One of the most famous film and music producers of all time, David Geffen is known for helping his involvement in Dreamworks, Eagles, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Cher, and many many more, but also for his early school-related struggles due to dyslexia. Geffen's...
“You are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – A.A. Milne Winnie the Pooh’s advice is smarter than we may think when it comes to encouraging young readers. What’s better than reading intervention and working memory training? Reading intervention and working memory + education about intelligence. If students believe they are not intelligent or bad at school, that negative mindset is likely to sabotage even well-planned educational programs. Students who believe that they become more intelligent step-by-step by persistence and hard work, are significantly higher achieving in reading and working memory, but also math and science. Now researchers are discovering that some studies that didn’t discover significant improvements in working memory training may have been due to this […]
“When I was 12 my older sister had recently discovered Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling. She started to read it to me once a day, however, the story was so gripping that once a day was just not enough for me. The exciting and alluring nature of Rowling’s writing drove me to pick up a book for the first time. I was amazed at how she was able to incorporate such complex themes and ideas into her books, but still write in a style that I could understand. It was challenging at first. I blundered my way through the pages, stumbling over words, often not understanding the meaning. But I was so desperate to find out what happened next that I forced myself to get […]
Are you a good multi-tasker? If you answered ‘yes’, scientists at Stanford might disagree with you. When students from Stanford participated in a multitasking experiment with color bars, those who multitasked with more media had more trouble ignoring irrelevant stimuli. Multi-Tasking Has Its Costs From the report: “Heavy Media Multitaskers have greater difficulty filtering out irrelevant stimuli from their environment..and they are less effective in suppressing the activation of irrelevant task sets (task switching). Dyslexics as a group are more sensitive to visual and auditory distractions As a group, dyslexic people are more likely to be sensitive to distractions (both visual and auditory) which is why some students request and receive small group testing accommodations for high stakes tests. To learn more about trouble […]
Superstar MIT Professor Catherine Drennan (HHMI Scientist too - the top of the top in the world) shared her personal journey with dyslexia. She was in remedial classes and had to repeat a grade, and saw her self dropped lower and lower through all the reading groups,...
