Altuz Academy Malaysia uses the Orton-Gillingham Approach to help children with dyslexia

Children suffering from dyslexia are often misunderstood, mislabeled and deprived of the proper attention and support. To be honest, attending the open day at Alutz academy opened up my mind, it has never occurred to me children who were labeled as "slow learners" might be suffering from dyslexia.

Altuz Academy is a premier education center for dyslexia intervention, the academy uses The Orton-Gillingham Approach – the highly structured evidence-based approach to teaching reading and recognized by the International Dyslexia Association (IDA)

The Orton-Gillingham approach was developed in the 1920s by Dr Samuel Orton, a doctor who first discovered dyslexia, together with Anna Gillingham, a gifted teacher and psychologist. This approach has been further supported by over 100,000 scientific studies over 70 years that conclusively showed that a reading approach should include five important pillars: phonemic awareness, systematic phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

In the hands of a skilled instructor, this is a powerful instructional approach that benefits students of all ages and abilities so that learning becomes a rewarding experience. The key features of this approach are multisensory, sequential, incremental, cumulative, individualized, based on phonograms, and explicit.

What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is not a disease, it is a specific learning difficulty, which impacts a person’s ability to read, spell and write. Given the appropriate specialist teaching, dyslexics can learn to read (and even to spell) just as well as anyone else.

Symptoms of dyslexia?

A key sign of dyslexia in kids is trouble decoding words. This is the ability to match letters to sounds and then use that skill to read words accurately and fluently. For

· Late speech or difficulty in pronouncing certain common words.
· Difficulties in remembering the right names for objects.
· Trouble in learning the alphabet or numbers.
· Unable to recognize rhymes.

Here's an example of dyslexia, can you figure out? I took me quite a while a few practices to eventually decode it, the answer to the picture above is - where is the world is she now difficult isn't it?

“It is critically important that remedial specialists, educators and teachers working with dyslexic students be vetted, highly trained in an evidence-based approach with oversight and accountability. Literacy training should be comprehensive, accredited by an international organization and include a supervised practicum period. There should also be ongoing professional development for the sake of the children whom they work with,” said founder of Altuz Academy, Dr Choy Su-Ling.

Dr Choy, together with center manager Yap Jo Ling, created history in the international dyslexia community by being the first two AOGPE-trained academic language therapists from Malaysia. They will continue to be observed and audited by the AOGPE to meet and maintain the high standards of teaching.

For more information about Altuz Academy check them out on facebook https://www.facebook.com/pg/altuzacademy