Now
Meet my son, Ian. He is a happy, healthy, quirky boy who is slated to begin kindergarten soon in a mainstream private school. He loves learning, is a self-proclaimed "science kid" who is forever asking questions and letting others know what he wants and needs. Others see a "typical" four year old. His family and friends know, however, that he is far from "typical" and that he is fantastic just as he is.
Then
Ian was born with a beautiful, calm, and focused spirit. He was always watching and always doing. Even as a small baby he would reach and grab at items, studying them intently, and wanted to be held upright so he could see what was going on around him.
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When we were out in public, or anywhere busy and loud, however, I saw a very different little boy. He could get easily socially overwhelmed.
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Given my background in child and cognitive development I was both amazed by my son's concentration abilities and also very concerned by his delay in developing speech. At the age of 18 months he only said about 5 words and those were irregular. At this point I began to look at different intervention methods and tried various methods myself to help him to speak and make requests. He made very little progress and remained mostly quiet.
Between the ages of 18 months and 24 months, though, an amazing new world opened up to my son in the form of letters and the printed word. Our little guy who had only said just a few words, learned the entire alphabet and sounds in a month's time. By the age of two he could recognize 10+ words by sight. At this point I recognized that my son's first language was, in fact, print. He was learning to read and speak at the same time. He showed an intense interest in letters and numbers. They were his "best friends". I embraced his learning style and interest and began to introduce as much vocabulary to him in print as possible.
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Armed with my own background in education, child development, and cognitive development, and with the amazing support from teachers and therapists, I began to devise ways to help my son thrive without trying to force him to learn in a way that was unnatural to him.
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An powerful way to teach...
Hyperlexia by the Book is an outgrowth of the my experience and training as an Educational Therapist and Educational Diagnostician. It is the application of what I have learned as a professional in meeting the learning needs of my own son. It is my hope to empower other families with the tools they need to reach their own hyperlexic children through the print that resonates so strongly with them.
