Dyslexia/Reading & Learning Disabilities

Kids who are struggling feel like they are constantly running up hill while the other kids are on an easy downward slope.   

In this day and age of Student Growth Percentiles, Common Core and PARCC testing what is the one thing that the struggling kids need above all?

They need people to be patient with them, to ease up on all of the pressure.

Sometimes they get burned out with it all.

Turn down the heat this weekend.

Take your kid out for an ice cream cone.

Dyslexia Teleseminar:

Do you have questions about dyslexia/reading disabilities?  Of course you do!  Then join me for an open-forum teleseminar.    

Bring your questions for an open chat and dialogue. 

The seminar is free and is scheduled for 1/13 @ 7:30 p.m. (est). 

Here’s the link to register:

https://shutdownlearner.com/news-and-updates/2013/12/teleseminar-down-to-earth-dyslexia

Hope to see you “In the Room.”

Recent Radio Interviews:

I am excited to share with you recent radio interviews that I conducted with exciting  guests on topics related to learning disabilities, dyslexia & ADHD:

• James Redford:  Director,  “The Big Picture:  Rethinking Dyslexia”

I interviewed James Redford, director and producer of the movie:  The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia.  Mr. Redford was a great guest discussing his family’s journey to help his son overcome his struggles with dyslexia:

https://shutdownlearner.com/news-and-updates/2013/12/interview-with-james-redford-the-big-picture-rethinking-dyslexia

• Dr. Betty Osman:  Psychologist & Author:  “No One to Play With:  The Social Side of Learning Disabilities”

In this interview Dr. Osman and I talk about the relationship between learning disabilities and social problems.  She has many insights and offers much wisdom.

https://shutdownlearner.com/inthemedia/2013/12/no-one-to-play-with-the-social-side-of-learning-disabilities

I would like to wish all of my friends a very Merry Christmas and a Happy & Healthy New Year

The Mom:

(Coming in to the office for the first time sounding very frantic.)

“Maybe I am overstressed, but I am starting to lose it. I have three kids.  The first two were on what you called the ‘smooth’ road.’  They started out in kindergarten fine, learned their sight words and then everything started to come together.  They never had any problems.”

“Then, my third came along, and maybe it’s because we don’t pay attention to her as much as we did the other two, but something just isn’t right.  I know she’s only in first grade, but the stuff they put on the walls for back to school night, really freaked us out.  Kayla’s work was nowhere near what the others were doing…not even the boys.”

“Not only that, but she hates reading.  I know the school wants her to read 20 minutes every night, but it is such an ordeal. It always turns into a screaming match.  It’s like a nightly ritual where we all end up screaming at each other.”

“The school keeps giving this code-message – have you had the neurologist see her yet?  I know the code.  That’s code for 'Don’t you think she should be on medication.'  A neurologist?  Why?  I’m really at a loss here.   I think the kid should be tested to see if she has any signs of a learning disability or dyslexia.  She needs help.  I'm not rushing to put her on medication.  The pediatrician gives me the impression that he thinks I'm crazy and he keeps telling us she will grow out of it. ” 

“What do you think?”

Me:

“Trust your gut.  Listen to yourself.  Get her tested. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. ”

The stress over dyslexia (reading disability) goes on.

Two recent examples seen recently exemplify the issues.

As part of a larger assessment, seventh grader, Justin, read this little piece of text to me, The orchestra leader tried to organize the musicians. Instead, Justin read, The ostrich leader tried to organize the musicians.

It took him a couple of sentences later until Justin stopped and said, Wait, that doesnt make sense. Whats an ostrich leader? After a little time, he went back in the text and corrected himself, a very inefficient process. Ultimately, he answered the comprehension question about the passage correctly, in fact he was able to derive a score that placed him in the dreaded average range, thereby leading the school to conclude that he, comprehends fine, so whats the problem? Well if it came to Justin wanting to enlist in the military, if he was to take the ASVAB Paragraph Comprehension Test, he could actually fail, leaving him to be unable to take the apllication further to get into a military position. Justin would, however, benefit greatly from an ASVAB Paragraph Comprehension Practice Test before applying.

Kate, age 8, also is struggling without any legitimate support. At the start of our assessment, Kate wrote that one of her wishes was to be famis. None of Kate’s three wishes were written in complete sentences. For Kate, open-ended writing causes her a great deal of stress. Daily, she faces the imposition of the imposing Common Core State Standards resulting in activities targeting the development of three to five paragraph essays with “higher order” concepts. Kate is hard pressed to write one adequate sentence, no less a three to five paragraph essay.

The stress with reading disabilities/dyslexia resides primarily with children being asked to do tasks that are beyond their developmental level. Both Justin and Kate are children not adequately understood.

For Justin, the school believes he should be on medication to help him focus better. While Justin may be a candidate for medication, his primary issue is the fact that the reading and writing process are very inefficient for him resulting in him feeling depleted. With Kate, asking her to write essays when she is not close to that level of skill development is fundamentally unfair. People in their adulthood looking to pick up writing seriously or even as a profession, but who also struggle with their dyslexia, may benefit from utilizing Proofreading services when they’re in the final stages of the writing process.

On some level, these were children who were functioning well enough to receive adequate grades in school. They both had extra time as an accommodation. For both Justin and Kate, just giving them extended time, is not going to cut it. (What children want more time on tasks that they find detestable and that they cant manage?)

Above all, the Justins and the Kates need closer contact with a supportive teacher who can deliver skills in an encouraging manner, targeting their zone of skill level and development. It’s no wonder that more children and teenagers are using a paper writing service to keep on top of their work when they can’t get teachers who will understand their condition and help them with their work. The skill development should be scaffolded in a way that allows mastery to develop in a logical sequence. One step and skill should lead to the next. Ideally, the work should also be as multisensory as possible, to simultaneously and systematically engage the child in ways that the regular curriculum cannot.

Then the stress will reduce.

Story I

So, second grader, Nicole,  was writing  some things to her mom in class. She started a poem to her mother, “Rosis ar red vilits ar blae, but nan is as swet as you.” 

She went on to tell her mom that she was having “fune at skal I mise you.”

Certainly, Nicole would score high sweetness points, but the writing  suggested some “red flag” indicators of concern. 

Here’s what the teacher said:

“Nicole does not always stay on task.  She is quiet and does not tend to raise her hand often in class.  I think it really just comes down to confidence.  I think Nicole can be a very successful student in the classroom.”

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I really want to scream.)

Skills are Nicole’s primary issue, not confidence.  Nicole needs to have her skills targeted.  Then confidence will follow.

Story II

When assessing vocabulary on the cognitive portion of the assessment, the child looks at the word and the examiner asks the child to tell the word’s meaning.   “Ancient” is a word in the mid-levels of the test that most kids have a pretty good idea as to its meaning.  They usually start talking about the pyramids or something like that as a way of explaining the word 'ancient.'

Thirteen year old Ivan  was tested recently.  (I will try and transcribe our interaction.)

Me:  “What does the word ‘ancient’ mean?” (As I show it to him in print.)

Ivan:  “Ancient??? I thought that said ‘accident.”

Me: “No.  Ancient.  What does the word ‘ancient’ mean.”

Ivan:  “Oh, yeah!  I know that…like a spy?”

Me:  “What do you mean like a spy?  I said “ancient.”

Ivan: (Looking at me like he was talking to a lower order human who just didn’t get him.)  Yeah, a spy, like I said…like a secret agent.”

Me:  "Oh, I get it…my bad."

Hmmm…do I need to say more? 

Story III

As part of the Coffee Klatch Network  on my monthly radio show I had the good fortune of interviewing James Redford, film director and producer of the movie “The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia.”

The movie tells the story of his son Dylan’s struggles with his learning disability (dyslexia) and the journey that took Dylan from a “functionally illiterate” fourth grader to a successful college student.  The movie also highlights a number of very well known “celebrity” dyslexics including Richard Branson, Charles Schwab and others.

Within the interview, Redford made many great points.  One that struck me was the value of the label.

As he stated, “My wife and I felt that it wasn’t until the whole thing (the dyslexia) could be contained and understood under a label that we could say, ‘oh this is what it is. This is something that is diagnosable. This is something that you could do something about. This is a challenge, but it’s not an academic death sentence…. The label of dyslexia was actually a positive thing to us, which is strange, because so often labels are destructive. You have to make sure, though, that what comes with a label is true understanding. Because if you just use the label ‘dyslexia’ as it is currently used there is a lot of misunderstanding."

(Here’s the link to the Redford interview and others that have been completed on “School Struggles:”  http://thecoffeeklatch.com/school-struggles-with-dr-richard-selznick/

This is the link to all of the interviews that are a part of The Coffee Klatch team: http://thecoffeeklatch.com/the-coffee-klatch-team/

Enjoy.

***Note:  (This blog was published some time ago, but due to a problem with the website it needed to be reposted.  It has been revised.)

I had the good fortune to recently take part on a panel during a symposium on dyslexia sponsored by the grassroots parenting group, Decoding Dyslexia: NJ.  Dr. Sally Shaywitz, the author of “Overcoming Dyslexia” was the keynote speaker.  While talking about assessing dyslexia, Dr. Shaywitz said something that really struck me.  She noted, “Dyslexia is not a score.”     

That statement is right on the money.

Scores are certainly involved in the assessment of dyslexia.   Tests such as the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test, the Tests of Word Reading Efficiency and the Comprehensive Tests of Phonological Processing, among other standardized measures yield reliable and valid standard scores, grade equivalents and percentiles.  These scores can be helpful markers.  However, the scores often don’t tell the whole story. 

Here’s one example:

Jacob, a fifth grader, is in the 80^th%ile of verbal intelligence and his nonverbal score is in the 65% percentile, meaning Jacob’s a pretty bright kid.  Jacob’s word identification standard score on the Woodcock was a 94 placing him solidly in the average range, with similar word attack and passage comprehensions scores.  Effectively, both of the scores (Word Identification and Word Attack), placed Jacob just below the 50th percentile, but solidly in the average range.

Jacob’s scores would not have gotten the school too excited.  Yet, here’s what I told the mom.

“There’s a lot of evidence in Jacob’s assessment that suggests that he is dyslexic.  Even though his scores are fundamentally average, he was observed to be very inefficient in the way that he read.  For example, while Jacob read words like “institute,” and “mechanic” correctly, he did so with a great deal of effort.  It was hard for Jacob to figure out the words.  For those who are not dyslexic, word reading is smooth and effortless.  Those words would be a piece of cake for non-dyslexic fifth graders.  They were not for Jacob.”

“Even more to the point, was the way that Jacob read passages out loud.  Listening to Jacob read was almost painful.  Every time he came upon a large word that was not all that common (such as, hysterical, pedestrian, departure) he hesitated a number of seconds and either stumbled on the right word or substituted a nonsense word.  An example was substituting the word “ostrich” for “orchestra.”  The substitution completely changed the meaning.

"Finally, the two other areas of concern involved the way that Jacob wrote, as well as his spelling.  While Jacob could memorize for the spelling test, his spelling and his open ended-writing were very weak.  The amount of effort that Jacob put into writing a small informal paragraph was considerable.  There also wasn’t one sentence that was complete.”

“Even though Jacob is unlikely to be classified in special education, I think he has a learning disability that matches the definition of dyslexia as it is known clinically (see  International Dyslexia Association website:  www.ida.org ).  The scores simply do not tell the story."

"Dyslexia is not a score."

Takeaway Point:

 You need to look under the hood to see what’s going on with the engine.  With dyslexia, you can't just look at the scores and make a conclusion.