Blog
Does Spelling Matter?
Georgia is a lively, spontaneous and friendly 10-year- old student entering the fifth grade. Cognitive testing placed her between the average to above average range for most of the domains assessed. Spelling and writing were a different story for her. Here are some...
“You Can Observe a Lot By Watching”
Yogi Berra - “You can observe a lot by just watching.” One of my big themes is that in the assessment world there is an overplaying of quantitative data. There is too much “Well, the student is in the ‘average range’,” and therefore gets no service or support. Young...
Assessment: Weighing the “Data”
There are many mythologies out there in the land of struggling children. Many of the mythologies reside in the assessment corner of the universe. One of the problems with both dyslexia (and ADHD, for that matter) assessment is there is no agreed upon test, no gold...
Overplaying the IQ
The following is a letter from nine year old Cassie transcribed from her hand-written letter to a relative: Dear Uncl mic: I had a grate time at the lunch/diner. Wer are you getting mered? Haw are you dowing? I love you . Plese rite back (ar you aksw tell ant emmy to...
Clarifying In-Class Support vs. Direct Instruction
Those of you who have been with me for some time, know that I will often have questions when parents talk to me about their child receiving “in-class support” to address the child’s reading issues. Sure, keeping children as close to their regular class as possible and...
Stage III of Reading: Riding the Bike
In the last two posts I talked about the value of understanding the Stages of Reading. As I noted, knowing where your child is in his/her stage of reading development provides you with a road map as to what you need to focus on with your child at any given time. Like...
More Old School Concepts: The Stages Continued
In my previous blog post, I talked about one of my favorite “old school” concepts still valuable, but not discussed enough – The Stages of Reading development. All children pass through these stages, but some progress more smoothly than others. Children who are...
Old School Concept: Know the Stages of Reading Development
There are three "old school" concepts in education and psychology that I think still apply, which I hope to discuss over the next few weeks. Probably a day does not go by in my professional practice where I am applying these concepts with the kids I have been asked to...
Instructional Ranges: Essential Information
I had the pleasure of recently meeting with the faculty of the Center School, in Abington, Pennsylvania. A school specializing in children with learning disabilities, we reviewed a number of evaluations that had been conducted on children prior to their admission to...
Reading Disability & a Confused Mom: Getting Clear on the Focus
There’s a lot in this business that gets me rolling my eyes. Too often when I talk to parents about what is going on with their child, I feel my cranky meter rising. Take, Patricia, the mom of 7 year old Beth Anne. Patricia plopped a stack of reports on my desk....
The Goldilocks Standard: Executive Functioning & Shut-Down Learners
I had the pleasure the other night presenting to parents at the Orchard Friends School. The topic was “Executive Functioning & Shut-Down Learners.” As I always try to do, my mission is to present concepts that I think become unnecessarily overcomplicated (like...