HE squints as he con­centrates on ­making sense of the indistinct ‘‘goggas’’ swarming over the page in front of him.

‘‘Then the m . . . man as . . . asked,’’ the blushing boy ­stutters nervously as the class waits for him to finish reading.

Eleven-year-old ­Herman Cilliers* of Bellville, Cape Town, feels stupid and a failure in his Grade 5 class.

Fast forward to October last year and life changes completely for Herman when someone comes to his rescue and shows him just how talented he is.

The Herman we meet today at René Engelbrecht’s home in Durbanville is a transformed child. With her he has dis­covered his reading problem was a sign of a special giftedness – and that he belongs in the company of greats such as Albert Einstein, Richard Branson, Leonardo da Vinci and Agatha Christie. They suffered from dyslexia but that didn’t stop them from rising above their peers.

Now Herman shines in ­music, maths and sport and is quickly catching up with his friends as far as reading is concerned – all thanks to research René has done and put into practice for his benefit and that of many other learners.

EVEN today many people think those with dyslexia, who can’t read or spell properly or distinguish between letters, numbers and symbols, are handicapped or just plain stupid.

René (59), an Afrikaans teacher most of her working life, had ­also almost given up hope for such people nine years ago. She was doing an advanced diploma in education for learners with ­special needs at Unisa and was planning to do remedial work.

‘‘I did my practical at a nearby school but the techniques I’d learnt on the course produced almost no results,’’ she says.

One day she came across yet another boy who tensed up completely when he had to read. He could easily read complicated­ words such as ‘‘squirrel’’ but was stumped by simple words such as ‘‘the’’ and ‘‘from’’ with which he couldn’t associate physical images.

That afternoon a despondent René began to do research on the internet and came across the work of Ron Davis of California. At school he also felt stupid, shy, lonely and nervous like her pupils yet he managed to become a mechanical engineer and amateur sculptor.

But he still felt inferior ­because he battled to read and write – until he discovered the cause. He says people like him, Herman and Einstein see the world three-dimensionally and can’t make head or tail of flat writing on a page.

‘‘They don’t see from one ­orientation point and don’t recognise the one-dimensional words as meaningful units. They become confused and so nothing in front of them is comprehensible,’’ René says.

The surprise discovery was that these people’s disability was in fact a special gift.

Ron used visualisation to reorient himself so he could read from a fixed point to prevent the words swimming all over the page. In 1980, at the age of 38, he read a book from cover to cover for the first time.

Triumphantly he could ­declare to the world dyslexia wasn’t an illness or the result of brain damage. He explained dyslexia sufferers think mainly in images instead of words and battle to read symbols such as letters or numbers.

‘‘I was so excited about it all,’’ René says. ‘‘I immediately ordered his book, The Gift of Dyslexia.

‘‘In the book he describes techniques that have been used since 1982 by the Davis Dyslexia Correction Centre in California and which are now used worldwide. It opened a whole new world to me.’’

One day the mother of a girl who had just scraped through Grade 3 asked René for help after a year’s conventional remedial work had not improved things for her daughter.

‘‘I agreed to help at no fee if the girl would be my guinea pig for Davis’ techniques,’’ René says.

At the end of that year the girl achieved a 71 per cent pass.

The mom of another learner who had benefitted from the techniques wrote a letter to René: ‘‘Thank you very much. My son had always refused to read. Now he can’t visit the library often enough.’’

René was now convinced Davis’ techniques worked. His centre had a success rate of 97 per cent but although the techniques were used worldwide no one had scientifically studied and formally documented them. There and then she decided she would dedicate her master’s degree in psychology to this cause.

She started working with 20 Afrikaans learners from Grade 5 to Grade 7 at a school for children with special edu­cational needs. The learners’ reading and spelling abilities were measured and their parents and educators had to complete psychological questionnaires on them.

Ten learners formed the control group. The rest – the experimental group – each took part in seven weekly ­sessions. The sessions kicked off with ­visualisation exercises to teach the children to look at writing from one focal point and register the spelling in their heads.

One of the Davis techniques René found effective was ­getting the children to make three-dimensional letters out of clay.

One of her learners, Devon Franks (12), shows us how he moulds a letter ‘‘p’’. After just four lessons he’d learnt the whole alphabet this way.

René also uses the flash-card method of American educational psychologist Dr Linda Silverman. She holds a flash card with the word ‘‘winding’’ on it just above Devon’s eye level and says, ‘‘Photograph the word with your eyes.’’ Then she removes the card. Devon closes his eyes and spells it from back to front and then in the normal way. He speaks the word and writes it and there you have it – Devon can now spell and read the word.

The experimental group also received homework; their parents had to help them read only one line at a time by covering the rest to prevent confusion.

At the end of the experiment the children who had received lessons and exercises had to repeat the earlier reading and spelling tests and once again psychological questionaires were filled out.

René says there were significant improvements in their reading and spelling and also in their psychological functioning.

‘‘Twelve weeks later they were tested again and all had gone from strength to strength, even though 70 per cent hadn’t stuck to the programme.’’

THE question many parents ask is when and how you can tell if your child is dyslexic.

René prefers to call it ‘‘reading and/or writing disorder’’.

It occurs in varying degrees, from people battling so much to read they give up before they get beyond the first page to a complete inability to read or spell.

‘‘From as early as five years of age children are made aware of sounds, letters and words to make it easier for them to learn to read when they get to Grade 1,’’ René says.

‘‘By Grade 2 the parent and especially the educator will be able to tell if a child is having trouble.

The sooner you do something about it the ­easier it is to solve the ­problem.

‘‘Unisa ­researchers have found just 39 per cent of South African Grade R learners have literacy skills that meet school readiness criteria,’’ René says. ‘‘In addition only 30 per cent of Grade 9 learners’ skills are adequate to ensure success in Grade 12.

‘‘Any degree of reading disability is a serious problem. In children it can lead to developmental problems such as a poor self-image and anxiety and mood and behavioural problems that often lead to drug abuse among other things.

‘‘Adolescents with a reading disability have a 40 per cent chance of not completing school. Then they enter the adult world where they suffer another blow when they don’t make the grade in their work and their self-image suffers. This can have a negative effect on their behaviour.’’

René’s work as an educator is now more rewarding because she can see how Davis’ techniques have opened a window of opportunity to children who’d given up hope.

* Not his real name

For more info visit www.rene-engelbrecht.co.za.