Visualizing for a Living [Premium]

“My mind is very visual: I can see anything in pictures, and I always visualize things. I can’t help it. It’s how I’m wired. So whatever you talk about, I’ll see pictures in my head. Very vivid, colorful, lifelike pictures. They aren’t still pictures. I can make them move. Reality, fiction, whatever. I really have to pull it back in to get focused. It was also a problem in the classroom because I’d sit there and imagine where I’d want to be, and what I’d want to do, and what I wanted to become, and I’d think happy thoughts, and I’d just be tuned out the whole time in class.” — CEO Glenn Bailey   When Brock and I were on a radio show years […]

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The Voice Inside Your Head [Premium]

“When I was eight years old, a school psychologist gave me a bit of advice about my brain. He said I may have a form of brain damage, and he wanted to send me to a special class. I was a classic dyslexic: I wasn’t born with a good memory, and I couldn’t concentrate; reading and writing were always a challenge for me. Throughout my school career, I learned by having my mother and friends read the syllabus to me; I forced myself to memorize it and what I didn’t get, which was most of it, I just didn’t get. I had no future because I just couldn’t grasp what was being taught to me. In twelve years of school, I couldn’t read a book […]

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Avoiding the Third Grade Madness [Premium]

If you’re the parent of a third grade child with dyslexia in the public school system, your student may be having an especially difficult time.   Some of the struggle might be understandable as classrooms attempt to move past learning to decode to reading to learn (see post Dyslexia and the Third Grade Wall), but there are additional pressures placed on students due to reading loss from the pandemic in addition to institutional pressures to get students “reading by the third grade.”   RESEARCH ABOUT READING AND THE THIRD GRADE One of the compelling forces behind the pressure for 3rd graders has been a report by the Anne Casey Foundation titled, Early Warning: Why Reading by the End of the Third Grade Matters (learn more […]

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Creativity and Dyslexia

“Individuals with dyslexia significantly outperformed controls in creativity scores in adult samples…” – Majeed et al., 2021   In the past year, there have been two more studies to add to the creativity research literature on dyslexia. The first, a meta-analysis of 14 studies found clear patterns of stronger creativity among dyslexic adult subjects compared to non-dyslexics, but non-significant differences among children or adolescents. The studies included a variety of creativity tasks and measures. Unfortunately, that paper offers little speculation about why that difference might exist, but with recent theories about the role of executive function and attention systems in creativity, it may be that the stronger performances on creativity tasks are only seen on a group basis after executive function abilities have matured. [gspeech […]

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Complementary Cognition

” …our current education and work environments are often not designed to make the most of dyslexia associated thinking, we hope this research provides a starting point for further exploration of the economic, cultural and social benefits the whole of society can gain from the unique abilities of people with dyslexia.” – Nick Posford, CEO, British Dyslexia Association about Dr. Helen Taylor’s theory of complementary cognition.   Since dyslexia may be present in as many as 17% of the general population, many have questioned why such a high incidence exists. One provocative answer to this question comes from Dr. Helen Taylor, the first author on a paper about Complementary Cognition, a theory that proposes that brain-based differences that exist among groups of individuals like dyslexic […]

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Working through Higher Math [Premium]

  “An algebra equation should have a physical meaning to it, and have good real world examples…” — Gary McGregor, PhD   Gary McGregor has a lot to say when it comes to math because he survived dropping out of high school, knowing only the basics of math calculation (adding and subtracting, but not fractions) before he enrolled in Junior College determined to learn all the math he would need to become a mechanical engineer. Not only did he succeed in that goal, but he also became an expert higher mathematician and now publishes papers involving complex math. So how did he get from A to Z?   MATH FROM MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES Gary was fortunate to learn from a math teacher in junior college who […]

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From High School Drop-Out to VP of Engineering [Premium]

There are some people who are so insightful into their cognitive processes that talking to them is pure gold. Gary MacGregor is one of those people – he’s a VP of an electronic device company and recent PhD recipient from the University of Texas at Austin. He has a remarkable story and has been very generous in sharing what he has learned. Gary: “I’m a high school dropout. My parents were high school dropouts. I’m the first male in the family to go to college.” When Gary dropped out of school, he took a job working an oil refinery – a lucrative career for a person without a high school diploma. While he was working 12 hour shifts 84 hours a week, he would exercise […]

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If Your Student Can’t Write [Premium]

If your student can’t write, no matter what age – prepare yourself for the long haul because so much of schooling and even many aspects of hiring and work can require writing. When writing is difficult for students with dyslexia, it may be that they are having difficulty converting feelings and images to words, trouble retrieving words, or putting them in the correct order, then writing them down with correct spelling and grammar. A significant proportion of dyslexic students will also have dyspraxia, so have trouble with sequencing and fine motor control required for handwriting automaticity. Any added difficulties may also swamp working memory, causing students to get lost in what they want to say. For many dyslexic people, dysgraphia will present a greater problem […]

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More Free Leveled Texts and Reading Passages [Premium]

The grand-daddy of them all is still probably Readworks, but if you like to change things up with lTween Tribune, run by the Smithsonian. As usual, be aware that news can be susceptible to political bias. If you do use Readworks, make sure you know about the slider at the bottom of the left sidebar that can help students select the correct reading level. If your students are assigned to conduct research on the internet, but may struggle with reading text they find due to their reading level, have them install Rewordify to reword difficult words or phrases or activate their browsers text-to speech. If you’re looking for a few short reading passages for reading fluency practice, you can download the free assortment at Think […]

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How Families Help [Premium]

Families can really make a difference. Many times, they are the last place to find encouragement or to help find a connection to the next opportunity in life.   MARC’S UNCLE Marc shared with me that he grew up in a family that was poor with both parents working full-time to make ends meet. He had been an unexpected baby and an additional financial burden to the family. When he grew up, he recalled being a “clumsy kid” who wasn’t successful in sports like his older brother. His brother and his father connected through sports, but Marc had a harder time seeing ahead to his future because he wasn’t good in sports in addition to his problems in school. Fortunately, though there was an uncle […]

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