Reading Abilities

Poor reading abilities affect around 85% of people with learning difficulties. An under-performing cerebellum causes significant difficulties with developing reading skills for several reasons.

Firstly the cerebellum is very important for the development of phonological or sound decoding skills. Some think that this is the only significant disability causing the condition dyslexia. In fact it is only a small part of the problem. Also the cerebellum is important for developing and controlling the precise control of the eye movements which are essential for reading word strings. This is why some people with reading difficulty complain of the words ‘moving around’ on the page.

However we think that by far the most important function in learning to read is the process of learning through practice. This is called procedural or implicit learning. This is one of the major functions of the cerebellum.

When we learn to read we are initially taught how written letters are sounded out. Some people also use phonics and other methods to help learn these sounds. However after this initial teaching, improving reading skill is really more about practicing. Practice makes perfect they say. However what we now know is that not everyone improves at the same pace with the same amount of practice. This process is called procedural or implicit learning as mentioned above. The cerebellum controls this system and if it is not working efficiently it will take much longer to improve reading through practice. This is just what we see with people who cannot learn this skill as quickly as others.

Therefore people affected either have to practice much longer (we calculate about 30 times more!) in order to make the same progress as others or something needs to be done to change the efficiency of the learning system. Teaching cannot help this problem. This is why the Dore Programme is required.

The Dore Programme directly addresses the root problems associated with reading abilities through an exercised-based remedy to improve the performance of the cerebellum. Therefore not only does it improve the visual and phonological (sound processing) skills but it improves the main disability which is poor learning through practice.

Showing signs of poor reading?