About Behavioural Reading and the POD software
Traditional Learn to Read models are out of date. They focus on large volumes of ‘STUFF’ . Lots of reading, lots of spelling, lots of rules, lots of everything. Brains don’t learn like that. They want a tiny sample repeated many times so they can grow dedicated dendrites. Because dendrites grow quickly, you can expect to see real change in hours or days! Neuroplasticity in action… It’s exciting and fun!
All of the skills below are ‘learned behaviours’ that are seen in competent literate 'intelligent' people. They represent processes, patterns and structures that are the result of evolved neurones that see the brain physically change through natural synaptic processes. The resultant growth of dendrites in the brain through learning occurs spontaneously or through designed teaching practice by using purpose-built interventions.
We must consider the learned process in the brain (new brain structure) versus the content – or I like to say ‘stuff’. In essence we build the brain’s structure with a small sample then add the content/stuff after. For example: Sounding Out Words… The brain must hear the individual sounds, isolate them, remember them in order, then recite them back verbally. That is the structure, a whole bunch of neurones and dendrites inside your brain that have grown to perform this task. The structure is then used for the content/stuff of the thousands of words you might sound out through your life. The structure is the ‘new and improved’ brain, bigger and better than last year’s model and will remain with you forever. The stuff is just the word you happen to sound out today, irrelevant tomorrow or the next day. Below, most of the items are ‘structures’ the brain has had created internally allowing for the relevant task to occur with whatever the situation happens to be at the time.
For ease, I have only given headings to the overall skill, but there are usually many subskills that are employed within each large skill heading. Most subskills develop spontaneously, but sometimes they are the ‘block’ that needs a bit of special help!
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​Major Skills
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Sound Out words – (Phonological awareness)
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Tapping and Counting sounds in words
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Avoid guessing words
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Switch between alphabet Names and alphabet Sounds
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Sounding Out (Slowly) and Sounding Out (Rapidly) (applying Frontal Lobe Speed control)
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Spelling words Forwards and Backwards (while looking at the words) (Visual Sequencing Skill)
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Practising Correct Pencil Grip and writing words using correct letter formation (on paper)
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Looking at and sounding out logical groups of similar words such as: bet, get, set, met
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Improving Phonic Knowledge (Letter Names and Letter Sounds)
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Identification of first, second and last sound in a spoken word
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Adding and Deleting sounds from spoken words to create new words
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Identifying the two or three sounds in a consonant blend or cluster in a spoken word
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Reading Nonsense Words you see (Word Attack)
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Spelling Nonsense Words you hear (Non-Word Spelling)
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Auditory Mapping of sounds in words (especially vowels)
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Remapping of Sound errors to correct forms (seeing synapse and dendrite neuroplasticity in action in real time!)
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Visual (Orthographic) Mapping of words to correctly recognise words
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Physical (Kinaesthetic) Mapping of words through writing
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Using words with logical spelling rules
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Building Central Auditory Processing capacity (listening with escalating background noise)
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Visual Processing (managing differing fonts and more; Visual Discrimination, Visual Memory, Form Constancy, Visual Closure.)
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Visual Processing (letter and word spacing, correction and tolerance)
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Working Memory management (Recognition of WM threshold, Understanding and implementation of effective practice)
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Creating Efficient reading skills to a level of 'automaticity'
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Method to create Fluent Reading for the beginner reader in 3 minutes (An understanding and its application – Hint: The collective literature is wrong!)
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Creating complex abstract reasoning within the two dimensional space by linking descriptive language to physical actions like above, below, next to, row 2 + column 3
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Imprinting and Retrieving material through Rote memory (by using timetables)
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Growing and developing skills typically found in 'Broca's Area' on demand.
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Reinforcing Perfect Imprinting versus Messy Imprinting (a neurological perspective and its functional application)
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Deleting Stress (both visual and auditory)
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Removing learned preconditioned responses to reading and writing tasks
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Learning methods to mimic the fluency of elite readers
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Visual Reading Accuracy (Reading Technique – a Psychological method)
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Visualising the idea behind a word or sentence (see the story in your head)
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Visualising letters in the words
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Air-writing words
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Verbalising the idea behind a word or sentence (describe the story that you see in your head)
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Using descriptive language (using the senses, seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling) to describe the idea behind a word or sentence
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Practising a method to create and juggle Split Thinking (like reading and solving mental arithmetic at the same time)