Buersche Zeitung, 11 March 2005 Number 59
School counselling centre: remedying girls’ and boys’ reading weaknesses
“The boys and girls either read haltingly and incorrectly or they read fluently without understanding anything,” says Dr Jürg-Michael Thurm from the school psychology advice centre on Auf dem Bettau Street. “Around ten per cent of schoolchildren fall behind the class average.”
The diagnosis is often dyslexia. But there are ways to remedy this so-called reading weakness.
One of these tools is the software developed by a neuropsychologist together with the Munich-based company celeco. This not only makes it possible to identify the cause of the reading weakness, but also to treat it in a targeted manner. Dr Thurm: “The school counselling centre can tailor the new learning programmes to the individual child. The customised software is available free of charge for the children in our care.” After a 20-minute session in which the psychologist identifies the deficit, the girl or boy is given their homework. As a rule, the programme is aimed at third and fourth graders. “But with the programme, we also help schoolchildren up to the fifth and sixth grades:” So what used to be explored with pencil and paper can now be recognised on the screen. The programme involves reading and eye movements, eye movements and letter recognition. This is because some children do not look at the text properly when reading. Dr Thurm: “As a result, they either miss the word or look at it so briefly that the child doesn’t grasp the meaning.” This is where the software helps. The pupils learn to look at each word segment long enough, in periods of 100 to 500 milliseconds on the monitor – depending on the child’s receptivity. If it takes too long to grasp words, the ability can be treated through training in which the time intervals are gradually shortened. The advice centre has already been working with the new software for some time – “with quite good success”, as Dr Thurm noted.
Rainer Wagner
Translated by celeco