Introduction

Development of "Cerbra Focus" and "Breaking With Dyslexia"

(An overview)

While working with dyslexic students, we noticed that different students took different periods of time before starting to read. For example, some students would hesitate one second and some would hesitate as much as ten seconds before starting to read a section. We reasoned that the brain has to take time to process a word after an individual sees it. We call this period of time (between seeing and recognition) "lag time."

We set out to identify and measure lag time in all of our students. Then we worked on ways to reduce the student's lag time. For instance, we would have them read down a list of familiar words twice. We recorded the time for each reading. We then subtracted the second time from the first and called the difference "lag time". We did the same thing with sentences and short paragraphs. When the students read the paragraphs a third time, we saw a reduction in lag time. After they studied the difficult words in the passage, we saw a further reduction in lag time. That example showed how we initially identified, measured, and reduced lag time.

In working to reduce lag time, we found that it could be measured and reduced in non-dyslexic people as well. This enabled us to measure lag time in non-dyslexic staff. We spent many hours testing different techniques to reduce lag time. We could not find one single technique that worked best, but we did find that a combination of word attack tasks worked well. From that point on, we tried different combinations in order to come up with the most effective system. Since then, we have been using the best combinations to reduce lag time in students and staff.

In the process of studying lag time we identified ten reading levels and divided them into two major groups. The first group is called "vocal" and the second group is called sub-vocal. The vocal group consists of five levels: the normal speaking voice, a whisper, a low whisper, voicing the words in the head without sound, and finally, slightly voicing the words in the head.

The sub-vocal group also has five levels. It is also called the subconscious level, because it is the level where one reads without thinking about the pronunciation of the words, but is only aware of their meaning. It is divided according to reading speed. It starts with 100 words per minute (wpm) and doubles all the way up to 800 wpm. The final group is 1000 wpm (100, 200, 400, 800, and 1000). The five levels in the vocal group plus the five levels in the sub-vocal group give us a total of ten reading levels. Zero level would be assigned to someone who cannot read at all. Dyslexic students read at the lowest levels. Speed-readers read at the higher levels.

We found that, depending on the difficulty of the material, readers may read at different levels. For example, a speed-reader would be able to read a novel at 1000 wpm but would have to read a technical manual at about 250-wpm.

All of the exercises in "Cerbra Focus 1000" are designed to drive familiar words further into the subconscious, not to teach the student anything new. The lessons in "Breaking With Dyslexia" consist of focus exercises and also teach new information.

During the research, we found that combinations of activities would stimulate the brain and make it more receptive to learning new information. After doing the lessons, the students read and learned faster and remembered new information for a longer period of time.

For instance, we would give the students a word or phrase to remember. Then, we would send them across the room with instructions to remember the phrases until they were called back to the desk. If they remembered over one minute, they were rewarded; if they forgot, they had to try again. They always remembered better after they had completed a focus session before the activity.

We developed activities with familiar words and found that these activities also helped increase the students' reading speed. We took the difficult words from stories and created pre- reading activities for the students. After practicing the activities, the students would read the story much faster. We also found that they could then read an unrelated story at almost the same rate as the familiar story. This let us know that the multiple learning activities resulted in the improvement, not just the repetition.

By concentrating on using the activities to reduce lag time, students have made substantial increases in their reading speed. Some of our students were reading about 15 wpm a few months ago. Now, after completing the course they are reading about 75 wpm.

Members of our staff have reported improvement in reading, concentration, listening, and memorization.

This course teaches reading to dyslexic students and teaches speed-reading to non-dyslexic students. Non-dyslexic students can learn speed-reading at a much faster rate than those who have reading problems can.