A new method emerges that allows children with dyslexia to normalize their reading ability, both in accuracy and speed, improving their text comprehension. Its creator is Ángel R. Calvo Rodríguez, professor of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the University of Murcia.
Various methods already exist that improve reading accuracy in Spanish for children with dyslexia, but these did not improve reading time, and therefore reading comprehension was affected. In contrast, the new method manages to improve both accuracy and time, which represents significant progress in terms of reading fluency.
The method has been developed by psychologists, contributing their perspective to the resolution of these types of learning difficulties and on the cognitive processes involved. Children with dyslexia have a considerable emotional problem as they have normal intellectual capacity and realize they are not learning. Therefore, they feel frustrated. This situation makes them feel inferior and generates anxiety.
Professor Calvo Rodríguez’s working method begins with preliminary work that consists of changing the child’s attributions so that they see they are not incapable, but rather that they only need to solve a difficulty and can do so. This reduces the anxiety that appears when the child must face reading.
Dyslexic children have a problem of neurological and phonological origin that makes it difficult for them to create orthographic images. To solve this problem, this new method proposes carrying out reading and analysis work on isolated words, segmenting the word phonologically, identifying the syllables, and seeing how it would sound without each of them. Next, phonological and orthographic work is carried out, which consists of choosing a word to join its syllables and then writing it.
The last phase of the method consists of changing the dyslexic’s way of reading. A person with this problem reads based on partial clues from words, so they identify the first letters and forget the rest: they attribute the meaning of any other word that begins with the same letters but is more familiar to them. To change this reading, the child must read syllable by syllable, with meaning. They go from reading words to reading syllables that, when joined, are given a meaning.
Once the child has practiced with words, a text is proposed for them to read. First, the teacher reads it, adapting their speed to the complexity of the document, as an example for the student. Then it is the child’s turn, who will read with greater fluency.