Davis® Learning Power Course
Unlock the learning power of the picture-thinking mind
A practical six-session course for parents and educators supporting picture-thinking learners aged 8+…
…and for older learners aged 16+ who want to take greater ownership of their own learning.
Some minds don't naturally think or learn in words.
Many bright, creative people think primarily in pictures, experiences and ideas. This can bring remarkable strengths—but it can also make some aspects of conventional education unexpectedly difficult.
Information may not stick. Attention may wander. Reading or written work can become tiring. Revision can take hours without producing the expected results. A learner who is clearly capable may become frustrated, overwhelmed or convinced that they simply aren't good at learning.
Davis® Learning Power offers a different way forward.
Drawing on decades of experience and insight from the Davis methods, the course helps participants understand why picture-thinking learners can experience these difficulties—and, more importantly, what they can do about them.
The learner may be dyslexic, ADHD, autistic or have another identified neurodivergent profile. Or they may have no diagnosis at all.
No label is required.
What matters is discovering how the learner thinks, what gets in the way of learning, and how their natural strengths can become part of the solution.
Who is Davis® Learning Power For?
Davis Learning Power has been successfully piloted with parents and educators aged 8 upwards, and directly with older learners aged 16+.
Courses can be organised specifically for one of these groups—or bring them together in the same learning environment.
For learners aged 16+
Perhaps you know you're capable of more than your academic results sometimes suggest.
You may understand something perfectly one day and struggle to recall it the next. You may find it difficult to concentrate, organise your thoughts, revise effectively or make sense of information presented in particular ways.
Davis Learning Power helps you explore how your own mind works.
You'll discover practical tools for managing focus and confusion, making sense of difficult material, improving understanding and retention, and becoming more independent in your learning.
You don't need a diagnosis to take part.
For parents
If your child is bright and capable but finds learning unexpectedly difficult, Davis Learning Power can help you understand what may be happening—and what you can do differently.
You'll explore why picture-thinking learners can become confused or lose focus, why approaches that work perfectly well for other learners may not always work for your child, and how you can help them develop strategies that build confidence and independence.
The goal isn't to make your child more dependent on your help.
It's to help them become increasingly able to understand and manage their own learning.
For teachers and other educators
Why can a highly capable learner understand complex ideas and yet struggle with apparently straightforward academic tasks?
Why does information sometimes seem to disappear?
Why can concentration, organisation, reading, writing or revision require disproportionate effort?
Davis Learning Power offers educators a different lens through which to understand these apparent contradictions.
You'll explore the relationship between perception, confusion, disorientation and learning, and discover practical strategies that build on the strengths of picture-thinking learners rather than simply compensating for their difficulties.
The course can be delivered to teachers and other educational professionals as a standalone group, or as part of a wider school or college initiative involving learners and/or parents.
"Dyslexia is not a complexity. It is a compound of simple factors, which can be dealth with step-by-step.
At dyslexia's root is a natural ability, a talent. The gift of dyslexia is the gift of mastery"
Ronald D. Davis
Learn Together
One of the distinctive strengths of Davis Learning Power is that learners, parents and educators can learn together.
A course might be delivered exclusively to Sixth Form students, parents or members of staff. Alternatively, all three groups can participate in the same course.
That creates a shared understanding—and a shared language for talking about learning.
Instead of the learner being the person everyone else is trying to "fix", everyone explores the learning process together.
Learners gain greater insight into their own thinking. Parents begin to understand experiences that may previously have seemed puzzling. Educators discover a different way of interpreting—and responding to—learning behaviours they see in the classroom.
Everyone is working towards the same goal:
helping the learner take greater ownership of their learning.
What will you discover?
Davis Learning Power explores both the why and the how of learning for the picture-thinking mind.
Participants develop:
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a new understanding of the strengths and challenges associated with picture thinking;
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insight into the relationship between confusion, perception and disorientation;
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practical tools for gaining greater control of attention and focus;
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visual, spatial and hands-on approaches that make abstract information easier to understand;
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strategies for approaching curriculum content in ways that build on natural strengths;
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practical approaches to revision, memory and retention;
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greater confidence and independence in learning.
The emphasis throughout is practical. The aim isn't simply to understand why learning can be difficult, but to discover what to do differently.
This retains the substance of the existing course, which already centres on confusion, disorientation, multisensory mastery, learning, revision and retention.
This has really helped me understand my children’s struggles with dyslexia, and increase my ability to support them to really understand their schoolwork or any other material, and become independent learners. Ultimately, however, it has given me confidence that my children will be able to be happy, confident individuals.
Davis Learning Power Course participant
UK
The Six-Session Journey
Session 1: Unravelling the Mystery of Confusion
What if confusion isn't simply the result of a learning difficulty, but one of the things that makes learning difficult in the first place?
Explore what confusion really is, what happens when it disrupts learning, and how recognising it can be the first step towards overcoming it.
Session 2: The Bright Side of Challenges
How can a natural ability also become a stumbling block?
Explore the strengths of picture thinking and discover how some of the same abilities that contribute to creativity, imagination and intuitive understanding can sometimes make conventional learning unexpectedly difficult.
The challenge is not to suppress those strengths, but to learn how to use them.
Session 3: The Focus Formula
What if focus is something you can learn to control?
Discover practical Davis tools for settling the mind, recognising disorientation and gaining greater control over attention.
Session 4: Learning in 3D
What happens when you make learning fit the way a picture-thinking mind naturally works?
Explore visual, spatial and hands-on approaches that can transform abstract or confusing information into something meaningful and memorable.
Session 5: The Power to Learn
Now put it into practice.
Explore ways of applying what you've learned to real curriculum content, studying and revision—making knowledge easier to understand, remember and use.
Session 6: The Learning Journey
Where do you go from here?
Bring the different elements of Davis Learning Power together and explore how they can become part of an increasingly confident, effective and independent approach to learning.
The six-session structure remains very close to the one you've already been using successfully.
How does Davis® Learning Power work?
Davis Learning Power is an experiential small-group course, typically delivered across six sessions.
Each session combines explanation and discussion with demonstrations and practical activities. Participants have opportunities to experiment with what they have learned between sessions and bring their experiences back to the group.
Courses may be delivered:
• online or face-to-face;
• to learners aged 16+, parents or educators as separate groups;
• to mixed groups bringing learners, parents and educators together;
• as public courses or commissioned by a school, college or other organisation.
To preserve the interactive and experiential nature of the course, we normally recommend a maximum of 12 participants per Course Presenter.
Is Davis® Learning Power just for dyslexia?
No.
Davis Learning Power grew out of decades of experience working with dyslexic and other neurodivergent learners, and many participants will identify as dyslexic, ADHD, autistic or otherwise neurodivergent.
But a diagnosis is not required.
The course is designed around the experience of the picture-thinking learner: someone whose natural strengths may lie in imagination, visual or spatial thinking, intuition, creativity and seeing the bigger picture, but who may find that some conventional approaches to learning don't work as well as they should.
If that sounds familiar, Davis Learning Power may be relevant—with or without a label.
What difference can it make?
Over the course of only six weeks I was suddenly equipped with so many tools to be able to help him to speed up the learning; it took away a load of stress for him, and for me.
Davis Learning Power - Parent Participant
Discover your learning power
Whether you're a learner trying to understand your own mind, a parent looking for a different way to help, or an educator wanting to reach learners whose ability isn't always reflected in their performance, Davis Learning Power offers a practical new perspective.
Understand the picture-thinking mind.
Discover what gets in the way.
Learn what to do differently.
Find a Davis Learning Power course
Bring Davis Learning Power to your school or college