A right-brain learner is a child who learns best when they see and experience information. These students often have incredible creativity, strong problem-solving skills, and a natural talent for visual-spatial tasks.
Click here for a no cost screening tool for “Is your child a right-brain learner?”
Note, while dyslexia may impact 25 to 30 percent of the right-brain learners, we have found that reading comprehension issues for right-brain learners are far more common.
Right-brain learners make up over 60 percent of the students and probably make up 80 to 90% of the smart struggling students. With the right help, right-brain learners can make significant progress in months. Most schools do not differentiate instruction for these students, so for a right-brain learner, it is up to parents to make the difference.
However, when it comes to reading, they face unique challenges. Some may have dyslexia, while many more struggle with reading comprehension — even if they can read the words on the page.
At 3D Learner, we focus on uncovering and addressing the hidden issues that impact reading success and then helping students improve their reading fluency and reading comprehension, where needed.
While dyslexia and ADHD are often identified, there are five additional challenges that are frequently missed or not addressed.
7 Issues That Impact Reading Fluency & Comprehension
1. Dyslexia
Dyslexia makes it difficult for students to match sounds to symbols, which results in reading fluency issues and frustration. That is why we use the UFLI Program ® developed at the University of Florida that is based on Orton-Gillingham and designed to be more engaging for those students that have problems with phonemic awareness, phonics and reading fluency.
2. Attention
Right-brain learners often struggle to focus on activities they find boring or frustrating, like repetitive phonics drills or reading passages that don’t interest them.
3. Word Recognition
Many right-brain learners don’t remember words they’ve seen before, making it hard to both read and understand what they read.
4. Sight Words & High-Frequency Words
These common words, which don’t always follow phonetic rules, are difficult for many right-brain learners to master, impacting both fluency and comprehension.
Reading comprehension issues for right-brain learners are complicated
by the fact that word recognition and sight word and high frequency
word vocabulary are often not identified or addressed.
5. Visual Processing
While many articles state that visual processing does not cause dyslexia, our experience shows that reading fluency and visual processing challenges often occur together — especially in right-brain learners.
6. Working Memory
When a child has weak working memory, they forget rules and words as they read, which disrupts both fluency and understanding.
7. Processing Speed
Slow processing speed leads to slow reading, which makes it difficult to both keep up in class and comprehend what they’ve read.
Why This Matters
Every child is unique. Most right-brain learners have a combination of these challenges, but rarely all seven.
That’s why at 3D Learner we assess for all these factors — to create a customized plan that helps your child move from frustration to success.
If your child appears to be a right-brain learner and has reading fluency and/or reading comprehension issues we strongly recommend you assess for all these factors.
If you would like to discuss reading and reading comprehension issues for your right-brain learner with 3D Learner, you can call us at 561-361-8495 or 919-371-5395 or click here to schedule a Reading Stress to Success Conversation.
Examples of addressing reading comprehension issues for right-brain learners:
One 2nd grader had been through two different dyslexia treatments. After discovering her daughter was a right-brain learner, we helped her daughter to improve her reading comprehension by 2 grade levels within 4 months and 3 grade levels within 7 months. During that time, the young lady read 27-chapter books on her own. JB, Jupiter — here is the video mom shared
Parents of a 4th grader were told to pursue yet another dyslexia treatment after two years of doing a dyslexia treatment. Mom asked the psychologist, “do you know of an organization that teaches to my son’s strengths — he recommended 3D Learner. With our help, he improved his reading comprehension from the 58th to the 99th percentile
Mom commented, “You changed his attitude and that was 90 percent of the battle”, KF Parkland, FL.
At 3D Learner, we pride ourselves on identifying and addressing the reading and reading comprehension issues for right-brain learners and helping them to reach their potential.
