Intensity
Working hard to overcome challenges without being overwhelmed.
Classroom learning can be traumatizing for some.
When children have obstacles that may interfere with their access to new knowledge and skills (through circumstances, events, learning disabilities, cognitive development delays, attention issues, medical problems, bullying), they may develop a "skills gap" and notice a difference between themselves and their peers.
This can result in
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fight-flight-or-freeze mode
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lowered self-esteem
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sensory-seeking security or self-soothing behaviors
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school avoidance or eloping
The Brain is amazing.
Different activities and practice can create additional connections between all these amazing parts of our brain, so that a human can learn to read faster and more easily and can begin to use critical thinking skills to comprehend and make logical inferences or judgments about what they read.
No matter what your age, the brain continues to be pliable with the ability to learn and create new pathways.
Effective reading therapy must be intense and scaffolded toward independence.
However, intensity can mean different things for different people. The optimal intensity, for many, would be 30-45 minute sessions once (or even twice) a day, four days a week of explicit reading instruction and progress monitoring. But who has the time, attention, or money for that? Even your school system may not be able to provide your particular child with the intensity he or she needs because they may not be able to provide 1:1 instruction that often.
Intensity, to me, can mean that the time spent during explicit instruction is used wisely and efficiently, discerning exactly what the client needs and keeping at the client's personal (and often changing) pace of learning before scaffolding up to the next difficult challenge. If the client has no "buy in" or intrinsic motivation, the minutes spent will not be useful and therefore, not effective.