How Multisensory Reading Instruction Helps Struggling Readers
Learning to read can be hard for so many kids. While there are many ideas and methods around for teaching reading, research continues to show that a structured, multisensory instruction style is one of the most effective ways to help struggling readers become more successful.
Multisensory reading instruction leverages different areas of the brain and allows kids to hear, see, say, and manipulate sounds correctly to make them stronger readers. Kids who have learned to just read by sight (using sight words or visual cues) tend to struggle when words get more complex. They don’t have the decoding strategies necessary to figure out new words without these crutches.
Instead, a science-based holistic view, beginning with the basics of phonological awareness and phonics, trains students to use all the skills at their disposal to decode new words and read more fluently.
Reading With Your Senses: Hear It, See It, Say It, Write It
Multisensory reading instruction is foundational to our program at LearningRx. All cognitive skills impact your ability to read. Instead of just focusing on one or two areas like most reading interventions, our reading program is the ONLY one that also trains all the key underlying skills your brain needs in order to learn to read.
Here’s how reading breaks down into various senses, and how cognitive skills impact these areas:
Hear It:
Auditory Processing is the primary skill at play here. Are you able to correctly hear, identify, and manipulate the sounds in words? If not, you won’t be able to do it in written language, either. Strong multisensory reading instruction trains your brain’s ability to correctly hear sounds first.
See It:
Visual Processing + Memory skills are very important here. Can you distinguish between a “b” and a “d”? Will your brain look at a word and correctly perceive the letters in order? Can you remember that a “g” before an “i” or “e” says /j/ instead of /g/? On a more basic level, are your eyes able to track along a line of text without jumping or skipping?
Reading is visual in nature and this is an area where many kids are struggling. More and more kids are spending extended lengths of time on screens which is messing with their natural visual processing skills. Adding on a memory weakness makes reading feel virtually impossible.
Say It:
Are you able to say sounds in a word correctly and in order? Are you able to blend, segment, drop sounds, or switch them verbally? Weak phonemic awareness and auditory processing skills can make these tasks harder, but multisensory reading instruction relies on your ability to not only recognize words but also say them correctly.
Write It:
Writing is a MUCH more complex skill than any of the others because it brings them all together. In order to write a word correctly you need to:
- Hear the sounds (correctly and in order)
- Separate (or segment) them into individual letter codes
- Remember which code goes with which sound
- Plan and logically work your way through the word
- Think quickly enough to write the word in a timely manner
- AND have the motor skills to literally put pen to paper.
Kids who have mastered reading should approach spelling and writing fairly naturally, but weaknesses in any of these areas makes this skill harder for many struggling readers.
Multisensory Reading Instruction at LearningRx
Each of these senses of reading is naturally built into the Reading program at LearningRx. Our approach is to train underlying cognitive skills (like attention, memory, processing speed, & visual and auditory processing) FIRST so the foundations of reading come more easily.
Kids who struggle with reading often have one or more cognitive skill weaknesses that are holding them back. This is where other reading interventions fail these kids. Without the brain skills necessary to process the world effectively, these kids will not learn to read without a fight.
Our program has served thousands of young readers and helped them gain an average of 3.5 years, in only 24 weeks of training! In another study, over 90% of LearningRx graduates improved on state tests for reading achievement.*
What sets LearningRx apart as a successful multisensory reading intervention is our brain training approach, a focus on building automaticity (how quickly and naturally these skills come), and our underlying belief in the importance of cognitive skills.
These are things you won’t find anywhere else. If you have a struggling reader, give us a call today to learn more.
*These are results of past clients. You or your child may or may not experience the same outcomes.
