Last week I had a chance to talk with Aillie McKeever of the Schwab Learning Center at Stanford. In 2019, before COVID pandemic had fully taken hold here in the US, Stanford’s Schwab Center had decided to prioritize strengths in their approach to each and every student. They announced a “paradigm shift” to a strength’s […]
How to Avoid Delays in Identifying and Helping Students With Dyslexia Due to COVID-19
With news of the disruption in special education assessments across the country, I asked Brock to comment on the situation and share how the Neurolearning app could be helpful. The app is available for students ages 7 - 70. By Brock Eide MD: A recent article in...
Students Untested Due to Pandemic
A recent article has sounded the alarm that schools and entire school districts are unable to assess and meet the needs of LD students. As an example, after a math teacher raised a question that a student was dyslexic, a parent initiated a process last January to have...
CLUES FOR UNRECOGNIZED DYSLEXIA (Middle School and High School)
Based on what we know about the incidence of dyslexia and the number of students that are formally identified, for every 1 person who is told of their dyslexia, there are 3 who are missed. Recent legislation is focused on the early years of education...K-2 especially....
How Dyslexia Changes at Different Ages [Premium]
With all of the advances in our understanding of early intervention, dyslexia in older students and young adults often gets short shrift. The paper by Dr. Kathleen Niesen and colleagues has some interesting findings that have important points for identification, accommodations, and understanding of both the challenges and strengths of adolescents and young adults with dyslexia. […]
Breaking Research : Dyslexia in Adolescents and Adults [Premium]
An important paper was published this month from the University of Washington, entitled “Evidence-Based Reading and Writing Assessment for Dyslexia in Adolescents and Young Adults.” The paper is especially important guiding testing professionals who assess teens and adults for dyslexia or see gifted or twice-exceptional students. This paper also takes a more systematic look at the […]
Response to Intervention RTI Hurts Students with Dyslexia
RTI or Response To Intervention is currently the dominant approach to reading instruction in public schools across the United States (over 70% of school districts), but in a just-released progress report funded by the Department of Education from the Institute of...
Dyslexic Master Montessori Teacher ALISON AWES [Premium]
I recently had a chance to talk with Master Montessori Teacher Alison Awes who is based at the Montessori Training Center of Minnesota. Alison is dyslexic herself and she has written about how Montessori instruction can support dyslexic students. Alison is also trained in Orton-Gillingham Level1. Like the Orton-Gillingham method, the Montessori approach was created […]
All 50 States Approved Assessment Tools for Schools
Here is a list of state-approved educational assessment tools (from March 2016). You can check whether specific early reading or dyslexia screeners are listed for your state. Because policies change rapidly, check with your local school district for the latest...
WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM A CHILD’S WRITING [Premium]
There are many skills that are required to write by hand. Besides having an idea and being able to organize it into words, there’s remembering the motor, kinesthetic, and visual sequences of letters and words and being able to discern similar and dissimilar sounds (auditory processing, phonemic awareness). No wonder it’s hard to write! What […]
Q: How Can My Student Be Tested for Dyscalculia ? [Premium}
The last decade has seen a great advance in the biological understanding of dyscalculia, or math disability. The DSM V groups a specific learning disorder in math (315.1) under Specific Learning Disability along with impairment in reading (315.000) and impairment in written expression (315.2). The NIH defines dyscalculia as a condition contributes to “difficulty understanding arithmetic concepts […]
[Premium] Sorting Out the Differences Between Dyslexia and ADD / ADHD
On one level, Dyslexia and ADD / ADHD would seem quite different, but in reality, we are only at the beginning of our understanding of how the two might overlap and be different. Both Dyslexia and ADD / ADHD were initially characterized by their negatives – Dyslexia by difficulty learning to read, and ADD / ADHD […]