Here's one remarkable school decided to go 'all in' to help a dyslexic high school student who seemed to be slipping away. Matthew was a rising 10th grader at a non-selective high school. The majority of students at the school were described as being of low...
Ingvar Kamprad grew up in poverty on a small farm in Sweden. His grandfather had killed himself after realizing he could no longer afford his mortgage. His grandmother was able to save the family farm. Because Ingvar struggled in school because of his dyslexia and he...
Academic studies of dyslexia in the workplace have all arrived at the same conclusion: the vast majority of adults with dyslexia choose not to disclose or ask for accommodations in the workplace. Of those who do disclose, they often disclose to some but not all of...
Why is this guy smiling? This is author and publisher Douglas Abrams who has an instant New York Times Bestseller on his hands - The Book of Joy - but that's not all. He's also founded Idea Architects, a company helping "visionaries create a wiser, healthier, and more...
The following instructions are for MacOS Sierra (10.12.16). You can activate Read Aloud (or Text to Speech) on your Mac so that it reads documents (word, pdf, etc.) or websites when you select certain keys. Apple Icon > System Preferences > Accessibility > Speech > Speak Selected Text When the Key is Pressed You can also change the key that activates Read Aloud. I set mine to Control-Shift-R, but you could also do something easier like Control-R. I found some variability re: whether it worked on different apps. On an earlier version of this version of Read Aloud, for instance, it could read books in my Kindle app. Now that doesn’t seem to work. The Kindle app for Mac has it’s own Text to Speech […]
![NASP Publishes Advice About Dyslexia Screening [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Screen-Shot-2019-09-01-at-7.43.51-AM.jpg)
NASP or the National Association of School Psychologists recently published an article entitled: “Four Dyslexia Screening Myths That Cause More Harm Than Good in Preventing Reading Failure and What You Can Do Instead.” As many of you who are involved in dyslexia advocacy know, NASP holds a great deal of influence over school psychologists. At least in the past NASP probably contributed to reluctance of school psychologists to “say dyslexia” in schools (see 2007 NASP Position Statement here). Some highlights: “At a time when schools are administering more screening to detect risk for reading failure than at any time in the history of education, it is interesting that legislative mandates are prescribing more reading screening in the name of better identification and treatment of dyslexia. Given that most schools already […]
![Dyslexic Master Montessori Teacher ALISON AWES [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Screen-Shot-2019-08-31-at-4.00.40-PM.jpg)
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 […]
![America’s Greatest Designers, CHUCK HARRISON [PREMIUM]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Screen-Shot-2019-09-01-at-9.00.20-PM.jpg)
Chuck Harrison‘s designs are so ubiquitous that it’s said that every household in America has something designed by him. Growing up in rural Louisiana, Chuck’s first attempts at design involved the building of a “skate box” when he attached wheels to an old two-by-four, creating an early version of a skateboard. Chuck’s father was an industrial arts teachers first at Southern University, then Texas A & M. Chuck knew he loved to create things with his hands, but didn’t know how to translate it into a career until he took an aptitude test at the City College of San Francisco. His dean advised him to go into industrial design, so he applied to all 5 programs in the country. In college, Chuck had the […]
![Positive Affirmations [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Screen-Shot-2019-09-01-at-9.07.26-PM.jpg)
A dyslexic woman and successful tech entrepreneur was interviewed and asked what helped her overcome ‘the odds.’ Here’s what she said: “Affirmations…I literally told myself the naysayers were wrong about me. I told myself exactly what I needed to hear, every single day, to move my life forward.” Here are some of the affirmations on her list – what are yours? 1. “The biggest and most complex obstacle I will ever have to overcome is my mind. If I can overcome that, I can overcome anything.” 2. “I cannot control exactly what happens in life, but I can control how I respond to it all. In my response is my greatest power.” 3. “I have to accept whatever comes my way, and the only important […]
Dr. Stanislaus Dehaene is a French researcher who has authored Reading and the Brain. He and his research team conducted some interesting investigations into Portuguese and Brazilian adults who they classified into 3 groups: unschooled adults (referred to as...
“English A was ‘a disaster and French was like medieval torture. To sit down with a blank piece of paper and write was the most traumatic thing that had ever faced me in life. I had ideas in my head, but I could not get the stuff down. It was a crushing time.” – Charles Schwab “It will be particularly helpful if they give themselves practice in precis writing, paraphrasing, and note-taking. If one has to write a precis one is forced not only to think out carefully what are the key ideas in a particular passage but also to express them concisely, accurately, and clearly. Paraphrasing makes similar demands and also forces one to consider the style of the original and to be critical […]
![MATH: When Words Get In the Way [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/talking-pixabay.png)
For dyslexic students, the language of math can confuse and obscure. Teachers, tutors, and parents should be aware that language could be interfering with math performance and not mathematics itself. From Dyslexia and Mathematics: Here is an example of a dyslexic student’s sharing of how she becomes confused by what a teacher is saying. The capital letters indicate words that required her to stop and think. Teacher: “We are going to TAKE 25 FROM 61. WRITE DOWN 61 first (I sometimes wrote the first figure I heard before the second one). WRITE DOWN 25 UNDERNEATH it. Put the 2 UNDER the 6 and the 5 UNDER the 1. Draw a line UNDERNEATH. Start at the bottom on the RIGHT. Take 5 AWAY FROM 1. […]
