Do Davis methods address problems with phonemic awareness?
It is important that students be able to perceive phonetic components of language accurately – for example, to be able to hear the difference between the short “e” in “then” and the short “i” in “thin”. It is also important that students understand that letters generally represent specific sounds, and to make sure that they can accurately perceive the letters – for example, to see the difference between the letter “b” and letter “d”, and to tell the difference in order and sequence of letters in the words “from” and “form.” Davis methods address all of these factors. However, once these basic concepts are mastered, our reading program is geared to developing whole word recognition and comprehension skills, relating words to their meanings rather than merely to their sounds. Our primary physical tools are a dictionary and clay. We do not find it necessary to do extensive tutoring in phoneme awareness or symbol-sound correspondence. However, it should be noted that the Davis Dyslexia Cor
