Dyslexia Friendly Classroom Training

May 13, 2022 by thecindyleafhall

Happy Spring! This season marks the beginning of a growth cycle in nature, but the end of a school year cycle. It is a time to look back over our classes, reflecting on the goals set for the students during those first weeks of August and September. Last fall, you took stock of which students would need a little extra help breathed into them to be successful, and which ones were ready to soar with only guidance. May finds us celebrating the high fliers, and handing out awards to mark their accomplishments.

It is a delight to teach outstanding students, but what of the plodders among our students? The ones who show up every day, but in whom the spark of our teaching efforts never quite seems to catch flame? They will sit through the awards ceremonies again this year, knowing none of the academic achievement certificates or ribbons bear their name. How is it that this outcome continues to repeat itself yearly for these few students?

For you teachers whose reflection back over the closing school year is marred by an inability to reach those couple of lower-achieving students, let me invite you to get fresh insight into how the dyslexic students in your room approach learning, and master simple tools and techniques that work to help your students for whom learning is more difficult. The best news of all is that while the educational principles and practices I have the opportunity to share with you are great for the handful of dyslexic students in your classrooms, they are also good for the majority of your students who are non-dyslexic.

Join me online for a course I have titled Dyslexia Friendly Classroom. In this companion training to Orton-Gillingham approach training, I will take you through a series of read-at-your-own-pace sessions designed to give you the information every classroom teacher needs to know about dyslexia. We will begin with an overview of how dyslexia affects a student’s ability to learn in the classroom, move to specific strengths and weaknesses of dyslexia, then look at how the brain learns and how academic memory works. Next, we’ll tackle how we can form our classroom policies and organization to be more friendly to our dyslexic students. For the final two lessons, we’ll spend time learning how to make custom, teacher-created materials which are easily coordinated with your teacher manuals.

Sign up online for 6 one to two-hour long lessons of intensive learning which will expand your understanding of how to best help the students in your next class who struggle due to dyslexia. It could mean you will be penning their names on awards for next May’s awards ceremonies! Three cohorts are planned for this summer, so one of the calendar spreads is sure to mesh with your summer plans. Go to https://dfc.pathwright.com/library/dyslexia-friendly-classroom-125593/about/ to sign up today!

Brenda’s Story

March 5, 2022 by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Imagine a child so reluctant to write that she lays her pencil down between each word. That child was Brenda on her first day in my fifth-grade small group. We had opened the first day of a new small group by talking about how the students felt about reading, spelling, and writing – the areas which tend to give students with dyslexia the most difficulty. Brenda quietly let us know she liked reading, and could work on spelling, but strongly disliked writing. Brenda arrived at this dislike of writing in what is, unfortunately, the usual way.

Her mom began noticing that Brenda had some differences in her reading compared with the older children in the family when Brenda began completing assigned reading homework in first grade. When they read together, Brenda tended to either skip over or greatly struggle with common, high-frequency words which other children her age read with ease. If there were questions to answer about the passage, Brenda would have no idea how to answer – as if she had not listened to herself reading. Spelling in the early years was a complete mystery to Brenda. She simply didn’t make the connection between the letters and the sounds they represented. Brenda and her mom spent a great deal of time studying and working on word lists for upcoming spelling tests only to have Brenda perform very poorly on test day.

Being a proactive mom, Mrs. C researched possible reasons for the language struggles and took Brenda to be tested for dyslexia at the end of Brenda’s second-grade year. The test results found that Brenda was identified with characteristics of a person with dyslexia. Feeling she had found her answer, Mrs. C. pulled Brenda out of XYZ, the private church school she had been attending, and intended to homeschool her. A plan for teaching Brenda to read using phonics was recommended, so Mrs. C. purchased a popular book on how parents can teach their children to read in just over three months’ time. She had successfully homeschooled her older children, so felt prepared for the task of teaching Brenda to read.

Brenda did not share her mom’s enthusiasm for their homeschooling endeavors. Mrs. C. recalls how Brenda would hide the reading manual, causing time to be spent searching the house for the book so lessons could begin. Clever even at a very young age, Brenda would find unique caches for the book every day. Mrs. C. recalls being confused that a child bright enough to search out new hiding places couldn’t simply sit down and learn the lessons the book promised would teach her to read!

Two years invested in homeschooling efforts had yielded a closeness between mother and daughter (as well as an intimate knowledge of all possible hidey-holes in the house!) but had not resulted in Brenda reading and spelling on grade level. Writing had now joined the list of challenges and became Brenda’s nemesis.

Brenda’s folks came to me at the Dyslexia Center at the end of Brenda’s fourth-grade year, looking for a different way to approach Brenda’s language instruction. They enrolled Brenda in small group and tutoring, planning to start at the beginning of fifth grade.

At ABC, Brenda responded positively to the open and frank discussion of dyslexia that was part of the school culture. She seemed relieved to put a name to her struggles with language and was happy to know there was an approach to learning that would be successful for her. One of the specific things Brenda mentioned that encouraged her was the rotating classroom display of accomplished and famous dyslexic people. Brenda applied herself to learning and understanding the Orton-Gillingham approach lessons presented to her. Her tutor recalls Brenda being a very hard worker who seemed relieved to learn the generalizations and logic that are hallmarks of the O-G approach.

After completing her fifth-grade year, Brenda had made a lot of progress. She had learned to make a brainstorm box to write down key ideas she wanted to include in her writing so that creating content was separated from remembering the mechanics and spelling rules that govern writing. Even though she was not finished the program, Brenda felt she had been given the tools she needed to succeed. She longed to return to XYZ, the school she had attended in first and second grade, feeling her closest friends were there. Her parents enrolled her in XYZ and arranged for a private O-G trained tutor to come to the school and give Brenda tutoring lessons multiple times per week. The plan felt sound, but it was not a success.

Brenda was dismayed to realize school XYZ did not have a culture friendly to dyslexic students. She worked extraordinarily hard to earn average grades, but her teacher did not pick up on the fact she was not thriving. She was not allowed accommodations in the classroom, and the girls she was longing to reconnect with mocked and ridiculed her need for tutoring. Brenda’s tutoring lessons fell during the classroom math lesson, and the teacher did not alter the schedule. Unsurprisingly, Brenda soon added math to the list of subjects in which she was flagging. Realizing the failure of school XYZ to meet Brenda’s needs, her mom chose to move Brenda back to ABC for her seventh-grade year.

Having spent a year away from the support system and understanding culture offered by ABC, Brenda now realized what a gift that support and understanding were. She felt bolstered by the school culture surrounded by students and teachers who understood dyslexia, at least to some degree, and where everyone accepted her. Once again, Brenda had the environment she needed to succeed. Accommodations prevented Brenda from getting bogged down and behind. Class notes that were provided to her by each teacher freed Brenda from the burden of trying to listen to the lecture and write the notes at the same time. She was now able to focus on what the teacher was saying, and her grades and level of understanding soared. Brenda was able to take advantage of writing tutoring that could be scheduled during her study period, provided by an English teacher who was O-G trained. Brenda’s family was exposed to continuing education about dyslexia for families. This gave the entire family a better understanding of dyslexia and how it was impacting Brenda.

Brenda graduated from ABC as an honors student and a proud member of the school volleyball team. Brenda’s natural willingness to try new things ripened into confidence, even when success in those new endeavors was not guaranteed. Brenda is now at a small private college studying nursing, and her grades put her on the Dean’s List. One day, Brenda’s picture could join that rotating display of accomplished dyslexic individuals.

Brenda’s mom offers some advice to moms of children who exhibit signs of a reading struggle.

Know the signs of dyslexia.
Know that frequently a series of small and seemingly unrelated struggles cumulatively point to dyslexia.
Get your child tested and start O-G tutoring as young as possible.
Listen to your “mom radar” when things don’t seem to add up in a way that explains your child’s school struggles.
Find a school with a culture of acceptance of children who learn differently.
Allow your child to participate in extracurricular activities that interest them – it can’t be ALL about studying.
Know that you can petition for extra time on college entrance exams and that it can make a huge difference to have that extra time.
Encourage your child to ask for and accept help rather than struggle.
Encourage your college-aged child to register for accommodations at university – even if s/he does not plan to use them.

Spelling List Help

August 31, 2021 by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

My heart went out to the mom who posted a similar graded paper on social media along with a cry for help.

I hear your pain!

I could read the pain in the social media post as a mom lamented her daughter’s teacher sending home poor spelling tests plastered with a big red F. It is so hard to see our children struggle! I sent her a message with the following study plan for working that spelling list and helping her daughter own the words. It is a big departure from the tried and true “copy your spelling list” way of studying words, but the kinesthetic and analytic elements make it work! Here is the plan, in case you want to try it for yourself.

Get the list early

Start with a note to the teacher and request the new spelling list on Friday. The teacher will be glad you have a plan to tackle the spelling words. Both of you want the same thing – for your child to succeed.

Friday Afternoon

On Friday afternoon, have your child write each of their words large in sparkle marker or glitter glue or some other fun way on the blank side of 3×5 cards, one word per card. Help him or her scoop the syllables with a pencil under the word so s/he is thinking in syllables.(Look in a dictionary if you are unsure how to divide.) Help him or her to read the words, because it is likely s/he is struggling with that – most dyslexic students do. Look together for the common spelling patterns in the words.

Saturday

Saturday have your child “help” you discover that common spellings of groups of words. Have her sort the words into piles by common spelling rule, reading the words aloud and spelling aloud as she sorts. If s/he used glitter glue to write them out, s/he can trace them with her finger as she spells them out loud and that will help her with recall.

Sunday

On Sunday, lay out the words with the common spelling rule on its own 3×5 tent card. Have your child read and spell the words aloud, tracing the letters on the card as she says the letter names aloud.

Monday

On Monday, you can work with your child to think of a funny sentence to recall the words in each group, such as, “My neighbor got a sleigh on the freight train,” for the eigh words. Have her illustrate the sentence and write it below the illustration, touching the pictures which represent the words and then spell them aloud. Putting words with a common spelling pattern into one category will help make sense of the spellings, and the funny sentences with pictures will help with recall of what words belong in the same category.

The rest of the week

Continue working with the words each afternoon, tracing the letters and saying them aloud as she says the word. Put aside the ones she knows and concentrating on the tough ones as the week continues. These techniques will help her get very familiar with the words, and are fun as well as pencil and paper free. Spelling the words by syllable is also crucial since it helps break long words down into manageable bits.

Night Before the Test

The night before the spelling test, do a “practice test.” Have your child number the paper, or as best you can mimic how the classroom teacher sets up her spelling test papers. You call out the spelling words in mixed order, as the teacher will do, supporting your child by reminding him or her of the ways you have worked on this week to recall the words. Encourage tracing the word on the table top and whispering the letters aloud if that helps. Calibrate expectations be assuring your child that improvement is the goal, not perfection. Take a look at words your child missed to see if s/he is missing one of the spelling patterns, or leaving out a letter (meaning s/he is not hearing that sound). Retrace the 3×5 of missed words, and reassure your child that s/he has these words in his or her brain, and can relax and let the brain carry the day tomorrow on the spelling test.

Long term solution

The long term solution for this family and for others facing a similar situation is to get testing to see what the root of the learning struggle truly is, and get intervention targeted for that problem. There are very few one-size-fits-all solutions out there, so take time to follow the process of identifying the problem and applying the correct solution. Sooner is always better than later. Use the strategy I gave you to help while you look for the long term solution that is just right for your child’s situation.

Teacher Created Materials: Picture Card Method

August 25, 2021 by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

When I was in high school, (half a century ago!) all promising soprano chorale members took private voice lessons. In Italian. I was living on a farm in central Iowa, where gathering eggs and putting up corn in August were things I knew, not singing in Italian! The idea behind voice lessons featuring words in the Italian language was teaching sopranos to reach for high notes yet keep a purity of vowel sound. I am sure it is excellent theory, but I hard time memorizing the words because I didn’t have any idea what I was singing about. Although I never made it past the “promising soprano” category in high school, I still enjoy singing – when I know what the song is saying!

My students also have a hard time memorizing what they don’t understand. Thinking through the words and finding the mental picture those words create is the missing link for my students. Unlike me with the songs in Italian, my students are working in their native language of English, but they need a mechanism to think through the passage. Enter icons and cartooning! Creating an illustration for the lines of poetry or bits of verse which are required to be repeated verbatim can be exactly what is needed.

Notice how easy memorizing a stanza of the poem “Destruction of Sennacherib” by Lord Byron becomes when one thinks of it in pictures. The pictures are designed to aid in recalling the words, not illustrating the poem’s meaning.

To use the pictures s/he has drawn to help memorize a poem, the student touches the picture as s/he says aloud the words represented by the picture. Having mental pictures to stimulate the brain to recall the associated words is quite powerful and effective! Even if you are not a fan of Lord Byron, and are hazy on who, exactly, Sennacherib was, try out this method right now to see how effective it is. Your blue wave will roll right over the poem in just a few practices!

Teacher Created Materials: Vocabulary Flap Cards

July 23, 2021 by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

There is a certain modest pleasure in being able to create exactly the items your students need. I love a good Teacher Pay Teacher download as much as the next person, but let’s face it, you have to put a whole lot of printing and prepping into those items too! I want to share with you some of the simple but super effective materials for helping individuals with dyslexia. You probably already have 95% of the materials, and if you have 5 minutes and a sharpie pen, you can make these items.

Vocabulary Flap Cards are so awesome, because they address a fundamental but over looked deficit among older dyslexic learners. The students are not reading the hard words. They just aren’t. You as the teacher need to help bridge that gap, and vocabulary flap cards will do just that.

The ideal users of vocabulary flap cards are students advanced enough to have multisyllabic words as part of their texts or assessments. Probably grades 4 and up are the target audience for this method.

Here are the step-by-step directions with pictures! It will take you longer to read the directions than to make one, I promise you.

Start with a 3×5 card, and fold it lengthwise with the lines inside.

Write vocabulary word large inside the card, slightly separating the syllables.

Cut through the top layer, creating syllable flaps student can raise to read the word by syllables.

On the front top, write the verbatim definition you will use on the test.

The student reads the long, difficult word by syllable, with assistance at first, and has the definition on the front pointed out to him or her so that extra layer of learning is understood. The student can then practice reading the difficult words and linking them with the definition. It is very helpful to your dyslexic student if you use the verbatim definition as it will appear on the test, since students with dyslexia are not very good at rephrasing under pressure.

Let me know if you use this method, and if it works for your students! The beauty of it is not needing to make a card for every single word in the chapter, just the ones that are difficult for that particular student!

Bends in the River

July 5, 2021 by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Life has a funny way of surprising us, doesn’t it? I began this blog when I was in the thick of working at a school and developing the concept of a dyslexia center. Every school day brought me fun new challenges and obstacles to overcome on the way to creating a mainstream school that was friendly to dyslexic students. I had lots of stories of student funnies and sweet triumphs to share with you.

Then one day, I looked up and realized my work on building a dyslexia friendly school was successful! I was done. I could move on, knowing I could leave my decade’s long work in good hands and it would continue to thrive and meet the needs of the students and families depending on it.

So I retired. I packed my boxes, loaded my car, and stored those boxes of teaching stuff in the garage at home. I planted a vegetable garden. I finished conversations with my husband. I grew a rainbow of flowers in our yard. I went to lunch with friends. I cleaned corners in my home.

But I missed teaching kids how to read.

I picked up just a few private practice tutoring students. With joy, I used the Orton-Gillingham approach skills I knew so well, and crafted lessons to improve the language skills of my handful of dyslexic students. I loved presenting the lessons, and the students seemed to love receiving them. Their newly sharpened language skills spoke of the benefit of those tutorials.

I thought about all the many things the past decade had taught me. About the many lessons large and small I had gleaned from ten school years helping classroom teachers learn best practices for teaching dyslexic students. About the many conversations held while walking down the classroom hallway when a teacher needed me to quickly clarify some area of classroom life in which the students with dyslexia needed just a small tweak to help their school life run more smoothly. About the conversations from new family interviews where I heard heart wrenching stories of how very wrongly school had gone for their child with dyslexia – wrongs that could have been avoided if the teacher had just understood how to run a dyslexia friendly classroom. I wished I had a thousand decades to give to creating a thousand schools as friendly to students with dyslexia as the one I had just retired from.

The fish quote came to my mind.

“Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime.”
Confucius

That was my next bend in the river. Time to give fishing lessons. Not literal fishing lessons, of course. Lessons for teachers (and interested school administrators) about how to have a Dyslexia Friendly Classroom.

The material for developing the course spent several months in the form of Post-it notes scattered across the wall of the spare bedroom I use as my home office. I added, deleted, rearranged and thought about how to structure the course. Clipboards held ideas for the structure of each day’s lessons.

Eventually it gelled into a one hundred page training manual. A sponsor was secured for the first training cohort, which was in person, and schools registered teachers to attend. The reaction of the teachers from that first week of training let me know this was an idea with legs. I pressed forward to develop a half dozen of the training week modules into an online course, which premiers next week.

The fishers are being taught. Those teachers will learn how to establish their own Dyslexia Friendly Classrooms.

My blog posts will follow this bend in the river. Expect to see posts with recommendations on books to read, ideas for teacher (or parent) created materials that allow a student with dyslexia to process school material in a way conducive to his or her needs. Let me tell you stories of surprises from training sessions, and of successes shared by the teachers who report back on how it went at school as they implemented what was learned during the trainings. I have facts to share about dyslexia. Perhaps a funny student story will sneak its way into an occasional blog post.

Thanks for staying in the canoe with me as we explore what is around this bend in the river.

Identity Statement

January 31, 2021 by thecindyleafhall

I am a teacher.

I am an artist.

My canvas: the minds of dyslexic students.

My medium: consonants, vowels, syllables.

Each piece of art assembled one tiny step at a time.

A work of patient nurturing;

a constant ballet of teacher instruction meeting student understanding;

building her skills layer upon layer.

A twisting of multiple concepts into sturdy threads

able to anchor the complexities of language into his mind

with smooth brain stitches.

As the form of each unique masterpiece emerges,

robed in newfound confidence and abilities,

able to stride away from my polishing and honing drills,

empowered for independence by the myriad of tools

carefully tucked into every fiber and recess of her mind;

I indulge in a moment of reverent admiration of this latest magnum opus

before turning away to join hand and heart with the next blank canvas who needs me,

for I am a teacher.

Enjoying the Process

August 13, 2020 by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I love this quote from Jennifer Chiaverini. It leaped out at me as I was reading the novel “Enchantress of Numbers” a couple of nights ago. The quote was intended to encourage a student not to live only for answers, but to learn how to enjoy the process of getting to answers. I applied it to myself as a teacher of struggling students, reminding myself to enjoy the process of crafting and teaching lessons that lead students to those moments where a difficult concept becomes clear. After all, many hours are spent in the planning and executing of great lessons, and the Ah-Ha Moments would never arrive without them!

Teaching in a Time of Covid19

July 14, 2020 by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

March 13, 2020. That was the last day I taught students who were physically in the same room with me. Like thousands of other educators across our nation and the globe, I sat at my desk late that afternoon and made a list of possible solutions for how to continue to educate my young charges. One consideration I had that may not have been on other teachers’ minds was that every single one of my students is dyslexic. Giving them passages to read at home and questions to write out answers to would not equal learning. So, what to do?

When I was wrestling with the decision on the best way to teach my students, I naively believed that this was a two week pause in the school year, and that we would scrub and sanitize our way back to in-person learning after spring break. Deep in my heart, I have to admit that even then I wondered how it could all be solved in a few weeks. I suspected that even if some of the students did return, some would be at home for the rest of the school year.

Throughout the school year, I had taught professional development modules on dyslexia for schools from Virginia to Florida using the Zoom platform. It worked well for me, and was user friendly. I wrote “Zoom Small Groups” on my brainstorming list, and kept returning to it as other ideas were listed then discarded. By Monday morning, my staff and I held a staff meeting on Zoom to introduce them to the platform. I had the best group of professionals anyone could ever ask for, and they were willing to make the leap with me in committing that all of our dyslexia department’s instruction would continue to be live, teacher/tutor led, and individualized. We spent a couple of days getting everyone set up with Zoom accounts, and practicing the mechanics of inviting parents to sign in, and remembering passwords and codes were an integral part of successful connections. Where necessary, loaner systems were procured and set up at the homes of both staff and parents. By Wednesday, our invitations to join meetings were sent to parents, and we launched out into the unknown world of virtual instruction.

“Tomorrow is going to be better than today,” became our motto during those early days as everyone, parents as well as staff members, navigated the unknown waters. The motto proved to be true. We communicated, a lot, with everyone involved. We scoured the Zoom information websites, looking for Share my Screen directions, and happily finding the magical “Improve My Appearance” slider. (If that were sold in a jar at the drug store, I would buy a case!) Every moment was not a good moment. Everyone did not participate every lesson. The situation was more stressful for some families than for others. We chose to look the other way when Grandpa answered a meeting notification in his pj’s with hair standing on end, or the potty training little brother streaking through the camera view. Everyone was doing their best, and that is all that can be expected.

As the spring wore on, bi-weekly packet pick up days became the bright spot because it meant we got to see our students, albeit through car windows. I became more convinced of the soundness of my decision to put my staff through the rigors of live instruction. The real proof would come when we conducted our end-of-semester progress monitoring testing. Plans were worked out for exactly how we would conduct that testing within the parameters of the Zoom screen. I went first with my own students, so I could become aware of unforeseen pitfalls and we could devise work arounds. After 6 weeks of on-line tutoring and small group instructions, our resilient students breezed through the testing, not seeing to bat an eye at it coming in a distance format. My staff and I held our collective breath as we awaited the results.

Forty-three students completed the testing. I set out these four categories: scores dropped lower than the December testing, no improvement in the scores compared to the December testing, steady improvement of 4 months to 1 year in all categories tested, and stellar improvement of 6 months to over a year in all categories tested. Scores were verified, reports edited and sent onto parents, and a stroke count made beside each of the four categories. My excitement rose as I sat at a spare table in my living room working through the stacks of testing data and reports. I may frame the scratch paper I used to tally the testing results. In the end, one student dropped below the December score. Two students showed no improvement. A whopping twenty-two fell into that steady improvement category, and eighteen were in the stellar improvement column.

It had worked.

They had learned, even in a time of Covid19.

Creativity Grows on Trees

March 6, 2020 by thecindyleafhall ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I had the privilege to sub for a grade 2 small group yesterday, as their regular teacher traveled with her daughter to a cheer competition. I really like subbing for my teachers, because it gives me great snapshots of how the students in that group are doing, and the teacher geek in me just loves teaching kids!

The language portion of the lesson yesterday involved choosing two words from sticky notes to make a compound word, then choosing a different colored sticky note adjective to describe the compound word. Those stickies were taken to the work table, and students wrote a sentence, underlining the compound and boxing the adjective. This activity was great on many levels, including the getting up from the work table and going to the counter were the sticky notes were laid out between each sentence. Planned stretches are important for our students, and creative writing that is one sentence long is less overwhelming than a whole paragraph.

I was going through individual reading assessments with each of the five students as the sentences were being written, so was listening to sentences here and there when young authors were so delighted with their own words that they just had to share a particularly funny sentence with me. That is when Henry started the “money tree” sentence thread. He had recently heard the maxim “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” and was all about imagining the possibility of money actually growing on trees. We talked about what the saying means, and why parents or grandparents might say it, but the giggly, creative imaginations of those five second graders had already taken flight, and I found myself in the role of air traffic controller, keeping them from talking over one another in their enthusiasm to read the sentence they had made with their compound word that related to money growing on trees. Want some examples of their wit?

“If money grows on trees, I will get my whole class orange basketballs for PE.”

“I plant a money tree in the hot sunshine so we can go to Chick-fil-A every day.”

“I got a lot of cool skateboards with dollars from my money tree.”

The sentences went on and on, and the language portion regrettably drew to a close and we moved to spelling, where a new list of words to work on was introduced. Our pattern of introducing words is to underline the target spelling pattern in each word, scoop syllables, then read the words orally and use them in sentences. I know you can see where this is going, and yes, you are right. The money tree theme spread like a bamboo forest, creeping from language lesson into those sample spelling word sentences. Never before had I seen such sharp wit and wide smiles from this group of five students as they somehow fit money trees into oral sentences using their spelling words.

The Spire reading lesson finished out our small group time, with the money tree theme front and center. As we brainstormed all the ways they have learned to spell the long e sound, they were quick to point out that the word “money” ends in the long e sound. We briefly talked about how not many words have the e at the end spelled ey, most are just a y. Mary Lou was right there to remind us all that you can’t spell the sound e at the end of a word with the letter e, because then it will be silent and make the vowel in front of it say its long sound, turning our “money tree” into a “moan-y tree.” Mary Lou had tears of laughter streaming from to corners of her eyes as she painted for us the picture of trees than moaned and complained.

As small group drew to a close, all of us felt the ninety minutes had flown by, like money taking wings of flight. I loved seeing these students’ growth, in both knowledge of how reading and language works, and of the wit and humor that language can bring to us. This year, these five students have journeyed from the land where language is a confusing blur full of puzzling rules and unexpected exceptions to a stable place where the GPS of reliable rules and guidelines lead them to the right word choice nearly every time. How amazing see this change unfold, a money tree of knowledge growing steadily between each student’s ears.

” Knowledge is wealth, wisdom is treasure, understanding is riches, and ignorance is poverty.” Dhliwayo

Tales from the Dyslexia Center

Tag: teaching