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Dyslexia and the Multi-Talented Bella Thorne

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Bella Horne’s journey to success as a Disney star, actor, dancer, singer, writer, and social activist. Read about how she used her dyslexia to fuel her career and her passion for helping other. By Fernette Eide

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A friend who has dyslexia described to me how she experiences reading. She can read, but it takes a lot of concentration, and the letters seems to "jump around".

I remembered reading about typoglycemia. Wouldn't it be possible to do it interactively on a website with Javascript? Sure it would.

Feel like making a bookmarklet of this or something? Fork it on github.

Dyslexia is characterized by difficulty with learning to read fluently and with accurate comprehension despite normal intelligence. This includes difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, processing speed, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, language skills/verbal comprehension, and/or rapid naming.

Developmental reading disorder (DRD) is the most common learning disability. Dyslexia is the most recognized of reading disorders, however not all reading disorders are linked to dyslexia.

Some see dyslexia as distinct from reading difficulties resulting from other causes, such as a non-neurological deficiency with vision or hearing, or poor or inadequate reading instruction. There are three proposed cognitive subtypes of dyslexia (auditory, visual and attentional), although individual cases of dyslexia are better explained by specific underlying neuropsychological deficits and co-occurring learning disabilities (e.g. attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, math disability, etc.). Although it is considered to be a receptive language-based learning disability in the research literature, dyslexia also affects one's expressive language skills. Researchers at MIT found that people with dyslexia exhibited impaired voice-recognition abilities.

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A friend who has dyslexia described to me how she experiences reading. She can read, but it takes a lot of concentration, and the letters seems to “jump around”.

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Straight facts on dyslexia: What the research actually tells us

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Straight facts on dyslexia: What the research actually tells us

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Unraveling dyslexia: Dispelling myths and understanding early intervention

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Unraveling dyslexia: Dispelling myths and understanding early intervention

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Unraveling dyslexia: Dispelling myths and understanding early intervention - Teach. Learn. Grow.

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Dyslexia is a widely recognized learning difficulty, yet research shows many misconceptions make it harder to get support to students.

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Leixa's Top 8 Dyslexia Resources for Educators

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Leixa's Top 8 Dyslexia Resources for Educators

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Lexia Learning Systems https://www.lexialearning.com/Assets/img/logo.svg 1984 978-405-6232 info@lexialearning.com 300 Baker Avenue, Suite 320 Concord MA 01742 USA

8/3/2023

Today, 15%-20% of students show signs of a learning disability, and the majority of these students have dyslexia. Yet, it's still widely misunderstood. If you feel like you lack accurate information about how dyslexia manifests and what students with dyslexia need to succeed, you're in the right place.

Our top eight dyslexia resources

We gathered some of the latest research, interviews, white papers, guides, and expert-led webinars in this curated list.

1. Understanding Dyslexia Today: An Interview with Dr. Suzanne Carreker and Lee-Ann Tolfree Mertzlufft
What exactly is this learning difference? How can educators better understand dyslexia? And how can we best meet the needs of students with dyslexia today? Experts discuss the current state of dyslexia and how affected students are coping. Short on time? Here's anaudio version (Hint: Listen at 2x speed).

2. Instructional Support for Students with Dyslexia in Lexia Core5 Reading
The guide gives you the most commonly used interventions appropriate for students with dyslexia and discusses the innovative, scientifically proven techniques used in Lexia® Core5® Reading to support these students. Explore how Core5® supports phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics support, vocabulary, automaticity and fluency, comprehension, explicit presentation of concepts, and multisensory learning opportunities.

We serve more than 6.5 million students across more than 22,000 schools nationwide and continue to lead the field in developing innovative approaches based in the science of reading to literacy's biggest challenges. Our research-proven, evidenced-based solutions help educators create personalized learning paths for students of all abilities, which are essential for students with dyslexia.

Lexia currently has more than 20 studies published in independent, peer-reviewed journals that meet the standards of evidence required under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Core5 recently received a "Strong" rating-the highest ranking available-from Evidence for ESSA, and the National Center on Intensive Interventions (NCII) reported positive effects favoring Lexia users over non-users in all reviewed studies. Learn more.

A Cambium Learning® Group Brand

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8 Dyslexia Resources for Educators: A Curated List | Lexia

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Do you know how dyslexia manifests and what students with dyslexia need to succeed? We gathered some of the latest research, interviews, white papers, guides, and expert-led webinars in this curated list.

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Interviews with the experts of dyslexia

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dyslexia language learning disability disabilities international education adhd reading writing

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The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) is an international organization that concerns itself with the complex issues of dyslexia. We believe that all individuals have the right to achieve their potential, that individual learning abilities can be strengthened and that social, educational and cultural barriers to language acquisition and use must be removed.

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You think you know what to look for in a dyslexic learner?! Take a look at this!!

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Dyslexia Help from the University of Michigan

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Dyslexia Help from the University of Michigan

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An incredible resource full of games, ideas, parent support, classroom support, etc.

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Dyslexia Help at the University of Michigan

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Our goal is to help individuals with dyslexia, as well as parents, employers, and professionals of all kinds who have the privilege to work with dyslexics gain new understandings about dyslexia and language disability, including current research findings and how to design intervention contexts based…

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Can audiobooks be the great equalizer?

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Low reading ability is a major contributor to learning inequality in our schools.

An estimated 26 million students have learning differences, including tens of thousands of students with dyslexia, a neurological condition that affects reading and related language-based processing skills.

Unless educators can find new approaches to deliver reading instruction and personalize learning environments for these frustrated learners, many will fail.

Students with learning differences are more likely to struggle academically, socially and emotionally. This is unfortunate, since many of these students have the intellectual capacity to succeed and even excel if they could just overcome their reading challenges.
Related: Want to get struggling readers enthusiastic about reading? Here's how
How can a teacher with a class of 15, 20, or 25 students, many of whom read below grade level, address each learner's instructional needs while keeping them all on track to read age-appropriate materials and have the learning confidence to succeed? These two teachers have found the answers through audiobooks and access.

Can audiobooks be the great equalizer for students with learning differences? #dyslexia #ADHD

Making reading more enjoyable for all

Joelle Nappi, a dyslexia therapist for Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School in Freehold Township, N.J., works with students who feel embarrassed and marginalized by their struggles with reading. Since her district expanded access to grade-level text by providing human-read audiobook technology, Nappi's students' reading skills and confidence have improved dramatically. "We just wanted more students to enjoy a successful reading experience first," she says.

With their headphones on, her students listen to novels or informational text narrated by individuals who know the subject matter. Students follow along on their computer screens or smartphones. Many of the audiobooks feature onscreen highlighting for a multisensory learning experience. Students like the Chrome and mobile apps for the built-in classroom tools that allow them to take notes for book reports, do research, and build vocabulary lists all in one place.

Nappi says such features are important because struggling readers don't need any more complications when it comes to completing assignments.

The power of technology

With the help of a variety of reading programs like the Wilson Reading System, Just Words, Project Read®, and Learning Ally, Nappi is seeing positive results across the board. Her students are reading books and are happy to talk about what they read-a rare occurrence for struggling readers.

"Giving my students access to digital text and time to read increases the odds they will be inclined to learn more," says Nappi. "When students are given multiple ways to absorb information-on paper, on the computer, with an app-they are more motivated to engage with the curriculum." Since introducing the new reading technology, Nappi has seen marked improvements in students' comprehension skills. Another advantage is that more of her students turn in their assignments on time.

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Can audiobooks be the great equalizer for students with learning differences?

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Low reading ability is a major contributor to learning inequality in our schools. An estimated 26 million students have learning differences, including tens of thousands of students with dyslexia, a neurological condition that affects reading and related language-based processing skills.

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You may know Henry Winkler as The Fonz from Happy Days or the "very good" Bluth family lawyer from Arrested Development. Or perhaps, more recently, for his Emmy-winning role as the eccentric acting coach Gene Cousineau on the HBO comedy series Barry.

But what Winkler is most proud of is, he says, may be his least recognized body of work: his best-selling children's book series Here's Hank, which follows the adventures and struggles of a dyslexic kid named Hank Zipzer. Winkler, who has dyslexia himself, pulls from his own experiences to write the series along with Lin Oliver.

"It never dawned on me that I would have my name on a book," Winkler says in an interview with NPR's Michel Martin. Reflecting on a life with dyslexia, he says that until relatively recently, "I thought I was stupid ... You take that mantle with you when it's said often enough and when you're young enough. There is an emotional component, I think, that comes along with learning challenges, where I had no sense of self."

Winkler, now 73, says he didn't know he had a learning disability until age 31, when he got his stepson tested and evaluated for dyslexia. "I went 'Oh my goodness, that's me,' Winkler says. "And so at 31, I found out I wasn't stupid, that I wasn't lazy - that I had something with a name."

The discovery brought relief, but anger as well. As a student, Winkler's parents would blame his underachievement on laziness that could be remedied with long hours at a desk. "I was grounded 97 percent of my high school career," says Winkler. "I saw the moon through the window."

But those early hardships, Winkler says, would motivate him to not just succeed, but to appreciate his differences enough to write a book to help educate others. "It gave me fight," he says. "It gave me understanding that it doesn't matter. There is not one road to get where you want to go. There is your road."

For years, Winkler paved his own winding road with improvisation and memorization to forge the appearance of keeping up.

His reading disorder compounded the pressure he felt during auditions. "I would memorize as quickly as I could because I couldn't read the page and act at the same time to make an impression on the casting person or on the director and the producers," he says. "And I improvised the rest. And when they said, 'Well you're not doing what's written on the page,' I said, 'I'm giving you the essence of the character.' "

Humor was another coping mechanism. Decades ago, Monday mornings were when the Happy Days cast would hold their table-reads, the actor says. "I was embarrassed for 10 years because I could not read what was on the page. So I used humor to cover all those mistakes for all those years. I didn't know that I had something wrong, so I just tripped over words and everybody just kind of tolerated it."

That innate sense of humor, an outgrowth of adversity, hasn't gone to waste. With the Hank Zipzerseries, Winkler says, "We set out to write comedies that happen to be about a kid who had a challenge, but they were funny first. If we didn't make each other laugh, Lin and I, it wouldn't go in the book."

And yet for all of the series' success, it almost didn't happen at all. Winkler says that when his agent first floated the idea of a book about his learning challenges, he didn't think it would work.

"I said, 'I can't do that, I'm stupid, I can't write a book,' " Winkler remembers. But when his agent introduced him to writer Oliver, executive director of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, he says, they hatched the idea of Hank Zipzer. "This was just something that I was going to try," he says.

More than 15 years later, what began as a way for Winkler to fill a lull in his acting career has turned into 29 books.

Winkler says the books are written to account for the many nuances of dyslexia. As he explains, the condition looks different in different people. "Some people, it works on their ability to read and do math, to actually write a sentence. Some people write backwards. When you're reading, you miss words, they drop off the page or the words start swimming."

With these challenges in mind, the books contain ample white space on each page, and it's written in the Dyslexie font, a typeface created by Dutch designer Christian Boer to improve legibility for the dyslexic brain.

"What I have found over the years talking to kids today about it is that our journeys are similar," Winkler says. "The feeling of inadequacy, of embarrassment, of, 'Oh my gosh, am I going to have a future?' "

Winkler's books can help answer that question.

On a visit to Pennsylvania, a 20-something working as a hotel bellhop who recognized the author rushed over - not to help Winkler and his wife with their luggage - but to let him know: "I've read every one of your Hank Zipzer's!"

Winkler calls it "one of the greatest compliments, probably ever, in my life."

The final installment of the Hank Zipzer series, " Everybody Is Somebody," comes out this week.
NPR's Elizabeth Baker produced this story for broadcast. Denise Couture edited.

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Dyslexia Made Henry Winkler Feel 'Stupid' For Years. Now, He's A Best-Selling Author

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You may know Henry Winkler as The Fonz from Happy Days or the "very good" Bluth family lawyer from Arrested Development . Or perhaps, more recently, for his Emmy-winning role as the eccentric acting coach Gene Cousineau on the HBO comedy series Barry.

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COPYRIGHT BY EPS LITERACY AND INTERVENTION FROM S.P.I.R.E. ® 3RD EDITION. SPIRE STUDENT MANIPULATIVES KIT. How many of your students have dyslexia?

2006, 2012, 2018 WILSON LANGUAGE TRAINING. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. FUNDATIONS® LEVEL 1 REFERENCE CHART. USED WITH PERMISSION.

The answer may surprise you: Researchers estimate that dyslexia affects between 5 and 12 percent of the U.S. population - and as many as 80 percent of students who struggle with reading.

If you find that statistic startling, you're not alone: It wasn't until 2017 that New York State clarified that a diagnosis of dyslexia could be used in classifying students with a learning disability in order to determine eligibility for special education services and Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).

Orton-Gillingham, which was developed collaboratively in the 1930s by a neurologist and an educator, posits that reading instruction should be direct, explicit, highly systematic and multisensory.

"School officials have been afraid to use the word 'dyslexia,'" wrote Jo Anne Simon, a New York State Assembly member, in a New York Daily News op-ed in 2017. "[This] deterred schools from offering students the proper and legally mandated support, and education schools from preparing future teachers [in] how to recognize the problems."

Research has found that the differences between dyslexic and typical readers are evident as early as 1st grade and the gap persists into adolescence. Some early signs of dyslexia include an inability to recognize rhyming patterns (like cat, bat and rat), failure to associate letters with sounds and difficulty recognizing letters.

"At its core, dyslexia is a problem accessing the sound of spoken language," says Dr. Sally Shaywitz, a professor of pediatric neurology and a nationally recognized expert on dyslexia.

Direct, explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics can help students with dyslexia make connections between phonemes - or the sounds of language - and graphemes, their written equivalents. But in many reading curricula in recent years, phonics instruction has become less robust.

Research done by Dr. Shaywitz and others has concluded that implementing effective reading programs as early as kindergarten or even pre-K offers the potential to close the reading gap.

Mounting evidence shows there is a specific approach to reading intervention that helps struggling students become successful - both those who have been diagnosed with a specific reading disability like dyslexia and those who have not.

For many of the city's centrally funded IEP teachers, who are often called upon to work with at-risk readers, that intervention is SPIRE, an evidence-based, intensive program that is based on the Orton-Gillingham approach to reading instruction.

"The aim is to activate the parts of the brain that these students aren't using," says Elena Behar Lazarova, an IEP teacher who does reading intervention with at-risk students at PS 148 in East Elmhurst, Queens. "There are lots of components so that students use tactile and visual processing at the same time."

SPIRE lessons are always 10 steps and include the same sequence of activities. In each lesson, students review phonograms, or the sounds that certain combinations of letters make; build words using letter tiles; mark the letter patterns they see in words; read for comprehension; practice writing dictated words; spell; and write sentences.

"The language is clearly scripted, which allows students to get used to the routine and know exactly what they're being asked to do," says Lazarova.

Teachers in the early grades of many of the city's schools may already be familiar with the Orton-Gillingham approach thanks to Fundations, a popular phonics program. Students learn to drill individual phonemes (the smallest units of sound) by chanting: "A, apple, /a/. B, bat, /b/." They "tap out" words by touching their thumbs to their forefingers to represent phonemes, and they use magnetic letters to build and break apart words.

But Fundations is meant to be used with young children, and it's rare to encounter a classroom in the upper grades where phonics is part of the daily routine.

"When I meet with a struggling reader, the first thing I pick up on is difficulty decoding," says Helen Amsterdam, a 40-year veteran teacher who now works as an IEP teacher at PS 86 in Bushwick, Brooklyn. "The advantage I have over classroom teachers is that I can teach a concept and do the activities over and over again until students get it."

Students begin the first level of SPIRE by practicing short vowel sounds, digraphs (like sh, ch and th) and welded sounds (-nk and -ng). By the end of the program, in Level 8, they will master r-controlled vowels, prefixes and suffixes, and other unusual sounds.

Experts on dyslexia suggest that the best reading instruction for struggling readers should be explicit, be delivered in small groups and allow students to be active participants in learning.

"We're not only teaching skills but trying to undo the emo- tional damage of being unsuccessful with something for a long time," Lazarova notes. "Year after year, these children sitting in classrooms with traditional curriculum were taught, 'Reading is not accessible to me. Reading is hard for me.' They were taught to dislike reading. But kids experience success very fast with SPIRE. It removes that barrier and it opens them up."

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COPYRIGHT BY EPS LITERACY AND INTERVENTION FROM S.P.I.R.E. ® 3RD EDITION. SPIRE STUDENT MANIPULATIVES KIT. How many of your students have dyslexia? 2006, 2012, 2018 WILSON LANGUAGE TRAINING. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. FUNDATIONS® LEVEL 1 REFERENCE CHART. USED WITH PERMISSION. The answer may surprise you: Researchers estimate that dyslexia affects between 5 and 12 percent of the U.S.

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An app that will take a picture of any text and read it back to you. This is a free download, but once you use up your free scans, it costs $9.99.

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Spelling Technique a mom uses with her Dyslexic son

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Spelling Technique a mom uses with her Dyslexic son

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ReadBrightly Blog Post: Every Kid Reads in Their Own Way; Seven Children's Books About Dyslexia

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ReadBrightly Blog Post: Every Kid Reads in Their Own Way; Seven Children's Books About Dyslexia

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Children with dyslexia, whose brains take longer than typical kids' to decode what's on a page and understand it as a story, find reading a chore. And why wouldn't they? Chances are, what they're most often given to read in school are books that feel more homework-y than heavenly. Many dyslexic children give up before they get to the end, and a story not fully told is never going to engage them. So how do you choose books that have a chance to hook readers who struggle to, well, read? One approach is to find books about kids with their same difficulties, having marvelous adventures despite their issues. Here are a few we found that can be read independently or together with a parent:

by Joan Bauer

Everybody wants to be somebody, and 12-year-old Foster McKee, the heroine of Close to Famous, is no different. After a move from Memphis to rural West Virginia with her mom, an aspiring singer, Foster tries her hardest to realize her dream of having her very own TV cooking show - and, oh, learning to read, which is a lot harder for her thanks to a learning disability. Quirky characters in the McKees' new town all have their dreams, too, including the reclusive actress who helps Foster make sense of books.
Ages 10+

by Patricia Reilly Giff

Imagine finding, in a box in your grandfather's attic, a newspaper clipping that reveals something shocking about your past - that you'd been kidnapped as a child - but you can barely read it thanks to a learning issue. That's the story of Sam in Patricia Reilly Giff's Eleven. Lovers of mysteries and psychological suspense will dive into this story - and kids with a similar disability will love that the author highlights Sam's non-reading talents (he's a master woodworker).
Ages 8 - 12

by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver, illustrated by Scott Garrett

Get ready to redefine the word "underachiever." Hank Zipzer, the fictional creation/alter ego of actor and director Henry Winkler (and coauthor Lin Oliver) barrels through this series of novels as an otherwise normal kid with a learning difference. In fact, there are two series: the original Hank Zipzer books and the newer Here's Hank! series. Yep, Hank's totally normal - and by "normal" we mean he has a pet iguana and is constantly getting into and out of adventures. You know, like every kid. And that's the point: Every kid is different, and every kid learns in his or her own way.
Ages 6 - 8

by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Ally's creativity is boundless; she sees art and moving images in everything and everyone around her. But when it comes to reading, the world stops. Time freezes. Panic sets in. With her dad in the military, Ally's moved around a lot, and each time she lands at a new school, she's able to create enough of a distraction to mask her reading difficulties. That changes when she meets Mr. Daniels, a teacher who sees past Ally's antics and helps her make sense of reading and herself.
Ages 8 - 12

by Helen Lester, illustrated by Lynn M. Munsinger

Kids with dyslexia, as well as other differences, should get the message early on that there's more than one way to be, to think, to read, and to write. In this enchanting children's book, we find Tacky: An oddball, out-of-the-box thinker struggling to fit in with a colony of perfect penguins, and learning how to think positively about his lack of "perfection."
Ages 4 - 7

by Jennifer Moore-Mallinos, illustrated by Marta Fábrega

It's Called Dyslexia is part of a series of books called Live and Learn, each written from the point of view of a child with a learning or other disability. In this story, an elementary-aged girl goes from loving school (she knows her letters!), to hating it (the letters simply won't arrange themselves into words!), until she gets help and, as a bonus, discovers a hidden talent. A section for parents is also included.
Ages 4 - 7

by Jeanne Betancourt

Brian has always known he has some kind of problem with reading and writing, and he dreads the start of school each year because of it. But when his sixth grade teacher sees him write "Brain" instead of "Brian," she steps in to help. In My Name is Brain, Brian has someone who understands (rather than pushes him to just "try harder," as his parents have done), and who doesn't make fun (as his schoolmates have). Brian's brain is just fine!
Ages 8 - 12

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7 Children's Books About Dyslexia | Brightly

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Children with dyslexia, whose brains take longer than typical kids' to decode what's on a page and understand it as a story, find reading a chore. And why wouldn't they? Chances are, what they're most often given to read in school are books that feel more homework-y than heavenly.

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Susan Barton is recognized internationally as an expert in dyslexia. She is in the Hall of Honor at the headquarters of the International Dyslexia Association. Her goal is to help parents, teachers, and others understand dyslexia-so they can provide the right type of help.

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This animation seeks to preempt misconceptions among young audiences by shedding light on the real challenges dyslexic children face whilst also acknowledging their strengths and potential