Our Dyslexia Hong Kong Centre Believes

If the children do not learn the way we teach,
we teach the way they learn.

1. Why do children with dyslexia need training?

Dyslexia in Hong Kong is a common learning disorder which affects one in every ten school-aged children. According to empirical academic studies, those who have experienced learning obstacles were primarily due to a low working memory capacity which is mainly ancestral. Most of them show low performance in language learning including reading, writing, and spelling. Calculation related difficulties can also be seen in children with dyslexia in Hong Kong. Besides children with dyslexia, some children are diagnosed to be comorbid, which is a situation where two or more conditions co-exists. Co-occurrence of special learning disorders further adds to the academic obstacles of children. As a result, they needed support and to receive dyslexia training Hong Kong services to improve their condition.

Dyslexic children display difficulty in planning and organising. They struggle more in learning, as compared to same aged children and may often result in lower academic performance. This weakens their motivation and concentration towards learning. Therefore, it is common for mainstream schools and parents to seek dyslexia tutoring to help the child boost their academic performance. Although the dyslexia training in Hong Kong aimed to focus on supporting children with dyslexia, it helps children to catch up with their school curriculum through constant drilling such as providing worksheets and tutorial classes. Many parents would agree that dyslexia tutoring can help their child improve within a short period of time yet, the underlying learning needs of the child have not been met.

Although dyslexia is an inherited condition and could not be treated medically, Boaz believes that by providing dyslexic treatment in Hong Kong for children can help them grow and improve their ability to learn as well as their quality of life. We provide dyslexia training in Hong Kong according to each child’s individual needs and not dyslexia tutoring as we believe that it is important that the learning obstacles of the child are identified before any intervention can be implemented. Therefore, the dyslexia training in Hong Kong that we provide is tailor-made for each child to ensure that they can attain learning strategies, self-advocacy skills and motivation to become an independent learner. Drilling method utilised by dyslexia tutoring in Hong Kong may be effective to some students yet, the child’s understanding of the concept and learning needs are overlooked.

We have developed our own dyslexia training Hong Kong curriculum which has proved to be effective in helping children with dyslexia to understand learning concepts. We emphasise the importance of dyslexia training in Hong Kong. rather than dyslexia tutoring, as we believe that children learn in different ways and if the children do not learn the way we teach, we teach the way they learn. By equipping them with the learning skills, we hope that our students could thrive and become independent learners.

2. Are there any dyslexic treatments/ solutions in Hong Kong?

According to research conducted by the Hong Kong Specific Learning Difficulties research team, the prevalence rate of children with dyslexia in Hong Kong is approximately 9.7% to 12.6%. The International Dyslexia Association has defined dyslexia as a specific disability that is neurobiological in origin. In other words, dyslexia is a reading disorder that is genetically inherited and currently, there is no medical treatment to cure this condition.

In Hong Kong, dyslexic treatment is supported in schools by SEN teachers, outsource qualified professionals such as instructors and educational psychologists, and other non-profit organisations. Dyslexic treatments in Hong Kong often include providing intensive learning support or additional dyslexia tutoring classes to help children with learning disorders to build up their literacy skills. However, the children may continue to struggle in learning in spite of undertaking dyslexia tutoring as their underlying learning needs have not been resolved.

Despite the fact that dyslexia is an inherited condition and could not be treated medically, Boaz believes that children with such disorders can improve through dyslexic treatment in Hong Kong. Therefore, we have developed a dyslexic treatment Hong Kong curriculum that adapted the Davis dyslexia program and Orton-Gillingham Approach (OG Approach) and could cater for dyslexic children’s learning. Our tailor-made dyslexia training Hong Kong program differs from mainstream dyslexia tutoring centres, as our dyslexia training Hong Kong program focuses on the whole-person development rather than satisfying the needs of homework and exams. Our dyslexia Hong Kong centre aims to equip our students to become independent learners by teaching them different learning strategies and guide them to apply the skills to their own learning.

The strategies developed in our dyslexia training Hong Kong program combines three strategies – visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Visual cue is one of the elements we use in our dyslexia training with Hong Kong children. For example, it is common in dyslexic children that they display mirroring letters such as ‘b’ and ‘d’. Instead of repetitive learning in dyslexia tutoring to differentiate the letters, we turn these letters into pictures or use hand gestures to help raise their awareness of the differences between mirroring letters. Apart from letter learning, we also apply visualisation strategies in more complex and concepts for children with dyslexia in Hong Kong to learn. For example, when we teach the concept of subject and object pronouns, students often have difficulty differentiating these two types of pronouns. Instead of learning the concept by rote like in dyslexia tutoring, we first guide them to understand the relationship of the two types of pronoun with the verb. Then, we use picture cues to help represent the position of these two types of pronoun in relation to the verb. Apart from visual cues, we also encourage our children to learn through hands-on activities and games. We believe that students learn better when they are able to experience during dyslexic treatment in Hong Kong. We don’t drill our students but rather we adopt methods that are more favourable to them, such as board games, drawing and even with clay. The key of our dyslexia training Hong Kong curriculum is that whenever our children learn, they must be presented with an overview of the topic they are going to learn. In this way, the children can keep track of their own learning and identify what they can or cannot do.

Last but not least, special educational needs vary among different children and so, our dyslexic treatment in Hong Kong not only trains children’s learning ability but also, their social skills, executive functioning skills, and organisational skills, etc. We believe that through systematic dyslexia training in Hong Kong, all kids could thrive and become independent learners.

3. Is the Boaz curriculum only suitable for children with dyslexia in Hong Kong?

The curriculum developed by Boaz was initially targeted to help children with dyslexia in Hong Kong since our founder, Ms. Twiggy Chan, was also a dyslexic learner and has struggled in learning since a young age. She observed that the needs of the children with dyslexia in Hong Kong are neglected and support for them was limited. Therefore, we developed our own dyslexic treatment in Hong Kong with different training methods to help improve the learning of dyslexic children.

We have served different groups across the years both privately and publicly. Our targeted clients are not just students but also teachers and parents. Not only those children with dyslexia can improve with dyslexia training in Hong Kong, but children with other special learning disorders such as ASD, ADHD and speech impairment also proved that they can benefit from the training we provide. In recent years, we have observed that apart from children with dyslexia in Hong Kong, there is an increasing need for dyslexia training for children living overseas. Our dyslexia training program started out in Hong Kong yet, we are currently extending our dyslexic treatment for children outside Hong Kong studying overseas such as Canada and Macau. We teach our students the learning strategies and help them to break down concepts into smaller achievable steps and by acquiring these methods, the child can then apply the skills to their own learning despite that their school curriculum is different from the one in Hong Kong.

Our dyslexia training in Hong Kong is mostly delivered face-to-face, however, we currently offer virtual classes in order to cater the needs of children overseas. Our virtual classes are interactive and we would include games and activities to help children engage in our dyslexia training. When students come across topics or concepts in school that they struggle with, we can help them identify their learning needs and teach them the skills to help them apply the knowledge on their own.

We are doing our best to serve children with different learning needs from different backgrounds and by equipping them with the necessary skills, we hope to enable them to achieve higher education and reach their desirable goals in life.