Transcript
Speaker: teacher was always like the most important person, you know, and they're not now.
Speaker: I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker: I just try to get my, trying to get what I know out and hope we can keep some of the good teachers.
Speaker: But even the good teachers, they'll say, they call me and they'll go, Vicki, I got a job for twice the money.
Speaker: I said, but are you going to enjoy yourself?
Speaker: She says, I'm going to enjoy buying something.
Speaker: Welcome to How to Have Kids Love Learning, where we explore ideas and strategies for parents and educators that help students thrive.
Speaker: I'm your host, Ed Madison.
Speaker: I'm a professor and researcher at the University of Oregon and serve as executive director of the Journalistic Learning Initiative, a nonprofit organization that empowers middle and high school students to discover their voice, improve academic outcomes, and become self-directed learners through project-based storytelling.
Speaker: And I'm Beau Brusco, former ELA teacher and multimedia journalist and Ed's co-host here on the podcast.
Speaker: And we're really excited today to have our guest, Victoria Waller, on the podcast with us.
Speaker: Victoria Waller is an experienced reading specialist, author, and educational therapist with over 40 years experience.
Speaker: She specializes in helping children between the ages of five and 11 who have trouble reading and writing in class.
Speaker: Victoria was the creator of My Disney Busy Bags for Travel on Planes and Cars for Disney Hyperion Books.
Speaker: She was also a founding member of the LA Children's Museum for 25 years.
Speaker: Victoria is a mother of two and grandmother of two.
Speaker: She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband Marshall and her dog Tutor.
Speaker: Today, she is here to talk about her book, Yes, Your Child Can, Creating Success for Children with Learning Differences.
Speaker: Welcome to the podcast, Victoria.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: It's fantastic to be here.
Speaker: Victoria, I think a good question to start with is, you know, what is your book about?
Speaker: And then we can talk about maybe how it's different from other ADHD kind of angled books.
Speaker: My book came about because a parent came to my door and
Speaker: And I thought it's two o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker: Why is she coming to my door?
Speaker: I opened the door and she's basically hysterical.
Speaker: They want my child to be tested by a brain doctor.
Speaker: What's wrong with his brain?
Speaker: And I went, there is nothing wrong with his brain.
Speaker: There's a lot right with his brain.
Speaker: And I started thinking about all the questions parents come to me with who have children who have learning differences.
Speaker: If you notice, you will never know.
Speaker: in over 40 years teaching, never hear me say a child has disabilities because they don't.
Speaker: And it was funny, I was interviewed by a 16 year old the other day and she said, you know, what started you on this?
Speaker: And I said, well, because people are saying, oh, now it's learning differences or now it's disabilities.
Speaker: I've been calling it differences since the 70s.
Speaker: And she said, well, why do you like teaching kids like that?
Speaker: And do you know why?
Speaker: Because they're smart.
Speaker: The kids in the class who are just regular, they do their work and they're fine and they get turned in everything.
Speaker: They're not interesting like the kids who have learning differences.
Speaker: They're geniuses of our world, like Anderson Cooper, Richard Bramson, Simone Biles, the astronaut.
Speaker: astronaut Scott Kelly, who to me was the greatest.
Speaker: He goes up in the spaceship and they say, what was the one thing you thought about in those 10 minutes?
Speaker: And he says, you know, I'm dyslexic.
Speaker: He called himself that.
Speaker: I'm dyslexic.
Speaker: So I don't know if my right from my left, they said, unbuckle your seatbelt and then you can fly around in the room.
Speaker: But I unbuckled the other one, which was my parachute.
Speaker: And they're yelling, nope,
Speaker: But that was the one thing he thought about.
Speaker: He wasn't talking about space or being, that was the thing that made his mind.
Speaker: And I realized that every child can, and they can learn and be successful and happy if we diagnose them early, we get them help when they need it, and most importantly, use their strengths and passions to teach them.
Speaker: And too many times we're talking about what's wrong with these kids.
Speaker: I even listened to a podcast yesterday and this very famous author is talking about what's wrong with them.
Speaker: And I'm thinking, you must not be getting the same kids I'm getting because I find what's right with them.
Speaker: And you said something before it to me that was very interesting.
Speaker: Project-based.
Speaker: Most of what I do, I'm connecting my students with people that they care about what their interests are.
Speaker: And I'm telling you,
Speaker: They all have very different interests.
Speaker: But I mean, I connected one with he was interested in whales.
Speaker: And last summer, a year ago this summer, the fisherman, lobster fisherman got caught in a whale's mouth.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That to me was blown me away.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: This child loves whales and loves sharks.
Speaker: We interviewed him.
Speaker: We have Zoom now.
Speaker: So I can connect.
Speaker: And when I give my, oh, it's my student who's so smart, but he has learning differences.
Speaker: And then I...
Speaker: I hate to say it, but I do mention that I'm the rock star tutor.
Speaker: Courtney Kogeshin called me her rock star tutor.
Speaker: So I do mention that and then they all want to talk to me.
Speaker: I don't say anything about them except that she was lovely and her daughter's lovely.
Speaker: So what can I say?
Speaker: But I connect them.
Speaker: I connected him with the guy who did this and we do Zoom.
Speaker: He had to write all the questions.
Speaker: He couldn't write or spell.
Speaker: My students learn to read.
Speaker: They can't spell or write.
Speaker: The reading, I can get them to do.
Speaker: Spelling and writing is very hard, very hard to do, and it takes more time.
Speaker: But if they follow my step-by-step, take them to a doctor, get them tested.
Speaker: If they need medication, they're not going to become a drug addict.
Speaker: I mean, really?
Speaker: This is 40, 50 years later.
Speaker: They don't become.
Speaker: But if you do nothing with a child and they're still upset at 15 and not reading and writing,
Speaker: they will take medication to get out of the way they're feeling.
Speaker: But if you get them now that one of my students has a patch, I think it's interesting.
Speaker: She said, I don't understand.
Speaker: The mother said they put a patch on him and now he focuses and I call his name and he listens to me.
Speaker: There's all kinds of things now.
Speaker: Where do you weigh in on the, the, the, the practices of, I guess what we call sort of full inclusion now, you know, it used to be, they would take the kids with learning differences and put them in a,
Speaker: a different room.
Speaker: And I think we kind of moved away from that, but there, but it's, it's a controversial topic, but I'm just curious what you think.
Speaker: Well, to me, if the parents are doing what I'm saying they're doing and they take a step by step, they get them help.
Speaker: If they need meds, they need meds.
Speaker: They get somebody to tutor them.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be a Vicki Waller with a doctorate.
Speaker: One student I missed the other day, she was 32 and she said to me, I had a tutor my whole life.
Speaker: I have learning disabilities.
Speaker: And I said, there are probably differences, which I found out later.
Speaker: Of course, she's brilliant.
Speaker: And she said, I had the same teacher up through high school.
Speaker: She was a second grade teacher, but she was really bright.
Speaker: So she could do all the math and everything with the older kids.
Speaker: But I think kids now, if they're helped, they stay in the classroom and they really succeed.
Speaker: If you don't help them, well, I don't know, maybe they put them in different schools.
Speaker: There are still schools for kids with learning differences, but I have never, what can I tell you?
Speaker: I mean, I've really taught thousands of kids
Speaker: And I've never found a child that was so severely with differences.
Speaker: So, I mean, they couldn't read or write or, or pay attention, but if the parents followed my book, my step-by-step, get them tested, do what the people say, get somebody to work with them.
Speaker: If they do my step-by-step, the child will succeed.
Speaker: And it's proven.
Speaker: I have students who are writing me and it's proven.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I worry about the kids who, uh,
Speaker: you know, come from, you know, lower socioeconomic circumstances where, first of all, they may not be diagnosed, you know, in a timely manner to really even know that it's time to intervene.
Speaker: But also, the whole idea of paying for tutoring and all that is just kind of not part of their reality, you know, in terms of their families.
Speaker: But you know what I have to tell you, I was a real snob.
Speaker: And I said, oh, you have to get tested by a neuropsychologist.
Speaker: They cost a fortune.
Speaker: And it's not taken off of insurance.
Speaker: Every public school that I have gone and sat at an IEP meeting where they test the kid and they find those people are as smart as Vicki Waller.
Speaker: They know what they're talking about.
Speaker: They know how to help the child.
Speaker: A lot of people, teachers will help kids and will work with them.
Speaker: They can find somebody...
Speaker: Everybody now, I find, I mean, I worked with inner city kids in Detroit.
Speaker: I don't want to say that I'm a Motown girl, but I am.
Speaker: I taught my students to read using Motown music.
Speaker: And do you know what?
Speaker: That was 40 years ago.
Speaker: And I still do it if a child is involved with music.
Speaker: I had a child the other day and I didn't even know he never talked about that.
Speaker: He loves singing.
Speaker: And I know people in Hollywood, of course, that are music people and they did music for him and he sang and we did a whole recording, but he had to write it.
Speaker: He had to read it.
Speaker: And I do music.
Speaker: I find a child, no matter what level they are and whether they have money, don't have money, if they come to me and they love music, they're going to learn to read by using music.
Speaker: So I find that passion.
Speaker: I find passion.
Speaker: And I feel every child has passion.
Speaker: I am very pleased with the schools nowadays.
Speaker: I find the public schools, at least in LA, not that, well, a lot of teachers still think the kids are disabled.
Speaker: until they get me talking to them and then maybe get a book to them, maybe they stop thinking they're disabled.
Speaker: Because these kids are really, they're the interesting ones.
Speaker: They're the ones that make incredible, build things, rocket ships.
Speaker: I had a kid, he was so interesting.
Speaker: He was in an inner city school and he loved roller coasters.
Speaker: Well, okay, I never had a roller coaster kid, okay?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I said, okay.
Speaker: And the next week in the LA times was an article on the president of this rollercoaster park in, I think it's, it's somewhere in the Ohio.
Speaker: All the big roller coasters are in Ohio.
Speaker: That's where it is.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, not only did this kid,
Speaker: write questions the teacher had given him he said you're going to do a report and she gave him strawberries and i said strawberries what third grade boy or girl wants to report on strawberries so i very nicely wrote the teacher i said he knows everything about roller coasters could he do that teacher is she wasn't a great teacher but she said yes and i decided she's a great teacher because she said yes
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And not only did he write, not wait, not only did he write about roller coasters, he researched, he called the president of the roller coaster company and he interviewed him on Zoom, but he built a roller coaster and he, I didn't even understand it.
Speaker: He did it by so many inches was a foot of a roller coaster.
Speaker: I don't know how to do math.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hey, roller coaster.
Speaker: And he interviewed this man.
Speaker: And as it happened, the next summer, somehow somebody lived around there and somebody took him there.
Speaker: And he called me and said, I went to the roller coaster.
Speaker: He said, but my mom lost her sunglasses.
Speaker: I said, well, call the president, see what he says about it.
Speaker: So now he edited.
Speaker: He calls the president.
Speaker: The president said, tell your mother not to wear fancy sunglasses when she's on a roller coaster.
Speaker: They have apparently a lost and found.
Speaker: So if you lose something, I'm fine.
Speaker: But I mean, finding the kids' passions.
Speaker: And teachers say, oh, I'm so busy.
Speaker: No, you don't have to be that busy.
Speaker: You have 20 kids.
Speaker: Just right out at the beginning of the year, what are you interested in?
Speaker: What do you like to do?
Speaker: Of course, now with kids with issues, I'll ask a mom.
Speaker: The other day I said, you know, what does your son like to do?
Speaker: And she says, he's on the computer.
Speaker: And I thought, that's not what his passion is.
Speaker: This kid is too sharp.
Speaker: There's something about him.
Speaker: So when he came back the next day and I said something, was there anything you really like, you know, that you're interested in?
Speaker: And he just started saying, well, I like to draw.
Speaker: I said, oh, and the next day he comes in the next week.
Speaker: He has drawn the most beautiful picture of my dog, Tudor, that you have ever seen in your life.
Speaker: I have it up in my room.
Speaker: He's an unbelievable artist in every single, every single thing you use in artistry.
Speaker: I am, I have ideas in my head.
Speaker: I can say to the kids, like there's a book, this treehouse book.
Speaker: And I connected the kids with the author and I found wood.
Speaker: Amazon, you find everything wood and they could build treehouses and they had the wood and he built the treehouse.
Speaker: It was like unbelievable on every level, what he loved, just like the author does with his books.
Speaker: And it was like,
Speaker: The mother had, she just didn't, she was so worried about him that she didn't know what was good about him.
Speaker: And so if parents follow my book, it takes them just on a step.
Speaker: Okay, do this.
Speaker: Okay, now get a tutor.
Speaker: I have a parent came to me, she walked in the house and she goes, I've interviewed 25 tutors, so you better be ready.
Speaker: And I thought, oh, this is not going to work, right?
Speaker: The kid is now 12th grade at private school doing incredibly, and he's apparently a master soccer player, and he also is a great writer.
Speaker: I find my students are very creative.
Speaker: But I mean, the parents have to do the step-by-step in my book, and it will help them.
Speaker: No matter what school they're in, you go there, and you ask for help, and you will get it.
Speaker: These inner-city teachers that I was talking to, they were, whatever I said, I gave them books.
Speaker: They were going to read them.
Speaker: They've called me.
Speaker: Can I do this?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So I really think people, I hope, are coming on board to help everybody.
Speaker: You know, even like the music.
Speaker: The music is great.
Speaker: And then you have the kids write their own songs.
Speaker: That's even the best.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: They can use the tunes from the songs they like, but they have to write their own words.
Speaker: So they're writing, they're reading, they're doing all their language experience and their phonics or whatever they're supposed to be doing to write.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Have you seen any changes in the sort of challenges that young kids might face or struggle with when it comes to reading?
Speaker: Because you've been doing this for well over 40 years, right?
Speaker: Well over.
Speaker: Well over 40 years, right?
Speaker: So yeah, I guess, have there been any big shifts as far as the challenges go that you've seen with kids?
Speaker: No, I think it's, to me, it's the way it's been 40 years ago when all these people come out and they have conferences.
Speaker: We found something new.
Speaker: They found nothing new.
Speaker: I've done what I think it's really funny.
Speaker: I'm not going to say the program, but there's a program.
Speaker: And this woman was touting that she founded in 1992.
Speaker: So I wrote, it was in the New York Times.
Speaker: So I wrote to the editor, not the editor, the writer.
Speaker: And I said, by the way,
Speaker: that thing that she founded in the 90s and the 70s, the New York Times made this phonetic, it's a phonetic box.
Speaker: They made it how to teach kids going pa, pa, pa, ca, ca, ca, which they hate.
Speaker: And that box, this woman bought from the New York Times.
Speaker: She was smart in the 90s, set up all over the world.
Speaker: She has places where she teaches people
Speaker: Maybe they're high school students, maybe they're college kids, how to do this program to teach kids how to read.
Speaker: And by the way, when you use this program, they hate reading when they're done because it's so boring.
Speaker: There's nothing interesting.
Speaker: There's no comprehension.
Speaker: It's all sounding out words letter by letter.
Speaker: But I had to laugh that when she founded this and I went, no, and not only did she find it, but she was so smart.
Speaker: She uses the exact box that the New York Times used in the 70s, which is even funnier to me.
Speaker: And the only reason I don't like it is because kids end up hating reading.
Speaker: They just hate it.
Speaker: Oh, they hate it.
Speaker: Well, and that's one of the big reasons why, especially, I mean, we at the JLI definitely agree, the tapping into the intrinsic motivation of a kid is one of the most powerful things you can do to motivate them to learn.
Speaker: Because, you know, like you've expressed, they're plenty capable.
Speaker: It's just helping them find a pathway that really sort of motivates them and pushes them.
Speaker: And yeah, I think, I think, unfortunately, school and especially English classes that assign a lot of reading, it does end up teaching kids to hate to read.
Speaker: And, and that's really too bad.
Speaker: You know, I'm trying to get out the word.
Speaker: I mean, that's what I'm trying.
Speaker: And that's why I'm doing podcasts.
Speaker: And I'm doing
Speaker: I'm doing TV now.
Speaker: I'm just trying to say, read my book.
Speaker: It's a simple book.
Speaker: There's no pictures of brains in it.
Speaker: It takes the parents on a journey and it takes the teachers on a journey because it talks about what these kids are really like.
Speaker: And it talks about reading, writing, executive functioning, finding the child's strengths and passions.
Speaker: That's what you have to do.
Speaker: And you have to have the parents say, hey, the child needs to get some help.
Speaker: go to somebody and get some help.
Speaker: And these kids are not disabled.
Speaker: And it's funny, I was thinking about the 16 year old who interviewed me and I'm thinking, I've never found a child.
Speaker: I mean, you're talking so many years, never found one that didn't have some interest or passion that I, and that their parent didn't listen to me.
Speaker: Follow my steps and get them help.
Speaker: If they needed medication, they got the medication.
Speaker: They used what their strengths to help them and then succeed.
Speaker: I haven't I guess because maybe I don't like them if they don't help their kids.
Speaker: I want to ask you because, you know, you know, it's it's very clear you're a masterful teacher.
Speaker: But I'm fearful that we're going to lose a lot of really good teachers who are passionate about kids just because of all the craziness going on and culture wars and teachers, you know, not feeling that their professionalism is valued and everyone questioning, you know, what they're doing and how they're doing it and everything else.
Speaker: And I'm just curious, you know, someone who's committed your life to this, you know,
Speaker: profession, what you think about all of that.
Speaker: I'm really sad.
Speaker: I think I'm saddest because what happened that I think people aren't really getting hold of right now, but we had COVID.
Speaker: So my K-1 kids
Speaker: had two or three years, so all of a sudden they're plopped into third grade.
Speaker: And not that I don't love third grade teachers, but they're not the people who know how to teach reading.
Speaker: And I know that sounds horrible, but the beginning reading.
Speaker: So they get these kids who have been doing maybe Zoom.
Speaker: You know, I had an article that was written about me in the New York Times because I wrote that I taught a kid in space to read during COVID and they went, what?
Speaker: Well, he made himself a space character.
Speaker: Well, I didn't care because I heard him and he was reading in this house, but he was a space character and the teacher wrote to me.
Speaker: I can't stand that he's a space.
Speaker: I thought it was so clever.
Speaker: I didn't know any other kid that made himself into a character on Zoom.
Speaker: So I was talking to a space character.
Speaker: It was okay.
Speaker: But I'm worried because my kids who went into third, they're lost.
Speaker: Teachers can't teach them.
Speaker: They expect them to have learned how to read.
Speaker: But they haven't learned how to read.
Speaker: And some can catch on.
Speaker: But if you have kids with learning differences, they won't.
Speaker: There's no way they would have caught on.
Speaker: And teachers aren't taught.
Speaker: College courses do not.
Speaker: In reading, you get a book on reading and there's one chapter on children with learning differences and they probably call it disabilities.
Speaker: One chapter.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: So I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker: I know teachers, they're overworked.
Speaker: They're underpaid.
Speaker: People don't really respect them like they used to.
Speaker: teacher was always like the most important person, you know, and they're not now.
Speaker: I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker: I just try to get my, trying to get what I know out and hope we can keep some of the good teachers.
Speaker: But even the good teachers, they'll say, they call me and they'll go, Vicki, I got a job for twice the money.
Speaker: I said, but are you going to enjoy yourself?
Speaker: She says, I'm going to enjoy buying something.
Speaker: So what are you going to do?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a big problem.
Speaker: So I really feel, and you know, there are new statistics out, which really make, they get me crazy.
Speaker: 48% of parents think their children will snap out of it.
Speaker: Like snap out of it.
Speaker: Stop.
Speaker: Pay attention.
Speaker: Get off your computer.
Speaker: 33% of educators think these kids with differences are lazy.
Speaker: And those are statistics from one of the, the child, um, um,
Speaker: one of the child things that are very important and that's what they're saying is going on.
Speaker: And it's just, you know, if you do have a child with learning differences and you get my book, you follow that list, you get help, you get them tested.
Speaker: And I give all the ways to get them tested.
Speaker: There are ways to get it free.
Speaker: Do that and then follow what they say.
Speaker: If they say get medication, they're not going to become a drug addict.
Speaker: I'm sorry, but I know my kids didn't become drug addicts.
Speaker: And they became happy is what happened.
Speaker: Hey, Dr. Waller, I mean, I've just had one student got in early to University of Pennsylvania and he wrote...
Speaker: In the application, you had to write a letter to somebody.
Speaker: I'm going to cry.
Speaker: He wrote a letter to me.
Speaker: And he put, he was in first grade and he loved, he was obsessed with the Titanic.
Speaker: My kids tend to be obsessed with something.
Speaker: He was obsessed about the Titanic.
Speaker: And the teacher said, we're having a dress day and don't come dressed as anything in the Titanic.
Speaker: And the mother called me and I said, well, the only problem is if you don't send him, that's sad.
Speaker: And if you send him, she won't let him come as the Titanic.
Speaker: The mother kept him home.
Speaker: We all dressed in Titanic costumes.
Speaker: She made a Titanic lunch.
Speaker: And then we went to the opening of Titanic many years ago.
Speaker: And Robert Ballard wrote, even in those days, Robert Ballard wrote to him.
Speaker: He's the discoverer of the Titanic, said, dream big.
Speaker: I can't do it without crying.
Speaker: Dream big and don't let anybody talk you out of your dreams.
Speaker: And he wrote that letter in his early application, University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker: And he said, this woman changed my life, which it was a, it was all about, you know, what Robert Ballard said.
Speaker: And he got in early to University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker: But I, I think we have to just, you know, these are the kids that are really going to make a difference in the world, but we've got to help them.
Speaker: And they're not disabled.
Speaker: Boy, I hate their dyslexic.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: That means the ability to read.
Speaker: That means you're not even giving them a chance because you're already telling them they're disabled.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: I think, I don't know, I'm trying to get my word out.
Speaker: I hope, you know, I'm hoping I'm getting, I'm at least getting to the parents.
Speaker: I think I'm definitely getting to parents.
Speaker: Whether or not I'm getting to teachers, I don't know.
Speaker: I hope maybe the young teachers, maybe, but I don't know how many young teachers there are.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, the good news is, I mean, parents really, I mean, we don't have to, it goes without saying parents really can make a world of difference for their kids.
Speaker: But Dr. Victoria, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker: We got to wrap up here.
Speaker: But again, Dr. Victoria's book, Yes, Your Child Can, Creating Success for Children with Learning Differences is available for purchase on Amazon as we speak.
Speaker: And thanks again so much.
Speaker: Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker: I loved it.
Speaker: Terrific.
Speaker: How to Have Kids Love Learning is produced by the Journalistic Learning Initiative.
Speaker: For more information about our work, please visit journalisticlearning.com.
