How Brain Gym Can Improve Reading



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Case Study: Henry and Reading

by Kathy Brown, M.Ed.

Henry has had challenges his whole life. He’s had surgery to correct severe cross-eyes, and has worn an eye patch to strengthen his weaker eye since age four. At age seven and a half and about to enter second grade, he was not able to read, despite two years of special education in school and months at reading clinics and reading tutoring. His mother said,

“He just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t hear the sounds, even when you over-exaggerate. He doesn’t hear it... He has been getting help from a vision therapist who has been great. She just helped him so much – but he still can’t read. Not a good start for a second grader.”

After his mother heard me speaking about the importance of crawling and how Brain Gym© could recreate missing neural pathways (Henry skipped the crawling stage), she brought him for a session to see what Brain Gym could do to support him in his quest to become a reader.

When Henry arrived I wrote out the words “Today is a hot day. It is a hot summer day.” in large print on notebook paper. I asked Henry if he knew any of these words and he attempted to read both sentences, but miscalled every word except “a.”

Henry’s Brain Gym balance called on Dennison Laterality Repatterning, Brain Gym movements, and a variety of other movements to help resolve specific childhood reflex issues. We did these activities for perhaps 45 minutes.

At the end of this time I asked Henry to read his sentences again. He instantly spotted the repeated words and used his thumb and index finger to point out the word pairs, reading them correctly and without hesitation: “day - day... hot - hot... a - a... is - is...” Then I asked if he could read the sentences. My only support was putting my finger under each word in order, and he read both sentences on his own. I looked over at his mother, and she had tears rolling down both her cheeks.

Over the next two weeks I received the following emails, notes and phone calls from Henry’s mother:

“What an experience that [Brain Gym session] was today. Henry just seemed the normal Henry except when it came to reading to me tonight. There was no struggle. He read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish [a Dr. Seuss book] like an ole pro. It was amazing.”
“Henry is still improving! I have him going to the reading clinic just to learn all the consonant and vowel sounds he missed last year. And he’s just tearing up the turf.”
“I’m still seeing improvement. Henry tied his shoes yesterday with no problems. He just acted like it was no big deal – never mind that it has been.”
“Henry loves rhyming books now. He used to hate them, as he couldn’t hear the rhyme and thought they were just nonsense. Now he can hear the rhyme, and he loves it!”
“Henry’s physical therapist says that his writing is like a different child. He writes like a real second grader now instead of a kindergartner.”
“Henry seems to be hearing all the sounds of his words now. His school speech therapist didn’t believe me when I told her about his progress. She said that it just wasn’t possible, and insisted on testing him. When she saw the improvement for herself she said, ‘What have you been doing with Henry?’”

The answer, of course, is Brain Gym. Vital pieces for this major shift all seemed to come in the package of this one session, although Henry will likely benefit further from more sessions over time. Of course, this doesn’t happen every time. Some children need more sessions to see the kind of shift that Henry made in one day. But sometimes, just that one shift is the one they’ve been waiting for.

Brain Gym is a registered trademark of the Educational Kinesiology Foundation/Brain Gym International.
Please visit the Brain Gym® website at www.braingym.org.