The popular kinesthetic method anchors modern instruction in the areas of special education and remedial reading.
Fernald's notion of incorporating the physical with the auditory, verbal, and visual elements of reading instruction, now known as "VAKT",[2] multimodal learning, or multisensory imagery, continues to guide educators today.
Following a youth spent in New York and New Jersey, Fernald graduated from high school and then attended college at Mount Holyoke and Bryn Mawr.
[3] The 1921 Journal of Educational Research contains Fernald's foundational study of four boys who learn to spell and read by her kinesthetic method.
The article in the Journal of Educational Research, "The Effect of Kinaesthetic Factors in the Development of Word Recognition in the Case of Non-Readers",[4] outlines five phases of the kinesthetic method.
Stepping down after 27 years, Fernald sums up the theory behind her "kinesthetic method" with the explanation that "reading difficulties occur most frequently in people who lack the ability to summon up a mental picture of the way a word looks".
According to Time, remediation required from "two months to two years" for the students to reach their grade level reading equivalent.
In the spring 1998 edition of the History of Reading News a former student of Fernald's kinesthetic method recalls his experiences in the clinic setting.
The student, now an esteemed doctor, researcher, and chair of psychiatry at a major New York hospital, wonders about the "life changes for some of the other boys as a result of her help and ministrations."
The parents contacted Grace Fernald in an effort to support their intelligent second-grade son who was struggling in school.
Fernald's Remedial Techniques in Basic School Subjects was favourably reviewed by J Bald in The Times Educational Supplement, 9.7.1982[clarification needed].