Mary and The Rainbow Bird | Picture Book
Meet the Golden Hummingbird, a visitor from a place where our need to learn differently is fully met and understood. Mary, after struggling at school, learns a unique way to read. Pin Badges, Cards, and Posters of this wonderful creature are now available from my Etsy Shop.
Special thanks to Flo Woolgar Barrington at IG: @flowoolgarbarrington
Mary-Lou's Journey
How Phonic Rainbow™ Began
Mary-Lou once worked as an International Operatic Soprano Soloist (working for Glyndebourne, Welsh National Opera and the like), learning roles in languages that spanned French, Czech, Italian, German, Latin, Russian, as well as English. For someone with Developmental Dyslexia, this posed a problem. But Mary-Lou found a way and in fact, a French lady who saw her sing the role of Melisande in Pelléas and Melisande at Glyndebourne thought she was a native speaker!
In later years, when sitting with her daughter learning Systematic Synthetic Phonics, she realised there was a chasm between how she had taught herself to encode, decode, and sound with this approach. Mary-Lou became curious to the point where she developed a comprehensive system which links colour to the vowel phonemes (or components) in English, the consonants staying as they are. This method relates to the way in which, as a classical singer, Mary-Lou was taught to ‘hear’ the constituent parts of words in different ways to the vowel parts.
This, in turn, helped Mary-Lou to develop an Inner Ear. To her delight, she realised that she could represent each of the 21 vowel sounds (diphthongs as well) with only 10 colours. It fitted together like a jigsaw and her excitement to share this approach grew. Phonic Rainbow™ was born and Mary-Lou was keen to test whether her approach really worked.
She carried out some research with the Dyslexia Research Trust (headed by Professor John Stein, a Neurologist at Oxford University) where they had some astonishing results. They visited schools to assess reading and spelling abilities before and after the intervention. To their astonishment, one girl’s reading age had improved by 12 months in the space of 3 months (for example). The teachers and parents were delighted as were the students.
There were huge qualitative benefits as well. Mary-Lou's own problems with anxiety during her time at school were related to feelings of inadequacy and feeling like things just didn't make any sense. There were so many ideas Mary-Lou wanted to express but the difficulty in putting them in writing led to feelings of isolation and frustration. It was wonderful to see how Phonic Rainbow™ students' confidence expanded during the course of the Programme. Once could argue that the difference this approach has already made to a number of children is beyond measure. Some of Mary-Lou's students have now gone on to University, confident in their skills and their unique voice in the world.
It might be that you have already been on a journey, either as a student or as a carer or parent of someone who is struggling. Please know that Mary-Lou has an understanding from lived experience how hard it can be to tussle with reading and spelling. Trust that she has witnessed, time and again, how Phonic Rainbow™ has changed people's lives for the better. Mary-Lou believes that no two students are the same; that we need to offer children an alternative way to process, hear, spell, and speak sounds. Reading and spelling CAN be a rewarding experience and should not be one that causes distress and a sense of failure.
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