A nice family-friendly movie based on a true story is "Rescued by Ruby". It's a story of a high-spirited and difficult-to-train animal shelter dog who met up with a high-spirited and difficult-to-train state policeman (Daniel O'Neil). The two connected on multiple...
Manuel Garcia-Rulfo in Netflix’s Lincoln Lawyer
"We were shooting and I said: ‘I can not do this’. I was going to quit.” — Manuel Garcia-Rulfo Manuel Garcia-Rulfo had big shoes to fill - following on Matthew McConaughey's Mickey Haller in Netflix's remake of The Lincoln Lawyer. English is a second language...
Comforts of the Abyss: New Book from Philip Schultz
"Schultz, founder and director of The Writers Studio, chronicles the challenges he faced as a poet, fiction writer, and teacher that led him to see the aesthetic and psychological value of creating a writing persona. He has long confronted a pervasive inner critic...
Dyslexia and Farming: Matt Baker [Premium]
“If somebody asked me if I could live my life again without dyslexia, I would say no, because you recognise things and you do things differently to the way everybody else does, and that gets you to the front of the queue. You see things which are very obvious to you. I’m very practical and visual – that’s what I’m drawn to. And you find ways around challenges and it gives you a different perspective on life.” — Matt Baker of Our Farm in the Dales In the United Kingdom, research has suggested that one in ten people are dyslexic, but besides being over-represented in schools of engineering and art design, dyslexia is also found more commonly in agricultural students (one in five). […]
New to Dyslexia [Premium]
More people are finding out that they’re dyslexic, so it seemed like a good time to write a big picture of dyslexia for new members. DYSLEXIC STRENGTHS First of all, there seem to be intrinsic strengths associated with dyslexia and not simply weaknesses or impairments. Understanding the strengths and positive differences can help people navigate through the most difficult periods of schooling and life. We discuss dyslexic MIND strengths in more detail in our book, The Dyslexic Advantage, but briefly, these strengths include reasoning through materials and physical experiences, reasoning through the interconnection of ideas and knowledge, storytelling, and reasoning through visualizations and mental simulations. Dyslexic learning may conflict with conventional classroom instruction because traditional teaching may emphasize passive learning and rote memorization over […]
Audio Study for Drivers Tests
If it's Spring, then it must be time for driver training! Many Departments of Motor Vehicles are poorly equipped to meet the needs of the neurodiverse community and it may not be obvious how to access an audio version of the drivers manual (our state...
What Should We Do This Summer?
Summer is usually a great time for dyslexic students - out of the daily grind of school. Hopefully the pandemic truly is easing and more activities are returning to normal. TAKE A BREAK Students have been working hard and under stress these past months, so make...
PTSD and Dyslexia
"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...
Henry Winkler: Find the Very Best for You
“There is an emotional component to the learning challenged,” says Winkler, whose parents called him “dumb dog” for his failures. “You don’t have a sense of self because you’re not keeping up with everybody... you feel terrible about yourself.” — Henry Winkler ...
Grit and Resilience [Premium]
“The worst problem any dyslexic has to face is not reading, writing, or even spelling, but a lack of understanding…” — The Reality of Dyslexia Grit is the ability to persevere in the face of setbacks, challenges, pain, and adversity. Resilience is similar, but different in the sense it describes an ability to “bounce back” from difficulties. Both, as it turns out, are important for the achievement of long-term goals and mental well-being. When students in dyslexia specialty schools were studied over the course of years, researchers found that grit and resilience scores increased over time in these schools – and that correlated with lower levels of anxiety and depression and improved academic performance. Want to assess your grit? Click here —> GRIT SCALE […]
Rogue Hero: Mastermind of the Special Air Service, David Stirling [Premium]
“The boy Stirling is quite mad, quite, quite mad. However, in a war there is often a place for mad people.” — General Bernard Montgomery A recent documentary on the founding of the British Special Air Service mentioned that the unconventional mastermind was, in fact, dyslexic. David Stirling has a very non-linear and unpredictable start to his adult life. He started at Cambridge, but was thrown out in his first year because of a variety of poor performances and vices including gambling. He tried to make his way as an architect, then artist, then became interested in the possibility of becoming a mountaineer and reservist in the Scots Guards. David was in America working as a cowboy when the World War II began. He […]
Poor Outcomes for Reading Recovery [Premium]
“Initial gains from first-grade intervention didn’t last and kids performed worse in third and fourth grade…” Over 2 million students in the US have been taught reading with based Reading Recovery, a short term intervention program that uses pull-out one-to-one tutoring to first grade students. It was one of the few programs supported by the What Works Clearing House to improve general achievement (see report here – link goes to a public google drive which contains the report). However, new data suggests that at long-term following, students who received Reading Recovery performed worse than their peers by the 3rd and 4th grades: The researchers at the University of Delaware gave possible reasons for negative results: Of note, Reading Recovery had received $55 […]