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Dyslexia
Freer Mind - in association with
Seeing Spells Achieving
Dyslexia resolved in 60 minutes? Is this possible?
So, what are we suggesting you do?
Our guarantee: no cure, no charge!
Are you really dyslexic, or just poor at spelling?
Test yourself: will visualisation help you read?
Word and letters moving around
Why your memory needs visualisation
Missing out words when reading
Is this the answer for everyone?
What we train our clients to do
Freer Mind dyslexia testimonials
More about Seeing Spells Achieving
Dyslexia resolved in 60 minutes?
A new approach to dyslexia could resolve many reading and spelling difficulties in less than an hour, and also improve memory and mental organisation.
In essence, we are saying that there are only two reasons why people struggle to read and spell, and both of them relate to visualisation - which can be resolved quickly in most people:
1. They don't have a reliable, effective method for creating, storing and re-accessing word images.
This is how all good readers and spellers do it (though they probably won't realise it until you ask them) - they are literally reading the letters in their mind's eye. This visual storage is also how people are able to read quickly, without decoding each word in turn - it's just a click-click-click of recognition.
2. They are using the wrong visualisation tool for the job.
Some people are natural 3-dimensional thinkers - the artists, sculptors, designers, engineers, dancers and athletes of this world. The problem is, they often can't stop themselves using the same approach for reading - which results in the words or letters moving around or shimmering. [See Are you using the right visualisation tool for the job]
Notice that we are not saying that dyslexics have different brains; and certainly not defective ones. We are saying that they are not using them the same way as the rest of the population. They won't lose any creative advantages they have had by doing this - it's an extra skill, not a replacement.
Such people can be trained to spell - most in under one hour, if the trainer is sufficiently expert. This includes those who find that the words or letters move around.
We take them through a series of mental exercises which show them how to create bomb-proof word-images, sorts out any visual confusions and resolves minor emotional blocks. This is a great deal of progress in one hour, and is only possible because of our expertise in working with the mind.
We have worked with clients whose psychologist's report says "they have little or no short-term visual memory" - and found that, again, it was lack of technique. They didn't know how to create lasting visual images - but they quickly learned.
It isn't enough, unfortunately, to say to the client "you need to visualise words". Part of the problem is that they just don't know how to do so effectively, in a way that will persist; and it takes some skill to lead them into it.
Sometimes the biggest challenge, in fact, is the dyslexic's lack of self-belief, which causes their mind to freeze whenever they attempt to visualise words. As NLP therapists, though, we find this quite easy to overcome.
For a quick check on your current visualisation skills, go to our Will Visualisation Help You Read page.
To see how we helped others who had despaired of other treatments, go to our Dyslexia case histories page.
If this explanation alone has been enough to give you that 'Eureka' moment of spelling ability, we'd love to hear from you!
So, what are we suggesting you do?
Well, assessments cost a fortune. Programmes that last a year or more cost a fortune - and take, well, a year or more. Many of the other methods simply don't work, or make only a small dent in the issue.
We're suggesting that you:
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check out whether you have any visual disturbances. If you do, these need to be worked on first, else you won't have the focus that you need.
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decide whether you are actually doing the things that work in reading and spelling - that is, whether you are doing it the way the experts do it. If you aren't doing the things that work, you won't get the results. We'll train you in what works, and unblock anything that is in the way.
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see if you can visualise at all. You almost certainly can - it's just a question of degree.
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then save yourself a whole heap of money, time and stress and contact us! We can't make it any easier: a guaranteed result or no charge! (And we're doing rather well on the results front...)
Our Guarantee - no cure, no charge!
Because we have such confidence in this method and our ability to apply it, we give all of our clients this guarantee:
If we take you on as a client, but after one session of approximately 1 hour at £75 you still can't spell any 5 words of your choice both forwards and backwards, know how to do the same for any new word you encounter and be able to copy instructions off a board easily, there's no charge!
This is a minimum, of course - a box to tick. We usually achieve a great deal more. What we are actually training you to do is understand truly how to spell and read effectively.
Are you really dyslexic, or just poor at spelling?
Here are some questions:
Do you spell the same word several different ways on the same page?
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Do you learn a spelling but forget it within a short time?
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Do you find it almost impossible to copy information down from the board?
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Do the words or letters move around the page? (This is a very specific problem, not experience by many)
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Do you transpose or forget numbers easily?
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Does your mind go blank when you try to recall a spelling?
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Do you stumble over words, or miss out words when you're reading or writing?
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Is your reading comprehension poor because you remember so little of what you've read?
Any or all of these can indicate purely that you don't visualise words the way good spellers do. Visualisation plays a huge role in both short-term and long-term memory. We cannot emphasise enough how important it is to develop your visual abilities.
If you learn to do the things that good spellers do and still have problems, then it is time to seek further advice on whether you are dyslexic.
Will visualisation help you read?
Click here to find out if visualisation will help you read.
The proof is in the eyes
If you want some proof of how naturally-good spellers do it, here's a little exercise: ask any good speller to spell a reasonably difficult word, and notice where they are looking as they try to recall it. Then ask them to do the same for you. The difference between you is both the problem and the solution.
If they're good spellers, they are almost certainly looking upward. For poor spellers, watch them looking to the side, or even downwards.
When people are looking up, they are seeing the word - reading it from a board in their mind's eye. If they're looking to the side, they're probably trying to run an auditory strategy ("big elephants can always use some energy" or some such thing); and if they're looking down, they've very likely gone straight to feeling miserable about not being able to spell. These are called 'eye-accessing cues'.
For yourself, try thinking of what colour and design your front door is - this memory feat is likely to have you looking upwards as you search your memory.
The Good Spellers' Tricks
So, we have the first trick: good spellers always look up to spell a word, because they are seeing it; and poor spellers don't.
We can't, however, simply instruct poor spellers to go look for the word on their mental blackboard, because it won't be there unless it has been put there in some permanent way.
This truth came back to me rather appropriately when I was coaching a young client: I had grandly said, "You're doing so well, let's try something much harder.....let's try 'mediterranean'!" At which point I realised I didn't know how to spell it. Luckily the SENCO did. "Do you see?" I said to the client. "If I don't have a visual memory of a word, I can't spell it either!" We learned it together.
Which brings us to the second trick: good spellers know how to store a word in their visual memory so that it stays there. Bear in mind that they have probably no idea that they're doing this - it has been automatic since they were young. When they come across an unknown word, they run their favourite strategies for breaking it apart or creating visual and logical relationships, and slot it into their mental word bank ready for retrieval at any time.
This applies to numbers as well, of course: if you don't visualise numbers when using them, e.g. when taking down phone numbers, then errors or straightforward forgetting are inevitable. I'm an expert speller, rarely fazed...but if I don't visualise the phone number someone is giving to me, it will have been lost by the time I've looked down to where I'm writing.
When we work with clients on this method (and don't forget, we are, essentially, only teaching people to do what comes naturally to others), as soon as they grasp it and start storing the words in their visual memory, their eye-accessing cues become exactly the same as expert spellers. You can see them reading something off from their mental board. If you ask them, they can spell it backwards for you - even something like 'mediterranean'.
One of the things Olive Hickmott of Seeing Spells Achieving said to me that stuck most in my mind was: "Those who visualise words never realise that some others don't; and it never occurs to those who don't that anyone would!" If you're reading this page with absolutely no understanding of the concept we are trying to express, you may be one of the latter!
Words and letters moving around
This method also offers a solution to those who find that the letters or words move around the page. It is a tremendous skill to be able to manipulate things like this in your mind, but it’s very hard to follow a sentence when the words won’t stay still.
We know how to help the reader train themselves to control this: it is the reader's mind that is making the words move, so it is their mind that will keep them still.
See Are you using the right visualisation tool for the job for more information.
Why your memory needs visualisation
Whether you're studying for exams, reading text for a comprehension exercise, or hoping to remember what happened in the novel you're reading, visualisation is vital. It is, in essence, our replay facility.
Here's a very small story: "The red car came sweeping round the corner, raising flurries of leaves in its wake. James, the handsome, dark-haired driver was grinning, his blue-and-yellow striped scarf flying like a banner from his neck."
Not the most compelling of tales perhaps, but imagine you needed to remember something like this for any of the reasons above: how long do you think you'd remember the details having just read through the paragraph and nothing more?
Try reading it again and run it as a glamorous film in your mind, with full technicolour and special effects, right down to the glint on James's teeth. If you like, exaggerate some of the elements for added impact.
How long do you think you could remember the details of it now? I shall ask you again in 3 months...
Missing out words when reading
Reading is a click-click-click process of recognition: 'yes, I know that word, click, I know that word, click, I know that word, click', rather like looking around a room of people and noting the faces you know. When you see a face - or a word - that you don't know, there is a sort of mental scramble to try to create a match, and then the 'no match' sign comes up.
For most people, that is not a problem: 'I don't know this person/word' - and they stop. For dyslexics, though, it can be just another piece of un-needed information among the millions of pieces of information the mind receives all day long. Couple that with the hint of a sinking feeling for not knowing it, and it gets screened out in favour of information that is useful - like the next word in the sentence.
When dyslexics discover how to visualise words and build up their visual vocabulary, the click-click-click process becomes much more successful in finding matches, thus speeding up their reading and making rather more sense of the text. When they come across a word they don't know, the physical sinking feeling they get can be re-cast as a prompt to learn it, instead of a signal of failure.
Often it will be the intangible, grammatical words like "because", "since", "why" that get left out, and this is purely because these abstract words are the hardest to create visualisation for (when you don't know how).
Is this the answer for everyone?
Will a little bit of visualisation cure everyone? Well, everyone is different, and it would be foolish to hope that any one method is the answer to everything. However, the main thrust of this approach is that if you visualise effectively, you improve.
The answer, then, will hinge on whether you are able to visualise well enough to do this.
Most will need only to realise how it’s done, and they’ll be off and running. Some people – particularly those gifted in their other senses, such as dancers, athletes, musicians - may be less used to visualisation and will need a little more training.
There is another group who are particularly fascinating: the 3-D thinkers. This could cover sculptors, designers, builders, glaziers, animators, engineers - anyone whose work or hobby requires them to rotate objects or ideas in their minds. The challenge for them is that their wonderful natural skill is too powerful for 2-D reading. These will often be the people who find that the words move around, but in any case the task for us is to teach them how to slow their minds down for reading.
There may also be some people who cannot form pictures owing to damage to their brains or developmental problems - this would possibly not be a suitable approach.
Others may have difficulty forming pictures due to emotional trauma; or they may have generally disorganised thinking. These would need focused NLP therapy for those issues first.
Why you need our help
You might ask why an NLP specialist is involved in dyslexia! The reason is that NLP is, at heart, the study of excellence. We look at how experts do things (whether golf, sales, chatting up women or spelling) and find out what they are doing that the less talented aren't - and work out how to break these behaviours down into something that can be learned by others to bring the same success.
It's not a perfect science - these things rarely are - but it's something we all do from the moment we start copying Mummy and Daddy as a baby. If you missed out on the spelling technique somehow, that's okay - you can learn it now.
Although the concepts described here are simple, and used by many in their daily lives, for those who didn't pick it up naturally it can be difficult to grasp at first. Our expertise allows us to assess where the client is struggling and to choose the right exercises and most appropriate learning speed for them.
It is very important to give the client easy successes when learning this method: failure at this point can set them back badly. There are often issues of confidence and ownership to be resolved, which need delicate handling using NLP therapeutic techniques
Many clients need only one session (of one hour); and few would need more than 4-5 sessions. Sessions are £75 each.
If you would like to explore the options for your own child (or yourself), do contact us for a no-obligation chat about how we could help.
What we train our clients to do
This is an approximate list of the study skills in which we can train our clients (not all in the 60-minute session):
Words
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Spelling 8+ letter nouns and verbs
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Spelling abstract words (e.g. 'because')
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Understanding prefixes and suffixes (once you can spell these, your ability to spell takes a leap forward)
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Not missing out words/phrases
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Copying instructions from a board quickly and accurately
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Writing from dictation quickly and accurately
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Proof-reading
Numbers
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Hearing and writing phone numbers accurately
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Copying numbers from a board quickly and accurately
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Times tables
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Accurate calculations (no transposing)
Reading Comprehension
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Remembering stories in detail accurately
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Being able to answer questions on a passage accurately
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Speed reading/scanning
Mental organisation
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Binary division of information
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Organisation of random information into groups
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Using metaphor structures for comprehension and memory
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Linking new information to current knowledge for comprehension and memory
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Chunking information for memory and access
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Organising facts and ideas for essays and reports
Personal skills
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Confidence
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Focus
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Time management
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Relaxation
More about Seeing Spells Achieving
The new approach to the issue was developed in Hertfordshire by Olive Hickmott and Andrew Bendefy of Seeing Spells Achieving, and is based on the techniques of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). The British Dyslexia Association has favourably reviewed their book on the subject.
NLP is, at heart, the study of expertise: once you know the differences in behaviours between those who struggle at something and those who excel, you can start to train people in the successful behaviours.
In the case of reading and spelling, the behaviours that count relate to visualisation. Olive Hickmott, highly dyslexic all of her life, realised during her NLP training that she simply was not doing the same things as good spellers. Olive and Andrew immediately set to work distilling these behaviours, enhancing them and making them easily transferable.
For demonstrations by Seeing Spells Achieving practitioners in other parts of the country, contact Olive Hickmott at olive@seeingspellsachieving.com.
Some notes from Seeing Spells Achieving on dyslexia:
In the course of our work with people of all ages, who have difficulties with words, we have discovered the following FACTS:
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All the best spellers visualise words
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Everyone can visualise but the best are able to see or 'visualise' stories and information - and they can recall them more easily.
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When people visualise words, they are able to spell better.
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Because the best mathematicians visualise numbers, they are able to do mental arithmetic.
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Developing our visualisation skills and visual memory is not taught, or even mentioned in the National Curriculum in the UK.
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People who do not visualise have a poor memory.
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More time and money is spent assessing children than helping them to develop their skills of visualisation.
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Most people with dyslexic tendencies have never visualised words.
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It takes less than 30 minutes to improve individuals' visual skills - regardless of age and the majority of learning disabilities including dyslexia, dyspraxia, Autism, ADD, ADHD.
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To remember what we read, we must create a picture or a visual image. This lasts longer and is easier to recall. This skill is not even mentioned to children.