Background
A girl we shall call ‘C’ had a diagnosis of dyslexia. She had learnt the basic sounds and could spell some simple words such as cat, dog, sat, but was very confused when trying to read longer words and could not remember the sight words at all. Spelling was based on guessing and phonics e.g. ‘frend’ for friend and ‘stot’ for stopped.
As C talked with me at her first session, it was clear she had an amazing capacity for visualising. However, she was not able to ‘see’ letters in her mind’s eye. She was becoming frustrated at school and was feeling under pressure.
After 40 minutes coaching with me, she realised she was able to use her visualising skills to picture words in her mind’s eye. It took another two sessions to fully master the technique and then daily practice with her parents for a few months until she was well on the way to catching up with her peers.
C has now become a confident speller.
Her father writes:
“When I noticed my daughter struggling with spelling at school I had flashbacks to my childhood and what it was like to be the ‘dumb’ kid in class. I did not want my daughter to suffer though school as I had, she deserved better.
We discovered Paula though a friend and after a few sessions C achieved a breakthrough in her spelling. Inspired by the success of my daughter I embarked on my own voyage of self-discovery with Paula and began to understand how my mind processed information, its strengths, and limitations. Working with Paula we were able to develop techniques that have noticeability improved my business writing. I can now spell words that have troubled me my entire life and my only wish is that I had learned these techniques earlier in life”
I just wanted to thank you for the inspiring and eye-opening training sessions that you gave us. I came home and practised some visualisation on my 5 year- old girl who after about 5-10 mins was able to spell “eighteen” forwards and in reverse! I was blown away.
We are still reeling from the dramatic improvement in F’s spelling skills! We are so grateful to you for unblocking this learning gap. F is very happy and relieved to have an approach that works. She loved working with you and wants all her teachers to be like you! She has used the technique on her French and religious studies too.
K seems to have developed a new attitude towards spelling. She has switched from believing she is a girl who cannot spell to one that can.
The visualisation has been fab and we have particularly noticed the benefit when learning the weekly spellings – it has taken less than half the time and the heartache we used to go through in order to learn the spellings has been pretty much eradicated! I have been telling anyone who will listen how remarkable visualisation is!!
W got home that night and said to me, “Mummy I have never felt clever before, but now I know how to do it!”