Help Them Learn with their Strengths:: Case studies of students with dyslexia

By M. Susan Grogan Ph.D.

Students with Dyslexia already have unique skills and talents outside of reading, writing, and spelling. These skills and talents are similar to successful and famous CEOs, engineers, surgeons, artists, musicians, dancers, athletes, architects, and others with Dyslexia. Confirming this are the dyslexia assessments and interviews of eighty-eight school-age and adult students conducted by the author.
She provides a description and explanation of the dyslexic brain and how people with dyslexia process print. Included is a detailed commentary about how educators have scrambled to learn about Dyslexia and how to help students. Dyslexia is detectable even before preschool, and the signs to watch for are listed. Interviews and assessments of the students with Dyslexia, ages six to college-age, illustrate their exceptional skills and talents as well as their needs.
Although early detection and intense intervention by trained dyslexia educators are essential, teachers and parents can enhance school and home instruction. We can value and infuse these strengths and skills while they are learning and allow them to show what they know in ways other than paper and pencil. Permeating the Arts and STEAM with instruction engages brain-based learning. The end goal is to improve student success and confident self-image, not just for children and teens with Dyslexia but also for all students.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665536196

Book preview

© 2021 M. Susan Grogan, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/29/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3617-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3643-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3619-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021917481

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Dismal U.S. Reading Statistics

Chapter 1 Neurodiversity and the Dyslexic Brain

The Dyslexic brain

The Phonological, Processing Speed, and Working Memory Deficits

Chapter 2 People with dyslexia can reveal some fantastic skills and abilities

Dyslexic Entrepreneurs and CEOs

Businesses are Hiring Neurodiverse Thinkers

Dyslexic astronauts, astrophysicists, engineers, surgeons, scientists, and inventors

Visual Artists with Dyslexia

Musicians with Dyslexia

Writers with Dyslexia

Actors and Celebrities with Dyslexia

Athletes with Dyslexia

It is tempting to give up

Chapter 3 Educators scramble to learn about dyslexia

A little history

RTI Tiers and Testing Levels? What?

Learning to Determine the Characteristics of Dyslexia

IQ and Dyslexia do not correlate

A diagnosis is not necessary

My Journey into Dyslexia Begins

Chapter 4 Dyslexia is detectable in young children, ages 18 months to five years

Chapter 5 Assessments and Interviews of students and adults with dyslexia

Who are these students?

Primary grades children, ages six to eight years

Interests and skills of dyslexic six to eight-year-olds

The children’s responses

What I learned from the six to eight-year-old children

Intermediate grades: Children nine to twelve-years-old

The children’s responses (All names are changed to protect privacy.)

Learning from the nine to twelve-year-olds

Teenagers: thirteen to eighteen-years-old

The student responses (All names are changed to protect privacy.)

Learning from the 13 – 18-year-olds

University Students: nineteen to fifty-year-old

College Students’ Interests and Skills

The Student Responses (All names are changed to protect privacy.)

Insights from the 19 to 50-year-olds

Discussion of all the results

Chapter 6 Acknowledging Strengths and Using them to Learn

STEAM Integration

Arts and Sciences Integration

We don’t have to reinvent the wheel

Resources

INTRODUCTION

I want to start with a story 16-year-old Zane is telling me about when he and some friends explored an abandoned old house in the middle of a barren (his words) field. He stops, puts his finger on his cheek, and with a twinkle in his eye, asks, And what do you think happened next? He describes walking gingerly down some creaking wooden steps into a cellar that had not been open for over a hundred years. And then, what do you know…I couldn’t believe my eyes! He explains that he was the only one of his friends brave enough to go down those steps and the first to discover what looked like an old armory. When the dust clears, he sees gun racks filled with old rifles along the walls. He names the different rifles and what kinds of ammunition they use, saying, I am a gun enthusiast. I know those old guns! He is excited and calls his friends to come down and see what he has found.

While looking around with him, they hear a door shut above them and a loud thud on the floor. What was that? he exclaims with trepidation in his voice. They know they are all in the cellar, so who or what just made that noise? His friends run up the steps, nearly falling over each other, to get out of the old house, but he is still standing, listening for more sounds from above. He picks up a rifle, aims it ahead, and slowly mounts the steps. His friends are outside yelling for him to hurry and get in the farm truck with them. I went up step by step, each creaking with my weight until I got to the top. I looked in every room with that rifle, but I never found anybody or anything in the house, so I decided it was time to leave with my friends. We never found out what that was. And what do you think we thought? We think the house was haunted by someone who died there. He goes outside, gets in the old farm truck where his friends are waiting, and leaves as fast as they can, bumping over the rows of plowed-up dirt.

Zane is quite the storyteller! That is not all. He has played on the high school football and baseball teams. He is big and strong and able to move with power and determination. He works on cars and trucks with his brother-in-law and can take an engine apart and put it back together again. He knows how to diagnose what’s wrong with vehicles, finds the needed parts in junkyards, and gets them running again. He says he plays trombone by ear in the band. He listens to what the person next to him is playing and learns his parts that way. He doesn’t read music at all. He has also figured out the strategies for conquering very complex video games at levels his friends cannot attain. He is a problem-solver and solution-finder, an amazing young man!

Zane has dyslexia and reads at a first-grade level. His writing is similar, and his handwriting is difficult to read. He is in the 11th grade. He could never have written the story he so expertly and orally told. His mother says he is frustrated with school, feels dumb, and hates reading and writing. His spelling is even worse. Frankly, it is surprising he is even still in school. When their dyslexia is not diagnosed or accommodated, most kids drop out of school, often by 10th grade. A student who can’t read on grade level by 3rd grade is four times less likely to graduate by age 19 than a child who does read proficiently in 3rd grade (Sparks, 2011).

Zane was diagnosed with a language delay and was even placed on the autism spectrum when he was younger. He receives Resource (Special Education service) support in Reading and Math. This service has somewhat preserved his school years. No one thought to test him for dyslexia, and, to be fair, no one knew how to do that in our state of Arkansas until recently. What if someone had discovered that he had dyslexia in first grade? How would his school experience have changed if he had received the kind of intervention we know now helps? What would he believe about himself now, as a learner and an intelligent person, if he had gotten help early in his school years from teachers who could provide dyslexia intervention and classroom teachers who thought his other skills and talents were worthwhile?

This book aims to acquaint you with and persuade you about impressive children and adults like Zane. They have distinctive differences in how their brains process information, particularly language and print. Most often, this is dyslexia. They seem to exhibit extraordinary talents, skills, and interests, which I have witnessed firsthand. Some books and articles are available on this subject but come without extensive research. This book’s information from interviews with 88 students with dyslexia will add to teachers’ and parents’ knowledge and understanding of the complexity of how our brains work and how amazing their children are.

There is a clear and proven need for these students to access intensive reading, writing, and spelling instruction and practice. An interventionist trained in using a dyslexia curriculum, either at school or home, is strongly advised for every student identified with dyslexia. Training is available for that instruction, and I do not minimize the need for intervention for these students. I wholeheartedly plea for that kind of intervention at school. There are many books and articles about this kind of intervention, and I train teachers to do it, but this book is not about intensive intervention.

Another purpose of this book is to convince you, educators and parents, that these students will significantly benefit if we infuse their talents, skills, and interests into how we teach and assess our curricula. Beyond the needed intense intervention in literacy, there are ways for dyslexic students to learn and show what they know in all subjects in the regular classroom. When teachers and parents understand this importance, it will enhance their children’s confidence and self-image. Not just for students with dyslexia but all students.

There is controversy in the research literature about whether these observable skills and talents differ from the average learner. More studies are needed. However, in my observations of the 88 identified students with dyslexia, out of 131 children and adults I have assessed, I see myriads of extraordinary things they can do, some in spectacular ways.

This book aims to enhance our perceived value of this group of children and adults, not as learning disabled, but differently-abled. We are the teachers, parents, grandparents, sons, daughters, siblings, and spouses of those we care about who display the characteristics of dyslexia. We already notice they are bright, and moms and dads appreciate their strengths and abilities. We know what they are good at. However, they are a frustrating puzzle to us. We do not understand why they are so bright and talented but intensely struggle with reading, writing, and spelling. We just don’t get it. Neither do they.

We sometimes accuse them of not trying hard enough or being lazy, and both accusations are wrong. In actuality, they strive harder than their peers. They are fully aware of how essential reading, writing, and spelling