Virginie's Story
As told by her mother, Veronique
My
daughter, Virginie, (nine-years-old) started with the program in July 2004 as
she had just turned eight. Virginie is not ADD nor AD/HD, nor dyslexic, but she
has been experiencing learning difficulties at school since the first grade,
not being able to represent shapes and forms in her head before drawing them,
or simply writing her name in "mirror-writing", or not being able to make
connections easily and to apply without hesitation what is taught or what is
explained to her. Although available only in the USA, and we live in Montreal,
Canada, we decided to try out the DORE approach.
I would say that by November 2004, the best obvious change was her personality,
her self-esteem used to be so low, but now she is much more in control of her
emotions and of her whole self, amazing! She functions much better! Her reading
was never bad but now it flows much more than before! It is the reading
comprehension which used to be a problem, and that is improving. Virginie is
now more apt to connect what she reads with what it means. Now, she can make
friends more easily, even in contexts other than the school environment, like
summer camps this year!
We received my daughter's final marks for the school year, which finished in
June 2005. She improved her marks in all fields, remarkable! Her nightmares
like math and arithmetic and geometry and anything, which is abstract, are no
longer nightmares in the sense that now, her results are average and no longer
below average. And now we are surprised to find her reading a book in the
evening before going to bed and telling us: "Wait, I have to finish reading my
page!!!" We seldom miss one session of exercises, we do them diligently in the
mornings and evenings, and I encourage her when it is an exercise that she
feels is difficult.
Those improvements are probably a combination of her becoming more mature and of
the exercises that stimulate whatever needs to be stimulated. In general, I
have only positive feedback to tell, that is for sure!! I recommend it, it
works; it is worth the money invested.