Little Girl Not Stupid

Candy Chow Mo Ching (Hong Kong, China)
Jan. 2013

Candy Chow

I was at Macau to teach many Brain Gym® courses for parents and children, specifically for students in kindergarten, early primary and their parents. I remember a little girl who was studying in K2. She came with her mother. That day was the first day of class, and one of the things the children were asked to do was to write their own names. I can recall vividly that her name was Melody, and what appeared before my eyes was a string of mirror writing. It is not uncommon to see a reversed alphabet at this learning stage, but it is quite rare for the whole English word be written in reverse. This is of course because there was a difference between her visual input and handwriting output.

Or perhaps the child was dyslexic; early symptoms usually emerge at kindergarten age, such as slower identification and writing of words, dislike of wordy books, dislike of writing, and confusion of strokes and direction when writing. Some children may also have a delay in speech development.

Anyhow, I picked out an activity out of the 26 activities of Brain Gym® , known as “Lazy 8s.” Its “∞” or infinity symbol can integrate the horizon and peripheral vision of the left and right eyes, so that the reader can smoothly cross the body and visual midline, as well as relax the tenseness in the eyes, neck and shoulders when one is focusing. It also improves depth perception, and helps the balance, concentration and coordination between vision and handwriting.

After the first lesson, I advised the mother that every day before sending her daughter to school, she should do the PACE movements with her daughter, and then do the Lazy 8 activity, drawing many “∞” of different sizes continuously for about half a minute. First, she should use her left hand, and then use her right hand to repeat the above action for half a minute, and finally use both hands to repeat the above action for half a minute. The entire training process would only take five minutes. I advised her to PACE and Lazy 8 activities especially before doing writing assignments. She just needed to do the hook-ups before bed.

After a week, the mother returned with her daughter to class. She looked happy and she hurried to share with me her daughter’s improved performance. I thought, there was such a noticeable effect after only a week; it was really kind of miraculous! I told the mother: this is only the beginning; the brain needs to exercise and its visual system needs more time to integrate, so she must keep practicing during this stage in order to consolidate the system.

Excerpted from Brain Gym® Teachers’ Edition (1994 edition), P. 5. For new edition, please click here.

The movement results in the elimination of reversals and transpositions in reading and writing. Dr. Dennison adapted the Lazy 8 as part of his vision-training work in 1974 by having students use their large muscles to draw Lazy 8s on the chalkboard, the eyes following the hand movement. His students showed immediate improvement in the ability to discriminate symbols and to know their left from their right sides.