Comments
clincal trials
Lisa Mitchell
10/22/2012 12:39:19 PM
Hello I am a frustrated mom on a limited budget. My 7th grade son needs some attention to improve his comprehension skills. Do you know of an organization that would be a match for us. In addition to him not being motivated and a visual/kinesthetic learnerc which schools do not address. I would like to devote my time to allowing him to participate in some kind of weekend clinical trial in the Maryland, WDC, or VA areas. (free of any type of meds) Please share what you can. thanks.
Struggling
Andrea Dozier
10/16/2012 11:24:35 AM
Iam a parent of four children one daughter, and three son's. My two oldest children are in colledge, and is doing well. However my to youngest 16yr and 12yrs are falling behind. The 12yr old has finally caught on farely good now with his reading. Although the 16yr old which has Dyslexia concern me the most. He is in the 10th grade, which the school just keep passing him on. Though! he is severally struggling. I have exsaulted myself with bying phonics books, computers, flash cards, and ect. I feel the goverment should provide free funding to children with this promblem. I am a parent that can't afford to hire Sylvan or Kumon learning center to help me with him. Eventhough I feel that where goverment funding should come in at. They can give grant funding to contract that mis- use the grants, but not to save our children for the furture greater good.
Dyslexia(9)
Liz
10/18/2011 1:12:48 PM
I suspect my son may have dyslexia yet the school keep dismissing my concerns. He is getting extra reading services on an IEP in MA, but I do feel there is more than just a reading learning disability. For those of you who are working with children with dyslexia or have children with it, what are the steps to have this properly diagnosed so the instruction can be individualized towards those student needs? Any resource recommendations for the MA area?
Advances in teaching through neuroscience
Marilyn Cook
9/21/2011 9:29:37 AM
A big THANK YOU to the Dana Foundation for this excellent reseach. I understand how hard it is to combat the misunderstandings of struggling readers and those students who have dyslexia. This helps so much. Keep up the good work!
Teaching challenged readers
Barbara Pelletier
8/10/2011 8:22:21 PM
I have been a first grade teacher and hold a reading certificate. I have also tutored all ability levels to read for over 20 years. The most essential factor that I have seen for teaching a reader is to break down the sounds at a very basic level and gradually add letter sounds. The information contained in this article is critical to most early readers. Another very important skill, that cannot be urged strongly enough, is to develop a strong vocabulary . So many of my students with reading issues have very limited vocabularies compared to the typically strong readers I see. There are always exceptions, but early language experiences between a child and his/her parent or caregiver are absolutely essential for good reading.
spelling/writing
wanda smith
8/7/2011 2:08:35 PM
Learning to spell has always been very difficult for me, and I have a grandson with the same disability. I need to help him because he is not learning in school, but I'm not really strong with reading and spelling, not enough to help him.
Literacy Instruction
V. E. Neal
7/29/2011 4:41:41 PM
I have taught first, second and third grade to students from low socio-economic areas. I spent the 2010/2011 school year in southern Colorado in a severely depressed school district in Fremont County. Many of my students were in the RTI process and had Individual Literacy Plans; unfortunately,as hard as the intervention and classroom teachers used the incomplete reading programs and ineffectual intervention programs available-many of the lowest students were unable to achieve growth. Teachers are held accountable for student growth to the degree that their pay and position are effected according new CO legislation. Budget constraints prevent the purchase of reading and math programs that are shown to promote student growth. The scientific research imlementing the visualization piece is exciting for responsive educators.
Dyslexic-Auto Processing
Nola Marie Vincent
7/14/2011 8:55:18 AM
I am the parent of a son with an auto-processing problem, which I have found through my reading is a dyslexic problem. His case was severe and he was not able to understand reading without training to know how to process the word. His brain had a broke automatic processor or it was missing altogether. So there was nothing to tell him to sound out the first letter first, the second letter second and so on. He had to have a lot of manual training to be able to understand this part of reading. Without this training he would not have learned to read.
The early school years were extremely stressful for him! He looked like all of the other kids because learning disabilities are not visible so the teachers were very slow to understand that he had a learning problem and was not slothful and lazy as they thought. He does not have a mental handicap so he was well aware that everyone in his classes except him were learning and understanding. He got so stressed about it that he would scream in his sleep at night. He felt so much pressure because his lack of ability to progress in reading and doing math like the other kids at school.
The Linda Bellmood Lips program was a life saver for him. He still struggles with anything that takes processing. He will be 23 this month. So far he has passed three of the five tests to get his GED but has not been able to pass the test for the writing portion of reading or the math test. He needs more training but our state of Utah doesn't seem to have areas with training centers and money for training is scarce. Life is a daily struggle for him but he does not give up, thank goodness for that! He really wants his high school diplomia like his peers but I think at his age a GED is sufficent for high school and then training for a career so he can maintain a job and be a contributing member of society on a daily basis.
These students always want what the same things others can accomplish they don't want to be different. He needs to feel the success of being able to have a career he can do and enjoy now so more of life does not pass him by while he is trying to be like everyone else. I feel trade school are the answer for these students because university is too far of a stretch for them to successfully accomplish. All of you parents with learning disabled children stick with it and continue to search for ways for your children to succeed, it comes a day at a time.
Dyslexia(7)
Bonita Chavez
4/29/2011 5:32:44 PM
As a person with language processing problems I prefer to be talked about as a person with dyslexia not as a dyslexic.
Dyslexia(6)
Donesa Walker
4/18/2011 1:50:46 PM
As a Reading/Dyslexia Specialist and a parent, I am thrilled that the research is burgeoning in this field. I work in this field daily at LearningRx and I get to see the changes in many students who go through the brain re-training process. It is so amazing to watch the transformation in a dylexic student who has struggled for so long. I am thrilled that the research is finally catching up to what we in the field are seeing and experiencing on a daily basis. To parents and teachers who are out there struggling with this, it is an answer to prayer to be able to know there is hope and I can't wait until we can see this research and transformation potential applied in our schools.
Early Reading Instruction(2)
Deanie Allen
4/17/2011 6:48:51 PM
As a Reading and Dyslexia Specialist who has worked for many years in different schools and districts, I have witnessed the wonderful things that happened when struggling readers get appropriate and intense interventions in Kinder, First, and Second Grades. I have also witnessed the damage done to children who cannot meet the school's early reading standards and do not get the proper interventions. They may see the “reading teacher” and have a “RTI Plan” (Response to Intervention), but they consider themselves “dumb” because they still can’t read. Some of these students protect their self-esteem by refusing to be an active learner.
I’m thinking of certain students who were told they were “lazy” but the truth was they couldn’t read the worksheets because they were dyslexic. Amazing things happened when they were given dyslexia intervention. In a dyslexia program the very first lesson should be to explain how the brain of a dyslexic works. Dyslexics are so relieved to know that nothing is wrong; they just think differently. Unless the schools are willing to deliver successful intervention programs for every kinder, first and second grader, the children who cannot meet the standards will continue to view themselves as "dumb."
We can’t lower the standards, but we can ensure that every student has the opportunity to become a joyful and successful reader. As a Dyslexia Parent Support Group Leader, I assist parents in fighting for their child to get tested for Dyslexia and placed into appropriate intervention programs. Yes, I said FIGHT for services. And I’m in Texas, with one of the best sets of state laws for dyslexia. It’s really sad that I had to retire from teaching to be able to speak out for dyslexic students.
dyslexia(5)
mireille abou moussa
4/17/2011 6:47:52 PM
thank you for your basic information about the dyslexic youth now - my daughter has been through all this hard work, adapted with an orthophonist &p sychomotricienne, now she's15 years old, still having a hard work to with my help - I've done a lot of research about this subject; I face problems with teachers who are not well educated about this dyslexia, totally new world to them.. I'm facing a problem of the continuity for my child, what about the future? how is it gonna be like, what would she be able to study further in the next year.....thank you.
early reading instruction
Jan Shandera
4/15/2011 6:31:39 PM
I would like to know more about Martha Denckler's statement that teachers are doing enormous harm by teaching reading early. We used the Focus on /F/oneme program for years in our kindergarten, and thought it was highly successful. Many children learned to read quite well. Is she saying this is harmful?
How do fMRI Show Brains Changing in Adolescents & Technology
David Skeen
3/28/2011 2:30:53 PM
Great article: thank you for bringing it to a level of understanding for lay people. I am educator and wonder if there are any studies out there whoich show a change in the way adolescents process information from a source due to their high exposure to technology/Internet/Media.
I had heard a speaker once reference a study that demonstrated how Digital Immigrants brain worked in a linear, left-to-right mode when processing information either from a book or a website or textbook. The speaker attributed this to the fact we had grown up on textbooks with black and white font and very little variation in the delivery methods of the information.
She then went on to say that students today are processing their information from the top left corner and spreading to the bottom right corner to catch anything worth looking at. She attributed this to the fact that they had been using so many Internet formats, that it changed their wiring to try and process information in "webpage format."
I'm wondering if there are any studies which support this conjecture.
Thanks,
Dave