Sonia Machanick

Sonia Machanick was a South African medical doctor, author and educational psychologist who pioneered new methods of teaching children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties. She founded Japari School, a special school in Johannesburg that provides education for children who struggle to thrive in the mainstream education system. She wrote a series of four graded reading books and other reading tutors in English and Afrikaans that were widely used throughout the 1960s and 1970s for teaching the phonics reading method, as well as articles concerning the treatment of children with learning difficulties.