The Department of Justice has also released video clarification of key rights for students regarding testing accommodations under the ADA or Americans with Disabilities Act. The entire video is located at the bottom of this post, but we are highlighting a section...
"My daughter currently has an IEP. We asked that we keep her accommodations of the IEP in place but take a break from the support she is receiving from the resource teachers, with both pull out and push in. We were told that we need to revoke her IEP in order to do...
RTI or Response To Intervention is currently the dominant approach to reading instruction in public schools across the United States (over 70% of school districts), but in a just-released progress report funded by the Department of Education from the Institute of...
![Your Brain on Math Anxiety [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/shutterstock_331750409.jpg)
This is your brain with math anxiety. In children as young as 7 years old, researchers found that activation in areas such as the amygdala and hippocampus were seen in children who had high math anxiety. The amydala and hippocampus are areas of the brain associated with fear condition and negative emotions. The children were given simple and complex arithmetic problems and asked to determine whether the answers given were right or wrong. The children in the high and low anxiety group were matched for IQ, working memory, reading and math performance, and general trait anxiety. As a double burden, the high math anxiety group (HMA) in the figure showed lower brain fMRI activation in areas associated with math processing. So anxiety could be acting […]
Children with dyslexia should be screened for hearing problems, says a UK researcher, after her research team found that 1 in 4 students had significant hearing problems that were not suspected by parents. Their study also found that 1 in 3 children with a hearing...
Resilience is a popular topic among today's educational leaders, and for good reason. If you grow up with significant academic, social, or socio-economic stress, you're more likely to still grow up as a happy, successful, and adaptive adult if you are resilient. Many...
A teacher writes, "I have a new student who transferred from a public charter school. She has an IEP accommodation for a calculator use for anything involving math calculations. But I'm wondering whether providing a calculator is changing standards? Is she learning...
![Positive Strategies for College [PREMIUM]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2019-08-30-at-1.03.04-PM.jpg)
In a recent research study (abstract only) of dyslexic students at college, the following strategies were mentioned: 1. Go to Lecture and Just Listen. It was common for students to be unable to listen and note-take at the same. Face-to-face lectures were preferred to recorded lectures because audio quality was sometimes bad, and some students need to see the teacher’s face and his or her gestures to fully comprehend what was being said. Request a Note-Taker Early. One student said at times a note-taker had to be requested several weeks in advance (!). Record Notes with the One Note or Audionote App. 2. Prepare for Lecture. For classes where teachers make Powerpoints available before lecture, download and print so notes can be written on them […]
![[PREMIUM] TEST-TAKING: DYSLEXIA and MULTIPLE CHOICE](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/shutterstock_1153156547.jpg)
At the secondary and university level, many students with dyslexia may prefer short answer questions to multiple choice. There are many reasons why the multiple choice question format may not be a good estimator of a student’s knowledge. It is very common for the questions and choice answers to be ambiguous. From Biochemical Education: “Writing good multiple choice questions is hard, a fact not appreciated by all teachers and examiners. There is a tendency to use imprecise terms, and even when apparently precise terms such as always and never are used (for example in true/false type tests), it seems that not everyone agrees these are indeed absolutes….In a survey of medical examiners, Holsgrove and Elzubeir found that of 63 respondents, 51 considered that always means […]
![[PREMIUM] Don’t Require COPYING From the Board](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Screen-Shot-2019-08-31-at-2.15.03-PM.jpg)
DON’T REQUIRE COPYING FROM THE BOARD Dr. Kirkby: “Copying text…is psychologically complex. It involves a series of sequential visual and cognitive processes, which must be co-ordinated: these include visual encoding, mental representation, an written production.” Long after students have begun to crack the code of reading, note-taking and copying from the board remain very difficult if not impossible for some students. Note-taking from lecture adds the additional challenging of listening to words, translating them into a visual representation, then retrieving these images and motor sequences to get them down on a page. Moderate to severe dysgraphia is not uncommon among dyslexic students. For these students, not only will copying from the board be impossible, but also significant modifications (decreased written work) and accommodations (extended time, […]
![Executive Function: DE-STRESS [PREMIUM]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Screen-Shot-2019-08-30-at-9.05.28-PM.jpg)
Dyslexic children who are struggling in school will be under tremendous stress and have varying levels of anxiety and depression. Stress is well known to affect executive functions and children experiencing stress can look as if they have ADHD. – Destress the Learning Environment. Are expectations well matched to the student’s current ability? Is the workload appropriate? Are accommodations needed? – Is your student being heard and understood? Is your student able to express herself and her feelings? Putting thoughts and feelings into words can have a positive distancing and organizing effect for people under stress. Can your child problem-solve setbacks and disappointments? If not, she may need some help scaffolding her challenges and coming up with a plan. Is there a positive working relationship […]
![How to Teach Dyslexic Students Geography [PREMIUM]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Screen-Shot-2019-08-31-at-5.21.43-PM.jpg)
Many people may not know that a dyslexic scientist (Dr. Wally Broeker) led the first research team characterizing the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt – a massive cycling that takes place in the world’s oceans that circulates the sun’s heat around the globe and also has profound effects on marine animal migration and climate. Although the subject of Geography should be a natural fit for many dyslexic students with its high demands on MIND strengths (material, interconnected, narrative, and dynamic reasoning), it can also be taught in rote fashion (memorize map names and features) that can lead many students to struggle. In at least one study, dyslexic students being taught geography learned significantly better than their non-dyslexic counterparts if they were taught using multimedia (text, graphics, and sound). Multimedia was […]
