I Speak of Dreams

Excellent short video describing dyslexia and its remediation

Excellent video. Description from Understood.org.

What is dyslexia? Watch as reading expert Margie Gillis explains what dyslexia is, including signs and symptoms of dyslexia. Hear her talk about why reading is difficult for dyslexic children, and how to help.

More on Margie Gillis: she founded Literacy How in Connecticut

#showme1in5 Dyslexia Awareness and a Call to Action

Today, March 15, 2014, is the day selected for a social networking push for awareness of dyslexia, started by the Decoding Dyslexia grass-roots movement, keying off the 1in5Initiative powered by Learning Ally.

What will it take to get school districts and schools across the country to

• accept that dyslexia exists
• have uniform early-identification policies
• adopt effective remediation techniques?

Here's my first image (shared on Facebook and Twitter)

 

Here's the second:

Here's another version

 

Another image:


 

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March 15, 2014 Show Me Your 1 in 5

When dyslexia goes to college....

When a well-remediated, hardworking dyslexic student matriculates at a university with excellent disability support, and the dyslexic student finds a field of study that ignites that student's passions, this is what happens:

Oh, those honors?

 

 

My Jumper Girl!  I am so proud of her, for so many reasons.

Dyslexia: Not a vision problem

 image source http://www.texasfamilyeyecare.com/
Sometimes people are confused between optometrists and ophthalmologists.

Optometrists are specialized health care professionals.  After earning an undergraduate degree, future optometrists enroll in a four-year specialized doctoral program.  The degree is typically abbreviated as OD.  Some optometrists have further post-graduate education, and are required to take ongoing professional continuing education courses. 

Ophthamologists are medical doctors (MDs) who, after medical school and internship, train for at least three more  years in the medical specialty of ophthamology.

William O. Young is a pediatric ophthalmologist with a special interest in the neurolinguistic basis of dyslexia.  He is on the advisory board for an evidence-based treatment for dyslexia, Lexercise.  

 image source: http://dyslexia.yale.edu/Policy_ADA.html
In 2011, Young wrote a series for the Lexercise blog, Five Ways Not to Treat Dyslexia Part 1 and Five Ways Not to Treat Dyslexia Part 2 .

The list opens with:

The remediation that we know works for dyslexia -- multisensory phonics-based structured language instruction with daily practice -— takes a lot of work and a lot of time. Parents of struggling readers are willing to do the work and the spend the time (and the money) because they’ll do anything to help their child learn to read. Wouldn’t it be great, though, if there were an easier way? Like if your child could just put on a pair of special glasses, or do eye exercises, or take a pill that would treat her dyslexia?

Based on this hope for a quicker, easier, or better way, a whole industry of quick fixes and other alternative therapies for dyslexia has arisen. Many are based on the false belief that dyslexia is the result of a problem with the visual system, and that’s where I as a practicing pediatric ophthalmologist may be of some help in guiding you.

Wilson's list of "five ways not to treat dyslexia":

1. Eye exercises/”vision therapy”
2. Irlen lenses/filters 
3. ChromaGen lenses 
4. Low-plus reading glasses 
5. Omega 3 fatty acids

I found the discussion of the low-plus reading glasses really helpful -- I didn't know why they were unlikely to help in remediating reading disorders.

If you want more on vision and reading, Lexercise has a 38-minute video of Dr. Young on The Role of the Eyes in Reading Disorders, with handouts available.

No, a typeface won't "fix" dyslexia....but readability helps

On April 24, 2013, The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia's Facebook page asked

Question Wednesday: Anna asks, "Does anyone have experience with "dyslexie" font? I'm curious if it really helps..."

I wrote about this almost two years ago,

There's been a lot of buzz re "a typeface for dyslexia", alleging that it was researched based, can help, etc. 

The research was in Dutch. There's no data on the degree of dyslexia of the 21 research subjects, their base reading level, etc. The research found that they "made fewer reading errors" compared to another font. No information is available on the contrasting font, or how the research was carried out.

Dyslexia is a language-based issue (discerning sounds in words, rapidly matching sounds to symbols (letters) and rapidly matching symbols to sounds).

This is not a cure or treatment for dyslexia, people, and in my view is nothing to get excited about.

A Barton colleague, Pamela Taylor from Kansas City's Lexability, gave what I think was the best answer for the Facebook Question

An attractive, well-designed readable font is important for ALL readers; but, a font change won't help those with dyslexia specifically in a sustainable, long-term, and meaningful way. Simply changing the font won't improve the phonemic awareness and processing issues involved with dyslexia and it is a disservice to those with dyslexia to say that it is an answer.

There was a study done that Dyslexie helped in readability; however, it was flawed, statistically insignificant, and not that conclusive (even though it was administered by those involved in marketing the font).

So, nice fonts for EVERYONE! It does make reading easier for all. But it won't help with the fundamental, underlying, and problematic issues of dyslexia.

At the last IDA conference in Baltimore, dyslexia specialists--myself included--were quite discouraged by the misleading premise that a font change would be helpful. It's a cheap out and a red herring.

One of the other commentators suggested looking into the free, open-sources faces, Open Dyslexic, pictured to the left.

If you feel that having such a font might help with reading fluency, go ahead, just as long as you are aware that nothing substitutes for direct, explicit, multisensory instruction, delivered with sufficient intensity and fidelity.  

dyslexie image source: http://www.studiostudio.nl/en/information/

Open Dyslexic image source: http://opendyslexic.org/

Misinformation about students with disabilities, one-on-one aides, and Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)

New from NICHCY, the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities, on aides and LRE.

Question: Is having a one-on-one assistant the “most restrictive” setting for a student with a disability?
Answer: No. The type of support that a student requires has nothing to do with the degree to which her educational placement is considered to be “restrictive” under IDEA, the Federal special education law.

Whoever wrote the NICHCY FAQ is a lot more generous than I would be

The truth about LRE
Some parents who ask about a one-on-one assistant for their child are told that this kind of individual support would be the most restrictive setting for their child, and that moving the child into a separate classroom or separate school would actually be less restrictive. This is simply not true, and probably reflects a lack of information on the part of the person making that statement.

Parents of students in special education must educate themselves about their students' rights, as so often the special education director or the district are misinformed -- if not downright dissembling -- about students' rights

Wonderful post on math failure and anxiety

By the author of the blog,  Math with Bad Drawings, What it feels like to be bad at math

It’s surprisingly hard to write about this, even now. Mathematical failure – much like romantic failure – leaves us raw and vulnerable. It demands excuses.

I tell my story to illustrate that failure isn’t about a lack of “natural intelligence,” whatever that is. Instead, failure is born from a messy combination of bad circumstances: high anxiety, low motivation, gaps in background knowledge. Most of all, we fail because, when the moment comes to confront our shortcomings and open ourselves up to teachers and peers, we panic and deploy our defenses instead. For the same reason that I pushed away Topology, struggling students push me away now.

 

I think I'm about to read a whole new blog

EdRev 2013: My City School, San Francisco

My City School (San Francisco) is a brand-new start-up.  I believe it is set to open in Fall, 2013.  It's a middle-school program for students with learning disabilities.  I gathered from the woman I talked to at EdRev that there were students with unmet needs, so a group of parents decided to start a program.

EdRev 2013: Stellar Academy, Newark, CA

There were a number of schools for students who learn differently exhibiting at EdRev 2013 that were new to me.

One is Stellar Academy for Dyslexics, which is located a few miles south of the Dumbarton Bridge on the east side of the San Francisco Bay. (In other words, might be within commute distance for students from Palo Alto and Menlo Park, as well as East Bay communities

The mission of Stellar Academy, located in Alameda County, is to assist children with dyslexia overcome academic challenges through the Slingerland® approach.

The school is evidently rather new, and small (37 students, according to this Great Schools review).

EdRev 2013: Learning Ally and the 1in5 Initiative

The Parents Educational Network's EdRev 2013 was a great success

I stopped by the Learning Ally booth. You may have known Learning Ally as Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic, but they changed their name to reflect their greatly increased scope.  The tagline is, "Making reading accessible for all".  The mission is now:

At Learning Ally, a national non-profit since 1948, our mission is to promote personal achievement when access and reading are barriers to learning by advancing the use of accessible and effective educational solutions.

I had a friendly and informative visit with Learning Ally's Mark Brugger.   Learning Ally is now offering a suite of  professional development workshops for teachers and school administrators, as well as webinars for teachers and resources for parents.

If your child is struggling with reading or with comprehension, I strongly urge you to explore the Learning Ally resources, and why listening and reading can be so helpful.

There's also something brand new: Learning Ally launched the 1in5 Initiative on April 14, 2013

One in five Americans is dyslexic, a learning disability that affects a person’s capacity to read printed words. The 1in5 Initiative was created for people who struggle with the condition and are seeking solutions to manage it.

1in5 Initiative on Facebook

1in5 Initiative on Twitter

I will look forward to seeing the resources at the 1in5 Initiative site grow.