Author Archive: Donna Taylor
Turning the Page: How Adults Can Help Teens Rediscover the Joy of Reading
By Dr. Lisa R. Hassler Parents hope to instill a love of reading that lasts a lifetime with their children. Reading is an essential skill that promotes cognitive, social, and emotional development, and is a crucial tool for academic and professional success. As parents, we understand this, so we stock our shelves with beautifully illustrated […]
Where and How Children Learn: My Experience with Discovering an Optimal Learning Experience
Written by Annie Lacey Where: The Inner Universe of a Student With Divergent Learning It was not too long ago, when my bright, creative third grader began to dread going to school, meeting each weekday morning with resistance, which at times was fierce. The human need to belong to a group is rooted in survival. […]
Lexie – The Easiest Way To Read
By Maja Hmelina, SLP For the past 15 years, in my speech therapy career I’ve seen and felt the burden dyslexics experience from an early age and carry into their adulthood. To successfully work with them I had to find a specific and quite creative approach for each. Invest a lot of time and energy […]
Youdao Dictionary Scanning Pen for Dyslexia
Among the resources that help people with dyslexia, scanning pens can be of great help. These devices can turn scanned text into audio, making printed texts available to those with reading difficulties. One of the latest models of this assistive technology was released by Smart Youdao. Their Youdao Dictionary Pen 3 is a lightweight reading […]
Spot the Differences
Challenge your observation skills- search, find, and spot the 10 differences in the two pictures! Every day there is a new picture to spot. Spot the differences in each illustration, and mark them in the upper picture. No timers are used, so there’s no pressure. Each set of pictures has 10 things different about them: […]
JCPal Announces Adaptive Keyboard Accessory for Dyslexic Students
Designed in collaboration with the Microsoft Devices Accessibility Team initially for the Surface Laptop Go and Surface Laptop SE devices, the VerSkin Inclusive Keyboard Protector is intended to make it easier for dyslexic students to navigate and familiarize themselves with the keyboard on their device.
Assessing the Need for a Unique Reading App
Over a period of 8 years, I developed a reading intervention for struggling 2nd Graders. It is well-established that if children are not reading fluently with comprehension by the end of 3rd grade, they have only a 20% chance of reading at grade level at the end of 9th grade, and that’s with intensive remediation.
America’s Embarrassing Reading Crisis: Working Towards a Solution
By Dr. Lisa Richardson Hassler More than 80 percent of students who fail to earn a high school diploma were struggling readers in third grade. How many of these children had dyslexia and went through the educational system without proper diagnosis or interventions to help? We all want our children to learn and thrive. […]
Three Ways to Help Teens with Dyslexia Prepare for Exams
by Hailey Thompson Exam period can be a stressful time for teens, parents and teachers alike. Everyone wants their child to do their best, whatever that looks like for them, and for older teens, there can be additional pressure around needing the results to get into higher education. But there can be even more stress […]
A NYC Class’s “Backwards” Song About Letters
Erik Arnesen, a music teacher at a New York City public school (PS 18) in Park Terrace, Manhattan, remembered hearing how some children had difficulty decoding printed letters that looked alike when reversed. At the time, he only had a vague idea that dyslexia meant seeing letters and numbers jumbled, out of order, or turned […]
