to your local school and see what
you can do to help. Meet with
teachers and other parents. If the
school is way below par, consider
homeschooling. A few hundred
thousand parents in the US are
now educating their children at
home, often with stellar results.
The Charter School movement is
showing promise in many areas of
the country.

Read to kids at the local library or
help out at your local school as a
tutor. You don’t need special
training. If your own child is doing

you want your child to grow up to
be among the minority in an
uneducated society.

with letters, faxes and e-mail.
Demand better education. Tell
them to cut K-2 class sizes in half
and you’ll pay for it with higher
taxes. Basic education is the best
investment this country could make
in its future.

1973, Congress passed Section 504
of the Rehabilitation Act, a law that
says teachers, administrators and
school districtsm u st provide
special accommodations and

with learning disabilities. You can
take your local school admini-
strators to court if they don’t
comply with it. But the law does
contain a basic flaw. Congress
didn’t provide any funding to pay
for these services. Which takes you
right back to step four.

Sharon Pfeiffer’s article on
preparing children is based on
20 years’ experience as an

Attention Deficit Disorder may actually be caused by inappro- priate teaching methods and

Whatever your child’s age, you
as a parent cannot assume today’s
school system will deliver an
adequate education. Of course,
some schools are better than
others; but overall, the US is near
the bottom of the heap compared
to other developed nations.

The most fundamental problem
is class size in the early school
years. Daycare centers generally
provide one caregiver for every 3-
4 infants. Pre-school daycare
centers have one caregiver for
every 7-10 children. But when the
child goes to kindergarten, class
size surges to 25, 30 or more, and
the amount of personal attention
devoted to each child plunges. We
must cut class sizes in half during
these crucial years.

to your child’s education at home.
Please do. Don’t count on the
school system to do it all for you.
Parents are vital to children’s
education. Many basic motor,
visual and auditory skills are best

Ron Davis is
Keynote Speaker at
London Adult

On April 19, 1996, Ron
Davis will be featured as the
keynote speaker at the annual

Published quarterly by Davis
Dyslexia Association International
(DDAI). DDAI’s purposes are to
increase worldwide awareness about
the gifted aspects of dyslexia and
related learning styles; and to
present methods for improving
literacy. We believe all people have
abilities and talents that should be
cherished and valued, and that
learning problems can be corrected.

Letters to the editor, address
changes, and article submissions
should be sent to 1601 Old Bayshore
Hwy. #260C, Burlingame, CA 94010

For reprints or permission to
republish an article, call (415) 692-
8995, fax (415) 692-8997 or e-mail

Views expressed in letters and
articles herein are not necessarily
those of DDAI. All materials ©DDAI
1996, unless otherwise noted.
Managing Editor, Abigail Marshall.

Photos on cover and page 3,
courtesy of Ian and his Dad.
Original artwork on page 5 by
Elise Bergerson, age 7.

information, contact ADO at
+44 0171 737 7646. To order
the British edition of The Gift

in the UK, please contact Mrs.
Jane Clitheroe, DDA Repre-
sentative, 53 Woodfield Drive,
Winchester, S022 5PY. Tel/fax:
+44 01962 861 995.

reparing a child for first grade involves much more than
just pencil and paper. There are many things you can
do with your child every day that are not only fun, but

model how a book is held and how the pages are turned. To show how books are composed, read each page — the title page and part of the copyright page with the year the book was made. Also read the dedication page.

Before reading a page with a picture, show it to the child and ask
questions like, “What do you see in this picture?” “What do you
think the story is about?” Don’t belabor talking about the pictures,
but understand that they are an essential part of the reading process
because theysh o w what the wordsm ea n. The pictures are there to
give the young reader clues to the story and vocabulary words used.

girl’s dress?” “Where did the boy and girl go?” Also ask open-ended questions such as, “Why do you think the boy and girl wanted to go to the farm?”

This is wonderful opportunity to help advance your child’s oral
skills, which are developed before reading skills. Encourage your
child to use complete sentences. Be patient so the child has plenty
of time to formulate ideas. Be prepared to read and reread the
stories. Most children love to hear them over and over again. If they
start filling in the words as you go, congratulations. You’re helping
them develop memory skills without effort.

Secondly, they allow the child to hear the rhythm of our language. Thirdly, Mother Goose rhymes are highly adaptive to dramatization. Try reading the rhyme while the child acts it out.

For every child—potentially
dyslexic or not—getting
ready for reading should

kit, designed by Sharon Pfeiffer, is now available. In addition to a manual and videotape

instructions, the kit contains clay,
a children’s dictionary, grammar
book, an alphabet strip and
cards, punctuation and styles
booklet, and pronunciation cards.