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.
There are already different methods 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 has led to 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 because 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 has to face reading.
Dyslexic children have a neurological and phonological problem that makes it difficult for them to create orthographic images. To solve this problem, this new method proposes reading and analyzing isolated words, segmenting the word phonologically, identifying the syllables, and seeing how it would sound by omitting each one. Next, phonological and orthographic work is carried out, which consists of choosing a word to join its syllables and finally writing it.
The last phase of the method consists of changing the way a dyslexic person reads. 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 starts 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 document’s complexity, as an example for the student. Then it’s the child’s turn, who will read with greater fluency.