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About My Friend Joan

“Spike, right! I got it!” I yelled to my friend Joan. Joan slammed the ball over the net. I don’t remember whether we got the point. It doesn’t matter. I remember that I was the digger, and she was the spiker. That meant I had Joan’s back if she missed, and I was responsible for digging up the spikes from the opposing team and setting them up for a spiker like Joan. Joan and I met when we were five years old. She somehow found her way into our backyard on Harristown Road. Joan lived on Rock Road, two streets down, so she must have cut through a few backyards to find me. At first, I thought she was older. Joan was tall for her age, and I was small for my age. Hence, she grew into a spiker, and I grew into a digger—volleyball lingo. I introduced Joan to our unneutered collie, Jet, and I immediately showed Joan his “baked potatoes.” Nobody ever questioned my anatomical inaccuracies. Joan and I were in some classes together in elementary school. I don’t remember her getting pulled out, but she told me years later about all the time she spent with the reading and, I think, speech teacher. I remember adults explaining that she was “slow.” I don’t think I ever gave… | Read More »About My Friend Joan

Children's librarian, Faye Lieberman and one of the boys who frequents her library

Ask the Librarian: I Miss the Kids!

We started working with public libraries in 2019 to raise awareness of reading issues like dyslexia and educate librarians about resources that help all children learn to read. Who would’ve envisioned that within a year a pandemic would hit, and public libraries would close. Franklin Square Children’s Librarian, Faye Lieberman, tells us what it’s like to be a librarian working remotely through COVID-19 and what she will be doing when the library reopens. Lockdown I miss the kids! My library closed March 17, 2020, and we are on lockdown until at least May 15, 2020. Libraries are doing online programming, but I’m not good at it, so I keep in contact with our kids through lots of phone calls. Some kids are too shy to talk to me, so I talk to their parents instead. Other kids can’t wait to talk to me and tell me their latest news. What I Miss the Most When the library is open. the best part of my day is from 3:30 to 5:00 in the afternoon. I often have a roomful of kids then and I love it! Some come in to play with toys, puzzles, LEGOs, or the computers. Others are doing homework or working with tutors. Some children are looking for books. I try to greet everyone with a smile and… | Read More »Ask the Librarian: I Miss the Kids!

Connecting the Dots: Who Can Help Our Kids Learn to Read? Parents!

As a parent of a child with a reading issue like dyslexia, I came to this world of reading wars, phonics, balanced literacy, leveled readers, and other instructional methods that we argue about, as an innocent. I merely wanted to know why our daughter was struggling so much, and why nobody could help her learn to read. When she didn’t progress at school, I thought that I could teach her to read. As an English major, a publishing professional, and a past writing tutor, I was a natural candidate, but my methods and attempts didn’t work. I couldn’t teach her, and the school couldn’t seem to teach her, so then I thought that there must be a print-based or computerized program that could teach her to read. If there wasn’t, I was sure that my colleagues and I in educational publishing and technology could invent a program that would magically work. We had solved educational challenges before; surely we could figure this out. (Perhaps now we could create something, but we didn’t have the background back then.) As I slowly entered the world of the science of reading; direct, explicit instruction; multisensory instruction; and eventually Orton-Gillingham, I still couldn’t help our daughter learn to read. I couldn’t hear the sounds myself! While I could probably teach a course on the… | Read More »Connecting the Dots: Who Can Help Our Kids Learn to Read? Parents!

It Will Get Better for Kids with Reading Issues Like Dyslexia

“It will get better. Your daughter will be OK,” said a friend whose daughter with a reading issue recently started college. Many times, throughout the years, parents of an older child with a reading issue like dyslexia would assure us that their kid was doing fine; enjoying college, succeeding in a job, starting a family. Well-meaning friends and families would point out the latest celebrity that came out as being dyslexic. That wasn’t us. Our daughter wasn’t famous nor was she a genius or a prodigy. We weren’t famous. I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel that everyone told us we would start to notice. I didn’t see the gift of dyslexia. I saw yet another unwanted challenge. The light still hasn’t come, but it has gotten better. Our Journey It hasn’t been an easy journey for us, but our story is typical. Occasionally I meet people who embrace their child’s difference from the get-go and make peace with who they are. They glide through the education system with minimal drama. I respect those parents that keep their grace in the midst of challenges, but it is not us. The truth is that for years I would get angry, frustrated and sometimes depressed. I felt betrayed by the educational system that I spent my career working… | Read More »It Will Get Better for Kids with Reading Issues Like Dyslexia

Dawn Smith-Pliner and Isabella on a kayak in a lake in Vermont.

Chasing the Dream: Dyslexia Services and Little White Lies

Most parents are relieved to finally learn what they knew all along; that their kid has dyslexia or a reading issue. For us, it meant that we could finally get the services that we knew our daughter needed.  What we weren’t prepared for, were, well, the little white lies. Little white lies happen. I always thought that little white lies were innocent twists on the truth. Failing to tell a little white lie could expose information that might do more harm than good. What I’ve learned, though, is that having an understanding of the little white lies makes me a better parent advocate for our daughter. Public Education & Dyslexia Services The promise of public education. I always envisioned that our daughter would go to public school, and it never crossed my naïve mind that we couldn’t make it work. It’s public education! When our daughter was in pre-K and kindergarten, we signed up for the lottery in our school district. We did not get any of our choices, so we enrolled her in a private Montessori school, and went on a waiting list. Eventually, all of our daughter’s friends got into one of their schools of choice. However, once our daughter had an IEP, we were told she was no longer eligible for the lottery or any of the… | Read More »Chasing the Dream: Dyslexia Services and Little White Lies

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