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After finishing a Davis Dyslexia Correction Program, students are given a book with remaining ‘trigger words’ (words that don’t have pictures, or cause confusion) to master, together with reading- and ball-exercises. There are just over 200 trigger words in the English language (schools often call them sight words). They are the ones that are easy to read (to, from, so, if, by), make up over 70 % of your reading material, but, if not mastered, cause confusion, lack of understanding and comprehension of the text.
Some parents believe that these aren’t so important, as their children use them in everyday conversation and they are used in the appropriate context. So they either skip them or just check if their child reads them and uses them in a sentence.
Now there are children, who have trouble following conversations, miss part of what their teachers ask, are much slower in their response and sometimes their answers aren’t related to the questions. However, they are bright and talented, creative individuals – and it is amazing how the speed of their responses increases, if all trigger words have been finished in a proper way.
I have just read a post by a fellow facilitator who had exactly the same experience and thought I share it with you:
“The question I asked him when he came in for a review after finishing all the trigger words was, “Do you notice anything that is different now that you have clayed all your word?” He said immediately, “No, nothing.”
I just kept quiet, not responding to this in any way. After about a minute (that felt like an hour) he suddenly sat up straight, looked me in the eye and said, “That’s not true actually. Now, when the teacher asks a question I understand it immediately. If I know the answer, I raise my hand right away, and if I am called up I know what and how to answer and my answer is correct. Before, by the time I had even figured out what the question was, someone else had already answered it.”
That actually raises another interesting point, which I’d like to have your input to? Why do so many children present with ODD – Oppositional Defiant Disorder? It’s almost an automatic response to first disagree with absolutely everything and you have to always phrase everything in opposition to the outcome you are looking for.