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dyslexia

Why Learning About “Why” Helps Us All to Read

I can’t tell you why a “c” sounds like an “s” in the word certain. Without Googling, I can’t tell you why certain patterns of letters make a specific sound. Ask our daughter. She has an understanding of alphabetics, phonemic awareness and she understands the particular rules that make letters and letter combinations make certain sounds. She can tell you why. The Phoenicians Can Tell You Why & I Can Tell You a Little The alphabet and connecting sounds to letters have been around a long, long time. The Phoenicians were the first to start breaking down sound into letters. The earliest evidence of their work dates back to 1000 B.C.! The Phoenicians may not have written a structured literacy approach to reading, but it seems like they were moving in that direction. The Phoenicians invented the alphabet, and they can tell you why. I learned to read easily and naturally. Over the years, as I’ve discovered more and more about how all of us should learn to read, I’ve rediscovered the joy of the English language. I’ve learned to tackle long, confusing words that I would generally skip or try to figure out in context. I break the words apart or look for the meaning in the parts. I can’t tell you why, but I can tell you a… | Read More »Why Learning About “Why” Helps Us All to Read

Publishers Keep an Eye on Content so All Learners Can Succeed: Accessibility

Educational publishers are important stakeholders in the educational landscape, but you don’t hear much about them, and rarely do you hear what they are doing right. One area where publishers are doing a lot right is accessibility. Accessibility is usually considered within the context of assistive technology, but it’s actually way more than that. Accessibility is a broad term that carries a lot of meaning—ranging from technical requirements for web content to less physical functions such as developing or producing content in a way that enables the purpose of the material to transfer to all learners. Making content accessible to all learners goes hand in hand with assistive technology since the material must be written in a way that the technology can make sense of the content. It’s very confusing to hear a caption for a photo read as part of a story, instead of listening to a description of what the image is.  Sound familiar? As I learned years ago in publishing, content is king or queen! Like Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup, Accessible content and assistive technology go great together. Both have the same educational goals: to ensure that all students have access to the same material, and can work with the content the way they need to learn. Who wants to spend time guessing at what’s in a… | Read More »Publishers Keep an Eye on Content so All Learners Can Succeed: Accessibility

Why the Alphabet Is So Much More Than A, B, C

It’s Dyslexia Awareness Month and the perfect time to consider why the alphabet is so much more than A, B, C. Each October, Dyslexia Awareness Month generates awareness about the 1 in 5 people who have difficulty decoding words because of a challenge at the most basic level in connecting sounds to letters and then mapping those words to print. Learning to read is a complicated process, and the first step toward understanding where we’ve taken a wrong turn is to look at the alphabet. Here’s why it’s worth a second look. The alphabet is a series of symbols or letters that work together to create words. The words work together to form sentences. That’s how most of us learn to read—me included. Why this process sets us down a squirrely path is because we take the alphabet at face value with minimal thought to the many sounds and patterns that work together to form words. The alphabet becomes nothing more than the alphabet song that we all learned when we were starting to read. We’re Reading and Guessing! Once we get the letters down and have some basic sense of how they dance around and create words we’re off and running. If we’re not sure of a word, we guess. In theory, we’re reading! It’s like jumping out of… | Read More »Why the Alphabet Is So Much More Than A, B, C

Will New York’s Guidance Memo on Students with Disabilities Resulting from Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, and Dyscalculia Change Anything?

New York is making progress towards better dyslexia awareness, and the acknowledgment of science-based approaches to reading. That’s the good news! As a parent, though, what I want to know is will the guidance memo change anything. Will more teachers get trained? Will we get more effective services? In August 2018, the Deputy Commissioner of The State Education Department sent out a guidance memo on Chapter 216 of the Laws of 2017: Students with Disabilities Resulting from Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, and Dyscalculia. The memo went out to the following stakeholders: District Superintendents Superintendents of Public Schools Public School Administrators Charter School Administrators Superintendents of State-Operated and State-Supported Schools Executive Directors of Approved Private Schools Nonpublic School Administrators Directors of Special Education Directors of Pupil Personnel Services Chairpersons of Committees on Special Education Organizations, Parents, and Individuals Concerned with Special Education In plain English, the purpose of the guidance memo is to inform school districts about the specific educational needs of students with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. Furthermore, the memo confirms that these very explicit terms can be used for evaluations, eligibility determinations and drafting IEPs (Individualized Education Program). #SayDyslexiaNY Just look at the stakeholders. The memo is out!  Now that the good word is out when we start complaining that our kids aren’t learning to read, the services aren’t working, and… | Read More »Will New York’s Guidance Memo on Students with Disabilities Resulting from Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, and Dyscalculia Change Anything?

What Are You Going To Do About School Next Year?

Each summer, families like ours, with kids with reading and learning issues, have endless debates about our school options for the following academic year. “What are you going to do about school next year?” “We’re in due process. Maybe our district will pay for a specialized school.” “We were moved to another school in the district. We’re hoping that the new school will work out.” “We’ve accepted that a private school for kids with reading issues is the only way our son will graduate from high school. We’re not sure how we’ll pay for it, but we’ll make it work.” “We’re trying to understand what services our daughter is entitled to.” “We’re going to SKYPE with an OG tutor since there aren’t many in our area.” “What are you going to do about school next year? What are you going to do about school next year?” It sounds nerve-wracking, and it is since the options are limited and typically a financial burden and a logistical challenge on families. Many families are just stuck taking whatever the school district offers due to cost to come up with a different solution; AKA educational inequities. That alone should be indicative of why we need a tidal wave of change in our educational system. If the best we can hope for is to chatter… | Read More »What Are You Going To Do About School Next Year?

It Will Get Better for Kids with Reading Issues Like Dyslexia

“It will get better. Your daughter will be OK,” said a friend whose daughter with a reading issue recently started college. Many times, throughout the years, parents of an older child with a reading issue like dyslexia would assure us that their kid was doing fine; enjoying college, succeeding in a job, starting a family. Well-meaning friends and families would point out the latest celebrity that came out as being dyslexic. That wasn’t us. Our daughter wasn’t famous nor was she a genius or a prodigy. We weren’t famous. I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel that everyone told us we would start to notice. I didn’t see the gift of dyslexia. I saw yet another unwanted challenge. The light still hasn’t come, but it has gotten better. Our Journey It hasn’t been an easy journey for us, but our story is typical. Occasionally I meet people who embrace their child’s difference from the get-go and make peace with who they are. They glide through the education system with minimal drama. I respect those parents that keep their grace in the midst of challenges, but it is not us. The truth is that for years I would get angry, frustrated and sometimes depressed. I felt betrayed by the educational system that I spent my career working… | Read More »It Will Get Better for Kids with Reading Issues Like Dyslexia

Why Kids with Dyslexia Need Specialized Schools to Thrive: An Interview with Kevin Pendergast, Head of School at The Kildonan School

“Your child should attend a school specific to language disabilities or consider the home-schooling option.”  Families like ours receive this type of recommendation all the time, and it is a life-changer. Perhaps you work full-time, or you know that you and your kid are not a good fit for a home-school scenario. You may not have ever thought about a specialized school or considered the logistical and cost factors. Your child has not been progressing in a typical school environment, and you know they are smart, so the recommendation is not a shock. It’s merely a wake-up call for a reality you were not ready to face. That was our story. To get our daughter the reading services she needed, last April we drove to The Kildonan School in Amenia, New York, to learn whether our daughter would be a fit. As previous blogs have described, our daughter attended the summer camp, Camp Dunnabeck, for six weeks, and made unprecedented progress. For kids with reading issues who have not demonstrated improvement in a traditional school system, private schools for language issues are the difference between thriving versus not finishing high school or graduating with limited choices. For this post, I am proudly interviewing Kevin Pendergast, esq., who is Head of School at The Kildonan School. What are the major differentiating… | Read More »Why Kids with Dyslexia Need Specialized Schools to Thrive: An Interview with Kevin Pendergast, Head of School at The Kildonan School

Dawn Smith-Pliner and Isabella on a kayak in a lake in Vermont.

Chasing the Dream: Dyslexia Services and Little White Lies

Most parents are relieved to finally learn what they knew all along; that their kid has dyslexia or a reading issue. For us, it meant that we could finally get the services that we knew our daughter needed.  What we weren’t prepared for, were, well, the little white lies. Little white lies happen. I always thought that little white lies were innocent twists on the truth. Failing to tell a little white lie could expose information that might do more harm than good. What I’ve learned, though, is that having an understanding of the little white lies makes me a better parent advocate for our daughter. Public Education & Dyslexia Services The promise of public education. I always envisioned that our daughter would go to public school, and it never crossed my naïve mind that we couldn’t make it work. It’s public education! When our daughter was in pre-K and kindergarten, we signed up for the lottery in our school district. We did not get any of our choices, so we enrolled her in a private Montessori school, and went on a waiting list. Eventually, all of our daughter’s friends got into one of their schools of choice. However, once our daughter had an IEP, we were told she was no longer eligible for the lottery or any of the… | Read More »Chasing the Dream: Dyslexia Services and Little White Lies

Dyslexia and Adoption: Let’s Connect the Dots-Part 2

Where is the research about dyslexia and adoption? And, why isn’t adoption cited more frequently as a subgroup within the broader dyslexia community when adopted kids are twice as likely as non-adopted kids to have learning or attention issues (Morin, n.d.).   Would a specific subset muddy the global effort to help more people with dyslexia learn to read? Would fewer people want to adopt children if they thought their child would be at a higher risk of having a learning difference? As a parent of an adopted child with dyslexia, I’ve often struggled with the dyslexia community at large to understand what makes our kids more prone to reading differences. In my last post on this topic, I questioned the effect that sudden language disruption would wreak on a young child learning to read (Gindis, 2004). I still don’t know for sure whether sudden language disruption is the reason our daughter has a reading difference, but I believe it is a factor.  What I have since learned, is that there are tons of ideas why our adopted kids could be more prone to learning differences. Here are some of them: Poverty Stress Trauma Poverty, Stress, and Trauma You don’t hear a lot about poverty, stress, and trauma in the mainstream dyslexia community. However, they are really, really important factors to… | Read More »Dyslexia and Adoption: Let’s Connect the Dots-Part 2

Dyslexia and Adoption: Let’s Connect the Dots

It’s dyslexia awareness month. As such, I would be remiss in continuing our story without mentioning adoption, particularly international adoption. What about adoption and dyslexia, or learning differences for that matter? Where is the research, and why isn’t adoption cited more frequently as a subgroup within the broader dyslexia community? Maybe it would over-complicate a very challenging educational space, or possibly most people have no idea that such a high percentage of adopted children, especially those adopted internationally, are dyslexic. If only we knew. Statistical and Empirical Evidence of High Rates of Dyslexia in Adopted Children The first person who told us that our daughter would have a learning difference was our adoption attorney. Go figure. While preparing some adoption paperwork, she indicated that our daughter would not get through college in four years—if she went at all. I was insulted. How dare she stereotype our perfect child! Because she had worked with internationally-adopted children her entire career and since our daughter came to us at around the age of two, the attorney predicted our daughter would have some type of learning difference. We knew we would prove the attorney wrong, but sadly, we didn’t. What I learned is that in 2014 alone 110,373 kids were adopted through foster care, and domestic and international adoption (Jones and Placek, 2017). Kids… | Read More »Dyslexia and Adoption: Let’s Connect the Dots