Category Archives: Reading

Posted on

Mixed Dominance and Dyslexia – Is there a link?

Most people have one side of their body that’s stronger than the other. For example, if you’re right-handed, you probably do everything with your right hand – brush your teeth, comb your hair, write, eat, etc. That also means that, most likely, you have stronger sight in your right eye, stronger hearing in your right ear, and put your right foot into your trousers first. Why is that so?

As a child develops and interacts with her world, her brain slowly works through a configuration called lateralization, where one side of the brain takes charge, i.e. becomes the dominant side, while the other side becomes the supporting region.

Mostly, the left side of the brain takes control. That’s why most people are right-handed, because one side of the brain controls the opposite side of the body.

Are you wondering how to determine your child’s dominance?

It’s easy.

  1. For eye dominance, give your child the inner tube from a roll of paper towel or toilet tissue and ask her to pretend it’s a telescope and look through it. Note the eye she puts it to…that’s her dominant eye.
  2. To check for foot dominance, have your child kick a ball and notice which foot she uses.
  3. To find out ear dominance, give your child a telephone and ask her to pretend to call a friend. Observe the ear she holds it up to. That’s her dominant ear.
  4. For most children, the dominant hand will be the hand they write with. But that isn’t always the case. Many children have been taught to write with their right hands because it’s the norm, without any thought of the child’s preferred hand. To confirm your child’s dominant hand, hand her an object with both of your hands. Take note of which hand she uses to accept it.

Those people who do not have that unilateral dominance are said to have mixed dominance, which is also known as cross dominance or crossed laterality. They prefer to do different activities with different sides of their body. For example, write with the right hand and eat with the left hand. This mixed dominance may cause the brain to be disorganized.

It has been said that people whose hand, eye, foot, or ear dominances are not consistently either right- or left-sided are at risk of experiencing academic difficulties.

This idea that there is a correlation between academic performance and mixed dominance has been gaining popularity, so in 2017, a group of researchers conducted a study to determine the impact of crossed laterality on academic achievement and intelligence. They did a systematic review and meta-analysis of the articles published on the topic, since 1900. They did not find strong evidence in favor of a relationship between crossed laterality and academic achievement.

Although these researchers found that mixed dominance does not cause learning disabilities, others have found that mixed dominance appears more often in children with dyslexia.

If your child is mixed dominant, there is no need to “fix” her dominance. Instead, focus on recognizing your child’s strengths, and engage her in brain lateralization exercises frequently, to ensure that her limbs cross the midline of her body.

Notwithstanding everything I’ve said here, remember that research has definitively shown that the brain can change.

If you don’t know your eye dominance, here is one way to find out:

  1. Extend your arm out in front of you and place your thumb over a distant object, for example, a light switch.
  2. Now close each eye, one at a time. Your thumb may seem to move depending on which eye is open. If your thumb remains over the object when one eye is open, this is your dominant eye.

Are you right or left eye dominant?

Posted on

The Vision and Learning Connection: Is It Dyslexia Or Is It Something Else?

Parents usually assume that their children are seeing normally. That’s not always the case.

According to the American Optometric Association, up to 80% of a child’s learning in school is through vision! This makes you child’s visual health extremely important.

Did you know that 1 in 10 children has a vision problem that’s significant enough to impact their learning? In the United States, that translates to over 5 million children.

Three vision skills necessary for optimal learning are:

  • Visual acuity
  • Convergence
  • Visuospatial attention

Visual Acuity

When you take your child to the pediatrician, he gets a typical vision screening. Have you ever wondered if those screenings are foolproof? The National Center for Biotechnology Information says that at least 50% of vision problems are missed by typical screenings.

In addition to that, being assured that your child has 20/20 vision only tells you he can see at a distance. It does not dismiss the possibility of visual focusing, coordinating or tracking problems – all related to learning.

Convergence

Both eyes must work together, effortlessly and without hurting. That’s convergence. When they don’t quite work together, most likely, the child will sees words on a page bounce around. The child may then tell you that the words are blurry or swimming.

Most children under seven years will assume that everyone sees like they do and say nothing.

When this eye-jumping happens in a classroom, the child may complain of feeling tired, headaches (across the forehead, above the eye brows), and/or aching eyes. Some children tilt over to one side to read, thus creating a way to read with only one eye. For these children, reading is linked with distress and comprehension of what is read is low.

Convergence problems can also cause writing problems, because of poor hand-eye coordination.

Visuospatial Attention

Skilled readers are able to focus on individual words within a cluttered page of text, and after a word has been identified, they must rapidly shift their gaze to fixate on the next word in the line. These changes in visuospatial attention must occur rapidly and accurately to enable fluent reading of a page of text.

When the eyes do not move smoothly along together, the child skips words and phrases, or entire lines while reading.

A 2007 study showed that dyslexics have visuospatial attention deficits that parallel their deficits in some linguistic measures, like verbal short-term memory.

Does your child

  • Complain of stomach aches at reading time?
  • Skip and reread lines?
  • Have poor reading comprehension?
  • Take longer to do homework?
  • Show a short attention span for close work?

It may be dyslexia, or it may be learning-related vision problems.

Be observant!

If you suspect your child is having vision problems, contact the College of Optometrists in Vision Development to locate a developmental optometrist in your area.

Have you ever had to take your child for vision testing because of learning difficulties?

Posted on

Determination: The Third Letter to My Dyslexic Daughter

A child’s high school experience can be pivotal. For a dyslexic, it’s an even greater achievement, considering that 35% of dyslexics drop out of high school.

My dearest K,

I can’t believe this time has come. You never thought you would achieve this much. But our God has been faithful! You are at the end of High School, and it’s your graduation day. Well done, my child!

Some Things Remain

Testing seemed to have been the first order of high school. Those pre- and post- IOWA tests seemed to be written in a different language and the New York State Regents examinations loomed ahead and you didn’t know what to expect. Now, the bulk of schoolwork had to be done at home, since school hours were spent in discussions and experiments.

You still struggled for hours, every night, to complete your homework assignments; and your late nights made it difficult to wake up early for school, the next day. But you pushed on. It was a blessing you had the Learning Ally audio textbooks to accompany your print books.

You still weren’t very motivated to go to school, but you went, without complaining.

Do you remember how, in addition to your school, you had to work through those brain exercises and the Learning Ears program? It seemed like intervention programs would never end, but I kept pushing and encouraging you.

A New Experience

High school was different from elementary and middle school. For you, it was a good change. Here students were expected to be responsible and you were no longer dependent on teachers.

The many intervention programs began to pay off. You’re reading better and not afraid to be called to read in class. You learned tips and tricks of blending with the crowd and appearing “normal,”

You were involved in more student interaction and collaborations and were accepted into the groups without question.

Teachers

Your teachers here were empowering and less punitive.

Your 9th grade homeroom teacher set the tone and spiritual foundation for your high school experience. She was kind, supportive, friendly, yet demonstrated excellent classroom control.

Your 12th grade homeroom teacher and Digital Media teacher (whom we found out later is also dyslexic) were great cheerleaders.

You history teacher taught you much about the philosophy of living, and kept you curious about life and the world.

I don’t know what you told him, since you determined not to let anyone in your school know you were dyslexic, but it was admirable of your Bible teacher to allow you to take his scripture memorization tests verbally, rather than written.

Your science teacher, Ms. A., took the crown. She was focused on your success. She was the reason you scored so high on the Biology Regents. She taught you how to explain yourself verbally and on a written test. She moved around the class and met you and your classmates on your level. The atmosphere she created in her classroom made it easy to ask any question, and not feel ridiculed. Along with that, she seemed to put extra effort into getting you to the point of clarity, then remembered to celebrate your successes and cheer you on to the next level. All in all, she made learning fun, and your high school experience enjoyable.

Your teachers didn’t seem bent on embarrassing you, but allowed you to take responsibility for your decisions and actions.

Friends

It was easier to relate to your classmates and you acquired female friends. Even when you misspelled or verbally mixed up words and phrases, your friends just laughed, corrected you and moved on. When you didn’t understand some concepts, they chuckled and explained it. It just wasn’t a big deal!

What relief I felt that you maintained a pleasant demeanor and displayed no more evidence of daily anxiety. The communal atmosphere certainly added to what I was doing to build your self-esteem. You took your inclusion in activities and the respect shown to you as evidence of your friends’ trust.

To top it off, your peers considered you to be smart.

Successes 

Your work ethic began to pay off – you are reading better.

More importantly, you now understand the implications of your different thinking style and have discovered how to teach yourself to learn, and developed a personal manifesto:

  • Passing or failing is a decision.
  • If you wanted to pass, you needed to prepare, and it was up to you to adequately prepare for upcoming examinations.
  • It was okay for your preparation to look different from your peers.
  • You should not rely on your teachers or even me.
  • You must be deliberate and intentional when asking questions.
  • You will remain after school and ask your teachers additional questions to further your understanding of the concepts taught that day.

Finally getting a grasp of how you learned helped you prepare for and pass you exams.

Your high school experiences helped you see that, although you may learn and see the world differently from others, the foundation for success is the same.

You made a conscious decision to pass and be a success in life.

Do you remember the knot-board you created for your club assignment? It was so creatively organized – so exceptional – the club director kept it as a sample to show future members.

Your decision to be intentional about your success permeated every area of your life.

You are admired by young people and adults alike.

Today, you graduate Valedictorian of your class. Yes! VALEDICTORIAN!!!

You deserve every moment of your celebration!

Look out College. Here she comes!

Love,

Mom

How has your child overcome personal challenges to achieve success in some area of life?

Posted on

From Drug Addiction to Academy Award-Winning Actress – A Dyslexia Success Story

Only a few people have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award (EGOT). Caryn Elaine Johnson is one of them.

She was born on November 13, 1955 in Chelsea, New York and grew up in a housing project with her brother and mother, who was a nurse and later became a Head Start teacher.

In school, she was called “slow,” “dumb,” “lazy,” or “retarded.” She wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until she was an adult, so when school kept getting harder and harder, she eventually dropped out at 17. With her self-esteem low, she traveled a turbulent road in life, which included poverty, drug addiction, single motherhood, welfare, and a series of wide ranging jobs.

In his interview for the Child Mind Institute, the founder, Dr. Harold Koplewicz, called her a woman of grit and resilience.

Today, we know her as Whoopi Goldberg, actress, comedian, radio host, television personality, author and UNICEF International Goodwill Ambassador. Listen to her recall some of her challenges and her mom’s support in her interview with Quinn Bradlee:

She counsels parents to be supportive of their dyslexic children –  “Stop trying to find a reason why it happened… It’s not your fault… Pay attention to how your child is doing stuff.”  

Then, listen to her speak at the Goodwin College 2018 Commencement where she counsels the graduates, after receiving an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

How can you build your child’s self-esteem at home to combat the negative labels in school?

Posted on

Dyslexia and the “Sound” of Learning

Knowledge…learning…education, fueled by literacy, are keys to success.

Traditionally, literacy is defined as the ability to read and write.

A more complete definition, however, encompasses listening, speaking, reading and writing and today, using electronic media.

The major goal of every educator and parent should be to instill in children a solid foundation of transferable skills and a life-long love of reading and learning. To stay relevant, our children must constantly update their knowledge base. Hence, the prioritizing of literacy.

Dr.Carol Flexer, professor of audiology at the University of Akron, explains the importance of literacy this way,

“Literacy is inextricably entwined with sound. Immature listening abilities and underdeveloped auditory feedback loops have a substantial impact on how children learn to read.”

Literacy is all about sound. All its components incorporate sound in some way. Children learn to speak from listening. They learn to read from speaking and to write from reading.

Although our ears are the conduits for sound, we hear with our brains. Human development studies tell us that the human auditory brain structure does not fully mature until around age 15.

When brains do not receive intact sound, it is usually due to any one or a combination of factors, which include a noisy environment, ear infection, lack of auditory experience or immature brain development. Dyslexics have trouble connecting the sounds that make up words with the letters that represent those sounds. For them, the problem is often immature brain development.

Brain development studies show that sensory stimulation can influence growth and organization of auditory brain pathways.

That is why a number of currently available programs are helping dyslexic children develop their language and literacy skills. They are able to stimulate the auditory centers of the brain with precise sound. Music listening therapy helped my daughter tremendously.

This is good news for the dyslexic community.

Does this mean that every dyslexic person who receives this type of stimulation will learn to read at the same level as his non-dyslexic peers?

No.

Just as there is a continuum in the severity of characteristics in dyslexics, there is variety in their response to various sound development programs.

As technology takes over more and more, the skills that dyslexics find challenging are on the decline, while the thinking skills needed in today’s workplace are an integral component of their strengths.

Does interpretation of sound still matter? Yes.

But let us keep things in perspective. The goal is to learn concepts and generate ideas that will serve humanity and improve society.

There’s eye-reading – print books; ear-reading – audiobooks; and finger reading – braille. Whichever method one uses to accomplish this goal, is what’s best for him.

Which method of reading do you and your children prefer?

Posted on

From Struggling Student to Business Magnate – A Dyslexia Success Story

Today we know him as one of the “Sharks” on the ABC hit television show, “Shark Tank.” Life wasn’t always so rosy for Daymond John, but an insightful mother made a huge difference.

Although he excelled in mathematics and science, he struggled with selling and anything requiring extensive reading and writing. When his parents took him to a professional for evaluation, they were told he had a behavioral issue. Fortunately, his mother did not believe that to be true.

He admitted that his father would often angrily yell at him to stop slacking. Getting tired of the struggle, Daymond signed up for the co-op program at his high school. This program allowed him to work full-time for one week in a business field and attend school full-time the next. He knew that he couldn’t rely on his report card, so he focused on showcasing his strengths in the co-op program.

Today, he’s on a mission to bring awareness to people that there’s nothing to be ashamed of if you are dyslexic. Listen to him and his mother discuss dyslexia as a strength.

He always thought he was a genius, and his drive and determination to channel his insights into entrepreneurial, marketing and branding success, have led him to become an in-demand motivational speaker, and the Ernst & Young’s New York Entrepreneur of the Year as well as Crain’s Business of New York Under Forty Award.

In this video as he continues chatting with his mom, he discusses the beginnings of his business venture.

If you take the time to chat with them, most dyslexics will tell you about their strengths, be it entrepreneurial, artsy, or athletic. They know where their strengths lie.

What entrepreneurial interests have you seen in your child?