How To Develop Reading Flow In Children With Learning Disabilities

By: Darin Browne Click author's name for more of his/her articles

Children with learning disabilities have difficulties reading, and it is commonly noted that, even if they understand the words, they often cannot flow effortlessly as they read.

There may be many factors involved in the failure of children with learning difficulties to read capably, and I would like to talk about some of these in this article. As a practitioner who has effectively worked with these children for over twenty years, I consider that I have some realistic things I can throw in to the debate on learning disabilities, particularly with regard to the reading competence of these children.

Step 1: Make Sure They Can Concentrate!

If you need children with learning disabilities to pick up their reading speed, the first thing you must do is to make sure they are concentrating properly. As a Behavioral Optometrist, I look to the visual system to answer this issue, because I know that an unresolved problem in their eyes, such as long sight for example, can severely affect a child's concentration. Also, if a child is wanting in their focus or their eye coordination, this too can reduce their ability to concentrate.

In these situations, they put so much energy into simply holding the page clear and single, they have nothing available for anything else, and become weary due to the extreme effort considered necessary to execute the task. Reading becomes tiring, complex and frustrating for children with learning disabilities, and quite often a pair of reading eyeglasses can be magnificent in these circumstances.

Other practitioners might look to ADHD drugs, occupational or speech therapy or natural substances to pick up concentration, but as an Optometrist, I consider that the easiest thing to try first is the right reading glasses. in my experience this treatment frequently works for increasing the concentration span of children with learning disabilities.

Step 2: Make Sure They Recognize The Words!

Children with learning disabilities practically always have a diminished sight word vocabulary, thus when they read they are always coming across words that they do not know.

The vision therapy I have developed spends a lot of time directly working with visualization and visual memory, and we have had fantastic success over loads of years improving children's ability to retain spelling words.

Step 3: Help Their Control Of Their Eye Movements!

Eye movement control is basic if a child is to flow in their reading. If you find that using a ruler below the line of words aids their reading speed, then chances are that they have a significant eye movement problem. The ruler helps, sure, but how much more successful would it be to train the child's eye movements so they have accurate and sufficient control.

In my program, I use a variety of tips to help children with learning disabilities to control their eyes correctly. I am able to assist you do the same in the privacy of your own home, using balls, string, charts, marbles and a whole host of fun things.

The fantastic news for these children is that, in addition to increasing their reading speed and thus helping their learning disabilities, training eye movements can also assist their sport, principally for small ball sports such as baseball, cricket, tennis and ping pong!

But the greatest reward is that, if we train a child's eye movements appropriately, they will begin to flow and add expression to their reading, and they will also become far less irritated and annoyed with reading. If it is easy to flow and draw the meaning out of our reading, it becomes a much more enjoyable task.

If you would like more information about children with learning disabilities, and what you can do to help your child conquer their learning difficulties, visit our website for tips, ideas and the entire therapy course which costs a lot less than you may think!

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

About The Author: To discover positive, holistic and effective solutions for learning disabilities you can start using right now, and for FREE Gifts that can help you and your child, visit Darin Browne's WebsiteChildren Learning Disabilities.