The handout (linked below) discusses how Lexercise supports clinicians in the use of best practices.

Dyslexia research makes it clear that children whose clinicians use particular treatment principles have dramatically better outcomes. A primary principle is that one size does not fit all.¹ This means that clinicians need a therapeutic tool that helps them identify each individual’s processing patterns and that gives them an efficient way to provide customized, flexible and intensive practice. By incorporating the principles that have been shown to be most effective in the treatment of language-literacy disorders, Lexercise provides clinicians with a way to provide treatment that is:

DIRECT & EXPLICIT ² ³ Concepts and patterns that govern English word structure are pointed out and practiced, one-by-one, using unambiguous, discrete definitions. Socratic methods (eliciting explicit information in a question and answer exchange) can be effective in raising concept and pattern awareness.

 
MULTISENSORY ² ³ Knowledge and skills are introduced and practiced through interactive engagement of multiple senses (visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile), using listening and speaking and well as reading and writing.

 STRUCTURED ² ³ Rapid pattern recognition makes fluent word reading possible, so the most dependable and frequent sound-letter patterns of English are practiced, first in single syllables and then in multisyllabic words. English has six different syllable spelling patterns that reliably predict the syllable’s vowel sound. The six syllable types form the backbone for pattern recognition of English words. Each level builds on the one before it, beginning with speech sounds in syllables, building to words (first single syllables and then multi-syllables) and then to phrases, sentences and paragraphs and finally to a variety of discourse forms.

INTEGRATED & CUMULATIVE ² ³ The words practiced at each level include patterns practiced in prior levels but with a focus on a new, specific set of concepts and patterns. Words for practice are controlled so they contain no structural elements that have not been explicitly defined.

INTENSIVE ² ³ Distributed practice is required for the mastery of any skill. Word structure pattern awareness is a skill. Individuals differ widely in how much practice they need to master word structure patterns, but all individuals must first establish a minimal level of accuracy (i.e., 80% accuracy) and then increase the speed and fluency until they achieve a level of unconscious automaticity.

¹Critical Issues in Response-to-Intervention, Comprehensive Evaluation, and Specific Learning Disabilities Identification and Intervention: An Expert White Paper Consensus. (2010). Learning Disability Quarterly, Volume 33 (3), pp. 223-236.

² Fletcher, J.M., Lyon, G.R., Fuchs, L.S., Barnes, M.A. (2007). Learning Disabilities: From Identification to Intervention. New York: The Guilford Press, pp. 272-274.

³ Shaywitz, S. (2003). Overcoming Dyslexia: a new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.