NOW Training

Four elements underpin the multi-sensory aspect of NOW.

Paul, Betsy, and I spent one long, quick-paced week in June learning a new skill. We were learning the intricacies of NOW – Dr. Conway's Neuro-development of Words. 

This program, like several others on the market that resulted from Lindamood Bell’s work, provide a gap between the mouth and the hand. 

Let me explain.

Phonics programs, in general, start by associating letter names with sounds. For example, we practice /ă/, then read and write words like cat, bat, and sat. Normally, that’s all most of us need. We learn to sound out words. All is good.

For some learners, however, they struggle with hearing or feeling the sounds. Thus, phonics is lost on them. NOW is one program that bridges this gap. NOW provides the pre-work to phonics instruction in two ways:

Four partial pictures
representing four sounds.

    a) build understanding for how our mouths work to make sounds and

    b) engages us in multi-sensory, phonemic awareness activities.

NOW is not for every adult learner in our program. We’re targeting adults who struggle at the lowest level either as readers or spellers. We think both will benefit from this instruction. Time will tell.

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Thank you to USBE’s adult education staff for letting us participate in this training.