About your facilitator...

I am a trained primary school teacher and upgraded my skills over the years to obtain both Bachelor and Masters Degrees in Education. My focus area in the Masters Degree was in Learning Support and Inclusive Education because I was then working in a learning support role with students with learning difficulties. In fact, I worked with students with learning difficulties for more than 20 years.

I have developed a broad understanding of the nature of learning difficulties and an empathy towards the frustrations that dyslexic students experience. Strategies used in schools to help children with these difficulties simply address the symptoms and support the student through the compulsory years of schooling. All the strategies I know which are used by schools do support the students, but they require much repetition on the part of the student and still result in slow progress.

Then I discovered the Davis Dyslexia Correction® Program. What is different about the Davis Dyslexia Correction® Program is that it addresses the cause of the learning problems in the first instance. Through experience, I also learned that using a phonics approach ONLY did not result in the dyslexic student making progress as his peers did. Phonics is a necessary component, of course, but phonic analysis is often the main difficulty for the dyslexic student. How does the dyslexic student master sight words in the earliest years of school if phonics teaching is the only approach? Phonics becomes confusing when one has to learn a sight word, such as 'was' or 'now'.

Parents of dyslexic students, their teachers, and even speech language therapists have indicated that phonics is a difficult aspect of learning for the dyslexic student. Consequently, schools seem to intensity instruction in the area where the student seems to struggle the most - phonics.

Research tells us that dyslexic brains are wired differently, so different strategies are needed for effective learning outcomes. This intervention program teaches the student the necessary strategies that are not provided through a pure phonics based approach.

I have lived in Queensland all my life but I trained predominantly in the USA to be a Facilitator of this program during 2005 and 2006 and now continue helping students as a Licensed Davis Facilitator.
If you would like to know what Dyslexia Queensland can do to help you or your child, contact me now.