The Neurological Impress Method

The Neurological Impress Method

Background – The Neurological Impress Method (NIM) was first used by Dr. R.G. Heckelman in an experiment in the early 1960s. It is what is now called an assisted reading strategy. Thirty years of studies have shown that NIM is a very effective method of remedial reading instruction for many students, whether they are beginning readers or struggling readers at any grade level. According to Heckelman, progress can be very rapid. Some children advance as much as a grade level after just 2 hours of instruction. And many students are able to read on grade level after using the method for 8 to 12 hours.
NIM does not work with all children. You should know after 4-hours whether your child is responding well to NIM, or another method needs to be tried. Children with serious language or neurological impairments may require additional help before starting to use NIM.

What NIM Can Do

• Give parents an easy way to improve their children's reading.
• Deliver rapid progress in a limited amount of time.
• Offer non-stressful reading instruction.
• Provide a multi-sensory approach to reading.
• Increase the reader's attention span.
• Give exposure to a large number of words including difficult words in each reading session.
• Provide a model of correct reading, and eliminate many poor reading habits.

Using the Neurological Impress Method

How to Start NIM - Before you begin the first session, explain to your child that you are more concerned with the style of his or her reading than the accuracy. Point out also that will never ask questions about what you have read. And you must never correct or criticize the child's reading during or after a NIM session.
Time - NIM reading sessions should be held on consecutive days for 10 to 15 minutes. Ten minutes is often sufficient for young children and very poor readers. NIM should be used for a total period of 8 to 12 hours. Once children are reading at the level where they are expected to read, very little improvement will take place even with additional NIM sessions.
Material - Start with material that is very easy for your child to handle. This could be first or second grade material even for a child in eighth grade. You don't want, however, to spend too much time on material that is at the lower level of the child's reading ability. For example, Heckelman advises that an eighth grader of average intelligence starting at the first or second grade reading level should be in third grade material by the end of 2 hours and in fifth or sixth grade material after 6 hours, and possibly in seventh or eighth grade material after 12 hours of instruction. If your child's reading problems are not severe, you should try to move rapidly to using material that is on his or her grade level. This will expose your child to more difficult words. Teachers and librarians can assist you in determining the reading level of different materials.

How to use the NIM method

Procedure - To obtain the best results, it is extremely important that you follow the NIM procedure exactly:

1. Sit your child slightly in front of you so that your voice will be close to his or her right ear.
2. Hold the reading material jointly with your child.
3. Vary the reading material to keep your child's interest. Use newspapers, magazines, and works of fiction and nonfiction.
4. Read the material out loud with your child. At first, you should read a little louder and slightly faster. If your child complains that he or she cannot keep up with you, urge the child to continue and to forget about any mistakes. It may, however, be necessary for you to slow down to a rate that is more comfortable for your child or to repeat sentences and paragraphs several times.
5. In the first few sessions, you should reread the initial lines or paragraphs several times until your child is reading in a normal fluid fashion. Only 2 to 3 minutes of repetition should be sufficient for most students to feel comfortable with NIM. If your child reads well right away, do not reread the material.
6. Speed up your reading rate for a few minutes in each session to pull your child to a higher reading rate.
7. As you read, run your finger under a word as it is spoken. It is quite important that these actions be simultaneous and that your finger move in a smooth fashion. Good readers often look ahead of what they are reading aloud and must be especially careful that their fingers are under the words that are being read aloud. At the end of a line, you must move your finger back swiftly to the beginning of the new line just like a typewriter carriage does at the end of a line.
8. Your child can take over the finger movement or alternate this task with you after several sessions, if desired. Should your child have difficulty in moving his or her finger to accompany the words, place your hand on the child's finger and guide it until a smooth movement is achieved.
9. Read as many pages as you can in a session while using the rate and intonation of a fluent reader. As your child begins to master the material and gain confidence, you can read with a softer voice or lag slightly behind the child. Should your child falter, start immediately to read louder and faster

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Improving Reading Rates through Timed Reading

One of the theories underlying timed reading (TR; also known as paced reading and accelerated
reading)—where readers read under some degree of time pressure—is based on research
concerning working memory (short-term memory). Memory is usually divided into long-term
memory and working memory. The former stores our permanent records of experience while the
latter contains all the information that is ready for processing operations (Baddeley, 2006, 2007).
In reading theory, comprehension is mediated through processes in working memory (cf.,
Daneman and Merikle, 1996 for a comprehensive review; Smith, 2004). In lower-level
processing, working memory supports orthographic, phonological and morphological processing
for word recognition, and then assembles the information at the word and clause level to
construct meaning from the text. Working memory is generally described as a limited-capacity
system, which means that it has limited storage and limited ability to perform multiple processes
simultaneously (Baddeley, 2006, 2007). Under such circumstances, working memory can
maintain information actively for only a very brief period of time (Kintsch, Patel and Ericsson,
1999). If one expends too much attention on lower-level processing (e.g., word decoding), then
less attention will be available for higher-level processing (e.g., making inferences, drawing on
background or world knowledge). This may result in poor comprehension (LaBerge and Samuels,
1974; Perfetti, 1985; Samuels, 1994). 

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The teaching of phonics to help students read l uently and accurately

Background
Students in the school have always been found unable to pronounce words in sentences correctly
when answering teachers’ questions.  In response to this concern, enthusiastic teachers initiated an oral
programme requiring students to read storybooks aloud in order to provide more opportunities for them
to practise pronunciation and read aloud.  However, students tended to be passive in the programme as
they were unsure of the pronunciation of some words in the stories and lacked confidence in reading
the text aloud.  Being aware of the difficulties of the students, this group of secondary school teachers
would like to develop a phonics package which will equip students with the phonics skills necessary
to enable students to read and decode unfamiliar words by sounding them out.  In this way, students
will be more confident in reading words aloud at sentence level with the help of the phonics skills they
have acquired.

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A holistic approach to arousing students’ interest in reading: Application of “Reading Circles”

Background
Teachers in the school found that it was very difficult to promote reading.  The passages in the textbook
were the major source of reading materials.  Students were neither motivated to read nor could their
reading skills be developed.
Strategy used
To address these issues, Reading Circles were used to
1.  encourage students to read more extensively, short stories in particular
2.  help students develop a sense of responsibility for their own learning through assigning different

roles to them (Discussion Leader, Summariser, Word Master and Passage Person)
3.  develop students’ ability to conduct simple discussion tasks about the characters and the plot of
short stories.
It was hoped that by stretching students’ interest in reading, enriching their vocabulary and developing
their integrative language skills, a better foundation could be built at an early stage to prepare them for
both the Core and Elective Parts of the New Senior Secondary (NSS) curriculum.


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Using drama to increase learning motivation and cater for learner diversity

Background
Students learn best when they have the incentive and motivation for learning.  Whitear (1998) claims
that drama “is a refreshing and energising approach to language learning for both students and
teachers” (p.36).  Both Chauhan (2004) and Mordecai (1985) concur that drama provides a real context
for using the language for communication which stimulates motivation.  Likewise, Stern (1980) believes
that drama heightens students’ self-esteem and lowers their rejection in second language learning.  Wan
Yee Sam (1990) adds that drama helps minimise the problem of mixed ability.  More able students can
engage in roles requiring more oral communication whereas less able students can be involved more
in paralinguistic communication i.e. body language.  In short, drama provides an optimal climate for
language learning.

In view of this, drama seems to be a useful means to encourage students of Tsuen Wan Chiu Chow
Public School (TWCC) to learn English.  The students are from various cultural and sociological
backgrounds, including new arrivals from the mainland and non Chinese-speaking (NCS) children. 
Many of them have little motivation to learn English.  Their great differences in English competence
and learning styles make teaching a demanding job.  Coincidently, drama was a new genre to be
introduced in the P4 GE programme.  Realising the benefits of drama in language learning, teachers
thought they could take this opportunity to infuse drama into the reading lessons to enhance students’
learning motivation as well as cater for learning diversity.  At the same time, drama would also serve
other purposes such as creating a platform for students to practise their speaking skills, expanding their
vocabulary, developing their writing skills, and aligning classroom teaching with school event.


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Improving reading through explicit teaching of basic sight words

 Recently, there has been a strong emphasis placed on reading in the curriculum reform.  Reading to
Learn is one of the key tasks in helping students become independent learners.  Because words are the
building blocks for reading comprehension, a large vocabulary opens students up to a wider range of
reading materials.  To read fluently with understanding, readers need to recognise about 95 percent of
the words in a text (Adams, 1990).
Students who know words by sight are able to read them aloud automatically.  The ability to recognise
a large number of words instantly and automatically enables students to read fluently and to focus their

attention on making sense of the passage improving their comprehension and understanding.  This
is especially the case for early readers.  Readers have a limited amount of attention available while
reading (Adams, 1990; Samuels, 2004; Stanovich, 1980).  As they need to focus much of their attention
on word recognition, little attention is left for comprehension.  One hundred words account for almost
half of all the words we read and write (Fry, Fountoukidis, & Polk, 1985).  The ten words - the, of, and,
a, to, in, is, you, that and it account for about 25 percent of all the words in school texts.  Therefore
high frequency words are a vital part of students’ sight vocabulary.  However, many students, especially
struggling readers, have difficulties in recognising basic sight words because these words tend to be
abstract words.  Also many of the high frequency words share the same letters, for example, on/no, was/
saw and of/for.  Students often confuse these words.  Explicit teaching and many repetitions of the basic
sight words may be necessary for them to become part of students’ sight vocabulary in order to enhance
their reading fluency and comprehension.
Although the basic sight words occur frequently in texts, some students cannot recognise them
automatically and accurately.  Moreover, some teachers tend to think it more worthwhile to teach
content words and so they spend more time teaching them.  They assume that students know the basic
sight words well due to their frequent occurrence in texts.  Students need to acquire good vocabulary
so that they can read.  Teachers from Cheung Chau Sacred Heart School and HKFEW Wong Cho Bau
School wanted to enhance students’ reading ability by enlarging their vocabulary.  High frequency
words were taught with the aim of making these words sight vocabulary so as to enable students to read
fluently with comprehension and meaning.
Reading fluency and reading comprehension are highly correlated.  According to the National Reading
Panel (2000), fluency is reading text with speed, accuracy, and expression.  In this study, we focussed
only on accuracy and automaticity in reading, whereas prosody, which is also an important component
in reading fluency, was not included.  To further develop students’ reading fluency, teachers may
provide more opportunities for students to read aloud.  Examples include repeated reading practice,
paired reading and rereading, reader’s theatre and choral reading.

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reading skill

Reading Comprehension

1.  Have word walls; keep them fresh and attractive
2.  Give a preview of the reading material
3.  Call attention to chapter headings and sub-headings
4.  Call attention to end-of-chapter questions
5.  Ask for summaries (gateway skill)
6.  Pronounce new vocabulary

7.  Have students pronounce new vocabulary
8.  Practice skimming
9.  Practice scanning
10. Practice close reading and re-reading
11. Use sustained silent reading
12. Read aloud
13. Encourage making connections between self and text
14. Summon prior knowledge
15. Use graphic organizers
16. Encourage students to generate their own graphic organizers
17. Teach word components
18. Use annotations
19. Encourage the habit of noticing text patterns
20. Use supportive visuals on the Internet
21. Have a “readable” room, with helpful words and visuals
22.  Use writing to support reading; reading to support writing
23. Provide study guides
24. Provide alternate readings and simplified versions to scaffold
25. Encourage the creation of visuals (“draw what you’ve read”)
26. Reinforce subject-to-subject connections in vocabulary
27. Give students opportunities to talk about what they’ve read
28. Provide various genres
29. Encourage paraphrase
30. Encourage integration of text with graphs, charts, tables
31. Encourage reading in phrases and groups, not single words
32. Read key parts first
33. Encourage awareness of strategies
34. Make students aware of personal reading needs
35. Develop reading habits
36. Ritualize the reading process
37. Build awareness of trouble spots
38. Teach how the text is organized
39. Encourage self-monitoring for comprehension
40. Make the abstract more concrete for students
41. Encourage readers to anticipate
42. Encourage note-taking on readings
43. Set time in class to develop a weekly reading budget
44. Hold students accountable for reading
45. Give alternative assessments
46. Teach that every sentence delivers new information or re-caps
47.  Provide large print and other more reader-friendly presentations
48. Provide Internet resources to supply background information
49. Give the necessary background information
50. Teach vocabulary implicitly and explicitly
51. Make connections between English and the Latin-based languages
(Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese)
52.  Encourage students to keep personal reading journals
53. Teach that words have multiple meanings, but that their meanings are
usually related
54. Teach that not all test is to be read at the same pace
55.  Assign meaning-making activities following reading
56.  Encourage visualization (mental movies)
57.  Teach students to view reading from the writer’s perspective
58. Teach students to group information into larger and larger groups
59. Use the Golden Oldies: SQ3R and KWL
60. Encourage outlining
61. Build a classroom library consisting of multileveled, diverse reading
materials to scaffold the textbook and provide background knowledge
62. Use your classroom website as an online classroom library
63. Join your professional organization and keep informed about literacy
development 
64. If you teach English, supplement fiction with non-fiction; if you teach
a subject other than English, supplement informational text with
literature
65. Familiarize yourself with the reading that your students are doing in
other subject areas so that you can make connections
66. Provide multiple exposures to new vocabulary
67. Capitalize on the relationship between reading, writing, listening, and
speaking
68. Understand that comprehension is the active process of extracting
meaning from text, not just word-calling (decoding)
69. Reveal your own thinking as a reader
70. Encourage students to say “This reminds me of…” as they read
71. Encourage students to look for repetition in text because repetition
signals main ideas
72. Encourage students to think of reading as a before, during, and after
process
73. Build on strengths—your own and that of your students
74. Consider offering students choices in reading material
75. Be enthusiastic about school-wide reading initiatives
76. Set forth a purpose for reading (What am I looking for?)
77. Increase, support, and value time-on-text  in class
78. Understand that reading comprehension is the result of the integration
of prior knowledge with new knowledge offered in text
79. Offer crossword puzzles that use subject area terminology 
80. Set up cooperative learning groups to work through challenging text
81. Understand that sentence length affects readability
82. Understand that pre-Twentieth Century language is probably very
challenging for most students. Provide scaffolding.
83. Understand that deficient readers tend to misread the middle of words,
resulting in their thinking that words with similar beginnings and
endings are the same. 
84.  When introducing a new word, use it to teach a cluster of words that
would be used along with it
85. Teach the many different forms (morphology)  a new word
86. Use your library-media specialist as a resource to help you locate
various versions of your targeted information
87. Use your reading specialist and special education teachers to help you
understand more about your text and your students’ reading strengths
and needs
88. Help students pinpoint the place in the text in which their
comprehension broke down
89. Understand that improvement in reading comprehension will result
from a combination of practice, explicit instruction, and building of
background knowledge
90. Treat reading for what it is: a complex mental, metacognitive, and
social activity
91. Understand that improvement in reading comprehension results from
instruction that is embedded in authentic reading tasks, rather than
isolated drill and practice in text that is unrelated to what the student
needs to know
92. Understand that the language used in classrooms may differ markedly
from a student’s home and street language
93.  Act on the fact that your students’ ability to comprehend text in your
subject area is unlikely to improve without your intervention
94. If your course ends in a standardized test, familiarize your students
with the appearance, structure, phraseology, and vocabulary of that
test
95. Help students connect pronouns to their referents, esp. it, that, which,
they
96. Define what you think may be new words as you speak
97. Practice “gradual release of responsibility” to make students
independent readers
98. Build awareness that successful readers are problem-solvers who give
themselves the environment and support systems that they need to
make meaning from text: Reading comprehension results from
intentional behaviors, not luck.

99. Assume that success is possible!!

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