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Dyslexic Boys Reading Rate Skyrockets

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Dyslexic Boys Reading Rate Skyrockets

by Jeanette Kasper

Sebastien McKervey, 12 years old, was pretty sure hed never be able to read. Hes a really nice kid, smart, but really low self-esteem. He wasn’t into trying more things that were supposed to help. He had basically given up.

On August 31, Father Todd Angele of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church and Priory in Calgary, Alberta arranged for Jeanette Kasper to teach the one-day workshop “Read to Your Potential” to all of the teachers at their affiliated private school, St. John Bosco. Sebastien’s mother is a teacher there. On a hunch, Father Todd suggested that she bring Sebastien along. Sebastien will tell you that he only went because “Mom said I had to.”

Sebastien started the class at 75 words per minute which, when multiplied by his comprehension of 33%, gives a functional reading rate of just 31 wpm. By the end of the day, he was reading at 451 wpm with 75% comprehension! Sebastien had better results than any of the teachers in the room and went from a functional reading rate of 31 wpm to 328 wpm! That was 2 weeks ago.

Dyslexia, ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder), learning disabilities. The number of children having trouble learning to read has risen dramatically over the last decade. Schools now fund Resource Teachers to read these children their test questions, as opposed to continuing the struggle to teach them to read. None of the teachers at St. John Bosco Private School would ever have guessed that a reading program could have such dramatic results with dyslexia.

Jeanette Kasper, owner of Be You Inc., a Calgary-based training company, and facilitator of “Read to Your Potential,” explains why this process works. “The way we are taught to read, pronouncing every letter, every syllable, every word, is how we learn to do everything. Remember learning to ride a bike? Remember talking yourself through it? “Put this hand here. Balance like this. Put this foot her.” Now, when you pick up a bike, there’s no voice. You just grab the bike and go. It’s a habit.”

Says Kasper, “The way we all read now, with that little voice in the back of our head pronouncing all of the words out loud, shows that reading has never been transferred out of the learning center in the “Thinking Brain” and into the habit centre in our “Safety Brain.” Every time we pick up a book, it’s as though we’re still “learning to read.” No wonder so many of us read so slowly and have so much trouble concentrating on what we’re are reading. And, without good focus, we can’t remember anything, even names of people we meet!”

Apparently, it’s the transfer of our reading function to the “safety brain” or amygdala, that establishes reading as a habit and we don’t have to think about habits. “It’s like riding a bike,” as the saying goes and, surprisingly, it works, even with dyslexia. “In a three-hour session, just learning the reading technique that transfers reading from the “Thinking Brain” to the “Safety Brain,” everybody doubles their reading speed and remembers 50% more,” reports Kasper. “And then you practice.”

We checked in with Sebastien September 16th, 2 weeks after he left the class excited to practice at home. Hes now reading at 1200 wpm with 75% comprehension, a functional reading rate of 900 wpm! And he took a week off practicing because he picked up the flu bug going around. He was one of the children in the Resource Room program at St. John Bosco, up until now. When questioned by an astonished tutor as to whether he’d hit his head over the summer, Sebastien proudly announced, “That’s just the way I read, now.”

Sebastien McKervey is truly motivated. Along with investing the time and money to have the teachers and priests attend the course, Father Angele also offered an incentive of $100 to the person who showed the most progress throughout their 21-day practice period. Sebastien says he’s looking forward to spending that $100!

St. John Bosco Private School is now planning to put all of their students through the “Read to Your Potential” program by mid-October and plans to track their progress through their report card marks. Father Todd and Father Jean Violette, District Superior, who traveled from Toronto to take part in the class, are intrigued with the potential of this program to increase marks and learning abilities in their students at schools across the country. They were both very pleased with their own results after taking this program, but they’ll be even more pleased to tell you that Sebastien is now out-reading them all.