We have a second grade dropout. Yep, you read that correctly. Second grade. Seven years old. What in the world would prompt a seco nd grader to pack up her locker and tell her classmates that she will “see you around”? She doesn’t understand. “All day. Every day.” She sits in her classroom, and doesn’t understand. That’s her report on school. First of all, I don’t believe that it’s all day, every day. I know she has moments and even days of understanding. But, I also know, much of the time, she is sitting there and faking it. She is faking understanding what the instructions are and what she is doing. She is faking understanding what the lesson was. She is faking being happy because
Welcome to the hardest blog I have ever written. It's so hard that it has taken me a year to even attempt. Be patient. Be kind. I don't know how to tell this story without airing frustrations, writing the wrong thing (unintentionally) or stumbling over myself. This is our story of dyslexia. Before I begin, know two things: 1. I don't blame anyone for my baby having dyslexia. 2. I don't write this for sympathy. I write this because there is another parent out there who needs to know they aren't the only ones struggling. I write this because there is a kid, sitting in a classroom, wondering why they don't "get it" and everyone else does. Josie has dyslexia. How did we figure this out? We di
Rolph Literacy Academy instructor Tammi Hope is passionate about giving her students the tools they need to succeed. That is why she spends her school-day afternoons teaching our Assistive Technology class. Assistive technology can help dyslexic students overcome some of the struggles they encounter daily, like poor handwriting or spelling when completing school work. RLA has about 30 iPads available for students to use while practicing their technology skills. Tammi said she begins Assistive Technology students out using their listening skills by having the technology read aloud to them. This can be done using Siri on an Apple device or the iBooks app. “Until students get used to listening
We first learned about the Fundamental Learning Center through my sister-in-law, Erin. My niece, Josie, had had a screening a year or so prior. Erin had posted a video of one of Josie's sessions of the Alphabetic Phonics program, and I knew right away that my daughter did not have the skills that Josie was learning, even though Adelynn is several years older. We suspected a learning difference with Adelynn before she began kindergarten. I had worked with my older boys just as I did with her before they began school. However, she was not able to recall letters, shapes or numbers that we would study from one day to the next. Once she began school and started to read, I noticed that Adelynn w
