From learning to read to reading for pleasure

Cajal Academy has developed a research-backed methodology that is proving effective at removing reading disabilities that don’t respond to traditional dyslexia treatments, by filling gaps in the neurodevelopmental chain that drive them. Read below to learn more about this powerful approach!

Reading is a complex process, and requires that you simultaneously employ a number of integrated tasks. These include remembering what words look like, what they sound like and what they actually mean — but also motor coordination tasks including the oculo-motor coordination required to track the eyes back and forth across the line and maintaining one’s posture to sit upright and hold the book.

Each of these skills must be deployed in concert, so where one skill is disproportionately challenged, it will suppress reading abilities (and enjoyment!) across the board. Thus, as with many reading programs, our work to address reading difficulties begins with assessing which of these integrated tasks is driving the reading deficit—but then we go further, by identifying and filling the gaps in splinter skills required to perform them, using our exclusive, research-backed Neuroplasticity Interventions.

This is where our approach begins to diverge, not only for reading but for learning and social-emotional difficulties more generally. Once we have identified which component task within the areas where a child struggles (in this case, reading) is holding a given child back, we dig into the data in their neuropsychological and neurophysiological profiles to identify which of the many splinter skills you need to perform that skill represents an area of relative weakness within this child’s otherwise strong profile. We then go further, connecting these “splinter” skills back to the foundational level skills you need to perform those splinter skills. In this way, we trace back through the neurodevelopmental chain to identify where the child may have holes in their neural infrastructure that are required for reading, using normed assessments to evaluate how well they are able to perform each of those attendant skills.

For example, in order to perform the integrated task of remembering sight words, you must be able to reliably recall a sequence of more than 2 letters—because sight words are typically 5-6 letters long. A child who does not have this ability may still have amazing phonological awareness and excellent decoding skills, and they might even be able to use their strong deductive reasoning skills to figure out what the word is by using context clues, but the additional cognitive effort required to mediate their difficulty in remembering sight words will drag down their ability—and enjoyment—for reading as a whole.

It is important to note that reading challenges don’t always show up on standardized measures for kids who, like the kids we serve at Cajal, have areas of outlying strength within a jagged neuropsychological profile. Often, we find that our cohort’s areas of strength may mask their difficulties, enabling them to perform in the average range on standardized measures. In many cases, they are able to rely upon those skills where they excel (such as their high analytical ability to discern the meaning of words from their context), and thus may perform ‘on grade level.’ Similarly, they may do very well on reading skill assessments that intentionally isolate one skill at a time—eliminating the real world requirement that those skills be integrated simultaneously in order to actually read. This problem is exacerbated by our students’ very high analytical abilities, as it leads them to seek out content and material that has a higher level of sophistication, emphasizing to the child the gulf between their general reasoning abilities and their reading capacity—even where that reading level may be on grade level. The result is low reading confidence, which often turns over time into low reading confidence, task avoidance and/or hypervigilance to failure.

Once we have identified the core skills suppressing the child’s ability to perform one of the integrated tasks required for reading, we leverage the power of the human brain to “rewire” itself (“neuroplasticity”) to target and build up the neural networks that are required to perform those skills. This research-backed and data-driven approach, developed at Cajal Academy, is itself a second paradigm shift for the world of special education, and leverages well-established occupational and physical therapy strategies in a new way. Picture obstacle courses carefully designed to teach a child to focus on visual information, then to understand that visual information can be sorted into categories, then to understand that those categories can be collections of letters, and then finally that collections of letters themselves form intricate shapes—and that those shapes can be sight words. Reading interventions were never this fun—or effective—in our day!

In our work to date, we have seen that the net result with this approach is a dramatic change in both the curve for the child’s reading ability, and their ultimate reading level that they can attain. Because this approach connects reading delays back to foundational level skills—reaching all the way back to the integration of primitive reflexes that affect gross motor and visual development—this work frequently involves targeting skills that may be driving delays not just in reading but in fine and gross motor coordination, organization of thought, visual perceptual skills and other areas, thus leading to dramatic improvements in multiple areas of learning delay at once.

For example, one student made a six grade year jump in both their reading and graphomotor skills in just six months, once we identified and developed core foundational motor coordination skills (removing an undiagnosed dyspraxia), and systematically built up the neural networks he needed to integrate those into his visual perceptual, oculo-motor, fine motor—and then ultimately his reading and writing skills.

This break through for the field of special education is part of our mission to develop new educational approaches that are aligned to modern neuroscience, and we are excited by the possibilities it holds for students having a wide range of learning disabilities.

Our work with students having very high analytical abilities demonstrates that even where students are reading on grade level, if there is a significant deviation between their superior level analytical abilities and average reading abilities, this typically means that the child’s reading level may be artificially low—and more importantly, that their ultimate reading potential is not being realized. As the sophistication of reading content increases with the child’s progression through higher curriculum levels—and as they seek to independently engage with reading material appropriate to the outsized intellectual curiosity and ability attendant to their superior analytical skills—we see that these children are at risk for developing low reading confidence, task avoidance and/or hypervigilance to failure.

Happily, we have seen that the reverse is also true, in that psycho-social challenges, including inappropriate classroom behaviors, tend to recede naturally as we help our students to understand and overcome their own reading profiles. Yet skill development is insufficient on its own. We develop custom programs for each child in our cohort, integrating the neurodevelopmental work to redress learning difficulties into a broader program of academic, social-emotional and neurophysio supports. At the center of this effort is our unique coaching model developing the child’s growth mindset and sense of agency over their own development. Contact us today to explore whether this approach might benefit your child.