Andrew loved reading, but by fifth grade, something seemed out-of-place. He read fluently, but I began to get suspicious that Andrew was just saying words. When we read picture books together and I asked questions about the content, Andrew gave all the right answers – until he graduated to chapter books, then I realized we had issues. Besides reading, Andrew also struggled with language expression. When asked to summarize a story, or even a short paragraph, Andrew and I might as well have read two very different stories. I set out to discover the reasons causing my son’s reading struggles.
When Words have no Meaning
Looking back, I see red flags, not only with reading, but in so many other facets as well. I explained jokes. Andrew’s long-winded descriptions of movie and books, lacked organization, as well as any main point. Our speech therapist pointed out that Andrew only retained bits and pieces of individual sentences. Andrew memorized math facts, but never a song or even a Bible verse. Verbal directions is difficult to retain and follow……………………
Permission Statement
Andrew has given me permission to share our literacy walk. As a kid, and a teen, his privacy is important. We both agree that if the problems we encounter might be of help to others, we will write about our trek.
Floating and Swirling Words
At co-op, Andrew has an aide to keep him on-track in the classroom. This aide listens to the teacher and then reiterates the same information, using less words. Watching Andrew, I noticed that he seemed lost in a sea of meaningless, floating words and sentences swirling around his head.
My Search Begins
I began researching the internet, hoping for some small beacon of light that might possibly explain the disconnect between auditory receptive language skills, expressive language, and reading comprehension. Our medical and therapy teams gave me a few suggestions and ideas, but nothing that made the mom-teacher in me, snap my fingers and say, “THAT is the issue!”
What is a Dream?
One Sunday, while sitting around a table during kids worship service, the children were discussing dreams. Andrew listened quietly, typically he rarely adds to the conversations, but on this day, Andrew asked, “What’s a dream?” The children had a great time filling him in, but he was adamant that he did not see pictures at night.
I tend to journal problems that will not mentally leave me alone. I wrote down everything I could think of about dreams. They are mental pictures and stories…. a nighttime movie…. a story that involves – words…. and words create pictures.
The Puzzle Pieces Come Together
The puzzle pieces started to come together during my journaling. I felt like I found my ah-ha mom-teacher moment. Words, whether from a book, or in a conversation creates mental images. When a teacher is speaking we see mental images to help us remember the lecture. When Andrew watches movies, the pictures distract from the dialogue, so he looses the main point. Heaven forbid he should have to verbalize it. Once Andrew graduated from picture books to chapter books, visual pictures no longer existed to create a mental image for him. For some reason, descriptive words were not sending pictures to Andrew’s brain. Dreams are also mental images, which Andrew claims is non-existent. Now I had something new to research. Mental imaging seemed to be the root cause of my son’s reading struggles, but now I needed to prove it.
Anphantasia
Googling “non-existant dreams”, I came up with a medical term called, Anphantasia, – a phenomenon where people are unable to visualize imagery. It was discovered and termed a mental condition in 2015, by the scientific community. I also read the following information about treatment: “Aphantasia” is a congenital, developmental “condition” and, as such, is not treatable.
Good thing I didn’t give up research.
Finding our Path
My research about Anphantasia led me to a program called Verbalizing and Visualizing, by Nanci Bell.
Published in 1986, Bell’s book Visualizing and Verbalizing for Language Comprehension and Thinking discusses concept imagery ability, and concept imagery weakness, a condition that scientists are now terming aphantasia.
How interesting that Bell’s book came out in 1986, yet Anphantasia was discovered in 2015, and coined un-treatable. Bell’s research is 30 years ahead of science! I quote:
“Visualizing is directly related to language comprehension, language expression, and critical thinking. Imagery is a primary sensory connection in the brain.“
I was getting excited, but there was more:
Gestalt imagery … is the sensory information that connects us to language and thought. However, many individuals have weakness in creating mental images and thereby have weak reading comprehension, weak oral language comprehension, weak verbal skills, and poor critical thinking.
My Great Learning Adventure
Symptoms of Weak Imagery
I found our path! The above quotes and the video, gave me clear, concrete reasons for Andrew’s reading struggles. The Symptoms of Weak Concept Imagery summed up all the issues that I previously tried, but failed to pull together. Weaknesses include (quote):
- Written Language Comprehension
- Oral Language Comprehension
- Critical, logical, abstract thinking and problem solving
- Following Directions
- Expressing Language Orally
- Expressing Language in Writing
- Grasping Humor
- Interpreting Social Situations
- Cause and Effect
- Mental Mapping
- Responding to a Communicating World
Verbalizing and Visualizing Program
The Nanci Bell, Verbalizing and Visualizing is a program that teaches concept imagery to students who struggle with reading comprehension and language processing. The ultimate goal is to visualize what is heard or read.
There is a Lindamood-bell Academy, as well as nation-wide learning centers, and many schools offer the program to students – unfortunately, not mine.
A Good Start to New School Year
After a few phone calls, I read the blog post about the Verbalizing and Visualizing homeschool program and then decided to purchase my own curriculum from Gander Publishing. I ordered the Teacher’s edition of Verbalizing and Visualizing through our library, and was so impressed that I immediately purchased it on-line. (You can buy it used at Amazon) I now have new direction for the upcoming school year.
Imagery – The One Reason Causing my Son’s Reading Struggles
I am not associated with the Visualizing and Verbalizing program, and while there might be others available, this is the one I’m choosing to incorporate into our school year. Mental imaging is the one reason that is causing my son’s reading struggles. My goal is for Andrew to read, communicate, and listen independently. Now that I know where to start, it is time to get our school year started!
*Other Programs Offered
If your child has communication or reading disability issues, there are other programs offered. Again, I am not associated with Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes, but hope that my discovery of these programs, might be of help to another family. You can find more information on their website and various YouTube videos.
The Talkies Program offers help to students with limited oral vocabulary and verbalization – especially children on the spectrum. This is the pre-program to Verbalizing and Visualizing.
The Seeing Stars Program is for students who have fluency issues with reading and have difficulty recognizing words, memorizing site words and other issues recognizing symbol images. These students might learn a word but then not recognize it on the next page.
On Cloud Nine Program is for students who have trouble learning math facts, solving word problems, estimating values, and higher math issues.
LIPS is a phoneme program that teaches phonemic awareness, blending sounds, word attack, spelling and more.
Here are a few videos that I found helpful on-line:
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