by Blanche Podhajski
I love literacy because of precious memories. My mother and big sister worked in beautiful stone buildings that housed the libraries in my home town. I remember them bringing home treasures of books they would read to me as a preschooler.
That’s probably where my love of language began. Curious George, Madeline and Babar became as close friends to me as Ruthie who lived down the street.
Learning to read when I entered Kindergarten couldn’t happen fast enough. But I was disappointed just reading sight words like run, jump and Spot which characterized instruction in my educational era. I was so much more excited when Miss Avery taught us about “magic e” in first grade and then showed us how to rhyme by changing initial letter sounds. I was off and really reading!
I remember curling up into a chair a few years later with the entire Freddy the Pig series. I felt especially proud that I could decode the title of Freddy and the Ignormus. I enjoyed talking at the dinner table about what an “ignormus” might be.
by Suzanne Loring
When your child is diagnosed with a learning disability it can be very overwhelming. Concern about school, worry about how your child is fitting in with others and questions about the future arise. Will they be successful? Will they go to college? What am I supposed to do? At the same time there can also be a sense of relief having finally figured out what the problem is that is holding your child back. Now you can get help.
However, we must be sure to not forget the child throughout all of our worrying. Not unlike you, your child has also likely gone through many of these emotional ups and downs: discouragement, fear, failure, relief, more fear. And, they have been struggling with these emotions while trying to keep up in school, keep up with friends, keep up with expectations and they are failing. So, it is very important to recognize that your child needs your support throughout this process.
by Dr. Blanche Podhajski
October is Learning Disabilities Month. For me, it is a time to
celebrate all we have learned from brain
science over almost half a
century. It is also a time to honor all of the successes of students
with learning disabilities and their teachers.
What is a learning disability?
A learning disability is a brain based difference in learning that makes some academic skills harder to acquire than others. A recent report, Don’t “Dys” Our Kids: Dyslexia and the Quest for Grade-Level Reading Proficiency,
commissioned by the Campaign for Grade Level Reading and the Emily Hall
Tremaine Foundation, indicates that about 2.4 million children and
youth in this country have been diagnosed with learning disabilities.
Most people are familiar with the term dyslexia, a neurobiological
condition that is not the result of poverty, culture or developmental
delays (Fiester, 2012). Other learning disabilities are dysgraphia,
difficulty writing and expressing ideas through written language, and
dyscalculia, difficulty with math.
