The Washington state driver's license paper and pencil test can be a difficult one for dyslexic drivers. Having seen some of the sample questions, there's a lot more number trivia compared to the California test I passed many years ago. Whether you don't drink...
The Power of Ask [Premium]
One of the benefits of being able to interview so many fascinating dyslexic people over the years is that I can learn about how they navigated challenging educational and workplace settings. Some had supportive families while others had the complete opposite of supportive families – but almost all were trailblazers at some point in their lives because so much of the world and its institutions can put obstacles in their way to success. THE POWER OF ASK In the National Transitional Longitudinal Study-2, only 24% of students qualifying for accommodations in high school, made the decision to disclose their LD at the college or university level. So even as demands for coursework reading and writing increased, they did not disclose or ask for accommodations […]
Helping With Homework If You’re Not A Wiz Yourself [Premium]
These are strange times and even if you’re not accustomed to helping with homework (including different types of homework), it may help a lot if you can help. Even pre-pandemic, when parents were surveyed about their helping with homework and trouble lending help, about 50% said they had difficulty… so you’re not alone. There are healthy debates about whether you as a parent should help with homework…and that doesn’t even consider whether a child might be dyslexic, dysgraphic, or dyscalculic, or all three. Helping with homework is not a good idea if the student doesn’t learn how to do the work. Now if a student is drowning, and no one is around to help, then a little help might not seem to be a terrible […]
Dyslexic Advantage Premium OCT 2018 Working Memory Issue [Premium]
Issue articles: Forgetful geniuses, working memory and reading, hacks for work, science teaching and working memory, working memory, intelligence, and creativity, Math teaching with working memory in mind, and working memory & Bilingual students
Best Early Dyslexia Screeners for Schools – Elementary [Premium]
With new legislation moving schools toward early identification of students with dyslexia, teachers, classrooms, and districts are having to decide on which screener would be best for identifying students “at-risk.” For dyslexic students, presence of a reading gap has been detected as early as the first grade and early intervention is well-recognized to be beneficial. Universal screening in schools is a great idea – parents, teachers, and students should just be aware of the limits that a brief screening tool can have. Most early screeners will not include cognitive or intelligence tests (e.g. working memory, reasoning, ‘giftedness’) nor will they assess non-reading academic tasks such as math, writing, or spelling. They are a start, however, and will definitely be valuable for helping kids get the […]
Dyslexia, Storyboarding, and Film Director Martin Scorsese [Premium]
“That’s the way it is with art. It’s not that you want to do it, it’s that you have to do it. You have no choice.” – Martin Scorsese Martin Scorsese is an Academy award winning American director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and film historian with over 50 years in the movie industry, and he is dyslexic. He grew up in a New York tenement, an asthmatic child of a presser and seamstress in the Lower East Side. He recalls spending lots of time in front of a TV set watching good and bad films and going to a local movie theatre with his father and brother. As he watched, he often drew his own scenes, frame by frame in a notebook, flicking pages back and forth […]