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Mark is a seventeen-year-old high school senior who wants to drop out of school. Despite his excellent decoding skills and reading ability which is well above grade level, he is failing all of his classes. Studying for hours—reading the same material numerous times—he still failed his tests. He went to a "special reading class," which offered no help because he could already "read" accurately. His parents assume that Mark lacks motivation and that he will succeed if he "just tries harder." Mark, discouraged and frustrated by his lack of achievement, concludes, " I study hard and I still fail; ...so I just give up." Mark is among the many individuals who do not generate accurate imagery. Their decoding and spelling skills can be excellent. However, because they cannot generate a mental representation for gestalts of language, they connect to "parts" rather than "wholes." They experience difficulty remembering or understanding what they read or hear. Students such as Mark are often misdiagnosed as having motivation or attention issues. Mark can be helped. By teaching him how to generate images from what he hears and reads his comprehension can be substantially improved. By using expressive/receptive language to provide needed structure, then creating images related to just a single word; then a phrase; then a sentence; and finally paragraphs and essays, his ability to create images and accurately interpret what is read will become more automatic and effective.
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