Edublox has been involved in teaching children to read, learn and achieve for more than 30 years. Over the years, most of our students had a reading difficulty. In many cases, their reading difficulty was so severe that they had been diagnosed with dyslexia — even severe dyslexia.
The DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) uses the term ‘Specific Learning Disorder with impairment in reading’ to describe what most people call dyslexia. It considers dyslexia “specific” for four reasons: it is not attributable to an intellectual disability, generally estimated by an IQ score of 65-75; a global developmental delay; hearing or vision disorders; or neurological or motor disorders.
Edublox goes online
Until the end of 2017, all our students were in-class, but we were approached by two desperate parents in January and February of 2018, which opened a new avenue — one that was accelerated when lockdown forced us to tutor all our in-class students online.
In May of 2020, we were contacted by a developmental optometrist in Florida who was hoping to refer a patient and wanted to know if our program is geared to address dyseidetic dyslexia type issues. Dyseidetic dyslexia is one of two main types of dyslexia. Children with dyseidetic dyslexia may be riddled with letter reversals; put letters in the wrong order (i,e. reading felt as left); lose orientation on a line or page while reading; and struggle to recognize small and irregular nonphonetic words such as what, the, talk, and does.
We assured the developmental optometrist that Edublox caters to both dyslexia types, and his patient had his first lesson on June 8, 2020. The student did Development Tutor at home, received two additional exercises to solve his letter reversals, and received two Live Tutor lessons per week.
In Table 1 are the summarized i-Ready test results of this student after three months of twice-weekly tutoring, going forward. In Table 2 one can also see his comprehensive i-Ready scores before (yellow) and after (green) he started Edublox training. In summary, the student progressed from being approximately one year behind in most reading areas excluding phonological awareness (34th percentile) to being average or above average in all reading areas (60th percentile) in eleven months.
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Haven’t heard of Edublox before? Read the summary below or watch our explainer video at the bottom. Be sure to visit our Testimonial Page for many more success stories.
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The four pillars of Edublox’s online dyslexia tutoring
1.) Our online dyslexia tutoring program is aligned with the Orton-Gillingham approach
The Orton-Gillingham (OG) approach is a direct, explicit, multisensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic, and prescriptive way to teach literacy when reading, writing, and spelling don’t come easily to individuals, such as those with dyslexia. In the hands of a well-trained and experienced instructor, it is a powerful tool of exceptional breadth, depth, and flexibility. Yet, research shows that there are some missing pieces in the OG-puzzle — pieces that Edublox cater to.
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2.) Our online dyslexia tutoring program aims at developing cognitive skills
A core of Edublox intervention is to improve cognitive skills like focused and sustained attention; phonological and phonemic awareness; visuospatial abilities; processing speed and rapid naming; visual, auditory, sequential, iconic, short-term, and working memory.
Weak cognitive skills prevent a process called orthographic mapping. Every word has three forms: its sounds, spelling, and meaning. The process of orthographic mapping involves the brain linking the three forms of the word and storing them together in long-term memory. It allows for instant word recognition, fluent reading, and accurate spelling.
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3.) Our online dyslexia tutoring program targets two crucial brain areas
Research shows that a network of brain regions is involved in learning to read, one specifically in sounding out words, and another in seeing words as pictures. The left inferior parietal lobule is said to be involved in word analysis, grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, and general phonological and semantic processing. The picture area is located in the left occipitotemporal region and is known as the visual word form area (VWFA) or visual dictionary.
Both the sounding out area and the VWFA must be trained in the teaching of reading. Our program is based on the Orton-Gillingham approach, which is excellent at developing the sounding out area, but our program simultaneously targets the brain’s VWFA.
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4.) Our online dyslexia tutoring program is based on fundamental learning principles
Considering that teaching reading is ultimately an educational matter, we should not overlook that there are certain learning principles involved. It’s not just the WHAT of teaching that matters, it’s also the HOW.
The application of certain educational learning principles is a core aspect that has so far been overlooked in dyslexia interventions. Thorndike (1874-1949) called learning principles the “laws of learning” and provided a conceptual foundation for how people learn. Edublox’s “laws of learning” in dyslexia intervention consist of fundamental learning principles.
By combining cognitive training with the systematic teaching of reading, while simultaneously applying fundamental learning principles, the way is paved to improve the reading, writing, and learning abilities of children with dyslexia — and even help them completely overcome their challenges..
Explainer video
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Our live online tutoring services are offered to students based in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. Book a free consultation to discuss your child’s learning needs.
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References and sources:
Alutu, A. N. (2006). The guidance role of the instructor in the teaching and learning process. Journal of Instructional Psychology 33(1), 44-49.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Dagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.).
Glezer, L. S., Eden, G, Jiang, X., Luetje, M., Napoliello, E., Kim, J., & Riesenhuber, M. (2016). Uncovering phonological and orthographic selectivity across the reading network using fMRI-RA. Neuroimage, 138, 248-256.
Mather, N., & Wendling, B. J. (2012). Essentials of dyslexia assessment and intervention. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Solari, E., Petscher, Y., & Hall, C. (2021, March 29). What does science say about Orton-Gillingham interventions? An explanation and commentary on the Stevens et al. (2021) meta-analysis. PsyArXiv.
Stevens, E. A., Austin, C., Moore, C., Scammacca, N., Boucher, A. N., & Vaughn, S. (2021). Current state of the evidence: Examining the effects of Orton-Gillingham reading interventions for students with or at risk for word-level reading disabilities. Exceptional Children.