I know this isn't the Oscars but I just want to say thank you to John publicly for getting this project going he has and is doing a great job.
Tears, tissues etc etc! ;-)

Anything new on this project? I read everything here with interest, and was sorry to see the posts come to an end.

I'm not a teacher by profession, but I have a great-nephew who was passed from reading specialist to reading specialist his entire school career, and is functionally illiterate at 21. I'd love to work with him when I get back to the States and improve his image of himself as a learner. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hello Bridget
Thank you for your interest. We have repeated the Durham project with another authority recently and we will have a more detailed report from Durham ready soon. I will post the link on this site when its ready. Sorry its taken so long but we just need to collate the reports and teachers are really pressed for time so writing up their outcomes tends to take a back seat.

Regarding your great nephew - there is almost no-one who can't learn to read given the right messages ( in my opinion) I know of people with profound and multiple learning difficulties who have learnt to read. They may never read Tolstoy but they can read bus timetables, and shop for food they like and decide how to spend their day. This is freedom and thats what NLP is about! So I would love to know more about your great nephew and maybe this community can offer suggestions that can help you to help him.
Kate

I can't repeat Matt's school history the way his mum probably could, but from a very early age he was labelled "learning disabled." He's plenty smart, and a wonderful young man of 21, but as might be expected he has a total lack of interest in academic pursuits, and he can't read or write well enough to fill out a job application without help.

I believe Matt thinks highly of his skills in areas like auto mechanics or sound engineering, both of which he's had successes at, but he's crippled in the job market because of his low level of literacy.

I agree that Matt can learn to read and write, but no-one has so far been able to motivate him to sign up for adult literacy classes, offered free by city libraries in Seattle, where he lives. I'm going back to the States in September, and I'd like to be able to help him shed the dread "learning disabled" label and taste some success in reading. Richard Bandler talked about his success with bad spellers, getting them to visualize words. Are there approaches I might try to open the door to reading and writing for Matt?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have.

Hi Bridget

My story was the same as Matt’s that being when I was 21 I could not read or write, yet with some work I educated myself to read and write.

Two key ways in which I learnt to read was watch as much TV as I could with subtitles/ Closed Captions, and the second was to follows along to song lyrics. This process uses the osmoses principal as well, and through saturation, information is carried, in through the frontal lobes/ the preconscious processor where skill development is translated into behaviours.

How I learnt to write was to Video tape the TV programmes and watches a few seconds of the programme and copy the text from the subtitles, until I got it.

I would watch a wide range of programmes, including schools education TV. And so on.
So for the last 14 years my primary interest as been in learning about knowledge acquisition and learning transference, getting the information on the out, in.
One thing that I was lacking in the education settings was purpose, as I did not have a “WHY” then my brain did not switch on. Once I got a purpose my motivation and willingness was activated and nothing would get in my way.

Some of my findings have pointed out the perceptual locations are an important keys to learning, I found once I started to align myself/ integrate dissociated states huge amounts of information from school and life time events opened up.

The memory is not just in the Brain, the whole human organisms are a memory bank, Skin, muscles, organs, are host to emotional memory.

So exploring dissociated states may be one key to opening up Matt’s learning potential.

A few books that I would recommend, The Learning Revolution by Gordon Dryden & Janette Vos
Brain Gym by Paul and Gail Dennison
The Gift of dyslexia by Ronald D. Davis
Also Verbal Advantage | Grammar & Vocabulary Improvement for audio Vocabulary programmes and learning through osmosis.

And the Teaching Company http://www.teach12.com they have lectures on a huge amount of subjects, and they are just wonderful to listen and watch. As they do CD and DVD programme’s.

If you want to give my e-mail address to Matt’s Mum I would be happy to share some of my ideas, with her and Matt
opensaucenlp@gmail.com

Jay Budzynski
INLPTA NLP Practitioner
INLPTA NLP Master Practitioner
INLPTA ABM Advanced Behaviour modeler
ABM Advanced spots coach
Advanced NLP life coach & Corporate Consultant
MC.Dip.Hyp
Stress management Consultant
Reiki Practitioner

Hello Bridget
Jay's experience is very interesting and just shows that where there is a will there is a way! His resources will I am sure be very useful.
Given what you know about Matts experience is not easy to make suggestions but here goes anyway...
Firstly you could tackle his beleifs. Most people have ordinary brains - he has an extraordinary brain! Get him to focus on all those things he does so well and how 3 dimensional his thinking is. He must have a 3 dimensional brain if he is so good on mechanical and electronic systems.
Secondly reading and writing is just a mastery skill and not a high level skill. (se Blooms Taxonomy) The fact he hasn't accessed it yet is no handicap in our technological age. There is a new package from Dragon speak which will write his CV and application for jobs from his spoken word. Spelling and reading is not necessary, just an ability to express himself.
Thirdly .. Yes Richard does talk about spelling strategies. However there is a difference between reading and spelling. Each requires a different strategy. For reading Matt needs to be able to sight recognise between 50 and 100 words. That is see them as pictures. You can use all the submodalities to do this if it helps him. So draw the word, (big)Outline the word, Give it a colour and a texture and say it. Then the links between the synapses are well established. This is the basis of a good reading strategy.
Spelling is based on picture accuracy and comes after reading for saying and reading for meaning. To spell well a person needs to be able to see a word as a picture - clear and steady and check it against the representation - such as on the page- and then get a good feeling when it matches.
I really wish I could get to see Matt because I am sure I could get him going in half a day. so go for it girl - there is nothing to loose and lots to gain
Good luck
Kate

Hi
To add to Kate’s strategies


Here’s my emotional Body writing process, you start off with the alphabet a-z lower cases then A-Z higher case then A, a- Z, a then you build it into words.
First you crate an Alpha-power bet. Like each letter is an anchor for a positive state, i.e.
A= Assertive B= Bold C= Creative D= Delighted E= Exhilarated
F= Focused G= Gratitude H= Honest I= Intuitive J= Jolly K= Keen
L= Loyal M= Magical N= Nice O= Organized P= Purposeful
Q= Quiet R= Resilient S= Strong T= Tenacious U= United
V=Validated W=Willingness X= eXcited Y= Youthful Z=Zeal


It’s best to build your own “Power Bet”


Now what you do is with a lower case “a” with your finger you draw on the learners back a letter “a” and have then access the power bet state for that letter, as you draw the letter on their back, have them use their finger to draw the letter on the back of their hand. First 2 times with eye open 3rd times with eyes closed. Ask them to see and feel the letter shape in their minds eye while accessing the power bet state.
Doe the same with the higher case letters, the have them write a word on the back of their hand, get them to access the combination state, from the power bet, then have them write the word on paper.


With in a very short time, a Holomorphosis© happens Holomorphosis© means “whole Pattern transformation” in the cybernetic looping systems with in the V-K Learning environment.

LJ

Wow, Jay, what an amazing story you have! And what wonderful ideas and strategies from you and Kate. I'm going to take all this in and integrate it, and give Matt some tools for success when I see him again. You've both been incredibly helpful. Words can't express my gratitude.

Jays strategy is great. You can add other rep systems to it by using colour for each letter and imagine a texture with it so b - blue- (Smells of blueberry) water s - yellow (smells of lemon) - sand. When you use a system like this you build links between all the rep systems so if someone can't remember the shape they can access it through bodily feeling, colour or smell and because they are all associated the rest of the information comes back with the one piece. I tend to use this strategy for whole words rather than letters but it works for letters with Jay.
One thing to note is that this works well with learning differences such as dyslexia but not with other learning differences such as dyspraxia or ASD. Some folk get sensory overload and so the learning needs to be focussed and simplyified. So for example some people remember using mind maps - for others this is too busy - so a good old list works better! thats why I asked what you know about Matt - its about working out what works for him.
To do this start by asking him how he has tried to learn to read in the past. This at least gives you the strategy that doesn't work! You can start working out something else that might. Making sure he is in a relly good state is THE most important thing. Richard Bandler says that the techniques are not what makes NLP work but the 'attitudes of tenacity, determination, beleif in the person.
Have a great trip
Kate

Yes, I'll be packing my attitudes, and making sure I anchor resourceful states for him in different systems (he loves music), and elicit his strategies for successful learning, since he's done quite a bit of that outside the normal academic structure. I believe in Matt, and I believe in me, so one way or another we'll make it work for us.

Couldn't do it without you guys, so thanks again. I'll report back after we've done the work and have some progress to measure.