Leo taught his teachers that that very different organisation of the brain is possible, that the brain is malleable and modifiable, that his strengths of visualising and imagination counter-balanced his difficulties with formal literacy. Teachers built on Leo’s ability to venture beyond the text while continuing to encourage Matilda to delight in novels. They told stories to Dan, talked with him, encouraged him to find his voice.

The brain’s design made reading possible, and reading’s design changed the brain in multiple, critical, still evolving ways. Reading had propelled Matilda’s intellectual development, while to some extent the lack of literacy diminished Dan’s and Leo’s contribution and success. With sensitive guidance, new technologies enabled all three children to develop non-traditional skills: multi-tasking, integrating and prioritising vast amounts of information, and communicating in a broad spectrum of ways. They began to think along different, innovative routes. For the first time in her school career Matilda was challenged to the point of failure. She learnt it was safe to fail, to experiment, to explore a multitude of possible answers, to develop her own voice. Leo (and Dan too in his way) showed her that brains were adaptive to novel methods of expressing concepts and ideas.

The three young people were active expert readers in that they:
• searched for connections between what they knew and the new information they encountered in the text;
• monitored the adequacy of their understanding;
• took steps to repair faulty comprehension once they realised they had failed to understand something;
• learned early on to distinguish important from less important ideas;
• were adept at synthesising information within and across texts and reading experiences;
• drew inferences during and after reading to achieve a full, integrated understanding of what had been read;
• sometimes consciously, and almost always unconsciously, asked questions of themselves, the authors and the texts encountered. (Pearson ’92)

Reading changed how Matilda was able to think about thinking. On-line literacy challenged the traditional role of author and reader, as well as the authority of text. Such reading required new intellectual skills that Leo (unlike perhaps many of his teachers) understood, although as much if not more than ever, did he need the support of coaches to guide him through the process. Their teachers were only at the beginning of analysing the cognitive implications of using fresh concepts for enhancing comprehension and memory. They recognised that these tools had extremely promising implications for the intellectual development of all learners, particularly those with discrete areas of weakness like Leo.

And how did Matilda, Dan and Leo communicate their understanding from all the texts they encountered? Making sense of experience is to a very great extent being able to construct a plausible story about it – whether it’s about the big bad wolf or the processes involved in an experiment in chemistry.
But that’s another story.

My B's are doing great.  Smartbee just about has his 9's memorized (mulitplication) and Busybee is moving into 3-digit addition.  It is so cool to watch them learn and when they "get it" I am amazed. 

Speaking about math a few of you have asked me about "math dyslexia."  I am by no means an expert on that one but I did find this website for you to check out... http://www.dyscalculia.org/#Dyscalculia  let me know what you think if it, if you all like it and think it is worthwhile I will add it here as a link for other parents. 

See you dysing around!

Rebecca

The world around us has a more serious case of directional dyslexia!  The dilemma is described clearly in Isaiah 5:20-21:

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;

Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness.

Who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and clever in their own sight!"

An illustration of this is the "language" of abortion.  Those who wish to save the unborn in the womb are referred to as  "ANTI-choice" or "ANTI-abortion", calling good evil.  And of course, those for abortion are called "PRO-choice".  Supporters and paraders for such loss of life are considered "PRO", because they're for something, calling evil good.   Dyslexic thinking doesn't end there...it abounds in the halls of our courts, our government, and Ivy league educational arenas, where knowledge is mistaken for wisdom, and enlightenment is utter darkness.

Jesus said, "The lamp of the body is the eye, if therefore your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.  But is your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!"  Matt. 6:11

This passage can be clarified, by reviewing John 9, where the Apostle John recorded Jesus healing a blind man.  Jesus told the educated, enlightened religious crowd,

"For judgement I came into this world that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind....[they] said to Him, 'We are not blind too, are we?"  Jesus said to them, 'If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say 'We see', your sin remains."  John 9:39-41

This haughtiness is rampant--masses believing themselves to know and 'see' things better and beyond  all others.  But Jesus says that ONLY when we recognize our personal blindness (supposed wisdom) and our need for His saving touch in our lives, can we really see clearly and gain godly wisdom.

Over and over, Jesus confronts the direction or path that individuals take, seeking to set them straight on His path.  When His disciples were looking for glory and recognition, Jesus said, "...whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to first among you shall be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."  Matt. 20:26-28, and...

"Let him who is the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as the servant."  Luke 22:26

The Apostle Peter grasped this in his later years when he wrote, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the might hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time."  I Peter 5:5

Good/Evil. Light/Darkness. Greatness/Service, Humility/Exultation.  The Word of God continually lets us see that our view of life, meaning, and direction is dyslexic in contrast to Truth:  

Wisdom/Foolishness 

"For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God.  God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe....Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men....God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, and the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are."  I Cor. 1:21,25,27-28

Seen/Unseen

"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."  2 Cor. 4:18

Affliction/Glory

"For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison."  2 Cor. 4:11

Weakness/Strength

"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.  Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. " II Cor.12:9

"Therefore I am well content with weakness, insults, distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."  II Cor. 12:10

In Ecclesiastes, truly wise Solomon illustrates this, saying,  "I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth."  (Eccl. 10:17)

Simply put, as Spurgeon writes, "the world is upside down."  He continues:

"...therefore, the first are last and the last, first. See how the servile sons of Satan lord it in the earth!  What a high horse they ride!  How they lift up their horn on high!  Haman is in the court, while Mordecai sits on the gate; David wanders on the mountains, while Saul reigns in state; Elijah is complaining in the cave, while Jezebel is boasting in the palace; yet who would wish to take the places of the proud rebels?   And who, on the other hand, might not envy the despised saints?  When the wheel turns, those who are lowest rise, and the highest sink..

...patience, then, believer, eternity will right the wrongs of time!" 

However, outwith the institution, Leo, with Dan as trusty helper, began to produce a new framework of communications within which reading and writing was only a piece and not the whole. He used images and sounds to demonstrate his knowledge and understanding and to make his point, supported when necessary by assistive technologies that enabled speech to and from text. He communicated with the tools he found comfortable to use and he persisted in making himself heard and seen. He was, together with others in his community of interest, building and creating a new language that combined many of the features of conventional languages but was more of a hybrid of many different modes of expression. (Burnett 2008)

Leo’s skills lay in making sense not of a body of known content but of contexts that were continually changing. Fortunately he came across teachers who recognised that the pedagogical tools of the 20th century were inconsistent with the skills needed to survive in the 21st where people could always be connected to everyone and everything. In such a world, Leo found that learning to think for himself was more important than simply learning to read and write. Leo and Dan were encouraged to read and analyse graphic novels, emails, blogs, films, games: to read between the lines of text (in many different formats) to which they were exposed. Their horizons were expanding – as were those of his teachers.

In the clash between the conventions of the book and the protocols of the screen, the screen will prevail. On this screen, now visible to one billion people on earth, the technology of search will transform isolated books into the universal library of all human knowledge. (Kelly 2007).

Understanding this, Leo’s teachers questioned vigorously the young peoples’ assumption that more and faster are necessarily better. Some believed that their pupils’ capacity to find insights, pleasure, pain and some wisdom in oral and written language would be dramatically altered. They felt that this immediate access to information at the touch of a button that capacities to pay attention, infer and reflect would be poorly developed. Some suggested that screen technology may be inhibiting children’s creative engagement with other peoples’ imaginations.

Without guidance, Leo and Dan gave an illusion of knowledge which may have curtailed the more difficult, time-consuming, critical thought processes that lead to wisdom. With facilitating teachers, slow deliberative, deep thinking became as crucial as the rapid fire, spilt second immediacy of decoding of information. They were becoming literate for the Information Age.

It became apparent in my diagnose that in lectures I cannot write notes and listen at the same time.
Now the cynics, those who are ignorant to our plight will say "well everybody has trouble". I didnt say, trouble I said cannot.
Physically I can write, but I have no idea what the lecturer just said, nor what I wrote!
cynics may just turn there nose but those who are in a similar boat as me will fully understand the frustration.

For the past few years I've sat in lectures, wrote notes furiously and walked out after thinking a big fat wtf?
I did my exams and got very low marks. I did my coursework and got very high marks. why?

I talked to my parents (amazing parents i must say) about my concerns and my mum told me of when I was younger. Get this...

My parents noticed I was not reading very well, my mother who works with disabled children, deaf, blind, autistic, etc noticed in fact I was not reading very well and looking at our male history, grandad, uncle, cousin whom all had dyslexia. Figured I may have a mild case at best. When much younger I was given Biff and Chip reading books. My parents forced me to read a certain amount before I was fed! Apparently I'd be in tears, obviously I have blocked this from my mind, oh the trauma! lol.
Seriously I'm glad they did, I can read fairly well. I dont get the typical dyslexic "jumping words" and i like to think it was because of my parents persistance.

Anyway, I talked to my parents and they encouraged me to take the assessment. I bit the bullet and paid the £250 and took the test. I noted before I thought I had Mild Dyslexia but during this test the assessor, whom was a very nice man, kept revealing I infact was pretty bad. "Severe Dyslexia" he stated. Dyscalculia, Dyslexia, Auditory Processing Disorder, and a hyper sensitivity to sound. He labelled it Neurologically Diverse. He kept hammering on about how I was not disabled, I was not stupid, wrong or need to be corrected. my brain just works in another way.
I did my IQ test with him, and scored high, which I was very happy about. He was astounded how far I had got climbing the educational ladder so far without support!

It was found in my assessment, I could only proccess one at a time, reading or listening. Now ive been told, I notice it as a fact far more often. Take now for example. I was writing this blog quite happly. My Girlfriend just got back from her lecture and walked in talking, telling me stories of her day etc. Bam. I couldn't even formulate what I was meant to be writing. Even now she's shouting things from the kitchen to me and I have to pause and concentrate to listen to what shes saying. Otherwise its just sound, and not even a foregin language, its a language I cannot even hear and think, oh "bitte in german sounds like bitter in english" its hard, and for relationships its hard. She half understands my troubles, yet its half more than everyone else!

In lectures I've been sitting listening, I get people next to me exclaim "your not taking notes!?" . I just smile, I'm not going to waste my time explaining to people. I have been given notetakers who sit and have the ability to furiously scribble notes down as the lecturer talks. I get to focus purely on listening. Let me tell you IT WORKS!
I walked home and all I could think about was DNA, Polymers, Primers, Bonding, TA, CG! etc etc.
I understood it, I actually understood it.

I learn by -not- taking notes...

Cynics, or those who are luckily not afflicted with having a Neurologically Diverse brain, you know when you walk out of a lecture and your thinking about what the lecturer just spoke. Or you've just learnt something and your thinking about it. THOSE THOUGHTS... I've never had. Its sad is it not?

The names Scott, I've just started my Zoology degree at Aberystwyth University. You've guessed it I'm dyslexic and I'm going to be writing about my experiences, struggles and adventures here at Aber. I've never done a blog before, so this is all new to me, so feel free to give advice and comments etc.

I didnt exactly choose a good blog name in hindsight, dyslexic is a word I struggle to spell as it is, combined with scott at the end just hurls the whole thing into a tangle. I was diagnosed and given the title "Severe Dyslexia" and it was called Neurologically diverse. I like the latter title, but i couldnt see it as a blog name, it does however remove the negative connotations which I must admit I'm already experiencing, but thats for another time.

I've got a few things to go over about my pre-assessment life at university, my assessment and the day after. I'll leave them for another time however. Today I'm just doing a Hello World, I pray this will kick off, I pray it will help and  I'm sure at least you will get a few laughs.

Tomorrow I'll write about my course and perhaps my life before i was diagnosed.

So it starts..

A very good question that needs answering to understand how dyslexia affects the person in their life.  Many professionals in the education field have been asking themselves this question for ages.  According to Merriam-Webster, dictionary dyslexia is "a variable often familial learning disability involving difficulties in acquiring and processing language that is typical manifested by a lack of proficiency in reading, spelling and writing."

While being a good definition to dyslexia it does not really explain well enough for non-dyslexic they we can overcome and learn how to read, spell and write.  It is not easy to do, but it can be done with time and patience.  This blog is help dyslexics to find their way in the world where they more than just function in the non-dyslexic world.  In coming days I will explore the meaning of dyslexia from a dyslexic prospective.

Source:

Merriam-Webster dyslexia

Then, I mentioned it to someone I know and they said "Does that really matter? The schools dumb it down so much anyway, what does an A really mean. Heck, my kids always get A's" Well, that deflated my bubble a bit. I honestly sat there a bit stunned that this person could be so callous after years of knowing me.

They should know that it is a big deal for my kids. They know of our struggle with dyslexia but they really don't think it's that big of a deal I guess. Must be nice to live in perfection. Sorry to be so catty, just a bit unnerved by the comment.

Anyway, my point is that not everyone will see our struggle for what it is. Not everyone will see that it really is a big deal for our kiddos to get A's. And, not everyone will care one way or another. So, just don't give up, don't let those folks get you down. Keep doing what you know in your heart and soul to be right for your kiddo and let all those naysayers and critics talk to your back as your walking away.

See you dysing around...
Rebecca

Here is the problem I would like you to consider.  Not all reading problems are directly related to phonological weaknesses.    There are a significant number of children that struggle with reading due to Symbol Recognition problems.  This term is used by Barbara Young in her Arrowsmith Program.  Symbol recognition relates to the ability to hold language symbols (letters, letter patterns) in the brain and to sequence them quickly.  For children with this weakness they struggle to look at a word, and remember what they just read even within seconds of seeing it previously in another sentence.  Researchers often use the term Visual Dyslexics to describe this type of reading failure.  When a child with this Symbol Recognition problem tries to spell, they use phonetic spelling most frequently.  They might spell the word "people" as "peple", or spell the word "done" as "dun".  Their brain struggles to retrieve the visual memory for words.  Reading is often very slow and laborious as their brain tries to identify the letter patterns and associate them to a sound.

Children may also struggle with reading due to slow reading speed.  That is, they can decode words and understand what they are reading, but it takes them forever to get through one page.  This often results in a child that doesn't want to read.  Of course, this is a huge problem, as they avoid reading in school resulting in lower grades as they do not have as much exposure to content.  Educators do not focus on this problem enough - in fact, this may be the primary reason for school underachievement in many adolescences at the high school level - along with comprehension problems.  Again, we can improve reading speed through cognitive remediation.

Comprehension is another area of reading that is overlooked in terms of remediation at the elementary and high school level.  Asking a child to read a textbook and comprehend what the author(s) are trying to communicate is not an easy task.  It requires the sequencing and comprehension of numerous concepts being introduced to the reader.  In one paragraph there may be six concepts being interrelated to each other, and associated with other paragraphs previously read by the student.  If a child has trouble understanding concepts, and comparing concepts with other concepts, reading failure will be automatic.  These students often require tutors for each of their key subject areas.  This is done in order to re-teach the subject material to the child.  Children with this problem often try to utilize memory to get through their classes successfully.  They will study for hours trying to remember facts, dates or answers to questions, but not truly understand what they are learning.  It is sad, really - that this happens to students daily in our schools today.  Can we train the brain to improve conceptual thinking?  In short, yes.

Reading failure can also be a result of a combination, or all, of these neurological weaknesses.  If a child has all of these neurological weakness (i.e., phonological, symbol recognition, visual tracking, conceptual reasoning) than reading failure is even more problematic.  Teachers and parents need to be aware of how complex reading really is.

Dyslexics often confuse their left from their right hand and which way is left and right.  It can drive a parent or teacher of a dyslexic student batty trying to help them figure it out.  Adult dyslexics are embarrassed and frustrated because not knowing which is which can be annoying at best and a disaster at worst.  Imagine being given a set of directions using left and right and not knowing which way to turn.  Where are you?  You're lost at the start and you don't have a clue how to get there!  Even if you are given street names and you can read them you still don't know which way to go.

So today's blog is going to be a simple trick to help the dyslexic people in your life remember their left from their right.

Take your hands and hold them straight out in front of you with your thumbs extended straight out.  I have provided an illustration below.  The hand that forms a capital "L" with the thumb is their left hand, their left side, the direction to go if you are turning or going to the left, etc.   The other hand therefore, has to be your right! Nice thing about your hands is, they are always with you.

Another tip for dyslexics learning about right and left.   Trying to understand their own left and right is confusing but knowing  and understanding that another person's  right and left will be opposite yours if they are facing you can be a nightmare for a dyslexic.  Standing beside you facing the same direction  as you are can also be hard to comprehend.  Why?  Well, if your right hand is by their left hand then they could potentially think your right hand is a left one because it is on their left side.

Recently we were having a family dinner and one young fellow named Mike was talking about a problem he was having with an employee  he supervised.

Mike works as a surveyor and uses a piece of equipment called an EDM (Electronic Distance Measuring Device).  The purpose of this tool is to measure distance when confirming property lines and markers.  He stands at one end with the EDM which is the control point and his assistant stands at the other end with a range pole facing Mike.   As Mike lines up the EDM on the range pole he will tell the person holding the pole to move to the left or right by a certain measurement.

Now for most people they would be able to establish and agree on whether to move to their right or left or the other person's right or left.  In the case of Mike's helper, he could not figure this out.  Mike kept trying to get him to agree to whose right or left but couldn't find a way to help him understand.  Mike was really frustrated thinking  that his assistant was playing mind games with him by being deliberately stupid.  He knew the fellow was intelligent enough and the issue was a relatively easy one to Mike so he couldn't understand what the problem was.

Mike told us some other problems he was having with him and it was pretty clear that he was dealing with someone with dyslexic issues.  I made some suggestions such as the trick with the "L" in our hands and I don't think he believed me.  A few weeks later we were at dinner with Mike again and asked him how it was going.  Apparently he thought about what we talked about and Mike and his employers started to work at finding ways to work with this dyslexic individual.   As a result he was doing much better at his job and everybody was happier.

So my point is;  if you are working with someone or you are the someone with direction problems, you need to realize that with some cooperation and problem solving you can sort this out and get on the "right" path.  I recommend when you are trying to work with a dyslexic and  using right or left in a project use the dyslexic's right or left, not yours.  If they don't understand how to tell right from left suggest the little trick with your hand I described above.  It might help and then you will both be less frustrated.

Cheers!

Karen Hope

“Listen to this”, quoth he. “It's the President of the Spelling Society. He said, and I quote, 'people should be able to use whichever spelling they prefer.' He's the President of the Spelling Society!! Well, he's wrong. And by the way, that's spelt with a 'W'."

The words of the said president, John C. Wells, a professor of phonetics at University College London, had been lifted from a fuller examination of the changing nature of the way we communicate and the inevitable development of language structures.

Text messaging, email, and internet chat rooms are showing us the way forward for English. Let's stop worrying if people sometimes spell ‘you’ as ‘u’, ‘your’ and ‘you're’ both as ‘ur’, and ‘whose’ and ‘who's’ both as ‘whos’.
… Let's not hold up our hands in horror - people should be able to use whichever spelling they prefer.
When I was a boy one of my English teachers insisted on our … spelling show as shew. We'd laugh at him today. Let's allow English spelling to continue to develop so as better to reflect the times in which we live.

The Society’s aims are "raising awareness of the problems caused by the irregularity of English spelling and to promote remedies to improve literacy, including modernising spelling". (Oops - grammatical errors. The world is collapsing around us).

Scoring political points against what one US President called 'pointy headed academics who can't park a bicycle straight' is political anti-intellectualism, though par for the course (hmm, some mixed metaphors here). I suppose if you essentially believe that you can only go forward by going backwards (”progressive ends through conservative means”, as the spectacularly bonkers tagline has it - an old-style grammar school teacher would lay on a cane for that one) then it must be extremely disconcerting if people who actually know something about your subject tell you the precise opposite. Fingers in ears and bray is just about your only option. (as The People's Republic of Mortimer put it).

My instinct as the product of a girl’s grammar school in the 6o’s is to want to conform to a standard; and I would never suggest that we stop teaching the conventions of our language. I actually have a strong allegiance to the apostrophe in particular, but am prepared to engage in debate with any other sad people out there.

But (oops, my English teacher would turn in her grave if she saw that 'But' there) I think Prof. Wells is right in that we need to adjust our expectations to the needs and mores of current society not to look back to a mythical golden age when all children wrote perfectly in copperplate. Some may have done so of course – but in the majority of cases this was achieved through/thru copying the teacher’s work not composing something for themselves.

Ultimately within my limited time constraints, I sometimes make a choice to favour content over form.

Tests by the University of Oxford found people carrying the key sequence tended to perform worse than average in tests of their reading ability.the Oxford team examined the link between this haplotype and reading abilility in a sample of 6,000 seven to nine-year old children taking part in a major long-term study known as the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).

Lead researcher Dr Silvia Paracchini said: "On average, people carrying this common genetic variant tended to perform poorly on tests of reading ability.

"However, it's important to note that this is only true for reading ability and not for IQ, so it doesn't appear to be connected to cognitive impairment."

Makes me laugh a little when I think of a teachers' workshop I attended at Gulf English School some years ago.It was taken by their head of EFL, Miss L. She stood up on stage ( didn't do much else all morning ) and announced ''There is no such thing as dyslexia''.......................well done and get that foot out of your mouth. She had just sold her mother and joined the Phonographics Cult, there was no convincing her, move over Oxford dons......

The earlybird registration deadline for the IDA Conference in Seattle on October 29th has been extended due to problems with mail delays in getting programs to members.

More information: visit www.interdys.org.

Let me assure you it's not a pretty story.  I would imagine he still has nightmares about being called stupid and lazy.  And, you will never hear the words "you are not applying yourself" come out of his mouth.  But still there is a fine line that he walk with our B's. 

That fine line is the line of intervention - in particular when do we step in and how much do we accommodate.  For the most part HoneyBee is not a big advocate of intervention and accommodation.  In fact, we had a raging debate when SmartBee was in 1st grade as to whether or not we would even allow him to be tested. 

I know, why wouldn't we?  Well, for one thing testing means labels.  And labels mean that people look and treat you differently.  Labels also help you to get the assistance you need, however, so they can be a good thing.  It took alot of soul searching on my part to see his point of view. 

You see, his whole life the label of dyslexia was one that hindered him.  In no way did it help him.  In fact, it was, at least in his mind, the final straw that confirm his inability.  HIs inability to read well.  His inability to write well.  Etc, Etc, Etc, till your blue in the face.  No one, except his parents, ever said to him that he was ok. 

So, in the keeping it real seat is HoneyBee and he would like you to know that while the interventions and accomodations of today can be a really good thing to help our kiddos get through school, the real world is out there waiting for them and it will not accomodate them at all. 

So, don't forget the real life skills.  Don't forget that they still have to learn to read the traffic signs, and the road maps.  They still have to read the instruction manual for the ipods and the dvd players.  They still have to read the recipes and the backs of the brownie boxes.  They still have to use the Internet and the available search engines.  They still have to use all that real world stuff. 

Don't forget that the boss won't care if your kiddo messes up letters.  The boss will care when the written report that he was counting on comes back unreadable. 

And, we have to figure out a way to get them ready for all that.  Just keeping it real...

See you dysing around

Rebecca

But, her teachers were pretty insistent something wasn't right. Thank God they were.  I wanted to ignore it.  Bury my head in the sand.

We agreed to spend the $3,000 to get her tested.  Turned out she has minor dyslexia.

I was crushed that my baby would never love to read.  I was resigned to it.

The school suggested that she work with an educational therapist.  At $75/session, twice a week, it was a big pill to swallow.  But, there was no way she'd be able to keep up at school otherwise.

When you can't read, you can't do any of your other homework because you can't read the instructions.

She's at an academically challenging school.  I pay a lot of money for her to go there.  I concluded it would be stupid for me to spend big bucks to send her there and then not do what they tell me to do.

So, I sucked it up.  That was midway through first grade.  About 18 months ago.

Last week, Kaia excitedly read 12 pages of Jake Drake Know it All without a bit of cajoling just because she wanted to get to the end and find out what happened.  Today, I got an email from Cindy Shortt, her ed therapist (who is totally awesome, btw!), letting me know Kaia doesn't have to meet with her anymore.

Kaia not only can read, she's beginning to really like it!

We've probably spent $15,000 helping Kaia learn to deal with her dyslexia.  I'm so happy I didn't let myself convince myself Kaia didn't need this intervention and extra help.  She did and it's paid off.  I'm so happy.

Two upcoming events in the Columbus Ohio area:

First:

The annual membership meeting will be held October 4th at Marburn Academy, in conjunction with "Walk in the Shoes of a Dyslexic," the eye-opening simulation for people who wonder what it fells like to be dyslexic.

Place: Marburn Academy, 1860 Walden Drive, Columbus OH 43229. 

Time: 9-11 AM: Walk in the Shoes of a Dyslexic simulation; 11-12 : COBIDA membership meeting.

Second: 

Sunday, October 5th: A NON-PARTISAN house party for Ted Celeste at 7 PM at 2954 Scioto Place, Columbus OH 43221.  (Celeste is a Democrat, but the organizer and sponsor of this event is Janis Mitchell, COBIDA vice president and chair of the statewide IDA legislative committee, is a strong Republican.)

If re-elected, Ted will be the chair of the education committee in the Ohio House of Representatives.  He has made a firm commitment to sponsor a dyslexia bill for us and usher it through the House.  COBIDA is trying to show its support for his commitment to dyslexia by helping Ted get reelected.  (Monies raised will help Celeste, and not go to COBIDA.)

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email   aedwards@columbus.rr.com

"I swear I have math dyslexia or something!"

Well, my mind couldn't quite wrap around it. I had a general idea of what dyslexia is in terms of writing and reading, but math? Huh? I decided to sleuth tonight and find out if, indeed, it's possible to have such a malady.

And according to these websites, it is!:

http://www.learningabledkids.com/learning_disability_LD/dyscalculia.html

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/123030.php

http://www.dyslexia-teacher.com/math_maths.html

http://www.resourceroom.net/Math/lda_math_fall98.asp

So there you have it. It exists.

Help COBIDA raise money to help the one out of five children who are affected by dyslexia.

COBIDA, the Central Ohio Branch of the International Dyslexia Association, is joining Kurt Ludlow of Columbus's WBNS 10TV and corporate sponsor American Electric Power to host a 1940s USO themed evening.

Date: November 7, 2008.  Place: The Grand Valley Dale Ballroom at 1590 Sunbury Road, Columbus OH 43219.

The evening includes dinner followed by the OSU (world class) dance team, a live auction and dancing to the Z Sharp Band.

EVENT SCHEDULE

• 6:30 PM: Cocktails
• 7:30 PM: Dinner
• 7:30 PM: OSU Dance Team Performance
• 8:00 PM: Live Auction
• 8:30 PM: Dance floor opens
• 10:00 PM: Auction closes

Your support for this event will help COBIDA provide Ohio's dyslexic children with testing and diagnosis as well as specific training for educators working to provide one on one instruction for dyslexic learners.

COBIDA also provides awareness programs and related learning opportunities for parents and students with learning disabilities.

Help ensure success for students with this neurologically-based, heritable condition, who struggle in school because they have difficulty with reading or spelling. 

Join in an evening of fun, take a chance and bid on some fantastic items, and support a cause that will help our children who struggle in school.

Gold Sponsorship: $5,000; Silver sponsorship: $3,000; Bronze sponsorship: $2,000.

Individuals: $100.

Gold sponsorship includes two tables of ten, your company logo on a banner, recognition in the event program, your logo in the advertisement featured in Business First, marketing info in goody bags, prominent seating AND...

personal dance lessons with Shannon Farley of the Lindy for your table that evening.

Silver sponsorship includes  one table for 10, recognition in program and your logo in advertisement in Business First.

Bronze sponsorship includes  one table for 10 and recognition in program.

Register at http://2008swingfordyslexia-emailinvite.eventbrite.com/?invite=ODA5MjEvYWVkd2FyZHN0dXRvckBjb2x1bWJ1cy5yci5jb20vMQ%3D%3D%0A

Questions? Please email bmayo@preciseresource.com

Sample of Live Auction items:

OSU items with signatures, of course; 4 Club Level tickets to Browns vs. Bengals game; 4 Club Level tickets to Columbus Blue Jackets; 2 All Day Racing at Mid Ohio Racing; 2 VIP Packages to Sugar Bar; 2 VIP Packages to Spice Bar -- and lots more.

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

The Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA) will hold its 46th annual International Conference February 25-28, 2009 in Salt Lake City.  Find information at  www.LDAamerica.org

Called a "5 Star Event," the conference is meant for educators, administrators, teaching professionals, practitioners, parents, volunteers, as well as people with learning disabilites.

Rick Lavoie, MA, MEd will address the Wednesday opening keynote session on "Special Education in 2009:  A Look Back, A Look Around, A Look Ahead." 

General Session speaker on Thursday will be Donald D Deshler, PhD, Professor of Special Education and Director of the Center for Research on Learning at the University of Kansas.  He will address "Learning, Unlearning, and Not Learning." 

Atlanta Falcons football player and LDA spokesperson David Irons, Jr will deliver the keynote address during Thursday's Adult Luncheon.  David's story is not unlike many who have faced the challenges posed by learning disabilities.  He is a shining star in his own right in the example he sets in the NFL spotlight and in his personal life off the field, says LDA Executive Director Sheila Buckley.

On Friday, the General Session speaker will be Cal Crow, PhD, Program Director of the Center for Learning Connections at Highline Community College in Des Moine, WA.  His topic: "Identity, Self-Efficacy and Resiliency: Touching the Heart."

Also on Friday, at the LDA Awards Banquet, hear Smantha Abeel, from Muncie Indiana, a young woman with a learning disability whose life journey inspires audiences and gives hope to others.  She is the author of two books, and speaks frequently and candidly about the difficulties of growing up with a learning disability from elementary school through graduate school, as well as how it impacts her life in the present.

There will be exhibits, products both electronic and otherwise, books and DVDs available.  Expect Table Talks for teachers, research Poster Sessions, and opportunities for parents to interact with professionals.

Professional Continuing Education credits are available, as well as graduate credits. 

Special stipends are offered to two-person faculty teams from five Colleges or Universities, one who teaches general education courses and one who trains teachers to work with children who have learning disabilities.  Chosen teams can receive up to $1,000 per team to reimburse airfare, lodging, meal and parking expenses (attendance at the entire four-day conference is required).

LDA may be contacted at www.LDAamerica.org, by email at info@LDAamerica.org, by phone at 412-341-1515, or by FAX at 412-344-0224.

Joining LDA when you register will give you a discounted rate.  If you register on or before Jan 14th, you'll receive an early bird discount.

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email   aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

The problem of reversals and mirrored images for dyslexic children occurs when the brain is unable to properly process the information into a "right-side up" format.   People who have dyslexic issues continue to experience this reversal of visual information much later in life because the brain is not developing the ability to process the information correctly.

Another stage of immaturity in a dyslexic's development is between six and twelve years of age. At this stage the average student and the dyslexic child do not understand abstract concepts such as time, what verb tenses are, what letters represent, why we put numbers in sequence, how we measure or weigh objects, what multiplication tables represent, how we divide one number by another, what fractions are, how we use percentages and decimals, and how to count money out  to buy things.

Yet this is the period in their education when they are expected to know and use these language and mathematical concepts. The average or left-brained student learns sequentially and can be taught to remember and use a process efficiently even if they don't really understand it.  A dyslexic student learns in whole images and not step-by-step. Therefore, they need to understand the meaning and purpose of what they are learning in order to be able to  retain and use it.

Maturing of the brain between 12 and 14 years of age for most children increases enough so that the students are able to start to understand and accept more and more abstract concepts such as math and language. The right-brained student is also usually starting to comprehend them but is often still struggling with these abstract mental images trying to learn to accept  them even if they don't fully understand them.

Each of these stages of maturity in a child's life would normally be another step in their development towards understanding the abstract. However, in a dyslexic's early years, these learning problems plague these periods. Without the correct training in skills that allow the right and left brain to learn and think in the abstract, a right-brained person can continue to face many problems in a world that functions through letters, words and numbers.

How does this happen? The right brain sees everything in whole concrete images. Right-brained students do not understand what letters and numbers represent on their own when separated from the whole image because they are abstract. Not knowing what letters represent causes the student to use the wrong letters, draw the letters in the wrong shape and wrong size, print them in the wrong direction and put them in the wrong place in a word.

The second most important reason for this happening is that most of our words are abstract: while, how, many, talent, reason, etc. The right brain cannot understand them if they cannot be turned into concrete pictures in the mind's eye. The result is the right brain cannot store them in long term memory because it won't accept what is not complete and does not make sense.

The sequence of letters in every word must be memorized if the words are to make sense to the student. For example, the letters in the words "school" and "children" must all be there in the sentence in a set sequence to be understood. "The school bell rang to call the children to class".  If those letters and word images are incorrectly placed and some letters omitted, the meaning of the words in the sentence is lost : bel chilrend to rng cal the clas scol to. But if the first and last letter of each word is correct, the sentence can be understood, explaining why the student can sequence letters incorrectly and still understand the words used: The scoohl blel rnag to clal the cidlhern to calss. This is why every word has to be properly memorized as a whole concrete word image.

Lack of tracking skills is also part of brain immaturity as the right brain sees the words from every direction: up and down, right to left, left to right, bottom to top, and back to front. Tracking to access information is being able to make the eyes follow a line of print from left to right and make sense out of what is read. Brain immaturity is lessened as the children between ages eight to twelve are taught how to track and print from left to right.  There are also opthamologists who specialize in correcting tracking problems for children which is often an issue for a dyslexic student.

We examine the performance of dyslexic participants on an unsupervised categorization task against that of matched non-dyslexic control participants. Unsupervised categorization is a cognitive process critical for conceptual development. Existing research in dyslexia has emphasized perceptual tasks and supervised categorization tasks (for which intact attentional processes are paramount), but there have been no studies on unsupervised categorization. Our investigation was based on Pothos and Chater's (Cognit. Sci., 2002; 26: 303-343) model of unsupervised categorization and the corresponding methodology for analysing results. Across all performance indices and various data-processing options, we could identify no difference between dyslexic and non-dyslexic participants. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dutch children at higher familial risk of reading disability received a home-based intervention programme before formal reading instruction started to investigate whether this would reduce the risk of dyslexia. The experimental group (n=23) received a specific training in phoneme awareness and letter knowledge. A control group (n=25) received a non-specific training in morphology, syntax, and vocabulary. Both interventions were designed to take 10 min a day, 5 days a week for 10 weeks. Most parents were sufficiently able to work with the programme properly. At post-test the experimental group had gained more on phoneme awareness than the control group. The control group gained more on one of the morphology measures. On average, these specific training results did not lead to significant group differences in first-grade reading and spelling measures. However, fewer experimental children scored below 10th percentile on word recognition. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

I was enrolled in a local Technical College in a 2 year Civil Engineering Technology program. The entire program was extremely intense with lots of short duration courses. I can still remember how overwhelmed I was with all the new information I had to learn. One of the instructors insisted that we do all of our rough calculations and drawings for the multi-page engineering problems on yellow paper but with red ink. There were about 20 students in the class and none of us had heard of this method of recording our work. He told us that he had heard from a psychologist friend that the combination of red on yellow was helpful with memory.

My associate confirmed what I remembered was valid by finding some established research on the yellow on red topic and sure enough she found data that showed the combination of red on yellow was effective in assisting people with memorizing information. This doesn't prove anything about yellow and black versus yellow and red but it does show that using colors can be an effective tool in helping with memory. I am not dyslexic but I know I process information in a very right brained fashion and remember that particular class was one of the least stressful classes in the Civil Engineering program. I got better marks on average and a lot of that information seems to have stuck with me to this day.

Happy Trails!

Howie deGraaf                                                                                                                                                   Editor for Dyslexia Victoria Online

Purpose: This study examined the development of timing characteristics in early spontaneous speech of children who were later identified as having reading disability (RD).

Method: Child–adult play sessions were recorded longitudinally at 2 and 3 years of age in 27 children, most of whom were at high familial risk for RD. For each speaking turn, the number of syllables was determined and an acoustic analysis measured the time allocated to articulation, pausing before speaking, and pausing during speaking.

Results: In grade school, a reading battery identified 9 children with RD and 18 children without RD (9 at high risk, 9 at low risk). Early speaking rate was significantly slower in the group with RD, with significantly different patterns of pausing compared with children without RD. Group differences became more distinct by age 3, as longer speaking turns were attempted.

Conclusions: The results are discussed in terms of speech and language formulation. Phonetic plans may be shorter and/or less specified in children with RD, surfacing as slow, short speaking turns with increased pausing relative to articulation. This explanation is consistent with several accounts of RD and provides a perspective on how speech and language deficits may manifest during spontaneous verbal interactions between young children and adults.