Louise Barnes
Teacher, Trainer, NLP & Dyslexia Expert
Breakthrough Dyslexia (Teens 1:1)
Do you worry about your teenager because they struggle with schoolwork, and would you love to see them get over that struggle?
Maybe they’re facing important exams and you’d love for them to find things easier.
Have you noticed they avoid reading or can’t remember what they’re trying to learn?
Are they anxious and you long to help them but don’t know what to do as each time you try to help them, they brush you off telling you they’re “fine”?
It’s heart-breaking seeing your child struggle, longing to help them but not knowing how.
Being a teenager is challenging enough (especially having dealt with a pandemic in recent times), and life for a dyslexic teenager can be even more so. Trying to keep up in class, completing homework and tackling revision can be far more tiring than for other students. Dealing with the frustration of having to work so hard in comparison to their peers triggers anxiety, leading to loss of confidence and low self-esteem.
To make it even harder to get the help that you know they need, dyslexic teens have often perfected excellent and inventive coping strategies which masks their struggle. It’s not unusual for them to ‘slip through the net’ at school or college as they appear to be fine in class, but test results tell a different story.
The solution isn’t to work harder – the solution is to find out what’s causing their specific struggle with literacy and put it right.
Let me give you an example ...
Emma (not her real name) was 16 when she was diagnosed with dyslexia. She was shocked, but also relieved to understand why she found some aspects of learning so hard. Emma is really good at maths but was scoring way below her ability on maths tests because reading the maths questions accurately and understanding them was hard for her. Copying problems from a board was another thing that she found difficult. Because of this she often answered the ’wrong’ question even though she understood the maths.
When it came to reading text, Emma found herself reading the same thing over and over again in order to make sense of it, even though she could decode the words. She lost her place and missed out lines when she was reading and struggled to remember what she had read. All this meant she spent ages on homework and revision.
When she was writing, she often wrote the letters in the middle of a word in the wrong order and some letters (b, d, p, q, g) got muddled up. A side effect of all this was anxiety and headaches. Not surprising when you consider how hard she was working and how frustrating that must have been.
I worked with Emma to ‘retrain’ the part of her subconscious mind that was inadvertently causing her to process text in a way that hindered rather than helped her. Using my NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) process we discovered exactly why she was unable to see text clearly or remember it and what was causing letters to move around. Then we began correcting the non-useful processing that was causing the problem.
In a couple of weeks Emma could read something once, understand and remember it. Three weeks in she had stopped writing letters the wrong way around when she was writing, and after four weeks muddling up letters wasn’t happening anymore.
Her maths scores improved, and she no longer had an issue with understanding the questions or accurately taking down information.
The headaches stopped and she could complete her homework more quickly and confidently.
For some teenagers, reading and spelling remains a mystery.
They haven’t found a way to understand ‘how words work’.
It’s so exciting to see the lightbulb moment, relief and happiness when, at last,
it all starts to make sense.
When I work with teenagers, the first thing I do is find out exactly how they process text and gently correct any part that’s causing a problem. Once that’s done, we can begin working on understanding the foundations of reading and spelling, like phonics, linking letters to sounds, hearing sounds within words, syllable division and all the crucial elements of literacy that they just couldn’t make sense of before.
One of my teenage students was struggling with letter sounds; even putting together simple, three letter words was difficult. He’d been processing text in a way that made reading and spelling pretty much impossible however hard he tried,
We ‘retrained’ just the part of his brain, that made letters appear fuzzy, grainy, multiplied, and jumping when he tried to look at words. No wonder he struggled to read! When that was done, the letters and words were still, single and clear when he looked at them. After a few weeks he was confidently reading words with 6 letters.
We found some appropriate books based on the phonics he’d learned, and he read them easily. He was excited and enthusiastic, soaking up new knowledge like a sponge. We even started spelling, which he was very enthusiastic about. In one month, his ability to read and spell was totally transformed.
Not all children with dyslexia have been diagnosed. Many slip through the net as it can be difficult to spot at school, especially if they’re good at masking their problems. It doesn’t matter if you have a diagnosis or not. If your teenager is finding reading, writing or spelling difficult, I can help.
I’ve helped many parents to feel relief as their teenagers overcome their struggle with literacy, find school or college less exhausting, can access the curriculum more easily and are less anxious about homework and revision ...
I can help you too!
To book a free discovery call with me to discuss your teenager and find out if Breakthrough Dyslexia sessions are absolutely right for them, please follow this link:
What Clients Say ...
“Louise has super-powers, there is no other way to describe what she has done for my son. Approachable, informative, intuitive, an expert in her field and creative skills. She has managed to achieve what we thought was impossible. Would recommend her a million times over.
My son is 13 and had developed a fear of reading, he just seemed to so repulsed at the thought and had been like it for many years. It was holding him back in other areas especially the older he was becoming.
Louise stuck with him while he struggled and showed him ways to help, she built his confidence and by the end of our sessions he had read an entire book and was looking forward to beginning the next one. It was a total transformation, far exceeding our expectations.
Thank you so, so much Louise".
Sara Robinson
“Lou was immediately approachable and was adamant she could help our daughter who had not been officially diagnosed with dyslexia, even though it was clear that she needed help. Our daughter described that when she looked at words on a page, they were always “blurberry.”
After just one session, the “blurberry” which our daughter described had disappeared and the relief on her face was a picture. It has not returned.
She also had another issue of flashing lights which took a few sessions to deal with, but each time Lou came up with another solution and after the third option, our daughter no longer has this issue either.
We would highly recommend Lou, and although what she provides is not a low-cost option, it has helped to cure our daughter of her most difficult issues.”
Karen
“Louise has helped build my son's (age 15) confidence in his ability to learn, particularly with his spelling. I think that it is a combination of her positive attitude and energy and skill using a variety of creative teaching methods to unlock potential. The school that my son attends has reported an improvement in his literacy which is great news!”.”
Jane
“It clicked even more, today - he (age 13) started hearing himself a bit more and got the sound pattern. We did word families et, if, it, etc., and for the first time, he got the rhyming rhythm of it and said his brain was smart!
I'm not sure I will ever be able to thank you enough for what you've done for us.
Your enthusiasm and acceptance, knowledge, and creativity make it all a fun quest into literacy."
Katy
“Hi - I am Fiona's mom. I can't say enough about Louise and her Unlock Learning program for dyslexia; she saved my child. My daughter struggled for years before she was tested for dyslexia. We were excited that we finally knew what the problem was but we still had a big issue.
Everything I found to try to help my daughter was for someone who didn't know how to read, but Fiona already did.
By an odd chance I saw a post from Louise talking about her Unlock Learning program for dyslexia and the ability to help at any age. I convinced my daughter to give it a try. We live in New Jersey, USA and Fiona loved Louise's proper English accent.
Since completing the program Fiona is finally able to comprehend what she is reading. Math is easier because she can copy down the homework assignments and read the problems. Her grades have improved and she doesn't complain about headaches from doing her homework.
Fiona's confidence with school has improved and I no longer need to nag her about school work: complete win-win".
Beth
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