CASE STUDIES

Ryan’s Story

14 year old Ryan came from a broken home and was struggling with his reading at school. He was being ridiculed by his classmates and his father realised that Ryan needed some kind of miracle and went in search of answers. He felt that the school system had let his son down and that the unfortunate family circumstances had possibly added to Ryan’s reading problems.

He knew that he had to help his son and that he had to act fast or Ryan’s opportunity to learn to read confidently might be lost forever. He heard about the Readwell system and Catherine from a workmate and immediately booked him in for lessons.

When Catherine first tested Ryan she found that his auditory memory was severely impaired. His self- esteem was poor and Catherine said, he became quite frustrated during the assessment process. His reading age was determined to be 7.09 years!

After only four weeks his reading age had improved by 13 months.

This improvement continued over the next few months and soon he was reading competently and in line with his age. The same classmates who had made fun of him were now encouraging him and were amazed at his improvement.

Readwell also works with adults

Kay’s Story

An adult client of Readwell NSW had struggled with reading for years after having left school at age fifteen unable to read. She told Catherine that she would break out in a cold sweat whenever she went out for dinner with friends. She was always fearful that someone would find out her secret, something she had tried to hide for years.

When handed the menu in a restaurant, she would pretend to read it carefully then ask her friends what they had decided on. She would then say “I think I’ll have the chicken, it does sound nice.” She hoped that she would like what her friend had ordered.

Other times she would say that she had left her glasses at home and ask the teller in the bank to fill out a form for her. She had a whole range of strategies that she employed over the years.

After a few lessons with Catherine she had made incredible progress. At the end of the course she broke down in tears saying that Readwell had given her back her confidence and that she was looking forward to reading to her Grandchildren.