One bane of higher education and professionals is the ubiquity of multiple choice questions and tests acting as gatekeepers for higher levels of credentialing, program admission, or pay. This problem affects individuals seeking their GED, drivers licenses, college entrance exams, graduate school exams, professional licensing and credentialing exams, and formal performance reviews in company settings. Individuals with stellar educational and work achievements, may find their advance in schooling or job positions blocked because of trouble on multiple choice tests which may hold inappropriate sway on assessments and evaluation. Why? WHY MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTING IS A COMMON CHOICE FOR ASSESSMENT One of the reasons that multiple choice questions are so pervasive is that once written, a database of questions can be used to automate […]
Finding Dyslexia: Don’t Delay
"When I first heard that I had dyslexia, I was overwhelmed by emotions; I was angry, sad, and very confused. With time, I began to see my diagnosis as a self-affirmation. I had been correct in suspecting that I had a problem with learning, when many of the adults...
Dyslexia Advocacy: Say Dyslexia 2.0
From Chalkbeat's story, "NYC plans to screen nearly 200,000 students in the early grades to uncover struggling readers. Then what?" "In a massive bid to gauge reading skills following COVID-related learning disruptions, New York City’s education department is...
Starting from the Positive Side of Dyslexia [Premium]
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 based model of education. Every student would have a folder with a strengths section included in their assessment. Neurolearning shared its MIND Strengths Questionnaire with the center to examine the impact on students there. From Aillie: “In 2019, the MIND Strengths questions were included in this interview for every new student. Doing this seems to amplify students’ recognition of their strengths. As Learning Specialists leading the interviews, we noticed that […]
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. Importantly, the authors made this point: “…if dyslexia was not diagnosed earlier in schooling, young adults do not qualify for accommodations even if as adolescents and adults they meet research criteria for dyslexia on evidence-based assessment. Such assessment practices do not seem fair or sensible or consistent with the spirit of the Americas for Disabilities legislation.” The point made was that dyslexia missed in the early grades usually meant 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 roles of individual factors like working memory and executive function on dyslexia and reading and spelling performance. The data will be helpful in targeting educational interventions and can also guide requests for testing accommodations. There are interesting observations too in that paper that will help with characterizing the strengths that occur among adolescent and adult dyslexics, with implications for twice-exceptional or gifted students with dyslexia. In several areas, adolescent / adult […]
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 by a physician working with special education students. I knew about Montessori because both our children attended Montessori preschools and we liked many aspects of the educational approach, including self-directed learning, multi-age classrooms, and well-designed hands-on materials. I was interested in hearing about Alison’s experiences because she attended a Montessori school herself until the age of 12 and then transitioned to a traditional middle school. She only discovered that she […]
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...