Dyslexia as an Evolutionary Advantage

Dyslexia as an Evolutionary Advantage

by | Oct 2, 2022 | , , , , , , ,

Dyslexia is not a neurological disorder or even an impairment, but rather a concession for having cognitive strengths in exploration, big-picture thinking, creativity, and problem-solving that have contributed to human survival amid changing environments. This insight comes from a new study published in Frontiers in Psychology that finds an association between the learning difference and “an explorative bias.” — Additude Magazine, on the recent paper by Taylor and Westergaard   Cambridge scholars Helen Taylor and Martin David Vestergaard are shaking up the world with their article, Developmental Dyslexia: Disorder or Specialization in Exploration? In just a week, the article already had more views that 98% of all Frontiers articles. I’ve begun to a do a deep dive in our Premium magazines, but one of the reasons […]

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Question: Advice for a Student Who Does Not Want to Disclose in High School

Question: Advice for a Student Who Does Not Want to Disclose in High School

by | Sep 25, 2022 | , , , , , , , , ,

  It is very common for people to want to choose whether they want to formally disclose their dyslexia, and to whom. This may change over the years and of course depending on particular contexts. WHY DOES A STUDENT CHOOSE NOT TO DISCLOSE IN HIGH SCHOOL? Some...

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Managing Too Much Information in Math with Card Sorts and Categories [Premium]

Managing Too Much Information in Math with Card Sorts and Categories [Premium]

by | Jun 4, 2022 | , , , , , , ,

Too often math classes start off with a lot of math problem-solving that can result in students in getting lost. Sometimes the problem is that math explanations overload working memory; other times, students struggle because they can’t listen for understanding at the same time they are trying to take notes, leaving them to figure out what was being taught in math after they get home.   THE SEA OF MATH PROBLEMS Often students may find themselves in a sea of math problems. They may have followed the reasoning when concepts were first introduced, but quickly find themselves drowning in dozens and dozens of problems that confuse them in terms of the different ways they are solved.   CARD SORTS FOR MATH EXAMPLES AND NEW VOCABULARY […]

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How to Not Go Crazy from Fractions and Decimals [Premium]

How to Not Go Crazy from Fractions and Decimals [Premium]

by | May 27, 2022 | , , , , ,

Fractions and decimals can drive a lot of us crazy. After learning “big” or “long numbers” are larger, suddenly fractions and decimals come along to flip these assumptions upside-down. For dyslexic students, care must be taken at the first step of understanding the equivalences among the different representations of fractions and decimals before moving onto calculations.   WHY STUDENTS MAY STRUGGLE WITH FRACTIONS AND DECIMALS Creative Maths has a nice summary of why decimals are so difficult. An excerpt: “Without zero, 2001 and 201 and 21 would all look the same! From early on we recognize that longer numbers represent larger quantities. We know that a salary with lots of zeroes is better than one with only a few. $1000000 is more than $200 even […]

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Reading and Learning are About Thinking [Premium]

Reading and Learning are About Thinking [Premium]

by | May 8, 2022 | , , , , , , , , ,

“Then a strange thing happened. The more I started thinking about what we were studying, the easier it was to remember the facts. Facts began to stick in my head — and I didn’t even have to try to make it happen…” — Don Johnston, CEO   After using Don Johnston’s assistive technology with our kids when they were growing up, it was such a pleasure for us to meet Don Johnston himself for the first time a few weeks ago. We hadn’t known that he is dyslexic and before we met, he shared his autobiography (for kids), Building Wings. The book is available in e-book form HERE and otherwise through Amazon. Like many dyslexic adults, Don vividly remembers events from his childhood and school […]

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Education During the Pandemic: Preparing for the Unpreparable [Premium]

Education During the Pandemic: Preparing for the Unpreparable [Premium]

by | Feb 11, 2022 | , , , , , , , ,

As I am writing this, omicron cases have not reached their peak in the US, and calls for schools to close again because of the extreme contagiousness of this variant. How do parents, teachers, and tutors prepare for another unpredictable year?   ONE STUDENT AT A TIME If pandemic education has told us anything thus far, it’s that students will tell us what they need as much as any best laid plans. No matter what you decided for your students for the past year, reviewing what worked and what didn’t can be valuable going forward. If you have several children, you might have seen something work for one student, but not another. As before, the goals should be focusing on reasonable fits and not inflexible […]

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MATH: Learning Through Examples, Not Repetition and Drill [Premium]

MATH: Learning Through Examples, Not Repetition and Drill [Premium]

by | Jan 19, 2022 | , , , ,

“… children with dyslexia, because of disruption to left hemisphere language area, use a less optimal route for retrieval-base arithmetic, engaging right hemisphere parietal regions typically used by good readers for procedural-based arithmetic.” — Evans et al, 2014   TEACH MATH TO DYSLEXIC STUDENTS THROUGH STRENGTHS It was a research group at Georgetown University that first made the observations that a group of school age dyslexic students used a different brain strategy when doing single digit arithmetic. As it turns out, an area of the brain (left angular gyrus) implicated in some of reading difficulties associated with dyslexia is also the area of the brain that processes math learning through drill in non-dyslexic kids. So math drill may be the exactly wrong way to teach […]

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Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) and Its Impact on Dyslexia [Premium]

Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) and Its Impact on Dyslexia [Premium]

by | Dec 2, 2021 | , , , , , , ,

“Substantial evidence shows that dyslexic readers have problems with rapid naming of visual items. Early research assumed that this was a consequence of phonological processing deficits, but recent findings suggest that non-phonological processes may lie at the root of the association between slow naming speed and poor reading. The hypothesis that rapid naming reflects an independent core deficit in dyslexia is supported by the main findings: (1) some dyslexics are characterized by rapid naming difficulties but intact phonological skills; (2) evidence for an independent association between rapid naming and reading competence in the dyslexic readers, when the effect of phonological skills was controlled; (3) rapid naming and phonological processing measures are not reliably correlated. “ – Araujo et al. 2011   Rapid automatized naming or […]

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Dyslexia and Dyscalculia [Premium]

Dyslexia and Dyscalculia [Premium]

by | Nov 17, 2021 | , , , , , ,

How often do individuals with dyslexia also have dyscalculia, a specific disability in math? As many as 30-70% of dyslexic students may also be dyscalculic, but math difficulties are rarely tested for in schools, so specific needs for a particular student are rarely recognized or addressed. It does not help that like dyslexia itself, dyscalculia can also present in different ways among dyslexic individuals. DYSLEXICS USE DIFFERENT BRAIN AREAS WHILE PERFORMING MATH PROBLEMS It was only in 2014 when neuroscientists found that dyslexic students doing simple math problems (addition and subtraction) us different brain areas to solve answers…in particular right parietal regions instead of left perisylvian areas which non-dyslexics use. In our practice, when we performed comprehensive testing, we used The Wechsler Individual Achievement Test or […]

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Eugene Matusov on Teaching and Motivation [Premium]

Eugene Matusov on Teaching and Motivation [Premium]

by | Nov 9, 2021 | , , , , , , , , , ,

I recently discovered Eugene Matusov’s writings on motivation and agency. He is a professor at the University of Delaware and he is also dyslexic.   I found it interesting that he ended up choosing a career teaching other teachers and yet his early years seem to be fairly traumatic in school. He had some very bad learning experiences, but also good ones, and it’s clear that today, he remembers the good teachers that impacted his life and that the choices he made in his own career were influenced as much by the negative experiences as the positives. One negative experience that was shared involved a writing assignment that many of us are all-too-familiar with – “What I Did Over Summer Vacation.” Listen to Eugene tell […]

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