Thoughts on Reading, Writing, and 'Rithmetic

When Eilis Leptien began coming to ALP, she hated spelling in school. After 12 weeks of treatment to improve her orthographic processing and phonemic awareness, she doesn't quite have the same opinion on the subject.

She came in for treatment a few days ago with a big grin and a story to tell. That day in spelling, the teacher decided to have a quick spelling bee at the end of the hour. One of the first words was "incalculable."

The first nine people in line missed the word. Then Eilis got up to spell.

"I-n, c-a-l," she began, using the ALP strategy of breaking long words into syllables.

The next syllable had been the one to stump her classmates, and she wasn't entirely certain of the letters. Instead of blurting something out, Eilis employed another technique she learned at ALP - using the motor action of her mouth to segment sounds.

"C-u-l, a-b, l-e."

Eilis's teacher gave her a piece of candy to celebrate the success. We at ALP were pretty thrilled, too. Now that Eilis has internalized the strategies we've taught her, spelling is no longer just a headache to be endured.

And the benefits of that are incalculable.

Rachel Phelps
Clinician