The AFS-Method
A Comprehensive and Open Framework
The pedagogical-didactical approach to dyslexia and dyscalculia, developed by dyslexia researcher Dr. Astrid Kopp-Duller at the Dyslexia Research Center USA.
The pedagogical-didactical approach to dyslexia and dyscalculia, developed by dyslexia researcher Dr. Astrid Kopp-Duller at the Dyslexia Research Center USA.
For more than a century, science has been occupied with why some people have difficulty learning to read, spell, write, and/or calculate. The early medical framing gave way to a crucial pedagogical insight:
A person with dyslexia, of good or average intelligence, perceives the world around them in a distinctly different way. When they encounter letters or numbers, their attention fades, because their different sensory perceptions make them experience these symbols differently than people who are not dyslexic. This results in difficulties in learning to read, spell, write, and/or calculate.Dr. Astrid Kopp-Duller, 1995
The AFS-Method establishes that improvement of reading, spelling, writing, and/or calculating skills solely by working on symptoms, meaning increased practice, is not possible. Instead, all three interconnected areas of attention, sensory perceptions, and symptoms must be addressed together.
The AFS-Method is described as comprehensive and open. It is comprehensive because it covers all three areas in which a child with dyslexia runs into trouble: attention (A), the sensory perceptions, called functions (F), and the symptoms (S). Leaving out any one of them means the training will not carry.
It is open because it is not a fixed program, a product, or a single tool. It is a framework. Within each of the three areas, any exercise, material, or idea that has proven itself can be included to help this particular child. What works for one child may not work for another, and the training is built accordingly. What never changes is that all three areas have to be covered.
The AFS-Method is also open source and not commercial. Nobody has to buy a license or a product to work with it. Anybody can use it, and anybody who works with dyslexic children should.
Source: Astrid Kopp-Duller, Dyslexia - Training Using the AFS-Method, 3rd revised edition, 2021.
Every training plan addresses all three areas in an integrated, individualized approach.
Training flexible, sustained awareness when confronted with letters and numbers. Coordination of thought and simultaneous action.
Sharpening the specific sensory perceptions needed for reading, spelling, writing, and/or calculating, one subarea at a time.
Targeted practice on individual error patterns. Learning must involve all senses and occur slowly, steadily.
A dyslexic child's attention diminishes as soon as letters and numbers appear. Reading, spelling, writing, and/or calculating are hard to stay with. The same child can often follow a favorite game for an hour without losing the thread.
Seen from outside this looks like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and dyslexic children are regularly taken for it. The pattern is different. A clinical attention condition does not switch itself off once the symbols are gone. Here it runs the other way around. Reading, spelling, writing, and/or calculating do not work yet, and the attention gives way under that strain.
This is why attention training comes first. Dyslexic children are guided to direct their thoughts onto the letters, words, and numbers in front of them, and to notice for themselves when their thoughts have wandered off. With enough practice this becomes automatic. The goal is flexible, sustained awareness rather than rigid concentration. The learner needs to understand that this is something they can work on themselves.
Attention training utilizes:
What matters most is that the child is open to the exercise you choose. Talk with the child regularly about how their attention behaves around letters and numbers.
Dyslexic children have different sensory perceptions, with often very fast thought processes that hinder accurate symbol processing. They also require more time to deal with symbols.
Sensory perception training includes phonics, which belongs to the auditory level. However, practicing phonics on its own is not enough. It covers one part of one level, while dyslexic learners usually need work across multiple sensory perception areas.
No two dyslexic learners share the same profile of sensory perceptions. Training begins where the individual perceptions are different, not where a general program prescribes. In practice, most dyslexic learners show their difficulties in the visual areas and not necessarily in phonics.
Not all eight sensory perception subareas are affected in every child. Sensory perceptions also cannot all be trained at the same time. One subarea must be addressed after another. The difficulty level must be calibrated individually, so that the child has enough sense of achievement and does not lose enjoyment.
Symptomatic training targets the specific errors. Learning must occur slowly, steadily, and coordinate with increasing attention capability and sharpening sensory perceptions.
The dyslexic child comprehends most easily by handling things. Letters and word pictures should be experienced three-dimensionally.
This is where reading, spelling, writing, and/or calculating are actually practiced. The material comes from the learner's own error profile in the AFS-Test, not from a general curriculum.
Word Formulation is how single words are learned for good. Writing a word out repeatedly does not make it stick. A word is secured only when the learner sees its shape, hears it clearly, and understands what it means. Every word starts in three dimensions, formed from clay, wood, or sandpaper, so that the symbol can be handled and stays in view. Fifty to a hundred words worked through this way often marks the turning point, because the list of words a learner keeps getting wrong is finite.
How the word looks: visual representation
How the word sounds: phonological processing
What the word means: semantic understanding
Source: Elizabeth H. Aylward, Todd L. Richards, Virginia W. Berninger et al., University of Washington, Instructional treatment associated with changes in brain activation in children with dyslexia, Neurology 61 (2), 2003, pages 212 to 219.
The reading technique is just as structured. The Easy Reading Card frames one word at a time and softens the strong black on white contrast. The learner works through a short passage word by word, takes in the word shapes once more, and only then reads the passage as a whole. A passage stays short, around one hundred words. Every mistake means returning to the first word and reading the passage again, which is what produces genuinely attentive reading.
The Easy Reading Card frames one word at a time. Its colored fields soften the strong black on white contrast, so the eyes can rest on a single word.
easy-reading-card.com
The educational card deck for calculating. Four sets of colored cards from 1 to 12 show every number as a figure and as a quantity, and four Jokers stand for the four arithmetic operations. Simple card games practice numbers, quantities, and basic arithmetic.
mathe4matic.com
The AFS-Test is a standardized, computerized educational assessment (60 to 90 minutes) that evaluates attention, sensory perception, and error symptoms. It automatically determines whether the profile indicates genetic dyslexia or an acquired Reading and Spelling Difference (RSD).
It is a reliable and trusted test instrument to establish the presence of and categorize dyslexia and dyscalculia. It has been in use since the 1990s and is conducted by Certified Dyslexia Trainers in 64 countries worldwide. More than 100,000 students have been tested with it.
The result is a written Educational Report, not a label. It presents a graphical profile across attention, the eight sensory perceptions, and the error symptoms. The areas that need support are visible at a glance. From that profile the report derives an initial Training Plan that names where targeted training should begin and in which order the areas follow.
Genetic, transmitted by inheritance
Acquired through life circumstances
Training is highly individualized: one-on-one sessions (60 minutes weekly), supplemented by 10 to 20 minutes of daily parent-guided home practice.
Warm-up to reset posture, breathing, and focus
Multisensory exercises targeting a maximum of two of the lowest-scoring sensory perceptions
Real reading, spelling, writing, and/or calculating practice tailored to the learner's error profile
AFS training is pedagogical support, and it works alongside what the school provides. An IEP guarantees specialized instruction under IDEA, and a 504 Plan grants accommodations such as extra time. The educational report from an AFS-Test replaces neither of them, and a Certified Dyslexia Trainer does not issue clinical diagnoses. Families use the report to bring a clear picture of the underlying sensory perceptions into the school conversation, and to run targeted training at home alongside the school plan.
People with dyslexia and dyscalculia have a unique way of processing information and, because of it, a unique way of learning, one that places high demands on educational and didactic intervention.Dr. Astrid Kopp-Duller
Source: Astrid Kopp-Duller, The Dyslexic Person, 7th revised edition, 2026.
A different way of processing information brings strengths of its own. Many dyslexic learners think in pictures, grasp patterns quickly, and find solutions that others miss. Training addresses the areas that need support, while this potential stays intact and is deliberately encouraged.
In a qualitative longitudinal study with a control group, among 3,370 test subjects trained with the AFS-Method, 85% improved their reading, spelling, writing, and/or calculating performance continuously over a two-year observation period.
Source: Astrid Kopp-Duller and Livia R. Pailer-Duller, Dyslexia - Dyscalculia !?, 3rd revised edition, 2020.
The AFS-Method is evidence-informed. The term comes from education, not from clinical medicine, and the difference matters. A medication is tested once and then given in the same dose to everyone. A child in a classroom is a moving system: attention, perception, family, school, and language all change and interact. Research findings on attention, sensory perceptions, and word learning shape the AFS framework, and the long-term study documents its results. But the training itself is never a fixed dose. A Certified Dyslexia Trainer reads the evidence together with the child's own test profile and decides what this particular child needs next. That is evidence-informed practice, and it is the reason the method is open.
The American Dyslexia Association is dedicated to providing free information and teaching aids to help dyslexic and dyscalculic people reach their full potential.