![MIND Strengths for Tutors: Material Reasoning [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Material-Reasoning-Premium-2-400x250.jpg.webp)
What many tutors will have noticed is that many structured literacy strategies require frequent repetition because they focus remediation on tasks that are especially difficult for many dyslexic students – the automatic identification of the phonemes that make up words.
![Question: My 5th Grader is Refusing Structured Literacy What Should I do? [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/5th-Grader-Refusing-Structured-Literacy-400x250.jpg.webp)
My 5th Grader is refusing structured literacy, what should I do? The following is general and not specific advice. The best advice comes from someone who knows your student and also knows in more detail what your student has been experiencing. REFUSING STRUCTURED LITERACY It’s generally accepted that structured literacy is the remediation of choice for students who are struggling significantly with reading and individual word decoding. There are many reasons why students may struggle with and ultimately give up on structured literacy. They may be depressed and worn out or mismatched with a curriculum, teacher or tutor. Sometimes what worked for a student in the past won’t work for them now because the progress is slow, or they decode sufficiently that they prefer to […]
![Severe Dyslexia Reading [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Severe-Dyslexia-Reading-2-400x250.jpg)
Q: My daughter is severely dyslexic and is having trouble making progress reading. She is homeschooled. How can I help? A: Ideally, the best person to provide specific information about your student’s dyslexia is the professional who performed a comprehensive assessment. The following information is not specific to your daughter, but more general information in the hopes some of it may be helpful to you. Many severely dyslexic children have trouble perceiving or remembering sounds, sound-letter associations, or the letters that comprise the different spellings of words. If a student has significant working memory limitations, she or he may also have to learn in little bits which may add to the time words are mastered. RE-LEARNING AGAIN AND AGAIN If the problem is that a […]
It doesn’t replace early identification, remediation, and support, but reading at home supported the long term reading success of children with a positive family history of dyslexia. The study is interesting one because it followed children for 13 years! The youngest children were age 2, and by the conclusion of the study, the oldest were 23. Researchers compared various reading and language skills as well as conducting detailed interviews of family practices. READ TOGETHER What was interesting is that early shared reading with family members (from the age of 2) was associated with the development of strong vocabulary. Strong vocabulary in turn had positive protective effect on reading comprehension in adolescence. Another finding was that reading vocabulary and reading fluency at 8 years among students […]
![How to Survive and Thrive at Parent-Teacher Conferences [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/How-to-Survive-and-Thrive-at-Parent-Teacher-Conferences-1.jpg)
Some teachers find parent-teacher conferences the most stressful part of their job so it’s best to keep that in mind before you head off to the meeting. I remember we had “good” meetings and “bad”. The good ones seemed so easy – sit back and be presented with student work and positive comments. But there were also hard ones, frustrating ones, and depressing ones. People react to conflicts and crises in different ways – so that there can be psychological minefields for everyone involved in parent-teacher conferences – the parents, the teachers, and the students…and it all seems to go by so fast. BRING SOMEONE If you’re a single parent, bring someone with you – whether it’s a friend, fellow classroom parent, or relative. If […]
“This study identified that emotional trauma took place in all participants, and this resulted in many having Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder manifestations as a result of returning to school for their own children. Participants still noted anger and resentment as adults towards their childhood teachers…” — Neil Alexander-Passe In Neil’s study of PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder in dyslexic adults in the United Kingdom, he found that all experienced emotional trauma in their time in the public school system and over half (64%) experienced PTSD or school avoidance symptoms when re-entering schools as parents, resulting in anxiety with many stating that they felt powerless as a child. PTSD symptoms occurred in the same frequency whether or not adults had achieved advanced degrees.
From […]
Endrew F. vs. Douglas County School District decision: "The IEP must aim to enable the child to make progress. After all, the essential function of an IEP is to set out a plan for pursuing academic and functional advancement... When all is said and done, a student...
![How Families Help [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/How-Families-Help-e1648992117970-400x250.png)
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 […]
![Education During the Pandemic: Preparing for the Unpreparable [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Education-during-the-Pandemic.png)
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 […]
![I Never Thought I’d Be Homeschooling… [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/I-Never-Thought-Id-Be-Homeschooling-2-400x250.png)
We never thought we would be homeschooling when we started almost 2 decades ago. What our family can say today, is that looking back, we’re so grateful for our entire homeschooling journey – even though initially homeschooling chose us rather than the other way around. Today there are so many reasons to homeschool and ways that homeschooling can also be a good fit for dyslexic students, so take heart in the adventure ahead of you and may the coming year be one good surprise after another. WHY HOMESCHOOLING CAN BE A GOOD MATCH FOR MANY STUDENTS Schooling at an Individual Pace The first reason why homeschooling can be a good match for many students is that traditional schooling can be a […]
![Helping With Homework If You’re Not A Wiz Yourself [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Help-with-homework-2-400x250.jpg)
These are strange times and even if you’re not accustomed to helping with homework (including different types of homework), it may help a lot if you can help. Even pre-pandemic, when parents were surveyed about their helping with homework and trouble lending help, about 50% said they had difficulty… so you’re not alone. There are healthy debates about whether you as a parent should help with homework…and that doesn’t even consider whether a child might be dyslexic, dysgraphic, or dyscalculic, or all three. Helping with homework is not a good idea if the student doesn’t learn how to do the work. Now if a student is drowning, and no one is around to help, then a little help might not seem to be a terrible […]
![Clever Ways To Practice Repeated Reading [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Repeated-Reading-400x250.png)
It was in the late 1970’s that educational researchers began to question the practice of reading aloud different tasks as a way to make children more fluent readers. With this approach, every new day saw new challenges reading aloud for struggling readers so that they failed to gain proficiency, and if anything were more likely to develop a dislike or avoidance of reading. What actually showed greater success with reading fluency, was giving students repeated practice with the same passage. The general approach is to have a student or teacher pick a passage (a quote, poem, excerpt from a poem) that is 50-300 words long. The teacher or partner reads it aloud, then the student (echo reading). The goal is to have the student read […]
