There are many informal terms that have come into literature to describe “compensated” dyslexic readers. We coined the term stealth dyslexia to call attention to their pattern on psychometric tests; stealth dyslexics often had this compensated reading pattern where silent reading comprehension was much better than single word reading accuracy or oral fluency. It’s common to see a pattern of resilient reading by dyslexic students in college or those who have been successfully remediated. Dr. Fumiko Hoeft has found that activity in the left prefrontal region seems to predict reading resilience in children (see below). Interestingly, a study by Farris et al. in the Annals of Dyslexia this year has found that strong vocabulary predicted reading resilience among college students with dyslexia. From […]
College Success: Strategies
"One half of all students who begin college fail to complete their degrees, resulting in wasted talents, time, and resources... Educating students on learning skills only solves part of the problem for students at risk for dropping out of college. According to this...
Math Strategies Without Anxiety with Stanford Prof Jo Boaler
If you anticipate working with a student on math this coming year, what approach will you take? Dr. Jo Boaler has tips that can help create a positive atmosphere for learning. https://vimeo.com/163871454 To read the entire handout...
Apps for Productivity and Organization [Premium]
How about apps for productivity and organization? Here are useful ones you can try. ToDoist is a popular to do list that is integrated with email, IFTTT, Dropbox, and Slack. It is free – premium and available on iOS and Android. For some people, free Google Calendar is sufficient. Just remember to set up your calendar notifications and Google Tasks (iOS and Android). Just Press Record $4.99 iOS I use this app all the time to record – just a big red button and store audio recordings to the cloud. With a recent update, this app has also added free transcriptions. It’s not perfect (probably Otter.ai is more accurate, but it’s great to be free and definitely helps searching through […]
Clever Ways To Practice Repeated Reading [Premium]
It was in the late 1970’s that educational researchers began to question the practice of reading aloud different tasks as a way to make children more fluent readers. With this approach, every new day saw new challenges reading aloud for struggling readers so that they failed to gain proficiency, and if anything were more likely to develop a dislike or avoidance of reading. What actually showed greater success with reading fluency, was giving students repeated practice with the same passage. The general approach is to have a student or teacher pick a passage (a quote, poem, excerpt from a poem) that is 50-300 words long. The teacher or partner reads it aloud, then the student (echo reading). The goal is to have the student read […]
Free Structured Literacy Resources [Premium]
Even if these are unprecedented frustrating times for instruction due to the pandemic, there are occasional upsides – like the increased availability of free resources about structured literacy now available on the web. In many respects, it’s never been easier to sample different curricula, look at how others introduce lessons, and take advantage of free resources posted online. As an example, for those using the Wilson system, here is a teletherapy site where teachers have uploaded lessons. Here is a board that can be used if you’d like to work with a student remotely or simply give your student digital manipulatives for lessons. https://sites.google.com/view/teletherapyforwilsonproviders/home Work directly online with a board HERE. Get a copy of the board HERE. […]
Surviving and Thriving in Hybrid Classrooms
With the rise in vaccinations, many schools have opened with a hybrid schedule which has some pros and cons for dyslexic students. ONLINE ASSIGNMENTS - GROUP PARTICIPATION and AUDIO The reduction in written assignments since of the start of the pandemic has...
Spatial Intelligence: Developing One of the Dyslexic Super Powers [Premium]
Although spatial intelligence is often a “dyslexic super power” and associated with famous architects, filmmakers, inventors, and engineers, it gets surprising little education in K-12 education. What that might mean in a practical way is that many of the young members of this community might only stumble into their greatest talents by chance, or worse, not at all. MOST CURRICULA ONLY SPECIFY NAMING AND SORTING SHAPES Math educator David Fielker noticed a surprising blind spot when it comes to math instruction with shapes: typically students are led to practice sorting and verbally classifying shapes, rather than working with them, building, adding, and taking away. It’s physically working with them, “composing and decomposing shapes, comparing and mentally manipulating two- and three-dimensional figures, and […]
Challenges of Pandemic Learning For Dyslexic Students
As education slowly drifts to a new normal, and parents take stock of where they are and what their priorities are in education, it is best to be aware of what to be on the lookout for because dyslexic students learn so differently. AUDITORY PROCESSING HURDLES Because...
Keeping Math Alive
Among the many challenges facing dyslexic students in the midst of the pandemic is holding on to skills and continuing to make progress in the midst of disruptions and altered schedules due to the pandemic. Because so much math builds on previous knowledge, many...
Talking Through Math [Premium]
As the pandemic continues, more and more parents and tutors may find themselves supervising students’ math. For dyslexic students, the talking process can be especially valuable, but it may be difficult. If you are a parent or tutor helping explain a lesson or homework, it’s good to help your student talk through the steps of math; this may be especially difficult for some students. If a student has trouble finding words or has a limited working memory, talking through math may be difficult for a while until either or both of these functions develop. Such students may especially benefit when YOU talk through math, slowly and precisely. There are also ways to make the talking process easier – like having a list of math vocabulary […]
COVID SCHOOLING: Should we be worried?
Short answer: NO. As at least half of the schools across the country closed for health reasons, students from the earliest ages to post-graduates find themselves schooling from home, usually through online programs. In the best situations, students have smoothly or...