Premium Issue 11 October 29, 2016 Organizing Creativity, Stealth Dyslexia, Dyslexia and Self Image, Memorizing for School, What Worked for 2E Gifted Dyslexics, Art Therapy for Dysgraphia, Hands-On Math for Fractions, More Interactive Reading Strategies, Mastering Foreign Languages and More This issue has memory strategies that seem to be helpful for a majority of dyslexic folk – whether it’s history facts, science vocabulary, or foreign languages. Subscriptions support Dyslexic Advantage. [/wcm_restrict] Bookmark Please login to bookmark ClosePlease login to access.
DEAN KAMEN INVENTOR [Premium]
“If you start to do things you’ve never done before, you’re probably going to fail at least some of the time…and I say that’s ok.” – Dean Kamen Dean Kamen is one of the world’s most prolific inventors with over 440 patents to his name – including the Segway, the Luke Arm (robotic prosthesis), a programmable insulin pump and portable water purifier for Third World Countries. He also created the FIRST LEGO league to encourage young people to build and engineer, and he considers that his most important accomplishment. Dean’s father was an illustrator for MAD magazine and Weird Science and his mother was a teacher. Precocious at a young age, he remembers inventing a way to make his bed without having to cross to […]
How To Become Invincible – Sort Of
Well, maybe not invincible, but you know what we mean. There’s a new idea circulating among business leaders and entrepreneurs. It’s not mindset or grit, but of course those are important. It’s rejection therapy. Some people think part of the reason for higher than average success of dyslexic people as CEOs and entrepreneurs is that they’re pretty much bullet-proof by the time they survive unrecognized dyslexia and the stressful bullying and teasing years of childhood. So what is the therapy in rejection therapy? It’s one of the oldest ideas in psychology – exposure. Increase resistance or tolerance to rejection by seeking it out. One popularizer of the idea is Jia Jiang, a startup CEO who realized that he hated being rejected when he pitched the […]
How to Read to Kids with Dyslexia – Reading As a Conversation [Premium]
There are many good ways to read to children with dyslexia. In this post, we wanted to talk share an approach that some have called “dialogic” or like a dialogue. A dialogue is a back and forth conversation, and that is exactly how this style of reading goes. Rather than having a parent or teacher read aloud with a child listening, in dialogic reading, the adult helps the child tell the story. The acronym for this method is PEER: 1. Prompt a child to say something about the book. 2. Evaluate her response. 3. Expand the response by rephrasing and adding more detail, and 4. Repeat the prompt to make sure the child learned. Except for the first reading of the book, PEER sequences should […]
Math Strategies for Arithmetic – Number Flexibility [Premium]
“Everybody could rock through their multiplication tables and I could do my ones and my twos and my zeros and my tens, and that was about it.” – Jack Laws, naturalist I’ve been enjoying a book, Mathematical Mindsets written by Stanford Professor Jo Boaler. It’s great stuff. She’ll help a lot of dyslexic students if they adopt her approaches to teaching math. The first concept is deceptively simple, but resonates with me after seeing over a decade of dyslexic students work math problems in our clinic. There is a high degree of overlap between dyscalculia and dyslexia although there is also a significant number of dyslexics who are solid or even outstanding mathematicians. The weak ones almost invariably struggle with basic math facts and require […]
Choosing the Right Reading Level Books for Students with Dyslexia [Premium]
It’s often told to parents that a “Five Finger Rule” can help you choose whether a book is at the right reading level for a student. The rule states that if a student misses five or more words, it may be too hard, no words and it might be too easy, and three words and it’s ‘just right’. The problem for dyslexic students is that the “Five Finger Rule” may prevent them accessing print information at their intellectual level and if reading aloud is the guide for the rule, then it’s possible they may never be granted access to higher level books even if they are university professors! In fact, pioneering work by Rosalie Fink (see research paper below for Premium members), showed that accomplished […]
Q: How Can My Student Be Tested for Dyscalculia ? [Premium}
The last decade has seen a great advance in the biological understanding of dyscalculia, or math disability. The DSM V groups a specific learning disorder in math (315.1) under Specific Learning Disability along with impairment in reading (315.000) and impairment in written expression (315.2). The NIH defines dyscalculia as a condition contributes to “difficulty understanding arithmetic concepts and doing such tasks as addition, multiplication, and measuring.” It is important to identify dyscalculia, because an unrecognized LD can contribute to cycles of academic underachievement, secondary behavioral and emotional issues, and obstacles to further academic or workplace advancement. With the recent addition of high-stakes exams like the calculator-free section of the new SAT, it is even more critical that students with dyscalculia be identified. The DSM V definition includes the […]
Teaching Bilingual ELL Students with Dyslexia in the General Classroom [Premium]
Almost 1 out of every 10 students in public school classrooms are English Language Learners (ELLs). Because dyslexia is also common throughout the world (10-15%), some ELL students are dyslexic. For ELLs, identifying dyslexia can be a complicated process, sorting out the effects of language exposure, bilingualism (or multilingualism), and vocabulary in the 2nd language. Regardless, general education teachers can incorporate many ‘best practices’ that can support all of their students whether they ELL only ELL who are also dyslexic. The challenge for teachers of bilingual students is that they may not have an easy way of knowing how to factor in a student’s prior language instruction and exposure and how that impacts dyslexia per se. Whenever possible, students benefit by academic vocabulary and concept […]
Question: Does Note-Taking with Spellcheck Help or Hinder Students with Dyslexia ? [Premium]
It’s a question that arises commonly – does spellchecking for students help or hinder when it comes to students and spelling? The concern is that allowing students to use spellcheck on a regular basis in the long run may prevent them learning correct spellings. Should age matter or the presence of dyslexia? What about working memory overload or ADD/ ADHD? The issue is not a trivial one especially because of recent efforts to The issue is not a trivial one especially because of recent efforts to put laptops away in college during lectures based on computer-based vs. traditional note-taking by hand (N.B. this study did not specifically assess dyslexic students – see the NPR story also below). A recent paper by Hiscox and colleagues (see below) […]
How Dyslexic MIND Strengths Integrate with Multiple Intelligences [Premium]
In our book, The Dyslexic Advantage, we spoke about the 4 MIND strengths common in adult dyslexics: M for Material Reasoning, I for Interdisciplinary Reasoning, N for Narrative Reasoning, and D from Dynamic Reasoning. These skill clusters and talent sets had parallels in brain systems and processes as well as careers, domains of expertise, and areas of innovation. Multiple Intelligences is a concept that was introduced by Howard Gardner of Harvard to identify specific modalities that went beyond a single intelligence or general ability. The seven he initially characterized were: musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical mathematical, bodily, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. The ones he considered adding later were naturalistic (able to classify natural forms, ecological ‘receptiveness’), existential or spiritual, and teaching -pedagogical in telligence. Somewhat related […]
Teaching Chemistry to Students with Dyslexia [Premium]
Although High School Chemistry is required for many of the top 4 year liberal arts colleges and college Chemistry is a necessary requirement for many majors and careers that many dyslexic students excel in like engineering or medicine, there is a surprising lack of resources available to students having their first encounter with chemistry – and that may make things tricky, especially if they’re also juggling a full load of classes. For Premium subscribers, here are a few tips and strategies for surviving and even thriving at chemistry. Chemistry can be a field that dyslexics do extremely well at because they can visualize, rotating molecules in space, and picture their interactions and energy transformations. The main challenge is often at the beginning – when all the […]
How Herd Aversion Helps Adult Dyslexics [Premium]
“I have herd aversion to the point it’s ridiculous.” – Vince Flynn In our earliest interviews with adult dyslexics in research for our book, a recurring theme of “herd aversion” emerged. Herd aversion or tendency to avoid group think – seems to be a common feature among some of the most innovative and pioneering men and women that we’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Some may point to early childhood experiences of having to “go against the grain” or figure things out on their own, but regardless, as adults, it takes a lot of gutsiness because there can be a lot of messages from the world telling you that they don’t get you or that you’re flat out wrong. Fortunately, there are lots of disciplines […]
