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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?

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Perseverance: Another Letter to My Dyslexic Daughter

Letters can be very personal and are often treasured by the receiver, so I’ve penned another letter to my daughter.

My dearest K,

You have hated every minute in school and never thought you would have made it this far. But, here you are at the end of the eighth grade. Congratulations, my child!

Struggles

My heart ached every time I saw how difficult it was for you to read out loud. We would practice your scripts and Bible verses for church, until you had them memorized. But those times when you were called on suddenly, because the church leaders perceived you to be such a brilliant young lady, I was embarrassed for you, as you labored to get through the readings.

Then there was the dreaded school. Every day. I made you go even when you complained of feeling sick, because I thought you were trying to escape. Unlike your third grade teacher, you middle school teachers did not understand the challenges of dyslexia, neither did they seem to want to.

I cringe every time I think of the public humiliation you endured, dying a thousand deaths every day. My heart aches when you recall how a teacher would unmercifully keep embarrassing you for reading aloud haltingly. Or making derogatory statements when you didn’t quite process and understand her question, preferring to think you hadn’t prepared at home, when you had spent many hours doing so, and fell into bed exhausted, every night.

No wonder you preferred hanging out with the boys. Unlike the girls who sat around talking about the books they were reading, they ran and jumped and played games you could identify with and feel accomplished.

Spelling continued to haunt you. Now, even more than before considering the difficulty of the assigned textbook.

Do you recall your difficulty reading social cues and showing appropriate behavior for different places? There was that time when you were playing with classmates instead of lining up and you were punished by having the class treasurer job – the one thing you exceled at and cherished, taken away. That was very poor judgment and downright mean of the teacher.

I can only imagine the way your experiences eroded your trust in adults who glossed over the tasks you accomplished, but humiliated you for the ones you did not do because you did not know how.

Successes  

On the other hand, do you remember how you learned to find your orientation point so you stopped your mind’s eye from roaming and getting you disoriented? And the clock technique that helped you go to sleep at night and wake up in the mornings?

Then, I got you that music listening therapy program to tune up your ears and your brain and you learned that your brain is musical. As your listening improved, so did your singing voice.

When we started to travel to other countries, your eyes were opened and your mind exploded when you realized that there was more to life than the struggle at school, and more ways of expressing yourself and viewing intelligence. You were permanently changed.

Traveling gave you an opportunity to see what you learned in books come to life. You observed firsthand, different cultures, food, governments and ways of life. Theory was now real.

Added to that, our extended family dynamics allowed you to ask any question and get an answer, without making you feel stupid.  

You have worked so hard and so diligently.

I continue to be very proud of you.

In spite of the challenges you encountered because of dyslexia, you courageously plowed ahead and conquered them.

You are getting better, every day.

Today, you graduate with high honors.

You deserve every moment of your celebration!

Now, on to High School. I’m in your corner and you will succeed!

Love,

Mom

What positive experiences can you reinforce in your child to counter the struggles they experience, every day?

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3 Weaknesses of Dyslexics and How to Compensate for Them

Have you ever experienced frustrating moments while helping your dyslexic child with homework and wished there was a quick fix?

When my daughter was in kindergarten, her teacher would send home vocabulary and spelling words to learn. We would spend hours going through those cards until she appeared to know the words. To my horror, when she brought home the results of her end-of-week quizzes, most of those words were incorrectly spelled on her paper.

As the school year progressed, my exasperation mounted. KC would verbally spell the words correctly to me at home but write them inaccurately at school. Looking back, with the knowledge I have today, I should have asked her teacher to give her oral spelling tests.

Here are 3 weaknesses I identified in my daughter, and what I did about them.

  1. Reading – She confused words that were visually similar e.g. saw and was, most likely because she had difficulty telling left from right, and in the English language reading always goes from left to right.
    • First, we talked about the meaning of the words then used pictures to activate the visual word form area in her brain.
    • So, we looked at the picture of a saw and talk about it.
    • Since there is no picture for was, she would use modeling clay to spell the word, then create a clay sculpture to represent the definition. That way, she produced her own image, which I directed her to take a picture of with her mind’s eye.
  2. Spelling – She seemed to memorize words based on their shapes. KC was unable to hear individual alphabet sounds, then match them to the letters and combinations of letters in words.
    • I found or generated creative ways of spelling words that incorporated the meaning of the word. Jennifer’s video here helped me, as she demonstrated this visual conceptual method.
    • For multi-syllabic words, I told little stories, for example, I told her that separate has a rat in it. She never spelled it wrong after that.
    • When I discovered music listening therapy, I enrolled her, to wake up the auditory pathways in her brain.
  3. Time-keeping – KC seemed to frequently get stuck in the moment, generating one idea after another and a series of What-ifs? Needless to say, time ran away leaving her way behind in her chores or whatever activities she was supposed to engage in during a particular period of time.
    • After talking about the importance of timeliness, we sat down and agreed on a solution to her tendency.
    • We placed a check-off list for chores on the refrigerator with completion times included.
    • I taught her a 3-step strategy:
      • Write her desired goal on paper. (Meaning and intention were the objectives here, not spelling)
      • Generate an action plan
      • Make a schedule that included all the steps of her plan, and follow it.
    • She still creates and uses schedules, today.

Thinking back to the quick fix I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I’ll tell you this – quick fixes serve a purpose, but they don’t bring lasting solutions. Addressing the problem head-on and brainstorming with your child, will bring workable results.

What has been your most frustrating moments while helping your dyslexic child with homework?

Or, what stories have your friends told you about their children’s academic challenges in elementary school?

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5 Strengths of Dyslexics and How You Can Effectively Use Them

In my letter to my second-grade dyslexic daughter, I highlighted ways she excelled, in an effort to offset her teacher’s list of her weaknesses. She is not the only one with gifts that, if built on, can propel the dyslexic to success in life.  

Did you know that 35% of entrepreneurs, 25% of CEOs, and over 50% of NASA employees are dyslexic? This is not by accident.

Here is a shortlist of 5 advantages someone identified with dyslexia has over the person who is not. These strengths combine to make them extraordinary in their chosen field of work.

  1. Strategic Thinking
    • They think outside the box and can look past the details to the big picture.
    • They are innovative and original in their thinking.
    • They offer unorthodox, fresh ideas that result in solving problems.
  2. Analytic and Intuitive
    • They are able to understand the deep meanings of stories that are read or told to them.
    • They are able to read between the lines.
    • They are able to take apart complex ideas or concepts and simplify them, thus strengthening their problem-solving ability.
  3. Creativity
    • Their keen sense of curiosity and strong interest in life feed their very active imagination.
    • They use their imagination to create an extraordinary view of the world, which often results in them →
    • Birthing lucrative ideas.
  4. Exceptional Spatial Processing and Knowledge
    • Their outstanding picture-thinking ability allows them to move around and fit things perfectly into spaces.
    • They are able to process 3D objects in their mind, making them good in areas like graphic design, architecture, and photography.
    • They have excellent visual memory for details in print and the environment.
  5. Increased Level of Empathy
    • Their ability to perceive the feelings of others, coupled with a genuine desire to alleviate pain and suffering gives them a deep level of understanding of another person’s plight.
    • Perhaps this heightened degree of empathy is an outgrowth of their experience as one who thinks and learns differently.

Children with dyslexia tend to be consumed with what they cannot do and totally miss the areas in which they outshine their reading peers. If you have or know a parent with a dyslexic child, make it your duty to build their self-esteem by consistently emphasizing the areas where they excel. Show them that you believe in them.

In your association with dyslexic children and adults, what exceptional skills have you noticed?

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Perspective: Teacher vs Dyslexic Student

Do you know anyone who is the parent of a dyslexic child? If you do, you’ve probably heard about the tears and heartache they have to deal with at home. Every. Day.

Little Suzie comes home, dejected, discouraged, and disheartened, with yet another heart-break story. At the end of which the tears flow, with outbursts of, “I don’t want to go back to school,’ punctuating the sobs.

Unless you have witnessed a scene like this, you won’t understand the palpable fear and abject horror that engulfs some of the most brilliant children, because their teacher didn’t see things the way they did, and ridiculed their answers in class.

As I write this, a TikTok video comes to mind. Perhaps you saw it too. And maybe, it was created for humor, but it immediately brought the plight of our dyslexic children to the top of my mind.

A father was working through a mathematics problem with his daughter. He starts by saying, “I’m explaining to you. Why are you not understanding?”

Then he proceeds to state the math problem, “I have 5 apples. I take away 2. How many apples do I have left?”

The little girl repeats while counting on her fingers, “So you have 5 apples. You take away 2. So you have 2 apples.”

Raising his voice, he repeats, with his hands in the air and fingers spread out, “I take away 2. Five… I take away 2 (curling down the thumb and index fingers). Count my fingers.”

Crying, the girl says, “I don’t know, then. You say you took 2 apples, so you have 2 apples, Papa.”

In exasperation, the father raises his arm and exclaims, “Where are you finding these numbers? Five…I take 2. What’s left?” Then rubs his forehead.

He proceeds to count out 5 apples (3 red and 2 green) while placing them on the table. One, two, three, four, five apples. Grabbing one green apple with each hand, he says, “I take 2 apples. How many do I have?”

“You took 2, so you have 2 apples, Papa.” The tears are flowing now.

Thus the scene ends with the father frustrated and upset, and the child crushed and crying.

Although this may seem humorous to some, it is a lived experience for many dyslexic children. Non-dyslexic parents, ignorantly, explain concepts to their children over and overusing the same words and illustrations, not understanding that the abstract language they are using is causing confusion and disorientation in the child’s mind. The more confused and disoriented the child becomes, the less likely she is to process and comprehend what you’re trying to teach her.

When teachers are unaware of possible differences in perspective from that of their students, and hammer away to get their point through, they may instead birth a hatred for school.

After all is said and done, the main goal of teaching must be to instill a love of learning, rather than to require that concepts be grasped in exactly the same way as the teacher.

Has your child suffered, similarly, in school?

Did you have any unpleasant learning experiences as a child?

To view the TikTok video, click here: https://bit.ly/33yGEtN

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Dyslexic: The One in Five

When a baby is about two months old, visual coordination begins to take place and her eyes are able to follow an object or person as they move, but they do not work together very well. By the time she turns three months, however, your baby’s eyes synchronize well enough to focus and track objects.  

Around this same time, not only will your baby smile when you appear in her line of vision, but she will also begin to make cooing then gurgling and babbling noises that graduate to imitating the sounds she hears when you speak.

Although every child develops at his or her own pace, most children will be saying about 10 words by the time they are 18 months old.

How did this marvelous thing happen? By imitation.

Children are keen listeners. Like sponges, they suck up the sounds around them, and without structured teaching, by 24 months, most of them understand simple commands and questions, as well as speak good enough to be understood.

Listening and speaking are innate.

Reading and writing are not.

Although reading is “speak on paper”, to become good readers, children must figure out that the sounds in the words they say are represented by different letters and combinations of letters.

According to Nancy Young’s Ladder of Reading, only 5 percent of children learn to read seemingly effortlessly. The others require varying levels of a structured literacy approach.

At the extreme end of this continuum are the “one in five”…the children with dyslexia.

Did you know that the most common learning disability is displayed by dyslexic children?

Most people consider dyslexia to be a learning disability. However, from my experience with my daughter and other dyslexic children, I’d say it is not.

I like how Ben Foss, a prominent dyslexic entrepreneur, and activist, describes it. An identity. A genetic, brain-based characteristic that results in difficulties in some areas, like reading, writing, and spelling, and strengths in other areas, such as visual, spatial, or kinesthetic skills.

Have you ever considered that whenever you are in a crowd, there’s at least one dyslexic person present?

Do you know anyone who is dyslexic?

What are their unique strengths?

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3 Proven Easy Secrets To Achieving Goals

Some time ago, I heard a quote by Katherine Paterson. She said, “A dream without a plan is just a wish.” Later in life, as I studied the art of goal-setting, I learned that writing down my goals, creating a plan by breaking it down into steps, and taking action to follow each step is key to accomplishing that goal.

That sounded simple enough. But at times, I found I didn’t know enough to develop the steps, so I got stuck in a spiral of incomplete plans, thus unachieved goals.

My inquiring mind sought answers, so I began to ask questions and pay keen attention to answers to the same question from various people.

This practice began my journey to the three secrets I outline in the video below.

Children who are characterized as dyslexic thrive when they can see meaning in the concepts and things they need to learn.

How can you use my three steps to help your dyslexic child achieve his desired outcome?

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Everyone’s A Genius – Even Dyslexics?

Albert Einstein is credited with the statement, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Do you have a child who does not seem able to carry out simple directions you give her yet appears brilliant in many ways? This may be perplexing, but there is a reason.

One day, I was brainstorming ways of solving a problem and didn’t realize that I was thinking out loud. All of a sudden, I heard a suggestion that would resolve the matter. Simple yet logical. I whipped around to find my 8-year-old daughter nearby.

“Wow! How did you know that?” Without skipping a beat, she replied, “God told me.” That response became the norm whenever she provided answers to my audible questions. Her little mind could not explain how she so easily perceived solutions that were taking her mom so long to figure out.

Not long after that occasion, I directed her to carry out a task. When I went to check, she had done something totally different from what I intended.

This was not the first time she had not followed my directions. And it did not seem intentional.

I became more and more perplexed by the frequency with which this occurred. Thus, began a search that led me to studies and discussions that described what my daughter may have been experiencing.

Dyslexia Australia explains the phenomenon quite simply in the video below.

I did my best not to be a screaming and condemning mom, but as I reflected on frequent occurrences of her misinterpreting my instructions, I realized that my tone of voice may have caused my child to think she was stupid.

In our conversations today, we often reminisce about her school years. Although she is now a successful young adult, she still carries many painful memories of statements made by teachers who did not understand that her brain worked differently from her classmates.

It pains me to think that there are hundreds of thousands of children who are misjudged, maligned, and even mistreated because they think and learn differently from the majority of their classmates.

That’s why my passion is to help parents of dyslexic children decrease the frustration, cut the overwhelm, and move their children from struggle to success…in school and life.

If you know a dyslexic child who’s challenged by being taught in an educational system that does not acknowledge her different way of learning, share some of the difficulties she is experiencing.

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The Case for Learning Through Handwriting

Child at school

Over the past 20+ years of providing speech-language therapy to students, I have noticed that the vast majority have very poor handwriting. Most of the children whom I service also have reading problems. Could there be a connection?

In a study carried out at Indiana University, the data showed that the process of writing letters activates portions of the brain in children, that are critical to reading.

Here is one father’s creative way of teaching his 2-year old daughter how to write the alphabet.

In spite of the research findings, schools seem to be moving away from teaching traditional handwriting to using technology. Forty-three states have now adopted curriculum guidelines that teach students how to type. Knowledge is now dispensed through textbooks accessed via iPads and other electronic tablets.