With the explosion of legislation mandating early-school reading screening comes all sorts of questions about which screen-er does the best job. I think the PAR is it. About a year ago I interviewed Gavin Haque who is the representative from Red E Set Grow, the publisher of PAR. I want to share the recording of the [...]
A Very Large Challenge One of the most powerful examples of the challenges of effective teacher professional development can be seen in our efforts to implement screening and early intervention for struggling readers. Currently there are 35 US states that are either in the process of or have passed legislation mandating early identification and intervention for [...]
Just a few years ago I suggested that maybe we could find some online tutoring services for a child I had evaluated. The poor little guy lived in the middle of nowhere. The term “Orton Gillingham” could have been an obscure skin condition for all anybody around him knew. Nonetheless, judging by the response from others [...]
Discovering that your child has a learning problem can be very confusing, frustrating and often overwhelming. Many of us, even bright, highly functioning people really struggle with figuring out what to do. Oftentimes, our first reaction is to reach out to the school for help and support. For a myriad of reasons, we may find that [...]
This two hour webinar on WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17 AT 10AM CT is a follow up from our previous webinar entitled Dyslexia Screening in Schools: Supporting Our Teachers By Doing it Right! In the first webinar, you learned best practices for both evaluation and implementation of an effective dyslexia screening process in your schools. Now in this webinar we will provide a [...]
Soon after relocating my learning disabilities (mostly dyslexia) diagnostic practice to Annapolis, Maryland I encountered a bit of a mystery during my family interviews. Fortunately it turned out to be a lovely mystery. In the mid to late 1990’s I had a thriving practice evaluating and diagnosing a wide range of learning issues for kids [...]
As the holidays approach, I decided that I would like to offer some suggestions regarding how you, as a parent, can emotionally prepare for the new year and prepare your kids go back to school. I’ve recently been working with a lot of families whose children are in very difficult situations in their schools. Often times, [...]
A woman posted in a forum recently that, as a young graduate student, she wanted to learn more about how to better advocate and communicate with the parents of her students. Those of us who have been in that position truly understand what a delicate dance it is to empower parents when their children present [...]
In a Facebook posting about two weeks ago, Julya Johnson (nee Shane) asked me to comment on the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V) diagnostic criteria for Specific Learning Disability and the mysterious relegation of the word dyslexia to an “alternative term.” It might make sense to start by explaining a [...]
Julya Shane, my friend from Decoding Dyslexia Tennessee and Learning Ally, asked me to write a bit about hyperlexia, whether there is a connection with dyslexia and whether/how hyperlexia is referenced in IDEA…SLD? Fall under OHI? SLP? So…here we go. What is Hyperlexia? Darold Treffert, MD, has been studying people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder for [...]
