Case Study 1 - David
When I first met David, he was working as a forklift driver in a factory warehouse. He had left school at age 16 with no qualifications whatsoever, and since then had drifted into a low-paying, rather menial job. That's all he thought he was worth. He was now thirty years of age, and very serious about wanting to change, to break out of the rut that he seemed to be in. He had never read a book in his life and he felt accutely embarrassed about the fact. He knew that this inability to read had held him back in so many areas of his life, not just his career.
His father worked in the Computer industry and had recently given David his old PC, having replaced it with a new model. David's father had heard about what I was doing, and arranged for the two of us to meet to see if there was something we could do to get him reading and thereby enable him to use the computer more, with a view to taking on some learning to improve his position in life.
We worked out a lesson plan based on the time David had available, that covered the next six weeks of two one-to-one sessions per week. The goal was that at the end of this period David would be reasonably self-sufficient, able to work on this on his own without supervision.
David turned out to be a very quick learner, and within four weeks was happily working on his own. He was starting to read independently and only needed my help to learn the extended features I had planned to cover in the later topics of our agreed plan. After six weeks, any issues he had were the kind of thing we could deal with over the phone, so we agreed to meet again in another six weeks to cover off any further material that he would need, and to measure the progress that he had made.
At the end of 12 weeks David had got to the stage where not only was he working independently on the computer using the software and techniques we had gone over, he was now reading independently as well. He started with Grimm's Fairy Tales, as they had been read to him as a child, and he had always wanted to read them for himself but never been able to. We reviewed his progress at this point, and we decided that he should carry on doing exactly what he was doing now, and if there was anything more he needed, he would call or email. I would check back once a month just to see how he was progressing.
David and I spoke regularly over the next year, and it wasn't until a year and a half went by that we actually got the chance to catch up in person. I'm used to seeing changes in people with dyslexia, changes that happen when they discover the wonders of reading, that they are in fact just as intelligent as everyone else. I have to say that in David's case I was "blown away" by the difference in the man. So many changes were happening in his life that it is hard to know where to start. From not being able to read, he was now 6 months into study for exams to qualify him to take University level courses. From driving the forklift in the warehouse factory, he was now managing the warehouse. From living in a rented flat, he had just signed up to a mortgage - he now owned his own house. From seeing himself as stupid and worthless he was now engaged and due to be married in the coming spring.
Case Study 2 - Marie
Marie was 27 years old when I came to work at the company she was working in. As the daughter of reasonbly well off parents who had spared no expense while she was growing up, she had been enroled to try out any number of the latest and greatest techniques and therapies to help children cope with dyslexia. None of these had ever produced any meaningful results, to the point where at 27 years of age she still could not read. In fact she readily admitted that she now had a mental and emotional block, which made her very sceptical of anyone who offered to help.
While her parents obviously loved her, would do anything for her and wanted the best for her, all that these experiences left her with was a reinforced feeling that she was stupid, slow and inadequate.
So I guess you can understand her reaction when after a few months of me working there, and someone happened to mention to me that Marie was dyslexic, I told her what I did and asked if she would like my help. Marie didn't actually answer me, she just nodded and said "that's really interesting", wandered off and left it at that. Every now and then I would repeat the offer when we bumped into each other at work, only for her eyes to glaze over, so I stopped mentioning it. She was always happy to chat, but as soon as I mentioned dyslexia, I could see a curtain coming down.
I wasn't until two years later that she came to me, after hearing of the work I had done with a friend of hers, and she asked me if I thought there was anything I knew that could help her to learn to read. Over a cup of coffee, we mapped out a plan which would involve short sessions of no more than half an hour on three days a week for the first three weeks, dropping to two days a week for another three weeks, and then once a week after that. We would monitor the situation as we went just in case there were changes required, so that we could change the tempo if necessary.
That turned out to be the easy part. Marie still had all of the mental and emotional blocks in place that she had developed during her childhood and teenage years. I had already been warned by her friend, so that her fragility did not catch me completely by surprise, and this was also the reason why we arranged such short sessions. Once we started she would get either very angry, or very emotional, and usually both, at the slightest sign of anything that challenged her, anything little thing that went wrong would becomne a major setback for her, another reason why nothing would ever work for her.
I had also arranged that Marie's partner was always there in the background to support her during our sessions, and so that he could be her second pair of eyes. This would mean that he would be able to assist her later as she was starting to work independently outside of our sessions, and therefore be able to help get her around any little problems.
Progress was very slow for the first week and we only managed to get 10-15 minutes useful work done in any session, between tantrums. And before you ask, I use this word with Marie's knowledge and even blessing, as she fully realises now just what a state she was in when we started this journey. So many thanks must go to Marie's partner Alan for his endless patience and encouragement. He became the key in getting Marie to re-focus any time she started to question herself. As a result of all of this though, we had to extend the sessions well beyond the original plan.
All that said, nine weeks after we started Marie was starting to work independently. We carried on our sessions over the next 3 months to the point where she could continue to make her own progress completely independent of hands-on support. She began to read slowly, and within months was devouring anything and everything she could read within her reach. By continuing to use the techniques that she had learned during our sessions, over the next two years she went up in reading age by over a year for every three months that went by.
Six years later, Marie is now working in PR for the same company. She is now also married to that same partner Alan, and they have a beautiful son who is now two years old. Above all Marie has proved to herself that she has above average intelligence, and is an extremely talented and capable individual.
The only obstacle to her realising that, had been her dyslexia.
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