If Your Student Can’t Write [Premium]

If Your Student Can’t Write [Premium]

If your student can’t write, no matter what age – prepare yourself for the long haul because so much of schooling and even many aspects of hiring and work can require writing. When writing is difficult for students with dyslexia, it may be that they are having difficulty converting feelings and images to words, trouble retrieving words, or putting them in the correct order, then writing them down with correct spelling and grammar. A significant proportion of dyslexic students will also have dyspraxia, so have trouble with sequencing and fine motor control required for handwriting automaticity. Any added difficulties may also swamp working memory, causing students to get lost in what they want to say. For many dyslexic people, dysgraphia will present a greater problem […]

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More Free Leveled Texts and Reading Passages [Premium]

More Free Leveled Texts and Reading Passages [Premium]

The grand-daddy of them all is still probably Readworks, but if you like to change things up with leveled reading, check out News in Levels (alas Newsela is no longer free) or Tween Tribune, run by the Smithsonian.   If you do use Readworks, make sure you know about the slider at the bottom of the left sidebar that can help students select the correct reading level. One nice thing about News in Levels is that each new item includes either an audio track or video. If your students are assigned to conduct research on the internet, but may struggle with reading text they find due to their reading level, have them install Rewordify to reword difficult words or phrases or activate their browsers text-to […]

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How Families Help [Premium]

How Families Help [Premium]

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 […]

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How Not to Learn to Read aka Death by Worksheets [Premium]

How Not to Learn to Read aka Death by Worksheets [Premium]

Daniel Shanahan recently recounted his discussion with a principal about his school curriculum. His students were under-performing and he assured Daniel that students were receiving plenty of instruction in phonics and fluency.   When he looked at the teacher’s curricular plan, it looked as if plenty of reading instruction was given every day, but his impression changed once he began visiting classes. Daniel: “Much of the instructional time wasn’t used for instruction at all. The teachers spent a big chunk of time on “sustained silent reading” and they read to the children quite a bit, too. All the classrooms had multiple reading groups. That meant that the boys and girls did a lot of worksheets to keep them quiet while the others were reading with […]

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Visual Notes for Understanding: Science [Premium]

Visual Notes for Understanding: Science [Premium]

Note-taking may be a lifelong difficulty for most dyslexics. In one survey of 17 universities in the United Kingdom (HERE), 78% reported difficulties with taking notes compared to 47% reporting reading difficulties. The reason for note-taking difficulties are several – note-taking requires a great deal of working memory and divided attention, but also there’s the transcription of heard words to written words which can be difficult for a number of reasons, not the least, weakness in visual word form memory and for some students, auditory processing. Most dyslexic students should have classroom notes or other note-taking accommodations (like a designated note taker, Livescribe pen, or other option to record) as a standard condition. It is possible to learn how to visual note-take in real-time, but […]

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Remediating Late or Resistant Dyslexic Learners [Premium]

Remediating Late or Resistant Dyslexic Learners [Premium]

Dyslexia legislation has focused on early remediation, but what about older learners who weren’t formally identified until adulthood or ‘resistant’ dyslexic learners who seem a great deal slower than other dyslexic peers at progressing with gold standard structured literacy instruction?     LATE-TO-IDENTIFY OR NEVER-REMEDIATED LEARNERS Q: Can older students and adults be remediated for dyslexia? A: Yes. Absolutely. Remediation is often easier if begun earlier, but adults of all ages can learn to read with good comprehension. Their speed of reading is slower – but with more regular practice, it becomes quicker. From a study by Guinevere Eden and colleagues: Adults were given 3 hr a day remediation with a “structured multisensory phonological intervention” for 8 weeks in a program by Lindamood Bell that […]

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The Power of Ask [Premium]

The Power of Ask [Premium]

One of the benefits of being able to interview so many fascinating dyslexic people over the years is that I can learn about how they navigated challenging educational and workplace settings. Some had supportive families while others had the complete opposite of supportive families – but almost all were trailblazers at some point in their lives because so much of the world and its institutions can put obstacles in their way to success.   THE POWER OF ASK In the National Transitional Longitudinal Study-2, only 24% of students qualifying for accommodations in high school, made the decision to disclose their LD at the college or university level. So even as demands for coursework reading and writing increased, they did not disclose or ask for accommodations […]

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

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

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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Remote Work Hacks [Premium]

Remote Work Hacks [Premium]

“I’ve found that a single screen feels very restrictive to me. I normally have three screens since I jump between tasks a lot. Many neurodiverse people like myself find it difficult to stay focused on one thing for very long. Having my work “scattered” around on different screens feels sort of like having papers all over a desk; I can pick up pieces in parallel without the need to stop and start what I’m doing. Basically, being able to easily move between the different things helps me find a flow. “ — John Abel, Technical Director, Google   MULTIPLE SCREENS If you spend a good deal of your time working on a computer, you may find that adding a screen (or even more than one […]

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The Strange Case of Reading Small Words [Premium]

The Strange Case of Reading Small Words [Premium]

A parent may notice it first in a beginning reader or an adult who finds it exasperating when trying read aloud – why is it that the “small words” are so easy to skip or misread? It is a sign of dyslexia?   The skipping or misreading of small words can be associated with dyslexia, but can also be unrelated.   ONE POSSIBILITY VISUAL TRACKING AND “READING TOO FAST” Developmental optometrists have frequently identified visual tracking abnormalities and convergence insufficiency in school age dyslexic children. This does not mean that visual issues cause dyslexia – they just suggest that they may commonly be found in this group of child and therefore contribute to word or line skips. Students who feel pressured to read fast may […]

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Lip Reading and Dyslexia [Premium]

Lip Reading and Dyslexia [Premium]

There is a long and diverse research history of dyslexia and documenting the auditory processing difficulties associated with dyslexia that hinder phonological awareness. It’s why dyslexic kids will struggle in school when everyone is required to wear a mask. The sounds are muffled, but also if the teacher is masked, then students cannot look at the teachers mouth – as an additional cue to what sound is being made. In a recent study published by Annals of Dyslexia, researchers made an interesting observation: “those children with dyslexia who are better readers attended more to the mouth while presented with a person’s face in a phonologically demanding condition.” More research needs to be done about this issue, be aware of helps like watching a video of […]

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