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Social-Emotional-Learning & Learning Differences

Save a Life: Teach a Kid to Read

Have you ever watched young children in a library or bookstore? They run around in excitement and pull dozens of books off the shelves. I’ve seen it many times and I’ve pulled a few books off shelves myself. Children are born with an innate capacity for joy, a natural curiosity, and a desire to learn. Young children love Story Time or having a parent or caregiver reading aloud to them. Is there is a defining moment or a collection of experiences that leads to diminished joy and eventually to a downright hatred of libraries and books for some children? Maybe it’s when a child first heads off to school, or when the other children progress to chapter books, that those once-exciting books become painful to try to read. I’ve thought about the loss of joy a lot lately. Through our new library program, The Road to Decode, I have spent a lot of time in the children’s sections of libraries. Teach My Kid to Read worked hard on The Road to Decode, creating awareness and helping librarians understand what resources help children learn to read. But are we doing enough? We’ve cited statistics before. Reading issues are common, and nobody is spared. Sixty-four percent of fourth graders are not reading proficiently. According to The International Dyslexia Association, reading issues like… | Read More »Save a Life: Teach a Kid to Read

Why Kids with Dyslexia Need Specialized Schools to Thrive: An Interview with Kevin Pendergast, Head of School at The Kildonan School

“Your child should attend a school specific to language disabilities or consider the home-schooling option.”  Families like ours receive this type of recommendation all the time, and it is a life-changer. Perhaps you work full-time, or you know that you and your kid are not a good fit for a home-school scenario. You may not have ever thought about a specialized school or considered the logistical and cost factors. Your child has not been progressing in a typical school environment, and you know they are smart, so the recommendation is not a shock. It’s merely a wake-up call for a reality you were not ready to face. That was our story. To get our daughter the reading services she needed, last April we drove to The Kildonan School in Amenia, New York, to learn whether our daughter would be a fit. As previous blogs have described, our daughter attended the summer camp, Camp Dunnabeck, for six weeks, and made unprecedented progress. For kids with reading issues who have not demonstrated improvement in a traditional school system, private schools for language issues are the difference between thriving versus not finishing high school or graduating with limited choices. For this post, I am proudly interviewing Kevin Pendergast, esq., who is Head of School at The Kildonan School. What are the major differentiating… | Read More »Why Kids with Dyslexia Need Specialized Schools to Thrive: An Interview with Kevin Pendergast, Head of School at The Kildonan School

The Quest for Reading Services: Stories of Parents and Other People

The Parents There is our story. Yet, there are so many other stories to tell. Over time, I hope this website can feature tons and tons of stories and serve as a repository to document the heart-wrenching decisions that families are faced with to get their child the correct reading services. While every story is different, with a parent’s awareness I recognize, that there are poignant commonalities between us; we the parents of kids with learning, behavioral and physical differences. We see a hope and resilience and an unwavering vision of our kid as brilliant, perfect and deserving of happiness. Even if there are times that only you see it and people around you are skewing your vision or taking away your hope, you stay on your path. For us, our path is to get our daughter to read, and keep her self-confidence intact in the process. That’s what we owe her. Keeping our kid’s dignity and self-confidence is the hardest part of being a parent of a kid with a learning difference. The people I have been meeting this summer are a lot like me. So many Moms (and some Dads) staying up here with their kids. Dorothy was only here for part of the summer, and I miss seeing her smiling face in the morning. Dorothy would leap… | Read More »The Quest for Reading Services: Stories of Parents and Other People

A Bittersweet Reflection on Post-Camp Testing

It’s Sunday, July 30th the height of summer, and it’s a beautiful sunny day at Camp Dunnabeck, nestled between The Berkshires and The Catskills. So, what are we doing today? Post-Camp Testing There’s something bittersweet about arriving at a kids’ camp at 8 am on a Sunday and seeing all of the campers lined up for testing. Bittersweet in that most kids are still sleeping, or if they are up this early on a perfect July day, then they are getting ready to go swimming or to do something summer-like. Parents who have a kid with a reading difference have to walk that delicate tightrope of allowing their kid be a kid and giving them enough services so that they don’t fall even further behind; especially true when dealing with long-term retrieval and working memory challenges. Combining services with a typical camp experience is a prime example of why a place like Camp Dunnabeck is so needed. The kids have so much fun that the reading services are a non-issue; at least for us. I wish all kids with reading differences had an option like Camp Dunnabeck. Doesn’t every child deserve a summer? So, what is post-camp testing all about, and why are we here on a gorgeous Sunday morning in late July: 1. The tests measure progress after nearly… | Read More »A Bittersweet Reflection on Post-Camp Testing

SUMMER SERVICES PLUS SUMMER FUN: CAMP DUNNABECK

READING OPTIONS What about school for next year? We had an awesome day at Kildonan, home to Camp Dunnabeck.  What’s not to like? The curriculum is structured around intense Orton-Gillingham tutoring, they have a state-of-the art assistive technology lab, strong academics, wonderful arts options, a great sports program, and the kids seem to be thriving. All of the teachers are trained to teach kids with reading and learning differences. Matter of fact, all kids with intense reading differences who need more than multi-sensory tutoring should have access to a school like this; an end goal of solving one of the major issues of reading differences as it makes all the difference and can be a lifesaver-really! ATTENDING A SPECIALIZED SCHOOL FOR KIDS WITH SIGNIFICANT READING DIFFERENCES CAN BE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THRIVING AND NOT GETTING THROUGH SCHOOL AT ALL So why isn’t Kildonan our definite choice at this point? It simply comes down to the fact that it’s not around the corner and it’s not free. We have never given up hope that there must be a way to make it work for us here, and as it turned out, we had the infamous IEP (individualized education program) meeting shortly after our visit to Kildonan. The IEP meetings are when you set goals for the following school year and learn… | Read More »SUMMER SERVICES PLUS SUMMER FUN: CAMP DUNNABECK