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Let's Talk About Dyslexia with Sher Marshall
1.4k Plays7 months ago
Join Beth as she sits down with veteran dyslexia expert Sher Marshall in this informative episode all about dyslexia. From recognizing the earliest signs to getting a diagnoses and advocating for support services, they cover a wide array of topics aimed at empowering parents to trust themselves, know the signs and know how to take action.
You will learn practical insights on how to tell if it’s how they’re being taught vs how their brain is wired, how to navigate the diagnosis process, tips on how advocate for your child within educational settings, and provide academic and emotional support in the classroom and at home. Whether you're a parent, educator, or someone affected by dyslexia, this episode offers valuable knowledge and strategies to help you navigate the journey with confidence. Tune in and gain a deeper understanding of dyslexia and how to support your child.
Disclaimer: This episode is meant for informational purposes only and is not meant to replace the advice of your child’s school or teacher or offer diagnostic assessments. Testing for dyslexia cannot be done by a teacher or even a dyslexia specialist. They can offer tools. Testing is typically done by a licensed educational psychologist or neurologist.
Show notes: bigcityreaders.com/podcast
Follow me: Instagram.com/bigcityreaders
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Transcript
Introduction: Workshop Announcement
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, it's Miss Beth, and I am so excited to share today's episode with you. First, I need to tell you two quick numbers. Number one, we have an upcoming blending workshop. This is the workshop for any parent or teacher who's ever been tempted to say, just sound it out. I'm going to tell you why I don't use that phrase, what I do instead, and all the things that you need to keep in mind when your child is at that beginning to blend and decode stage.
00:00:29
Speaker
So this is typically for older preschool parents, kindergarten, or first grade. Also, teachers are totally invited to take this workshop. We're going to talk about open and closed syllables, blending and decoding bigger words, compound words, so much good stuff. This comes as a part two from our ABC workshop, which was last week, but you don't have to have taken that workshop
00:00:52
Speaker
to learn in this workshop. So make sure that you're on my email list or following on Instagram. That's where I'll share it. But email is probably better because Instagram is unpredictable. Then after that, we're having a sight word workshop. So stay tuned for that. You're going to learn all about orthographic mapping, the right way to teach sight words to help your child be a successful reader for much more than just kindergarten or first grade.
00:01:18
Speaker
and why we got in this inaccurate pattern with memorizing words. So I'll teach you all about that in the sight word workshop. So those are two things coming up. Stay tuned for that now today.
Focus on Dyslexia with Expert Cher
00:01:32
Speaker
Today's episode is all about dyslexia.
00:01:36
Speaker
So I'm having my friend Cher on, who is a dyslexia specialist. And we both have the same training, which you'll hear, spoiler alert, is the gold standard for helping dyslexic kids learn how to read. And that's Orton Gillingham. We're going to talk about the very first signs of dyslexia, if you can tell in your baby or toddler.
00:01:57
Speaker
Is it genetic? Can you outgrow dyslexia? What to do about advocating for your child? How to advocate for your child? How to know when you need to be the one pushing for the assessment? All the fun parts of this journey.
00:02:15
Speaker
It's a big conversation, but it's still fun and lighthearted and I hope that it's not too overwhelming. If you have any questions after this episode or any episode, please feel free to reach out. I am here for you. I'm cheering for you. I hope that you learn a lot and feel empowered.
Understanding Dyslexia's Early Signs
00:02:43
Speaker
Dyslexia is a difference in the way the brain processes the sounds of language, not just sound. So your ears work fine, but your brain doesn't process the sounds of language typically. So one of the very first signs that parents often see is a speech delay. And if your child has a speech delay, they're dyslexic and not every dyslexic child has a speech delay.
00:03:09
Speaker
but it's not at all uncommon for the very first thing in retrospect to have been a speech delay. And the other thing that you really think about is that dyslexia is very strongly hereditary. So if mom or dad or siblings have dyslexia or a lot of times grandpa just didn't finish school, we don't know what it was, but
00:03:35
Speaker
If there's a history of difficulty in the family with reading, then you want to think about dyslexia if your child starts to have trouble. But really the very first thing we often see is a speech delay.
00:03:51
Speaker
Another one, my daughter, many kids do this. You know how kids have their like baby talk words? Like my daughter's a fur-reader. Oh, Sketti. A fur-reader instead of a refrigerator. So when there's extended baby talk like that, that can also be an early sign for that same reason that it's about how your brain is processing the sounds of language.
00:04:17
Speaker
So sometimes that's another thing that we see really early. Not always, because dyslexia goes from mild, moderate, all the way to profound, and not every child will have every sign.
00:04:32
Speaker
Like, yeah, like most things, there's a spectrum. And this is good that this episode is coming after I had a speech therapist, Stephanie Cohen on, and we just, I think that episode is like two episodes ago. And she talks about when certain sounds should develop. So like that, not every sounds come at the same time. So R isn't something that two-year-olds can usually say. So that's not a sign of dyslexia if your two-year-old says like,
00:04:57
Speaker
Queen instead of green. Exactly. So it's more of a delay in any speech at all sometimes, right? But that's one of the early, early signs. Another thing that we see a lot in our preschoolers is, I know that you talk about like the high value letters, right? Like the letters in your name, their math for kids, M for mom, right?
00:05:26
Speaker
Often the preschoolers who are dyslexic don't even, they can't learn those letters, like letters that they're highly motivated to learn or that most children would be highly motivated that they were just, they don't click. It doesn't happen for them in the same way.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah.
Phonics and Teaching Experiences
00:05:43
Speaker
Okay. I want to back up for a second because I, how did you get involved? Most of them, I would feel like they were on their way because they were, they had some words, right? And they usually knew most of the letter sounds and the ones who didn't.
00:05:59
Speaker
usually ended up getting referred into special education, and then they would learn to read. And I remember asking that teacher, what do you do? And he said, I teach them phonics. Oh, and the thing that happened is besides those kids who were really struggling,
00:06:18
Speaker
I found like the third and fourth grade teachers would say about me in the first grade cohort, I don't know what you guys were doing, but these kids can't read. And we would say, well, they were reading when they left us. Like obviously you're the problem. And now I've realized like kids can memorize a couple thousand words and then they hit this wall third or fourth grade. So you have this child that you thought was reading, they can't read.
00:06:47
Speaker
You have fake readers. You have fake readers. So I started to see
Orton Gillingham Training Impact
00:06:51
Speaker
that. And then when I was living in Hawaii, I was exposed to Orton Gillingham training for the first time. And what year was that? That was 2011. Okay. I've been teaching more than 20 years at that point. Oh my gosh.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, like putting it together and, you know, and what did you, did you feel like, sorry, I, like, I wonder what people, cause I, I remember what it felt like to be like, Oh my God, I, what, how did I not learn this? Like, did you have that realization? Were you like mad or were you just like, what the heck? I felt like someone had kicked me in the chest.
00:07:31
Speaker
because first I just thought, well, it was just that group of kids, right? And they went to special education and they got help, but then I started to realize like, no, it was also those kids whose third and fourth grade teachers said, these kids can't read.
00:07:49
Speaker
So I loved my kids and they loved me and they loved coming to school and they learned a lot of things and plenty of them did learn to read because some kids don't need as much direct instruction. But yeah, I just, it was like questioning my whole identity, right? Yeah. Yeah. So then I started, I didn't get full Orton Gillingham training for a while longer.
00:08:17
Speaker
Um, after I came back from Hawaii, I worked for a homeschool charter school. And so I was coaching parents and the special education teacher there was very, very well versed in Horton Gillingham and different phonics programs. And so I learned a lot from her and it was a great time to learn it because I was working more intensely with smaller groups of children and families and following them for years.
00:08:47
Speaker
So I could really see that when these parents did this program in first grade, yes, their child was reading in fourth grade and that made a huge difference. So I had the opportunity to go for it in Gillingham training through the Dyslexia Training Institute. And yeah, that changed everything, changed everything. So yeah, I feel like I have some penance to do. I have some things to make up for.
00:09:15
Speaker
But, you know, you just do the best you can based on what you know, right?
Phonics Instruction and Learning Variability
00:09:20
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's a whole other thing. It's like, yeah, we do the best we can based on what we know, but how come, how come this isn't being taught to people going to school to be teachers? Still, it's really a tragedy. Why do you think it isn't? Yeah. That's like the $10,000 question. I think that first of all,
00:09:41
Speaker
have a lot of teachers in the primary grades like me and you do see progress with most of your kids because most of us do teach phonics to some degree, right? So you do see maybe half of your kids are really making great progress that sticks because they are in the continuum where they don't need
00:10:06
Speaker
every single phonics pattern taught to them, they can start to see patterns on their own. So it's very hard to help those people understand. No, really, those children that you loved, they're still not getting it. So those are the people that end up being adjunct professors, right?
00:10:30
Speaker
who wants to be in charge of telling other teachers how to teach reading, teachers who love it. And the problem is a lot of those teachers are still wrong. And then of course there's money involved. I think that as we're starting to get more materials that are developed that support what we know to be the current science of reading, more of those will get adopted, but let's face it, like the guided reading empire,
00:11:00
Speaker
Bountess and Pinnell, they've been just controlling the market for so long and teachers are well-meaning. They don't want to believe that what they're doing is wrong. Right? Yeah. So I think it's as simple as that. And luckily,
00:11:18
Speaker
There are more and more researchers out there who have a platform, more and more teachers and former teachers who have a platform. And now we've got social media, right? Which we didn't have when I was teaching. So there was no way to get out of your bubble. Now there's a way. But it's really on teachers to take on the responsibility of saying,
00:11:42
Speaker
I need to really pay attention to this research. This isn't just another chapter of the reading wars. And I am responsible for these kids and their future. And I have to be willing to listen to people who have a differing opinion. Because I think when people really open their minds and are willing to look at what's being presented, it's pretty clear. It's not,
00:12:10
Speaker
Yes, things change, right? Like what we believe about the science of reading today will be different to some degree in 10 years, but you've got to be open and know which parts are like fundamental and which parts we're still playing with.
00:12:27
Speaker
Yes. Oh my gosh.
Open-mindedness in Education
00:12:29
Speaker
You know what? That's so funny. I was literally reading a book today, um, like a business book, but it's a quote that said, um, all drama in leadership and life comes from the need to be right to being closed minded and not curious. So I think I just solved everything if we're curious. So like, of course nobody wants to be told you're not doing a good enough job. So
00:12:55
Speaker
maybe it like that, that curiosity of like, okay, wait, if I listen to what someone else is saying, and presenting that information in a way that's like, not like, no, this is the right way, even though we know it is the right way, to just be like, I know you were taught this way, because I was too. Could you be 5% curious about this research and take a look at it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hope it's going to happen. I mean, I've
00:13:23
Speaker
like been through things for enough decades to be concerned and cynical, but I really hope that we're on the cusp of major change because there are states and districts that are changing. It's hopeful.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, it is. It is hopeful. I am. I'm so excited. I hope. Yeah, but it's it's I saw something in actually in Illinois that said they're hoping to pass something in 2026 that teachers would have to retest every year to keep their teaching license about the science of reading. I'll have to find that and link it. But I think like there was a lot of pushback about it, which I understand. But I mean, you can't do anything if you can't read.
00:14:06
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. You can't do anything if you can't read. And that's why it's the thing that matters in teaching and education.
00:14:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. OK, so we talked a little bit about some early, some of the early signs of dyslexia. Like, I think it's not what people necessarily think. So people think, oh, no, my child is reversing letters, which sure later that is one of the signs. But we're talking more in like the preschool years, things like difficulty learning nursery rhymes or
00:14:45
Speaker
difficulty, you said switching up words like flutter by instead of butterfly, forgetting names. Can you talk more about that or some other signs that you've seen?
Dyslexia vs. Dysteachia in Kindergarten
00:15:01
Speaker
We see forgetting names and as we said, like mixing up syllables and words or having baby talk. We also see sometimes word retrieval, like kids who will say volcano instead of tornado.
00:15:15
Speaker
They're kind of broadly in the same category of disasters, and they're both three syllables, right, but it's not the word they want so sometimes we see those kinds of confusions.
00:15:31
Speaker
Following multi-step directions can be more difficult for young dyslexic kids. Yes. And you know what? I actually was just giving a presentation about this at a preschool workshop, but that makes so much sense because following multi-step directions is demonstrating that they can hear and process sounds in their environment. So that is if they can't do that. Yeah, exactly. It's one thing I remember I would notice in
00:16:01
Speaker
when I was teaching transitional kindergarten is, you know, you get into your routine and you'll say, okay, everybody, we're getting ready to go home. So let's grab your jacket and grab your backpack and come line up at the door. And there would be kids who spoke English perfectly, but you'd see them stop and kind of go,
00:16:23
Speaker
grab my backpack, grab my jacket. So there are kids that have trouble following multi-step directions. That's something that I think is really interesting. And like you said, maybe they just need more processing time, or maybe they're really just not connecting all of it. And it's more challenging for them to really get what you're saying. And what you said about rhyme is so important.
00:16:50
Speaker
And it's something that usually just comes naturally to kids, right? You sing Jack and Jill went up the, and they know it pretty quickly automatically. So when you have a child that just does not get rhyme, that's like one of the basic parts of phonological and phonemic awareness, right? Is being aware of sounds in words and knowing that rhyming is just changing one's sounds in a word.
00:17:17
Speaker
That's one of the very basic skills that is the foundation for reading. So if a child can't rhyme, it's concerning. At what age do you think that it's concerning that they can't rhyme? I...
00:17:33
Speaker
It's, it's, well, it's hard to say because of course it depends on how much oral language they have. Exactly. Yeah. But let's assume they're in a nice language rich environment, right? And that they sit still and listen to you read books and sing songs.
00:17:50
Speaker
Then I start to be concerned at the beginning of kindergarten if someone's been introduced to that all kind of wonder and keep my eye on it. But we do want to say that.
00:18:04
Speaker
If your child can't rhyme, go ahead and teach them other skills, right? So I don't want people to think, oh, my child can't rhyme. So I'm not going to work on breaking words into sounds yet. Because we know that even though rhyming is an indicator for difficulty with reading, you can learn to read without ever learning to rhyme.
00:18:30
Speaker
So it's like it's a warning sign, but not a prerequisite skill. Does that make sense? Yes, yes. Yeah, because I've started to have parents talk to me and say, well, I'm not playing those games that you talked about where we play with compound words and go, rainbow, rainbow, because they can't rhyme yet.
00:18:52
Speaker
I'm like, don't do that. Yeah. Yeah. Everything else. Oh my gosh. Okay. That's, that's actually a good, a good jumping point. Where do you like to start rhyming syllables? Um, when you make awareness games, where do you like to start? Well, I mean, backing up even more at all just starts with oral language, right? It starts with talking, talking, talking, listening to stories, listening to stories, but then I, I,
00:19:20
Speaker
do things simultaneously. I start teaching the alphabet at the same time that I'm focusing on rhyme and blending and segmenting because we know some kids will be stronger with one than the other. We don't know which kid is which. So we really want to expose everybody to all of those things. So I will start with like compound word games. I know
00:19:47
Speaker
like I'm sure you do the game where it's like, oh, what are we gonna have for breakfast? Let's have eggs or something like that. But I do that at the same time as I'm starting to teach what I think will be the high value letters for that child. So the letters in their name probably, or M for mom, D for dad, CH for Charlie, right? So I don't think,
00:20:15
Speaker
I don't think there is something that you have to choose to be first. I think you want to kind of jump in and start doing all of it when they're little. Yes, that's, well, as you probably know, we do baby classes and toddler classes. And that's exactly why, because I always tell parents like do all of it and kind of like, especially with toddlers, see what they're interested in and then give them more of that. So they start to feel confident.
00:20:41
Speaker
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Because it flows over from one thing to the next. So yeah, sorry, it's kind of a vague answer. No, I love it. I love it. I love it. OK, so somebody asked, how early can dyslexia be identified?
Managing Dyslexia with Structured Teaching
00:21:00
Speaker
It is possible for dyslexia to be identified in kindergarten. That would usually be a more severely dyslexic kid.
00:21:09
Speaker
you would probably have to pay for that assessment. You're unlikely to be able to get your school to do that, but it is absolutely possible to identify some children with dyslexia in kindergarten. I think that it's worth really thinking about the kind of teaching they've had. I don't want anyone to just say, wow, my kindergartner is coming home from school and they're not really knowing
00:21:37
Speaker
too many letters, like you really want to know what they've been taught, right? Because there's the word is dysteachia. It's not dyslexia. It's not a problem with them hearing the sounds of language dysteachia, which is the problem with no one having taught them correctly. Right? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Like, did you make this word up? No. So you cannot assume
00:22:03
Speaker
that your first grader is dyslexic or has a learning disability, if you then find out that they've just been doing the kind of guided reading books where they've been taught to guess based on the picture or context, right? Yeah, gosh, it's so triggering. So before you think I need my child assessed, you need to think first, has my child been taught?
00:22:29
Speaker
Yeah. That's good. That is so good. That is so such a good reminder. Yeah. Okay. So along those same lines, here was another question. Is it something that can be cured or rewired once this or, or once you're dyslexic, are you always dyslexic? I love that question. Once you're dyslexic, you are always dyslexics. However,
00:22:54
Speaker
The kind of teaching that we do for kids that are dyslexic and really should do for everybody, which is just really systematic, like following a plan, introducing sounds in an order that makes sense with lots of review, actually rewires the brain of the dyslexic child. It rewires everybody's brain.
00:23:20
Speaker
because I know you know that we were not, we're not wired to read in the same way we are to talk. So everybody's brain, when they learn to read, the brain kind of hijacks areas that were intended for something else and turns them into areas that help you read. That same thing happens with dyslexic kids, but it requires
00:23:45
Speaker
more careful teaching over a longer period of time with more repetitions. They're still dyslexic, they're still themselves, but the reading circuit in their brain will be rewired to be like that of a typical reader with intervention.
00:24:05
Speaker
I love it. And this is, I just was talking with someone today and she said, Oh, my daughter got diagnosed with dyslexia. And I said, Oh, great. That is not a bad thing. That is good. One to have a diagnosis and like that kids with dyslexia, like you then are.
00:24:22
Speaker
they're often going to be in a better spot because you know exactly what kind of intervention and many kids need that type of intervention and aren't getting it. So I said make sure because she's like well apparently there's a dyslexia program at this school so I don't know if we should go there and I said go to any school on a tour and ask like if the reading interventionist is Orton Gillingham trained because that's what a dyslexic child
Morphology in Reading Instruction
00:24:46
Speaker
needs.
00:24:46
Speaker
Yes, yes, absolutely. Orton-Gillingham has been the gold standard for a long time. Another thing that's really interesting that we're finding out works really well, especially when you have a child who's a little bit older when they're diagnosed, is morphology instruction. So I have a student right now, I think she's probably fourth grade age,
00:25:11
Speaker
She's super smart and she has a lot of difficulty in reading. So while we are back filling her phonics gaps, we are also teaching her root words. So we've talked about jacked means to throw and fort means strong. And she's learned to recognize those chunks
00:25:35
Speaker
And then we talk about the prefixes, uncomfort, we're talking about fort, right? Uncomfortable or distract. So since she can read those chunks, it's giving her a jump ahead to be able to read some more complex words and give her more access to more books and more science and social studies concepts.
00:26:01
Speaker
So we're finding out that the morphology piece is super important for kids as well as Orton-Gillingham. So you really, really want your Orton-Gillingham trained person to also be working on suffixes and prefixes. And they're not in necessarily in the traditional Orton-Gillingham sequence, but the research is strong on this.
00:26:26
Speaker
So yeah, I got the morphology training. It must have been from Institute of Multisensory Education. I didn't realize it isn't in the original Orton-Gillingham, which is a good reminder for teachers. It's so important because people often think that Orton-Gillingham and the whole structured literacy is just about phonics.
00:26:49
Speaker
No. Oh yeah. That's, that is, this is what I always say. Anybody that is saying it's this and not this, they are so wrong. Like when people are like, no, well kids need comprehension. It's like, yes, everyone that is advocating for science of reading also wants kids to have comprehension skills. Exactly. I also like talking about, um,
00:27:14
Speaker
words, like, um, word study, like, so, you know, I feel like working with dyslexic kids, they really respond to just like being straight up being like, I know this seems ridiculous. I'm going to tell you exactly why this is spelled this way. Like the word healthy, which comes from the word heal. That's why I spelled that way and spelled differently. I think that like turned something on in the brain. That's like, Oh, I'm not just like crazy and just have to memorize these words that don't make sense. It actually has a reason.
00:27:43
Speaker
Yeah, because our brains are made for seeking patterns, right? And so anything that you can have a child hold on to as an explanation is so helpful. Yeah, absolutely. When would you say someone should worry? Ooh, I'm kind of worried. Personally, I'm worried about this question. I'm reading it. When would you say to worry about letter reversals? My school isn't worried about my eight-year-old reversing letters, but I am.
00:28:13
Speaker
Letter reversals all by themselves can be okay through second grade, but we want to see if it's part of an overwhelming pattern of other signs of dyslexia. So if your child is reading, but they still have reversals, I don't worry about it very much. If your child, just like if your child is reading, but they can't rhyme, right?
00:28:38
Speaker
don't care. It's okay. At some point, you do want to kind of draw attention to them. But if your child is reading, then I don't worry about it. If they also are substituting of for from, right, if they are also leaving off parts of the word, like the word is dragons, and they say dragon,
00:29:01
Speaker
Right? Or they say beauty instead of beautiful, or they're super slow at reading, or they hate to read. If you're seeing a pattern of things and reversals are a piece of that, then you're right to be concerned. But reversals by themselves, it's hard for us to accept that because of that myth is so persistent that dyslexia is saying letters backwards.
Debunking Dyslexia Myths
00:29:24
Speaker
Where did that come from? Do you know?
00:29:26
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know. But no, that's not it. You know what, whoever, like wherever that myth came from, the publicist of that myth needs to be the publicist of the science of reading so we could actually get change happening.
00:29:43
Speaker
People don't always understand where reversals come from, right? Because when you're a baby, you see your mama's face and it doesn't matter which way she turns her head. It's still mama's face, right? Like shear, you pick it up and spin it around. It's still a chair.
00:29:58
Speaker
But all of us, we have this lowercase B and if you turn it, it's got a brand new name. And the brains have never done that before. So it takes time to get used to that, to get over that. I think they call it mirror invariance, right? So it's really normal even to write complete sentences backwards for young children.
00:30:22
Speaker
Yeah. When would you say, um, that you want to see kids stop writing complete sentences backwards? First grade. Yeah. That's what I usually say too. Yeah. It's so hard. People want like a hard and fast rule of timing. And it's so different, especially kindergarten and first grade kids, those six months, like maybe someone's five, someone's five and a half. That's basically like two years apart, you know, there's so much happening in those, those.
00:30:50
Speaker
few months. So it's really hard to say specifically. Yeah, but I love I love I love your answer. That's just looking that might be one thing but look for a pattern and more than more than one of those things happening. Yeah, pattern like yelling scream. If you see that pattern, do not wait for your school to come to you because they're not going to.
00:31:14
Speaker
Okay, actually, can you talk about that more because, okay, I actually saw something on the internet the other day that was like, I am a teacher and I wasn't allowed to tell parents that I thought their child was dyslexic or ADHD.
Diagnosing Dyslexia in Schools
00:31:29
Speaker
And on the one hand, I'm like, well, yeah, because you aren't a diagnostician. But on the other hand, like, but, you know, I think that teacher was lost possibly in the wording because when I would,
00:31:42
Speaker
was doing teacher training, I would say you aren't a diagnostician. If you aren't a dyslexia specialist or if you aren't a psychologist that can diagnosis, you actually don't know. You can just recognize patterns. So what you can do is say to the parent, I've noticed this happening a lot. This might be something that you want to keep an eye on. This is what I've noticed it. Is this what you're seeing? What are your thoughts on that?
00:32:09
Speaker
I think that perhaps where that teacher was coming from was a place that I've been in, where when I've been in big school districts, the special ed team would come to us and I would have my 27 first graders in California or 30. And they would say, you can refer one child this year. And the reason was there were not enough hours in their day.
00:32:34
Speaker
to complete all the assessments. And they were trying to triage and say, who are the absolute most severely affected children that we can assess and get help? So I have been not told that I can't say it, but I've been told I can't refer. So it could be from there.
00:32:56
Speaker
I think you really do want to be careful about telling a parent, you certainly are not going to tell a parent your child is dyslexic. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, I see some signs here that sometimes indicate dyslexia. I don't think anything along the path.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah. Wait, say that again. That's such a good line. I see some signs that might indicate dyslexia because you've got some and might. Yeah. Some and that is a disclaimer, you know, because you don't know.
00:33:29
Speaker
Yeah. And while teachers are amazing and like superheroes, we aren't in a general teaching degree. You aren't a diagnostician. No, no. Right. And then I also know when the teacher said that she wasn't allowed to say dyslexia. Okay. This is embarrassing. Okay. Okay. I taught in public school for 25 years in Los Angeles and
00:33:55
Speaker
They told me, the special ed team, who I'm dear friends with now, and I'm like, dyslexia didn't exist. It's an old fashioned word. Now we know it's auditory processing or visual processing. They did not believe in dyslexia. What? 2011 is when I left there, okay?
00:34:19
Speaker
So in some ways they were just putting a different label on it, but when there was no assessing phonological awareness skills, it wasn't a thing. So in a way, kids would get identified with something, some specific learning disability, and they might be taught a really good phonics program and learn to read, but they would, and then they would, if they didn't say it didn't exist, they would say it's a medical diagnosis, so schools can't diagnose dyslexia.
00:34:47
Speaker
Which is not true. No doctor will diagnose, no MD will diagnose dyslexia. It's not a medical diagnosis. So that's why the say dyslexia campaign was so important. Yeah. Wow. That actually, that is crazy. That actually brings up another question. How do you go about getting an actual diagnosis?
Requesting School Assessments for Dyslexia
00:35:11
Speaker
So there's a few really important things to know. If your child is in public school or homeschooled, they fall under the federal IDEA law. And that law says that schools are obligated to find children who need extra help. That law's interpretations of the law
00:35:37
Speaker
by the education department say, you cannot require that a child completes intervention first. You cannot require that a child be a certain age first. So when a school district says, oh, it's our policy, we don't assess children till third grade, that's not legal. The school may not even know that because they've been saying it so long. It's just like an administrator story, you know? Wow.
00:36:03
Speaker
So really, like, they don't think they're lying to you, probably. They just don't know. So keep that in mind first is that when they say, we can't do that, they probably can. If you want to get your child diagnosed, you want to write kind of a compelling email and say, this is why I'm concerned about my child. His dad is dyslexic.
00:36:32
Speaker
his brother is dyslexic. He didn't learn to talk until he was two. Pull up all those report cards and say, oh, Ms. so-and-so said in first grade that he was achieving below his expected potential. And even though we read to him every day and he has this incredible oral vocabulary, his grades are here. So you want to,
00:37:05
Speaker
they legally, all you should have to do is say, I request that my child be assessed for special education services, but that's not the world we live in. And so you want to just explain, and it doesn't have to be super formal, just explain why you think your child needs to be assessed. And it's really helpful if you can put their own words back, right? If you have an email from the teacher saying, you really need to work with your child more because they're not doing okay.
00:37:24
Speaker
build a case.
00:37:34
Speaker
But then you send it to, usually you want to send it to a couple of people like the teacher and the principal or the teacher and the head of special ed. You want, I like to do it in email because then there's a record. I always like to give the record. And you want to say, I look forward to your response within, and it depends on the state, but usually it's like 15 business days.
00:37:59
Speaker
because that kind of lets them know that, oh, she knows there's a timeline, right? Yes, Cher. And then you got to follow up, right? After those 15 days, you're like, I requested this and now I am waiting to sign the assessment plan because a school, if they're going to deny your request, they have to put it in writing and tell you why. They can't just ignore you.
00:38:28
Speaker
Now, will they ignore you? Maybe you might have to get an advocate or just go in there over and over and over again, but technically it should be enough to have a child who needs an assessment and ask for one.
00:38:43
Speaker
Yeah, you don't really think that you would have to be like for someone that's listening to this. I mean, parents who have had to do this will be like nodding their head. I'm trying to understand this, but you don't really think that you would have to fight so hard to get your child what they need, but unfortunately you do.
00:38:59
Speaker
It's really sad. And I don't, I'm, um, I'm also an advocate, but I don't work as an advocate because those meetings made me sick when I was a teacher. And I was like, why do I want to go back and do that again? I know frustrating, but you know what? Once you're that mama.
00:39:17
Speaker
You're like, what do I have to do to make this work for my child? Yes. And you like the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So I was talking to two parents today, actually, who are like, we're leaving our school because after years and years, like they're just not giving us what we need. And unfortunately now we have to go to a different school. Like they like, yeah, it's really hard. It's really hard. And it's really not fair.
00:39:41
Speaker
Yeah. What do you think about, gosh, what was I just going to ask you? Oh, I would say, what do you think about teachers that aren't really interested in switching over to science of reading curriculum?
Implementing New Reading Strategies
00:40:00
Speaker
Like what advice, do you have any advice that like people, I get a lot of teachers being like, I want to, but none of the other teachers at my school do, or like what,
00:40:08
Speaker
You know, at some point your results are going to speak louder than your words. So you have the opportunity to start implementing whatever practices you can.
00:40:18
Speaker
And you can say without saying, I was right, you were wrong. But if you say, hey, I'm really having a lot of success with X, Y and Z, because most teachers do genuinely want the best for their students. So I think that showing them the results that you get is the most powerful thing you can do.
00:40:40
Speaker
how much you can change what you do varies on a lot of things. Do you have tenure? Right? Yeah. Can you close your door and do some things? So there's a lot, there are a lot of variables there because you have to keep yourself safe first, but getting good results, I think is the best, the best advertisements and
00:41:05
Speaker
Also, I think that if you cannot just close your door and do different things, I think that rather than trying to preach this whole new religion, it's helpful sometimes to talk about this one little strategy, right? Like, oh, I started teaching sight words this other way and it seems like it's really working well for my kids, right? If you can get enough to buy into a few really effective strategies,
00:41:34
Speaker
maybe then they'll begin to be more open to the whole, like, guess what I tricked you. I know, I was just gonna say, there we go, being tricked, trickery, women with trickery again. I hate it, I hate it.
00:41:48
Speaker
But I don't know. Yeah. Like with like with kids like, oh, I just learned about this. Do you want to try it? Like you got it. I always say to do that. Like, I just learned like, say it like that. Like, I just learned this. I, I'm going to try it. Do you want to try it with me? No, I know. I mean, I really hate that. That's the way I think now. Right. About like going with my, with my colleagues, but.
00:42:13
Speaker
I don't know. It's two different battles, right? And the battle that we're working on in this case is the battle for kids' entire financial futures, you know?
00:42:25
Speaker
You know, okay, so then there's one other thing I want to talk about. So we know dyslexia is not something you outgrow.
Dyslexia and Intelligence Myths
00:42:32
Speaker
It's a lifelong condition, but we can give strategies. We know dyslexia doesn't only affect reading. There's a lot of other parts of the life that it affects. And we know it's not about just reversing
00:42:43
Speaker
letters and in fact it's it's not even that rare but there's some one other myth that I think people have about dyslexia and that is one that it's a sign of laziness or even not being as intelligent. That's heartbreaking yeah that's absolutely not true and I think that's one reason some people are resistant to having their child assessed is they feel like this is going to mean my child's not smart
00:43:10
Speaker
That is absolutely not true. Dyslexia can occur in someone of any intelligence, but it absolutely does not mean your child isn't smart.
00:43:22
Speaker
I think I can say this without giving it away, but the child I was talking about that I'm working on morphology with is quite dyslexic. She's also got the highest IQ I've ever seen. Like literally in the testing, it's like, oh my goodness. Her parents took her to NASA when she was little and she started writing equations on the board. Scientists were like, oh my goodness, you need to grow up and come work here.
00:43:51
Speaker
you can be brilliant and be dyslexic, or you can be average and be dyslexic, but it 100% does not mean your child is not smart. And parents need to get over that attitude because their kids will pick up on it. And we know that anxiety and depression are comorbid conditions with dyslexia
00:44:17
Speaker
even kids who aren't dyslexic but are just struggling to read. I can't remember the statistic, but when they studied how many struggling readers in first grade have anxiety, it was very significant. So it's really important for the adults in these children's lives to not only understand that it's not about intelligence, but to go out of their way.
00:44:43
Speaker
to reinforce for their child how smart they are, how good they are at solving problems. What an amazing vocabulary they have. Like you have to really go the extra mile to remind your child of how amazing they are if they're dyslexic because they're fighting an uphill battle. And we want to believe that kids don't know like, oh, you're in the red group and you're in the blue group.
00:45:11
Speaker
Gosh. Kids know who can read in the class and who can't. They know. Oh, yeah. And so we have to protect them. We have to protect their self-esteem. It's very fragile. So yeah, no, your brilliant child can absolutely be dyslexic, and they will still grow up to do anything within their potential if you make sure that they get the intervention that they need.
00:45:41
Speaker
Yes. Oh my gosh. So people that might be listening with little kids, sometimes reading levels get broken down. And so kids that are like around this level, which is just kind of BS because like you can't really group kids like that. I prefer personally to group kids, not like by their reading level, but like by developmental spelling levels so that we would do
00:46:05
Speaker
Yeah. Word study breakdown. And so I would analyze their writing samples.
Focusing on Reading Skills
00:46:09
Speaker
In fact, sometimes I will like still do that with like kids from all over the world. Just be like, what are some first graders in America and some in Turkey? You know, just I kind of.
00:46:20
Speaker
geeking out but what are your thoughts on reading levels and group breakdown like that yeah i think that when i have to group class it's been a while but when i have to group a class i really think about flexible grouping according to whatever skill we're working on
00:46:36
Speaker
And you're right that you can very often see that in the spelling. So I'm going to look and see in my first grade or my kindergarten, okay, let's look at their writing. Let's look at their reading. Who needs to work on short O? And I'm going to group those kids for some lessons on short O and then probably have completely different groups the next week.
00:46:59
Speaker
I think the thing you want to ask your teacher and I got to say I've got I've had some teachers get really unhappy with this because a lot of them. don't have the materials to teach this way, but you don't want to know your child is at a level L you want to know what skills, your child has.
00:47:19
Speaker
So with your kindergartener, you want to know, does my child know all of the letter sounds? Does my child know how to read words with consonant and vowel consonant? Does my child know how to read words with diagraph? Does my child know how to read words with magic E, right? You really want to know what skills your child is working on in reading. You also want to know what they can comprehend and things like that.
00:47:46
Speaker
But no, I think that we were talking about not wanting to draw attention to like, oh, here's the bluebird group over here. The soaring eagles and the tiny crawlers. The worms. The slow snails. Yeah. But if you're doing lessons that focus on comprehension,
00:48:15
Speaker
then they can all be together, right? So those alphabet levels are just trash. And what I want people to know instead is what skills are their child, is their child working on right now? I love it. I want to say that if your child, if you've gone the road of asking for your child to be assessed for a learning disability, you want to make sure
00:48:42
Speaker
They include a phonemic awareness test because often you'll end up at that IEP meeting and there will be nothing there that tested phonemic awareness. And the most common test for that is called the C top. So that's the test that the ed psych needs to do.
00:49:01
Speaker
Okay. You want to make sure that your child gets an adequate assessment. If they're getting assessed for special ed services. Amazing. There was one other thing before I asked you our last question.
Rapid Naming Issues and Dyslexia
00:49:12
Speaker
There's one other thing that I forgot to name. Well, I think we kind of did talk about forgetting names, but rapid automaticity is, I feel like such a good little.
00:49:23
Speaker
not assessment, but informal assessment that parents or teachers could do. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, you know how there's always those kids in your kindergarten who you know, they know the colors, you know, they know the colors. But if you sit down with objects and say, what color is this and a normal typically developing child will go red, blue, green. But some kids will need a few seconds before they say,
00:49:53
Speaker
red. And that has to do with how quickly they're able to retrieve the information. So rapid automatic naming, R-A-N, can be a problem for some kids with dyslexia. And if a child has both the phonemic awareness issue and the rapid naming issue, we call that double deficit dyslexia, which makes it a little bit harder to remediate.
00:50:20
Speaker
But yes, I agree that if you see a child and they have difficulty with that kind of retrieval, it's really, it's a good issue to pay attention to. Absolutely. Yeah.
Literature Immersion and Evidence-based Instruction
00:50:36
Speaker
Um, so my last question I like to ask, this is a newer question I'm asking on the podcast is if you could leave behind one legacy, like one thing you want to change in the education system, what would it be? And I have to say, I didn't give you this question ahead. So. Oh my gosh. Just one. Okay. You can pick two. Okay. Two. Okay.
00:51:00
Speaker
I want every child to continue to be immersed in good literature. One thing that is breaking my heart in primary grades is teachers who are being forced to use whatever curriculum and say they don't have time to read to their kids. A lot of them, I don't know if you're seeing it where you are, but there's a lot of teachers here who are like,
00:51:26
Speaker
Oh yeah, we'll read a book. And then after every sentence, we'll stop and talk about comprehension. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, you tell the child, bring me your favorite book and we're just going to read it. And we're not even going to talk about it at all. If the bell rings, we're going to get awesome. Right.
00:51:42
Speaker
Oh, yes. Like morning circle before recess, after recess, before lunch, after lunch. Right. That makes me think of my third grade teacher. She always read to us, Mrs. Pickle Wiggle. Oh, it's so good. And I like, I remember that was my favorite year in school and I don't remember anything about comprehension. And I also like wasn't a great reader, but I remember like we would, if we got our stuff packed up quick enough, she would say, okay, we can read two pages and we always did. It was the best.
00:52:13
Speaker
And I know a lot of researchers are even saying now, it's like, you don't have time for that wasted minutes. And I'm like, no, I'm not kidding. Like that's not the best use of your instructional time. And I'm thinking, but we're forming a community here. So like back off. Yeah. Like read to your kids, read to your kids, read to your kids. And then the second would have to be just that we get
00:52:37
Speaker
the best possible instruction and reading based on the science that we have at the time into every single classroom. There would still be some children that need extra help, but it would be such a smaller gap because dyslexic kids, if they're taught well, might not ever need extra help. So yeah, I just want kids to get great reading instruction. That would be,
00:53:04
Speaker
amazing yeah that's kind of the what you the first part that you said about don't forget to keep reading aloud to kids i feel like parents and teachers think like oh now we switch to them reading to me it's like no don't ever stop reading because of the attachments that you're forming because of the community you're building in your classroom but also like there is no
00:53:26
Speaker
substitute for the vocabulary you're building on like for those second graders that are reading that are being read to they can't their vocabulary isn't going to be growing in their decodable text as much and and just keep reading those books to them because it's it's not like okay now you read to me and I always say that anytime people are like
00:53:48
Speaker
Oh, well, either kids need to enjoy it or we need to do direct instruction. It's like, no, find time to read aloud and do direct instruction. All of this is important.
00:53:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And you are on your way. We are doing it. I feel like we're seeing change happening in the reading. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much for being here. And any last parting wisdom you need to give to the world?
Advocating for Children's Educational Needs
00:54:19
Speaker
Just fight for your kids. Like if you think your kid needs more,
00:54:25
Speaker
Like I said, your school's not gonna come to you. Fight for your kids, fight for your kids, fight for your kids. Yes, I love it. Oh my gosh, you're amazing. Oh, so are you. This is so fun. I know.