Spelling
Did you know?
Your child’s spelling problems may have much more to do with vision skills than with effort or intelligence.
When a child with poor eye movement skills and resulting lack of visual dominance tries to spell a word, his or her brain doesn’t work in the same way as a child with good visual skills.
A child with poor visual skills is forced to rely on skill sets from another sensory system, such as auditory or verbal. Our auditory and verbal systems aren’t as efficient as our visual system, so the task is much more difficult and frustrating for these children.
Did you know?
Your child’s spelling problems may have much more to do with vision skills than with effort or intelligence.
When a child with poor eye movement skills and resulting lack of visual dominance tries to spell a word, his or her brain doesn’t work in the same way as a child with good visual skills.
A child with poor visual skills is forced to rely on skill sets from another sensory system, such as auditory or verbal. Our auditory and verbal systems aren’t as efficient as our visual system, so the task is much more difficult and frustrating for these children.
And what happens when a task is unusually difficult or frustrating?
We don’t want to do it.
Of course, children can’t continue to avoid spelling throughout school. Since they have to try to spell, these children adapt and usually develop a phonetically inventive spelling pattern. This is how we end up with spelling attempts in which the word is spelled like it sounds, rather than the correct spelling. (For example, “Bekuz” instead of “Because.”)
A Vicious Pattern
This adapted spelling pattern results in poor performance on spelling tests. Poor performance on spelling tests necessitates drilling and practicing, which only serves to reinforce the pattern that was incorrect in the first place. That means more frustration, poorer performance, and a general consensus that the child is a bad speller. Often, this leads to diagnosis of a learning disability, when, really, the problem is visual.
Unfortunately, phonetically inventive spelling has become popular as a way for a teaching program to encourage children to practice writing before they are competent in spelling. This practice is well intentioned, but only drives home the poor patterns in children who don’t have the visual skills to adapt.
Since education does not recognize the importance of proper eye movement skills, visual imagery, and visual dominance (relying on less efficient sensory systems in lieu of our visual system), this has become a dangerous factor in the epidemic increase in learning disabilities in the United States.
How Vision Therapy Can Help
Treatment of spelling problems begins with treatment of the underlying functional visual problems. Once a child has acquired good eye movement and visualization skills, the concept of recognizing “the look of words” rather than sounding them out can be introduced.
This is a big deal, especially in the English language, where—let’s be honest—spelling isn’t always very logical. (Why doesn’t “through” rhyme with “trough”?)
The success of visual recognition is extremely important when working with all aspects of written language including spelling, reading, and handwriting.
Visual recognition of words is the key skill that separates successful students from unsuccessful students.
How Vision Therapy Can Help
Treatment of spelling problems begins with treatment of the underlying functional visual problems. Once a child has acquired good eye movement and visualization skills, the concept of recognizing “the look of words” rather than sounding them out can be introduced.
This is a big deal, especially in the English language, where—let’s be honest—spelling isn’t always very logical. (Why doesn’t “through” rhyme with “trough”?)
The success of visual recognition is extremely important when working with all aspects of written language including spelling, reading, and handwriting.
Visual recognition of words is the key skill that separates successful students from unsuccessful students.
At MVTC, we follow the normal developmental sequence of visual cognitive skills.
The result: a capacity for spelling skills that is nothing short of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
What Visual Learning skill do you want to learn about next?
