Dyslexia: An Introduction to BookShare

Do you have a print disability? Do you live in the US or UK?

With a Bookshare membership, you can access over 93,000 accessible eBooks.

Bookshare, the world’s largest online library for individuals with print disabilities, offers a wide range of books including bestsellers, novels, children's books, mysteries, science fiction, nonfiction, foreign-language books, and more, direct from publishers.

Who may join?
Anyone with a qualifying print disability, such as blindness or low vision, a physical disability that prevents using a physical book, or a learning disability that affects reading, like severe dyslexia, may join Bookshare.

Organisations such as schools may also join Bookshare to serve and support their students or clients with print disabilities.

Dyslexia: An Introduction to Learning Ally

Here are a couple of screenshots from a Dyslexia support group Learning Ally who provide talking books and other multimedia resources.

Dyslexia support group Learning Ally also provide an App on iTunes, to aid access to their talking books and other multimedia resources.

NB: This is a US based organisation and the App may not be available in the UK and Europe.

Dyslexia, Reading difficulties and vision

Although Dyslexia is recognised as a cognitive disorder it is prudent to have children's eyes tested to rule out vision problems.

Children do not know if they are perceiving the world differently from others. In fact few of us do, even into middle age.

To help a child who may be have difficulty reading, it is good practice to rule out any physical or eye issues.

Many optometrists believe that all reading difficulties and Dyslexia is caused by vision problems.

This is certainly not the case, and many parents are paying out for expensive bogus treatments and special glasses, which are ineffective.

Have your child's eyesight thoroughly checked to rule out any physical defect and, if their reading difficulties remain, then look at ways to help them overcome  their difficulties around Dyslexia.

I hope you will be able to find some help from the articles in this blog.

You will certainly be able to find good information on the latest scientific research and discoveries around Dyslexia and other cognitive disorders.

Unfortunately, you will not find any 'quick fixes' or any 'cures' for Dyslexia. The first step is acceptance and then you need to support your child in developing a strategy to learn and to live with Dyslexia.

Dyslexia, less brain tissue not to blame for reading difficulties

It has previously been suggested that people with dyslexia have less gray matter in the brain and this has been  reportedly linked to reading disabilities.

Thankfully this ridiculous notion has been debunked.

New evidence suggests that the amount of brain material in people with dyslexia may be a result and consequence of their poorer reading experiences and not the root cause of the disorder.

It has been assumed that the difference in the amount of gray matter might, in part, explain why dyslexic children have difficulties correctly and fluently mapping the sounds in words to their written counterparts during reading but this assumption of causality has now been rightly turned on its head.

Guinevere Eden

The findings from anatomical brain studies conducted at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) in the Center for the Study of Learning led by neuroscientist Guinevere Eden, DPhil, were published online today in The Journal of Neuroscience.

The study compared a group of dyslexic children with two different control groups: an age-matched group included in most previous studies, and a group of younger children who were matched at the same reading level as the children with dyslexia.

"This kind of approach allows us to control for both age as well as reading experience," explains Eden, a professor of pediatrics at GUMC.

"If the differences in brain anatomy in dyslexia were seen in comparison with both control groups, it would have suggested that reduced gray matter reflects an underlying cause of the reading deficit. But that's not what we observed."

The dyslexic groups showed less gray matter compared with a control group matched by age, consistent with previous findings.

However, the result was not replicated when a control group matched by reading level was used as the comparison group with the dyslexics.

Anthony Krafnick

"This suggests that the anatomical differences reported in left hemisphere language processing regions appear to be a consequence of reading experience as opposed to a cause of dyslexia," says Anthony Krafnick, PhD, lead author of the publication.

"These results have an impact on how we interpret the previous anatomical literature on dyslexia and it suggests the use of anatomical MRI would not be a suitable way to identify children with dyslexia," he says.

The work also helps to determine the fine line between experience-induced changes in the brain and differences that are the cause of cognitive impairment.

For example, it is known from studies in illiterate people who attain reading skills as adults that this type of learning induces growth of brain matter.

Similar learning-induced changes in typical readers may result in discrepancies between them and their dyslexic peers, who have not enjoyed the same reading experiences and thus have not undergone similar changes in brain structure.

Dyslexia and 4 Misconceptions that surround it

Dyslexia is a frequently misunderstood (and often hidden) disability.

Much has changed in the past few decades but unfortunately there are some misconceptions that still exist.

These misconceptions are often perpetuated through a lack of understanding or sympathy, often by people who know little of the difficulties faced by people with dyslexia on a daily basis.

In this article we will explore some of these misconceptions.

1: People with Dyslexia “don’t work hard enough.”
One of the most pervasive myths is that people with dyslexia lack motivation or academic ability.

This is of course completely incorrect, but can also be very damaging to an individual’s self-confidence if they are constantly labelled in this way.

A recent example of this belief was exhibited on ITV’s The Jeremy Kyle Show: Jeremy Kyle Dyslexia Clip - NB: This is very difficult to watch.

2: Dyslexia only affects spelling
In the above video Glyn, a guest, is berated by Kyle for his difficulties with remembering information, in this case his children’s birthdays.

Arguably Kyle has some empathy - he states he has a friend with the disability - however if this is true he should really know that there is a much wider range of dyslexia-related issues than problems with spelling.

People with dyslexia often have difficulties with:

• Reading
• Memory
• Organization
• Speech
• Concentration

You can find out more on the NHS Choices website.

3: Dyslexics are a small minority
The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) states that 10% of the UK population is dyslexic. However, not all people with dyslexia are diagnosed and receive help, so this figure could well be higher.

Furthermore, many people with dyslexia don't want anyone else to know, for fear of discrimination in the workplace or when applying for jobs.

4: People with Dyslexia can never improve
While dyslexia is not curable, the notion that someone with the disability is doomed to struggle for life is completely false.

While people with dyslexia certainly flourish in creative industries, there are a wealth of coping strategies and techniques availalable, not to mention a wide range of assistive technology to suit a range of needs.

If you want to find out more about dyslexia, the British Dyslexia Association has an extensive collection of information available here.

Dyslexia: Rebranded

Dyslexia: Helpful Support Resources

The following resources will help you learn more about dyslexia and find local help. 

You can also use NCLD’s Resource Locator to find programs in your local area.

Bookshare: Bookshare is an accessible online library for people with dyslexia and other disabilities. Over 160,000 titles are available, and membership is free for students.

DyslexiaHelp at the University of Michigan: DyslexiaHelp is designed to help you understand and learn about dyslexia and language disability. 

Visit their site for a wealth of information for individuals with dyslexia, parents, and professionals. 

If you’ve ever wondered about celebrities who have dyslexia, be sure to check out their “Dyslexia Success Stories” section.

Dyslexia on KidsHealth and Dyslexia on TeensHealth: Are you a parent or educator looking for age-appropriate materials on dyslexia? 

These articles offer the basics of dyslexia, tailored for the reading and developmental level of kids and teens.

Eye to Eye: Eye to Eye is a “mentoring movement for different thinkers,” providing mentoring programs to students identified with learning disabilities such as dyslexia and AD/HD. 

Visit their site to learn more about their program and find out how to get involved. 

International Dyslexia Association: The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) is a national non-profit dedicated to helping individuals with dyslexia, their families, and the communities that support them. 

Visit their site to connect with a local branch near you, find IDA-member providers in your area, and learn more about dyslexia.

Learning Ally: Learning Ally, formerly known as Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, offers more than 75,000 digitally recorded audiobooks (including both textbooks and literary titles).

Parent Center Network-Parent Center Listing: If you are the parent of a K-12 student with dyslexia, you’ll want to take a look at this site and find your nearest Parent Training and Information Center (PTI). 

PTIs are funded by the federal government and offer parents assistance in navigating special education and their child’s rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia (film): The website of the new film “The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia” (scheduled for a television premiere in October 2012), offers video clips from the film, ways to take action to support people with dyslexia, and offers uplifting advice for students with dyslexia and their parents.

The Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity: Yale University’s Center for Dyslexia and Creativity seeks to illuminate the strengths of those with dyslexia, disseminate information, practical advice, and the latest innovations from scientific research, and transform the lives of children and adults with dyslexia. 

Visit their site to learn more about their cutting edge research and get concrete tips for parents, educators, and individuals with dyslexia.

College Degrees Challenge Students with Learning Difficulties

It may surprise you to learn that the U.S. ranks 14th among 37 developed nations when it comes to the percentage of young people holding college degrees. 

According to a study conducted by the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2011, only 56% of students in the U.S. that begin four-year colleges are likely to graduate.

If college presents insurmountable obstacles for almost half of all college students, you can imagine what that means for students with learning disabilities who already face challenges.

The postsecondary success rate for students with LD is half that of the general population; it’s estimated that only 28% receive a diploma.

According to the Institute for Higher Education Policy, the low graduation rate is largely attributable to educational missteps that begin in elementary school and continue through high school.

From kindergarten through 12th grade, students with LD experience “inadequate academic preparation when compared to their peers without disabilities; lower academic expectations; inferior pedagogy and services; and lack of full access to the core curriculum.”

Furthermore, with high school guidance counselors, teachers, and even parents focused on college admission rather than how to succeed when they get there, students with LD remain largely uneducated about the dramatically different culture they’re about to enter.

Even parents who graduated college themselves remain ignorant of the obstacles kids with learning disabilities encounter at the college level.

Read more of this article here

Does Sight-Words Prevent Reading and Cause Dyslexia? - Video

English letters appear in many confusing variations. Nobody can memorize them all as designs (lower case, UPPER CASE, italic, handwriting, and countless typefaces).

There are actually MANY reasons why Sight-Words are a cruel failure. This video presents the main one--designs must appear in one predictable form. English letters appear in many forms.

Dyslexia v Dyscalculia: Maths v Reading

One of the important areas for understanding learning disorders is learning about the prevalence and specificity of various types of disorders.

It is estimated that Dyscalculia, the maths disorder or disability, is present in about 7% of school children.

It is possible that Dyscalculia simply represents a component of a more general learning disability.

If this is true, there should be a large overlap between Dyscalculia and other learning disorders, such as Dyslexia, the reading disorder.

A well-designed longitudinal study of cognitive and academic ability from Donald Compton and colleagues at Vanderbilt University is information in addressing this issue.

They completed a longitudinal study of 684 students from 3rd grade through the 5th grade assessing four academic achievement domains:

• reading comprehension
• word reading
• applied math problems
• math calculation skills

Additionally, they examined five student cognitive skills including: non-verbal problem solving, processing speed, concept formation, language and working memory.

The key finding from their study is that Dyscalculia in general terms, appears to be a specific disorder.

Although 3.8% of their school children sample had both Dyslexia (reading disorder) and Dyscalculia (math /calculations disorder), 10.1% were estimated to have only Dyscalculia and 6.6% were estimated to have only Dyslexia.

They noted their "results indicate that, although co-morbidity (the co-existance of Dyslexia and Dyscalculia together in one person) does occur, it is limited to approximately 20% of student with learning disability. This adds credence to the notion that reading and mathematics learning disability may be distinct and separate".

Background
Differences between Dyscalculia and Dyslexia included the following:

• Boys had higher rates of Dyslexia, reading comprehension learning disability, while Dyscalculia (math problem and calculation types) were found equally in boy and girl students
• Both Dyscalculia and Dyslexia rates were linked to student poverty status-students in the lowest socio-economic group had higher rates of both math and reading disorders.
• Both Dyscalculia and Dyslexia students showed relative strength in the processing speed cognitive domain

This study lends support to Dyscalculia being a specific type of learning disability that often occurs without Dyslexia as a co-occurring reading disorder.

Dyscalculia appears to be the most common learning disability in girl students.

Reference
Compton DL, Fuchs LS, Fuchs D, Lambert W, & Hamlett C (2012). The cognitive and academic profiles of reading and mathematics learning disabilities. Journal of learning disabilities, 45 (1), 79-95 PMID: 21444929

Dyslexia: 'My three sons and their music'

Three brothers with dyslexia have overcome their struggles with reading music to be chosen to play in the National Schools Symphony Orchestra.

"I shudder to think what it would have been like without music," says Sasha Baldwin, mother to three teenage sons who are all dyslexic.

Luke, 17, plays the violin and guitar. Patrick, 15, plays the piano, organ and trumpet while Robert, 14, is a gifted French horn player. They all sing too.

Yet at primary school they struggled from early on as dyslexia manifested itself in different ways in each of them.

"Luke had difficulties learning how to read, Patrick had problems with short-term memory and couldn't remember instructions from school or telephone numbers and Robert had real problems with personal organisation and retaining information, as well as reading," Sasha says.

The North Yorkshire school they attended recognised their learning difficulties and enlisted the help of educational psychologists to support them.

But Sasha, who now lives in Perthshire, realised that music could provide a valuable outlet for their development and she encouraged the boys to start learning the piano aged five.

Although they were enthusiastic, they all had issues with reading music.

"Robert had to give up the piano after a year as he couldn't read two lines of music simultaneously and became very frustrated," Sasha says.

Read more of Sasha's story here

Dyslexia: BoyZone Shane Lynch speaks out

Shane Lynch has bravely revealed that when he left school at the age of 15 he couldn’t read or write.

As part of a new Channel 5 documentary called My Secret Past (due to air on Monday at 10pm), the Boyzone singer has admitted that his teachers thought he was a bad student and didn't realise he had a problem,

“I was kicked out of school at 15 for being lazy. I couldn’t read or write but I was too ashamed to ask for help,” Shane confesses.

The Boyzone singer was tested for dyslexia as part of the documentary and discovered that he is indeed dyslexic,

“The diagnosis makes my past more acceptable. I wasn’t lazy, I had a genuine problem,” he says.

Thanks to the help of expert tutors, Shane is now able to read to his two daughters Billie Rae, four and four-month-old Marley Mae.

BDA's Adult Dyslexia Report 2012

The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) has published a report examining progress on issues facing adults with dyslexia over the past four decades.

Produced to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the charity’s foundation, the document identifies a range of issues that continue to affect dyslexics negatively.

Access to written information in formats appropriate for those with dyslexia is cited as a prime example of how organisations are still failing those with condition.

While the requirement to provide information in alternative formats was enshrined in law with the Equality Act of 2010, the charity says that not enough businesses take heed of this and provide information in a way that dyslexics can use.

The Report, produced following consultation with over 100 organisations and individuals working with dyslexics, also points to some of the strengths that those with the condition enjoy.

The report says that roughly 20 per cent of our successful entrepreneurs are thought to be dyslexic.

Margaret Malpas, Joint Chair of the BDA, has called for an extension of the collaboration it secured in the production of its Report.

“I think we have a real opportunity here to collaborate to tackle the problems identified and resolve some of them”, she said.

“This would result in less cost and pain for individuals but also significantly reduce to the costs to society which are estimated at £1billion a year to the UK economy."

The BDA’s Adult Dyslexia Report is available here: 

Reading Disabilities: 50 Useful Apps For Students

Whether you’re the parent of a child with a reading disability or an educator that works with learning disabled students on a daily basis, you’re undoubtedly always looking for new tools to help these bright young kids meet their potential and work through their disability.

While there are numerous technologies out there that can help, perhaps one of the richest is the iPad, which offers dozens of applications designed to meet the needs of learning disabled kids and beginning readers alike.

Here, we highlight just a few of the amazing apps out there that can help students with a reading disability improve their skills not only in reading, writing, and spelling, but also get a boost in confidence and learn to see school as a fun, engaging activity, not a struggle.

Helpful Tools

These tools are useful for both educators and students with reading disabilities alike, aiding in everything from looking up a correct spelling to reading text out loud.

1. Speak It!: Speak It! is a great text-to-speech solution that can allow students with reading disabilities to get a little help with reading when they need it.
2. Talk to Me: Talk to Me is another text to speech application. It can be used to read words out loud as they are typed, which can help students to better correlate the letters and words with how they’re pronounced.
3. Dragon Dictation: Dragon Dictation works in reverse of the two apps we just listed. Instead of reading text out loud, the application writes down spoken text. For students who struggle with writing, it can be a great way for them to jot down ideas or get help learning.
4. Dyslexic Like Me: Explaining dyslexia to a child can be hard, but this application can make it a little easier. It’s an interactive children’s book that helps students to understand dyslexia and become empowered to overcome their learning disability.
5. Merriam-Webster Dictionary: If spelling is a problem, it’s always a good idea to have a really great dictionary on hand. This app from Merriam-Webster can provide that.
6. Ditionary.com: If Dictionary.com is your go-to place for definitions and spelling help, this app can be a great way to bring that functionality to your iPad or iPhone.
7. Prizmo: With Prizmo, users can scan in any kind of text document and have the program read it out loud, which can be a big help to those who struggle with reading.
8. Flashcards for iPad: This app makes it easy to study words, spelling, and other things that young and LD readers might need help with.
9. Soundnote: Using Soundnote, you can record drawings, notes, and audio all at once, balancing reading-based skills with those that are auditory and visual.

Fundamentals

These apps help teach the fundamentals of reading, writing, and spelling to any young learner, but can be especially helpful for those who are struggling.

10. Alphabet Zoo: Alphabet Zoo is a great tool for helping young readers to recognize letter sounds. Using text and pictures of animals, kids can build their reading skills while having fun.
11. Find the Letters HD: A favorite of special education teachers and psychologists, this app asks learners to find letters and numbers in a coloring grid. It helps build skills in spatial positioning, depth orientation, form discrimination, and concentration and attention.
12. First Words Sampler: Preschoolers with a reading disability can get a head start on improving their skills with this app that teaches them about letters and words using fun graphics and sounds.
13. Montessori Crosswords: Embrace the Montessori method by using this app to help youngsters improve their spelling and reading skills through engaging phonics-based exercises.
14. Read & Write :Students can practice reading and writing letters using this application. Users can trace letters, learn letter sounds, and get illustrations to go along with each part of the alphabet.
15. Sound Literacy: With a portion of the proceeds from this app going to the Dyslexia Association, there’s no reason not to sign on. Even better, the app is incredibly useful, employing the Orton-Gillingham method to help students recognize the spellings of English phonemes.
16. weesay ABC: Using pictures, words, and sounds, this application makes it easy for young students to practice and learn their ABCs.
17. abc PocketPhonics: This app is a great tool for teaching reading disabled students the fundamentals of letter sounds and shapes.
18. The Writing Machine: By correlating pictures and words, reading text, sounding out letters, this tool helps students develop early literacy abilities with greater ease.
19. WordSort: One of the top educational apps out there, this game helps kids to learn how to identify parts of speech, like nouns, adverbs, and verbs, as well as emphasizing grammar skills.
20. ABC Phonics Word Families: Using analogy phonics (or word families) this application teaches young learners to see and hear the patterns of commonality in a set of words. With flashcards, spelling words, scrambled words, and games, this app is a must-have for helping students.

Reading

These excellent iPad apps can be a big help to reading disabled students who need a little extra support when trying to read.

21. Blio: Blio offers all the same features of any basic e-reader, and also a few things that make it unique. Through synchronized highlighting and a serial presentation view, the app helps those with reading disabilities make sense of the text, something many other similar apps don’t offer.
22. Read 2 Me: For those who have difficulty reading, apps like Read 2 Me can be a godsend. The app comes complete with an entire library of texts, all of which can be read out loud.
23. Read2Go: If you use DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) books in your classroom, Read2Go is one of the best and most accessible ways to read those books on iOS.
24. AppWriter: Designed with reading and writing disabilities in mind, this text editor for iPad integrates numerous accessibility features into standard text editing functionality.
25. Audiobooks: Sometimes students with reading disabilities might just want a break from reading books the old fashioned way. That’s why this amazing collection of free audiobooks can come in handy, offering access to classics like Romeo and Juliet and Treasure Island.
26. Bob’s Books: Bob’s Books uses phonics-based interactive games to help kids learn how to read. Activities will help young learners to sound out words, spell, and make connections between letters and sounds.
27. iStoryTime: There are numerous titles to choose from in the iStoryTime series, all of which allow kids to have the book read to them or to get help reading it themselves.
28. MeeGenius! Kids’ Books: MeeGenius is another series that’s perfect for practicing reading skills. Those with trouble reading can use illustrations and helpful word highlighting to get help, or just have the book read to them until they’re confident enough to do it on their own.
29. Reading Trainer: While this app is designed to help average readers boost their reading speed and ability, it can be useful to those who struggle as well, as many of the skills taught can help just about anyone become a more confident reader.
30. See Read Say: This application will help to ensure that young learners are familiar with all of the Dolch sight words (the most common words), using games, activities, and tons of practice.
31. Stories2Learn: Why use existing stories to help troubled readers when you can build your own? This application lets you develop your own text and audio stories, including messages, topics, and other things that can help keep kids interested.
32. eReading series: The eReading series from Brain Integration LLC, helps young readers at all levels of proficiency learn about topics like Greek Mythology and Gulliver’s Travels. Users can have the book read to them, or practice reading without the help, too.

Writing

For those with reading disabilities, sometimes writing can also be a trying task. Here are some apps that can help teach, assist, and make writing more fun.

33. iWrite Words: Named by The Washington Post as one of the best apps for special needs kids, this game-based program helps youngsters learn to write their letters through a fun and engaging setup that uses illustrations and animations to keep things interesting.
34. AlphaWriter: Using Montessori-based learning methods, this application helps kids to learn how to read, write, and spell phonetically. It also teaches lessons on consonants and vowels, letter sounds, writing stories, and much more.
35. Sentence Builder: Through this application, elementary school children will learn how to build grammatically correct sentences, with a special focus on using connector words.
36. Story Builder: After kids are done learning how to build sentences, they can move onto this app which combines those sentences into one coherent story, complete with illustrations.
37. Writing Prompts: Having trouble thinking of things for students to write about? This app removes that roadblock and offers up numerous ideas for short writing assignments.
38. Idea Sketch: This mind-mapping app can help learning disabled students make sense of their ideas and organize them in ways that they can easily translate into written work.
39. Storyrobe: Teachers and students can build and share their own unique stories through this application. Integration with YouTube and email makes it easy to share and revise, too.

Spelling

These applications can be excellent tools for improving spelling skills.

40. American Wordspeller: Looking up a word in a dictionary isn’t that simple if you have no idea how to spell it. This app removes that problem and employs a method that lets you much more easily pinpoint how to spell just about any word.
41. Word Magic: Created by the parents of a five-year-old, this app for young learners help kids learn words and how to spell them correctly. It uses lots of positive reinforcement, rewards, and fun pictures to keep things interesting to learners.
42. Typ-O: Poor spellers can rejoice over this great application that help you spell words correctly in any typing-related program on your iPhone or iPad.
43. A1 Spelling App: This application is a great way to help poor spellers begin to learn the correct spelling of common words, increasing difficulty as kids master words.
44. iSpell Word: iSpell Word is designed to help kids learn the spellings of simple English words. It uses games to teach, with each level of the game employing more difficult words so kids are always challenged.
45. Jumbline: If you’re looking to make reading, writing, and spelling into a game, this app can help. It’s full of word games that ask players to use speed, smarts, pattern recognition, and spelling skills to win.
46. Spelling Bee Challenge: Kids can have fun taking part in a mock spelling bee using this application that boosts both spelling and vocab skills.
47. Word Fall: In this educational game, words fall from the sky and players must collect letters to form basic words.
48. WordLadder: This highly challenging word game will get older readers thinking about how words are spelled and how they can be connected and changed to form new words.
49. ACT Spell: Developed especially for learners with disabilities and special needs, this tool helps develop motor control, word recognition, spelling, and reading skills.
50. Word Wizard: Lauded by The New York Times, this word-focused app lets kids hear the sounds of letters and words through a movable alphabet while also engaging them in spelling practice and games.

Stanford Study: Reading Jane Austen to examine attention and distraction

Researcher Natalie Phillips positions an eye-tracking device on Matt Langione

During a series of ongoing experiments, fMRI images track blood flow in the brains of subjects as they read excerpts of a Jane Austen novel.

Experiment participants are first asked to leisurely skim a passage as they might do in a bookstore, and then to read more closely, as they would while studying for an exam.

The researchers said the global increase in blood flow during close reading suggests that “paying attention to literary texts requires the coordination of multiple complex cognitive functions.”

Blood flow also increased during pleasure reading, but in different areas of the brain suggesting that each style of reading may create distinct patterns in the brain that are “far more complex than just work and play.”

The experiment focuses on literary attention, or more specifically, the cognitive dynamics of the different kinds of focus we bring to reading.

The researchers expected to see pleasure centers activating for the relaxed reading and hypothesized that close reading, as a form of heightened attention, would create more neural activity than pleasure reading.

If the ongoing analysis continues to support the initial theory…teaching close reading (i.e., attention to literary form) “could serve – quite literally – as a kind of cognitive training, teaching us to modulate our concentration and use new brain regions as we move flexibly between modes of focus.”

Pioneering Stanford study uses Jane Austen texts to examine attention and distraction during reading, suggesting different modes of reading may serve as valuable cognitive training for concentration.

Also see graphing Jane Austen.

Inside the Hidden World of Dyslexia and ADHD - YouTube

Rarely do we get a look inside dyslexia at the inner city level. Every dyslexic should be in tune with what Headstrong Nation is doing in the arena of Dyslexia advocacy.

We are looking forward to future initiatives from this group!

Dyslexia: Merilee Grage Hearing the Voices of Dragon

This week we are looking at the story of Merilee Grage who struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia for years.

She is using Nuance's Dragon Naturally Speaking to help finish her Master’s degree in Special Education.

She is a believer in the use of assistive tech in the classroom, and has introduced Dragon to the students in her repsonibility, who face reading challenges.

She reports that the results have been “amazing.”

Grage dropped out of college in 1979 due to her undiagnosed dyslexia, but with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the tables have turned: "I bought Dragon to help with my typing and I ended up using it for everything: emails, papers, my online courses, and anything else that requires a keyboard."

"It’s about creativity and having a flow of work that’s not interrupted by worrying about spelling and grammar. Dragon is a major part of that."

More recently, Merilee has seen the transformation Dragon has had on students of all ages, including a 3rd grader with dyslexia who, for the first time, was excited about reading and was thirsty for more.

“When we were done,” Grage recalls he said, "There has to be a third book." His motivation was amazing.

This was a student who didn’t want to go to the resource room because he read at a first grade level and couldn’t write complete sentences.

"Dragon and echo reading during profile creation forced him to work on word pronunciation, and his comprehension and fluency greatly increased."

To read more of Merilee’s story, go to Nuance's website here.

Organic basis for dyslexia - Max Planck Leipzig Research Study

Severe and persistent reading and spelling impairment linked with difficulties in processing speech sounds (developmental dyslexia) may be associated with under-action of an area of the brain.

Establishing an underlying organic basis for dyslexia has been a controversial area in recent years, but a team based at the Max Planck Institute Leipzig has used functional MRI scanning on dyslexic adults.

They found that there was a dysfunction in the auditory sensory thalamus, the medial geniculate body (MGB), while all other structures in the auditory pathway behaved comparably with those in control patients without dyslexia.

Furthermore, MGB activity correlated with dyslexia diagnostic scores, indicating that the task modulation of the MGB is critical for performance in dyslexics.

The authors of the research, published this week in the online Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the US, suggest that 'deficits in dyslexia are associated with a failure of the neural mechanism that dynamically tunes the MGB according to predictions from cortical areas to optimise speech processing.'

This research may go some way in establishing an underlying neural framework for the various presentations of some forms of dyslexia.

Read the Abstract and get access to the full paper here; PNAS online 

Authors: Begoña Díaz, Florian Hintz, Stefan J. Kiebel and Katharina von Kriegstein

Dyslexia: The First 100 most commonly used words chart

High frequency words are quite simply those words which occur most frequently in written material. For example, "and", "the", "as" and "it".

They are often words that have little meaning on their own, but they do contribute a great deal to the meaning of a sentence.

Some of the high frequency words can be sounded out using basic phonic rules, e.g. "it" is an easy word to read using phonics.

However, many of the high frequency words are not phonically regular and are therefore hard to read in the early stages.

These words are sometimes called tricky words, sight words or camera words.

In addition to being difficult to sound out, most of the high frequency words have a rather abstract meaning which is hard to explain to a child.

Below you can download our first 100 and second 100 most commonly used words chart for your classroom as a display or simply to put in front of your child when they are doing their homework to assist them with spelling.

Download First 100 High Frequency Words Chart - Bold Print.   

Download Second 100 High Frequency Words Chart - Bold Print.

University of Ghent Dyslexia Studies in Students - Video

To see the Video Click on the picture to link to the University of Ghent's  Website

This video is in the Dutch /Flemish language with English sub-titles.

Studying with Dyslexia
The documentary tells the story of young professionals with dyslexia who are studying at the university and how they are building exciting careers.

They testify about the obstacles from their student days.

A team of experts combines the stories of the professionals in the research on dyslexia today. A melting pot of intense testimony, scientific research and everyday practice makes for a fascinating viewing experience.

"Studying with dyslexia 'is an absolute must for anyone who wants to get rid of prejudices about dyslexia.

The DVD can be ordered via sigried.lievens@ugent.be