Endrew F. vs. Douglas County School District decision: "The IEP must aim to enable the child to make progress. After all, the essential function of an IEP is to set out a plan for pursuing academic and functional advancement... When all is said and done, a student...
![Study Hacking The Paper Driver’s License Test [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Study-Hacking-The-Paper-Drivers-License-Test-3-400x250.png)
The Washington state driver’s license paper and pencil test can be a difficult one for dyslexic drivers. Having seen some of the sample questions, there’s a lot more number trivia compared to the California test I passed many years ago. Whether you don’t drink alcohol or smoke marijuana, you have to answer specific questions about how long it takes for the body to recover from a drink or smoking, but also answer detailed questions about how many days you have before reporting the sales of a vehicle to the Department of Licensing (5 days). With many similar questions and answers, the pass rate is 80% (what a nightmare!). ‘STICKY’ MEMORY CAN INTERFERE WITH ROTE STUDY FOR DRIVER’S TEST How to study for this […]
![Reading and Learning are About Thinking [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/READING-AND-LEARNING-ARE-ABOUT-THINKING-400x250.jpg)
“Then a strange thing happened. The more I started thinking about what we were studying, the easier it was to remember the facts. Facts began to stick in my head — and I didn’t even have to try to make it happen…” — Don Johnston, CEO After using Don Johnston’s assistive technology with our kids when they were growing up, it was such a pleasure for us to meet Don Johnston himself for the first time a few weeks ago. We hadn’t known that he is dyslexic and before we met, he shared his autobiography (for kids), Building Wings. The book is available in e-book form HERE and otherwise through Amazon. Like many dyslexic adults, Don vividly remembers events from his childhood and school […]
![Non-Reading Ways to Recognize Dyslexia [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Non-Reading-Ways-to-Recognize-Dyslexia-Premium-400x250.jpg)
Last month, I was surprised when one of the teachers in our Dyslexia for Teachers course said that a writing sample couldn’t lead anyone to suspect a student had dyslexia because dyslexia was a reading disorder. Of course, that statement is wrong. KNOWING MORE THAN THEY CAN EASILY SHOW BY TESTS OR WRITING Perhaps the most common way that dyslexic students come to the notice of their teachers is by unevenness in their abilities or what some refer to as a “spiky profile.” They may have strong reasoning abilities and make thoughtful observations and comments during class, but their written work may may be far lower than their knowledge from trouble getting their ideas on the page, the need for extended time, and […]
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“My mind is very visual: I can see anything in pictures, and I always visualize things. I can’t help it. It’s how I’m wired. So whatever you talk about, I’ll see pictures in my head. Very vivid, colorful, lifelike pictures. They aren’t still pictures. I can make them move. Reality, fiction, whatever. I really have to pull it back in to get focused. It was also a problem in the classroom because I’d sit there and imagine where I’d want to be, and what I’d want to do, and what I wanted to become, and I’d think happy thoughts, and I’d just be tuned out the whole time in class.” — CEO Glenn Bailey When Brock and I were on a radio show years […]
![The Voice Inside Your Head [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Voice-Inside-Your-Head-400x250.png)
“When I was eight years old, a school psychologist gave me a bit of advice about my brain. He said I may have a form of brain damage, and he wanted to send me to a special class. I was a classic dyslexic: I wasn’t born with a good memory, and I couldn’t concentrate; reading and writing were always a challenge for me. Throughout my school career, I learned by having my mother and friends read the syllabus to me; I forced myself to memorize it and what I didn’t get, which was most of it, I just didn’t get. I had no future because I just couldn’t grasp what was being taught to me. In twelve years of school, I couldn’t read a book […]
Numbers are starting to trickle in from February testing and the good news is that things are beginning to recover, but younger grades are behind more than older children. The numbers below are all students, without dyslexic students studied separately, but if...
If you're the parent of a third grade child with dyslexia in the public school system, your student may be having an especially difficult time. Some of the struggle might be understandable as classrooms attempt to move past learning to decode to reading to...
"Individuals with dyslexia significantly outperformed controls in creativity scores in adult samples..." - Majeed et al., 2021 In the past year, there have been two more studies to add to the creativity research literature on dyslexia. The first, a...
" ...our current education and work environments are often not designed to make the most of dyslexia associated thinking, we hope this research provides a starting point for further exploration of the economic, cultural and social benefits the whole of society can...
![Auto-Correct in Foreign Languages: Installing Additional Keyboards [Premium]](https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Installing-new-keyboard-400x250.jpg)
This morning, I was interviewing a dyslexic physician, Andrew Newman (we’ll share his full story in another issue) and he happened to mention when he was working through Duolingo foreign language learning app that a pop-up occurred and asked him whether he might want to install a foreign language keyboard to help with spelling in Italian. He had been racing through all the auditory and spoken parts of lessons, but was continually penalized for spelling in the written parts and not able to advance. Installing the Italian keyboard, auto-corrected his spelling and grammar in Italian, so now he’s able keep on learning without his dyslexia getting in the way. Over the years, we often found ourselves writing for or talking to schools to provide appropriate […]
***. This article was previously a Premium post. Thanks to a donation by Christina, we've made this post public! The assessment of dyslexic students and employees is in dire need for a reassessment itself. Many institutions have decided that the most expedient...
