Originally published in The Dyslexic Reader,
Vol 25,Issue3 Copyright (c) 2001-year DDAI.
The Dyslexic Reader
Success with Dial-Setting
By Paula Morehead, Davis Facilitator in Alabama
I talked to a father of a 13-year-old boy who was interested in the Davis Dyslexia Correction Program for his son. During the conversation, I learned that the boy had been taking Ritalin for the last six years. He had started taking the medicine in the first grade to help him concentrate. Now, his father explained, it was not easy for his son to sit still even for a little while unless he was taking the medicine. I recommended than the talk with his son’s doctor and see about taking him off the medicine at least two weeks before the scheduled program. He agreed to do this.
When they arrived on Monday to do the five-day Program, it was true, the child was having a very difficult time sitting still for any part of the initial consultation. We mad it through, and I was able to establish that he really wanted to stop taking the medicine. He said it was embarrassing to have to go to the health room every day and take medicine lie a baby. As soon as we completed the initial Orientation Counseling session, I introduced Dial-Setting to him. We talked for a long time about the different kinds of dials there are and their uses. We then established a dial for him to use to control his own energy instead of having to take medicine to do it. I must admit, by the end of the first day, I was not sure what was going to happen. I was tired from watching him bounce around in his seat.
The next day was a little better. But Wednesday, after Fine-Tuning, he was a completely different child. He had started reading on Monday at a first-grade level. However, to accomplish that, we had to go to a place where there was nothing in his line of vision, so that he could read. If he could see anything distracting, he could not stay oriented because “things moved around in the room” and he wanted to watch them. On Wednesday, I pulled out Charlotte’s Web. He read the first two pages with only tow or three mistakes. He was so excited about reading the book, that he did not realize that he was still sitting at our work table. I asked him about the things around him and he said, “Wow, now I can read and the things in the room don’t move around anymore.”
That afternoon, he asked his father if they could go to a bookstore and buy Charlotte’s Web so he could finish reading it. He finished it by Friday morning.
In the post-assessment reading inventor, his reading level increased from a first-grade level to an eight-grade level. He was really excited and was ready to back to school in the fall.