Blog
“Reading Comprehension Challenges & School Bus Problems: What’s the Connection?”
When Kids struggle with reading comprehension it is interesting that there often is an overlap in "real life,” that is in the way the child interacts in their personal world. In this era of automatically labeling and pathologizing behavior as “ADHD,” this overlap is...
Brief Tip: Get Clear on Your Reading Remediation
There are essentially two types of reading problems: Type I: This type refers to the child who has trouble decoding words and reading fluently. They are typically viewed as “dyslexic.” Even though they are typically called "dyslexic," I like to call them "Type I...
Dyslexia Intervention: What Every Parent Should Know
As some states around the country have implemented new laws on dyslexia, some people have come to me to talk about how, “They have finally discovered dyslexia and this new method - Orton-Gillingham.” Well, not to burst any bubbles, but dyslexia has been around for a...
Reading Problems: A Brief Primer in Two Acts
I often think there is needless complication in the field relative to the varieties of issues that children present. From the perspective of having seen tons of kids over the years, I typically see two essential types of reading problems. Each one requires a different...
7 Keys to Comprehension
Recently I had the good fortune of being able to interview Susan Zimmermann on The Coffee Klatch Network. Zimmermann is the author of The Seven Keys to Comprehension: How to help your kids read it and get it! Within the interview, we talked about the challenges with...
Learning from Detective Columbo: A Parent Approach for IEP and 504 Meetings
Perhaps you are old enough to remember Lieutenant Columbo (played by Peter Falk) in the famed TV show from the 1970s. I use Columbo as a model to help frustrated parents in terms of their style of communication. I call it, “Going Columbo.” Here’s how “Going Columbo”...
Dyslexia – “We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident”
Dyslexia – “We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident” I am not pretending here to be the Thomas Jefferson of learning disabilities, but to borrow a phrase from that famous document that he authored (you know the one), where it was said “We hold these truths to be...
The Commutative Property of Childhood (and Dyslexia)
A dad came in this week to talk about his struggling 8 year old, Anna, who just started third grade. Anna has reading fluency issues, with particular difficulty managing words that are “low frequency.” Even in this early part of the school year Anna is welling up...
Deep Breathing Down the Jangly Road
By the upper elementary school grades, parents are given the message from the school that their child needs to do school work on his or her own without the parental support that was offered in previous grades. For many children, that's exactly what should be...
Dyslexia: It Comes From Some Place
A very common question that parents will ask me of their child who is showing signs of dyslexia is “Why? Where does it come from?” As suggested in International Dyslexia Association definition of dyslexia it states that it is likely to be of “neurobiological origin.”...
5,000 Tweets & Counting: A Milestone Is Reached!
This week I glanced at my Twitter page and found that I was at 4,999 total tweets! Over the 5,000 tweets there are themes that emerged that are fairly consistent. These themes were summed up in my book, School Struggles, but I thought they would be nice here as a...