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"content": "\u003cp>One of Rebecca Carey’s favorite exercises to do with the actors she coaches at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is called “Cameraman.” Carey, who is the voice and text director of the renowned company, said “Cameraman” at first can make even actors feel a little silly, because in order to pretend they are filming the action of a Shakespearean scene, they have to hold an imaginary movie camera up to their eye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Then as you read the text of the scene, or someone reads it to you, the Cameraman moves around the room and pretends that they are filming the thing that’s being talked about,” she said, “which is particularly useful for descriptive passages of text.” She used the example of the Prologue to \u003cem>Troilus and Cressida\u003c/em>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ci>In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf’d,\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>Fraught with the ministers and instruments\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore \u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci style=\"line-height: 1.5\">To ransack Troy, within whose strong immured\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>The ravish’d Helen, Menelaus’ queen,\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>With wanton Paris sleeps; and that’s the quarrel.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The “cameraman” would first imagine that she was filming Troy: she pans across the massive walls of Troy in front of her. Then, for the \u003ci>isles of Greece\u003c/i>, maybe she moves the camera up in the air and pretends to get a helicopter shot, panning over the islands. For the \u003ci>prince’s orgulous\u003c/i>, she zooms in for a close-up of the angry face of the prince.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Carey said this kind of visualization of the complex 400-year-old text is a great exercise for all actors, but seems to work especially well for the dyslexic ones, which, when she was teaching in the United Kingdom, she estimates to be about 10-20 percent of all the actors she worked with. Here in the United States, she said, the percentages seem to be about the same, though it seems that a lot of younger actors have an official diagnosis, while some older actors never received anything official, though they have trouble reading and memorizing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Another exercise Carey uses in workshops is called “Sandbox.” She places some random objects -- a water bottle, a pencil -- in front of a student. Then they take a piece of text -- in this example, Proteus’s funny speech in Act II, Scene 6 from \u003ci>Two Gentleman of Verona\u003c/i>: “In this particular speech, Proteus has a problem,” Carey said. “He has a girlfriend and made a promise to her, but now he’s in love with his best friend’s girlfriend. Now in the Sandbox game, if you are playing Proteus, every time you talk about your girlfriend, pick up the water bottle. And every time you talk about your friend, pick up the pencil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Carey said that the name \"Sandbox\" comes from kids' imaginary sandbox games. “It’s like a little kid in a sandbox, like ‘First, Superman did this!’ And you pick up Superman and make him fly around in the air. ‘And then Batman came along and did this!’ So it’s a way to use your toys to act out Shakespeare.” These childlike games are far from pointless; visual and physical explorations can help an actor who has difficulty with Shakespearean text make it more concrete by grounding it in their reality, an idea Carey adapted while teaching in Great Britain from Petronilla Whitfield, associate professor and senior lecturer of voice and acting at the Arts University Bournemouth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">After 20 years as a professional actress with prestigious companies like the \u003ca href=\"http://https://www.rsc.org.uk/\">Royal Shakespeare Company\u003c/a>, Whitfield went back to earn a Ph.D. in voice and acting, the focus of her work centering on how to help dyslexic actors read, understand and perform Shakespearean text with less difficulty -- not to mention the fear and anxiety she said often accompanies dyslexics' expectations that they will be forced to read aloud in front of their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_46334\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 742px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-46334 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board.png\" alt=\"Shakespeare story board\" width=\"742\" height=\"666\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board.png 742w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board-400x359.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 742px) 100vw, 742px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Storyboard by a student of Psychological Gesture, courtesy of Petronilla Whitfield.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Whitfield said that imagery is often the key that unlocks the door of understanding and memory, and her research supports the idea. People with dyslexia often feel disassociated from the words and their meanings, and attaching imagery to the words makes them more concrete and three-dimensional, as well as easier to remember. Using a technique Whitfield calls “visual storyboarding,” she often asks her students to draw or find images that help prop up their understanding. Often, the images aren’t literal -- they can be colors to suggest an emotion, for example -- but sometimes they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Carey said she has seen some of these strategies help people with dyslexia over the hump. “Petronilla really helped me become more aware of dyslexia, of the different ways that it manifests, that it’s kind of an umbrella term. Not every dyslexic reads or learns in the same way, which is not something I really had any awareness of at all.\" But Carey saw how specialized coaches who worked with the acting and voice and speech teachers helped to raise awareness of dyslexia among the teaching staff, and helped students learn strategies that made a huge difference both in comprehension and memorization.*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I have invented the term Interpretive Mnemonics to encapsulate the devising of images (both physical and visual) which capture a subjective representation of meaning and expression,” Whitfield \u003ca href=\"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23268263.2016.1183918\">writes\u003c/a> in the journal \u003ci>Voice and Speech Review\u003c/i>. “Interpretive Mnemonics can aid the individual’s comprehension, utterances, memory and performance of Shakespeare.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Whitfield said that creating image-based PowerPoint storyboards is a way to help both dyslexic and nondyslexic students better understand the words and the underlying emotional meaning of Shakespearean texts. She described the work of one student, Sophia, who took Adrianna’s speech from Act II, Scene II from \u003ci>The Comedy of Errors, \u003c/i>and carefully created her own image slides that represented what each line, or in some cases each word, meant to her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Though it took a while to find the right images and make all the slides, Sophia \u003ca href=\"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13569783.2016.1194191\">said \u003c/a>that making the PowerPoint helped a lot. “I was absorbing and teaching myself and making discoveries, thinking about the different meanings and looking up words I wasn’t sure of,” she told Whitfield. The PowerPoint “hooked the text into my brain as I had sectioned it out in manageable chunks and could play the slideshow while I was reciting the text.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Whitfield said that in classrooms, students might even be able to turn the slideshow into a kind of performance, playing the slides and reciting the text simultaneously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Carey was sure to emphasize that dyslexia in no way should prohibit a professional actor or student from understanding Shakespeare, and said that there are many successful dyslexic actors to prove her point. She recalled a particular dyslexic drama student she taught who had, up to a point, avoided doing anything with literature, and was scared of it. With the help of a coach with expertise in dyslexia, the student learned how to use visual cues for certain words or phrases by drawing them out on a piece of paper. After the coach showed him how to use visualization and physical techniques to understand the words in a Wordsworth poem, the student not only was able to make his way through poetry and Shakespeare — he eventually became a passionate poetry devotee.**\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It was just really exciting how she helped the students break through that barrier,” Carey said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_46335\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 588px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-46335\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board-2.png\" alt='Section of a storyboard of Sonnet 147 illustrating \"My love is as a fever longing still for that which longer nurseth the disease.\" Courtesy of Petronilla Whitfield.' width=\"588\" height=\"637\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board-2.png 588w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board-2-400x433.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 588px) 100vw, 588px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Section of a storyboard of Sonnet 147 illustrating \"My love is as a fever longing still for that which longer nurseth the disease.\" Courtesy of Petronilla Whitfield.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Whitfield, who said all her experience and expertise was in helping university drama school students, said that visual methods may also work well with high school students studying Shakespeare, with the understanding that each teacher must adapt the methods to her teaching style and her individual students. She found that dyslexic students were already often using their own version of visual aids without even realizing it -- intuitively using symbols, pictures or even doodles drawn onto the text, but that even students who don’t struggle with reading might find visual storyboarding helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Shakespeare’s text is full of images, which is one of the techniques he uses to make his brilliant use of language so rich,” Whitfield said. “It’s what Caroline Spurgeon, in her book \u003ci>Shakespeare’s Imagery\u003c/i>, refers to as his ‘little word pictures.’ There is a paradox here in that those with dyslexia can be locked out of his text, but once they’ve found their way into the vivid images in the metaphors, double meanings and similes through recognizing and creating images, in my experience they begin to really love Shakespeare and respond to the writing and inherent images very strongly, originally and cleverly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*A previous version of this article misstated that Petronilla Whitfield worked with staff and students directly.\u003cbr>\n**An earlier version misidentified the coach as Petronilla Whitfield. We regret these errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Another exercise Carey uses in workshops is called “Sandbox.” She places some random objects -- a water bottle, a pencil -- in front of a student. Then they take a piece of text -- in this example, Proteus’s funny speech in Act II, Scene 6 from \u003ci>Two Gentleman of Verona\u003c/i>: “In this particular speech, Proteus has a problem,” Carey said. “He has a girlfriend and made a promise to her, but now he’s in love with his best friend’s girlfriend. Now in the Sandbox game, if you are playing Proteus, every time you talk about your girlfriend, pick up the water bottle. And every time you talk about your friend, pick up the pencil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Carey said that the name \"Sandbox\" comes from kids' imaginary sandbox games. “It’s like a little kid in a sandbox, like ‘First, Superman did this!’ And you pick up Superman and make him fly around in the air. ‘And then Batman came along and did this!’ So it’s a way to use your toys to act out Shakespeare.” These childlike games are far from pointless; visual and physical explorations can help an actor who has difficulty with Shakespearean text make it more concrete by grounding it in their reality, an idea Carey adapted while teaching in Great Britain from Petronilla Whitfield, associate professor and senior lecturer of voice and acting at the Arts University Bournemouth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">After 20 years as a professional actress with prestigious companies like the \u003ca href=\"http://https://www.rsc.org.uk/\">Royal Shakespeare Company\u003c/a>, Whitfield went back to earn a Ph.D. in voice and acting, the focus of her work centering on how to help dyslexic actors read, understand and perform Shakespearean text with less difficulty -- not to mention the fear and anxiety she said often accompanies dyslexics' expectations that they will be forced to read aloud in front of their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_46334\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 742px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-46334 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board.png\" alt=\"Shakespeare story board\" width=\"742\" height=\"666\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board.png 742w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board-400x359.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 742px) 100vw, 742px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Storyboard by a student of Psychological Gesture, courtesy of Petronilla Whitfield.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Whitfield said that imagery is often the key that unlocks the door of understanding and memory, and her research supports the idea. People with dyslexia often feel disassociated from the words and their meanings, and attaching imagery to the words makes them more concrete and three-dimensional, as well as easier to remember. Using a technique Whitfield calls “visual storyboarding,” she often asks her students to draw or find images that help prop up their understanding. Often, the images aren’t literal -- they can be colors to suggest an emotion, for example -- but sometimes they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Carey said she has seen some of these strategies help people with dyslexia over the hump. “Petronilla really helped me become more aware of dyslexia, of the different ways that it manifests, that it’s kind of an umbrella term. Not every dyslexic reads or learns in the same way, which is not something I really had any awareness of at all.\" But Carey saw how specialized coaches who worked with the acting and voice and speech teachers helped to raise awareness of dyslexia among the teaching staff, and helped students learn strategies that made a huge difference both in comprehension and memorization.*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I have invented the term Interpretive Mnemonics to encapsulate the devising of images (both physical and visual) which capture a subjective representation of meaning and expression,” Whitfield \u003ca href=\"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23268263.2016.1183918\">writes\u003c/a> in the journal \u003ci>Voice and Speech Review\u003c/i>. “Interpretive Mnemonics can aid the individual’s comprehension, utterances, memory and performance of Shakespeare.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Whitfield said that creating image-based PowerPoint storyboards is a way to help both dyslexic and nondyslexic students better understand the words and the underlying emotional meaning of Shakespearean texts. She described the work of one student, Sophia, who took Adrianna’s speech from Act II, Scene II from \u003ci>The Comedy of Errors, \u003c/i>and carefully created her own image slides that represented what each line, or in some cases each word, meant to her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Though it took a while to find the right images and make all the slides, Sophia \u003ca href=\"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13569783.2016.1194191\">said \u003c/a>that making the PowerPoint helped a lot. “I was absorbing and teaching myself and making discoveries, thinking about the different meanings and looking up words I wasn’t sure of,” she told Whitfield. The PowerPoint “hooked the text into my brain as I had sectioned it out in manageable chunks and could play the slideshow while I was reciting the text.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Whitfield said that in classrooms, students might even be able to turn the slideshow into a kind of performance, playing the slides and reciting the text simultaneously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Carey was sure to emphasize that dyslexia in no way should prohibit a professional actor or student from understanding Shakespeare, and said that there are many successful dyslexic actors to prove her point. She recalled a particular dyslexic drama student she taught who had, up to a point, avoided doing anything with literature, and was scared of it. With the help of a coach with expertise in dyslexia, the student learned how to use visual cues for certain words or phrases by drawing them out on a piece of paper. After the coach showed him how to use visualization and physical techniques to understand the words in a Wordsworth poem, the student not only was able to make his way through poetry and Shakespeare — he eventually became a passionate poetry devotee.**\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It was just really exciting how she helped the students break through that barrier,” Carey said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_46335\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 588px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-46335\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board-2.png\" alt='Section of a storyboard of Sonnet 147 illustrating \"My love is as a fever longing still for that which longer nurseth the disease.\" Courtesy of Petronilla Whitfield.' width=\"588\" height=\"637\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board-2.png 588w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2016/08/Shakespeare-story-board-2-400x433.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 588px) 100vw, 588px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Section of a storyboard of Sonnet 147 illustrating \"My love is as a fever longing still for that which longer nurseth the disease.\" Courtesy of Petronilla Whitfield.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Whitfield, who said all her experience and expertise was in helping university drama school students, said that visual methods may also work well with high school students studying Shakespeare, with the understanding that each teacher must adapt the methods to her teaching style and her individual students. She found that dyslexic students were already often using their own version of visual aids without even realizing it -- intuitively using symbols, pictures or even doodles drawn onto the text, but that even students who don’t struggle with reading might find visual storyboarding helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Shakespeare’s text is full of images, which is one of the techniques he uses to make his brilliant use of language so rich,” Whitfield said. “It’s what Caroline Spurgeon, in her book \u003ci>Shakespeare’s Imagery\u003c/i>, refers to as his ‘little word pictures.’ There is a paradox here in that those with dyslexia can be locked out of his text, but once they’ve found their way into the vivid images in the metaphors, double meanings and similes through recognizing and creating images, in my experience they begin to really love Shakespeare and respond to the writing and inherent images very strongly, originally and cleverly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*A previous version of this article misstated that Petronilla Whitfield worked with staff and students directly.\u003cbr>\n**An earlier version misidentified the coach as Petronilla Whitfield. We regret these errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Last fall, over the course of five stories, we attempted to piece together where dyslexia, also known as a failure to read words and sentences that \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">affects anywhere between 5-20 percent of students\u003c/a>, stands in schools today. The results of our research, along with consultations with the country’s best experts as well as parent and teacher interviews, were by no means conclusive, but still informative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">The takeaway: We have a long way to go in schools toward understanding, diagnosing and properly intervening for students with dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">For many, just saying the word dyslexia is an issue, for only 30 states currently recognize dyslexia as an actual condition, instead listing\u003ci> failure to read \u003c/i>under a host of different diagnoses and terms, confusing parents and hindering many students from getting the early, intense intervention they desperately need from inside the system. Some families step outside their school system for private one-on-one testing, tutoring and assistance to aid their dyslexic children, nearly all of which comes at an exorbitant cost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Knowing that early intervention is key and eases reading difficulties, experts and school psychologists alike worried aloud that many teacher-training programs \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/30/who-helps-kids-with-dyslexia-gain-reading-fluency/\">don’t do enough\u003c/a> to help classroom teachers identify the markers of dyslexia. In addition, school programs intended to target and help those with reading deficiencies, like Response To Intervention (RTI), do not function efficiently in all schools. Supporting what we heard from parents,\u003ca href=\"http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/11/11/study-rti-practice-falls-short-of-promise.html?cmp=SOC-EDIT-FB\"> a recent study\u003c/a> performed by the federally backed National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance on schools that used RTI for literacy, found that “first-graders who received reading interventions actually did worse than virtually identical peers who did not get the more targeted assistance,” according to Education Week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Even with all these negatives, there are also many positives contributing to improving the lives of those with reading and writing difficulties: Technology in many ways has changed life for those who struggle to read and write; some states are working hard to “say dyslexia,” and are attempting to bring awareness to schools around the issue; activists like the parents and teachers who created the #saydyslexia hashtag tirelessly raise awareness on social media and with school administrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Of course, at the heart of the matter are the students themselves who, with lots of tutoring, often gain enough fluency to get through school well enough. Many find success, academic or otherwise, in spite of reading difficulties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Here are five important takeaways to consider when thinking about how we help struggling readers in school and how we view dyslexics within society:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">1. \u003cb>Dyslexia isn’t a disease, disorder or flipping letters backwards; it’s a different brain.\u003c/b> Experts agree that dyslexia isn’t a dysfunction of the brain, or lack of willpower in an unmotivated or lazy student, but a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">brain that’s wired in a different way\u003c/a>. Since there is no reading center of the brain or reading gene, Maryanne Wolf, dyslexia expert and author of \"Proust and the Squid,\" points out that each brain has to form its own “reading circuit” and learn to read on its own — and many things can happen along the way. When one piece of the reading circuit doesn’t connect properly due to the way the brain is constructed, which is the case in most dyslexics (some dyslexics may be hindered by two pieces), then reading fails to happen, or goes very slowly. For the majority of dyslexics, \u003ci>phoneme awareness\u003c/i>, or the ability to connect sounds to letters, is the missing piece.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Failure to read is often in direct opposition to a student’s cognitive ability, and often dyslexia can be “compensated” for a time by a bright child who works hard to memorize words. As academic demands increase, however, a \"second wave\" of dyslexics are discovered in third, fourth and fifth grades as students struggle with harder words and more reading assignments, where faster comprehension is required.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Many dyslexics need special one-on-one training in the Orton-Gillingham reading method or a similar program to help them learn to read — although for some, reading and writing will always be a struggle, because dyslexia, while often categorized under \"learning disorder,\" really isn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">2. \u003cb>Technology has changed the game for many dyslexics, and should be used as an aid in schools. \u003c/b>For dyslexics, the voice-to-text apps and audiobook reading helpers developed in the last decade are not “cheating”: Instead, these \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/11/03/tech-tools-that-transformed-learning-with-dyslexia/\">life-changing tech tools\u003c/a> are a way for dyslexics to fully participate in classroom activities that were once unreachable. But to do so, schools must let go of the expectation that all students will get to the same place in the same way; as in Kyle Redford’s fifth-grade classroom, in which she handed a severely dyslexic student an iPad with voice-to-text, and soon realized that once he could move around the hurdle of spelling the words, he was a brilliant writer and had lots to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">With help from the Strategic Alternative Learning Technique (SALT) Center’s educational technology coordinator, Mary Beth Foster, we discovered that among the best tech tools for dyslexics are:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">* Kurzweil software, featuring Texthelp Read and Write\u003cbr>\n* Google Chrome’s VoiceNote and Read and Write\u003cbr>\n* Livescribe Smartpen\u003cbr>\n* Amazon’s Immersion Reading and Learning Ally’s VOICEText\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Our readers jumped in, too: Several commenters recommended Bookshare, an audiobook reading app with follow-along text that’s free for any student with an IEP. Another reader recommended \u003ca href=\"http://www.scilearn.com/products/fast-forword\">Fast For Word\u003c/a>, a software program that helps dyslexics and other struggling readers build foundational skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">3.\u003cb> Teacher-training programs should spend more time focusing on what do to with kids who can’t seem to catch up. \u003c/b>Experts agree that \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/30/who-helps-kids-with-dyslexia-gain-reading-fluency/\">teacher-training programs\u003c/a> vary in the quality of what teachers-in-training learn about reading, and how to recognize the signs and signals of students who are struggling. We reported the story of Martha Youman, a New York City teaching fellow with a master’s degree who had no idea what to do with the struggling readers in her second-grade classroom. When she later became a Ph.D. expert in dyslexia, she realized that her training had prepared her well for how to plan and for how to teach -- but not for what to do when the lessons didn’t work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Even after graduating from teacher-training programs, said Dr. Laurie Cutting, faculty director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic, many teachers operate under an assumption that the 50 percent of kids who didn’t magically learn how to read will eventually do so. But she said that’s mistaken -- it’s crucial that teachers recognize when reading isn’t coming together and that all students, even the ones who read well, get direct, intense instruction in decoding, or matching letter sounds to their printed counterparts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Most teachers, however, shouldn’t be solely responsible to help dyslexic students reach fluency — but just recognizing the signs of struggling readers, and being able to direct them to the services they need, is a huge step forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">4. \u003cb>While the link between dyslexia and special talents and abilities hasn’t been proved, often talents get overlooked because of the focus on reading deficiency. \u003c/b>While interesting that it seems so many talented people struggle with reading and writing — from artists like Pablo Picasso and Steven Spielberg to business giants like Richard Branson — scientists have yet to figure out the chicken-or-the-egg proposition: Do dyslexics compensate when they realize they can’t read? Or does a different brain structure allow \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/12/15/dyslexia-and-the-wider-world-of-creativity-and-talent/\">different talents and gifts\u003c/a> to emerge?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">It doesn’t really matter what the answer is, say dyslexia experts in the field. What matters most is to focus on a child’s potential rather than deficiencies. And all too often, children in schools who are confronted with so much failure understandably fail to realize their strengths and talents. This doesn’t just apply to art and business either: As Dr. Sheryl Rimrodt at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic said, often beaten-down dyslexic students don’t realize that they can go to college and major in medicine, law or other subjects that may require lots of reading and writing. The key, said Rimrodt, is to realize that dyslexics have a different brain, and that brain will have different needs, and to proceed from that point. But students shouldn’t sell themselves short — and neither should their teachers or parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">5.\u003cb> The failure associated with dyslexia follows students into adulthood. \u003c/b>One of the most moving moments of posting the dyslexia articles on social media was reading the responses we received from adult dyslexics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003ci>From Devon M.\u003c/i>: Professors in college often deny their [reading difficulties] existence, too. I actually had one professor tell me to, \"just exercise more and it will go away\" and then later, \"you SAY you have all these learning disabilities, but you're actually quite sharp!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003ci>From Pamela B.\u003c/i>: My math teacher laughed at me in front of the class when I explained that the numbers in the fractions kept moving around. Now I have a PhD. Check mate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ci>From Felix Q.\u003c/i>: I constantly get the \"but you're too smart!\" comment, which not only strips us of what we know to be true, but works under the assumption that people with learning disabilities cannot possibly be smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">This only highlights the need for more and better education on what dyslexia is and what it isn’t, and how recognizing the signs early, along with getting students the proper intervention they need, will help suffering students. While all the interventions in the world will not make dyslexia disappear, hopefully early intervention, along with positive reinforcement, will mitigate much of the difficulties students face when they’re born with a different brain.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Last fall, over the course of five stories, we attempted to piece together where dyslexia, also known as a failure to read words and sentences that \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">affects anywhere between 5-20 percent of students\u003c/a>, stands in schools today. The results of our research, along with consultations with the country’s best experts as well as parent and teacher interviews, were by no means conclusive, but still informative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">The takeaway: We have a long way to go in schools toward understanding, diagnosing and properly intervening for students with dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">For many, just saying the word dyslexia is an issue, for only 30 states currently recognize dyslexia as an actual condition, instead listing\u003ci> failure to read \u003c/i>under a host of different diagnoses and terms, confusing parents and hindering many students from getting the early, intense intervention they desperately need from inside the system. Some families step outside their school system for private one-on-one testing, tutoring and assistance to aid their dyslexic children, nearly all of which comes at an exorbitant cost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Knowing that early intervention is key and eases reading difficulties, experts and school psychologists alike worried aloud that many teacher-training programs \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/30/who-helps-kids-with-dyslexia-gain-reading-fluency/\">don’t do enough\u003c/a> to help classroom teachers identify the markers of dyslexia. In addition, school programs intended to target and help those with reading deficiencies, like Response To Intervention (RTI), do not function efficiently in all schools. Supporting what we heard from parents,\u003ca href=\"http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/11/11/study-rti-practice-falls-short-of-promise.html?cmp=SOC-EDIT-FB\"> a recent study\u003c/a> performed by the federally backed National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance on schools that used RTI for literacy, found that “first-graders who received reading interventions actually did worse than virtually identical peers who did not get the more targeted assistance,” according to Education Week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Even with all these negatives, there are also many positives contributing to improving the lives of those with reading and writing difficulties: Technology in many ways has changed life for those who struggle to read and write; some states are working hard to “say dyslexia,” and are attempting to bring awareness to schools around the issue; activists like the parents and teachers who created the #saydyslexia hashtag tirelessly raise awareness on social media and with school administrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Of course, at the heart of the matter are the students themselves who, with lots of tutoring, often gain enough fluency to get through school well enough. Many find success, academic or otherwise, in spite of reading difficulties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Here are five important takeaways to consider when thinking about how we help struggling readers in school and how we view dyslexics within society:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">1. \u003cb>Dyslexia isn’t a disease, disorder or flipping letters backwards; it’s a different brain.\u003c/b> Experts agree that dyslexia isn’t a dysfunction of the brain, or lack of willpower in an unmotivated or lazy student, but a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">brain that’s wired in a different way\u003c/a>. Since there is no reading center of the brain or reading gene, Maryanne Wolf, dyslexia expert and author of \"Proust and the Squid,\" points out that each brain has to form its own “reading circuit” and learn to read on its own — and many things can happen along the way. When one piece of the reading circuit doesn’t connect properly due to the way the brain is constructed, which is the case in most dyslexics (some dyslexics may be hindered by two pieces), then reading fails to happen, or goes very slowly. For the majority of dyslexics, \u003ci>phoneme awareness\u003c/i>, or the ability to connect sounds to letters, is the missing piece.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Failure to read is often in direct opposition to a student’s cognitive ability, and often dyslexia can be “compensated” for a time by a bright child who works hard to memorize words. As academic demands increase, however, a \"second wave\" of dyslexics are discovered in third, fourth and fifth grades as students struggle with harder words and more reading assignments, where faster comprehension is required.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Many dyslexics need special one-on-one training in the Orton-Gillingham reading method or a similar program to help them learn to read — although for some, reading and writing will always be a struggle, because dyslexia, while often categorized under \"learning disorder,\" really isn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">2. \u003cb>Technology has changed the game for many dyslexics, and should be used as an aid in schools. \u003c/b>For dyslexics, the voice-to-text apps and audiobook reading helpers developed in the last decade are not “cheating”: Instead, these \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/11/03/tech-tools-that-transformed-learning-with-dyslexia/\">life-changing tech tools\u003c/a> are a way for dyslexics to fully participate in classroom activities that were once unreachable. But to do so, schools must let go of the expectation that all students will get to the same place in the same way; as in Kyle Redford’s fifth-grade classroom, in which she handed a severely dyslexic student an iPad with voice-to-text, and soon realized that once he could move around the hurdle of spelling the words, he was a brilliant writer and had lots to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">With help from the Strategic Alternative Learning Technique (SALT) Center’s educational technology coordinator, Mary Beth Foster, we discovered that among the best tech tools for dyslexics are:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">* Kurzweil software, featuring Texthelp Read and Write\u003cbr>\n* Google Chrome’s VoiceNote and Read and Write\u003cbr>\n* Livescribe Smartpen\u003cbr>\n* Amazon’s Immersion Reading and Learning Ally’s VOICEText\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Our readers jumped in, too: Several commenters recommended Bookshare, an audiobook reading app with follow-along text that’s free for any student with an IEP. Another reader recommended \u003ca href=\"http://www.scilearn.com/products/fast-forword\">Fast For Word\u003c/a>, a software program that helps dyslexics and other struggling readers build foundational skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">3.\u003cb> Teacher-training programs should spend more time focusing on what do to with kids who can’t seem to catch up. \u003c/b>Experts agree that \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/30/who-helps-kids-with-dyslexia-gain-reading-fluency/\">teacher-training programs\u003c/a> vary in the quality of what teachers-in-training learn about reading, and how to recognize the signs and signals of students who are struggling. We reported the story of Martha Youman, a New York City teaching fellow with a master’s degree who had no idea what to do with the struggling readers in her second-grade classroom. When she later became a Ph.D. expert in dyslexia, she realized that her training had prepared her well for how to plan and for how to teach -- but not for what to do when the lessons didn’t work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Even after graduating from teacher-training programs, said Dr. Laurie Cutting, faculty director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic, many teachers operate under an assumption that the 50 percent of kids who didn’t magically learn how to read will eventually do so. But she said that’s mistaken -- it’s crucial that teachers recognize when reading isn’t coming together and that all students, even the ones who read well, get direct, intense instruction in decoding, or matching letter sounds to their printed counterparts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Most teachers, however, shouldn’t be solely responsible to help dyslexic students reach fluency — but just recognizing the signs of struggling readers, and being able to direct them to the services they need, is a huge step forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">4. \u003cb>While the link between dyslexia and special talents and abilities hasn’t been proved, often talents get overlooked because of the focus on reading deficiency. \u003c/b>While interesting that it seems so many talented people struggle with reading and writing — from artists like Pablo Picasso and Steven Spielberg to business giants like Richard Branson — scientists have yet to figure out the chicken-or-the-egg proposition: Do dyslexics compensate when they realize they can’t read? Or does a different brain structure allow \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/12/15/dyslexia-and-the-wider-world-of-creativity-and-talent/\">different talents and gifts\u003c/a> to emerge?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">It doesn’t really matter what the answer is, say dyslexia experts in the field. What matters most is to focus on a child’s potential rather than deficiencies. And all too often, children in schools who are confronted with so much failure understandably fail to realize their strengths and talents. This doesn’t just apply to art and business either: As Dr. Sheryl Rimrodt at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic said, often beaten-down dyslexic students don’t realize that they can go to college and major in medicine, law or other subjects that may require lots of reading and writing. The key, said Rimrodt, is to realize that dyslexics have a different brain, and that brain will have different needs, and to proceed from that point. But students shouldn’t sell themselves short — and neither should their teachers or parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">5.\u003cb> The failure associated with dyslexia follows students into adulthood. \u003c/b>One of the most moving moments of posting the dyslexia articles on social media was reading the responses we received from adult dyslexics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003ci>From Devon M.\u003c/i>: Professors in college often deny their [reading difficulties] existence, too. I actually had one professor tell me to, \"just exercise more and it will go away\" and then later, \"you SAY you have all these learning disabilities, but you're actually quite sharp!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003ci>From Pamela B.\u003c/i>: My math teacher laughed at me in front of the class when I explained that the numbers in the fractions kept moving around. Now I have a PhD. Check mate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ci>From Felix Q.\u003c/i>: I constantly get the \"but you're too smart!\" comment, which not only strips us of what we know to be true, but works under the assumption that people with learning disabilities cannot possibly be smart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">This only highlights the need for more and better education on what dyslexia is and what it isn’t, and how recognizing the signs early, along with getting students the proper intervention they need, will help suffering students. While all the interventions in the world will not make dyslexia disappear, hopefully early intervention, along with positive reinforcement, will mitigate much of the difficulties students face when they’re born with a different brain.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>MindShift readers are often intrigued by new ideas and strategies being tried around the country, but many educators are also parents and know the huge role parents play in education. This year some of our most popular posts have focused on how parents can set their children up for success, as well as when their involvement can hinder important development. As conversations at school and at home continue about the importance of having space to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/08/12/what-do-students-lose-by-being-perfect-valuable-failure/\" target=\"_blank\">learn from failure\u003c/a>, how can parents and educators become a stronger team as they work toward the mutual goal of successful, happy kids?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PARENTS ARE THE FIRST TEACHERS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When kids are young, it can feel like they need constant care (which they do!), but babies and toddlers are also building the architecture in their brains that will serve them throughout childhood. Parents have a unique opportunity to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/04/13/the-benefits-of-helping-preschoolers-understand-and-discuss-their-emotions/\" target=\"_blank\">help their toddlers develop the emotional intelligence \u003c/a>that will aid them in academic and social settings for the rest of their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Young kids often aren’t able to control their own emotions, which is why their tantrums can be fierce, but parents don’t have to stand by, powerless to these whims. Each tantrum is an opportunity for parents to help children learn to identify what they are feeling and why. They can also work to normalize emotions by admitting all people feel angry or sad or frustrated sometimes, while working on strategies to calm down. The strategies for a 3-year-old have to be simple and memorable, like taking a deep breath and counting to four when mad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Books can also be a helpful way to talk about emotions when a child isn’t in the thick of feeling his own. Little kids can point out the emotions they see characters experience and talk about how he or she might have dealt with the situation. And, little kids aren’t too young to develop a mindfulness practice, which has been shown to improve self-regulation. For example, parent and child could take a “listening walk” around the block, focusing on the sounds in the present moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The way parents interact with their young children does more than build the emotional foundation for later success. It can also help kids build the specific pre-academic skills that will ease transition into school. The 30 million-word gap has become cliche now, but understanding the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/15/what-parents-can-gain-from-learning-the-science-of-talking-to-kids/\" target=\"_blank\">science behind “good talk” for infants and toddlers\u003c/a> is an important way parents can contribute to their success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studies have shown that parents are more open to this message when they realize that how they interact with their child at a very young age affects the architecture of their brain. The messages imparted are as important, if not more so, than the act of talking itself. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/06/10/preschoolers-and-praise-messages-that-can-help-kids-grow/\" target=\"_blank\">Kids need to be encouraged and praised for the processes they are engaged in\u003c/a>, not just how cute or smart they are. And, even if a baby can’t yet talk, parents can create a sense of back and forth by responding to gurgles or smiles. Educators play a big role in making sure the parents they interact with know the science of talk and some of the simple strategies to make sure kids are developing a healthy capacity for language before starting school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>TEENAGE YEARS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a lot of emphasis on what parents can and should do with their very young children because that’s a moment in development when a child’s brain is growing and changing in fundamental ways. But as every parent knows, getting through the first four years is just the start, and there are often parenting bumps along the road. One common rough patch comes when kids become teenagers, with all the hormones and tricky social dynamics that accompany it. Many parents feel lost at this stage, unable to interact with their child in the ways they used to, and unsure of how to best offer support to a prickly teen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news is that teenagers need parenting just as much as younger kids, even if they don’t show their appreciation for it. Adolescence experts say parents are best off \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/06/23/as-teens-push-away-what-can-parents-do-to-support-success/\" target=\"_blank\">honoring their teen’s autonomy, while providing structure and support\u003c/a>. It’s easy to see an adolescent not taking responsibility for something like homework and immediately jumping in to help. But it’s far better to set clear expectations and perhaps even schedules and routines that support strong study habits, without micromanaging the process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Similarly, teens need space to try new things with the knowledge that there’s a safety net if they fail. This includes talking through choices and potential outcomes and then allowing the teen to make his own informed decisions. That doesn’t mean parents can’t jump in and provide extra support at times, but if a teenager never learns to be independent, he’ll have trouble later in life. And throughout it all, parents should continue to show warmth and love toward their teens. They may not seem to like it, but they still need it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cultivating supported autonomy will pay off once that teenager becomes a college student. University professors and deans increasingly report that \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/06/09/what-overparenting-looks-like-from-a-stanford-deans-perspective/\" target=\"_blank\">their students don’t show the type of self-efficacy required to succeed\u003c/a>. Instead, many students turn to their parents to fix even small problems that arise. Many parents look at an increasingly competitive world and see it as their parental duty to make sure their child has every possible opportunity. But actions that stem from love might actually be handicapping young adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>NEW TEACHING STRATEGIES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the discussion of “overparenting” struck a nerve with MindShift readers, the instinct to ward off any potentially damaging failures in a child’s life doesn’t come out of nowhere. Parents are feeling the pressure to make sure their kids get on the “right track” out of fear that any mistake will ruin a chance at a productive life. But where did that fear of failure come from? It’s a pervasive part of society and may even be learned in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many educators feel they must move through curriculum at a breakneck speed to cover everything, leaving very little space for students to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/08/24/growth-mindset-how-to-normalize-mistake-making-and-struggle-in-class/\" target=\"_blank\">experience struggle\u003c/a>, failure, renewed attempts and ultimately success in a safe environment. Increasingly, however, educators are having productive conversations about encouraging a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/growth-mindset/\" target=\"_blank\">growth mindset\u003c/a>, which focuses on how making mistakes grows the brain and provides fertile opportunities to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This discussion of mistakes has led to some confusion. For example, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/11/23/why-understanding-these-four-types-of-mistakes-can-help-us-learn/\" target=\"_blank\">not all mistakes lead to learning\u003c/a>. The best kinds of mistakes for learning happen when a student is stretching outside her comfort zone. When trying something new most people will make mistakes, but with reflection and strategies to address the error, much can be learned. At other times a student might have an “aha mistake” when she completed the task correctly, but realized she should have done it differently because of new information. Both these types of mistakes grow the brain and require self-reflection and renewed effort. But learning from mistakes doesn’t happen automatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another trend capturing the attention of MindShift readers is how the body and its movements connect to learning. In formal education the expectation has long been that students sit quietly and receive information from teachers. But increasingly \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/26/why-kids-need-to-move-touch-and-experience-to-learn/\" target=\"_blank\">neuroscience research is showing how intrinsically learning is tied to body movement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can start leveraging the power of our bodies to help us learn, think and perform at our best,” said Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. This wisdom has long been embedded in progressive teaching philosophies like Montessori, but has been largely eliminated from traditional public schools. But studies are showing that even small gestures can help students grasp confusing math concepts, understand physics and generally feel more connected to what they are learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of connecting learning to students’ lives has been a pervasive theme in education circles, but it can be hard to do so when working with mandated content that doesn’t necessarily excite students. A few teachers tried something very different last year when the hit public radio podcast \"Serial\" was becoming extremely popular. Teachers who were themselves engrossed in the story unfolding each week on the podcast decided to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/11/what-teens-are-learning-from-serial-and-other-podcasts/\" target=\"_blank\">bring their students into the fun, improving their listening and analytical skills in the process\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They enjoy it so much that they don’t realize they’re learning at the highest level,” said former 10th-grade English teacher Alexa Schlechter. She and her students debated different takes on the murder mystery tale, using Google Maps to recreate crucial scenes, analyzing the transcript for facts to support their arguments and bringing their own adolescent perspectives to a story about high school. The success of podcast projects like this one has sparked other teachers to think more about how audio can be used effectively in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Podcasts aren’t the only real-world phenomena making their way into classrooms. Educators are fascinated by how \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/30/three-awesome-educational-games-hiding-in-plain-sight/\" target=\"_blank\">commercial video games can be used for learning\u003c/a>. Often games specifically designed for learning can feel out of step and out of touch with what’s going on in the commercial game world. They often can’t compete in terms of graphics, motivation and intensity. But some educators are finding ways to use commercial games that students are already hooked on like \"\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/12/04/pursuing-quests-how-digital-games-can-create-a-learning-journey/\" target=\"_blank\">World of Warcraft\u003c/a>,\" \"\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/09/28/for-the-hesitant-teacher-leveraging-the-power-of-minecraft/\" target=\"_blank\">Minecraft\u003c/a>\" and \"Never Alone\" to teach important skills in all content areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DYSLEXIA\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year MindShift contributor Holly Korbey took a deep dive into how educators identify and teach students with dyslexia. Her articles struck a chord with many readers who not only understood why this topic is so important to kids in school today, but also strongly identified as adults with many of the stereotypes and issues raised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While every child is required to learn to read in school, reading is anything but a simple activity. It requires the brain to fashion new circuits between parts of the brain designed for other things. Together these combined circuits create a new specialized reading circuit that must work at lightning speed. Given the complexity of reading, it’s no surprise that \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/09/11/whats-going-on-inside-a-dyslexic-students-brain/\" target=\"_blank\">not all children’s brains work in the same way\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\" target=\"_blank\">The brains of people with dyslexia are organized in a different way\u003c/a>, making it difficult for them to know how sounds correspond with letters and numbers, to gain reading fluency and to comprehend what they are reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dyslexia can make school incredibly frustrating for students, parents and teachers, especially because \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/08/why-recognizing-dyslexia-in-children-at-school-can-be-difficult/\" target=\"_blank\">many educators aren’t trained to identify its signs in students\u003c/a>. And, even if they could identify it -- or a parent does -- many districts don’t make it easy or cheap for students to get the necessary testing that opens up doors to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/30/who-helps-kids-with-dyslexia-gain-reading-fluency/\" target=\"_blank\">specialized interventions\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s infuriating to many parents, who know that with \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/11/03/tech-tools-that-transformed-learning-with-dyslexia/\" target=\"_blank\">targeted resources\u003c/a> their often very bright children could easily catch up and avoid the psychic pain. Perhaps the worst part of this cycle is how students come to believe they are dumb and will never be able to read or excel in school. Very rarely are children with dyslexia \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/12/15/dyslexia-and-the-wider-world-of-creativity-and-talent/\" target=\"_blank\">celebrated for the other strengths\u003c/a> they bring because reading remains a primary concern in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AND A LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/07/29/what-if-teachers-were-treated-like-pro-athletes/\" target=\"_blank\">Key and Peele parody of “SportsCenter” \u003c/a>that replaced NFL draft prospects with new teachers added a dose of levity to the education conversation this year. The sketch is hilarious, highlighting a calculus teacher first-round draft pick whose father was “a humble football player,” but it also touches on some real, raw issues. An $80 million teaching contract might be a bit much, but issues of teacher pay and appreciation are still front and center in the very real discussions about how to recruit and retain the best possible teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/dkHqPFbxmOU\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>MindShift readers are often intrigued by new ideas and strategies being tried around the country, but many educators are also parents and know the huge role parents play in education. This year some of our most popular posts have focused on how parents can set their children up for success, as well as when their involvement can hinder important development. As conversations at school and at home continue about the importance of having space to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/08/12/what-do-students-lose-by-being-perfect-valuable-failure/\" target=\"_blank\">learn from failure\u003c/a>, how can parents and educators become a stronger team as they work toward the mutual goal of successful, happy kids?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PARENTS ARE THE FIRST TEACHERS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When kids are young, it can feel like they need constant care (which they do!), but babies and toddlers are also building the architecture in their brains that will serve them throughout childhood. Parents have a unique opportunity to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/04/13/the-benefits-of-helping-preschoolers-understand-and-discuss-their-emotions/\" target=\"_blank\">help their toddlers develop the emotional intelligence \u003c/a>that will aid them in academic and social settings for the rest of their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Young kids often aren’t able to control their own emotions, which is why their tantrums can be fierce, but parents don’t have to stand by, powerless to these whims. Each tantrum is an opportunity for parents to help children learn to identify what they are feeling and why. They can also work to normalize emotions by admitting all people feel angry or sad or frustrated sometimes, while working on strategies to calm down. The strategies for a 3-year-old have to be simple and memorable, like taking a deep breath and counting to four when mad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Books can also be a helpful way to talk about emotions when a child isn’t in the thick of feeling his own. Little kids can point out the emotions they see characters experience and talk about how he or she might have dealt with the situation. And, little kids aren’t too young to develop a mindfulness practice, which has been shown to improve self-regulation. For example, parent and child could take a “listening walk” around the block, focusing on the sounds in the present moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The way parents interact with their young children does more than build the emotional foundation for later success. It can also help kids build the specific pre-academic skills that will ease transition into school. The 30 million-word gap has become cliche now, but understanding the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/15/what-parents-can-gain-from-learning-the-science-of-talking-to-kids/\" target=\"_blank\">science behind “good talk” for infants and toddlers\u003c/a> is an important way parents can contribute to their success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studies have shown that parents are more open to this message when they realize that how they interact with their child at a very young age affects the architecture of their brain. The messages imparted are as important, if not more so, than the act of talking itself. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/06/10/preschoolers-and-praise-messages-that-can-help-kids-grow/\" target=\"_blank\">Kids need to be encouraged and praised for the processes they are engaged in\u003c/a>, not just how cute or smart they are. And, even if a baby can’t yet talk, parents can create a sense of back and forth by responding to gurgles or smiles. Educators play a big role in making sure the parents they interact with know the science of talk and some of the simple strategies to make sure kids are developing a healthy capacity for language before starting school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>TEENAGE YEARS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a lot of emphasis on what parents can and should do with their very young children because that’s a moment in development when a child’s brain is growing and changing in fundamental ways. But as every parent knows, getting through the first four years is just the start, and there are often parenting bumps along the road. One common rough patch comes when kids become teenagers, with all the hormones and tricky social dynamics that accompany it. Many parents feel lost at this stage, unable to interact with their child in the ways they used to, and unsure of how to best offer support to a prickly teen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news is that teenagers need parenting just as much as younger kids, even if they don’t show their appreciation for it. Adolescence experts say parents are best off \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/06/23/as-teens-push-away-what-can-parents-do-to-support-success/\" target=\"_blank\">honoring their teen’s autonomy, while providing structure and support\u003c/a>. It’s easy to see an adolescent not taking responsibility for something like homework and immediately jumping in to help. But it’s far better to set clear expectations and perhaps even schedules and routines that support strong study habits, without micromanaging the process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Similarly, teens need space to try new things with the knowledge that there’s a safety net if they fail. This includes talking through choices and potential outcomes and then allowing the teen to make his own informed decisions. That doesn’t mean parents can’t jump in and provide extra support at times, but if a teenager never learns to be independent, he’ll have trouble later in life. And throughout it all, parents should continue to show warmth and love toward their teens. They may not seem to like it, but they still need it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cultivating supported autonomy will pay off once that teenager becomes a college student. University professors and deans increasingly report that \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/06/09/what-overparenting-looks-like-from-a-stanford-deans-perspective/\" target=\"_blank\">their students don’t show the type of self-efficacy required to succeed\u003c/a>. Instead, many students turn to their parents to fix even small problems that arise. Many parents look at an increasingly competitive world and see it as their parental duty to make sure their child has every possible opportunity. But actions that stem from love might actually be handicapping young adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>NEW TEACHING STRATEGIES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the discussion of “overparenting” struck a nerve with MindShift readers, the instinct to ward off any potentially damaging failures in a child’s life doesn’t come out of nowhere. Parents are feeling the pressure to make sure their kids get on the “right track” out of fear that any mistake will ruin a chance at a productive life. But where did that fear of failure come from? It’s a pervasive part of society and may even be learned in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many educators feel they must move through curriculum at a breakneck speed to cover everything, leaving very little space for students to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/08/24/growth-mindset-how-to-normalize-mistake-making-and-struggle-in-class/\" target=\"_blank\">experience struggle\u003c/a>, failure, renewed attempts and ultimately success in a safe environment. Increasingly, however, educators are having productive conversations about encouraging a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/growth-mindset/\" target=\"_blank\">growth mindset\u003c/a>, which focuses on how making mistakes grows the brain and provides fertile opportunities to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This discussion of mistakes has led to some confusion. For example, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/11/23/why-understanding-these-four-types-of-mistakes-can-help-us-learn/\" target=\"_blank\">not all mistakes lead to learning\u003c/a>. The best kinds of mistakes for learning happen when a student is stretching outside her comfort zone. When trying something new most people will make mistakes, but with reflection and strategies to address the error, much can be learned. At other times a student might have an “aha mistake” when she completed the task correctly, but realized she should have done it differently because of new information. Both these types of mistakes grow the brain and require self-reflection and renewed effort. But learning from mistakes doesn’t happen automatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another trend capturing the attention of MindShift readers is how the body and its movements connect to learning. In formal education the expectation has long been that students sit quietly and receive information from teachers. But increasingly \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/26/why-kids-need-to-move-touch-and-experience-to-learn/\" target=\"_blank\">neuroscience research is showing how intrinsically learning is tied to body movement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can start leveraging the power of our bodies to help us learn, think and perform at our best,” said Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. This wisdom has long been embedded in progressive teaching philosophies like Montessori, but has been largely eliminated from traditional public schools. But studies are showing that even small gestures can help students grasp confusing math concepts, understand physics and generally feel more connected to what they are learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of connecting learning to students’ lives has been a pervasive theme in education circles, but it can be hard to do so when working with mandated content that doesn’t necessarily excite students. A few teachers tried something very different last year when the hit public radio podcast \"Serial\" was becoming extremely popular. Teachers who were themselves engrossed in the story unfolding each week on the podcast decided to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/11/what-teens-are-learning-from-serial-and-other-podcasts/\" target=\"_blank\">bring their students into the fun, improving their listening and analytical skills in the process\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They enjoy it so much that they don’t realize they’re learning at the highest level,” said former 10th-grade English teacher Alexa Schlechter. She and her students debated different takes on the murder mystery tale, using Google Maps to recreate crucial scenes, analyzing the transcript for facts to support their arguments and bringing their own adolescent perspectives to a story about high school. The success of podcast projects like this one has sparked other teachers to think more about how audio can be used effectively in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Podcasts aren’t the only real-world phenomena making their way into classrooms. Educators are fascinated by how \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/30/three-awesome-educational-games-hiding-in-plain-sight/\" target=\"_blank\">commercial video games can be used for learning\u003c/a>. Often games specifically designed for learning can feel out of step and out of touch with what’s going on in the commercial game world. They often can’t compete in terms of graphics, motivation and intensity. But some educators are finding ways to use commercial games that students are already hooked on like \"\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/12/04/pursuing-quests-how-digital-games-can-create-a-learning-journey/\" target=\"_blank\">World of Warcraft\u003c/a>,\" \"\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/09/28/for-the-hesitant-teacher-leveraging-the-power-of-minecraft/\" target=\"_blank\">Minecraft\u003c/a>\" and \"Never Alone\" to teach important skills in all content areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DYSLEXIA\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year MindShift contributor Holly Korbey took a deep dive into how educators identify and teach students with dyslexia. Her articles struck a chord with many readers who not only understood why this topic is so important to kids in school today, but also strongly identified as adults with many of the stereotypes and issues raised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While every child is required to learn to read in school, reading is anything but a simple activity. It requires the brain to fashion new circuits between parts of the brain designed for other things. Together these combined circuits create a new specialized reading circuit that must work at lightning speed. Given the complexity of reading, it’s no surprise that \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/09/11/whats-going-on-inside-a-dyslexic-students-brain/\" target=\"_blank\">not all children’s brains work in the same way\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\" target=\"_blank\">The brains of people with dyslexia are organized in a different way\u003c/a>, making it difficult for them to know how sounds correspond with letters and numbers, to gain reading fluency and to comprehend what they are reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dyslexia can make school incredibly frustrating for students, parents and teachers, especially because \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/08/why-recognizing-dyslexia-in-children-at-school-can-be-difficult/\" target=\"_blank\">many educators aren’t trained to identify its signs in students\u003c/a>. And, even if they could identify it -- or a parent does -- many districts don’t make it easy or cheap for students to get the necessary testing that opens up doors to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/30/who-helps-kids-with-dyslexia-gain-reading-fluency/\" target=\"_blank\">specialized interventions\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s infuriating to many parents, who know that with \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/11/03/tech-tools-that-transformed-learning-with-dyslexia/\" target=\"_blank\">targeted resources\u003c/a> their often very bright children could easily catch up and avoid the psychic pain. Perhaps the worst part of this cycle is how students come to believe they are dumb and will never be able to read or excel in school. Very rarely are children with dyslexia \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/12/15/dyslexia-and-the-wider-world-of-creativity-and-talent/\" target=\"_blank\">celebrated for the other strengths\u003c/a> they bring because reading remains a primary concern in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AND A LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/07/29/what-if-teachers-were-treated-like-pro-athletes/\" target=\"_blank\">Key and Peele parody of “SportsCenter” \u003c/a>that replaced NFL draft prospects with new teachers added a dose of levity to the education conversation this year. The sketch is hilarious, highlighting a calculus teacher first-round draft pick whose father was “a humble football player,” but it also touches on some real, raw issues. An $80 million teaching contract might be a bit much, but issues of teacher pay and appreciation are still front and center in the very real discussions about how to recruit and retain the best possible teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Dyslexia and the Wider World of Creativity and Talent",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>“The single most important implication of research in dyslexia is not ensuring that we don’t derail the development of a future Leonardo or Edison; it is making sure that we do not miss the potential of any child. Not all children with dyslexia have extraordinary talents, but every one of them has a unique potential that all too often goes unrealized because we don’t know how to tap it.” Maryanne Wolf, \u003c/i>Proust and the Squid\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The act of reading is a relatively recent phenomenon that was developed over time by humans. Since there are no reading genes or reading center of the brain, humans must learn to read by themselves, training their brain to forge the connections of disparate parts to form the circuitry that allows us to read and write. Reading well can be a sign of intelligence, except when it isn’t, which is often the case for the 5-20 percent of students who have by far the most common form of learning disability, dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">And yet often, special gifts and talents emerge from dyslexic brains. Whether this happens because of the setup of the dyslexic brain or in spite of it is still an ongoing subject of research. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pablo Picasso are all said to have struggled with reading and handwriting. Steven Spielberg \u003ca href=\"http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lGr840jE_0\">has spoken publicly\u003c/a> about how he wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until he was long into adulthood. Richard Branson, founder of the 400-company Virgin Group, said that when he was a child in school, everything on the board looked like “gobbledy-goop” to him. Presidential candidate Ben Carson, who was director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, is listed, along with nearly 40 other household names, on the “Successful Dyslexics” page on the \u003ca href=\"http://eida.org/success-stories/\">International Dyslexia Association\u003c/a> website.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Nashville third-grader \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/08/why-recognizing-dyslexia-in-children-at-school-can-be-difficult/\">Clara Thorsen\u003c/a> is what’s called twice exceptional, or 2E: She has a high IQ, yet it takes her hours to write one or two sentences. Brooklyn seventh-grader\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/08/why-recognizing-dyslexia-in-children-at-school-can-be-difficult/\"> Calliope Lissak\u003c/a> is dyslexic but has shown exceptional social skills, and can engage nearly any adult in adult-level conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In her book \"\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Proust-Squid-Story-Science-Reading/dp/0060933844\">Proust and the Squid\u003c/a>,\" child development professor \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">Maryanne Wolf\u003c/a> describes how her own dyslexic son questioned what was happening inside his brain: Was it that the brain of the dyslexic, relying heavily on the right hemisphere, was more creative \u003ci>because\u003c/i> the right hemisphere was used more often? Or was the right hemisphere dominant to begin with? Wolf writes that, according to neurologist Al Galaburda, a little bit of both may be true: “Initially, circuits of the left-hemisphere type that do not form allow right hemisphere circuits to populate empty synapses. Later, since they do not read, they get better at other things, especially since they have a good machinery for it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It’s certainly possible that some dyslexics have special abilities in areas not related to reading, just as other kids could have special abilities in one or two areas but struggle in other areas,\" said research scientist and speech-language pathologist Peggy McCardle, former branch chief at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), U.S. National Institutes of Health. \"We know that there are gifted children in the world, and that some of them are dyslexic. What we don’t know — and to date there is no real evidence of this — is whether the dyslexia and the giftedness or talent are connected, or just happened to co-occur in that person. People are looking at ways to study that, with good research designs and solid methods, but so far it has not been done.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">McCardle goes on to call the dyslexia-talent connection “a popular idea,” and admits it’s hard to say to wait for solid evidence. “But if we are to consider redefining a diagnosis, or changing a practice, we must be careful to be sure we’re right. If your dyslexic child has some special abilities, that’s wonderful, and that means that there are areas where he or she can be successful, which could make him or her feel less discouraged about school and learning. But it’s also important to keep in mind that environment, advantages and opportunities can nurture talents or abilities.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In poorer schools and families, dyslexic children may often have fewer opportunities to find and hone special abilities, making it even harder to tease out the connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Brock and Fernette Eide, a general practitioner and a neurologist who are also husband and wife, are quite interested in connecting dyslexics to their abilities, focusing on what dyslexics can do instead of what they can’t. Soon after they opened a Seattle clinic for students with learning differences in the late '90s, they began to notice a pattern in dyslexic students and their families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It became apparent that [in dyslexia] we were seeing kids with different patterns of optimization and specialization in cognitive function,” Dr. Brock Eide said. “When you start looking at those optimizations, you realize that building certain skills in certain areas usually entails a trade-off in function in some other cognitive set. So, what we were seeing with these kids is that they were optimized in ways that gave them difficulty in certain areas of function — which is why they ended up in our office. But when we looked closely, we were also seeing that those difficulties usually represented the flip side of other talent sets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Those talents, report the Eides, might be anything from high levels of spatial reasoning and creativity to outstanding social skills. The Eides said that time and again, families of dyslexic students would compare their child to a relative who had similar issues. For instance, a father might say, \"Yes, my son is just like his grandfather, who struggled in school, but then went on to become a successful geophysicist.\" The Eides became “fascinated” with the pattern, which led them to begin their own search for research to support their data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Their book, \u003ca href=\"http://Valor\">\"The Dyslexic Advantage,\"\u003c/a> outlines the talents of dyslexics that may be due to different brain structure. As far as the research to support the correlation between dyslexia and talent, the Eides said there are currently about 25 papers from around the world addressing the topic, and numerous universities, many in Europe, continuing to explore the connection between dyslexia and certain talents and abilities. While most are small samples, and are published in some obscure journals, the Eides say what mattered more to them than the quality of the studies, standing alone, was the recurrent evidence found around the world of people who struggled with reading and writing simultaneously -- excelling in areas like engineering, arts and design, and entrepreneurship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Following their passion for the “upside” of dyslexia, the Eides were prompted to start a nonprofit, also called The Dyslexic Advantage, to promote the positive identities and achievements of dyslexics, which now boasts 15,000 registered members. They have set up connections with professional organizations and universities to identify groups with high incidence of dyslexia. They recently participated in a “neurodiversity in the workplace” conference at Microsoft, where they heard compelling stories of successful dyslexics in the tech force, and how they often compensated for their weaknesses by teaming up with those who had complementary strengths. And they are preparing to release a survey of more than 2,600 participants, called Dyslexia at School, in which those surveyed, mostly parents, give insights into how schools are handling dyslexia in the classroom, and ways in which schools can help support students with learning differences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">According to the Eides, the real world is often a welcome and wonderful change from school for the learning disabled, because suddenly their skills and talents have an arena to flower. Typically dyslexic strengths, like incidental and experiential learning and big-picture thinking, don’t have as many applications at school, unless schools purposely create classes that can harness both. In their clinical work, the Eides often found students living with dyslexia who had been “so broken down and conditioned to think of themselves as being defective, that by the time the development and environment becomes more conducive to their success, they have lost believe in their ability to make something of themselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The researchers and clinicians at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic are more measured about promoting the upside of dyslexia — not because the upside can’t be real, but because the struggles to get through school for children with a learning disability are real. Dr. Sheryl Rimrodt, who runs the pediatric clinic, said, “Not every single kid with dyslexia is gifted. When these kids leave my clinic, my goal is to help them feel positive that they will go out and get what they need,” she said. “I will say things like, 'You have a dyslexic brain, like Walt Disney had a dyslexic brain. You are a smart kid.' ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Rimrodt also cautions saying too much about special talents that don’t seem academic in nature. “I don’t want kids to sell themselves short about going to college. So I will make sure that they know there are plenty of good people out there who have done plenty —academic work, who are in medical school, law school,” she said. “I want to give them the broad picture. I want them to understand that there’s a world of possibilities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Brock Eide recalled a recent phone call he received from an award-winning pediatric surgeon, a pioneer of many kinds of life-saving surgical procedures. The surgeon had called because he wanted to attend a local conference for dyslexics. However, he was having trouble filling out the registration form.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“This doctor can walk you through the experience of all the surgeries he performed over the years,” Eide said. “His memory is optimized for a different set of functions. And for all those kids who survived because he was their surgeon, thank goodness that he can’t remember his phone number, or his Zip code! He uses his mind for something better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">A recent popular Twitter hashtag called #SayDyslexia has spread one particularly useful idea: In order to be recognized as a gift or a curse or perhaps somewhere in between, dyslexia first must be recognized at all. According to the Eide’s Dyslexia in School survey, 86 percent of those surveyed received diagnoses from an outside source other than school, although school is where reading problems almost always begin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Through all the stories reported here, one thing remains consistent: While many children and families feel the often debilitating and humiliating effects of not understanding why they can’t read and write like everyone else, there is a lack of understanding about what dyslexia is and is not; how to identify dyslexic students and intervene early; and how to structure classrooms to accommodate an astonishing range of neurodiverse strengths and weaknesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">This misunderstanding is happening at the state and local level, in homes and in schools and in classrooms. It’s happening when children in the lowest reading group are told that it will all come together if they would just apply themselves. It’s happening when teachers unwittingly give prizes for reading contests based on number of pages read. It’s happening when states administer conflicting and confusing guidelines that leave families and schools struggling to put a name to the problem. For many kids with reading problems, the name is dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Experts agree that the earlier the diagnosis and intervention, the brighter the future for all those with dyslexia. For some, reading may never come easy. Dr. Brooke Soden, associate director at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic, said the reading person is only a piece of the whole person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I’ve tried to scrub the word 'treatment' from all the things coming out of our clinic,\" she said. \"It’s not treatment, because it’s not a disease. It’s a different brain. It’s who you are: It’s working with what you’ve got.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>“The single most important implication of research in dyslexia is not ensuring that we don’t derail the development of a future Leonardo or Edison; it is making sure that we do not miss the potential of any child. Not all children with dyslexia have extraordinary talents, but every one of them has a unique potential that all too often goes unrealized because we don’t know how to tap it.” Maryanne Wolf, \u003c/i>Proust and the Squid\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The act of reading is a relatively recent phenomenon that was developed over time by humans. Since there are no reading genes or reading center of the brain, humans must learn to read by themselves, training their brain to forge the connections of disparate parts to form the circuitry that allows us to read and write. Reading well can be a sign of intelligence, except when it isn’t, which is often the case for the 5-20 percent of students who have by far the most common form of learning disability, dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">And yet often, special gifts and talents emerge from dyslexic brains. Whether this happens because of the setup of the dyslexic brain or in spite of it is still an ongoing subject of research. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pablo Picasso are all said to have struggled with reading and handwriting. Steven Spielberg \u003ca href=\"http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lGr840jE_0\">has spoken publicly\u003c/a> about how he wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until he was long into adulthood. Richard Branson, founder of the 400-company Virgin Group, said that when he was a child in school, everything on the board looked like “gobbledy-goop” to him. Presidential candidate Ben Carson, who was director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, is listed, along with nearly 40 other household names, on the “Successful Dyslexics” page on the \u003ca href=\"http://eida.org/success-stories/\">International Dyslexia Association\u003c/a> website.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Nashville third-grader \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/08/why-recognizing-dyslexia-in-children-at-school-can-be-difficult/\">Clara Thorsen\u003c/a> is what’s called twice exceptional, or 2E: She has a high IQ, yet it takes her hours to write one or two sentences. Brooklyn seventh-grader\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/08/why-recognizing-dyslexia-in-children-at-school-can-be-difficult/\"> Calliope Lissak\u003c/a> is dyslexic but has shown exceptional social skills, and can engage nearly any adult in adult-level conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In her book \"\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Proust-Squid-Story-Science-Reading/dp/0060933844\">Proust and the Squid\u003c/a>,\" child development professor \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">Maryanne Wolf\u003c/a> describes how her own dyslexic son questioned what was happening inside his brain: Was it that the brain of the dyslexic, relying heavily on the right hemisphere, was more creative \u003ci>because\u003c/i> the right hemisphere was used more often? Or was the right hemisphere dominant to begin with? Wolf writes that, according to neurologist Al Galaburda, a little bit of both may be true: “Initially, circuits of the left-hemisphere type that do not form allow right hemisphere circuits to populate empty synapses. Later, since they do not read, they get better at other things, especially since they have a good machinery for it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It’s certainly possible that some dyslexics have special abilities in areas not related to reading, just as other kids could have special abilities in one or two areas but struggle in other areas,\" said research scientist and speech-language pathologist Peggy McCardle, former branch chief at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), U.S. National Institutes of Health. \"We know that there are gifted children in the world, and that some of them are dyslexic. What we don’t know — and to date there is no real evidence of this — is whether the dyslexia and the giftedness or talent are connected, or just happened to co-occur in that person. People are looking at ways to study that, with good research designs and solid methods, but so far it has not been done.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">McCardle goes on to call the dyslexia-talent connection “a popular idea,” and admits it’s hard to say to wait for solid evidence. “But if we are to consider redefining a diagnosis, or changing a practice, we must be careful to be sure we’re right. If your dyslexic child has some special abilities, that’s wonderful, and that means that there are areas where he or she can be successful, which could make him or her feel less discouraged about school and learning. But it’s also important to keep in mind that environment, advantages and opportunities can nurture talents or abilities.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In poorer schools and families, dyslexic children may often have fewer opportunities to find and hone special abilities, making it even harder to tease out the connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Brock and Fernette Eide, a general practitioner and a neurologist who are also husband and wife, are quite interested in connecting dyslexics to their abilities, focusing on what dyslexics can do instead of what they can’t. Soon after they opened a Seattle clinic for students with learning differences in the late '90s, they began to notice a pattern in dyslexic students and their families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It became apparent that [in dyslexia] we were seeing kids with different patterns of optimization and specialization in cognitive function,” Dr. Brock Eide said. “When you start looking at those optimizations, you realize that building certain skills in certain areas usually entails a trade-off in function in some other cognitive set. So, what we were seeing with these kids is that they were optimized in ways that gave them difficulty in certain areas of function — which is why they ended up in our office. But when we looked closely, we were also seeing that those difficulties usually represented the flip side of other talent sets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Those talents, report the Eides, might be anything from high levels of spatial reasoning and creativity to outstanding social skills. The Eides said that time and again, families of dyslexic students would compare their child to a relative who had similar issues. For instance, a father might say, \"Yes, my son is just like his grandfather, who struggled in school, but then went on to become a successful geophysicist.\" The Eides became “fascinated” with the pattern, which led them to begin their own search for research to support their data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Their book, \u003ca href=\"http://Valor\">\"The Dyslexic Advantage,\"\u003c/a> outlines the talents of dyslexics that may be due to different brain structure. As far as the research to support the correlation between dyslexia and talent, the Eides said there are currently about 25 papers from around the world addressing the topic, and numerous universities, many in Europe, continuing to explore the connection between dyslexia and certain talents and abilities. While most are small samples, and are published in some obscure journals, the Eides say what mattered more to them than the quality of the studies, standing alone, was the recurrent evidence found around the world of people who struggled with reading and writing simultaneously -- excelling in areas like engineering, arts and design, and entrepreneurship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Following their passion for the “upside” of dyslexia, the Eides were prompted to start a nonprofit, also called The Dyslexic Advantage, to promote the positive identities and achievements of dyslexics, which now boasts 15,000 registered members. They have set up connections with professional organizations and universities to identify groups with high incidence of dyslexia. They recently participated in a “neurodiversity in the workplace” conference at Microsoft, where they heard compelling stories of successful dyslexics in the tech force, and how they often compensated for their weaknesses by teaming up with those who had complementary strengths. And they are preparing to release a survey of more than 2,600 participants, called Dyslexia at School, in which those surveyed, mostly parents, give insights into how schools are handling dyslexia in the classroom, and ways in which schools can help support students with learning differences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">According to the Eides, the real world is often a welcome and wonderful change from school for the learning disabled, because suddenly their skills and talents have an arena to flower. Typically dyslexic strengths, like incidental and experiential learning and big-picture thinking, don’t have as many applications at school, unless schools purposely create classes that can harness both. In their clinical work, the Eides often found students living with dyslexia who had been “so broken down and conditioned to think of themselves as being defective, that by the time the development and environment becomes more conducive to their success, they have lost believe in their ability to make something of themselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The researchers and clinicians at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic are more measured about promoting the upside of dyslexia — not because the upside can’t be real, but because the struggles to get through school for children with a learning disability are real. Dr. Sheryl Rimrodt, who runs the pediatric clinic, said, “Not every single kid with dyslexia is gifted. When these kids leave my clinic, my goal is to help them feel positive that they will go out and get what they need,” she said. “I will say things like, 'You have a dyslexic brain, like Walt Disney had a dyslexic brain. You are a smart kid.' ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Rimrodt also cautions saying too much about special talents that don’t seem academic in nature. “I don’t want kids to sell themselves short about going to college. So I will make sure that they know there are plenty of good people out there who have done plenty —academic work, who are in medical school, law school,” she said. “I want to give them the broad picture. I want them to understand that there’s a world of possibilities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Brock Eide recalled a recent phone call he received from an award-winning pediatric surgeon, a pioneer of many kinds of life-saving surgical procedures. The surgeon had called because he wanted to attend a local conference for dyslexics. However, he was having trouble filling out the registration form.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“This doctor can walk you through the experience of all the surgeries he performed over the years,” Eide said. “His memory is optimized for a different set of functions. And for all those kids who survived because he was their surgeon, thank goodness that he can’t remember his phone number, or his Zip code! He uses his mind for something better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">A recent popular Twitter hashtag called #SayDyslexia has spread one particularly useful idea: In order to be recognized as a gift or a curse or perhaps somewhere in between, dyslexia first must be recognized at all. According to the Eide’s Dyslexia in School survey, 86 percent of those surveyed received diagnoses from an outside source other than school, although school is where reading problems almost always begin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Through all the stories reported here, one thing remains consistent: While many children and families feel the often debilitating and humiliating effects of not understanding why they can’t read and write like everyone else, there is a lack of understanding about what dyslexia is and is not; how to identify dyslexic students and intervene early; and how to structure classrooms to accommodate an astonishing range of neurodiverse strengths and weaknesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">This misunderstanding is happening at the state and local level, in homes and in schools and in classrooms. It’s happening when children in the lowest reading group are told that it will all come together if they would just apply themselves. It’s happening when teachers unwittingly give prizes for reading contests based on number of pages read. It’s happening when states administer conflicting and confusing guidelines that leave families and schools struggling to put a name to the problem. For many kids with reading problems, the name is dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Experts agree that the earlier the diagnosis and intervention, the brighter the future for all those with dyslexia. For some, reading may never come easy. Dr. Brooke Soden, associate director at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic, said the reading person is only a piece of the whole person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I’ve tried to scrub the word 'treatment' from all the things coming out of our clinic,\" she said. \"It’s not treatment, because it’s not a disease. It’s a different brain. It’s who you are: It’s working with what you’ve got.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Tech Tools That Have Transformed Learning With Dyslexia",
"title": "Tech Tools That Have Transformed Learning With Dyslexia",
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"content": "\u003cp>Fifth-grade teacher Kyle Redford remembers with emotion the day she unwittingly put an iPad in the hands of one of her 10-year-old dyslexic students, a day she called “a complete game changer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">While the rest of the class was working in a writers workshop, she handed the student an iPad and told him to try and experiment with its speech-to-text feature. With minimal expectations, Redford figured that the newness and the boy’s curiosity would at least keep him busy during writing time, which he usually found frustrating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">While Redford described the boy as “very bright,” he “couldn’t even compose a sentence to save his life\" because of his dyslexia. Any classroom assignment having to do with writing made him moody. So, as Redford guided the rest of the class through the workshop, the student stepped outside the classroom and spoke his ideas for his writing assignment into the iPad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">At first, it was difficult. Redford said earlier versions of voice-to-text had a hard time picking up the sounds of young male voices, and some of his sentences ended up translating into hilarious results. But the student, who soon began a quest for Siri to understand him, asked Redford if he could keep trying. Before long, he was completing all his writing assignments through the iPad, and showing the other dyslexic students in his class how to use it, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">“\u003c/span>Some of my most brilliant kids in the class, put them on an iPad, and say, ‘Speak into this,’ ” she said. “The same kid who would give me one incomplete sentence is now telling me in complete paragraphs exactly what he knows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">Redford herself has a grown dyslexic son, Dylan, and has been a fierce champion of dyslexia awareness for more than two decades -- a journey she speaks about candidly in the HBO documentary \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzp8FUZm5_M\">The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia\u003c/a>.\" The documentary was made with \u003ca href=\"http://dyslexia.yale.edu/index.html\">the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity\u003c/a>, where Redford serves as education editor, and it was directed by her husband, James Redford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzp8FUZm5_M\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Kyle Redford said there is no doubt that technology has changed the lives of those who struggle to read and write, and that educators should embrace the changes. In articles for the Yale Center, she outlines in detail how to help \u003ca href=\"http://dyslexia.yale.edu/EDU_KidsCantWait.html\">struggling readers with classroom assignments\u003c/a> -- many with the aid of technology -- and in one piece she even says \u003ca href=\"http://dyslexia.yale.edu/article_print.php?a=EDU_keyboarding\">good riddance to mandatory cursive.\u003c/a> For dyslexics, a keyboard and spellcheck allow them to express their ideas without such monumental effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">School psychologist and dyslexia expert \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/30/who-helps-kids-with-dyslexia-gain-reading-fluency/\">Martha Youman\u003c/a> often gives ideas and suggestions for how teachers at her middle school can make accommodations to dyslexic students using technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I tell them, don’t ask this student to write something long, because he’s going to do a terrible job. He’s going to spend way too much time trying to spell everything correctly,” she said. “Let him take a screen shot on his phone, because it’s not that important for him to transcribe something.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But in order for teachers to really embrace how tech can help their students with learning differences, Youman said schools must let go of expectations that each student is going to get to the same place \u003ci>in the same way\u003c/i>. She said resistance often comes from a misunderstanding that it's somehow \"cheating\" when dyslexics use technology as an aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But thinking of accommodations as cheating highlights a fundamental misconception about dyslexic students and schoolwork: Most dyslexic students don’t have a problem understanding information; their issues lie with getting information through reading or sharing information through writing. It's why, as Redford said, technologies that allow dyslexic students to record classes and speak essays into tablets may be the biggest game changers of all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>The Rise of Technology\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Part of what makes dyslexia such a challenge is that, even with years of intervention and tutoring, reading and writing may continue to be a lifelong struggle because of the dyslexic brain’s unique setup. Even more than 30 years ago, when the Strategic Alternative Learning Techniques Center (SALT) at the University of Arizona was founded to support those with learning and attention differences through college, founder Eleanor Harner’s first hire was an educational technology specialist. Rudy Molina, current director and former student at the SALT Center, said even then Harner understood that computer technology would bridge the gap for struggling college students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“The spirit behind hiring the technical specialist first was that technology can help students learn,” Molina said. “The conversation hasn’t changed much in how it’s used, but the sheer number of technologies for dyslexics has grown.” The current tech team at SALT sifts through all the latest apps and gadgets to help students determine which option is best for them to use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">College students with learning differences flock to SALT, a full-service student support center that served 600 students the last school year, with an 80-student waitlist. Molina said that while most think of SALT as a tutoring center, what it actually provides is much more comprehensive: In addition to tutoring, specialists help college students with educational planning, organization and managing their technology. Today’s college students not only have to worry about their studies, but their online life, too — which is where most college interactions take place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“One good example is CatMail,” Molina said, referring to the university’s official email program. “You’d be amazed at how many -- hundreds of emails coming in for each student. It’s overwhelming,” especially for students who take much longer to read. Strategic learning specialists help students organize their inboxes, tagging and color-coding emails not to be missed, especially from professors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">And technology for note-taking, Molina said, is critical because it’s probably the most used skill on campus. Students with legible writing use \u003ca href=\"http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/solutions/learningdisabilities/\">LiveScribe Smartpen\u003c/a>, a small computer located inside a pen that records and saves what students hear while taking notes as well as what they write into a notebook. Students can go back to any place in their written notes and tap on it, and the Smartpen will play the notes that were being said at that moment. For students like him whose handwriting wasn't legible, Molina said, simple digital audio recording worked just as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cb>Helpful Tech Tools\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Speech-to-Text*\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nApps like \u003ca href=\"http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/mobile-applications/dragon-dictation/index.htm\">Dragon Dictation\u003c/a> or Google’s \u003ca href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/voicenote-ii-speech-to-te/hfknjgplnkgjihghcidajejfmldhibfm\">VoiceNote\u003c/a> allow students to record their voices and turn their speech into text. This helps dyslexic students who have trouble with writing to compose essays or compositions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Kurzweil\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kurzweiledu.com/default.html\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/a>According to Mary Beth Foster, educational technology coordinator at the SALT Center, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kurzweiledu.com/default.html\">Kurzweil\u003c/a> software, with study skills features and Texthelp Read and Write, are \"phenomenal.\" \"Students can highlight different colors, add sticky and voice notes, and extract all the notes and highlights into a separate study guide,\" she said. \"Files can also be exported into sound files like mp3.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000827761&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-1&pf_rd_r=0FRWZGBY2YTA99MJM3S1&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=2147942642&pf_rd_i=5744819011\">WhisperSync\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThis Amazon app allows readers to switch between reading and listening to a book. For those whose slow reading can be exhausting, they can switch to audio to listen for a while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Audiobooks with Accompanying Readers\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAmazon’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201589630\">Immersion Reading\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://https://go.learningally.org/voicetext-when-learning-ally-audio-syncs-with-text-onscreen/\">VOICEText by Learning Ally\u003c/a> both allow readers to read and listen to a story at the same time. Each comes with a highlighted text feature that helps dyslexic students follow along, allowing them to read books at the level of their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/smartpen/\">Livescribe Smartpen\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nA special computerized pen that allows students to record what’s being said, as well as what they’re writing. They can tap the pen on any written note to replay what was said while they were writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-HW-1216-Childrens-Speller-Dictionary/dp/B0002OP81A\">\u003cstrong>Franklin Speller\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/a>With its handy lists of confusable words and context-sensitive help text, these mini-electronic dictionaries also offer spellcheck, print and cursive options for words, and an arithmetic tutor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Free Options Already on Computers\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nFoster also said that many students are surprised to learn that there are free options already on their computers to help with reading and writing. For Windows, students add \"Speak\" to the Customized Access Toolbar; for Mac, choose \"Dictation and Speech\" in System Preferences. And for Google Docs, search for \"Voice Typing,\" available in a Chrome browser.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Update: If there are tools missing from this list, please add them in the comments section. We'd love to hear about others!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cem>*Note: A previous version of this post named this category as \"Text-to-Speech\". We regret this error. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Smart pens, dictation apps and audio functions on e-readers have transformed how students struggling with dyslexia can learn. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Fifth-grade teacher Kyle Redford remembers with emotion the day she unwittingly put an iPad in the hands of one of her 10-year-old dyslexic students, a day she called “a complete game changer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">While the rest of the class was working in a writers workshop, she handed the student an iPad and told him to try and experiment with its speech-to-text feature. With minimal expectations, Redford figured that the newness and the boy’s curiosity would at least keep him busy during writing time, which he usually found frustrating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">While Redford described the boy as “very bright,” he “couldn’t even compose a sentence to save his life\" because of his dyslexia. Any classroom assignment having to do with writing made him moody. So, as Redford guided the rest of the class through the workshop, the student stepped outside the classroom and spoke his ideas for his writing assignment into the iPad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">At first, it was difficult. Redford said earlier versions of voice-to-text had a hard time picking up the sounds of young male voices, and some of his sentences ended up translating into hilarious results. But the student, who soon began a quest for Siri to understand him, asked Redford if he could keep trying. Before long, he was completing all his writing assignments through the iPad, and showing the other dyslexic students in his class how to use it, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">“\u003c/span>Some of my most brilliant kids in the class, put them on an iPad, and say, ‘Speak into this,’ ” she said. “The same kid who would give me one incomplete sentence is now telling me in complete paragraphs exactly what he knows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">Redford herself has a grown dyslexic son, Dylan, and has been a fierce champion of dyslexia awareness for more than two decades -- a journey she speaks about candidly in the HBO documentary \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzp8FUZm5_M\">The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia\u003c/a>.\" The documentary was made with \u003ca href=\"http://dyslexia.yale.edu/index.html\">the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity\u003c/a>, where Redford serves as education editor, and it was directed by her husband, James Redford.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/jzp8FUZm5_M'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/jzp8FUZm5_M'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">Kyle Redford said there is no doubt that technology has changed the lives of those who struggle to read and write, and that educators should embrace the changes. In articles for the Yale Center, she outlines in detail how to help \u003ca href=\"http://dyslexia.yale.edu/EDU_KidsCantWait.html\">struggling readers with classroom assignments\u003c/a> -- many with the aid of technology -- and in one piece she even says \u003ca href=\"http://dyslexia.yale.edu/article_print.php?a=EDU_keyboarding\">good riddance to mandatory cursive.\u003c/a> For dyslexics, a keyboard and spellcheck allow them to express their ideas without such monumental effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">School psychologist and dyslexia expert \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/30/who-helps-kids-with-dyslexia-gain-reading-fluency/\">Martha Youman\u003c/a> often gives ideas and suggestions for how teachers at her middle school can make accommodations to dyslexic students using technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I tell them, don’t ask this student to write something long, because he’s going to do a terrible job. He’s going to spend way too much time trying to spell everything correctly,” she said. “Let him take a screen shot on his phone, because it’s not that important for him to transcribe something.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But in order for teachers to really embrace how tech can help their students with learning differences, Youman said schools must let go of expectations that each student is going to get to the same place \u003ci>in the same way\u003c/i>. She said resistance often comes from a misunderstanding that it's somehow \"cheating\" when dyslexics use technology as an aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But thinking of accommodations as cheating highlights a fundamental misconception about dyslexic students and schoolwork: Most dyslexic students don’t have a problem understanding information; their issues lie with getting information through reading or sharing information through writing. It's why, as Redford said, technologies that allow dyslexic students to record classes and speak essays into tablets may be the biggest game changers of all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>The Rise of Technology\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Part of what makes dyslexia such a challenge is that, even with years of intervention and tutoring, reading and writing may continue to be a lifelong struggle because of the dyslexic brain’s unique setup. Even more than 30 years ago, when the Strategic Alternative Learning Techniques Center (SALT) at the University of Arizona was founded to support those with learning and attention differences through college, founder Eleanor Harner’s first hire was an educational technology specialist. Rudy Molina, current director and former student at the SALT Center, said even then Harner understood that computer technology would bridge the gap for struggling college students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“The spirit behind hiring the technical specialist first was that technology can help students learn,” Molina said. “The conversation hasn’t changed much in how it’s used, but the sheer number of technologies for dyslexics has grown.” The current tech team at SALT sifts through all the latest apps and gadgets to help students determine which option is best for them to use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">College students with learning differences flock to SALT, a full-service student support center that served 600 students the last school year, with an 80-student waitlist. Molina said that while most think of SALT as a tutoring center, what it actually provides is much more comprehensive: In addition to tutoring, specialists help college students with educational planning, organization and managing their technology. Today’s college students not only have to worry about their studies, but their online life, too — which is where most college interactions take place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“One good example is CatMail,” Molina said, referring to the university’s official email program. “You’d be amazed at how many -- hundreds of emails coming in for each student. It’s overwhelming,” especially for students who take much longer to read. Strategic learning specialists help students organize their inboxes, tagging and color-coding emails not to be missed, especially from professors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">And technology for note-taking, Molina said, is critical because it’s probably the most used skill on campus. Students with legible writing use \u003ca href=\"http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/solutions/learningdisabilities/\">LiveScribe Smartpen\u003c/a>, a small computer located inside a pen that records and saves what students hear while taking notes as well as what they write into a notebook. Students can go back to any place in their written notes and tap on it, and the Smartpen will play the notes that were being said at that moment. For students like him whose handwriting wasn't legible, Molina said, simple digital audio recording worked just as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cb>Helpful Tech Tools\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Speech-to-Text*\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nApps like \u003ca href=\"http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/mobile-applications/dragon-dictation/index.htm\">Dragon Dictation\u003c/a> or Google’s \u003ca href=\"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/voicenote-ii-speech-to-te/hfknjgplnkgjihghcidajejfmldhibfm\">VoiceNote\u003c/a> allow students to record their voices and turn their speech into text. This helps dyslexic students who have trouble with writing to compose essays or compositions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Kurzweil\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kurzweiledu.com/default.html\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/a>According to Mary Beth Foster, educational technology coordinator at the SALT Center, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kurzweiledu.com/default.html\">Kurzweil\u003c/a> software, with study skills features and Texthelp Read and Write, are \"phenomenal.\" \"Students can highlight different colors, add sticky and voice notes, and extract all the notes and highlights into a separate study guide,\" she said. \"Files can also be exported into sound files like mp3.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000827761&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-1&pf_rd_r=0FRWZGBY2YTA99MJM3S1&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=2147942642&pf_rd_i=5744819011\">WhisperSync\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThis Amazon app allows readers to switch between reading and listening to a book. For those whose slow reading can be exhausting, they can switch to audio to listen for a while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Audiobooks with Accompanying Readers\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAmazon’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201589630\">Immersion Reading\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://https://go.learningally.org/voicetext-when-learning-ally-audio-syncs-with-text-onscreen/\">VOICEText by Learning Ally\u003c/a> both allow readers to read and listen to a story at the same time. Each comes with a highlighted text feature that helps dyslexic students follow along, allowing them to read books at the level of their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/smartpen/\">Livescribe Smartpen\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nA special computerized pen that allows students to record what’s being said, as well as what they’re writing. They can tap the pen on any written note to replay what was said while they were writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-HW-1216-Childrens-Speller-Dictionary/dp/B0002OP81A\">\u003cstrong>Franklin Speller\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/a>With its handy lists of confusable words and context-sensitive help text, these mini-electronic dictionaries also offer spellcheck, print and cursive options for words, and an arithmetic tutor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Free Options Already on Computers\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nFoster also said that many students are surprised to learn that there are free options already on their computers to help with reading and writing. For Windows, students add \"Speak\" to the Customized Access Toolbar; for Mac, choose \"Dictation and Speech\" in System Preferences. And for Google Docs, search for \"Voice Typing,\" available in a Chrome browser.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Update: If there are tools missing from this list, please add them in the comments section. We'd love to hear about others!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Who Helps Kids With Dyslexia Gain Reading Fluency?",
"title": "Who Helps Kids With Dyslexia Gain Reading Fluency?",
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"content": "\u003cp>When Martha Youman was starting out as a second-grade teacher, every Friday she would stay late after school to make what she called “seat work” for her 30 students— packets to help differentiate instruction for the three levels of learners in her classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“My high-level [students] would get lots of reading passages with reading comprehension questions,” she said. “My medium level would get the same thing, but shorter. And my students at the low level would get things like coloring pages, connect the dots — just things to keep them busy so they wouldn’t act out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">She said that some students at the lowest learning level couldn’t even write the alphabet yet, so she’d even put kindergarten-style trace-the-letter pages into their seat work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">While the “seat work” kept behavior in check, it was failing as a teaching strategy. Youman, who had been a New York City Teaching Fellow, said she knew that some of these kids were struggling to read, but also knew from class interactions that they were smart. “I kept them busy. Truly, there were interventions they needed, I just didn’t know how to help them,” she said. “I had a master's in teaching, and didn’t know how to deal with these students.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Youman now understands that some of her struggling second-graders were most likely dyslexic, with neurobiologically different brains that often fail to read words and sentences without direct, specific intervention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“I received zero dyslexia training in grad school,” she said. “I received one class in how to teach reading, one in how to teach language arts, how to teach science, how to teach math. But these classes focused more on lesson planning and strategies at a class level. We did not talk at all about kids who can’t catch up, ever. The word dyslexia was never even mentioned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">After a few years in what felt like “the front lines of a war zone,” she went back to school to pursue a Ph.D. in school psychology, figuring she’d become the expert the struggling kids needed to intervene on their behalf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">It was only after she took a doctorate-level class called “High-Incidence Disabilities” with \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/08/why-recognizing-dyslexia-in-children-at-school-can-be-difficult/\">Dr. Nancy Mather\u003c/a> at the University of Arizona did the lightbulb switch on. She learned that reading disabilities affect anywhere from 5 percent to 20 percent of students. Youman recalled discussing dyslexia in the class and feeling perplexed. “I stopped and said, 'Wait, this happens a lot? Then why don’t we know about it?' ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">The 7- and 8-year-olds who couldn’t even write the alphabet, she discovered, might have been helped if someone had stepped in to find out \u003ci>why\u003c/i>—was it a deficiency with roots in the child’s environment, or lack of phoneme awareness? Or a comprehension deficiency, or some combination of any or all of them? Youman quickly decided that this is where she could be useful -- to go inside schools and help find the kids who were struggling, figure out what was happening and try to intervene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Armed with a Ph.D. in school psychology and currently diagnosing disabilities at a middle school in the Jefferson Elementary School District in Daly City (near San Francisco), Youman now understands more clearly why she didn’t know then how to help her struggling students: First, she was never trained how to specifically help students become better readers; and second, there are multiple bureaucratic barriers standing in the way of students getting help. For example, until very recently, California law provided 13 disability categories that could qualify students for services through an Individualized Education Program (IEP), but dyslexia wasn’t one of them.*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“When I’m testing a child to decide if they need special education services, I have to say that they have a Specified Learning Disorder, or SLD,” she said, noting that dyslexia is one of the categories buried under the umbrella term SLD. “But that can be confusing for parents if psychologists in one state say your kid has dyslexia. If they were to move to another state and say, 'We were told our child has dyslexia,' their new school might say, ‘Dyslexia isn’t a thing here.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">That’s recently changed, aided in part by advocacy work Youman herself has done to get a new bill passed that addresses dyslexia in schools directly. On October 8, the California state legislature enacted \u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB1369\">Assembly Bill 1369\u003c/a>, which will require schools to assess young readers for dyslexia specifically. The new law, which will make allowances for school psychologists to diagnose a “phonological processing deficit” also known as dyslexia, may seem like a small change, but Youman said its impact on how children can get intervention will be huge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“With this change, we can actually tell parents and teachers that a child being evaluated has dyslexia,” said Youman. “And we can recommend specific interventions that help at home and in the classroom. Hooray! This change seems very minor, but it is really huge.” Although Youman said that no direct changes have come to schools yet, at least they are on their way. And she’s hoping that just being able to say the word dyslexia will open the doors to more and better changes, including more sophisticated in-school tutoring and teacher training on how to recognize and teach to dyslexics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Assembly Bill 1369 has helped to clarify the overall SLD category, which Youman described as “messy.\" Much of the time, she is forced to rely on her clinical judgement to decide who gets an IEP.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In addition, Youman said that whether or not IEPs actually help depends upon the individual school’s resources, because teachers and paraprofessionals need to be trained on what exercises to do to help students diagnosed with dyslexia, and the best results come from individual instruction. She admitted that in many cases, IEPs don’t really work and many families must rely on private tutors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Youman wishes that dyslexia intervention had the outcomes of speech and language therapy, a school-rendered intervention she said actually works. “For speech and language therapy, the student sees a trained person. What they do is targeted, one-on-one or two-on-one, and they do a really good job targeting the specific areas of weakness.” But with dyslexia (or SLD), at her school, students are pulled out in groups of 10 to get help with their homework, and that’s the whole of the intervention. And Youman, now an expert in dyslexia, said it’s not enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cstrong>Where is the Training?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">In a recent New York Times op-ed titled “\u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/08/opinion/teachers-arent-dumb.html?_r=0\">Teachers Aren’t Dumb,”\u003c/a> cognitive psychologist Daniel T. Willingham at the University of Virginia wrote that many teachers don’t know the basic concepts of reading -- ones agreed upon by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nichd.nih.gov/research/supported/Pages/nrp.aspx\">National Reading Panel\u003c/a>. He cited one study of undergraduates preparing to be teachers, “fresh from their coursework in reading instruction,” in which 42 percent couldn’t correctly define the term “phonological awareness,” the first of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.readinghorizons.com/reading-strategies/teaching/\">five pillars of reading\u003c/a>. In Willingham's estimation, American schools of education are dropping the ball when it comes to preparing teachers how to teach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Laurie Cutting, professor of special education and faculty director of the \u003ca href=\"http://vkc.mc.vanderbilt.edu/vkc/services/disabilityservices/reading_clinic/\">Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic\u003c/a>, called the lack of American teacher training in reading “a disgrace,” considering she has yet to meet a teacher who doesn’t want to do right by her students. Yet misinformation abounds. She said teachers who don't know how to teach reading make a logical, if flawed, observation about it, based on classroom experience: 50 percent of any group of kids are going to “magically” learn how to read. Teachers then may assume that the second half will also magically learn how to read, given enough time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Cutting said that’s not the case. That second half will struggle and need some direct instruction; within that group, a portion will need a whole lot of direct instruction (perhaps even intervention). The half (maybe a little more in affluent schools) that learns to read as if it were natural can subtly influence how teachers think of reading -- which may lead teachers to lean on more holistic views of language, focusing more on enriching vocabularies and exposure to literature instead of phonics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">But the 50 percent who need direct instruction need first to learn how to \u003ca href=\"http://www.readinghorizons.com/reading-strategies/decoding/what-is\">decode\u003c/a>, or be able to match the sounds of letters to print letters in order to form words. Teaching the whole class the basics of decoding will not damage the students who are already reading (Cutting said some research suggests that it might actually make their reading stronger). But direct instruction on exactly how to teach phonemic awareness and decoding to that other 50 percent may be getting short shrift in education schools (think of Martha Youman, with her master's in teaching, but no idea how to help struggling readers). Dr. Louisa Moats, vice president of the International Dyslexia Association, has called this gap between what the scientific community knows about reading and what teachers learn the \u003ca href=\"http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/moats.htm\">“Knowledge Gulf.”\u003c/a> She travels widely, offering whole-school interventions in reading training.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“It really is a disgrace,” Cutting said, “because we know how to do it [teach decoding]. We have these tools, and we know how to teach this part of reading. The other parts are not as easily addressed, like fluency, but we know how to teach kids how to decode.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Cutting said approximately 1-2 percent of kids will always struggle, but that leaves 48 percent -- nearly all of that second half of the classroom -- who would be greatly helped with direct instruction correctly administered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Enriching students and exposing them to literature is a necessary part of learning to read, but only one leg of the \u003ca href=\"http://psychology.uiowa.edu/maclab/research/reading\">triangle model\u003c/a> of reading. Cutting explained that in order for reading fluency to happen, students must have strong connections in all three pieces: a semantic representation, or knowing what the word means; an orthographic representation, knowing what the word looks like; and a phonological representation, knowing what the word sounds like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">For many dyslexics, at least one piece of this triangle isn’t represented, sometimes two. But, as Maryanne Wolf wrote in \"Proust in the Squid,\" the most common deficit among children who can't read is phoneme awareness: the ability to see letters and sound them out efficiently to form words.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cstrong>What Individualized Instruction Looks Like\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Since each human brain must learn to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">read on its own\u003c/a>, Cutting, along with Brooke Soden, associate director at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic, understand that deficiencies and weaknesses are individual, and often must be addressed on a case-by-case basis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">That’s how the clinic tackles reading disabilities: one child at a time. Soden coordinates and manages the clinic, overseeing one-on-one tutoring as well as providing community training to teachers on how to teach reading. Often children arriving at the clinic are the hardest ones to work with, after their parents and teachers have tried everything else, so Soden assesses students to tease out what’s really going on and where their weaknesses are, then works with tutors on individual plans of action for each child. In most cases, the tutoring involves systematic, direct instruction, much of which is a version of the Orton-Gillingham method created to teach dyslexics to read nearly 100 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Developmental pediatrician Sheryl Rimrodt, who works with Cutting and Soden in helping to diagnose children with both behavioral and reading disabilities, said that since dyslexia doesn’t have any biomarkers to distinguish it, diagnoses are made up of descriptions of what they see happening, blended with the child’s history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Often, reading problems go hand-in-hand with attention and impulsivity issues like ADHD (Cutting suggested that current research may find a link between the two, having to do with executive function), which creates yet another challenge: Is the child acting out because they can’t read? Or, is it the other way around?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">If sorting out the diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia weren’t complicated enough, the Vanderbilt researchers mention the most crucial piece for schools and clinics alike: deciding who is going to get special intervention services. The Reading Clinic costs money, even though scholarships are available to the financially needy. And IEPs in schools also cost money; it costs money to train teachers and bring on extra staff to do the crucial one-on-one work necessary to improve dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“You have a finite amount of money, and a bunch of kids. The kids who are going to get the services are most likely the ones who are the most severe, or have the most advocates,” Cutting said. “It’s sort of a fundamental fact of life. It’s too bad that we are not able to capture kids early enough to do some remediation so that they don’t have as many word-level problems. It’s too bad that teachers many times aren’t trained in a way that allows those kids to work through their weaknesses, to sound out their words. Because that would benefit all of the kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cem>*Note: An earlier version of this post misidentified \"Individualized Education Program\" as \"Individualized Education Plan.\" It also misidentified Youman's school district as the San Francisco Unified School District. We regret these errors. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When Martha Youman was starting out as a second-grade teacher, every Friday she would stay late after school to make what she called “seat work” for her 30 students— packets to help differentiate instruction for the three levels of learners in her classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“My high-level [students] would get lots of reading passages with reading comprehension questions,” she said. “My medium level would get the same thing, but shorter. And my students at the low level would get things like coloring pages, connect the dots — just things to keep them busy so they wouldn’t act out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">She said that some students at the lowest learning level couldn’t even write the alphabet yet, so she’d even put kindergarten-style trace-the-letter pages into their seat work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">While the “seat work” kept behavior in check, it was failing as a teaching strategy. Youman, who had been a New York City Teaching Fellow, said she knew that some of these kids were struggling to read, but also knew from class interactions that they were smart. “I kept them busy. Truly, there were interventions they needed, I just didn’t know how to help them,” she said. “I had a master's in teaching, and didn’t know how to deal with these students.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Youman now understands that some of her struggling second-graders were most likely dyslexic, with neurobiologically different brains that often fail to read words and sentences without direct, specific intervention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“I received zero dyslexia training in grad school,” she said. “I received one class in how to teach reading, one in how to teach language arts, how to teach science, how to teach math. But these classes focused more on lesson planning and strategies at a class level. We did not talk at all about kids who can’t catch up, ever. The word dyslexia was never even mentioned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">After a few years in what felt like “the front lines of a war zone,” she went back to school to pursue a Ph.D. in school psychology, figuring she’d become the expert the struggling kids needed to intervene on their behalf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">It was only after she took a doctorate-level class called “High-Incidence Disabilities” with \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/08/why-recognizing-dyslexia-in-children-at-school-can-be-difficult/\">Dr. Nancy Mather\u003c/a> at the University of Arizona did the lightbulb switch on. She learned that reading disabilities affect anywhere from 5 percent to 20 percent of students. Youman recalled discussing dyslexia in the class and feeling perplexed. “I stopped and said, 'Wait, this happens a lot? Then why don’t we know about it?' ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">The 7- and 8-year-olds who couldn’t even write the alphabet, she discovered, might have been helped if someone had stepped in to find out \u003ci>why\u003c/i>—was it a deficiency with roots in the child’s environment, or lack of phoneme awareness? Or a comprehension deficiency, or some combination of any or all of them? Youman quickly decided that this is where she could be useful -- to go inside schools and help find the kids who were struggling, figure out what was happening and try to intervene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Armed with a Ph.D. in school psychology and currently diagnosing disabilities at a middle school in the Jefferson Elementary School District in Daly City (near San Francisco), Youman now understands more clearly why she didn’t know then how to help her struggling students: First, she was never trained how to specifically help students become better readers; and second, there are multiple bureaucratic barriers standing in the way of students getting help. For example, until very recently, California law provided 13 disability categories that could qualify students for services through an Individualized Education Program (IEP), but dyslexia wasn’t one of them.*\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“When I’m testing a child to decide if they need special education services, I have to say that they have a Specified Learning Disorder, or SLD,” she said, noting that dyslexia is one of the categories buried under the umbrella term SLD. “But that can be confusing for parents if psychologists in one state say your kid has dyslexia. If they were to move to another state and say, 'We were told our child has dyslexia,' their new school might say, ‘Dyslexia isn’t a thing here.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">That’s recently changed, aided in part by advocacy work Youman herself has done to get a new bill passed that addresses dyslexia in schools directly. On October 8, the California state legislature enacted \u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB1369\">Assembly Bill 1369\u003c/a>, which will require schools to assess young readers for dyslexia specifically. The new law, which will make allowances for school psychologists to diagnose a “phonological processing deficit” also known as dyslexia, may seem like a small change, but Youman said its impact on how children can get intervention will be huge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“With this change, we can actually tell parents and teachers that a child being evaluated has dyslexia,” said Youman. “And we can recommend specific interventions that help at home and in the classroom. Hooray! This change seems very minor, but it is really huge.” Although Youman said that no direct changes have come to schools yet, at least they are on their way. And she’s hoping that just being able to say the word dyslexia will open the doors to more and better changes, including more sophisticated in-school tutoring and teacher training on how to recognize and teach to dyslexics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Assembly Bill 1369 has helped to clarify the overall SLD category, which Youman described as “messy.\" Much of the time, she is forced to rely on her clinical judgement to decide who gets an IEP.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In addition, Youman said that whether or not IEPs actually help depends upon the individual school’s resources, because teachers and paraprofessionals need to be trained on what exercises to do to help students diagnosed with dyslexia, and the best results come from individual instruction. She admitted that in many cases, IEPs don’t really work and many families must rely on private tutors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Youman wishes that dyslexia intervention had the outcomes of speech and language therapy, a school-rendered intervention she said actually works. “For speech and language therapy, the student sees a trained person. What they do is targeted, one-on-one or two-on-one, and they do a really good job targeting the specific areas of weakness.” But with dyslexia (or SLD), at her school, students are pulled out in groups of 10 to get help with their homework, and that’s the whole of the intervention. And Youman, now an expert in dyslexia, said it’s not enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cstrong>Where is the Training?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">In a recent New York Times op-ed titled “\u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/08/opinion/teachers-arent-dumb.html?_r=0\">Teachers Aren’t Dumb,”\u003c/a> cognitive psychologist Daniel T. Willingham at the University of Virginia wrote that many teachers don’t know the basic concepts of reading -- ones agreed upon by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nichd.nih.gov/research/supported/Pages/nrp.aspx\">National Reading Panel\u003c/a>. He cited one study of undergraduates preparing to be teachers, “fresh from their coursework in reading instruction,” in which 42 percent couldn’t correctly define the term “phonological awareness,” the first of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.readinghorizons.com/reading-strategies/teaching/\">five pillars of reading\u003c/a>. In Willingham's estimation, American schools of education are dropping the ball when it comes to preparing teachers how to teach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Laurie Cutting, professor of special education and faculty director of the \u003ca href=\"http://vkc.mc.vanderbilt.edu/vkc/services/disabilityservices/reading_clinic/\">Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic\u003c/a>, called the lack of American teacher training in reading “a disgrace,” considering she has yet to meet a teacher who doesn’t want to do right by her students. Yet misinformation abounds. She said teachers who don't know how to teach reading make a logical, if flawed, observation about it, based on classroom experience: 50 percent of any group of kids are going to “magically” learn how to read. Teachers then may assume that the second half will also magically learn how to read, given enough time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Cutting said that’s not the case. That second half will struggle and need some direct instruction; within that group, a portion will need a whole lot of direct instruction (perhaps even intervention). The half (maybe a little more in affluent schools) that learns to read as if it were natural can subtly influence how teachers think of reading -- which may lead teachers to lean on more holistic views of language, focusing more on enriching vocabularies and exposure to literature instead of phonics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">But the 50 percent who need direct instruction need first to learn how to \u003ca href=\"http://www.readinghorizons.com/reading-strategies/decoding/what-is\">decode\u003c/a>, or be able to match the sounds of letters to print letters in order to form words. Teaching the whole class the basics of decoding will not damage the students who are already reading (Cutting said some research suggests that it might actually make their reading stronger). But direct instruction on exactly how to teach phonemic awareness and decoding to that other 50 percent may be getting short shrift in education schools (think of Martha Youman, with her master's in teaching, but no idea how to help struggling readers). Dr. Louisa Moats, vice president of the International Dyslexia Association, has called this gap between what the scientific community knows about reading and what teachers learn the \u003ca href=\"http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/moats.htm\">“Knowledge Gulf.”\u003c/a> She travels widely, offering whole-school interventions in reading training.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“It really is a disgrace,” Cutting said, “because we know how to do it [teach decoding]. We have these tools, and we know how to teach this part of reading. The other parts are not as easily addressed, like fluency, but we know how to teach kids how to decode.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Cutting said approximately 1-2 percent of kids will always struggle, but that leaves 48 percent -- nearly all of that second half of the classroom -- who would be greatly helped with direct instruction correctly administered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Enriching students and exposing them to literature is a necessary part of learning to read, but only one leg of the \u003ca href=\"http://psychology.uiowa.edu/maclab/research/reading\">triangle model\u003c/a> of reading. Cutting explained that in order for reading fluency to happen, students must have strong connections in all three pieces: a semantic representation, or knowing what the word means; an orthographic representation, knowing what the word looks like; and a phonological representation, knowing what the word sounds like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">For many dyslexics, at least one piece of this triangle isn’t represented, sometimes two. But, as Maryanne Wolf wrote in \"Proust in the Squid,\" the most common deficit among children who can't read is phoneme awareness: the ability to see letters and sound them out efficiently to form words.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cstrong>What Individualized Instruction Looks Like\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Since each human brain must learn to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">read on its own\u003c/a>, Cutting, along with Brooke Soden, associate director at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic, understand that deficiencies and weaknesses are individual, and often must be addressed on a case-by-case basis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">That’s how the clinic tackles reading disabilities: one child at a time. Soden coordinates and manages the clinic, overseeing one-on-one tutoring as well as providing community training to teachers on how to teach reading. Often children arriving at the clinic are the hardest ones to work with, after their parents and teachers have tried everything else, so Soden assesses students to tease out what’s really going on and where their weaknesses are, then works with tutors on individual plans of action for each child. In most cases, the tutoring involves systematic, direct instruction, much of which is a version of the Orton-Gillingham method created to teach dyslexics to read nearly 100 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Developmental pediatrician Sheryl Rimrodt, who works with Cutting and Soden in helping to diagnose children with both behavioral and reading disabilities, said that since dyslexia doesn’t have any biomarkers to distinguish it, diagnoses are made up of descriptions of what they see happening, blended with the child’s history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Often, reading problems go hand-in-hand with attention and impulsivity issues like ADHD (Cutting suggested that current research may find a link between the two, having to do with executive function), which creates yet another challenge: Is the child acting out because they can’t read? Or, is it the other way around?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">If sorting out the diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia weren’t complicated enough, the Vanderbilt researchers mention the most crucial piece for schools and clinics alike: deciding who is going to get special intervention services. The Reading Clinic costs money, even though scholarships are available to the financially needy. And IEPs in schools also cost money; it costs money to train teachers and bring on extra staff to do the crucial one-on-one work necessary to improve dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“You have a finite amount of money, and a bunch of kids. The kids who are going to get the services are most likely the ones who are the most severe, or have the most advocates,” Cutting said. “It’s sort of a fundamental fact of life. It’s too bad that we are not able to capture kids early enough to do some remediation so that they don’t have as many word-level problems. It’s too bad that teachers many times aren’t trained in a way that allows those kids to work through their weaknesses, to sound out their words. Because that would benefit all of the kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cem>*Note: An earlier version of this post misidentified \"Individualized Education Program\" as \"Individualized Education Plan.\" It also misidentified Youman's school district as the San Francisco Unified School District. We regret these errors. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Why Recognizing Dyslexia In Children At School Can Be Difficult",
"title": "Why Recognizing Dyslexia In Children At School Can Be Difficult",
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"content": "\u003cp>When Anna and Chris Thorsen of Nashville sat down for the first parent-teacher conference of their daughter Clara’s second-grade year, they weren’t surprised to hear that Clara was having trouble telling time. Her teacher also said that Clara seemed to learn something one day, then forget it the next; her writing was poor and slanted upward, no matter how hard she tried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“My husband starts to smile and reaches over and pets my arm, because in that moment, we both know Clara has dyslexia. There’s no question,” said Anna Thorsen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Thorsen knows something about dyslexia herself, having struggled through school, and having been diagnosed with it at age 27. “It was almost like her teacher was ticking through a dyslexia checklist and didn’t know it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In many \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">children with dyslexia\u003c/a>, a neurobiological condition in which the brain fails to read words or letters, a lack of swift and intensive intervention can result in reading failure as well as psychological difficulties for the child. When the Thorsens came home from the conference, they decided to get Clara tested immediately and then decide the next steps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Challenges at School\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Getting testing and intervention for dyslexia at their public school proved to be more complicated than it first appeared. The Thorsens experienced more hurdles than they had expected, including the most basic: recognizing that dyslexia exists. Thorsen recalled the Nashville school district telling them that the state of Tennessee didn’t recognize dyslexia as a learning disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Many children aren’t receiving the diagnosis and intervention they desperately need to do well in school, and many families don’t have the means for expensive testing and tutoring.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But the Thorsens, who are both attorneys, knew differently. The Tennessee statehouse had passed the “\u003ca href=\"http://www.tnida.org/docs/Dyslexia-is-Real-Bill-HR1735-SN2002.pdf\">Dyslexia is Real\u003c/a>” bill some months before, in April 2014. The law made provisions for dyslexia as a recognized reading disability, as well as for teacher training on dyslexia, both for teachers already teaching and in education schools in Tennessee. Yet while provisions had been decided at the state level, for one reason or another, they hadn’t made their way down to the district, which was still operating under old guidelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">When the Thorsens showed the school and the district laws from both the federal government and the state of Tennessee recognizing dyslexia as a learning disability, their school listened and agreed to help Clara get what she needed. But the family received pushback from the district, which balked at giving Clara, whose tests showed she was highly dyslexic with a high IQ, an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) without going through the proper channel -- in this case, 26 weeks of specialized reading instruction happening inside the classroom called Response To Intervention (RTI). If Clara failed to improve after 26 weeks, she would then qualify for an IEP.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">With a positive diagnosis in hand, the Thorsens believed that 26 weeks of RTI would only delay a more dyslexia-specific intervention. They enlisted the help of the Office of Special Education Programs at the federal Department of Education to pressure the state of Tennessee to recognize dyslexia as a reading disability, even though the “Dyslexia is Real” law was already firmly in place. After a monthlong struggle to secure services, the district finally relented, giving Clara an IEP that focused on both her dyslexia and her giftedness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The district said it is only following guidelines set up by the state of Tennessee. \"We test for specific learning disabilities in accordance with state guidelines,\" said Debbie McAdams, executive director for exceptional education at Metro Nashville Public Schools. \"Dyslexia falls under the term 'Specific Learning Disability'. The universal screening used in MNPS screens for basic reading deficits, including phonemic awareness, phonics, word reading and fluency, which are all deficits associated with dyslexia.\" She said that students receive intervention for reading difficulties whether or not they have an IEP.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Dyslexia Recognition Elsewhere\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The Thorsens are happy to report that Clara is currently receiving the targeted intervention she needs. But their story is far from singular: Families interviewed across the country reveal that both public and private schools aren’t fully aware of the signs of dyslexia, even though it affects 5-20 percent of schoolchildren. And, once diagnosed, schools are often unsure -- or even afraid -- of how to intervene. Currently, only 30 states recognize dyslexia as a learning disability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.coe.arizona.edu/faculty_profile/1883\">Nancy Mather\u003c/a>, professor of Disabilities and Psychoeducational Studies at the University of Arizona, screening and intervention, not to mention teacher education, mandated by law is much more uneven across states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42344\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-42344 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/10/Dyslexia-Map-e1444260414644.jpg\" alt=\"Dyslexia Map\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Courtesy of Nancy Mather and Martha Youman \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Nancy Mather and Martha Youman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">A disconnect between laws passed at the state or federal level and district enforcement is common, Mather said, and awareness needs to be raised about dyslexia as a learning disability. In an article soon to be published in \u003ca href=\"https://eida.org/perspectives/\">Perspectives\u003c/a>, the journal of the \u003ca href=\"http://eida.org/\">International Dyslexia Association\u003c/a>, Mather and colleague Martha Youman highlight the inconsistencies of how dyslexia is defined in different states across the U.S.:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“A number of states have spearheaded the recognition of dyslexia as a unique disorder with prevalence rates varying from 5% to 20% among researchers and national and international organizations. This effort to recognize dyslexia is crucial because, unfortunately, the terminology used to describe reading disorders varies across states and settings. Individuals with dyslexia who are diagnosed in school settings fall under the category of “Specific Learning Disability (SLD),” a category within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004). Individuals with dyslexia diagnosed in clinical settings fall under the category of Specific Learning Disorder with Impairment in Reading as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Both diagnoses include “dyslexia” as a descriptive term within their definitions, but within school settings, the actual term “dyslexia” is rarely used in psychological and diagnostic reports. Thus, most parents of children who receive special education services at school under the category of SLD in reading have not been informed that their child has dyslexia. Similarly, if a clinical diagnosis of Specific Learning Disorder with Impairment in Reading is made in a clinical setting with DSM-5, parents and teachers may not necessarily understand that this label encompasses dyslexia. With the hopes of separating dyslexia from a large umbrella of learning disorders, the states of Alabama, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas, have passed legislation for the recognition of a dyslexia day, week, or month. On such dates, schools and mental health practitioners are encouraged to educate others about the common characteristics of dyslexia, as well as the appropriate accommodations and interventions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Dyslexia is the most common type of learning disability,” Mather said. “Seventy-five to 80 percent of kids with Specified Learning Disabilities (SLD) have some form of dyslexia. But states have all kinds of terminology, and labels differ from state to state, which is why in Tennessee, they said, we don’t \u003ci>have\u003c/i> dyslexia. It creates confusion. The parents are told their child has an SLD, but don’t realize their child has dyslexia.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Even among the state dyslexia laws that do exist, many don’t have much meat on the bone. Passing a law creating “Dyslexia Awareness Month,” Mather said, is nice but isn’t going to do much to help the kids who are sitting in classrooms right now, struggling to read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“When there’s awareness, you’re more likely to get the right kind of diagnosis and the right kind of teacher,” she said, but much more needs to be done. “Teachers need more training in specific methodologies, teachers need a strong background in language structure. They need very specific training to teach students with dyslexia.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Advocating for Intervention\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Families interviewed for this story reported feelings of panic surrounding the whole issue, from trying to diagnose a failure to read, plus the maze of tests, services and interventions involved, often coming with hefty price tags. Brooklyn parent Zanthe Taylor paid $4,000 for a battery of tests for her daughter, Calliope, when her private school requested independent testing. There were free options for both testing and tutoring, Taylor found out later, but she wasn’t made aware of them. And even the free options came with hurdles: wait lists were impossibly long, and free tutors had to come from a state-approved list.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The Thorsens attempted to get Clara tested at a highly regarded dyslexia clinic in suburban Nashville for $35, but were put on a seven-to-eight-month wait list. Impatient to begin intervention, they opted for a local, private center that provided a comprehensive test in the same week for $800. Both Taylor and the Thorsens also pay for private tutors on top of help received at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Experts like Mather and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">Maryanne Wolf of Tufts University\u003c/a> say the core of the panic and confusion from states on down to classrooms can largely be avoided with proper understanding of what dyslexia is and what it isn't. When schools and educators are properly trained on how to identify the different manifestations of dyslexia and to intervene appropriately, panic dissipates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">They confirmed that what families experienced was real, and part of a bigger picture: Many children aren’t receiving the diagnosis and intervention they desperately need to do well in school, and many families don’t have the means for expensive testing and tutoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“The kids don’t get any better, that’s what happens,” Mather said. “That’s the reality -- it’s the fortunate few who get some kind of help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Mather worked with educational software development company MindPlay to develop a \u003ca href=\"http://mindplay.com/\">three-hour video course\u003c/a> designed specifically for teachers to better understand dyslexia.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I think it’s important for teachers to have a basic understanding of dyslexia,” Mather said. “It makes them more empathetic, alerts them that this is a real problem. They may not realize how much it affects students’ self-esteem when everyone can read, and they can’t.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Dyslexia is the most common type of learning disability but diagnosing it and providing services for kids in private and public schools can be a long uphill battle. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When Anna and Chris Thorsen of Nashville sat down for the first parent-teacher conference of their daughter Clara’s second-grade year, they weren’t surprised to hear that Clara was having trouble telling time. Her teacher also said that Clara seemed to learn something one day, then forget it the next; her writing was poor and slanted upward, no matter how hard she tried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“My husband starts to smile and reaches over and pets my arm, because in that moment, we both know Clara has dyslexia. There’s no question,” said Anna Thorsen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Thorsen knows something about dyslexia herself, having struggled through school, and having been diagnosed with it at age 27. “It was almost like her teacher was ticking through a dyslexia checklist and didn’t know it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In many \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">children with dyslexia\u003c/a>, a neurobiological condition in which the brain fails to read words or letters, a lack of swift and intensive intervention can result in reading failure as well as psychological difficulties for the child. When the Thorsens came home from the conference, they decided to get Clara tested immediately and then decide the next steps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Challenges at School\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Getting testing and intervention for dyslexia at their public school proved to be more complicated than it first appeared. The Thorsens experienced more hurdles than they had expected, including the most basic: recognizing that dyslexia exists. Thorsen recalled the Nashville school district telling them that the state of Tennessee didn’t recognize dyslexia as a learning disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Many children aren’t receiving the diagnosis and intervention they desperately need to do well in school, and many families don’t have the means for expensive testing and tutoring.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But the Thorsens, who are both attorneys, knew differently. The Tennessee statehouse had passed the “\u003ca href=\"http://www.tnida.org/docs/Dyslexia-is-Real-Bill-HR1735-SN2002.pdf\">Dyslexia is Real\u003c/a>” bill some months before, in April 2014. The law made provisions for dyslexia as a recognized reading disability, as well as for teacher training on dyslexia, both for teachers already teaching and in education schools in Tennessee. Yet while provisions had been decided at the state level, for one reason or another, they hadn’t made their way down to the district, which was still operating under old guidelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">When the Thorsens showed the school and the district laws from both the federal government and the state of Tennessee recognizing dyslexia as a learning disability, their school listened and agreed to help Clara get what she needed. But the family received pushback from the district, which balked at giving Clara, whose tests showed she was highly dyslexic with a high IQ, an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) without going through the proper channel -- in this case, 26 weeks of specialized reading instruction happening inside the classroom called Response To Intervention (RTI). If Clara failed to improve after 26 weeks, she would then qualify for an IEP.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">With a positive diagnosis in hand, the Thorsens believed that 26 weeks of RTI would only delay a more dyslexia-specific intervention. They enlisted the help of the Office of Special Education Programs at the federal Department of Education to pressure the state of Tennessee to recognize dyslexia as a reading disability, even though the “Dyslexia is Real” law was already firmly in place. After a monthlong struggle to secure services, the district finally relented, giving Clara an IEP that focused on both her dyslexia and her giftedness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The district said it is only following guidelines set up by the state of Tennessee. \"We test for specific learning disabilities in accordance with state guidelines,\" said Debbie McAdams, executive director for exceptional education at Metro Nashville Public Schools. \"Dyslexia falls under the term 'Specific Learning Disability'. The universal screening used in MNPS screens for basic reading deficits, including phonemic awareness, phonics, word reading and fluency, which are all deficits associated with dyslexia.\" She said that students receive intervention for reading difficulties whether or not they have an IEP.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Dyslexia Recognition Elsewhere\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The Thorsens are happy to report that Clara is currently receiving the targeted intervention she needs. But their story is far from singular: Families interviewed across the country reveal that both public and private schools aren’t fully aware of the signs of dyslexia, even though it affects 5-20 percent of schoolchildren. And, once diagnosed, schools are often unsure -- or even afraid -- of how to intervene. Currently, only 30 states recognize dyslexia as a learning disability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.coe.arizona.edu/faculty_profile/1883\">Nancy Mather\u003c/a>, professor of Disabilities and Psychoeducational Studies at the University of Arizona, screening and intervention, not to mention teacher education, mandated by law is much more uneven across states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_42344\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-42344 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/10/Dyslexia-Map-e1444260414644.jpg\" alt=\"Dyslexia Map\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Courtesy of Nancy Mather and Martha Youman \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Nancy Mather and Martha Youman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">A disconnect between laws passed at the state or federal level and district enforcement is common, Mather said, and awareness needs to be raised about dyslexia as a learning disability. In an article soon to be published in \u003ca href=\"https://eida.org/perspectives/\">Perspectives\u003c/a>, the journal of the \u003ca href=\"http://eida.org/\">International Dyslexia Association\u003c/a>, Mather and colleague Martha Youman highlight the inconsistencies of how dyslexia is defined in different states across the U.S.:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“A number of states have spearheaded the recognition of dyslexia as a unique disorder with prevalence rates varying from 5% to 20% among researchers and national and international organizations. This effort to recognize dyslexia is crucial because, unfortunately, the terminology used to describe reading disorders varies across states and settings. Individuals with dyslexia who are diagnosed in school settings fall under the category of “Specific Learning Disability (SLD),” a category within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004). Individuals with dyslexia diagnosed in clinical settings fall under the category of Specific Learning Disorder with Impairment in Reading as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Both diagnoses include “dyslexia” as a descriptive term within their definitions, but within school settings, the actual term “dyslexia” is rarely used in psychological and diagnostic reports. Thus, most parents of children who receive special education services at school under the category of SLD in reading have not been informed that their child has dyslexia. Similarly, if a clinical diagnosis of Specific Learning Disorder with Impairment in Reading is made in a clinical setting with DSM-5, parents and teachers may not necessarily understand that this label encompasses dyslexia. With the hopes of separating dyslexia from a large umbrella of learning disorders, the states of Alabama, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas, have passed legislation for the recognition of a dyslexia day, week, or month. On such dates, schools and mental health practitioners are encouraged to educate others about the common characteristics of dyslexia, as well as the appropriate accommodations and interventions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Dyslexia is the most common type of learning disability,” Mather said. “Seventy-five to 80 percent of kids with Specified Learning Disabilities (SLD) have some form of dyslexia. But states have all kinds of terminology, and labels differ from state to state, which is why in Tennessee, they said, we don’t \u003ci>have\u003c/i> dyslexia. It creates confusion. The parents are told their child has an SLD, but don’t realize their child has dyslexia.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Even among the state dyslexia laws that do exist, many don’t have much meat on the bone. Passing a law creating “Dyslexia Awareness Month,” Mather said, is nice but isn’t going to do much to help the kids who are sitting in classrooms right now, struggling to read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“When there’s awareness, you’re more likely to get the right kind of diagnosis and the right kind of teacher,” she said, but much more needs to be done. “Teachers need more training in specific methodologies, teachers need a strong background in language structure. They need very specific training to teach students with dyslexia.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Advocating for Intervention\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Families interviewed for this story reported feelings of panic surrounding the whole issue, from trying to diagnose a failure to read, plus the maze of tests, services and interventions involved, often coming with hefty price tags. Brooklyn parent Zanthe Taylor paid $4,000 for a battery of tests for her daughter, Calliope, when her private school requested independent testing. There were free options for both testing and tutoring, Taylor found out later, but she wasn’t made aware of them. And even the free options came with hurdles: wait lists were impossibly long, and free tutors had to come from a state-approved list.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The Thorsens attempted to get Clara tested at a highly regarded dyslexia clinic in suburban Nashville for $35, but were put on a seven-to-eight-month wait list. Impatient to begin intervention, they opted for a local, private center that provided a comprehensive test in the same week for $800. Both Taylor and the Thorsens also pay for private tutors on top of help received at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Experts like Mather and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/10/01/understanding-dyslexia-and-the-reading-brain-in-kids/\">Maryanne Wolf of Tufts University\u003c/a> say the core of the panic and confusion from states on down to classrooms can largely be avoided with proper understanding of what dyslexia is and what it isn't. When schools and educators are properly trained on how to identify the different manifestations of dyslexia and to intervene appropriately, panic dissipates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">They confirmed that what families experienced was real, and part of a bigger picture: Many children aren’t receiving the diagnosis and intervention they desperately need to do well in school, and many families don’t have the means for expensive testing and tutoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“The kids don’t get any better, that’s what happens,” Mather said. “That’s the reality -- it’s the fortunate few who get some kind of help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Mather worked with educational software development company MindPlay to develop a \u003ca href=\"http://mindplay.com/\">three-hour video course\u003c/a> designed specifically for teachers to better understand dyslexia.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I think it’s important for teachers to have a basic understanding of dyslexia,” Mather said. “It makes them more empathetic, alerts them that this is a real problem. They may not realize how much it affects students’ self-esteem when everyone can read, and they can’t.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p2\">At a recent talk for special education teachers at the Los Angeles Unified School District, child development professor Maryanne Wolf urged educators to say the word dyslexia out loud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“Don’t ever succumb to the idea that it’s going to develop out of something, or that it’s a disease,” she recalled telling teachers. “Dyslexia is a different brain organization that needs different teaching methods. It is never the fault of the child, but rather the responsibility of us who teach to find methods that work for that child.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Wolf, who has a dyslexic son, is on a mission to spread the idea of “cerebrodiversity,” the idea that our brains are not uniform and we each learn differently. Yet when it comes to school, students with different brains can often have lives filled with frustration and anguish as they, and everyone around them, struggle to figure out what is wrong with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cstrong>Diagnosing Dyslexia \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“Oh, she just hasn’t caught up yet,” is what Zanthe Taylor recalled her daughter Calliope’s teachers saying throughout first and second grades. Calliope, now 12, was in the slowest reading group at her Brooklyn private school, but teachers assured Taylor that Calliope was very bright and would catch up shortly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">In truth, Calliope wasn’t catching up. As peers began whizzing past her in reading, Taylor became more anxious and worried. Their collective frustration levels — both Calliope’s and her parents—soon reached a breaking point, especially after they’d hired a private tutor to help speed up her reading in the fall of second grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“She’d have massive tantrums over homework,” Taylor said. Calliope would be happy and fine all afternoon, but when it came time to do homework, she would refuse to begin. “She would scream and cry, then I would scream and cry,” Taylor said. “I once crumpled up the whole assignment and yelled, 'What are we going to do?' ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Then one night, after four months of intensive (and expensive) tutoring, Taylor’s husband, Matthew, was talking to Calliope’s tutor on the phone when she mentioned the word “dyslexia.” A light went on. Taylor recalled that up to that point, everyone had been very careful not to say the word, but the tutor suggested that it might be time to have Calliope officially evaluated in order to receive more targeted instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">An intensive two-day battery of tests provided the data that Taylor, by this time, already knew: Calliope had dyslexia. Although she was very bright and displayed above-average social skills, without intense and specific intervention, she would never “catch up” in reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Taylor now knows that an overly emotional response to homework is common in those with dyslexia: Calliope didn't know why she couldn't read either. Now with a diagnosis and intensive intervention, Calliope is entering seventh grade with her peers. She's able to accomplish all the work, although she requires more time. \"I always disliked the words 'learning differences,' \" Taylor said. \"But the more I get to know about this, the more I think it's true.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">This kind of anxiety and frustration can be largely avoided, said Wolf, who is also director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University and author of \"\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Proust-Squid-Story-Science-Reading/dp/0060933844\">Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain\u003c/a>.\"\u003ci> \u003c/i>She and colleague Martha Denckla designed a simple test to quickly know whether there is a problem in the reading circuit very early on, as early as kindergarten or first grade. Called the \u003ca href=\"http://ase.tufts.edu/crlr/documents/2012arop-rapidautomatizednaming.pdf\">RAN/RAS test\u003c/a> (Rapid Automatized Naming/Rapid Alternating Stimulus), students are timed on how fast they can name letters, numbers, colors and objects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">RAN/RAS or a comparable evaluation is one of the single best predictors that there’s something different in how the brain is putting together letters with their name, which is like a mini-version of the later reading circuit. While RAN/RAS cannot diagnose a reading problem, it does provide educators with a red flag, suggesting that students may need further evaluation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">In \"Proust and the Squid,\" Wolf writes that if she were given five minutes with all teachers and parents everywhere, she’d want them most to know that “learning to read, like Red Sox baseball, is a wonderful thing that can go wrong for any number of reasons.” For students accused of being stubborn or not working to their potential, often neither is true: Children with dyslexia need immediate and intensive intervention to connect the pieces of the reading circuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cstrong>The Science of Reading and Dyslexia\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">The act of reading itself is anything but natural. Human brains weren’t designed to read: There is no “reading center” of the brain, and there are no “reading genes.” Instead, in order to read, each brain must fashion new circuits between parts originally designed to do other things, like retrieving the names for objects. These new circuits must not only combine many processes from different areas of the brain to form a specialized circuit just for reading -- in order to become a fluent reader, the circuit also needs to run lightning-fast, nearly automatic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Wolf has spent her career studying how the brain reads and, in some cases, how it doesn’t. “Because we have no pre-programmed wiring for reading [in the brain], we have to do something very different,” Wolf said\u003ci>.\u003c/i> “What the brain does have -- which is fantastic -- is the ability to make new circuits based on new connections among its already-there parts. So, when I said [in the book] we were never born to read, that is the absolute truth. We weren’t. Each child has to do it by themselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Since each brain must learn to read from scratch, as Wolf put it, “many things can happen along the way.” Dyslexia, originally called word-blindness, is a neurobiological condition describing the failure to read words and letters affecting an estimated 10-20 percent of schoolchildren, depending on whom you ask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">While classified as a “learning disability,” dyslexia is not a brain disorder or a disease, nor is it flipping letters backward. Often the failure to read is in direct opposition to a brain’s cognitive ability, leaving parents and teachers stymied when an otherwise intelligent child can’t spell words they’ve seen a thousand times, or put a sentence together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Dyslexia, Wolf said, is the result of a brain that’s organized in a different way. In many children, this is because the right hemisphere tries to muscle the strengths of the left, specifically at tasks that are the domain of the left, like many language functions. When the reading circuit is being dominated by the right hemisphere, it takes longer for the information that goes to both hemispheres to get together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">In the dyslexic brain, there are several major areas that could develop problematically. (While there is no singular form of dyslexia, there are several profiles that appear most prominently.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">* \u003cb>Phoneme awareness, or knowing the sounds that correspond with letters and words, is the No. 1 deficiency in the dyslexic brain\u003c/b>. “Our language is made up of 44 sounds called phonemes,” Wolf said. “English is trickier because we have phonemes that can be expressed in different letters, and we have letters that can stand for different phonemes. It’s an irregular language, and that adds to the complexity, but the underlying issue for many, but not all, children is problems in the basic representation of those phonemes.” Wolf said there are multiple areas of the brain contributing to our ability to represent phonemes, and that many dyslexic children have issues with developing phonemes, as well as knowing which sounds are assigned to which letters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">* \u003cb>Fluency, or getting the reading circuit to work together quickly, is the second-biggest issue.\u003c/b> “Children can have perfectly represented phonemes, but can’t get the phonemes together with the letters, because there’s a speed-of-processing issue,” Wolf said. “And part of that may well be because that right hemisphere is taking a longer time and trying to do what the left hemisphere usually does, in getting that circuit to work very fast together. That can mean not just the phonemes aren’t represented very well. It might also mean that letters aren’t getting represented very well, and that the circuit is not becoming automatic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">* \u003cb>Comprehension is the third but no less crucial issue to reading.\u003c/b> “After making letters and sounds work together, and getting the whole circuit to work in time, then words have to be connected to meanings and functions of grammar,” Wolf said. “It takes explicit work to get the visual representation, meaning, sound and grammatical function all working together, and that’s what dyslexic children must do.” Wolf said that often this kind of dyslexia doesn’t show itself until the child is older, third grade and up, when a child switches from learning to read to reading to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“Some of our children can read words, but read them laboriously,” Wolf said. “And by fourth grade they’re a major failure and have never become fluent.” Many of these children are bright and have compensated up to this point by memorizing words, but have never learned to read fast enough to comprehend what they’re reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Understanding that these developments are nothing more than brain differences that can be aided with systematic and explicit instruction, Wolf said, is a large but necessary step for everyone involved: students, parents and teachers. When children find they’re unable to read or read with much difficulty, they often believe that it's the result of a bad or broken brain. Some teachers may also unwittingly hold beliefs that reading happens for all children by a kind of osmosis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Wolf insists that three decades of research has shown that neither are true, but keeping the truth about dyslexia hidden or misunderstood only hurts the students, their parents and the educators trying desperately to help them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\n\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p2\">At a recent talk for special education teachers at the Los Angeles Unified School District, child development professor Maryanne Wolf urged educators to say the word dyslexia out loud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“Don’t ever succumb to the idea that it’s going to develop out of something, or that it’s a disease,” she recalled telling teachers. “Dyslexia is a different brain organization that needs different teaching methods. It is never the fault of the child, but rather the responsibility of us who teach to find methods that work for that child.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Wolf, who has a dyslexic son, is on a mission to spread the idea of “cerebrodiversity,” the idea that our brains are not uniform and we each learn differently. Yet when it comes to school, students with different brains can often have lives filled with frustration and anguish as they, and everyone around them, struggle to figure out what is wrong with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cstrong>Diagnosing Dyslexia \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“Oh, she just hasn’t caught up yet,” is what Zanthe Taylor recalled her daughter Calliope’s teachers saying throughout first and second grades. Calliope, now 12, was in the slowest reading group at her Brooklyn private school, but teachers assured Taylor that Calliope was very bright and would catch up shortly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">In truth, Calliope wasn’t catching up. As peers began whizzing past her in reading, Taylor became more anxious and worried. Their collective frustration levels — both Calliope’s and her parents—soon reached a breaking point, especially after they’d hired a private tutor to help speed up her reading in the fall of second grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“She’d have massive tantrums over homework,” Taylor said. Calliope would be happy and fine all afternoon, but when it came time to do homework, she would refuse to begin. “She would scream and cry, then I would scream and cry,” Taylor said. “I once crumpled up the whole assignment and yelled, 'What are we going to do?' ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Then one night, after four months of intensive (and expensive) tutoring, Taylor’s husband, Matthew, was talking to Calliope’s tutor on the phone when she mentioned the word “dyslexia.” A light went on. Taylor recalled that up to that point, everyone had been very careful not to say the word, but the tutor suggested that it might be time to have Calliope officially evaluated in order to receive more targeted instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">An intensive two-day battery of tests provided the data that Taylor, by this time, already knew: Calliope had dyslexia. Although she was very bright and displayed above-average social skills, without intense and specific intervention, she would never “catch up” in reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Taylor now knows that an overly emotional response to homework is common in those with dyslexia: Calliope didn't know why she couldn't read either. Now with a diagnosis and intensive intervention, Calliope is entering seventh grade with her peers. She's able to accomplish all the work, although she requires more time. \"I always disliked the words 'learning differences,' \" Taylor said. \"But the more I get to know about this, the more I think it's true.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">This kind of anxiety and frustration can be largely avoided, said Wolf, who is also director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University and author of \"\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Proust-Squid-Story-Science-Reading/dp/0060933844\">Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain\u003c/a>.\"\u003ci> \u003c/i>She and colleague Martha Denckla designed a simple test to quickly know whether there is a problem in the reading circuit very early on, as early as kindergarten or first grade. Called the \u003ca href=\"http://ase.tufts.edu/crlr/documents/2012arop-rapidautomatizednaming.pdf\">RAN/RAS test\u003c/a> (Rapid Automatized Naming/Rapid Alternating Stimulus), students are timed on how fast they can name letters, numbers, colors and objects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">RAN/RAS or a comparable evaluation is one of the single best predictors that there’s something different in how the brain is putting together letters with their name, which is like a mini-version of the later reading circuit. While RAN/RAS cannot diagnose a reading problem, it does provide educators with a red flag, suggesting that students may need further evaluation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">In \"Proust and the Squid,\" Wolf writes that if she were given five minutes with all teachers and parents everywhere, she’d want them most to know that “learning to read, like Red Sox baseball, is a wonderful thing that can go wrong for any number of reasons.” For students accused of being stubborn or not working to their potential, often neither is true: Children with dyslexia need immediate and intensive intervention to connect the pieces of the reading circuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cstrong>The Science of Reading and Dyslexia\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">The act of reading itself is anything but natural. Human brains weren’t designed to read: There is no “reading center” of the brain, and there are no “reading genes.” Instead, in order to read, each brain must fashion new circuits between parts originally designed to do other things, like retrieving the names for objects. These new circuits must not only combine many processes from different areas of the brain to form a specialized circuit just for reading -- in order to become a fluent reader, the circuit also needs to run lightning-fast, nearly automatic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Wolf has spent her career studying how the brain reads and, in some cases, how it doesn’t. “Because we have no pre-programmed wiring for reading [in the brain], we have to do something very different,” Wolf said\u003ci>.\u003c/i> “What the brain does have -- which is fantastic -- is the ability to make new circuits based on new connections among its already-there parts. So, when I said [in the book] we were never born to read, that is the absolute truth. We weren’t. Each child has to do it by themselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Since each brain must learn to read from scratch, as Wolf put it, “many things can happen along the way.” Dyslexia, originally called word-blindness, is a neurobiological condition describing the failure to read words and letters affecting an estimated 10-20 percent of schoolchildren, depending on whom you ask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">While classified as a “learning disability,” dyslexia is not a brain disorder or a disease, nor is it flipping letters backward. Often the failure to read is in direct opposition to a brain’s cognitive ability, leaving parents and teachers stymied when an otherwise intelligent child can’t spell words they’ve seen a thousand times, or put a sentence together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Dyslexia, Wolf said, is the result of a brain that’s organized in a different way. In many children, this is because the right hemisphere tries to muscle the strengths of the left, specifically at tasks that are the domain of the left, like many language functions. When the reading circuit is being dominated by the right hemisphere, it takes longer for the information that goes to both hemispheres to get together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">In the dyslexic brain, there are several major areas that could develop problematically. (While there is no singular form of dyslexia, there are several profiles that appear most prominently.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">* \u003cb>Phoneme awareness, or knowing the sounds that correspond with letters and words, is the No. 1 deficiency in the dyslexic brain\u003c/b>. “Our language is made up of 44 sounds called phonemes,” Wolf said. “English is trickier because we have phonemes that can be expressed in different letters, and we have letters that can stand for different phonemes. It’s an irregular language, and that adds to the complexity, but the underlying issue for many, but not all, children is problems in the basic representation of those phonemes.” Wolf said there are multiple areas of the brain contributing to our ability to represent phonemes, and that many dyslexic children have issues with developing phonemes, as well as knowing which sounds are assigned to which letters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">* \u003cb>Fluency, or getting the reading circuit to work together quickly, is the second-biggest issue.\u003c/b> “Children can have perfectly represented phonemes, but can’t get the phonemes together with the letters, because there’s a speed-of-processing issue,” Wolf said. “And part of that may well be because that right hemisphere is taking a longer time and trying to do what the left hemisphere usually does, in getting that circuit to work very fast together. That can mean not just the phonemes aren’t represented very well. It might also mean that letters aren’t getting represented very well, and that the circuit is not becoming automatic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">* \u003cb>Comprehension is the third but no less crucial issue to reading.\u003c/b> “After making letters and sounds work together, and getting the whole circuit to work in time, then words have to be connected to meanings and functions of grammar,” Wolf said. “It takes explicit work to get the visual representation, meaning, sound and grammatical function all working together, and that’s what dyslexic children must do.” Wolf said that often this kind of dyslexia doesn’t show itself until the child is older, third grade and up, when a child switches from learning to read to reading to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">“Some of our children can read words, but read them laboriously,” Wolf said. “And by fourth grade they’re a major failure and have never become fluent.” Many of these children are bright and have compensated up to this point by memorizing words, but have never learned to read fast enough to comprehend what they’re reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Understanding that these developments are nothing more than brain differences that can be aided with systematic and explicit instruction, Wolf said, is a large but necessary step for everyone involved: students, parents and teachers. When children find they’re unable to read or read with much difficulty, they often believe that it's the result of a bad or broken brain. Some teachers may also unwittingly hold beliefs that reading happens for all children by a kind of osmosis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Wolf insists that three decades of research has shown that neither are true, but keeping the truth about dyslexia hidden or misunderstood only hurts the students, their parents and the educators trying desperately to help them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>There's no such thing as a \"normal brain.\" In fact, there's a lot of diversity in how different brains process information -- a challenge for educators tasked with teaching a diverse group of learners. Dyslexia is a common variation that affects how kids read, but what's really going inside the brain of someone affected by it? Kelli Sandman-Hurley's \u003ca href=\"http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-is-dyslexia-kelli-sandman-hurley\" target=\"_blank\">TED-Ed video\u003c/a> explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe src=\"//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/zafiGBrFkRM?rel=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36465\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36465\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg\" alt=\"Getty Images\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/06/dyslexia-brain\" target=\"_blank\">By Rachel Zimmerman, WBUR CommonHealth Blog\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Sixth-grader Josh Thibeau has been struggling to read for as long as he can remember. He has yet to complete a single Harry Potter book, his personal goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he was in first grade, Josh’s parents enrolled him in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.childrenshospital.org/research-and-innovation/research-labs/gaab-laboratory\" target=\"_blank\">research study\u003c/a> at Boston Children’s Hospital investigating the genetics of dyslexia. Since then, Josh has completed regular MRI scans of his brain. Initially, it seemed daunting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we first started, I’m like, ‘Oh no, you’re sending me to like some strange, like, science lab where I’m going to be injected with needles and it’s going to hurt,’ I’m like, ‘I’m never going to see my family again,’ ” says Josh, who lives in West Newbury, Mass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"0c2d6b85b37814158c8ece383e6763f1\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Josh and his three biological siblings all have dyslexia to varying degrees. Pretty much every day he confronts the reality that his brain works differently than his peers’. He’s even shared scans of his brain with classmates to try to show those differences. Some kids still don’t get it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was a student that said, ‘Are you stupid?’ Because my brain was working in a different way,” Josh says. “And I’m just like, ‘No, I am not stupid…I’m just dyslexic.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE PRE-READING BRAIN\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On average, one or two kids in every U.S. classroom has \u003ca href=\"http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/dyslexia/dyslexia.htm\" target=\"_blank\">dyslexia\u003c/a>, a brain-based learning disability that often runs in families and makes reading difficult, sometimes painfully so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared to other neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD or autism, research into dyslexia has advanced further, experts say. That’s partly because dyslexia presents itself around a specific behavior: reading — which, as they say, is fundamental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23946384\" target=\"_blank\">new research\u003c/a> shows it’s possible to pick up some of the signs of dyslexia in the brain even before kids learn to read. And this earlier identification may start to substantially influence how parents, educators and clinicians tackle the disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\u003ca class=\"pull-quote half right\">\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\"Maybe the most surprising aspect of the research so far is how clear a signal we see in the brains of children who are likely to go on to be poor readers.\"\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently (and sometimes even today) kids who struggled to read were thought to lack motivation or smarts. Now it’s clear that’s not true: Dyslexia stems from physiological differences in the brain circuitry. Those differences can make it harder, and less efficient, for children to process the tiny components of language, called phonemes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s much more complicated than just flipping your “b’s and “d’s.” To read, children need to learn to map the sounds of spoken language — the “KUH”, the “AH”, the “TUH” — to their corresponding letters. And then they must grasp how those letter symbols, the “C” “A” and “T”, create words with meaning. Kids with dyslexia have far more trouble mastering these steps automatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For these children, the path toward reading is often marked by struggle, anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. In general, a diagnosis of dyslexia usually means that a child has experienced multiple failures at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But collaborations currently underway between neuroscientists at MIT and Children’s Hospital may mark a fundamental shift in addressing dyslexia, and might someday eliminate the anguish of repeated failure. In preliminary findings, researchers report that brain measures taken in kindergartners — even before the kids can read — can “significantly” improve predictions of how well, or poorly, the children can master reading later on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PINPOINTING THE WHITE MATTER CULPRIT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using cutting-edge MRI technology, the researchers are able to pinpoint a specific neural pathway, a white matter tract in the brain’s left hemisphere that appears to be related to dyslexia: It’s called the arcuate fasciculus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s an arch-shaped bundle of fibers that connects the frontal language areas of the brain to the areas in the temporal lobe that are important for language,” Elizabeth Norton, a neuroscientist at MIT’s McGovern Institute of Brain Research, explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36464\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-brain.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36464\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-brain-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"Researchers found that kindergarten children with strong pre-reading scores have a bigger, more robust and well-organized arcuate fasciculus (bottom right) while children with very low scores have a small and not particularly well-organized arcuate fasciculus (top right). (Zeynep Saygin/MIT)\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Researchers found that kindergarten children with strong pre-reading scores have a bigger, more robust and well-organized arcuate fasciculus (bottom right) while children with very low scores have a small and not particularly well-organized arcuate fasciculus (top right). (Zeynep Saygin/MIT)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In her lab, Norton shows me brain images from the NIH-funded kindergartner study, called READ (for Researching Early Attributes of Dyslexia).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see that in children who in kindergarten already have strong pre-reading scores, their arcuate fasciculus is both bigger and more well organized,” she says. On the other hand: “A child with a score of zero has a very small and not particularly organized arcuate fasciculus.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says we’re not quite ready to simply take a picture of your child’s brain and say “Aha, this kid is going to have dyslexia,” but we’re getting closer to that point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norton’s colleague, neuroscientist and assistant professor of pediatrics \u003ca href=\"http://www.childrenshospital.org/research-and-innovation/research-labs/gaab-laboratory/meet-the-lab-members\" target=\"_blank\">Nadine Gaab\u003c/a> of Children’s Hospital, studies the brains of infants as young as 4 months old. She theorizes that even at birth, or shortly after, children’s brain structures can show signs of developing the disorder. Her hope is that, ultimately, the current research will trickle down to classrooms and help eliminate what she calls “the dyslexia paradox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Several studies have suggested that intervention is most effective in kindergarten or first grade,” she says. “However, you have to have several years of reading failure before you can get a diagnosis of dyslexia — end of second grade, beginning of third grade. So we have this paradox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A YEAR TO LEARN THE WORD 'THE'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meghan Estrada, of Watertown, Mass., enrolled her son Tomas in the MIT study at age 6, after seeing him struggle with the basics of reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When he was in kindergarten, you know, he was having some serious trouble,” she says. “It took him about a year to learn the word ‘the.’ I could see that he needed more help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\u003ca class=\"pull-quote half left\">\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\"These children who struggle to read are very aware of where they stand relative to their peers and this is their first major experience in school.\"\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tomas, now 8, continues to experience difficulty with reading at the end of second grade. He requires more individualized support and intervention both at home and in the classroom. Now he’s being evaluated to determine if he does, indeed, have dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MIT neuroscientist \u003ca href=\"http://bcs.mit.edu/people/gabrieli.html\" target=\"_blank\">Professor John Gabrieli\u003c/a> is one of the lead investigators of the study Tomas is participating in. “Maybe the most surprising aspect of the research so far is how clear a signal we see in the brains of children who are likely to go on to be poor readers,” Gabrieli says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of the READ study, the kids wear colorful electrode caps to measure electrical activity in their brains; they complete a slew of cognitive, behavioral, memory and language tests; and get MRIs to evaluate both the structure and function of their brains. Researchers published findings based on the first 40 kids last summer in the Journal of Neuroscience; the plan is to follow all 186 kids in the study from kindergarten through second grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gabrieli says if these early brain scans and other metrics prove to be predictive, new questions will arise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bigger challenges for us now soon will be…to figure out what kind of interventions can be done in a 4-year-old or a 3-year-old that might put her or him on a different pathway altogether,” he says. “You know, can we have a child arrive at school who will be ready to read and not wait for failure at all but have intervened so early that the child never experiences that failure?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the key goals of early identification, Gabrieli says, is to help kids avoid the stigma of dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The social downsides to late identification are quite severe,” he says. “These children who struggle to read are very aware of where they stand relative to their peers and this is their first major experience in school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kellylowery.com/about.html\" target=\"_blank\">Kelly Lowery\u003c/a>, a Cambridge, Mass., pediatric neuropsychologist, treats kids who have anxiety related to their learning problems, mostly dyslexia. “I have students, you ask them to read and they start to cry — it’s a trauma experience,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A TOUGH THING TO HIDE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Carroll School in Lincoln, Mass., which specializes in language-based learning disabilities, eighth-graders Katelyn, Lily, Sarah and Aysha (their parents asked that their last names not be used) no longer have to keep their dyslexia a secret. But they recently told me about some of the strategies they used to employ — like pretending they couldn’t see words without their glasses, or asking friends to read for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s what they said:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“Oh, I used to just like mumble over the word or say it really quietly — and pretend like I said it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would be chased down the hallway… it was mostly just one boy, and he’d be yelling at me, chasing me, and the teachers would just watch, and he’s like ‘You can’t read, like you should know how to read by now, you’re in seventh grade,’ but so, yeah, it was not very fun to go to school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember that I used to pretend to be sick every day…and it was like most people say, ‘Oh, eighth grade, seventh grade, sixth grade, best years of your life.’ Not really. Like for some — a lot of dyslexic kids…it was torture.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Dr. Eric Falke, director of cognitive interventions and research at the Carroll School, says children with dyslexia typically find alternate strategies to develop language skills. “Workarounds,” he says. “What they do is they use a lot of their intelligence to compensate for little bottlenecks, little quirky things about the way their brain processes information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these workarounds aren’t always efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you talk to an eighth-grader who struggled for nine years in a general educational environment…trying to figure out how to do something that was really difficult for her, [it] isn’t actually a good use of her time…” He adds: “If you could intervene earlier…a small intervention earlier on could potentially have a huge impact on a person’s life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, he says, the Carroll School is ready to act on the new brain science now: “Here’s the bottom line: It’s like we’ve wanted to do this for many years, and we are ready to start a kindergarten if there’s enough interest from the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>NOT ALL SCHOOLS ON BOARD\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So wouldn’t it be great if all kids — not just those lucky enough to attend a special private school — could get a diagnosis, and targeted intervention like one-on-one, daily tutoring and language-based reading support in small classes, much earlier? It seems like a no-brainer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Nadine Gaab, the other lead investigator on the kindergartner study, told me she was surprised to discover that not all schools were on board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of these schools were really open and happy that we want to come and test every incoming kindergartener,” Gaab says. “However we also had districts who said, ‘I’m sorry, but we don’t want you…because if MIT and Harvard diagnoses or identifies children at risk in kindergarten and we don’t have the resources to do anything about this, then parents will get really upset with us, and we would feel very guilty as well.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When this research becomes more definitive, it remains an open question whether more schools will take advantage of the brain science to test and offer intervention to kids much earlier. The researchers aren’t suggesting MRIs for every single kindergartner. But they say someday, if a child has a family history of dyslexia, and is showing early signs of reading trouble, a diagnostic brain scan may prove less costly than playing catch up after years of academic failure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA - UPSIDE DOWN \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers already know early intervention can help many kids with dyslexia overcome some of their reading challenges. (Of course there’s a huge range of “dyslexia” and severity varies widely.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One effective approach, called RAVE-O, was developed by \u003ca href=\"http://ase.tufts.edu/crlr/team/wolf.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Maryanne Wolf\u003c/a>, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University. In her office, Wolf picks up a plastic model of a brain and explains that many children with dyslexia appear to be processing reading information in the right hemisphere, which may be less effective for language tasks, whereas typical readers rely on brain circuitry in the left hemisphere for these functions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAVE-O seeks to work around this, and help kids gain “automaticity” in all aspects of language. It’s a toolkit of strategies to make explicit the critical connections between sounds, symbols, syntax and meaning while also infusing some levity in the process. Kids learn about the “am” family, for instance, with pictures of jelly “jam,” a guitarist “jamming” and a traffic “jam.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Wolf, this topic isn’t just academic, it’s personal: Her first son has dyslexia. She recalls a moment, when, as a junior high-schooler, he returned from a trip to Italy. “[A]nd he said, ‘Mom, I just want you to see what I just drew from memory.’ I looked. It was a perfect picture of the leaning tower of Pisa — upside down. And I said, ‘Why did you do that?’ And he said, ‘It’s just easier for me to draw that way.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wolf’s son is now a successful artist and sometimes she wonders whether that’s despite his dyslexia — or because of it. Indeed, a national movement has emerged to spotlight the unique attributes of the dyslexic brain. Writers like \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/David-Goliath-Underdogs-Misfits-Battling/dp/0316204366\" target=\"_blank\">Malcolm Gladwell\u003c/a> and others have explored the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-upside-of-dyslexia.html\" target=\"_blank\">“upside of dyslexia”\u003c/a>, which can be marked by unusual problem-solving skills and outside-the-box thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few years back, for example, a widely reported study found that \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-dyslexia.4.8602036.html\" target=\"_blank\">35 percent of U.S. entrepreneurs\u003c/a> identified themselves as dyslexic. Lists of celebrities with dyslexia, like Whoopi Goldberg and Henry Winkler, are becoming ubiquitous. And researchers, notably Sally and Bennett Shaywitz at the \u003ca href=\"http://dyslexia.yale.edu/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Yale Center For Dyslexia and Creativity\u003c/a>, seek to emphasize the “sea of strengths” around dyslexia. (But even they write about the importance of accurate, precise diagnosis and early, evidence-based intervention.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A MOTHER'S VIEW\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, as a research subject — and a kid who’s changed schools many times to find teachers who “get” how he learns — Josh Thibeau, now at the\u003ca href=\"http://www.landmarkschool.org/\" target=\"_blank\"> Landmark School\u003c/a> in Pride’s Crossing, Mass., has a unique appreciation of his own brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been described to me as a library, and now I think of it as a maze that’s like constantly changing,” he says, “and hopefully, it’ll be just one straight line, that’s where I need to go, that’s the place I need, that’s the information that I need to extract.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, for Josh’s mother, Janet Thibeau, there remains a sadness knowing her kids will never share her love of reading, and there’s no getting around the severe challenges that come with a learning disability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You see kids struggle and not get their needs met and you see them turning into teenagers who make bad or unsafe choices,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thibeau says she certainly appreciates the resilience that can come from overcoming adversity. But, she says, the prospect of earlier intervention for far more children with dyslexia is also encouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It gives the entire community… parents, schools, an opportunity to just keep kids away from seeing themselves as not smart or worthless, and seeing them really reaching amazing potential,” she says. “These are really bright kids who are capable of a lot once those underlying weaknesses are met.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A note on terminology:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>One problem that arises in talking about dyslexia is that not everyone uses the term “dyslexia,” and there is no one, standard definition. For instance, Elizabeth Norton of MIT explains: “The terms used to define reading difficulties are inconsistent. The state of Massachusetts and even federal education laws don’t use the term ‘dyslexia;’ instead, they use terms such as ‘specific learning disability in reading’ or ‘specific learning impairment.’ Some students may receive a more specific diagnosis of ‘dyslexia’ or “language-based learning disability” from an independent clinician. Further, the DSM 5 doesn’t include a definition of “dyslexia.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Carroll School uses “language-based reading disability” and also dyslexia. The NIH refers to “developmental reading disorder” and “dyslexia” interchangeably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This post originally appeared on \u003ca href=\"http://commonhealth.wbur.org/\" target=\"_blank\">WBUR's CommonHealth blog\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36465\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36465\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg\" alt=\"Getty Images\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/06/dyslexia-brain\" target=\"_blank\">By Rachel Zimmerman, WBUR CommonHealth Blog\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Sixth-grader Josh Thibeau has been struggling to read for as long as he can remember. He has yet to complete a single Harry Potter book, his personal goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he was in first grade, Josh’s parents enrolled him in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.childrenshospital.org/research-and-innovation/research-labs/gaab-laboratory\" target=\"_blank\">research study\u003c/a> at Boston Children’s Hospital investigating the genetics of dyslexia. Since then, Josh has completed regular MRI scans of his brain. Initially, it seemed daunting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we first started, I’m like, ‘Oh no, you’re sending me to like some strange, like, science lab where I’m going to be injected with needles and it’s going to hurt,’ I’m like, ‘I’m never going to see my family again,’ ” says Josh, who lives in West Newbury, Mass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Josh and his three biological siblings all have dyslexia to varying degrees. Pretty much every day he confronts the reality that his brain works differently than his peers’. He’s even shared scans of his brain with classmates to try to show those differences. Some kids still don’t get it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was a student that said, ‘Are you stupid?’ Because my brain was working in a different way,” Josh says. “And I’m just like, ‘No, I am not stupid…I’m just dyslexic.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE PRE-READING BRAIN\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On average, one or two kids in every U.S. classroom has \u003ca href=\"http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/dyslexia/dyslexia.htm\" target=\"_blank\">dyslexia\u003c/a>, a brain-based learning disability that often runs in families and makes reading difficult, sometimes painfully so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared to other neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD or autism, research into dyslexia has advanced further, experts say. That’s partly because dyslexia presents itself around a specific behavior: reading — which, as they say, is fundamental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23946384\" target=\"_blank\">new research\u003c/a> shows it’s possible to pick up some of the signs of dyslexia in the brain even before kids learn to read. And this earlier identification may start to substantially influence how parents, educators and clinicians tackle the disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\u003ca class=\"pull-quote half right\">\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\"Maybe the most surprising aspect of the research so far is how clear a signal we see in the brains of children who are likely to go on to be poor readers.\"\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently (and sometimes even today) kids who struggled to read were thought to lack motivation or smarts. Now it’s clear that’s not true: Dyslexia stems from physiological differences in the brain circuitry. Those differences can make it harder, and less efficient, for children to process the tiny components of language, called phonemes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s much more complicated than just flipping your “b’s and “d’s.” To read, children need to learn to map the sounds of spoken language — the “KUH”, the “AH”, the “TUH” — to their corresponding letters. And then they must grasp how those letter symbols, the “C” “A” and “T”, create words with meaning. Kids with dyslexia have far more trouble mastering these steps automatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For these children, the path toward reading is often marked by struggle, anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. In general, a diagnosis of dyslexia usually means that a child has experienced multiple failures at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But collaborations currently underway between neuroscientists at MIT and Children’s Hospital may mark a fundamental shift in addressing dyslexia, and might someday eliminate the anguish of repeated failure. In preliminary findings, researchers report that brain measures taken in kindergartners — even before the kids can read — can “significantly” improve predictions of how well, or poorly, the children can master reading later on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PINPOINTING THE WHITE MATTER CULPRIT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using cutting-edge MRI technology, the researchers are able to pinpoint a specific neural pathway, a white matter tract in the brain’s left hemisphere that appears to be related to dyslexia: It’s called the arcuate fasciculus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s an arch-shaped bundle of fibers that connects the frontal language areas of the brain to the areas in the temporal lobe that are important for language,” Elizabeth Norton, a neuroscientist at MIT’s McGovern Institute of Brain Research, explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36464\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-brain.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36464\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/dyslexia-brain-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"Researchers found that kindergarten children with strong pre-reading scores have a bigger, more robust and well-organized arcuate fasciculus (bottom right) while children with very low scores have a small and not particularly well-organized arcuate fasciculus (top right). (Zeynep Saygin/MIT)\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Researchers found that kindergarten children with strong pre-reading scores have a bigger, more robust and well-organized arcuate fasciculus (bottom right) while children with very low scores have a small and not particularly well-organized arcuate fasciculus (top right). (Zeynep Saygin/MIT)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In her lab, Norton shows me brain images from the NIH-funded kindergartner study, called READ (for Researching Early Attributes of Dyslexia).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see that in children who in kindergarten already have strong pre-reading scores, their arcuate fasciculus is both bigger and more well organized,” she says. On the other hand: “A child with a score of zero has a very small and not particularly organized arcuate fasciculus.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says we’re not quite ready to simply take a picture of your child’s brain and say “Aha, this kid is going to have dyslexia,” but we’re getting closer to that point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norton’s colleague, neuroscientist and assistant professor of pediatrics \u003ca href=\"http://www.childrenshospital.org/research-and-innovation/research-labs/gaab-laboratory/meet-the-lab-members\" target=\"_blank\">Nadine Gaab\u003c/a> of Children’s Hospital, studies the brains of infants as young as 4 months old. She theorizes that even at birth, or shortly after, children’s brain structures can show signs of developing the disorder. Her hope is that, ultimately, the current research will trickle down to classrooms and help eliminate what she calls “the dyslexia paradox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Several studies have suggested that intervention is most effective in kindergarten or first grade,” she says. “However, you have to have several years of reading failure before you can get a diagnosis of dyslexia — end of second grade, beginning of third grade. So we have this paradox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A YEAR TO LEARN THE WORD 'THE'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meghan Estrada, of Watertown, Mass., enrolled her son Tomas in the MIT study at age 6, after seeing him struggle with the basics of reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When he was in kindergarten, you know, he was having some serious trouble,” she says. “It took him about a year to learn the word ‘the.’ I could see that he needed more help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\u003ca class=\"pull-quote half left\">\u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">\"These children who struggle to read are very aware of where they stand relative to their peers and this is their first major experience in school.\"\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tomas, now 8, continues to experience difficulty with reading at the end of second grade. He requires more individualized support and intervention both at home and in the classroom. Now he’s being evaluated to determine if he does, indeed, have dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MIT neuroscientist \u003ca href=\"http://bcs.mit.edu/people/gabrieli.html\" target=\"_blank\">Professor John Gabrieli\u003c/a> is one of the lead investigators of the study Tomas is participating in. “Maybe the most surprising aspect of the research so far is how clear a signal we see in the brains of children who are likely to go on to be poor readers,” Gabrieli says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of the READ study, the kids wear colorful electrode caps to measure electrical activity in their brains; they complete a slew of cognitive, behavioral, memory and language tests; and get MRIs to evaluate both the structure and function of their brains. Researchers published findings based on the first 40 kids last summer in the Journal of Neuroscience; the plan is to follow all 186 kids in the study from kindergarten through second grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gabrieli says if these early brain scans and other metrics prove to be predictive, new questions will arise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bigger challenges for us now soon will be…to figure out what kind of interventions can be done in a 4-year-old or a 3-year-old that might put her or him on a different pathway altogether,” he says. “You know, can we have a child arrive at school who will be ready to read and not wait for failure at all but have intervened so early that the child never experiences that failure?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the key goals of early identification, Gabrieli says, is to help kids avoid the stigma of dyslexia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The social downsides to late identification are quite severe,” he says. “These children who struggle to read are very aware of where they stand relative to their peers and this is their first major experience in school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kellylowery.com/about.html\" target=\"_blank\">Kelly Lowery\u003c/a>, a Cambridge, Mass., pediatric neuropsychologist, treats kids who have anxiety related to their learning problems, mostly dyslexia. “I have students, you ask them to read and they start to cry — it’s a trauma experience,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A TOUGH THING TO HIDE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Carroll School in Lincoln, Mass., which specializes in language-based learning disabilities, eighth-graders Katelyn, Lily, Sarah and Aysha (their parents asked that their last names not be used) no longer have to keep their dyslexia a secret. But they recently told me about some of the strategies they used to employ — like pretending they couldn’t see words without their glasses, or asking friends to read for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s what they said:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“Oh, I used to just like mumble over the word or say it really quietly — and pretend like I said it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would be chased down the hallway… it was mostly just one boy, and he’d be yelling at me, chasing me, and the teachers would just watch, and he’s like ‘You can’t read, like you should know how to read by now, you’re in seventh grade,’ but so, yeah, it was not very fun to go to school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember that I used to pretend to be sick every day…and it was like most people say, ‘Oh, eighth grade, seventh grade, sixth grade, best years of your life.’ Not really. Like for some — a lot of dyslexic kids…it was torture.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Dr. Eric Falke, director of cognitive interventions and research at the Carroll School, says children with dyslexia typically find alternate strategies to develop language skills. “Workarounds,” he says. “What they do is they use a lot of their intelligence to compensate for little bottlenecks, little quirky things about the way their brain processes information.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these workarounds aren’t always efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you talk to an eighth-grader who struggled for nine years in a general educational environment…trying to figure out how to do something that was really difficult for her, [it] isn’t actually a good use of her time…” He adds: “If you could intervene earlier…a small intervention earlier on could potentially have a huge impact on a person’s life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, he says, the Carroll School is ready to act on the new brain science now: “Here’s the bottom line: It’s like we’ve wanted to do this for many years, and we are ready to start a kindergarten if there’s enough interest from the community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>NOT ALL SCHOOLS ON BOARD\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So wouldn’t it be great if all kids — not just those lucky enough to attend a special private school — could get a diagnosis, and targeted intervention like one-on-one, daily tutoring and language-based reading support in small classes, much earlier? It seems like a no-brainer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Nadine Gaab, the other lead investigator on the kindergartner study, told me she was surprised to discover that not all schools were on board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of these schools were really open and happy that we want to come and test every incoming kindergartener,” Gaab says. “However we also had districts who said, ‘I’m sorry, but we don’t want you…because if MIT and Harvard diagnoses or identifies children at risk in kindergarten and we don’t have the resources to do anything about this, then parents will get really upset with us, and we would feel very guilty as well.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When this research becomes more definitive, it remains an open question whether more schools will take advantage of the brain science to test and offer intervention to kids much earlier. The researchers aren’t suggesting MRIs for every single kindergartner. But they say someday, if a child has a family history of dyslexia, and is showing early signs of reading trouble, a diagnostic brain scan may prove less costly than playing catch up after years of academic failure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA - UPSIDE DOWN \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers already know early intervention can help many kids with dyslexia overcome some of their reading challenges. (Of course there’s a huge range of “dyslexia” and severity varies widely.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One effective approach, called RAVE-O, was developed by \u003ca href=\"http://ase.tufts.edu/crlr/team/wolf.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Maryanne Wolf\u003c/a>, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University. In her office, Wolf picks up a plastic model of a brain and explains that many children with dyslexia appear to be processing reading information in the right hemisphere, which may be less effective for language tasks, whereas typical readers rely on brain circuitry in the left hemisphere for these functions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAVE-O seeks to work around this, and help kids gain “automaticity” in all aspects of language. It’s a toolkit of strategies to make explicit the critical connections between sounds, symbols, syntax and meaning while also infusing some levity in the process. Kids learn about the “am” family, for instance, with pictures of jelly “jam,” a guitarist “jamming” and a traffic “jam.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for Wolf, this topic isn’t just academic, it’s personal: Her first son has dyslexia. She recalls a moment, when, as a junior high-schooler, he returned from a trip to Italy. “[A]nd he said, ‘Mom, I just want you to see what I just drew from memory.’ I looked. It was a perfect picture of the leaning tower of Pisa — upside down. And I said, ‘Why did you do that?’ And he said, ‘It’s just easier for me to draw that way.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wolf’s son is now a successful artist and sometimes she wonders whether that’s despite his dyslexia — or because of it. Indeed, a national movement has emerged to spotlight the unique attributes of the dyslexic brain. Writers like \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/David-Goliath-Underdogs-Misfits-Battling/dp/0316204366\" target=\"_blank\">Malcolm Gladwell\u003c/a> and others have explored the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-upside-of-dyslexia.html\" target=\"_blank\">“upside of dyslexia”\u003c/a>, which can be marked by unusual problem-solving skills and outside-the-box thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few years back, for example, a widely reported study found that \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-dyslexia.4.8602036.html\" target=\"_blank\">35 percent of U.S. entrepreneurs\u003c/a> identified themselves as dyslexic. Lists of celebrities with dyslexia, like Whoopi Goldberg and Henry Winkler, are becoming ubiquitous. And researchers, notably Sally and Bennett Shaywitz at the \u003ca href=\"http://dyslexia.yale.edu/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Yale Center For Dyslexia and Creativity\u003c/a>, seek to emphasize the “sea of strengths” around dyslexia. (But even they write about the importance of accurate, precise diagnosis and early, evidence-based intervention.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A MOTHER'S VIEW\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, as a research subject — and a kid who’s changed schools many times to find teachers who “get” how he learns — Josh Thibeau, now at the\u003ca href=\"http://www.landmarkschool.org/\" target=\"_blank\"> Landmark School\u003c/a> in Pride’s Crossing, Mass., has a unique appreciation of his own brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been described to me as a library, and now I think of it as a maze that’s like constantly changing,” he says, “and hopefully, it’ll be just one straight line, that’s where I need to go, that’s the place I need, that’s the information that I need to extract.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, for Josh’s mother, Janet Thibeau, there remains a sadness knowing her kids will never share her love of reading, and there’s no getting around the severe challenges that come with a learning disability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You see kids struggle and not get their needs met and you see them turning into teenagers who make bad or unsafe choices,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thibeau says she certainly appreciates the resilience that can come from overcoming adversity. But, she says, the prospect of earlier intervention for far more children with dyslexia is also encouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It gives the entire community… parents, schools, an opportunity to just keep kids away from seeing themselves as not smart or worthless, and seeing them really reaching amazing potential,” she says. “These are really bright kids who are capable of a lot once those underlying weaknesses are met.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A note on terminology:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>One problem that arises in talking about dyslexia is that not everyone uses the term “dyslexia,” and there is no one, standard definition. For instance, Elizabeth Norton of MIT explains: “The terms used to define reading difficulties are inconsistent. The state of Massachusetts and even federal education laws don’t use the term ‘dyslexia;’ instead, they use terms such as ‘specific learning disability in reading’ or ‘specific learning impairment.’ Some students may receive a more specific diagnosis of ‘dyslexia’ or “language-based learning disability” from an independent clinician. Further, the DSM 5 doesn’t include a definition of “dyslexia.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Carroll School uses “language-based reading disability” and also dyslexia. The NIH refers to “developmental reading disorder” and “dyslexia” interchangeably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This post originally appeared on \u003ca href=\"http://commonhealth.wbur.org/\" target=\"_blank\">WBUR's CommonHealth blog\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-34113\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/179259047-e1392591147462.jpg\" alt=\"179259047\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/179259047-e1392591147462.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/179259047-e1392591147462-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/179259047-e1392591147462-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most parents prefer that their children pick up a book rather than a game controller. But for kids with dyslexia, action video games may be just what the doctor ordered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dyslexia is one of the most common learning disabilities, affecting an estimated 5 to 10 percent of the world's population. Many approaches to help struggling readers focus on words and phonetics, but researchers at Oxford University say dyslexia is more of an attention issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So programs should emphasize training the brain's attention system, they say, something that video games do. \"These video games require you to respond very quickly, to shift attention to one part of the screen to another,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://vanessaharrar.webs.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Vanessa Harrar\u003c/a>, an experimental psychologist and lead author of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When people with dyslexia had to shift their attention between sight and sound, their reaction was delayed. And they had significantly more trouble shifting attention from visual to audio than the other way around.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"It's not just shifting attention from one location to another, but we should also be training shifting attention from sound to visual stimuli and vice versa.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\"It's not just shifting attention from one location to another, but we should also be training shifting attention from sound to visual stimuli and vice versa,\" Harrar, who is dyslexic herself, tells Shots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She adds that at least for some people, making the association between a word and how it sounds might be easier if they hear it first and then see the corresponding symbols.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists today still don't agree on what causes dyslexia, but one theory says it has something to do with a faulty nerve pathway from the eyes to the back of the brain that is responsible for guiding both visual and auditory attention. When this network malfunctions, people can't properly combine what they hear and see for the brain to process the information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"df61accd7edecea884e72c2619f8d6c2\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To test this, researchers asked 17 people with dyslexia and 19 control participants to press a button as quickly as they could each time they heard a sound, saw a dim flash of patterns on the computer screen or experienced both together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results showed that the dyslexic group took longer than typical readers to respond when they had to alternate their attention between a sound and a flash. What really stunned researchers was that the group reacted much more slowly to a sound if it followed the flash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We were very surprised by this result, that there was sort of this asymmetry that only occurs in one direction,\" Harrar says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.01.029\" target=\"_blank\">study\u003c/a> was published Feb. 13 in \u003cem>Current Biology\u003c/em>,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One explanation for this may be what psychologists call visual capture, says \u003ca href=\"http://www.ucmerced.edu/news/faculty-experts/faculty/jeffrey-gilger\" target=\"_blank\">Jeffrey Gilger\u003c/a>, an expert in language and learning disabilities at the University of California, Merced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"As human beings we prefer visual stimuli,\" Gilger, who was not involved in the study, tells Shots. \"When you're trying to listen to someone on TV and the sound doesn't match the mouth moving, it throws you off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You're trying to get the sound to align with the vision, not the vision with the sound,\" he adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since this was an unexpected outcome, Harrar says more research is needed to see if the asymmetrical delay is true for all people with dyslexia, and if video games that require quick shifts of attention would be helpful in overcoming it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the study did not directly test the effect of video games, her suggestion echoes the results of a 2013 \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23453956\">experiment\u003c/a> done in Italy. That study found that dyslexic children showed improvements in reading speed and attention skills after having played video games with lots of action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gilger cautions that while some dyslexic people do have attention deficit, it is not the underlying cause of every type of dyslexia. Some people may appear to lack focus, but that doesn't necessarily signal that they have attention problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The reason they look that way is because they're disinterested in, perhaps, what they're doing in school or they don't want to stay on task,\" he says. \"But that has nothing to do with the neurological problems that's causing the reading disability.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He does agree with Harrar, however, that the study demonstrates a need for advanced and individualized training programs based on solid research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Unfortunately, even though we are beginning to understand more about what causes these learning disabilities, including dyslexia ... treatment is way behind,\" Gilger says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR.\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-34113\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/179259047-e1392591147462.jpg\" alt=\"179259047\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/179259047-e1392591147462.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/179259047-e1392591147462-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/179259047-e1392591147462-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most parents prefer that their children pick up a book rather than a game controller. But for kids with dyslexia, action video games may be just what the doctor ordered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dyslexia is one of the most common learning disabilities, affecting an estimated 5 to 10 percent of the world's population. Many approaches to help struggling readers focus on words and phonetics, but researchers at Oxford University say dyslexia is more of an attention issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So programs should emphasize training the brain's attention system, they say, something that video games do. \"These video games require you to respond very quickly, to shift attention to one part of the screen to another,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://vanessaharrar.webs.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Vanessa Harrar\u003c/a>, an experimental psychologist and lead author of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When people with dyslexia had to shift their attention between sight and sound, their reaction was delayed. And they had significantly more trouble shifting attention from visual to audio than the other way around.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"It's not just shifting attention from one location to another, but we should also be training shifting attention from sound to visual stimuli and vice versa.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\"It's not just shifting attention from one location to another, but we should also be training shifting attention from sound to visual stimuli and vice versa,\" Harrar, who is dyslexic herself, tells Shots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She adds that at least for some people, making the association between a word and how it sounds might be easier if they hear it first and then see the corresponding symbols.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists today still don't agree on what causes dyslexia, but one theory says it has something to do with a faulty nerve pathway from the eyes to the back of the brain that is responsible for guiding both visual and auditory attention. When this network malfunctions, people can't properly combine what they hear and see for the brain to process the information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To test this, researchers asked 17 people with dyslexia and 19 control participants to press a button as quickly as they could each time they heard a sound, saw a dim flash of patterns on the computer screen or experienced both together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results showed that the dyslexic group took longer than typical readers to respond when they had to alternate their attention between a sound and a flash. What really stunned researchers was that the group reacted much more slowly to a sound if it followed the flash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We were very surprised by this result, that there was sort of this asymmetry that only occurs in one direction,\" Harrar says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.01.029\" target=\"_blank\">study\u003c/a> was published Feb. 13 in \u003cem>Current Biology\u003c/em>,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One explanation for this may be what psychologists call visual capture, says \u003ca href=\"http://www.ucmerced.edu/news/faculty-experts/faculty/jeffrey-gilger\" target=\"_blank\">Jeffrey Gilger\u003c/a>, an expert in language and learning disabilities at the University of California, Merced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"As human beings we prefer visual stimuli,\" Gilger, who was not involved in the study, tells Shots. \"When you're trying to listen to someone on TV and the sound doesn't match the mouth moving, it throws you off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You're trying to get the sound to align with the vision, not the vision with the sound,\" he adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since this was an unexpected outcome, Harrar says more research is needed to see if the asymmetrical delay is true for all people with dyslexia, and if video games that require quick shifts of attention would be helpful in overcoming it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the study did not directly test the effect of video games, her suggestion echoes the results of a 2013 \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23453956\">experiment\u003c/a> done in Italy. That study found that dyslexic children showed improvements in reading speed and attention skills after having played video games with lots of action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gilger cautions that while some dyslexic people do have attention deficit, it is not the underlying cause of every type of dyslexia. Some people may appear to lack focus, but that doesn't necessarily signal that they have attention problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The reason they look that way is because they're disinterested in, perhaps, what they're doing in school or they don't want to stay on task,\" he says. \"But that has nothing to do with the neurological problems that's causing the reading disability.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He does agree with Harrar, however, that the study demonstrates a need for advanced and individualized training programs based on solid research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Unfortunately, even though we are beginning to understand more about what causes these learning disabilities, including dyslexia ... treatment is way behind,\" Gilger says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR.\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv id=\"attachment_23264\" class=\"module image alignright mceTemp\" style=\"width: 620px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/08/for-dyslexic-and-visually-impaired-students-a-free-high-tech-solution/attachment/145130371/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-23264\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-23264\" title=\"145130371\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2012/08/145130371-620x413.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\">\u003c/a>\n\u003cp class=\"wp-media-credit\">Thinkstock\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003ch5>By Lillian Mongeau\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Elizabeth is a college freshman who has severe dyslexia that makes it impossible for her to decipher printed materials. Nearly every night for 12 years of school, Elizabeth’s mother would sit down and read her daughter's school work to her because that's the only choice they had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a few months before starting college, Elizabeth discovered an online library called \u003ca href=\"http://www.bookshare.org\">Bookshare.org\u003c/a>, run by a small non-profit called Benetech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My life changed as I entered the world of accessible literature,” Elizabeth wrote on Bookshare's blog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Elizabeth and the millions of students who are \"print disabled\" -- meaning they have trouble reading because of dyslexia or vision impairment -- many textbooks are not available in an audio format or in any other format that's easily accessible. Bookshare converts texts into accessible digital formats--mostly audio and digital braille--for those who can't decipher print.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\n\u003cp>“I would hear about a book and remember thinking, ‘I wish I could read that,’ knowing it might be available in a year and a half. Bookshare changed all that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>It’s not that Benetech invented accessible literature. The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), which is part of the Library of Congress, has 300,000 titles and close to 1 million registered readers. The library provides audio books, Braille books and digital files that communicate with electronic Braille notetakers. However, many NLS books must be requested by mail and wait lists for popular texts can be long. In the last few years, the NLS has started offering some texts for download.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few other services, like the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"http://www.learningally.org/\">Learning Ally\u003c/a>, which has been around since 1948, also offer accessible books for the dyslexic and visually impaired. Volunteers of Learning Ally volunteers read books out loud and those recordings are uploaded to an online library in an accessible format that works much like Bookshare. What Bookshare does differently is focus on the technology element. \u003c!--more-->Instead of a book read by a volunteer, Bookshare offers a book that will be read by a computer. To this end Bookshare focus on developing software in-house.**\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently Bookshare, which was founded in 2001, offers more than 150,000 titles, which can be downloaded in a file format that works with several different digital solutions. Membership is free for all students, including those in adult education, and $50 per year for everyone else, not including a $25 one-time set up fee. For textbooks that aren't yet available on Bookshare, users can send in a request for those titles, which then take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months to convert.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want books in a format everyone can use,” said Betsy Beaumon, vice president of Benetech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benetech’s user-friendly software and its efforts to work with publishers to create accessible digital texts on the front-end have earned the small company a major grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Last month, the Department of Education awarded Benetech $6.5 million a year through 2017 to continue and expand its work to make textbooks, textbook images and software innovations for users more widespread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bookshare books aren't just PDFs of print pages. Each page is scanned and processed through an optical character recognition program that translates the image file into a text file. That file is proofread to eliminate typos and ensure that things like odd page layouts haven’t damaged readability. Finally, the file is formatted so that it can be “read” in a digital voice by screen reading software -- a computer program that reads what's on the screen -- or fed to a Braille notetaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benetech engineers have also produced an iPhone, iPad and Android app that makes these files user-friendly in a variety of ways. For example, it's easy to skip to a chapter heading or even a specific page just as a sighted reader could with a paper textbook by using a combination of aural clues and tapping of the touch-screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of two specially created voices can be chosen to read the text. The voices can be sped up or slowed down without losing their pleasant tone. For Rob Turner, the head of customer service at Benetech, this means no more “chipmunk voices.” Turner is blind and in order to read texts as fast as sighted readers when he was in college, Turner would speed up the tape deck playback. With years of practice, he can listen to and take in aural information this way much faster than most people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since many legally blind people have some amount of vision and because dyslexic readers can see, the software also has a visual element. The size and color of the text can be changed. The background color can also be changed—this has been shown to help some dyslexic readers. A highlighter can be set to follow each word of the text as it’s read out loud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Math equations have traditionally been a big stumbling block for this demographic of readers. The software that “reads” text from the screen cannot read image files and math equations are often in image files. Benetech has created a program that allows a user to type a math equation into a box that will translate the equation into code that works with its software or that can be fed into a Braille notetaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rick Roderick, who has been blind since birth, has made a career out of teaching other blind people to use computers and Braille notetakers. As such, he’s stayed on the cutting edge of technology to help the blind. Bookshare, he said, is the best innovation yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Bookshare has totally improved my quality of life,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest change has been the speed at which he can access books, Roderick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My frustration was I would hear about a book on Morning Edition or Fresh Air and I remember thinking, ‘I wish I could read that,’ knowing it might be available in a year and a half,” he said. “Bookshare changed all that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Roderick said he can get new books within days or weeks of their publication date. As soon as it's uploaded to Bookshare, he can access it. He can also get same-day news from print publications like \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.bookshare.org/browse/periodical\">a list of other big and small periodicals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remember asking one of my teachers in first grade, ‘Will there ever be a Braille newspaper?’” Roderick said. “She said, ‘No, that would be impossible.’ That is now possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benetech leaders hope their recently awarded grant will continue to make even more content readily available to those who cannot decipher print. They have already begun conversations with publishers about how eBooks can be formatted for accessibility from the beginning of the printing process so the long process of scanning and changing file types can be eliminated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beaumon said she is especially excited about the work they’ve begun with a few textbook publishers in advance of the switch to Common Core standards. If digital files are created as “accessible literature” in the first place, Beaumon said there would be more high-quality content available more quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now is the opportune moment,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth is about to start her sophomore year of college. She’s developed the habit of figuring out exactly what books she’ll need for her upcoming semester and making sure they're available on Bookshare months in advance. If they’re not, she buys two copies of the book, one for herself and one to send to Benetech for scanning. That way, everyone will have access to the information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I consider it a privilege to have the opportunity to read every word,\" she wrote on the Bookshare blog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>** [CLARIFICATION August 15, 2012: An earlier version of this article mischaracterized Learning Ally, which also specializes in accessible textbooks for the dyslexic, visually impaired, and physically handicapped. MindShift regrets the error.]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cdiv id=\"attachment_23264\" class=\"module image alignright mceTemp\" style=\"width: 620px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/08/for-dyslexic-and-visually-impaired-students-a-free-high-tech-solution/attachment/145130371/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-23264\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-23264\" title=\"145130371\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2012/08/145130371-620x413.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\">\u003c/a>\n\u003cp class=\"wp-media-credit\">Thinkstock\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003ch5>By Lillian Mongeau\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Elizabeth is a college freshman who has severe dyslexia that makes it impossible for her to decipher printed materials. Nearly every night for 12 years of school, Elizabeth’s mother would sit down and read her daughter's school work to her because that's the only choice they had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a few months before starting college, Elizabeth discovered an online library called \u003ca href=\"http://www.bookshare.org\">Bookshare.org\u003c/a>, run by a small non-profit called Benetech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My life changed as I entered the world of accessible literature,” Elizabeth wrote on Bookshare's blog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Elizabeth and the millions of students who are \"print disabled\" -- meaning they have trouble reading because of dyslexia or vision impairment -- many textbooks are not available in an audio format or in any other format that's easily accessible. Bookshare converts texts into accessible digital formats--mostly audio and digital braille--for those who can't decipher print.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\n\u003cp>“I would hear about a book and remember thinking, ‘I wish I could read that,’ knowing it might be available in a year and a half. Bookshare changed all that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>It’s not that Benetech invented accessible literature. The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), which is part of the Library of Congress, has 300,000 titles and close to 1 million registered readers. The library provides audio books, Braille books and digital files that communicate with electronic Braille notetakers. However, many NLS books must be requested by mail and wait lists for popular texts can be long. In the last few years, the NLS has started offering some texts for download.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few other services, like the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"http://www.learningally.org/\">Learning Ally\u003c/a>, which has been around since 1948, also offer accessible books for the dyslexic and visually impaired. Volunteers of Learning Ally volunteers read books out loud and those recordings are uploaded to an online library in an accessible format that works much like Bookshare. What Bookshare does differently is focus on the technology element. \u003c!--more-->Instead of a book read by a volunteer, Bookshare offers a book that will be read by a computer. To this end Bookshare focus on developing software in-house.**\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently Bookshare, which was founded in 2001, offers more than 150,000 titles, which can be downloaded in a file format that works with several different digital solutions. Membership is free for all students, including those in adult education, and $50 per year for everyone else, not including a $25 one-time set up fee. For textbooks that aren't yet available on Bookshare, users can send in a request for those titles, which then take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months to convert.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want books in a format everyone can use,” said Betsy Beaumon, vice president of Benetech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benetech’s user-friendly software and its efforts to work with publishers to create accessible digital texts on the front-end have earned the small company a major grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Last month, the Department of Education awarded Benetech $6.5 million a year through 2017 to continue and expand its work to make textbooks, textbook images and software innovations for users more widespread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bookshare books aren't just PDFs of print pages. Each page is scanned and processed through an optical character recognition program that translates the image file into a text file. That file is proofread to eliminate typos and ensure that things like odd page layouts haven’t damaged readability. Finally, the file is formatted so that it can be “read” in a digital voice by screen reading software -- a computer program that reads what's on the screen -- or fed to a Braille notetaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benetech engineers have also produced an iPhone, iPad and Android app that makes these files user-friendly in a variety of ways. For example, it's easy to skip to a chapter heading or even a specific page just as a sighted reader could with a paper textbook by using a combination of aural clues and tapping of the touch-screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of two specially created voices can be chosen to read the text. The voices can be sped up or slowed down without losing their pleasant tone. For Rob Turner, the head of customer service at Benetech, this means no more “chipmunk voices.” Turner is blind and in order to read texts as fast as sighted readers when he was in college, Turner would speed up the tape deck playback. With years of practice, he can listen to and take in aural information this way much faster than most people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since many legally blind people have some amount of vision and because dyslexic readers can see, the software also has a visual element. The size and color of the text can be changed. The background color can also be changed—this has been shown to help some dyslexic readers. A highlighter can be set to follow each word of the text as it’s read out loud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Math equations have traditionally been a big stumbling block for this demographic of readers. The software that “reads” text from the screen cannot read image files and math equations are often in image files. Benetech has created a program that allows a user to type a math equation into a box that will translate the equation into code that works with its software or that can be fed into a Braille notetaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rick Roderick, who has been blind since birth, has made a career out of teaching other blind people to use computers and Braille notetakers. As such, he’s stayed on the cutting edge of technology to help the blind. Bookshare, he said, is the best innovation yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Bookshare has totally improved my quality of life,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest change has been the speed at which he can access books, Roderick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My frustration was I would hear about a book on Morning Edition or Fresh Air and I remember thinking, ‘I wish I could read that,’ knowing it might be available in a year and a half,” he said. “Bookshare changed all that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Roderick said he can get new books within days or weeks of their publication date. As soon as it's uploaded to Bookshare, he can access it. 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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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},
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
},
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
},
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
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