The accommodation you should have

It's exam time again at my college and, naturally enough, nerves are on edge. But there's one accommodation (for dyslexic students registered in the disability unit) that really makes this time easier. It's the most used accommodation of all and it's taking the exam in the disability unit as opposed to the regular classroom. Why is this accommodation so helpful? Because you get to sit in a less stressful, less competitive environment -Who needs to watch other students leaving the classroom in their droves while you are only half done? It's much better to avoid all that by being somewhere else. The other benefit of taking your exam away from the classroom is that you get extra time, typically time and a half. 

In my college you need to have filled out a form in order to get any accommodations, including this one, and if you're on the ball you get this done, at the disability unit, at the start of the semester. If you forget to be early you must at least get that form done several days before exams. The form is carbon copied so that there are a total of three identical pages. You keep one, the disability unit gets one and your professor gets his too. The form means that everyone knows you will quietly leave your classroom to take the exam and no one gets surprised. If you haven't got onto this yet, ask about it. My students say that this accommodation is huge for them and makes all the difference.

What if you are mildly dyslexic and not registered as having a disability? - Talk to your professor and maybe get advice from your school's disability unit or student services too. Many decisions are left to the discretion of individual professors so you may find that an understanding professor is very happy to accommodate you, especially if your need is relatively simple, like being allowed extra time.

Speak (your essay!) and the computer writes what you say

If you struggle with typing/writing your essays, you should check out a great computer program known as a "speech to text" program. I asked an assistive technology expert how it all works, what it costs, and other stuff, and here are the answers.

Ben, in simple terms, what IS this program?

This software program, called Dragon Naturally Speaking or “Dragon.” will type what you say, almost like your personal secretary.

How do I start?

You sit at the computer with a headset and microphone on, much like the people who work the drive-thru at either Dunkin Donuts or Mc Donalds would wear. The computer program asks you to read aloud a story. You choose from an easy story written by children to an advanced speech from President Robert F. Kennedy, it's up to you. The computer will “learn” the sound of your voice and adapt to you. When you're finished, the computer is trained to your voice and can type what you say fairly accurately.

Ben, you see people using this program all the time, what are your best tips?

The Dragon program works very well for those who aren't great at typing. The big limitation is that you should know beforehand what you want to say. -Otherwise you may be tongue-tied or waste time saying "ummm". It's best if you have notes, or the whole essay, jotted down for yourself when you begin.

How much is it?

The Dragon Naturally Speaking program isn't expensive. There is a version available from Best Buy for under $50. It's in most computer stores and the most expensive versions are still under $300.

Which students get most use out of this?

The ones who come prepared, with notes jotted down, and stick with it for a few hours until they really get the hang of it. Once you have done the initial training you can work fast but the training part, even though it's really only an hour or two, can put off some students.

When you say training, is that the part where you read the story?

Yes. You can read one story or more if you want to. You can read one story and then start with your own work straight away. The point is that the more the computer hears of your voice, the more accurate it gets at writing up what you say. Oh, and you can take breaks of course.

Can you fix mistakes in the print, say, for example, you say "patch" and the computer writes "pinch"?

Yes. The print goes into a word document so you can edit it as you would any other regular word document.

Ben Lim works at Bunker Hill Community College, Boston. Thanks Ben!

Adult signs of dyslexia

Wondering if you slipped through the net in school? Considering getting assessed? - According to the The International Dyslexia Association you should take notice of these kinds of symptoms:

·       Hiding your reading and writing problems.

·       Being really poor at spelling.

·       Having weak management and organizational skills.

·       Often relying on your memory and verbal skills rather than your reading and writing.

·       Working a job that's well below your intellectual ability.

The Fonz talks up reading in Bridgeport

Here's another great article about one man's realization that he has dyslexia. Remember the Fonz? In, The Fonz talks up reading in Bridgeport, he recalls his own, nothing like his TV show, tough school days.

This article is from the Connecticut Post, 11 Sept, 2007.

I cried with relief to hear I was dyslexic

To read a great personal account by an adult diagnosed with dyslexia later in life, check out, I cried with relief to hear I was dyslexic. Derry Ann Morgan, 48, says, "I couldn't concentrate, and I had terrible trouble learning my spellings and tables. I was a nervous child. I took everything seriously, and I was desperate to succeed. But the harder I tried, the less well I seemed to do."

Her children show signs of dyslexia too but now she feels better able to advise them, "The children are brilliant in their way. They see the world differently, but the disability creates ability in other ways. Gary has phenomenal spatial skills. He's brilliant at making things, as is Niall. And Emma is a wonderful artist."

The article is from the Irish Independent newspaper, Monday September 10 2007

Downloading audiobooks from itunes

If you've just been given your reading list for for school or college don't forget that you can download audiobooks from itunes for about $15 a pop.

Other things you might want to consider:

1.Check to see if your school or college disability unit can help you. Maybe they loan out ipods and/or can buy the book?

2. At Costco you can buy a $50 itunes card for $45 (you save $5).

3. Maybe someone who likes you will buy you an itunes gift voucher (since this is an educational need).

scholarships and internships

Here are a couple of websites I came across. I can't vouch for them but they seem worth a look.

-For a search of college scholarships check out http://www.fastweb.com">www.fastweb.com
-For internships for students with disabilities in Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science, and some fields of Business check out the Entry Point program at http://ehrweb.aaas.org/entrypoint/

Tips for comprehension and vocab

I just received some questions from a student about comprehension and vocab so here are the short tips I gave him:

Q I have a hard time with authors purpose and compare this to that.

A Do you have a list of possible answers ie persuasion, explanation, humor? A list is helpful because you can talk about it with a friend and act the common ones out so they stick in your mind better. With compare/contrast type questions be sure you know you'res looking for 'same as' and 'different' (and key words are words like "likewise" and "similarly", and "by contrast". When I teach this I usually say really simple things like, “I am wearing pants and similarly you are” or “I’m short, by contrast, you’re tall” and I get my student to say some of his own examples (real easy ones) and we act them out where we can (sitting/standing, in/out).

Q My knowledge of vocab words is also really low

A Vocab can be hard because you want to discover new words naturally but how often do we really consider vocab except in school books? I usually start thinking about vocab by discussing the advantage of having good vocab ie when you know big words you look smart! Then we find words we don’t know and want to know, practice spelling them, thinking up any handy ways of remembering them, then using them in sentences (orally). Then we pick the hardest 5 to save. I have students explain them again and write them out again . They take them with them, or I keep them, and we review them next session. Oh, and any novel ways you can think of to remember them, the better. Acting out is good, also drawing things in and around the word and thinking of your own experiences or people the word describes ie My mom’s frugal!. When you spell the word, look out for tricky syllables and highlight them, eg in/CES/sant.

Q If the teacher says turn to page 263 in your book, read to page 266 and do problems 1-5...I can't remember it all.

A A quick review of note taking would help you. In this example you would jot down something like:

Pg 263

2 266

pr 1-5

You might have fun thinking up your own creative/bizarre/artistic shorthand.

Dyslexia - How does it feel?

It's summer vacation, and my family is pretty new to the area, so today we went exploring. I'm driving the car and my daughter is navigating: -M is for me, D is for my daughter.

D- "Oh God Mom, I'm so bad at this, who knows where we'll end up? We've got plenty of gas haven't we?"

M- "You'll be fine, you'll soon get the hang of it."

M- "Harvey St, do you see it?. We're on Main and we just crossed Harvey."

D- "No."

M- "OK, Kelley, do you see Kelley?"

D- "Nope."

M-"Rowley?"

D- "No."

M-"What about Maple, we're crossing Maple, it's a big one, it MUST be there."

D- "It's not here, none of them are here! And the stupid page splits just where I need to see the road and of course there's this big box obliterating just about anything worth seeing."

M- "South, honey, we're going South. Are you sure you're not looking North?"

D- "Oh, THAT South, well would you look at that! Rowley did you say? Yup, it's here now. -Mom, can you imagine how hard this would be if I had dyslexia on top of how difficult this already is?"

And of course I don't suppose I could really image it at all. I help people with dyslexia every day but I'm not dyslexic and am always moved anew by the personal accounts my students give me. They say things like, " It's incredibly frustrating. I can read fine but my writing looks like a small kids. I can't spot my mistakes and then when someone points them out to me they seem so obvious and basic." "I make a joke of my dyslexia because I have to. My kids help me out a lot when I have to write something." "I hated school because I couldn't keep up with the books but I got along by being smart in other ways. I couldn't read or write much but I'm a great talker. When I left I even got a job delivering mail. I memorized names and street codes, I amazed even myself."

Dyslexia. How does it feel?

Using ipods to help reading fluency

I came upon this great blog by a computer whiz who's explaining to less wired-up reading teachers how we can use ipods in class. I'm sure all manner of adaptations are feasible and intend to try some.

Update:

A site you can join to download audiobooks onto your ipod, or onto your computer for direct listening or downloading in segments onto your ipod, is www.audible.com. It costs around $14 a month with a cheaper rate for the first 3 months. Advantage=you can get all the latest titles.

For loaning CDs and DVDs don't forget your library. They have catalogues and you can order titles that aren't currently on their shelves. Advantage= it's free.

Hey, I think I have dyslexia

So here's a conversation I had yesterday, and I should add that I have this kind of conversation a lot. -I'm telling a colleague about this new blog when a student, sitting within ear range, strikes up this chat:

"Dyslexia? I think I have that. I'm always reversing letters and I put words in the wrong place in my sentences. My thinking's like that too. I sort of mix my thoughts up. Why's that? Do you think I have dyslexia? Should I do something?"

"Hmmm. Have you ever been tested?"

"No. I'm not sure about that, the whole thing about people knowing. What would people think if they knew? I don't know."

"Well, there's a few things to weigh up. You can get a lot of extra help in the disability unit, like specialised tutoring and extra time to take tests, but to get that help you have to show proof that you have dyslexia, or some disability, and to show that, you have to get assessed. And assessment can be expensive. The good news is that the people in the disability unit can connect you with someone who can diagnose you for free or for a relatively small fee (you may get quicker attention if you pay). The other thing to know is that college staff must keep your details strictly confidential. The disability unit can't disclose anything about you without your permission. Let's say, hypothetically, that you get diagnosed with dyslexia. You can choose to get extra help in the disability unit at college or decide to keep the information to yourself and forgo the help. Maybe you decide to get help in the disability unit but not disclose your info to your professors. After college, you may disclose at your workplace or not. The point is that you have the right to confidentiality. There are benefits to letting people know you have dyslexia but, conversely, you may feel that there's a stigma involved.

What's YOUR experience of getting an assessment or not?

Discovering the strength of syllables

Syllables, chunks or parts; whatever you call them, are really, really helpful both for reading and spelling. Here's why. The single, most agreed upon characteristic of dyslexia is difficulty with phonemes. What's a phoneme? - A sound/ spelling chunk. Chunks like ank, ill and ick are phonemes and most dyslexics have trouble with the little phonemes that sound alike.

Many of my students can read complex text and give great oral presentations, but start to palpitate if I ask them to spell a couple of itsy bitsy chunks like est and ast. So we spend a lot of time hearing those sounds and after that, spelling them. What exactly is so hard about those phonemes? -Answer:  Mostly, the vowels.

In order to read and spell well you must get to grips with the short and long vowel sounds, hearing them and then spelling them. Start off by getting a handle on the short vowel sounds (apple, egg, income, olive, up). If you feel embarrassed with words like pat and pet, hang in there because you'll find that a whole bunch, in fact whole bunches and bunches, of long words are made up wholly or in part by short-vowel chunks. Spell these words out a few times so you feel the short vowel chunks, or syllables, for yourself. Be sure to sound out, not spell out, those chunks -this is key to being able to transfer the learning to other words.

1. invested in/ves/ted
2. collected col/lec/ted
3. badminton bad/min/ton
4. picnic pic/nic
5. inspected in/spec/ted
6. contest con/test
7. disrupt dis/rupt
8. magnet mag/net

Welcome to the Dyslexia Cafe

Welcome to the quiet, yet noble, opening of the Dyslexia Cafe. I'm Tracey Wood and I'm hoping to stir up a cafe-like tone here and impart some down to earth, practical information about dyslexia. Why? Because I teach in a city college in Boston and every few days have sensational sessions with my students, or feel an awesome tip rattling around in my head, and would like to free that premium brain space by jotting down and sharing the news. Oh, and just so that you feel comfortable about my credibility, I should tell you that I'm a literacy specialist, and the author of four, at the risk of sounding immodest, fairly big-name books, including, ta da, Overcoming Dyslexia for Dummies. Enough said. Welcome, and here goes.