Has anyone had any experience or seen research on the Ron Davis method, he’s the author of The Gift of Dyslexia. Everyone I’ve talked to say he’s right on but he has a different approach. Looking for more validation before I put the money down. Thanks.
Re: Ron Davis Method
Stan: MaryMN has probably got a good grasp of opinions. I’m a pro-Davis parent, but you have to realize that, as you say, the Davis approach is TOTALLY different.
For one thing, the Davis method is LEARNER based. It is self-directed — this is why there are often amazing results. If a learner has experienced plenty of failure and is highly motivated to succeed, and IS dyslexic in the way that Ron is,
they often do very well. AMAZINGLY well. But the program is NOT a ‘quick fix’. Stable improvement depends on 6 months to a year of intensive follow-up at home, completing the symbol mastery clay words and working on reading with Ron’s techniques. Part of the week is spent on training a parent (or other selected person) to help the learner with the symbol mastery.
You can’t ‘remediate’ with Davis methods, because they are to be used by the LEARNER. A parent can support, but you could NOT force an unwilling or reluctant child to fully engage in the clay work. It must come from within. Orientation is the same - first of all, a child must be old enough. (usually about 8, but it seems that the average for doing well is more like 9 or 10, just my opinion.) And then, although the technique of finding your orientation point can happen quickly, it then requires PRACTICE to become second nature.
Last of all, the learner still won’t change their essential thinking style, which is what made them experience dyslexia (which is really a SYMPTOM, not a CAUSE) in the first place, and so doing a Davis program will not make them ‘non-dyslexic’. This means that the Davis program gives them tools for success, which they can use to make their way through the left-brained, verbal/auditory, sequential world without sacrificing their potential. But it doesn’t ‘fix’ the reason they experienced problems with symbols in the first place. This is why we look at their GIFTS…because their problems with school (and with words and symbols) are simply a failure to adapt to our academic demands, which tend to favour a learning style that is an area of weakness for most ‘visual-spatial’ learners or ‘picture thinkers’.
But you will find, if you explore the program with a Licenced Davis Provider, that providers provide a great deal of support to you in the weeks and months after the program. Many providers have a ed-psych or sp-ed teaching background, and many are successfully ‘corrected’ dyslexics themselves.
Have you checked out the forum at www.dyslexiatalk.com? Here you will have access to the comments of parents and adults who have experienced the program with positive results, and this will also help you in your decision. You are smart to research fully — understanding more about the program will help you evaluate the parental opinions you find more clearly, and thus use the experience of others to your child’s advantage.
Best wishes and Good Luck!
on the Parenting board (I think).
If you join the DyslexiaSupport list at http://www.groups.yahoo.com and search the archived messages, you will find quite a few posts about Davis.
I started looking at Davis about 3 years ago and have been mentally tallying comments from parents since. The majority of parents expressed disappointment in the long-term results (short-term boost in self-esteem but no long-lasting improvements in reading), but a minority said it was a major turning point for the child.
I would advise taking your time and researching thoroughly before investing a lot of money. There are different underlying causes of reading difficulty. There are many therapies available, but no one therapy helps all children.
Mary