Yet, the brain and the eyes CAN be trained! Let’s talk about this.

但是！大脑和眼睛都是可以训练的。咱们还得从头说起。

While this is relatively rare, some kids do have problems with reading at the decoding stage. First of all, what is decoding? It is basically putting the sound of the letters in a word together to read the word. Most native speaker kids from 4 to 7 (given some individual differences) can learn to read (in English) pretty easily with phonics. But, some kids do need help.

大多数孩子并没有这个问题。但是有些孩子会在阅读解码的环节就遇到障碍。首先，什么是“解码”呢？解码就是英语（或其他拼音文字）为母语的孩子把每个字母的音放在一起可以读出整个单词的能力。在考虑到个体差异的基础上，大多数英语为母语的孩子在四到七岁之间都能用自然拼读法，比较容易地学会阅读。但是，有些孩子却需要更多的帮助。

So, how to spot whether or not your child has trouble reading? First, make sure that your kids are taught phonics (or the OG method that the schools use). When kids do not have complete phonics knowledge, reading may appear to be hard, but that’s not a learning issue. For example, when they knew the sound of all the letters and learned to blend sounds in three letter words (consonant-vowel-consonant), they should have no difficulty reading a little book containing only three letter words. If they do at this stage or at more advanced stages where they’ve learned more complicated rules, we need to keep an eye on them.

那怎么知道自己的孩子是否有阅读的障碍呢？首先，要看看他们是不是完全掌握了自然拼读法。如果孩子还没有较全面地掌握自然拼读规则，看起来他们好像是阅读遇到了困难，但是其实这并不是阅读障碍，而是知识不全。比如，当孩子会融合单个字母发音并读出三个字母的单词的时候，阅读完全由三个字母的单词写成的小故事，应该不成问题。如果他们学会了规则也没法阅读，那就要多多注意到底哪个环节出了问题了。

Is it because they haven’t remembered the rules? If this is the case, they don’t have a decoding issue. They just need to see more examples of the target words, read more, and try to remember the rules.

是因为他们没记住规则吗？如果只是没记住规则，就不是解码障碍。他们只需要不断见到类似的例子，不断阅读，就会记住规则，阅读就会更顺畅。

If they have trouble with p and q, b and d, w and m, etc., they are totally normal and this tendency will go away as their brain matures. There’s nothing to worry about.

如果他们把p读成q，b读成d，w读成m，等等，这些对于初学的小孩子来说，都再正常不过。随着他们的大脑在几年之内飞速成熟，这个问题就会逐渐消失。所以并不需要担心。

However, if they have one or more of the following occurred to them consistantly when reading, they probably have a learning issue.

• They’ve learned most of the rules and remembered them, but they got confused within a word because they see letters in *random* orders; and each time the letters switch order randomly.
• They skip words, phrases, or even jump sentences.
• They see words in a sentence or even on a page in randomly different orders each time they read the same text.

NOT all of these kids are diagnosed with dyslexia. With the right help, NOT all of them even have a permanent condition, especially for young kids between 4 and 7 whose brain is still developing and has better plasticity.

但是，如果您的孩子出现了如下一种或者几种现象，并且基本上每次如此，他们可能就是遇到了阅读障碍。

• 已经较全面地学了拼读规则并且能记得住，但是读单词的时候就会糊涂，在眼里把字母移位了，并且每次字母看移位了的顺序都是随机的。
• 读书跳字、跳短语、甚至跳过句子，整个没看见。
• 在读句子的时候，单词的顺序会随机看乱，每次看乱的顺序都不一样。

不是所有这样阅读的孩子都会被确诊为读写困难症。如果得到了有效的帮助，这种状况并不会固化成为永久性的问题，尤其对于四到七岁之间的小孩子来说，因为他们的大脑在高速的发育中，可塑性很强。

If your child has this problem, there are activities that can help. (If the problem is so severe that every word that they see is “messed up” in random ways every time they read, please talk to a pediatrican to get professional help). But if your child can still read, just constantly gets confused, then trying at home some of the activities that professionals use may make a huge difference.

如果您的孩子有这个问题，有一系列的身脑连结练习可以帮到他们。（如果阅读障碍非常严重，每次看到的每个单词都字母排列错乱，根本无法阅读，请看儿医寻求更专业的帮助）。但是如果您的孩子仍然可以读出很多的单词，只是速读缓慢并且经常看糊涂了，那么在自己家里运用这些专业人员使用的练习可能会特别有帮助。

I will be posting some important activities one by one. Today we start with the first one, “Thumb Eight.” This is one of a series of research supported activities that help (1) the eyes to track better in a liniar fashion and (2) the left hemisphere of the brain to make stronger connections with the right hemisphere. When the eyes can track better liniarly from left to right, reading problems caused by seeing letters and words in randomly wrong places will gradually resolve. The key is to stick with these activities every day for a longer period of time (1-2 years).

我会在这个博客上一个一个地发表这些练习。今天我们开始第一个：大拇指画八。这些练习是有很多科研支持的，他们会帮助孩子提高眼睛从左到右线性追踪的能力，同时也会帮助左右脑更好的连结。当眼睛能更好地线性追踪，孩子看乱字母或单词顺序的状况就会不断减少，阅读精准度和流利度就会不断提高。关键是要持之以恒，一般要坚持一到两年。