Remediate a Child with Dyslexia and Help Him to Grow into a Productive Member of Society

Dyslexia is an invisible disability. This means that dyslexics look completely normal to others, while they are not able to learn in traditional methods of learning. They do learn and understand, but differently.

The reason is a neurological condition. In layman’s language we could say that the wiring in their brain is a bit different and therefore they perceive and process information differently. It affects primarily the area of written language ie; reading, writing and spelling and sometimes in arithmetic.

Therefore there appears a gap between their potential, which they can achieve, and their performance.

They often display special talents in areas that require high levels of visual, spatial, and motor integration and excel in fields of all kinds of designing, architecture, visual communication, direction, innovation, art, sculpture or even sports.

It is a lifelong condition, but dyslexics, by virtue of their intelligence, learn to work their way around their difficulties. Some famous dyslexics are: Thomas Edison, Mohammad Ali, Picasso, Steven Spielberg, Steve Jobs, and Tom Cruise.

These children, if identified early, can be trained to learn and eventually become productive members of the society. If they do not receive remediation, with their intelligence, they are at high risk of becoming juvenile delinquents.

Our activities are as follows:

1. We provide remediation to children at two centres. Ananya is a full time pull out centre where children are given intensive remediation. They are also exposed to co-curricular activities and occupational therapy to develop their motor skills. We also identify their dominant streak among multiple intelligences.

The other centre is an after- school remediation centre which helps children from mainstream schools in bridging their gaps which may be lesser than those who need a pull out program.

2. We also train teachers in several of our training courses to deal and help children with specific learning disabilities to learn. Training happens at our training hall or at the premises of schools which require the training course.

3. We help schools set up resource rooms where children can be given help within school premises.

4. The one week program will soon be available as an online course.

5. We conduct academic assessments of students.

6. We are developing a software called Avance 360, which is a process workflow software. Analytics of this data can help the remedial teachers and give deeper insights into SLD.

7. We have developed remediation program in Tamil also.

Each training course can accommodate 50 trainees. Each out of these 50 can impact at least 10 children in a year, resulting in 500 children receiving remediation per year after one batch of training alone.

Remediation in our existing 41 resource rooms impact 35 to 40 children each year which amounts to around 1600 children.

Our full time and part time remedial centres impact around 70 children per year.

In a year assessments for more than 350 children are conducted.

In all in a year we are able to impact around 2520 children. We have trained nearly 1000 teachers from all over Tamilnadu and the ripple effect has begun.

We have impacted over 50000 children who have had difficulties in the past 21 years.

With a contribution of Rs 100/- a child can be remediated.

Anand was in class 4th but was only able to identify letters. He was not able to read words and was at least 4 grades below his age. His math skills were at class 1 level. He was given intensive remediation at Ananya. Within few years, Anand was able to adjust to the mainstream school he was readmitted to. Today, Anand is a confident interior designer and is eager to help other such children.