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The Accessible Classroom [Premium]

“Currently, I have a group of teachers in a principals’ training program taking my Dyslexia for Teachers course. In answer to my question about whether their classroom was accessible, one teacher answered that she was sad to say that her classroom was not as accessible as it should have been. She is not alone. More often than not, classrooms aren’t fully accessible so students are left on their own to figure out how to complete assignments and tests. One point that this teacher made was text-to-speech support was only emphasized during testing, and not for routine classroom work involving worksheets or textbooks. Every classroom is likely to have students lost in a sea of text, perhaps afraid to speak up. WHAT TEXT CAN’T MY STUDENT […]

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James Lovelock: Inventor, Polymath, Climate Pioneer 1919-2022 [Premium]

“I had this profound drawback which has hampered me all my life, of being dyslexic. And therefore, having problem with equations, I can never tell which side I’m on, and waste an awful lot of time checking.”    – James Lovelock The world said goodbye to Dr. James Lovelock, who passed away at the age of 103. He led an impactful life in science, but perhaps is best remembered for environmental concerns and his Gaia theory which called for the world to recognize that people and other living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings to form a synergistic and self-regulating system, and to recognize dangers that might affect that relationship. He’s been called the father of ecology. With such a tremendous impact, Lovelock is being […]

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Strategic Learning for Reading [Premium]

Teaching and parenting dyslexic students are arts as well as science. To be strategic in your instruction, the long-term goals are as important to keep in mind as step-by-step instruction. HOW DO YOU CORRECT STUDENTS WHEN READING ERRORS HAPPEN? While correction is important, it’s also important not to overwhelm students when their first attempts at reading wildly miss the mark. Students who do not know how to decode may make wild guesses – and need years of structured multisensory instruction to reach their goals of fluent reading. With this in mind, some sensitivity to where a student is and whether you’re reading together for enjoyment or providing instruction in decoding may help you choose whether or not to overlook small errors that do not affect […]

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Julia’s Project : Boosting the Esteem of Elementary Kids with Dyslexia

As promised in the last newsletter, here’s my interview with Julia de Montagnac of ColoringConfidence.com Julia shared her vivid memories of reading struggles in the 2nd and 3rd grades, and when the possibility of a service project came up, she wanted to interact with young students who might be undergoing some of the struggles she recalled. She was able to improve her reading and rejoin the general classroom, but she doubted her ability until she realized she that she wasn’t unintelligent. Her project with students involved drawing pictures to convey ideas and stories. English is one of her favorite and strongest subjects and she is an avid reader. Way to go, Julia! Thanks for sharing your story and finding such a creative way to boost […]

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Language Teaching and Dyslexia: What About Exceptions to the Rules? [Premium]

The English language is especially difficult to learn if you are dyslexic – because about half of its words are not predictable by simple rules. So what to do? WORD FAMILIES Learning similar words in similar groups can be motivating for students because they learn many words at one time. Dyslexic students tend to be good at recognizing patterns, so approaches like these are well-suited toward dyslexic students. One site for word family lists can be found here. DON’T OVERSIMPLIFY THE RULES Problems usually arise when students are taught an oversimplified rule like “a silent e makes a vowel say its name”. The rule works for words like bake, bike, nose, and cute, but it doesn’t work for words like have or dance. The worse […]

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Smooth Sailing into September

It’s that time of year again when students have either started back or are beginning to start back to the school year and even old work routines. While some aspects of getting back to old routines are welcome, there are plenty of reasons why students, teachers, and parents will have mixed feelings getting into what things that may have been disrupted during the pandemic. THE POSITIVES First the positives. Students will enjoy seeing old friends again, sports, extracurriculars, and trying new things. Dyslexics may thrive in personal interactions – social perception, empathy, teamwork, leadership – and this pandemic has been tough. Students learn from first-hand experiences and people. So, it’s nice to have more direct contact again. Other students may be significantly behind if your […]

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Dyslexic Strengths in Times of Adversity

“…dyslexics sometimes seem unusually well suited to deal with major changes — to being able to see opportunities inside of adversity. They are known to be particularly good at rethinking situations in an original way. They are known to be able to see what others cannot see. They are good at not being stuck with conventional views and conventional solutions. They have trouble reading and memorizing old knowledge — but they are often really good at creating new knowledge and insights.” — Thomas G. West Tom West, author of Seeing What Others Do Not See, In the Mind’s Eye, and Thinking Like Einstein, has a wonderful article titled: Dyslexic Strengths in Times of Adversity. We thank the DAS, or Dyslexia Association of Singapore for letting […]

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Building Spatial Talents [Premium]

“…Spatial reasoning has been key to numerous scientific advances, such as the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA and the epidemiological research using maps to discover the true source of cholera outbreaks. It is also essential to many 21st-century careers, particularly in science and engineering… But are we able to see and support these particular kinds of talent in our classrooms?” — Lakin and Wai, Phi Delta Kappan   What are spatial talents? In short, they are talents that involve visualizing objects and places in 3d and being able to manipulate them at will. These are talents that seem rich within the dyslexic community, but may be overlooked or neglected in conventional school activities. It’s an important strength set to recognize because it tends […]

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Dyslexic Super Learners [Premium]

“This isn’t how I think either; this is how I have trained myself to think, because it works.” – Kevin Horsley, World Memory Champion and author of Unlimited Memory   It seems surprisingly common that dyslexics are found among the world’s super-learners. It might be that all share a passion for understanding their memory strengths after suffering what may have been years in the school system, not realizing how to use their gifts. It also might be that dyslexics as a group have strengths in metacognition, especially when studied in selected groups like those found in universities. When Kirby and colleagues studied dyslexic and non dyslexic students in college, his study group of dyslexic students were more likely to use metacognition (i.e. thinking about their thinking), […]

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Recovering from Pandemic Losses [Premium]

As we all hope the worst of the pandemic is behind us, the schools must all anticipate an even greater variability in reading, writing, and math levels for students due different degrees of pandemic loss and social and emotional stress. Educational researchers and school psychologists are warning parents and teachers that the diagnoses of learning disabilities may be especially prone to errors: “When education has been disrupted by COVID-19, rigid adherence to DSM-5 criteria for initial diagnosis of a specific learning disorder entails substantial risk of error. In the past two years, most youth have experienced some loss of academic instruction. Many have also experienced psychosocial adversity (such as death of a loved one or decreased social support). Interventions might not have been available within […]

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Sky’s the Limit: Finding Self-Efficacy [Premium]

“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning…” — Mahatma Gandhi More people may have heard about self-esteem than self-efficacy, but self-efficacy may be a more important quality that will predict how a person may make personal life goals and meet challenges in the future. Self-esteem relates to how one values oneself. Self-efficacy, on the other hand, is a belief in how you can be successful or achieve something in the future.   MAJOR INFLUENCES ON SELF-EFFICACY Dr. Albert Bandura, a pioneer in the study of self-efficacy, states that the major influences on self efficacy are: — mastery experiences (starting out as a beginner […]

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The Language of Math [Premium]

“The meanings of words in general usage are often very different from their mathematical meanings.” — Marilyn Burns Educational leaders are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of teaching the language of math in order to raise understanding and performance. There can be extensive reading and writing demands associated with math learning and dyslexic students may be at particular disadvantages learning because they may have trouble reading word problems, dual tasking (listening while taking notes), and confusion with symbols. A paper by Riccomini and colleagues recalled some of the difficulties associated with learning the language of math: – Words that have different meanings in contexts (a foot = 12 inches vs. foot of the bed) – Homonyms (pie vs. pi) – Concepts that may be […]

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