at The Victoria READ Society extend their grateful appreciation to you for presenting the three workshops this month. We have enjoyed them and learned a great deal. We now look forward to using your ideas in the classroom.

Thank you for the support you provide to parents and teachers through your website and teaching resources.

Hannah has been in french immersion at school for the past 6 years and has now transferred to a regular english-speaking school curriculm. She has been having difficulty with learning spelling, reading and writing in English. After a tutoring session she said "That was real fun!". Her mother said that this was the first time that she and her daughter understood what dyslexia is.

I just wanted to drop you a line and tell you how well Scott did on his evaluation recently. The school sent someone out to do a year end review and he did very well. His strongest subjects were reading and comprehension, mostly 1.5 - 2.5 grades ABOVE his age group. This I think is directly attributable to the method you advised me on in teaching him reading and vocabulary. Math is as good as anyone his age. Thanks for your help.

Many thanks for your books. I think they are the only ones out there that truly capture the right brain child’s dilemma within the regular school system and certainly the only ones to recognize that phonics instruction can be harmful.

Your books are most informative and practical for classroom use. I’m sure I’ll refer to them often. Great website, too.

On another note, I have resorted to teaching Adrian on my own half days, I work the other half. Adrian's teacher has been very accomodating to this, surprisingly. This is proving to be much more effective than leaving it up to the public school system. I guess being a public teacher myself, I am more aware of the inability to address all needs, especially the more demanding and less recognized needs, which is what this individual is advocating for. As a parent, I need to make up for the learning myself. I would never have taken this step and become more aware of his learning needs without your help.