CLINIC HELPS DEFEAT READING DISORDERS

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Don Hunt offers hope for people with learning difficulties: he and his students help them learn to read.

Hunt coordinates a reading clinic each summer at Southeast Missouri State University. This will be the 23rd year for the clinic.

During the clinic students from first-graders to adults are tested to determine why they have trouble reading. Then Hunt and his team of graduate students in special education develop a plan to help them improve their reading.

Hunt has been teaching reading for 35 years.

"I started in 1956 as an elementary teacher," he said. "We didn't have learning disabilities or remedial classes; we were mainstreaming and didn't know enough to know we were doing it.

"I got interested in reading when I started working on my masters," he said.

He spent 12 weeks in Montana on an Indian reservation helping Indians learn to read. "Little by little I got more into it," Hunt said.

The clinic was started to provide graduate students in the university's special-education program an opportunity to work with students. At the same time, students benefit from a chance to learn to read.

"The children come from everywhere," Hunt said. "I don't know how many of them find their way here. Some are recommended by teachers or physicians; parents somehow find out about the program."

Students are accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis.

"This summer I have six graduate students, so we'll take 12 children," Hunt said. Applications already have been cut off.

The students participate in about seven weeks of work. "The first week we have a parent conference to discuss the child's problem. We do preliminary tests and screening," Hunt said.

"Once the initial assessment is made, we work out an individual program. The students work one-on-one with graduate students."

Children attend classes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. "This way we don't take away their entire summer vacation," Hunt said.

At the end of the program, graduate students conduct post-testing and have a parent conference to talk about what worked. "Parents also receive a comprehensive diagnostic report, which details the tests and makes suggestions about instruction strategies," said Hunt.

"Our main objective is to develop an instructional program that works," Hunt said. "We'll try anything; we even have some books they can take home and read under water. We have dozens of different systems that can be used. The type of system depends on the problem.

"We try to make what we do considerably different than what is done in school. That hasn't worked for these kids. We have a lot of materials to choose from."

A resource library for the program contains $250,000 worth of materials.

"We've had some kids with very strange problems: visual-perception problems, hearing problems, dyslexia," he said.

A 12-year-old with a perception problem used a color transparency over pages of type, and his reading level improved dramatically. When he started, he scored at the fourth-grade level; by the time the summer program concluded, he scored at the seventh-grade level.

"Schools often try to repair the learning difficulty," Hunt said. "We go the other way: We teach to the child's learning strength; we use the circuitry that is open.

"We had a young man who started with us in the first grade. He has a visual-processing problem, dyslexia. He is now an entering (college) freshman and is quite successful. We are getting all his books on audio tape.

"Perceptual handicaps mean he is visually impaired and qualified for programs for the visually impaired," he explained.

Hunt said 15 youngsters in the Bootheel are using audio tapes and they are learning.

Young children make up the bulk of students in the program, but Hunt said college students often find their way to his office.

"I had one 27-year-old woman who owned her own business and wanted to go to school, but she didn't think she was bright enough," said Hunt. After testing it turned out she had an audio-sequencing problem.

"For example, she couldn't take phone numbers over the telephone," he said. Once the trouble was isolated, Hunt and his team developed a way for her to overcome the trouble. The woman is now enrolled in college.

"We also have a lot of student referrals from instructors here on campus," said Hunt. "Students aren't doing well in their classes; professors believe they have the talent but suspect some learning difficulty."

He said some college students he tests are reading on a first- or second-grade level. "When you have a student who is 25 and reads at a third-grade level, think of all the years of education he has missed," Hunt said.

The graduate students and Hunt make their test data and evaluations available to the children's schools. Federal law does not require school districts to accept outside evaluations, Hunt said. "But many schools do. In fact, if they like, we'll come into the school and explain exactly what we were doing. Sometimes we even loan materials.

"I guess our basic objective is success. A child who has a learning disability has experienced failure. By teaching learning strengths things he can do he will be successful.

"Often, by the time they are 10, these kids perceive themselves as dumb and feel they can't do things, and just give up. I hate to see that happen. Here there is no fear that they will be made to do something they can't do. They are successful."

Hunt said a 7-year-old girl showed up one day at his office after being in the program for a few weeks.

"I asked her what she learned today and she said, `I learned that it was alright to make mistakes.' I asked her why, and she said, `It's okay because you can fix them.' If all she learned was that it's okay to make mistakes, she had learned a lot," Hunt said.