2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

This blog is from the publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter, a bi-monthly electronic publication for those who raise, educate, and counsel high-ability children with learning issues such as AD/HD, dyslexia, Asperger’s, and so forth. This blog is to share news, events, and resources we find as we do research for the newsletter and for the complimentary monthly email briefing we publish.

Tracy is an expert in the area of working memory and shares “everything working memory” on her blog. It is an academic research expert’s resource for the lay person. She talks about current events, research and how working memory correlates to learning issues. It is extremely informative and not presented in academic lingo.
 
 
Tracy Packiam Alloway

Tracy Packiam Alloway, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Memory and Learning in the Lifespan at the University of Stirling, UK. She is the author of over 75 scientific articles and two books on working memory in children with learning problems, and has developed the world’s first standardized working-memory tests for educators published by Pearson. Her research has received widespread international coverage, appearing in outlets such as the Guardian, Daily Mail, Scientific American, Forbes, US News, ABC News, and NBC. She is much in demand international speaker in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. She provides consultancy to the World Bank on the importance of working memory.

She was recently awarded the prestigious Joseph Lister Award by the British Science Association for bringing her scientific discoveries to a wide audience.
 
 
Sample Blog Post

http://tracyalloway.com/index.php/working-memory/iq-is-not-a-benchmark-for-academic-success/

Is Working Memory the New IQ?

IQ is often thought to be synonymous with academic success. Indeed groups like MENSA perpetuate the idea that high IQ is a prerequisite for high achievement in school.

Yet, the traditional reliance on IQ as a benchmark for academic success is misguided. There are many students who have either high or average IQ who struggle in school. Instead of doing well, they end up in the lowest ability groups in language and math. In my own research on various government-funded projects, I have come across many students like this. This is very troubling. If their IQ is in the average range, why aren’t these students achieving their potential?

Perhaps there is something else at work that explains why some students succeed while others struggle.

I undertook a study to look into this issue. I tested children at five years old and again at eleven and found that a child’s success in school is down to how good its working memory is regardless of IQ score.

The finding that working memory, rather than IQ, is what we need to look out for has important implications for schools. As opposed to IQ, working memory problems can be easily addressed by teachers so students can still achieve their potential.

It is vital that IQ is not taken as the be all and end all to intelligence. I believe that all children could fulfill their potential, regardless of IQ or background, as long as working memory is assessed and problems addressed. The key is to move away from IQ as the main predictor of success and focus on working memory instead.

Dyslexia Blog
SHARING RESOURCES AND INFORMATION ABOUT DYSLEXIA FOR PARENTS

Ann shares wonderful information that has helped her work with her son. She also offers a very unique perspective of an ex-pat living in Turkey!!

Betul / Ann

I am a parent of a child with dyslexia. I am English but have lived in Turkey for many years. I met Betul who works with children with dyslexia, and now we have started this blog together in order to try to give information about dyslexia and learning disabilities.

Sample Blog Post
http://dyslexiaparents.blogspot.com/2009/08/telling-time.html

TELLING THE TIME

Many children with dyslexia struggle to learn to tell the time easily.
Dyslexics especially have problems telling the time on a clock with hands:

They may be able to tell whole hours and half hours (5:00, 5:30, etc.) but not smaller chunks, such as 8.04.
They often find it difficult to distinguish between the minute and hour hands.
Concepts such as before ( to )and after (past) on a clock are confusing for them.

As a parent there are several ways you can help them to learn to tell the time.

You could buy a teaching watch for your child. I obtained one which is produced by ELC ( Early Learning Centre) from Leonardinis.This watch has different coloured hands – for the minute hand and for the hour hand. There are a set of numbers for the minutes as well as for the hours.Also the watch face has ‘past’ and ‘to’ written on it in different colours.All these things make it easier for your child to tell the time.

http://www.leonardini.com.tr/

When I go out with my child I make him the ’official time keeper’ – and ask him at frequent intervals what the time is in order that he practices !!!

In addition there are many online free games which children can do to practice telling the time .
In a previous blog entry I wrote about online maths computer games,including ones to practice telling the time.

I found a very good puzzle by Larsen . The child has to match the correct clock faces to the right time.The puzzle contains 42 different clock faces with both the 12 and 24 hour time written on it.

I found an interesting article Charlottes clock taken from the Special Children Magazine,issue 166, May/June 2005 ,which is written by a mother of a child with special needs. In this article she explains how she approached teaching the time to her child. The techniques she described could be used with a dyslexic child.

http://www.mathsextra.com/articles.htm

www.mathsextra.com/documents/CharlottesClock.pdf

Eric Wolf is a professional storyteller and uses that capability to share his personal story of dyslexia coupled with awareness, education and compassion. Anyone with a dyslexic in their life should read this blog.

Eric Wolf
Yellow Springs, Ohio, United States

Dear Reader, I awaken compassion for students with learning disabilities in themselves and those around them. Compassion is a difficult thing to teach and even more difficult to learn. By telling stories of how I struggled with my dyslexia, I help students with learning disabilities laugh at their own problems, and inspire empathy in the rest of the student body. I demonstrate that being in school is worth the hard work. I set a good example; despite my dyslexia, I graduated with a Masters of Science in Education from Lesley University in Boston. The positive influence on students of meeting someone who had similar problems and succeeded cannot be underestimated, nor can the morale-building effect on staff when they meet an adult who was helped by their profession. I speak to the staff about the issues they struggle with and I honor the place they are in. I create a unique residency experience for your school; a storytelling residency can have a powerful effect by teaching students how to effectively listen and support each other. I leave behind the ability for students and teachers to more effectively communicators. Peace, Eric James Wolf

Sample Blog Post

http://dyslexicstoryteller.blogspot.com/2009/07/nuts-in-bolts-of-being-dyslexic.html

Nuts in Bolts of being Dyslexic

Recently I had a classic dyslexic experience.
For the past five months my phone service has been telling that it has messages.

As a dyslexic person I have tendency to switch the audio recognition of sounds, colors or other stimulus. Red means green, black is white, t is h or yes means no. While the more obvious red and green analogy is rare for me these days. I have been known on a once every five years occasion to go through a red light. (That could be an interesting PHD for some one; Dyslexia and traffic accidents – anyone?)

Usually for me dyslexia means that I have to dumb down what I say to write – or – I have to use words of simpler variety in order to communicate effectively.

When I read – My optimum communication style is the first person spoken narrative.
When I speak it – Communication is easy for me by word of mouth using stories.
When I write it – Storytelling works the best.

That little exercise made my head hurt – Back to the phone service.

The phone company sent me a signal (when I pick up my phone the dial tone – stutters or blinks.)
I, as dyslexic person, reversed the meaning of the stimulus. For the past 5 months I have been thinking that no one – has left me a message. Think about that – not a week not a month for the last five months I was convinced that none of my calls were returned.

I mean really; how is that possible? You could think – well Eric is an idiot. I had tests – and I’m not really. So there is another explanation. Well – many dyslexic people have memory issues. They fail to connect past language related events with present ones with current ones. Dyslexic children struggle with issues of time and time management. The long and the short of it is – I didn’t notice that more then a week had gone by with out getting a message.

Not to forget that dyslexic people have lower self esteem then other populations. So it is onlly natural for a dyslexic person to think that on one called them. ☹ Did I mention the 60 messages waiting for me in my voice mail?

Ofer Chermesh is an adult Dyslexic who now works in the area of developing assistive technology for dyslexics. His company is called Ghotit. Ofer’s blog offers information and insights from the perspective of someone living with dyslexia. He shares insights on himself with the hope of helping others and educating those without dyslexia.
 
 
Ofer Chermesh and his company, Ghotit

My name is Ofer Chermesh and I am one of Ghotit founders. I have always struggled with writing and reading. When I was 10 years old I was diagnosed as a dyslexic. I have struggled with my dyslexia throughout my life, in school and in different workplaces.

I hope you will find Ghotit useful to you as it is for me.
 
 
Sample Blog Post

http://dyslexia-blog.ghotit.com/2009/08/03/dyslexia-student-exams/
 
 
No Ifs or Buts – Dyslexics Deserve Extra Exam Time
Posted by: ghotit on: August 3, 2009

I remember a while back when I was working at a previous workplace, I entered the coffee lounge and heard two work colleagues talking about the injustice of giving students additional exam time. They raised the issue that many students are abusing this “benefit” unjustly. I remember how I impolitely interrupted their conversation stating that what they just said was complete nonsense and explained that denying students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia and dysgraphia extra exam time was simply unjust and reflected the general’s public general ignorance on these topics. They of course lacked the ardor that I demonstrated in this discussion and soon enough retreated back to their offices.

IF only these students would work harder they would not need this extra time?

BUT so many students are abusing this extra time loop hole to get improved testing conditions?

My work colleagues were not malicious, dyslexia-phobic people… they simply were quite ignorant to what people with Reading and Writing disabilities experience and did not have the understanding that providing this extra exam time for people with dyslexia can make a real difference between Success or Failure.

“Just as a diabetic requires insulin, an individual who is hearing impaired requires a hearing aid, a man or woman who is a quadriplegic requires a wheelchair, a person who is dyslexic has a profound physiological need for additional time to complete examinations.” – http://dyslexia.yale.edu/Policy_WhyChange.html

Dyslexia is a physiological condition that people are born with. Special learning techniques, together with hard word and special reading and writing assistive technology can ensure that a dyslexic student succeed in both education and his workplace. However, the fact remains that for most dyslexics Reading and Writing will always be more difficult and time-consuming then non-dyslexics. The objectives of examinations are to test the intelligence and knowledge of the examinee on a specific topic. The objective is not to test the speed at which he reads the questions and writes the answers.

Regarding the claim that there are non-dyslexics that abuse this extra time for exams policy, there are 2 replies that I wish to make:

“Data now demonstrate that it is only students who are dyslexic who benefit from additional time. Thus, such college students increase their scores substantially (e.g., 13th percentile to 76th percentile), while typical readers when given extra time on exams increase their scores few to no points (82nd percentile to 83rd percentile).*” – this is taken from Yale’s University website. This research demonstrates that people who really do not have a real difficulty in Reading and Writing will not gain real benefits with the extra time allocated to exams.

So if everybody cheated in a test, should someone who did not cheat be punished too? The obvious answer is NO. By getting additional exam time, the dyslexic student is simply getting equivalent testing conditions as other students. He is not cheating the system. If other students are supposedly “cheating the system”, then let the system take responsibility to stop this cheating without punishing the ones who deserve this benefit; and the system should do so without making the person with dyslexia feel subconscious about getting the benefit he justifiably deserves…

So was I rude when I interrupted my work colleagues’ conversation and loudly stated their ignorance on this topic, perhaps. But it is time to loudly state the rights of the dyslexic community and to educate the public regarding what is dyslexia and what must be done in order to enable dyslexics to fully and hopefully easily integrate into society… and this definitely includes GETTING EXTRA EXAM TIME.

* M. K. Runyan, The Effects of Extratime. In S. Shaywitz & B. Shaywitz, eds., Attention Deficit Disorder Comes of Age: Toward the 21st Century; Austin, Texas: Pro-Ed, 1992.

1. Achievement: An assessment of our son’s current academic skills.

Word Recognition

Spelling

Reading Comprehension

Math Computation

Math Reasoning
 
2. Memory

Verbal Memory – Retention of spoken information.

Visual Memory – Retention of visual information important in memorizing information that is
presented as a picture.

Attention/Concentration

General Memory – The aggregate of the three memory skills listed above.
 
3. Processing

Visual-Motor Integration – The accurate visual perception of a geometric shape and then the
integration of that perception with a precise fine-motor movement
in order to copy it.

Phonetic Decoding – Perhaps THE most crucially important reading skill.

Phonological Awareness – The realization that spoken words are not one sound, but
are made up of several sounds.

Fluency (Rapid Naming) – Research shows that rapid naming of a series of letters and
numbers is a powerful predictor of reading achievement.
 
 
I realize that these categories are age and grade specific. However, by having the information grouped into categories and then broken down into specific areas with one sentence definitions, I was able to understand my son’s issues at a much deeper level than I have ever been able to before.

Previously our Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children IV (WISC-IV) results had been grouped into the following categories: Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual Reasoning, Working Memory, and Processing Speed with no further explanation into the sub-categories. In several categories, the testing results were presented as a “scaled score”. I still have no idea what that is.

Who else feels the same way about special needs test results? If you do, email me at kgriffithgryga@lipstickwisdom.com and tell me your stories and ideas. Now how do I get started on this Plain English movement?

“Scattered Mom” is a 30 something, west coast living, cookie baking, road tripping, key misplacing, perpetually lost blogger who can sniff out a Starbucks in a 50 mile radius.

Stick around..you’ll either pick up some great recipes or laugh at her forgetting where she parked the car. Again

Scattered Mom is a beautiful writer and shares insightful stories and information on Dyspraxia and Sensory Integration Issues as well as other aspects of her life.

Sample Post:

http://cookienotes.blogspot.com/2005/10/jakes-story.html

Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Jake’s Story
I couldn’t wait to become a mother. At 24, I was ready to have that little bundle to love and when Jake arrived, I cried for joy. He was mine. I finally, was a Mom.

Jake was a happy little person, and as easy to raise as most kids are. It wasn’t until he entered school that our perfect little world began to fall apart and was fraught with joy, despair, elation, and frustration. In the past 11 years as we have journeyed through three moves, the loss of Hub’s job and his trek back to university, and almost losing Hubs himself to a rare illness, we were also introduced to the world of advocating for Jake with the school system. It all began in grade one. Jake couldn’t print like the other kids, nor did he understand the math. However he did completely understand what was going on and instead would tour through the room, helping the other children with their work but never writing anything down himself. (which, looking back is SO Jake-he does everything orally) The teacher didn’t like this, and saw it immediately as ‘behavior’. Jake began to feel that he didn’t belong. So as a 5 year old will do, he decided that rather then be humiliated, he would prefer to be kicked out of the classroom.

Of course the teacher was only too happy to comply. I think Jake spent much of grade one in the hall.

It wasn’t ever Jake who caused us despair. He was, and has always been, such a source of joy and love in our lives. What bred the despair was a system that is all too quick to label children and fit them into neat little boxes…only Jake didn’t completely fit into any box whatsoever. Jake, in all his enthusiastic glory, seemed to defy the system completely. Soon it became our job to protect him from those who appeared to want to help, but in the end only wanted our child to conform to what box they were trying to shove him into.

We began desperately trying to protect Jake from those who don’t care about him, but rather the label. The label that procured funding, or could be used to demand medication. The label that would remove the ‘problem’ and make things better solely for the professionals that were supposed to know how to work with kids like Jake . We never saw a problem; but rather a child whose zest for life was boundless, his curiosity never quenched, and his ability to love absolute. He is ours, and we love him just the way he is.

The list of labels was endless. ADHD, Autism, Aspergers, Non Verbal Learning Disability, Sensory Integration Disorder, behavior problem…all were thrown at us with the hopes that something would stick, by unqualified and unscrupulous people. People who didn’t really know Jake nor bothered to take the time to listen to us, or who surprisingly were strangers right off the street. Everyone and their dog had an opinion about Jake, and none of them, in the end, were right. Not one. We are just the parents, after all. It never mattered that between us Hubs and I have 45 years of working with mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, learning disabled, mentally and physically handicapped children. We are educated people who know what we are talking about, and besides that, Hubs is dyslexic himself. Advocating, for the first 5 years of Jake’s school life, fell completely on deaf ears. Teachers blamed a 5 year old for not being able to print; a 6 year old wasn’t fast enough for math drills and kept after school; a 7 year old (despite an assessment saying otherwise) was just “lazy”, and an 8 year old who “isn’t taking responsibility for his education.”

I cannot even begin to tell you what all of that did to Jake. There were times where I found him curled up in a fetal position in the corner of his room under a blanket. Or the Easter where he wrapped his little body around us and begged with everything he had in him never to send him back to school. He slipped into depression and for awhile, we lost our enthusiastic, happy child. I can’t even tell you what that’s like; your child is missing, and when you look in their sad eyes you know that your child is in there somewhere, but you fear you’ll never see them again. At one point I almost lost all hope myself.

Slowly, after a move to another school district and finally finding some people who were willing to listen, we began to get the old Jake back. The road was long and hard, with many bumps along the way. Jake no longer trusted schools nor anyone associated with them and neither did we. There were many morning where anxiety would get the better of him, and I would have to literally peel a screaming child off of me and leave him at school, sobbing.

I’d then retreat to my car and sob myself. All I wanted; all I EVER wanted, was a happy, productive, normal school experience for Jake. It always seemed so elusive.

In 2006, we finally went to SunnyHill Health Center here in BC for an assessment. The gold seal, top of the line, can’t argue with that assessment. We’d had enough. This time, we were not going because we thought there was something additionally wrong with Jake, but instead to prove to a school system once and for all that the labels they had in mind were WRONG.

The results?

-Developmental Coordination Disorder (dyspraxia)-which causes sensory integration issues, makes motor tasks very difficult, problems with perception, and disrupts his attention and ability to plan and organize. Up until the diagnosis, I had never heard of this disorder.

-Math Learning Disability-Jake has most trouble with sequencing and patterns, although over time he has been able to compensate for this well and is presently functioning at grade level.

-Highly Intellectually Gifted-some people would think “great!” but gifted, in this case, creates such a huge degree of highs and lows in Jake’s profile that even the most seasoned psychologists shake their heads. He’s a kid that was teaching himself the Periodic Table of the Elements at age 7, knew all the inner workings of a v-8 engine at 6, and whose curiosity is exhausting to everyone around him.

Life was a huge roller coaster, but since the diagnosis, things have leveled out somewhat.

In June 2008 Jake was the recipient of a laptop loaned to us by SET-BC, and I can’t even begin to tell you the impact is has made in his life. The diagnosis also carries some weight with his teachers, who now see things through the “dyspraxic” lens instead of the “behavior” one. He still struggles with some issues; socially, kids don’t understand what dyspraxia is and accuse him of being lazy. He still has trouble with some life skills and organization, but we’re working on those. Since his diagnosis I’ve tried to learn more about dyspraxia through books and websites, but unfortunately there is precious little available on the subject. In a lot of ways, I feel like we’re in unchartered territory.

My reason for writing about our story is two fold. Firstly, I want to spread awareness about Developmental Co-ordination Disorder/Dyspraxia because if more people had known what it was, then maybe we would have been able to get Jake diagnosed and into therapy when he was young. I was so thrilled when Daniel Radcliffe came out and said that he is also dyspraxic, because now Jake can tell his friends that someone they admire and look up to has the exact same disability.

Secondly, it’s been a long, hard road to get here, full of things that I’d love to do over. Unfortunately, in life there are no “do overs”, but I can at least share my experiences for people who are at the beginning of their journey. The one thing I remember best from the dark days was feeling that I was alone. I know now that I’m not.

And neither are you.

Brad’s website does not seem to be actively maintained but his story on the front page is compelling. He has answers to several Frequently Asked Questions and other resources referenced on his site.

Here is Brad’s Story:

So here is my tail.
Sorry but its a little cluttered.

I have left this un spell checked so that you can see my world a little better.
Like I said this is really hard to put into words. Hard on the emotional level. But I think it will help me to do it. And I hope it will help you.

Ok, where to start. well I was diagnosed in the 6th graid. That really helped!!! It was the single biggest event in my life. Suddenly there was a name for my problem. I wasn’t lazy, or didn’t cair, or was……… what ever they called me that week. It was like the unevers was lifted off my sholders. I think I know what it must be like to slowly sufficate. I don’t know really how to describe it to you but i’ll try:

Imagen that nobody could see their hands. Everybody in the world. Nobody can see anything from the elbo down. Also assume that everybodys hands work just like thay do right now today. Now what if your hands didn’t work like “the normal hand”? What If you didn’t have any fingers? Everyone else can type, turn keys, scrach an ich, dress them sleves, tie there shoes, and feed them sleves. Every one but you. No one can see why you can’t “Do what everyone else can”. You don’t know why you can’t do what “normal” kids can. You just know you can’t. you walk and talk just like every one else. there is no way to see an obvous reason why you can’t do it. Adults don’t know. How could they. All they can see is a kid that isn’t doing what they were told to do. And they lable you lazy, slacker, rebbel, and what ever they can come up with…….They my even point you out to your class mates and tell them not to be like you.

Rember You Have NO Idea Why You Can Not Do What The Normal Kids Do.

None.

All you know is that no matter what, nomatter how hard you try, you just can’t do it. You will, as your only choise, beleave the adults. You must be lazy. You must really be a slacker. How could anyone be as worthless as you? the other kids susceed. They must be trying. You, there for, are not trying.

I want you to stop here and think about this senario. Where does a Child go from here? where does a Child go when they KNOW, becaues everyone tells them, they beleave with all there heart, they are worthless? Who does a Child turn to when everyone (even your parents) give up on you?

I really want you to think hard about that.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO? YOU HAVE NO REASON TO DOUBT WHAT ANYONE IS TELLING YOU. YOU HAVE NO ONE TO TURN TO. NO ONE IS TELLING YOU ANY THING POSITIVE ABOUT YOUR SELF.

This was me at ten years of age. I wanted to die. Not because I was depresed (though I’m shure I was) but because I was imbarsed to be alive. I was imbarsed for my parents, for my sisters, for my teachers. I loved them all and respected there openions. After all they could do what I could not. How could anyone deserve the burden of putting up with me?

Don’t you quit!!!

How are you going to get help? no one, not even you know the truth. you have no fingers!!! thats it. Nothing sinester about your behavior. you just don’t have any fingers!!
Your only chance will be if someone actualy sees you. and says to them self “what a nice kid. shurly if they could have tied their shoe thay would have. I wonder why they don’t?” If your luckey they will have heard of a handy cap called “nofinger” that has symptems like yours. And they will sugest that you get testing.

To parents reading think about this. How can a Child get help if the parents don’t want to help? “My Kid Is Normal!” “Not My Son!!” “My Daughter Is Just Quiet”. the world cann’t help unless you allow it. I don’t know what self centered fears parents have about children, But try and rember “a rose by anyother name would smell as sweet”. your child is alive and suffering and is a rose by any name. Any help you can give them will help them bloom. Many of my friends in the LD classes I have through out my life never were alowed to sucesed because their parents refeusd th help.

Don’t you quit!! (eather of you)

Now suppose all the politics required in getting parents, teachers and famly menbers involved come togeather and you are going to get tested.
You probably won’t know or cair about whats going on. You have spent 10 years being told and fearmly beleaving that you are just dumb and lazy. And lord knows you have seen your shair of tests. The test is a new fangled machane that takes a picture of your hand and can see what we can’t. after the test you are shown the results and have them explained to you.

BINGO!!!!!
you are not lazy. you just don’t have any fingers!!!!!!!
Of corse no one could tie there shoes if they didn’t have fingers!!!
Of corse no one could dress them selves if they didn’t have fingers!!!
Of corse no one could type if they didn’t have fingers!!!!!!!
Of corse!!!!!!!!

I hope that helps you under stand. I finaly knew why I couldn’t tie my shoes. There was a reason. and it wasn’t because I was lazy!

I really got mad after that. I was mad at all my teachers. mad at everyone who was trusted with my life and failed! I soon (longer for others) forgave them all as They did’t know anymore than I that there was aproblem (execpet that they did’t lisson to me. But who lissons to a 10 yr old who doesn’t do what he is told). I thought that that was it! I’d just show the teachers “look here are my test results, look no fingers! I can’t type. but I can tell you the answer.”
well that didn’t happen. All, most all, of them didn’t buy it. and a few were determind to show the class and the world that I was a faker. My math teachers were indeferent. They didn’t cair about it at all. and they didn’t change anything. but at least they didn’t fight me. a few of my english teachers realy let me have it. I couldent rember the alphibet, (and still can’t!!) but had to sit in on recesse and after school to look up the spelling of words.

Now if you have no fingers how can you type? how comical would it be if you were held in the class room during recess and after school because you didn’t finish or didn’t do your typing corectly? I wasn’t laughfing then and can only find sad hummer in it now, but that was my life in the sixth grade. Dyslexiecs generaly can’t spell or do math because we revers letters and numbers. I still (as you can see) can’t spell. K through 12th grade and I was punished for not being able to spell through it all. Just as if I had no fingers and was being punished for not being able to type. The logic behind it is insane!!! I was going to flunk remadal english in the 6th grade. remeadial english is nothing but spelling. its the spelling class from hell. my teacher would make me stay in from recess and after school EVERYDAY!!!!! correcting the spelling on my test. How do you spell a unknown word? you look it up?

NOW LISSON TO ME!!!!!!!!!
I can’t spell! just like you can’t type!!!! no matter what you will never be able to type!!!!
I will never be able to spell!!! I’m 34 yrs old and I still can’t spell. I spell just as good now as I did in 6th graid.
I’m 34 years old and I still do’nt know the alphabit. THANK GOD for sesamy street. i could at least sing the alphibit. So there I was every day singing the abphibit to my self with a really mad teacher stearing at me trying to spell “cattlelog”.
you’d think that should be easy?
C is right up front in the alphabit. number three. a quick one.
rember I don’t know how to spell.
so I’ll walk you through how I’d look up a word. (I still have to sing the alphibet today to look up words.)

cattlelog
a,b,c, (singing)
ok find the “c” is in the frount of dictunary (turn to the Cs)
cattlelog
ok “a” is the first in the dictonary and the first letter in the C group.
cattlelog
abcdefghijklmnopqrst
ok t is along way away. but all you have to do is follo the letters along untell the third letter is a “t”
next one is a “t” as well, cool easy one
I just slide my finger along untell i get a second “t”
cattlelog
abcdefghijkl
ok slide anong untell I get an “L” in the fith letter
next is an e
good its a quick one
abcde
next is an L
abcdefghijkl
not bad, I slide my finger along untell i hit a word with the L in the 7ht possion

if any of you are trying this at home you will note that there is not a word that is spelled cattlel….. in the dictonary.

so what do I do now? I have to get this done. She snoots at me and tells me what I really need is some more drilling in spelling.
so I re spell it.
maybe cattlelog starts with a K
nope
maybe there is only one t
maybe its cattlolog
maybe……
maybe……..
maybe………

I never once ever finished looking up all ten words in the hour provided. sometime she let me go early because she must have had somthing more exciting to do.

with the pending doom of my failure in remeadal english and the clear lack of understanding by the teacher, my parents were desprate. The only othe english class offered at that time slot was the advance english class. so I was mover there. Now understand I am scaired as hell going into this room. all the smart kids are here. I know them all. they are goingto be doctors and lawyers and rocket scientist. Man I was scaired. I was going to have to spell big big words! and none of this only 10 words on a test stuff eather. They had 20!! I was doomed! As it was the middle of the semester, the teacher introduced me to the class and found me a seat. dead center in the room, the worst! every one was going to see me fail. I don’t rember what we talked about that day I was too scaired. and when he called me up to he desk after class I knew I was allready intruble. But he told me he had talk to my parents and to my counclers and that he would not count off for spelling. I asked “on any thing” hopping he would slip up and say “anthing” and there by include spelling test. it wouldn’t work for long. Maby only the first test but I needed all the breakes I could get. but he said “including spelling test. I’ll mark them wrong one the test so no one will know but i won’t count off for it. I do expect you to do as good as the rest of the class in every thing else. you have to know the deffanitions but not the spelling”

now think about your missing fingers and typing. if all you are required to do is desplay your knowlage of a book you just read. Having fingers is not and will never be a prerequst to that. But you are going to fail because you don’t have fingers. Not based at all on your marets!!! And now some one has just told you “I’ll give you and oral exam insted of a typed exam”.

That was the first chance in my hole life to fight the other kids on equal ground! Man did I take the gloves off!!! I only missed 15 points in the entire class!!! out side of spelling I had the thrid highest grade in the class!!!! in English!!!!!
That was the first time I belived the test results. It was the first time I beleaved in my self.
I could do it! Six years of self doubt, self hate, low self esteam and depression took a serious beating after that class!

I still only got a C out of the class though. The teacher of the first class wouldn’t let my poor showing in her class go unnotised so both the first and second half grades had to be averaged. the F and the A gave me the C.

The rest of my school days 6 through 12 were hard. I finaly knew I could do it. maybe not the spelling and maybe not the math but I was smart!! and very little in life revolves around math or spelling!!!!! I knew that then. and I know it now!! So i started to learn every thing I could that didn’t have anything to do with spelling or math.

lets see, in school what else is ther but math and spelling? science!!!!!! I couldn’t do th emath for physice (though I think I’m better at it) but I could do Biology!!! Biology was easy for me. any thing was easy fro me if they didn’t make me “type”. an new thing came out while I was in Highschool computers and word prosseors with a spellchecker!!! word star! it was my savyor. well sort of. didn’t work wel at all. but it at least knew when the word wasn’t correct.

I now use a voice activated dictation program that lets me talk to my computer. To let you understand how it has helped me, it would be like getting fingers to you!!!!

Anyway here I am. I’m 34 years old. I have dyslexia. I have a Ph.D. in Biology from Kansas State University and am lecturing at the University of Oklahoma. I’ve traveled on my own over half way around the world doing my own research. I currently teach first year Botany at the university. I have taught college level classes since 1988 (including while I was an under graduate). So what are my plans? Originally I wanted to attend law school, go into environmental law and eventually into politics. While I think I might really enjoy that, what I really love is teaching. I plan to teach at a small liberal arts college or private high school (has to be private as I don’t have a teaching certificate).
To me, now, dyslexia is a gift. I know now that I can over come any limitation presented by the handicap and succeed. Being the best has nothing to do with spelling or math. Being the best is a goal reached in the soul.

So does it go away? Does the self doubt go away? Do you ever feel sure of yourself?

I don’t want to be negative or sound bad about this, but it doesn’t go away. I routinely spend several minuets to an hour or so trying to find the spelling of a specific word. This always gets me down. But I have accomplished allot in my life. I’m proud of where I am and where I’m going. I have taught people in a range of different settings, from the general public to university level classes. My handicap has never interfered whith my teaching. There are things I’ll never be able to do such as win a spelling ‘B’ but so what!

Dyslexia has made me a stronger person and I wouldn’t trade my life for anybody else’s.

“Success is getting up one more time then you fall down” (off a poster in my LD class room in 6th grade, and my motto through out my life)

GOOD LUCK!!!!
DON’T QUIT!!!!

Take care of you,
Brad Elder

 
As a parent you know that reading is extremely important. Studies show that the more children read, the better readers and writers they become.

Now as you know, our son has language based learning issues. Getting him to sit still to read a book when he was young was torture. No matter how much I put inflection in my voice and used sound effects, I could only get a couple of minutes out of him. What I have found, however, is that over time I am able to add more and more time to our reading time together.

What I want to do today is to give you some really practical tips for reading with your child that can powerfully improve your child’s reading capabilities especially for elementary school kids.

First find out from your school, the comfort reading level of your child. Each “grade” has multiple reading levels and your child is testing probably at least twice during the school year to determine his or her reading level.

Then what you need to do is to get a list of books at your child’s comfort reading level as well as a list of books at the next two reading levels above. You can get these lists either from your school, your school library, the public library and or online resources. For instance, Scholastic has an online book wizard that helps to list books by reading level.

Of course, there are many systematic approaches to reading levels and you need to understand which system your school uses. For instance some of the approaches for reading levels are Guided Reading, Basal Level, DRP (Degrees of Reading Power), Reading Recovery, DRA Level and Lexile Level. Our school uses the Basal rating system and our son’s comfort reading level is at PP2.

Then get a bunch of books at your child’s comfort reading level and then some books above your child’s comfort reading level. The books which are above your child’s comfort reading level (just one or two levels above) are the books that you read out loud to your child. Try to read out loud to your child each day for 15 to 20 minutes.

Then have your child read to you at their comfort level for 15 to 20 minutes. If you child is struggling to read, then these books may seem to be too young for them. They are not. It is extremely important for the child to do their practice reading at a comfort level that works for them where they experience success and not frustration.

Studies have actually shown that when children practice reading at their comfort level on a consistent basis, they can increase their reading capabilities dramatically and some children have even “jumped” reading levels simply by practicing at their comfort level.

That’s it. If you find that your child is getting extremely frustrated with some words or consistently misreads certain words, write them down on an index card and practice them a couple times of week. When your child starts reading the word correctly consistently, then they can be removed from the practice read.

I have found with our son that if I start with the parent read-aloud, it eases him into our reading time and then he is much better when it comes to his time to read.

In addition, our son does not have a good sense of time. To address that issue, I use a “Time Timer” which visually represents the amount of time we are going to read. I learned about this product from a speech therapist blogger whose blog can be found at ifonlyihadsuperpowers.blogspot.com. She has great product, book and website recommendations as well as general “food for thought.” So with the Time Timer, my son can visually check how much time we have left instead of constantly interrupting our reading time with the question, “how much time is left?”

The order in which you read with your child is not important, and the amount of time you start with to read is not important. Just do it and see the amazing progress that your child will achieve.

Good luck and happy reading!!! Until next time …

Karen

 

 
Learning Issues, ADD and Grief

So I call my little peanut, my little onion as well because we just keep peeling back the layers to understand more. As you know, we recently got a diagnosis of ADHD (inattentive) for our son. This, I recently realized, has been a dramatic framework shift for me. Let me explain.

Because he is young, we have been working on and with his learning issues and trying to figure out which issues are based on learning differences and which are based on immaturity. The learning needs school that he has been attending is a transition school. This means that they work with the child to discover their strengths and to establish methodologies and frameworks that work to help the child address their learning weaknesses. They also teach the child to advocate for themselves and their learning needs. When the child has a strong learning toolset and the understanding and mindset to be their own learning advocate, the goal is to transition them back to a mainstream school.

So with my logical, rational mind, we have focused on teaching our son the various tools that he needs to address his learning weaknesses. Great. Got it. That I can deal with. Homework has been and continues to be a real struggle but I have found ways to be creative in order to, hopefully, keep him engaged.

Now with this diagnosis of ADD and the realization that this is a lifelong impairment …. Well I have waves of sadness that just come over me. Now the rational, logical side of me knows that there are situations that are much much worse … a life threatening health condition, for instance. But to know that my child will have to struggle with this for a lifetime and that this impairment often has such a huge impact on the individual’s emotional well being … makes me very sad.

So I just realized that even though my focus is on do-do-do.
1. We have him trying a new school for the summer;
2. We have an appointment with the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania to confirm the diagnosis;
3. I have found an ADHD therapist to work with;
4. I met with an integrative/holistic expert to explore diet, natural supplements and vitamins;
5. and I am reading, reading, reading ..

I need to slow down to let myself feel. I need to feel sad and I need to grieve and I need to let myself cry.

I need to let myself cry for the fact that my child has differences that require special help in order to live in this world. To grieve for the fact that often life is hard and, for him, its going to be a little bit harder. So my hope is that when I finally give into the sadness and the crying, that I will be able to embrace the sadness and then let it go.

What about you? Are you embracing your feelings or are you going through the motion while emotionally numb? I am not going to let that happen to me … please don’t let that happen to you. So here is to embracing and releasing.

Thanks for watching and until next time.

Karen