Week three of school starts today and let me explain what happened.

​Last night my daughter begged me to let her skip school today. I asked her why didn't she want to go and her response was "I just don't want to." This morning I woke her up and the crying started almost immediately, her ankle from a softball injury has been hurting her again, and then she was just stressed about school. Stressed to the maximum level. She is 10.

​Let me say that we transferred her to a new school this year. Still a public school and still a school within the same district but a different school. She has a new teacher, new principal, new case manager and a new Assistive Technology aide. She told me Friday that she loves this new school. She loves her teacher, her new case manager, and just everything else about this school, so why the stress and tears?

Because school is hard for her.

​Try to imagine going into an environment every single day for 7 hours where you know you are going to struggle. Where everything about the day is going to be hard for you. My daughter is dyslexic so not only does she struggle in the main 4 classes but lunch, she can't remember her lunch number so she is afraid to buy herself an ice cream because she is in "5th grade and should know her number by now." In gym where following all the rules of a game is hard to remember. Music, where reading is hard for her. And I send her there every single day. We all send our babies, every single day.

​We have a great team in place for her this year but she is behind. Even if she had the greatest IEP ever written, she would still struggle every day. I have said this so many times on here, early intervention! Early intervention is key.

​I know my daughter is not the only one who has to be brave every day when they enter the building, and I think we are slowly getting to the point where we are catching and helping these kids but in the mean time, our kids are dealing with a lot of stress. What is the answer?

​I am sending out hugs to all of you parents that sit in the quiet dark room and silently cry because I know how hard this is for you too.

"What we have helps 98% of the students."
​"But what about the 2%? What do we do when we have exhausted everything?"
"We find something else."

​My daughter is falling into that 2%. My daughter is a sad little girl. Thank goodness she has softball that makes her happy because anything to do with school, she becomes sad. I was recently talking to a friend and I made the comment, if I could go back to when she was in Kindergarten, back when she knew she was smart, I would in heartbeat. I would go back smarter and wiser and have the tools to help get her what she needs.

​Sadly, I can't. None of us can. All we can do is the best we can and get them what they need to be able to navigate through school.

​I am a big advocate for teacher training. I have said so many times, all it takes is one teacher, one teacher who understands dyslexia and can accommodate and listen, one teacher and it makes a huge difference for a student. What I have also learned though is to truly understand you need to experience it. You need to have a child that struggles everyday. See that sadness when they don't understand something the "traditional" way, but also see that excitement and glow when your child gets it!

​You all already know this but I am a huge fan and supporter of Kelli Sandman-Hurley and Tracy Block-Zaretsky at the Dyslexia Training Institute. They have an amazing dyslexia for a day simulation that I have witnessed first hand and it works. I wish all training included these simulations, because even just one makes a huge difference for teachers.

​I have done Orton-Gillingham training and I have been trained in RAVE-O which is by MaryAnn Wolf. I am a few weeks away from being trained in structured word inquiry as well. I am hoping to come up with something that I can do to help my daughter, the 2%, using all of these, because I think that is what she needs.

​I want to end this blog with two stories of my daughter and the glow she got when I explained something to her and she got it!

​1. I went through the consonant and vowel cards with her on the first day we were working together. She got to the J card and she hesitated. I knew she struggled with that sound because her case manager told me, she just had a hard time remembering the sound that J makes. I said to her, "What is my name?"

"Jennifer"
​"What letter does Jennifer start with?"
"J"

​And I saw the glow. Just like that, she made the connection. The next day we got to the J card and she hesitated for a second but I could see her mind thinking (Jennifer.../j/) and she said /j/.

​2. I have been trying to come up with ways to teach sight words, not just memorize, my daughter has a working memory deficit so memorizing is not easy for her, so that is why I am taking the word structure class. I asked her, "how do you spell does?"

​"d-u-s"
​"Do you know that the base word for does is do?"
​"ok"
​"How do you spell do?"
"D-O"
​"ok, so if DO is spelled D-O and DO is the base word for DOES, what do you think you add the end of DO to make it DOES, remembering that DO ends in a vowel."
"ES"
​"Right! So how do you spell DOES?"
"D-O-E-S"

​And there was the light bulb and glow again.

Today, as I do every Sunday, I sat down at my desk and started working on my lesson plans for all the students I tutor. I LOVE writing lesson plans. It reminds me of when I was in college and could not wait to become a teacher. Sadly that never paned out for me but honestly I believe everything happens for a reason and even though it is 20 someish years later I am doing exactly what I was meant to do and I love it.

​Anyway, while I am doing my Orton-Gillingham lessons and my two RAVE-O lesson plans for the week I got to thinking about word structure again. Unless you are new to my blog you already know how much I love Kelli Sandman Hurley from the Dyslexia Training Institute and I have been going back and forth about her word structure class. I want to take it so badly, and I will probably end up signing up, even though one week I will be out of town, but it got me researching again.

​I try to always read the DTI blog whenever I can and today in doing my research I was led there once again and found this blog titled Structured Word Inquiry and OG. It is an article by Gina Cooke who I have not heard of and boy oh boy am I forever glad I found her now.

Her website is LEX Linguist-Educator Exchange and she has just been added to my ever growing list of people I want to meet someday.

​Here is the bottom line...teaching kids a word is spelled the way it is because "English is weird" is unacceptable. Teaching a student why a word is spelled a certain way allows them to "get it" and spell it right.

​Because...spelling DOES matter!

A few months back my husband came into my office and asked me if I remembered the Gow School. I am originally from Buffalo NY, I grew up in a town called Elma and the next town over is called South Wales and that is where the Gow School is located. I remembered the school but like when I was a kid I never knew what that school was, just that it was a private boys school. My husband said, "did you know that it is a dyslexia school?" No, I did not. My heart skipped a beat and I got very excited. I googled the school and started reading their website and I was getting goosebumps. I then went on twitter and started following them. My husband suggested I ask for a tour but I was hesitant to do that because I knew my kids wouldn't be going there and I didn't want to waste anyone's time.

​Fast forward a couple weeks and someone who maintains the twitter account had posted a congrats to one of their students about getting accepted to Syracuse University. I liked the status, because that IS indeed awesome and that night not only did the school follow me back but I received a dm (direct message). After a few messages I was invited to see the school.

​Last week I finally got back to Buffalo and I experienced a day I will never forget. I will share their website with you shortly but the website does not do this school justice. I was blown away. I met with Mr. Matt Fisher and he sat with me and explained the philosophy of the school, about Mr. Gow and why he started the school. He showed me the cards they use for their Reconstructive Language program and then I received a tour of the campus.

​Our first stop was the original building on the campus and what I saw inside there was something that still at this moment when I think about it I get goosebumps again. I wish I had a picture to share because to me this was the most amazing photo, it was a picture of Peter Gow and Dr, Samuel Orton. Next to the picture was a handwritten letter from Anna Gillingham Yes, Dr. Orton and Anna Gillingham of Orton-Gillingham. I stood there in awe. Read here about Peter Gow. From there I was shown more of the classroom buildings and an amazing robotics lab.

​There were so many signs all around the school about RAN, which is what I am very interested in, and I am hoping to read more about their research soon, but this picture caught my eye and I want to share because it is so true. If I could I would also add, brave.


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At lunch I got to eat with two boys who were in their first year at Gow. I asked them what they loved most about the school. The one student answered first and the second was quick to agree. He said to me, and I am paraphrasing a little, "I like how the teachers here really do understand my learning differences. In public school the teachers didn't understand but here they do and they really care." If I could have one wish granted it would be for all teachers to be trained and to REALLY understand how a dyslexic student learns, and how they feel in school. Our students work so hard and feel like no one understands but these kids, they do feel understood.

I could go on and on about this school and honestly I have been afraid to write about my experience because I know I can't do it justice but for the rest of my life I will remember that day. To know that a school like this exists just makes me feel so good.

​One last thing, they have what seems like an AWESOME summer program. You can find out more here. If you can, check it out.

I know I have a lot of readers from outside Knox County TN but I just wanted to blog about an experience I was given yesterday within Knox County Schools.

​As most of you know, Orton Gillingham is the method of reading that has research based proof that helps dyslexic students how to read and spell. There are many programs out there that are based off of Orton-Gillingham and when done with fidelity they work within our small group RTI setting or within special education.

​A few weeks ago I was able to sit in on a Language Live intervention class done with 8th graders and I was blown away by what I was seeing. I will admit I was a skeptic when it came to Language Live but I am now going to say I am a believer in what this program can, and is, doing in our middle schools. Again, when done with fidelity.

​Awhile back now I had heard about a professional development class that was being offered within Knox County School called year-long reading. It is based on Louisa Moats and her research so right from that information I knew this would be a good thing. Louisa Moats has done a lot of research on reading, writing and spelling. Just do a google search on her name and you will find many of her articles and her books that she has written on this topic.

​Yesterday I was given the opportunity to sit in on the training that was offered for teachers in grades 3-5 and I  was blown away. (KCS is also doing this for K-2 and for middle and high.) I am so impressed with what Knox County is doing with our general ed ELA (English Language Arts) curriculum. Every single teacher should be in this training because sadly our colleges and universities are not teaching this, the science behind reading.

​There is a lot of literature out there in regards to our brains and how we have to be taught to read. We were never meant to be readers so we need to teach our brains how to read. I'm not telling any of you anything you don't already know but it makes me so happy to know that at least Knox County Schools is teaching our teachers this information.

What is RAVE-O?

​RAVE-O stands for Reading through Automaticity, Vocabulary, Elaboration, Orthography plus Retrieval. RAVE-O was designed by Maryanne Wolf, who has done tons of  research on RAN (Rapid Automatized Naming). You may have heard the term "double deficit dyslexia", that means students with deficits in phoneme awareness and rapid naming. Maryanne Wolf designed this reading program to help students who are considered double deficit.

​As you may already know my daughter is considered double deficit, so I was looking for a way to help her and was told about RAVE-O. I am pleased to announce that I have now completed the online course and I have received my certificate of completion and I can now tutor students with RAN deficits using RAVE-O.

​For more information on RAVE-O, take a look here.

These are just some of the books I am reading about how spelling DOES matter. Part one of the TNReady test was mostly just writing and with spell check no longer available since we went from computer to paper/pencil, I asked the TN DOE the question, what about spelling errors?

I looked up the rubric for 4th-5th grade and this is what I found:

In order to get a 4 under conventions it says:
        The writing:

• demonstrates consistent and sophisticated command of grade-level conventions of standard written English
• may contain a few minor errors that do not interfere with meaning

​Next to that first bullet point is the number 2. Looking at the footnote that says:

Conventions of standard written English include sentence structure, grammar, usage, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

​​To me that means spelling DOES in fact matter and this raises a HUGE concern for me.

​I am aware that this won't count against a students grade, and it won't count against a teachers evaluation, but I believe it will count against a school.

​Food for thought.

Today the TN DOE released a comprehensive guide about dyslexia, which I will attach below. Please share...

https://www.tn.gov/assets/entities/education/attachments/sped_understanding_dyslexia.pdf

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The Department of Education has recently put out a FAQ form on the paper and pencil TNReady test. I will attach it here for you all to read but pay close to attention the section titled Accommodations, Alternate Assessment, and ACCESS for ELL's.

There is also another document you may be interested in that discusses the testing conditions and accommodations as they apply to paper assessments: