Dyslexia Therapy

Although Dyslexia Therapy is not a "one size fits all" model, there are a few basic principles all well trained therapists adhere to. These are that the therapy be designed to teach all five pillars of literacy in a systematic, sequential, and explicit fashion. 

At Springs Literacy Center we predominately use Take Flight: A Comprehensive Curriculum for Students with Dyslexia as our form of therapy, especially for children in 1st-4th grade.

The Take Flight curriculum is the gold standard of dyslexia curricula from the Luke Waites Dyslexia Research Center at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. It is a highly researched and proven-effecitive curriculum. It encourages intense small group or individual 1 hour sessions at least three times a week. 

For older students, we rely on Multisensory Reading and Spelling from Neuhaus.

All instruction is tailored to meet individual needs, and supplemented with other research based materials from credible publishers.  

Individualized Tutoring

Treating undiagnosed literacy deficits typically begins with an informal evaluation in order to appropriately assess current abilities. These assessments are then used to direct and tailor instruction to meet the individual needs of the student. 

Commonly, this instruction includes explicit teaching of syllable types, multisyllabic words and common spelling rules and situations. However, it all depends on student need. We address a wide variety of literacy skills: oral language, vocabulary, fluency, word-level decoding/accuracy, spelling, reading comprehension, handwriting, grammar, writing, etc. Intervention plans are customized to each student in order to best serve them and maximize time.

Literacy Skills Evaluation

A comprehensive Literacy Skills Evaluation can determine if your child fits a typical learning profile of dyslexia or not. Evaluations include four or five formal standardized and norm-referenced assessments which will reveal strengths in weaknesses of literacy skills. We look at various components of oral language, word-level decoding, nonsense word decoding, passage reading, reading rate, reading accuracy, reading fluency, reading comprehension, written expression, spelling, and most importantly phonological processing. This evaluation will provide you with concrete data that will help you better understand your child’s struggles with written language and provide concrete recommendations for moving forward. The formal documents, including a 10 page written report, can be used to help your child receive accommodations or services at school. It can also be used to help your child receive a formal diagnosis of dyslexia from a qualified provider. 

Evaluations consist of a brief phone consultation with a scheduling date. On the day of testing, an intial interview with parent(s) and student is conducted, lasting approximately 30 minutes. A vareity of assessments are then administered, lasting approximately 2 1/2 hours. A follow-up appointment is then scheduled (typically within two weeks) to review the data, interpretation, and recommendations.