A couple weeks ago I was asked to be a guest speaker at a local college. I love speaking at the colleges in my area, the students are always so interested in what I have to say. This time though I was asked to not only speak about what dyslexia is but also to speak about the dyslexia law (T.C.A.49-1-229). I always do my research before any meeting so for this one I re-read the Dyslexia Resource Guide that the TN DOE put out. 

While reading it I started to have some questions. Under Section VIII it states that the department has created an intervention product guide but I could not find it. I emailed Theresa Nicholls who is the lead person for the council from the TN DOE and 2 weeks later, I have still not received an email back.

Also, under Section XII it states that the council will report to the TN Senate and the TN House of Representatives. I sent emails to the House of Representatives and heard back from 1 representative, Gloria Johnson. I sent emails to the TN Senate and also heard back from a research analyst. The numbers are staggering. 

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I am not at all happy with this, and can someone explain to me how 4th grade, 6th grade, 8th grade and EOC-E2 did worse last year verses the previous year? 

Now, onto a new bill that is addressing ELA, TN HB 2229. This is a great blog post about what this bill is proposing, and once again, it is eye-opening. (Thank you Dad Gone Wild.)

ONE READING PROGRAM FOR ALL! This is insane. We need to let teachers teach their students. Not all students fit into a box and I can also tell you that the state of TN is looking at programs that teach phonics only. I can tell you that phonics only for all students will not work! 

In March SCORE is putting on a reading summit and I will be there. They will be discussing the reading crisis in TN along with the 3 reading programs they are looking to add across the state. (Does this sound like Common Core to anyone else?)

Tomorrow, 2/25/2020 this bill will be discussed and it may be rushed through. Please contact your representatives and tell them this is not good for TN students, especially our students with dyslexia. As you can clearly see from the dyslexia report, our students are in trouble but this bill is not the way to go about helping them.

If you have ever been in a meeting with me and reading comprehension was ever discussed you have more than likely had to listen to my rant about the AIMSweb reading comprehension Curriculum Based Measurement (CBM) called MAZE. As long as I have known about this CBM I have issues with it. Here is what it looks like...

A student has to read each sentence and when it comes across the 3 words in the parenthesis they have to circle the correct word that goes in the sentence. This test is also timed. 

Can anyone see why I, and you as a parent, should have issues with this? Is this really a reading comprehension test? I can bet that most students who have a teacher who is concerned about comprehension and has suggested an intervention for this would agree that this does not measure comprehension. If asked after doing this measure what the passage was about, a lot of students wouldn't be able to tell you the main idea of the passage. This is a problem. 

I totally understand why schools use it though. The state of Tennessee has said that AIMSweb is an approved CBM tool. However, it is only ONE piece of data that schools should be using. 

(If anyone asked my opinion, QRI is a good comprehension tool)

I was recently looking for an example of the MAZE so I could show parents what it looked like and I came across this article, 6 Really Good Reasons to Stop Using AIMSweb MAZE Right Now. I highly recommend reading it. 

I am a big fan of not wasting peoples time. When I was a PTA/PTO president I always started on time, if you were late, you not only missed the first few minutes of the meeting but you also more than likely missed the whole meeting. I didn't waste time, we got right into it and I made it go fast. 

This school year I have been invited to a few eligibility results meetings, the meeting with the school psychologist to go over comprehensive testing of a student. In the past meetings like this took place, which for the record is considered an IEP meeting, and after the team heard the results the team decided if the child qualified for an IEP. If the answer was yes, a draft IEP was presented. I always tried to make sure that parents were prepared for this IEP and had their parent concerns written down already. (I HIGHLY recommend parents do this. It is so hard to remember your concerns when everyone is looking at you.) No time was being wasted.

This year however, I have attended eligibility meetings and then an IEP meeting would be scheduled at a separate time. Waste of time right?

I totally understand why the TN state school board made this amendment, having a draft before a meeting would definitely save time and IEP meetings can be long. I agree with this decision on that point. However, when it comes to  having an eligibility meeting and then scheduling an IEP meeting to make an IEP, we just wasted more time than ever before. (Previously, the district I live in has always agreed to give me or my client a draft before the meeting but I have attended meetings in other districts where they have not been so willing to provide a copy. In those cases this amendment has helped.)

The TN department of Education addresses this amendment on this form, Parent Participation Memo.

#7 caught my eye. 

Does the new rule require separate meetings for initial eligibility and IEP development?

No. While it is inappropriate to develop a draft IEP prior to determining eligibility, the IEP team has two options once eligibility has been determined:
          Move forward with developing the IEP at the eligibility meeting; OR
        Reconvene within 30 calendar days to develop the IEP. If the team decides to reconvene, a draft IEP could be created prior to the meeting and provided to the parent in accordance with the state rule. 

Hmmmmm. I get it but maybe sometimes, moving forward with developing the IEP at the eligibility meeting, with the whole team might not be a bad idea either. 
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My daughter is in 8th grade currently and like most of you probably think about your children, I don't know how this happened so fast. I recently attended my daughters annual IEP and I am happy to say it went very well and frankly it was very fast, only an hour this time. LOL

In the spring however, we will be having another meeting, a transition meeting, to make sure her IEP is set for high school. As a parent, this terrifies me. My son is currently in Chemistry and that class is HARD. It really worries me how she be able to get through that class. But, as an advocate, I know she will be fine, and I am writing this blog post for all you parents so you can rest assured, you will go into your child's transition meetings prepared.

First, I need to say not all middle schools will schedule a transition meeting. The law says schools need to schedule transition meetings when a student leaves high school, not just changing schools, however, as you know you can request an IEP meeting at any time so go ahead and ask for a transition meeting and ask for a high school representative to be present at that meeting. 

My daughter originally got her IEP when she was at the end of third grade and it was for Basic Reading and Reading Fluency. At the time she was also struggling with math but her reading was so low the elementary school decided to pick one over the other so reading it was. Once she hit middle school her school was also addressing the math but it didn't really fall below to a point of major concern until 7th grade. (We are currently monitoring her on both reading and math this year and we may possibly need to change her disability category to SLD math before the end of the year.)

Because my daughter struggles with math I found out that in high school she would be put in classes that would not give her the opportunity to take a higher level math like algebra 2. She can still graduate with a full diploma but because of the missing algebra 2 she would only be able to attend a 2 year college. Now, my daughter plays softball and I know I am a bit biased but she is pretty good and when she gets ready to graduate from high school and a 4 year college wants her to play for them and she has to turn that down because of math....that will make me very angry. Same thing goes for a foreign language, a student can get a waiver on the foreign language requirement (they would have to decide on a different course track to take) but again, could only go to a 2 year college. 

So how do you avoid these problems? Well, as long as TN has free 2 year college my children will go there so it won't even matter, but like I said earlier, it could be an issue for my daughter. Luckily my daughter will be attending a high school that does block scheduling every other day, meaning there are 4 classes one day, 4 the next and they just go back and forth between those days all year long. So in her case, she will just take math everyday instead of every other day and then she will be able to take algebra 2. Check with your high school and see how they do their schedules and as a team figure out how to make sure your student takes the required math classes.

As for the foreign language. The state of TN allows sign language to be used as a foreign language but not all schools offer that. There are a couple in my district that do, but using the local 2 year college sign language class is acceptable as well. 

I can't wait for my daughter to hit high school, I know she will love the experience but I also need to make sure that she is covered so that she can play softball if she makes the team. Failing a class won't necessarily mean she won't be able to play, they will look at her overall GPA but most schools will be on top of that anyway. High schools offer tutoring before and after school to help all students so we won't need to worry about that but make sure you bring this up in your transition meeting. Find out what the school policy is and how the IEP team can help make sure your child can continue to play. Remind everyone that your child with a learning disability more than likely excels in a sport or some other kind of activity, and like in my daughters case, it makes being in school easier because she has her sport to look forward to.

None of this is an easy process but remember, there are people out there that want to do what is best for your child, seek them out and ask questions. That is what we are all here for.

This is a post about AIMSweb, which is what a lot of districts use for progress monitoring within RTI2.

​The state of TN says if your child is in tier 2 or 3 of RTI2 then a progress monitoring report should come home every 4.5 weeks. Parents, you have a right to have that information! Now, just because I say you should be getting it does not mean that you will understand what is sent home and this is why I am writing today, to explain what those forms look like and how to read them.

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This is what one kind of AIMSweb report will look like. The top is one page, the bottom is usually a second page. The second page numbers are just what the red and green dots in the graph represent.

​This report is for a reading fluency probe. I am going to focus on the second page so you can understand what those numbers mean. 

​This probe is a 1 minute assessment, where a student reads a passage and the teacher times them for 1 minute and marks all errors that the student makes in that minute. If you look at the very first column, it says this child read 47 words correctly in 1 minute, and made 2 errors. These numbers mean nothing to you as a parent if you don't know what is expected of a student in the grade level that is being progress monitored. Every grade level has national benchmark scores, these are the scores that a student at the grade level should be meeting. On the top of that 2nd page it says this student will achieve 78 words read correct. Generally this number is an end of grade number, but not necessarily. This is a team decision on what would be attainable for the student.

​Now, Benchmark norms change 3 times a year, there are Fall Benchmarks, Winter Benchmarks (starting around mid November) and Spring Benchmarks (starting around mid March). So, looking at the 3rd grade benchmarks, and looking at the 78 words read correctly goal, Fall benchmark would put this student just below the 50th percentile (87 words read correctly is 50th percentile), Winter Benchmark would put this student just below the 25th percentile (84 words read correctly is 25th percentile, and Spring Benchmark would put this student just above the 10th percentile (73 words read correctly is the 10th percentile). See the huge difference there?

​So, how do you know what the benchmark norms are? You don't. Unless you ask. You have the right to ask, so ask away. However, be sure to ask for the right benchmark norms. Many parents have spoken to me to tell me that the school has said the student is doing well, the numbers of words read correctly are increasing, however, that does not mean they are closing the gap. You just saw how the 78 number above changed from around the 50th percentile to the 10th by the end of the same grade school year. You have to be specific about benchmark norms. 

​An important thing to remember, I was just talking about reading fluency. Benchmarks change not only from year to year but are also very different among the different progress monitoring probes. If your child is being progress monitored with reading comprehension, called MAZE, those benchmark norms are different.

​Also, see how those red dots go up and down over and over? That is not making progress at closing the gap. This student is staying pretty stagnant through the whole year. 

​I hope this helps explain these reports a little better, if not ask me questions, I am here to help. Remember, you are supposed to get these reports every 4.5 weeks if your child is in a tier, or within special education.

Over the summer I signed up for The Dyslexia Training Institutes Virtual Dyslexia Conference. This was a conference that from the get go I was planning on attending but once I saw the speakers I was definitely in. Some of the topics included Dyscalculia (math learning disability), AT (assistive technology), SWI (structured word inquiry) and of course Dyslexia. One other session was about Executive Function and was being presented by Dr. Jennifer Petrich.

​The beginning and end of the school year is always very busy for me because of IEP meetings but at a couple meetings at the end of the school year the term Executive Function was mentioned. I will be honest and the first time I heard it mentioned by a school psychologist I had never heard of it but of course wrote myself a note to learn about it. I did a little research on it but not enough to say it made any impact on me so when I saw this session was recorded I made sure to make time for it.

​This was an hour and half session that took me over 3 hours to watch because I had to keep pausing it. Every so often Dr. Petrich would say something about executive function that hit home so hard it was like a punch to my stomach so I would hit pause and cry for a few minutes. This continued a couple more times until it was finally over and then I immediately went and ordered the two books that Dr. Petrich recommended. I was like a kid at Christmas when they arrived.

​I was so taken back by this topic because a lot of what she was saying was describing my own daughter.

​So now you may be asking, "what is Executive Function?"

​Executive skills allow us to organize our behavior over time and override immediate demands in favor of longer-term goals. Through the use of these skills we can plan and organize activities, sustain attention, and persist to complete a task. Executive skills enable us to manage our emotions and monitor our thoughts in order to work more efficiently and effectively.

​That is taken from one of the books I mentioned above. Page 1, Chapter 1 from Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention, written by Peg Dawson and Richard Guare. Executive Skills include:

• Planning
• Organization
• Time Management
• Working Memory
• Metacognition
• Response Inhibition
• Emotional Control
• Sustained Attention
• Task Initiation
• Flexibility
• ​Goal Directed Persistence

​As I was learning about what each of these cognitive skills do I started to realize that these explain a lot of what was going on with my daughter, and not just in school, these effect a lot of areas of her life and it breaks my heart to know that she has been struggling with this for years and no one knew what this was.

​I know my daughter dealt with a very low working memory score when she was tested back when she was in 2nd grade. At the time her working memory score was removed from her over all IQ score because it was so low and it brought her overall IQ down quite a bit. I was told that her working memory score wouldn't mean that much, that she would just have trouble remembering multi-step directions, not a big deal. Sadly, that is not the case, working memory IS a big deal.

​So why is working memory such a big deal? Here is a short list of activities that are influenced by working memory capacity (copied from Essentials of Working Memory Assessment and Intervention by Milton Dehn):

• ​Keeping up with the flow of a conversation and remembering what one was going to say.
• ​Noticing errors that are contained in a written sentence one just produced.
• ​Keeping track of one's place while counting.
• Being able to take detailed notes while listening at the same time.
• ​Remembering multistep directions that were just presented or read.
• ​Completing a task in a time-efficient manner.
• ​Coping with distractions while thinking.
• ​Comprehending what is being said or read.
• ​Remembering what one was going to do next.
• Keeping track of subproducts while doing mental arithmetic.
• ​Being able to switch between mental tasks.
• ​Being able to reason, such as comparing and contrasting two concepts.
• ​Integrating visual and auditory information.
• ​Efficiently memorizing information.
• ​Consciously retrieving a name or word that does not come immediately.

​Problems include forgetfulness, inattentiveness, difficulty following directions, difficulty completing tasks, difficulty communicating, and various types of learning disorders.

​What I didn't know was that other areas that she was struggling with along with the working memory, planning, organization, time management, emotional control, all had a name, Executive Function.

​I am still learning a lot about this, still reading many articles written about it, but I wanted to let you all know about a webinar with Dr. Petrich in a few weeks. Here is the link to register. It is on September 27th starting at 7 CST. Consider watching.

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"I wish my parents had you when I was in school." I hear that phrase a lot and everytime it breaks my heart. That is right up there with, "I wish I knew what dyslexia really was when I first started teaching". I wish both of those things too.

​Yesterday my new furniture was delivered to the office and one of the two delivery guys saw my name plate outside my door so he asked me, "What does The Dyslexia Spot do?" I told him I do mostly advocacy work for kids in school, and explained what that involved, and told him I also did tutoring, screening and consultancy work. He asked me a few other questions and then talked to me about Albert Einstein and some other famous dyslexics. I was wondering what made him so curious about my business and then he started talking about school when he was growing up and how he was called lazy, and how stupid he felt, and then said those 11 words, I wish my parents had you when I was in school. My heart started to break. Stories like that are all too common and I know each one of you reading can relate. The good news is, things are changing. Teachers come up to me often and ask me how they can learn more about dyslexia and that is a big first step.

​One of my major resolutions for 2017 is to hold more teacher trainings. My new office has a great new training area so be on the look out for those and some parent trainings as well.

​Hopefully together, no other generation ever needs to say, I was told I was lazy and I felt stupid ever again.

I hope 2017 is starting off great for all of you.

​I have a big announcement to make myself, The Dyslexia Spot has a brand new office. The location is 9111 Cross Park Dr, Suite D-260. Right now it is by appointment only but you can contact me at anytime by hitting the contact button above.

​Look for more updates in the near future, as I try to get myself completely moved in.

I am not sure if I have mentioned Gina Cooke or Pete Bowers by name before and if I haven't, shame on me. These two people are amazing gems and today I got to meet them both. IDA-IN had a structured word inquiry conference today and when I saw info about this awhile back I immediately looked up how far Fort Wayne was from me and I decided almost immediately that it wasn't too far to meet two people that have pretty much changed my way of thinking.

​Awhile back I saw this article on the Dyslexia Training Institutes blog and it really made me think about my daughter. No doubt Orton-Gillingham is good for reading, but OG was not helping my daughter and after reading that article I started thinking maybe this SWI would. (I posted about my daughter and my first experiences with this here.)

​Today was the conference and I was as blown away as I expected to be. Just being in the same room with them was worth the price of admission. I will post a couple pictures I took but I want to be sure to share some links to their blogs.

​Gina's Lexinar Educator Exchange site. Click on her Lexinars and sign up for them, I have already taken 3 and they are worth it. Also, click on her store. Her cards are really the best.

​Pete's website is called Word Works and it is also full of knowledge and good stuff. Click on the links and learn.

​Another really great site is Michel Rameau's called Real Spelling. Watch the video's, they are worth the time.