Using Tech to Meet Learning Challenges: Dyslexia

We all have students who present specific learning challenges. As teachers, we look for ways to remove the challenges impeding their learning...or at least find strategies that we can teach them to become successful on the learning continuum. In the last several years, I have had several students who have arrived with a diagnosis of Dyslexia. The thing about a diagnosis is there is a danger that we make assumptions that every child with the same diagnosis is the same...they need the same types of supports. This is simply not true. Each student is special and unique. They are much more than their diagnosis. They have interests, fears, strengths, and challenges like all of their peers. As teachers, we must look at each student as a unique case and compile a cadre of tools, strategies, and practices that will not only help meet the unique needs of each learner but also empower them beyond our classroom walls.

I wanted to take a few minutes to share some of the tools that I have found that work really well with students who may be faced with the challenge of Dyslexia. Some of these work very well to support the learning of struggling readers or those with limited language proficiency. The key is for us to find the tool that will best need the unique learning needs of each one of our learners.

• Audio books: I know that this may seem like a given to many, but I know personally, I overlooked this option for many years. Yes, we want our students to be able to read, analyze, and enjoy reading. However, when we want our students to apply content area standards like comparing and contrasting texts, identifying a theme, or supporting an argument with textual evidence, an inability to physically read the text, impedes a student mastering those standards. One thing that I discovered in my research is that the processing that takes place when one's eyeballs read a text and the processing that take place when one hears a text is very similar. With this tool, all students will have the opportunity to discuss and analyze a text with peers. (Digital audio books can generally be checked out from school or public libraries.) 
• Voice Typing: For students with Dyslexia, writing is a major challenge. One simple tool that we've discovered is "voice typing" in Google Drive. This allows a student to speak their writing into a document. They do have to tell it when to punctuate and when to go to a new paragraph. I've had students who it would normally take 30-45 minutes to type a couple of sentences, who could compose and entire narrative within 20 minutes using "voice typing." For the first time, I was able to see their creativity and ability to compose in different genres because "voice typing" removed an obstacle to their learning.
• Dyslexie font: Did you know that there is a special font that makes it easier for students with Dyslexia to read? It's called Dyslexie. With this font, students have an easier time reading things that are written. When creating printed material for students, my interns and I have started using this font for all of the students. For someone without Dyslexia, it simply looks like any other font. It's just simpler and easier to read.
• Google Chrome Extensions: There are several extensions that students can add to their Chromebook Google accounts. Speak It will read selected texts out loud. The Open Dyslexic extension overrides all fonts on web pages with the OpenDyslexic font, and formats pages to be more easily readable. It works at preventing the "funny things" that happen to letters for those with Dyslexia. Sometimes, we need our student to read a text in order to build background knowledge. With TLDR (too long didn't read) by tldrstuff.com, learners can get a summary of a web page without leaving the actual site. We've had various levels of success with each of these. It all comes down to the individual student. My middle schoolers are very conscious of being different. These extensions allow them to continue doing the same thing on the same sites as their peers but provide them the support that they need. 
• Video diaries, building, making: When it comes to assessing a student's level of mastery, there may be challenges for students with reading obstacles. However, their obstacles should not impede our ability to assess their level of mastery of content standards. All of my learners have the freedom to choose how they demonstrate mastery of standards. Often students with Dyslexia are very intelligent and creative and they have struggled to keep their heads above water at school. Many of them are exhausted by school. By providing them the opportunity to build, make, or create they are able to excel in spite of their specific challenges. 

When we can empower our students with tools, practices, or strategies, we see their passions and hear their voices...and so do their peers. They become an integral part of the learning environment. 

I'd love to hear some of the tools and strategies that you've found successful with your students. Please share them in a comment below.

In Defense of Student-Directed Learning

Recently, I was in a training session where we observed a lesson. Once it was over, we were led into a group discussion about what we had observed. Immediately negative comments were made placing the blame solely on the students. As the negativity escalated, I knew I needed to speak up. I also knew how they would react, but I jumped into those shark infested waters anyway.

Even though many of our children have no support system at home, we can give them the skills to learn at school. If they become invested in what they are learning and they see the relevance, they will WANT to learn and practice what we do in the classroom...even when they aren't in the classroom.Students need to be given the opportunity to explore how each standard we teach relates to their lives. They need to have the guidance from us to find how learning this content will make their lives better. Then, we need to give them the opportunity to explore, design and create something new with what they have learned. If we give them this, they will be self-motivated to learn...not because of some grade or a test, but because they LOVE it.

I know there is plenty of research out there that supports student-directed learning. However, I don't need research to know that this is a valid way of facilitating learning.  I see it every day in my class. I have had students that are exceptional education students, who are so low or such behavior problems, I was told they wouldn't even be able to function within the classroom. My administrator admits to putting the more challenging students in my classroom because "they always make such great gains and reach a level of success that they've never had before." (See Let's Celebrate or When Things Click or  Becoming Techknowledgeable) I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back, but to give examples of how successful this is with students...academically high or low; wealthy or homeless; Asian, Latino, African American, or Caucasian. When you have 10 year olds who don't want to go home at the end of the day or they want to spend their Friday afternoon doing research to prepare for a lesson they are going to teach older students via Skype, you know that it works. (See Students as Teachers). It works because we are giving students the power and responsibility to drive their own learning.

The reason I spoke up was because the students of those teachers were being sold short. Their potential wasn't being explored. That love of learning hadn't been ignited. I hurt for those kids.

Isn't it our responsibility to do whatever we can to meet the needs of our students? We can't afford to waste any time giving them the tools to success. Because when you ultimately think about it, we are only hurting our future selves. These are the kids who will be running the world in a few years. We can't afford to sit on the sidelines and point fingers at the students. Students know how they learn best if they are given the opportunity. They are the SOLUTION.

Reading: A Book In A Day

My students and I have been desperately trying to carve out some time to just read together for enjoyment. As I've mentioned before, we are bound by a prescriptive reading program. As a result, my readers will tell you without hesitation that they hate reading (see this previous post about last year's struggles). Here is how one of my students explained it:

"Who loves reading, not the subject, the reading-of-a-book reading? I'm not really the reading type, but I am busy reading a book that is very interesting to me and makes me want to tell someone about the book." 

They make a distinction between the subject and the act. And lest's be frank, who can blame them? What do my students want? They want to read and share what they are reading with others. With them having blogs, they have been able to share and have conversations about what they are independently reading, but they've been asking when we're going to all read a book together and discuss it like we did with Frindle, at the beginning of the year, and Tuck Everlasting, for the Global Read Aloud. Our biggest obstacle is finding time...any time we have we're squeezing out to write and publish collaboratively with students from all across the country. None of them want to give that up.

Photo from t0msk

The real goal here is that they all get to read a book and enjoy discussing....all because they want to for the sheer joy of it. So we are doing a book-in-a-day (which has really turned into a week because we only have a few minutes a day). We're reading There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar. What fifth grader wouldn't be intrigued by that title, huh?

The way it works is we begin by reading and discussing the first several chapters together. We get to know the characters, the plot, and get a feel for the writing. Then, the students divide up into pairs and each pair gets a chapter or two to read. They are responsible for knowing that chapter and summarizing it. Then, once everyone has completed their chapters, we share them in sequence, putting the story all together. Finally, we wrap it up by reading the last two chapters together.

This would not work with every chapter book, but this book has short chapters that, if you know the characters, can stand alone. There are forty-seven chapters in There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom and we've had a blast reading them. The comments that they make and the depth of the discussions are amazing. (Who would have thought about Bradley Chalkers, the main character, and his struggle being like the Grinch? My readers did.) Every day they come in and want to know if we'll be able to read together. They enjoy reading because it's fun and they have someone with whom to discuss it.

And to top it off, they've asked if they can make several projects to add to our "Coast to Coast Chronicles" which has a theme of Making a Difference. They pointed out that the themes in the book go along with what they have been writing and publishing.

In spite of all the obstacles, they've found their joy for reading.They are so excited that they've already started asking what book we can read together next. Guess I need to pull out all my class sets of  books; I can't wait.

Speaking of Motivating Students...

Looking for a new way to motivate students? This year my students and I have discovered a nifty tool that we have used for different types of publishing. As mentioned in a previous post, my students were unmotivated readers, which often impacted their desire to write, create, and publish. Then, thanks to some reading on Twitter and the blog-o-verse, I discovered Voki.

Voki allows the user to create a personalized talking avatar that can be easily embedded into wikis, blogs, profiles, and email. And even better, it wasn't blocked at school. This was perfect for my students to use for their writing and publishing for The Coast to Coast Chronicles. Voki has the option for the creator to type the text they want spoken or record their voices with their avatar. This was great for those special needs/ELL students who needed extra practice recording their voices fluently, affording me a tool to assist in my differentiated lessons.

Initially, my students wanted to create them as a "book teaser" to give their audience from The Coast to Coast Chronicles (over 300 students across the country in grades 3-7)  the opportunity to learn about a book that they enjoyed and get them hooked so that they would want to read the book as well. Having a new tool seemed to encourage my students to want to read so that they could contribute through this medium. Other students who saw these first Vokis, asked my students for directions on how to create them, letting my students (once again) become the teachers... a big boost in self-esteem for these hesitant readers, writers, and speakers. And let's face it, who of us doesn't love playing with the mouse and watching the avatar's eyes follow it?

After these first Vokis were created, my students began to apply this tool towards publishing their writing for other projects and in other content areas. While working with the astronomy students, many of my students were inspired by the astronomers that they learned about from their older counterparts. Since we were publishing on the theme of Exploration for our 7th edition, several of my students, who had not previously chosen to use Voki, created Astronomer Vokis.

This week, yet another idea arose from my students. We needed to compose a thank you note to a couple of different people/groups. We were discussing several different ideas, and one of my learners suggested that we create a Voki to express our gratitude. He even added that not only would it be a creative way to write a thank you note, but it would also teach the other classes/individuals a cool new tool that they could start using too. Cool, huh? My fifth graders were finding new ways to apply a familiar tool to publish their writing and use it to also influence and educate others. Nice thinking. Wish I had thought of that.

So next time you have a student who needs a differentiated lesson in writing, reading,or speaking, or perhaps they may not be highly self-motivated, maybe Voki could be used to help meet those needs the way that it has helped me meet the needs of some of my students.

Let's Celebrate!

At the end of each school year, we receive our class rolls from the previous grade. Often a commentary on the students accompanies these rolls. Although I try to avoid this, I still end up with an earful. One of my students (we'll call her Cassandra), came with comments from her previous teachers that she is just so sweet and helpful, but a sad case because she can't read or write. They told me I would love having her in class because I wouldn't even know that she was there. I was offended to hear another educator describe a student this way.

Once Cassandra arrived in my classroom, I noticed how cowed down she was. When she spoke she was so quiet one couldn't even hear her. I couldn't even get her to smile.  Now granted, Cassandra is an exceptional education student and also an English Language Learner so I knew there would be challenges. She is pulled out of the classroom several times a day to receive her services as she is reading on the pre-primer level, which affects all the subject areas.

Once we started doing our writing, I was shocked to discover that Cassandra was never expected to write anything. When I conferenced with her, I discovered that she really wanted to write all of her great ideas and publish like all of her peers, but she said that no one would help her. What? Here's a child who wants to write and no one has ever expected her to write. (I did confirm this with previous teachers, much to my dismay.)

Of course, reading is an obstacle. She is always in my small group for differentiated lessons across content areas. She set personal learning goals just like all of my other students. We would revisit her goals often and celebrate her successes no matter how small they would be. Through all of the hard work, she slowly began to speak louder and with more confidence with me. One time, we were celebrating her success and I told her it really wouldn't hurt too much if she decided to smile. Her lips curled up into a small smile. Her steps were small, sometimes almost unnoticeable, but they were steps forward.

As the weeks progressed, she began to speak up with peers and in small groups as they worked. She was the second one to finish publishing her animal story because she wanted to publish her work. She asked for help when she wasn't sure how to progress; something she never did at the beginning of the year. Then much to my surprise, she volunteered and began helping other students publish their work. Listening to her conversation with her peers had me wondering what those teachers from previous years were talking about.

Her entire posture changed. Now she shares dazzling smiles regularly and in the last two weeks, Cassandra has volunteered to participate in class discussions adding some amazing thoughts and connections. Last week, we took a reading benchmark test, which we do not modify because we want to get an accurate view of how a child will do on a grade level test. She scored a B. Today, they took a reading test and she insisted that she could take it without any modifications. She confidently smiled and assured me that she could do this. I let her thinking that she could always go back and retake it later with modifications if necessary. She scored a C. To say we celebrated these two accomplishments is an understatement. I know that grades aren't the end all be all in determining a student's success, but for her, it was the first time she earned a grade she could brag on...which she did to all of her Ex. Ed teachers and her mother. The ELL teacher who has been working with her for 4 years, told me that Cassandra is a miracle child.

When I asked Cassandra what she was doing differently, she told me with a twinkle in her eye that she spends time reading now and that she knows that she can "do it right" if she practices enough. Knowing her, she is probably putting many extra hours to overcome her specific challenges. Does this learner still have obstacles? Absolutely, but it's amazing what she can accomplish when she wants to and when she has support to help her reach all of her goals.

So  today, I wanted to write about Cassandra to remind myself and others out there of the importance of reaching every child. Being consistent and patient with each and every one of them is crucial for all of our students to reach his/her full potential. It may be tedious work, but we cannot write off a child's potential because of their previous school experience, home situation, cultural background or disability.

And by the way, her mother is so overjoyed, she is bringing homemade Tres Leches for the class on Friday. Congratulations, Cassandra! You've earned a chance to celebrate.