How is this program different from others?
Many of the families who come to me have already spent years in phonics-based programs like Orton-Gillingham — often the most common approach used in schools and private tutoring for dyslexia. For some kids, that approach works well. But I regularly meet families where it hasn’t: where a child has drilled the same sounds and rules for years, made only slow progress, and reached a point where they simply don’t want to try anymore. That reluctance, more than anything, is usually what brings a family to me.
Davis takes a different approach. Rather than starting with sounds and drilling phonics rules, it starts with meaning — using clay to build a real, felt understanding of a word before ever worrying about how it’s spelled or sounded out. It also treats reading, writing, spelling, and attention as connected, rather than separate problems each needing their own fix, and it works from a student’s natural strengths as a creative, big-picture thinker rather than treating that thinking style as something to work around.
I want to be upfront about something, though: independent, large-scale research on Davis specifically is much thinner than the research behind phonics-based programs like Orton-Gillingham, which has decades of peer-reviewed backing. Davis International points to a handful of their own studies, and there are outside critiques questioning how strong that evidence really is. What I can speak to honestly is what I’ve personally seen, over and over, in my own practice: kids who’d given up on reading or math — and on themselves — genuinely re-engaging, often for the first time in years. That’s not a substitute for rigorous independent research, but it’s real, and it’s why I do this work.
If phonics-based instruction is working for your child, I don’t suggest abandoning it. But if you’re at the point where your child has stopped wanting to try, or they are working so hard and have diminished self-esteem, this may be worth a conversation.