You know what I hated about teaching grade 7 & 8? Graduation. All the kids in their fancy outfits filled with a sense of hope and accomplishment didn’t blunt out the fact that there were far too many who we had failed. That’s right. I failed them and so did the school system. It made…
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When Brian and Kim met me about their son Josh they had very different opinions about why Josh was struggling in school. Brian thought his son was just lazy. The teachers did too. Mom knew Josh was trying his best and that he didn’t want to be what Josh called ‘the dumb kid’. But all…
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“He barely crawled.” “She was an early walker.” “He didn’t crawl.” “Her crawl was more of a shuffle.” I hear this all the time when it comes to kids with learning and behaviour difficulties. It’s the reason why retained primitive reflexes can wreak so much havoc on a child’s ability to read, learn, write and…
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You know what drives me bananas about how we address reading struggles? We have kids read more to try and fix it. We think that the problem and cause of reading struggles are related to reading itself. I am here to tell you – they are not. Reading struggles don’t even start with things like…
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Did you know that when astronauts spend time in space, they can develop ‘space dyslexia’ upon returning to Earth? Until their body adjusts to gravity and they re-train their vestibular and proprioceptive system, reading can suddenly become the same laborious or even impossible task that it is for so many kids with reading disorders. When…
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Claire used to struggle with helping her son, Kolby. She felt so hopeless and stuck and was always so worried about how much further Kolby would fall behind in school. It felt like every year Kolby was struggling more. Sure he would make gains in some ways, but Kolby couldn’t sit still to save his…
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A couple weeks ago I was talking to a mom who was considering that maybe her son did have some kind of learning or behaviour challenge. “But I don’t know,” she said “Maybe I’m just making excuses. I am beginning to think that maybe he is just plain lazy and defiant.” Kids with APD are…
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If I had a dollar for every child I work with who has more than one diagnoses, I would be rich. Rarely do I see a child who just has dyslexia with no other diagnoses or difficulties. Parents almost always come to see me because of one major concern. Usually that concern is either reading…
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It’s easy to feel helpless and that nothing is working when you have paid the money and taken the time out to drive your child to tutoring, believing this will be ‘the fix’ and you see minimal results. Last summer, Lisa told me that her son Isaac must have been misdiagnosed. She explained that she…
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‘Dyslexia is genetic’ I can’t tell you how many times a week I hear that or read it. This prevalent declaration makes me a little bit crazy. … and it’s not because it’s incorrect. Dyslexia can definitely have a genetic component. But a ‘dyslexia gene’ is a deeply flawed understanding of genetics. … As well…
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