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special education

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

Diverse Books, Decodable Books & Libraries

Diverse books, decodable books and libraries. They are all part of innovative community literacy solutions! We’re So Much More than Phonics The science of reading, structured literacy, direct instruction, systematic, explicit instruction. It all sounds severe and not that much fun. The fact is, nothing is more thrilling than reading with automaticity. Automaticity happens when a child learns to decode. Some kids will need less instruction on decoding, while others, especially those who struggle with reading issues like dyslexia, will need a ton of practice. There is no love of reading when a child cannot read the words, and that is why teaching decoding is part of the love of reading. Still, all of that work decoding is nil if a child doesn’t understand what they are reading. Diverse Books Here’s the shocker! Those of us advocating for the science of reading advocate for content and context. If children learn to decode and do not understand what they read, they will not become skilled readers. Access to books and content is an important way to help children improve reading. We call it “books that teach, and books that tell.” We are passionate about diverse literature so that children can engage with books that show families and communities that look like our world. According to The Read in Color program, less… | Read More »Diverse Books, Decodable Books & Libraries

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!

Why Educational Publishers are Part of the Solution to the Reading Challenge

“The greatest enemy of progress is the illusion of knowledge.” John Young, Astronaut Several years ago, I was working as a contractor in the educational publishing industry. The scope of one of our contracts was to build curricula for a few disciplines so the publisher could assess whether to pursue publishing in those particular academic areas and, if so, determine their strategy. We listed the required and elective courses for the discipline, specific areas of study, course objectives, and major textbooks and course materials used for each class. We commented accordingly on enrollments, trends, and areas for improvement. One of the disciplines we worked on was education. While we were putting together courses and books for the certification and degree programs in special education, reading, and literacy, it never occurred to me to hunt for the few textbooks that include a science-based approach to reading, or to recommend that graduates need at least a basic understanding of the foundations of reading. I didn’t know then about the five pillars of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. How would I have known? We Can’t Change What We Don’t Know Is Broken That phrase is repeated regularly in connection with teacher training in the science of reading, and it applies to publishers as well. Publishers can’t change what they don’t… | Read More »Why Educational Publishers are Part of the Solution to the Reading Challenge

What Are You Going To Do About School Next Year?

Each summer, families like ours, with kids with reading and learning issues, have endless debates about our school options for the following academic year. “What are you going to do about school next year?” “We’re in due process. Maybe our district will pay for a specialized school.” “We were moved to another school in the district. We’re hoping that the new school will work out.” “We’ve accepted that a private school for kids with reading issues is the only way our son will graduate from high school. We’re not sure how we’ll pay for it, but we’ll make it work.” “We’re trying to understand what services our daughter is entitled to.” “We’re going to SKYPE with an OG tutor since there aren’t many in our area.” “What are you going to do about school next year? What are you going to do about school next year?” It sounds nerve-wracking, and it is since the options are limited and typically a financial burden and a logistical challenge on families. Many families are just stuck taking whatever the school district offers due to cost to come up with a different solution; AKA educational inequities. That alone should be indicative of why we need a tidal wave of change in our educational system. If the best we can hope for is to chatter… | Read More »What Are You Going To Do About School Next Year?

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

Dyslexia and Adoption: Let’s Connect the Dots-Part 2

Where is the research about dyslexia and adoption? And, why isn’t adoption cited more frequently as a subgroup within the broader dyslexia community when adopted kids are twice as likely as non-adopted kids to have learning or attention issues (Morin, n.d.).   Would a specific subset muddy the global effort to help more people with dyslexia learn to read? Would fewer people want to adopt children if they thought their child would be at a higher risk of having a learning difference? As a parent of an adopted child with dyslexia, I’ve often struggled with the dyslexia community at large to understand what makes our kids more prone to reading differences. In my last post on this topic, I questioned the effect that sudden language disruption would wreak on a young child learning to read (Gindis, 2004). I still don’t know for sure whether sudden language disruption is the reason our daughter has a reading difference, but I believe it is a factor.  What I have since learned, is that there are tons of ideas why our adopted kids could be more prone to learning differences. Here are some of them: Poverty Stress Trauma Poverty, Stress, and Trauma You don’t hear a lot about poverty, stress, and trauma in the mainstream dyslexia community. However, they are really, really important factors to… | Read More »Dyslexia and Adoption: Let’s Connect the Dots-Part 2

Higher Education and Teacher Curricula in Reading: Why Can’t We Be Friends?

Reading wars, structured literacy programs, early screening, multi-sensory interventions delivered with fidelity, IEP, IEE, assistive technology. When I began to get my arms around what I define as the “dyslexia space” I had no idea how complex the underlying issues were, and all of the controversies! Good heavens. Many years ago, when we were told that our daughter had a reading difference and/or dyslexia, we had one goal in mind. Teach my kid to read. That is what I call this site, and that has always been our goal. All we have ever wanted is for our daughter to read. What we didn’t know then is how complicated that would be. Sadly, our story is not unique. There are millions of kids like our daughter, and some are not so lucky as to have our life-wrenching choices that at least offer some solutions. I have written in other blogs about the immense improvement our daughter demonstrated after she received services with fidelity at Camp Dunnabeck. As a friend often says, we peeled away a layer of the onion. Our daughter was happy, she was learning, and she was reading! Did we solve our challenges or come to the end of our story? Hardly. The journey never ends, even into adulthood where workplace challenges for dyslexic adults are starting to garner some attention.… | Read More »Higher Education and Teacher Curricula in Reading: Why Can’t We Be Friends?

Dyslexia and Adoption: Let’s Connect the Dots

It’s dyslexia awareness month. As such, I would be remiss in continuing our story without mentioning adoption, particularly international adoption. What about adoption and dyslexia, or learning differences for that matter? Where is the research, and why isn’t adoption cited more frequently as a subgroup within the broader dyslexia community? Maybe it would over-complicate a very challenging educational space, or possibly most people have no idea that such a high percentage of adopted children, especially those adopted internationally, are dyslexic. If only we knew. Statistical and Empirical Evidence of High Rates of Dyslexia in Adopted Children The first person who told us that our daughter would have a learning difference was our adoption attorney. Go figure. While preparing some adoption paperwork, she indicated that our daughter would not get through college in four years—if she went at all. I was insulted. How dare she stereotype our perfect child! Because she had worked with internationally-adopted children her entire career and since our daughter came to us at around the age of two, the attorney predicted our daughter would have some type of learning difference. We knew we would prove the attorney wrong, but sadly, we didn’t. What I learned is that in 2014 alone 110,373 kids were adopted through foster care, and domestic and international adoption (Jones and Placek, 2017). Kids… | Read More »Dyslexia and Adoption: Let’s Connect the Dots

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