Tabla de contenidos para January 2023 en Dystinct Magazine

THE MIND, ONCE STRETCHED BY A NEW IDEA, NEVER RETURNS TO ITS ORIGINAL DIMENSIONS.Ralph Waldo Emerson This issue was five months in the making, and it’s been a huge learning process for me. So, rather than my usual one-page editor’s note, I’m going to write my honest reflection of what I’ve learned over the past 5 months during the making of this issue. As a parent trained in MSL, an approach to literacy instruction developed by the Australian Dyslexia Association based on the Science of Reading research, I, too, like most aware parents and educators, follow all the SOR pages and groups on social media to keep myself up-to-date, so I can advocate for my children at school. Recently, I was surprised to learn from Donna Hejtmanek’s Facebook group -…

Dystinct reporter Flynn Eldridge had a chat with Donna Hejtmanek about her Facebook group, The Science of Reading-What I Should Have Learned in College, and her viewpoints on the Structured Linguistic Literacy approach. Excerpts from the interview: When did you start helping people who didn't know how to read and write? I became a teacher back in 1976 and started working with students in 1977. That was my first job. How many people with learning differences would you have helped in the past? I've put in about 41 years of working with students. I was a teacher in a public school, and I also worked as a private tutor. I would say several hundred students, maybe more like five or six hundred students. But something happened to me in 2019…

My literacy journey has been full of countless celebrations as well as frequent challenges and learning opportunities. It has never been dull! It started in 1997 after I had been a Neonatal ICU nurse for a decade. My daughter, in 2nd grade at the time, struggled mightily with reading and spelling. She had highly educated parents, had been read to every day, and attended what were deemed excellent schools. Nevertheless, she was significantly sub-literate. We first noticed Colleen’s reading difficulties after moving back to the United States from Guam in 1996. The small school my children attended in Guam taught systematic phonics. My oldest daughter picked it up rapidly, and Colleen thrived when instruction consisted of a single letter representing one sound. However, when instruction progressed to learning the complex…

This is the story of a mother who desperately tried to seek help for her children's ongoing challenges for over a decade. When help finally arrived, it ended up changing her life too. Nancy Dressel was ashamed of her unexplained differences all her life. When she had her three children, she knew that they, too, were "different" just like her. "I was especially ashamed of my struggle with reading and spelling. My human desire to achieve, fit in, and belong was great, but only I knew the truth. Only I knew I had to do everything differently. Only I knew how much time and energy it took to maintain my system. Only I knew that it could all fall apart at any moment. Only I knew that everything was at…

"Mom, the other kids at school were laughing at me today. They said I was reading 'baby books,'" my daughter sobbed. Thus began my initiation into the world of reading disabilities, dyslexia, reading tutors, reading programs, reading strategies, reading practices, and reality My daughter Hailey was seven and in 2nd grade when my literacy IQ was tested. Hailey was our firstborn; my husband and I were unaware she was behind in reading. We had no one and nothing to compare her progress to. As responsible parents, we had done everything parents are supposed to: we read to her from birth, we had Hailey read her weekly practice books that came home from school, we were both readers, and for heaven's sake, I was a middle school English teacher. Of course,…

Illustrator Abby de los Santos Age 10 Dyslexia San Antonio, Texas, USA Abby is in the fifth grade. She enjoys spending time with her friends and being creative. She loves taking her dog on walks and wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up. Illustrator Ava Eldridge Age 9 Dyslexia NSW, Australia Ava loves art, animals, cooking, her family, playing the piano and she really enjoys reading! Her newfound love of aerial acrobatics keeps her busy. Reporter Flynn Eldridge Age 10 Dyslexia & Dysgraphia NSW, Australia Flynn finds reporting fun, sometimes scary, and ultra exciting. Flynn likes to dress up as an old-time reporter and ask a range of questions, as that is his style. Flynn builds loads of different lego creations such as the rainbow, spinning-top microphone he…

cut to the chase According to Wiki, the history of the phrase 'cut to the chase' originated from the entertainment industry's car chase scenes in films. "Some inexperienced screenwriters or directors would pad the film with unnecessary dialogue, which bored the audience and prolonged the time before the exciting chase scene. Cut to the chase was a phrase used by movie studio executives to mean that the audience shouldn't get bored by the extra dialogue and that the film should get to the interesting scenes without unnecessary delays. The phrase is now widely used and means "get to the point." After years of intervention and after-school tutoring with explicit Print to Speech methods, my child was still a struggling reader; the need to 'cut to the chase' became more significant.…

RUMBLING WITH VULNERABILITY Brené Brown always says it best.Most of us feel brave and afraid at the exact same time. We feel vulnerable. Sometimes all day long. During those moments when we're pulled between our fear and our call to courage, we need shared language, skills, tools, and daily practices that can support us through the rumble. My journey through literacy instruction has been nothing less than a rumble with vulnerability. I began teaching kindergarten, and it stretched over a wonderful 18 years. Overall, a lot of my students made reading look like it was easy. Kids were coming in with solid alphabet and sound knowledge, so it leaned into feeling like that was a prerequisite to kindergarten. Then there was a pocketful of kids who weren't responding to my…

To change student outcomes, we must first change adult practices.Kari Yates For the past fifty years, reading achievement among young students has remained flat. Despite years of focused efforts on reading research and curriculum, the needle on achievement levels has hardly moved. The latest PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) test results show the United States and Australia scored only slightly above average in reading worldwide, essentially unchanged from previous years. Scores for American 4th-grade students also reflect disappointing progress, with a majority scoring at basic or below for their grade level. With such a poor return on our educational investment, what holds educators back from changing classroom practices to improve student outcomes? And what change should we make? First, consider some history. Back in the 1980s, classrooms moved toward the whole language…

After thirty years of practicing as a Speech-Language Pathologist and the past fourteen working as a Reading Specialist, it felt like my proverbial "toolbox" was exploding. I had a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics, a Master's Degree in Communication Disorders, and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Reading. I had worked with children and adults in clinics, schools, and private practice. I had collected what amounted to a veritable alphabet soup of trainings and approaches to teaching reading and writing: OG, RAVE-O, ECRI, PALS, SRSD, and LETRS, to name a few. I had kept up to date with the current reading and writing research, attending more conferences and webinars than I could keep track of. So why, with this deep knowledge base to draw upon, was I feeling exhausted and disillusioned…

Flynn joined the Dystinct team in January 2022 when his mum responded to a callout that we posted on the Dystinct social media pages for children interested in journalism to join our team. I was sent a cute video by Flynn, with David Attenborough-style commentary, featuring an Echidna and Flynn's sibling Ava Eldridge. It was shot at his property in rural New South Wales (NSW), Australia. It was evident young Flynn had a talent for being behind the camera. Flynn's parents, Carrie and Anthony Eldridge, often found entertaining and informative recordings on devices where he had documented an event or an investigation. "I feel super happy and excited when I am being a journalist. Some kids may think that news is boring, but as they grow up, they find out…

At the end of last school year (spring 2022), as measured by Acadience, a criterion-referenced test of early literacy skills, 100% of my kindergarteners scored at or above benchmark on Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF). Eighty-eight percent of my students scored at or above benchmark on Nonsense Word Fluency - Correct Letter Sounds (NWF – CLS). Their average composite score was 139 points – 20 points above the goal of 119. Before you assume that I lucked out by getting a "gifted class," you should know that I teach in a high-poverty school in a classroom of 28 students, with para help for about one hour each day. Many of our parents have a high school diploma or GED equivalent. Prior to COVID, 76% of our students qualified for free or…

What is a sight word? This is the open-ended response question I posed on my dissertation survey to more than 600 K-2 general classroom teacher participants from across the U.S. just last fall. To my surprise, five general definitions were identified: 38.5% Any word recognized instantly (38.5%) 16.8% An irregularly spelled word 13.1% A high frequency word (HFW) 12.7% A word that must be "memorized" 10.3% An irregularly spelled HFW Beyond the five definition categories, another 8.6% of the responses were categorized as "other" to include words that must be spelled correctly or words where meaning is known. The follow-up open-ended response question (what is the one essential daily routine you believe accelerates sight word development for students?) resulted in still greater varied responses with 45 different identified categories. All…

The impact on someone's life from struggling to read creates so much daily discomfort, trauma, and anxiety. It limits so much of what you can do and who you can be. It's just too high of a price for us not to talk about it and not get it right. Ann, a prominent marketing executive from Florida, has struggled with reading and writing in private all her life as she worked hard to climb up the career ladder. Only recently, she felt comfortable enough to open up about her challenges and was surprised to discover that she was never alone in her struggles. She has decided to raise awareness as the price of not talking about it is too high. Ann is not dyslexic. Her story is unique. It brings…