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Edublox Explained: Your Child’s Road to Learning Success Starts Here


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What is Edublox Online Tutor (EOT)?

Edublox Online Tutor (EOT) offers home- and school-based products and live tutoring where students engage in cognitive skills training, as well as reading, spelling, comprehension and math exercises that have been expertly designed to (1.) accelerate learning ability, (2.) overcome learning obstacles and (3.) help students reach their full potential.

EOT is founded on pedagogical and neurological research and 30+ years of experience demonstrating that weak underlying foundational skills — a.k.a. cognitive skills — account for the majority of learning disabilities. Specific cognitive exercises can strengthen these weaknesses, which is key to unlocking the door to success in reading, reading comprehension, spelling, writing and math.

EOT has been optimized for children aged between 7 and 13, and is suitable for the gifted and less gifted. Customized programs, specially designed to address the unique needs of individual students, are available in the form of live online tutoring.

EOT is effective in alleviating the symptoms associated with a variety of learning challenges including dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia and ADD/ADHD.
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EOT develops foundational learning skills. What are foundational learning skills?

Foundational learning skills refer to the skills that make reading, spelling, math and learning possible.

Learning is like building a house. The first step is to lay a foundation. Unless there is a strong and solid foundation, cracks will soon appear in the walls, and with no foundation, the walls will collapse.

In the same way one needs to lay a proper foundation before it becomes possible for a child to benefit from a course in reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic. If this foundation is shaky, learning “cracks” will soon appear.

Foundational skills should not be confused with processes, strategies or techniques. The difference between these can be explained by using the game of basketball as example. In order to be a basketball player, a person first has to master the foundational skills, e.g. passing, dribbling, defense, and shooting. Only after that can he be taught strategies or techniques.

EOT aims at developing and automatizing the foundational skills of reading, spelling, writing, mathematics and the skills required in the learning of subject matter. The most important foundational skills addressed by EOT include:

    • Attention and concentration
    • Accurate visual and auditory processing
    • Rapid recall and processing speed
    • Visual, auditory and sequential memory
    • Iconic, short-term, long-term and working memory
    • Reasoning and logical thinking
    • Concept of numbers
    • Fine motor coordination
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How does developing foundational skills translate to improved reading, writing and math?

Developing and automatizing the above-mentioned foundational skills — a.k.a. cognitive skills — is key to unlocking the door to success in reading, reading comprehension, spelling, writing and math. However, application is equally important.

Edublox’s Reading Tutor offers application in the form of reading, spelling and vocabulary exercises. Edublox’s Live Tutor offers four courses:

  1. Reading and spelling — our reading and spelling program is based on the proven Orton Gillingham approach, but is unique in that it also develops the brain’s visual word form area. This area allows for fast and efficient word recognition.
  2. Spelling and writing
  3. Reading comprehension
  4. Numeracy
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 Our live tutoring programs target a variety of learning disabilities including dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia, and are tailored to fit the needs of each individual student.
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Edublox programs are based on learning principles. What are these principles?

The first learning principle is that human learning does not take place on a single level, but is a stratified process. This characteristic is worldwide accepted as a didactic principle. The way in which the school system throughout the whole world is organized is an acknowledgement of this. One cannot send a child to university first. He must start in the first class and then progress year after year to the higher levels of education. Unless he has mastered a sufficient amount of the learning material presented to him in one year, to form a firm enough base on which to build the knowledge of the following year, he will not make progress in the next class.

Another simple and practical example is the fact that one has to learn to count before it becomes possible to learn to add and subtract. Suppose one tried to teach a child, who had not yet learned to count, to add and subtract. This would be quite impossible, and no amount of effort would ever succeed in teaching the child to add and subtract. This shows that counting is a skill that must be mastered before it becomes possible to learn to do calculations.

In the same way, there are also certain skills and knowledge that a child must have acquired first, before it becomes possible for him to benefit from a course in reading.
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How was Edublox developed? Does it really work?

Over the last 30+ years, the company behind the Online Tutor e-learning platform, Edublox, has helped more than 150,000 people in approximately 40 countries to read, learn and achieve through home kits and learning clinics internationally.

It all started as a school readiness program with only a few cognitive exercises in 1979. Purely as an experiment, in 1980, the program was used for a learning-disabled child who completely overcame his learning difficulties as a result. Over many years, in a quest to perfect the program and later programs, our team has done extensive research on learning, learning principles, brain development and neuroplasticity.

School results define our success. Annually, since 2010, we have been requesting Edublox clients, long-term and new, to complete an online survey to help us measure our performance. In our latest survey the key question, “Did your child’s academic performance improve at school?” received a 94% positive rating.

Our other 760+ documented successes include research from Singapore in 2014 with 27 Grade 6 students and a matching control group. The results were analyzed by the CEA in the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria, and showed a statistically significant improvement in focused attention over a period of five days (18 hours of training). Over and above the effect size is large.

The experimental group in Dr. Jaidan Mays from the University of Johannesburg’s study showed an improvement of 1.3 years in visual memory and 1.5 years in visual sequential memory, after receiving intensive Edublox training over a five-day period (22.5 hours hours of training). Preliminary results of a study with 64 second grade students, who were randomly divided in three groups, showed significant improved in auditory memory.

Dr. Lee DeLorge in Ohio tested 67 students aged 5 to 18 with ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia and non-specific learning disabilities. The processing speed of 94% of the learners improved significantly:

* 35 ADHD students: 52.45% combined increase (37.24% pre-test avg/89.69% post-test avg);
* 13 dyslexic students: 46.76% combined increase (41.31% pre-test avg/88.07% post-test avg);
* 2 students with dycalculia: 57.38% combined increase (39.76% pre-test avg/97.14% post-test avg);
* The remaining students were non Specific LD: 64.14% combined increase (30.40% pre-test avg/94.54% post-test avg).

A long-term study of 60 deaf learners in Grades 1-3, who did Edublox daily for a year, demonstrated a significant increase in reading and spelling performance, as compared to the control group. Another study at the University of Pretoria by Dr. Wynand de Wet found an increase in nonverbal IQ scores of 11.625 in deaf children after 27.5 hours of Edublox instruction, which was confirmed by our own trials of hearing children: an improvement of 5.6 in verbal IQ and 12.5 in non-verbal IQ after 40 hours of instruction.

Lastly, visit our reviews section for many testimonials and case studies, covering Edublox users from all over the world, at various stages of implementation and for various needs — from improving the cognitive skills of children without learning difficulties to overcoming dyslexia, dysgraphia and math problems.
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How long does it take generally before one starts seeing results when doing Edublox?

While one usually starts seeing improvement within a few lessons with regards to the number of blocks or items that the learner can handle when doing the Edublox exercises, this improvement will not transfer to the learner’s schoolwork immediately. This takes time.

When transfer occurs it is usually sudden and noticeable. As an example, a mother who worked diligently for half an hour per day, six days per week, wrote:

I have a dyslexic boy who is now ten. He’s going into Grade Five. He usually ends his year with a fail in reading and writing. Since Grade Two the school has wanted him to repeat his year and I have refused, promising to try to help him myself. We have been through many different programs (at school and at home), with very little results.We began Edublox about six weeks before Grade Four ended. His concentration has greatly improved, he actually listens to what the teacher is saying, less clowning in class. He can now actually pick up a book and read on his own, something he never did before. The principal called me to tell me that for the first time my son passed all his courses! He got a C in reading and a B in writing!
.This mother saw noticeable results after 18 hours (30 minutes per day, 6 days per week for 6 weeks). However, it can also take longer than 18 hours to start seeing results. Up to 30 hours is normal.

After this initial — and usually clearly visible — intellectual jump, it happens that the learner finds himself on a plateau again, followed by another leap forward. This pattern can repeat itself many times.

The above scenario could be described as a “staircase effect”. However, one may also see a “snowball effect”:

We began using Edublox (spelling program) 6 months ago, and the results have been just stunning. Within a month, she was able to remember how to spell a few words, and then just like a baby learning to talk, she began to experience a rapid snowball effect. A few months after we began using Edublox, she said as we were driving around on errands — “Mom, I think I know how to spell library.” And she did! And this was not an isolated moment, only the first. She is now almost an intuitive speller. Really, it’s a miracle. Six months ago, her spelling tested at a Kindergarten level, and is now at a 6th grade level. This is just still so amazing to all of us who have struggled with her.
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How long must one work with a student before his problems will have been solved completely?

One must make sure that a learner’s problems have been solved completely before discontinuing the program. The minimum time that is required to achieve this is about one year, but it can take up to two years if the learner has severe learning problems.

If one discontinues the program before the foundational skills of learning have been thoroughly automated, there is the danger of a relapse. On the other hand, once the foundational skills have been automated and the learner is clearly no longer behind, the problem will not return if the program is discontinued.

The mother who wrote the above commentary continued with Edublox for a full year. Three months after discontinuing the program she wrote:

My son completed the Edublox program about 3 months ago. He did it for 1 year. I have written a few times stating all the changes that have happened since, but now I’d like to say that he is continuing to change. He has begun Grade 6 and has become very self-confident. He comes home from school and does his homework on his own. He organizes himself (something unheard of before Edublox…). He asks me his schedule for the week, hockey or soccer practices and organizes his homework accordingly. He no longer struggles in school to keep up and is adjusting to the increased work load. I am amazed at how far he has come. This time last year, he was failing reading and writing, he had a very low self-esteem and basically thought he would struggle for the rest of his life. Not so!!!!!! It sounds too good to be true but it isn’t. Sometimes the best things in life are so simple, we almost miss them.

Sometimes it is helpful to gradually wean the learner from the program rather than abruptly discontinue the program. Once the learner has overcome his or her difficulties, one may consider decreasing the number of minutes spent on each session or the number of sessions per week. Remember that education is a process, not an event. Teaching a person to read takes time. There is no instant recipe to teaching reading, neither is there a quick-fix to overcome a reading deficit. The same applies to spelling, writing, math etc. Be patient!
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Is EOT intended only for children with learning difficulties?

Edublox Online Tutor is definitely not exclusively intended for children with learning difficulties. It can also be used to improve the learning and reading abilities of children who have no problems at all. One should consider that we do not provide athletics training only to children who are uncoordinated. We take the talented ones, and through judicious training and exercise, we are able to turn them into great athletes. The same applies on the mental plane. If we take the talented, intelligent and creative children and expose them to Edublox training, we shall be able to turn them into great “mental athletes.”
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