Blog
“We’re Not Doctors…We Think You Should See a Neurologist”
Oliver, age 8, has difficulty behaving in his third grade class. They were told by the school, "We're not doctors, so we don't know why he's doing these things, but we think you should see a neurologist." The last statement is code language. Here's the translation -...
“Lost at Sea:” Executive Function Weaknesses
Every 10 years or so in education and psychology there is a trendy hot topic or new term that was essentially unheard of the previous decade. Before learning disabilities became a hot term in the 1970s, these were virtually unknown in the public. The same was true...
Language Overload: “Daddy’s Tied Up in Traffic”
Many struggling kids have considerable trouble with facets of the language that many of us take for granted. Take Allison, age 8. One night Allison was told by her mother that her father was, “tied up in traffic.” Allison burst into tears. “Why is daddy being tied...
#Socializing in the 21st Century
Eli’s parents are concerned. They think that their twelve-year-old child lacks social skills, as they rarely see kids coming to the house or calling on the telephone. Eli, himself, seems not to be concerned. He thinks he has lots of friends and plays with them all the...
Direct Instruction vs. In-Class Support
When I ask parents of children who are struggling with reading what is being done to correct the problem, I frequently hear something like, “he’s getting in-class support.” When pressed further to explain what remedial method is being used, I usually don’t get much...
“My Child is in Early Stage I of Reading Development: What Do I Do?”
Stage I of reading development (Google, Jeanne Chall) typically corresponds to the end of kindergarten through the end of first grade. This is the first major "learning to read" stage. Your child usually starts Stage I when they can do the following: Recognize all...
Improving Reading Comprehension Through Dread
A father of a sweet 11-year-old girl came in to have her child evaluated this week. By impression and observations, the girl, Katie, was on the innocent side of life. She was still in the “Hello Kitty” phase, which was nice to see, given how fast and advanced many...
“Hmmm, Let me think about it:” An Underpinning of Reading Comprehension
So, your child is reasonably down the road with the skills of decoding and reading fluency. The next stage emphasis is typically focused on comprehension, and one of the underpinning skills of reading comprehension is the ability to apply the skill of “Hmm, let me...
‘Rubrics – Shmubrics:” Absurdities in Kiddy Land
Writing rubrics are familiar to most parents these days. The rubrics are the criteria used to assess a range of writing skills for a child. Here’s a writing rubric that was handed to me recently for David, a child who I was going to assess. On a four scale rubric,...
A Few Problems With the ‘D’ Word: That’s Right – “Dyslexia”
One of the problems with the word "dyslexia" is the rampant confusion that goes along with the it. If you ask anyone you know what they understand about dyslexia, I would predict that almost without exception, you will get something like, “Isn’t that when you read...
Lifting Dyslexic Weights
A mom came in this week to talk about young Caroline, age 7, a second grader. The mom had a stack of material to show me. There was the math worksheet filled with word problems with the red 34% at the top of the page, with all kinds of ‘X’ marks throughout....