Dyslexia 101

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. You're probably familiar with Mayor Eric Adams using his experience as a former police officer to inform his positions on public safety. Another personal experience of his may influence his approach to education policy.

Mayor Eric Adams: I went through my entire public school experience going to bed at night, crying myself to sleep, because I didn't feel I could learn. Finally, when I went to community college, I learned that I had a learning disability. I was able to overcome that, I went from a D student to an [unintelligible 00:00:46] list throughout my college year. I was betrayed by the Department of Education. Every day we are betraying our children. You won't have another Eric Adams believing he can't learn when I'm the mayor of this city.

Brian Lehrer: That was Mayor Adams at the second democratic primary debate back last spring. He has the very common learning disability, dyslexia. Now, according to the City's Department of Education, more than 80% of public elementary and middle school students with learning disabilities do not reach state metrics and reading proficiency.

Compare that to only around half of students overall, dyslexia is estimated to effect between 10% and 20% of the overall population, but the city lacks more granular data on how dyslexia impacts local public school students, and there's no universal screening for the neurocognitive disorder. A policy, Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks might change. Here's mayor Adams again this time at the first general election debate.

Mayor Eric Adams: We need to do dyslexia screening. We must make sure that we go for children with learning disabilities, so the opportunities and the barriers to education will be removed for all of our children.

Brian Lehrer: What does that mean? How exactly does dyslexia affect student learning? What are the best practices for teaching literacy, while creating education environments to support young people with dyslexia? We're going to invite your calls, listeners, with your experiences as a person with dyslexia, a loved one of a person with dyslexia, a teacher of people with dyslexia.

As joining me now are two guests with different areas of expertise on the subject. Susan B. Neuman is a Professor of Childhood and Literacy Education at NYU, and Shawn Anthony Robinson, a reading instructor at Madison College in Wisconsin. He's a senior research associate in the Wisconsin Equity and Inclusion Laboratory, and I think I read that he's sometimes called Doctor Dyslexia Dude, and he has personal experience. Thank you both for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Susan B. Neuman: Thanks for inviting us.

Shawn Anthony Robinson: Good morning. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we're going to open up the phones right away for, as I said, anyone who has dyslexia, or has a child or other loved one with dyslexia to share your experiences, especially. as they pertain to education. What did your reading education look like? 212-433-WNYC. What does their reading education look like and what could it? 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer.

If you teach in the New York City public schools or anywhere else, and you teach kids who have dyslexia, what are best practices as you know them to be today? What do you hope that Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks might change or add. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Shawn Anthony Robinson, did I get that right? Is that something you call yourself, or is that the name of a program, Doctor Dyslexia Dude?

Shawn Anthony Robinson: It's the name of a kids book that my wife and I, graphic novel about a African American boy with dyslexia that has unique talents and superpowers because we wanted to be able to frame the narrative of students with dyslexia, particularly, Black and Brown students who look like me to know that they are capable of being successful.

The book is based really on my own life lived experiences as a young man, who graduated high school, reading at an elementary level, tossed into the world, being illiterate, and then having a professor that literally saved my life, taught me how to crack the code, by the way, of the science of reading as we call it now. Then, I went on and got three degrees and now I try to do the same thing that my professor did to me to help kids crack the code, and be successful.

Brian Lehrer: How do they crack the code?

Shawn: Well, what I was taught how to crack the code in that instance was, understanding the sound structure of our language, graphemes, phonemes, sound structure, syllable types, wordology, root words, epistemology of words. Really just understanding studying words, having the awareness of letters that make sounds and syllable types. He just really allowed me to appreciate the sound structure of our language by also teaching me how to use a dictionary, because everything in a dictionary teaches those things, and so he really used a system, a multisensory instruction based on Orton–Gillingham approach.

Once he taught me as a 18-year-old how to crack the code to really understand our sound structure of our language, I became a consumer of knowledge, and I loved school. I just became passionate about this area of reading based on my own lived experiences, but also based on the research, and I just found my place on this earth to try to make sure that kids are diagnosed early, and teachers are trained properly to help students grow and manifest into their full potential.

Brian Lehrer: Doctor Dyslexia Dude. Professor Neuman, what's dyslexia for people listening right now, who may not have had contact with it in their own lives, and may think, "Oh, that's the thing where you sort of reverse the letters." Tell us more.

Professor Neuman: It's essentially where children have trouble breaking words into their constituent sound, so, for example, if I say the word "cat", the child would not be able to do cat. In other words, understanding the individual sounds that go into words, and that's pretty important because, as you know, children learn through phonics, they're going to learn to decode, and if they can't look at those individual sounds, they'll have difficulty.

I think one of the things I'd like to bring up, Brian, at the very beginning is that, many of our children have reading difficulties, but that's not necessarily dyslexia. Dyslexia affects areas of the brain, and will generally affect, we say about 5% to 10% of our children. There are many more children in New York who are not succeeding in reading, and we would call them garden variety, poor readers. [chuckles] In other words they just haven't had the instructional opportunities to learn how to read.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call right off the bat with a personal story. Michael in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michael, thanks for calling in.

Michael: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call, and thanks so much for addressing this issue. I'm excited to hear about the mayor's plan. I think the education system is in for a shock when it realizes just how many kids have this problem. My daughter is 13 now, she has dyslexia. We spent many years fighting with the public school system to try to get the services that she needed.

We had one principal of the school she went to with her first grade tell us when we asked why they didn't have Orton–Gillingham, or the other things that were so crucial for teaching kids with dyslexia, that kids who needed those kinds of services should find another school. Ultimately, after trying three different schools, we had to take her out of public school and put her in the private school system, because there just aren't the services there.

Brian Lehrer: As we talk about what Mayor Adams and Chancellor David Banks want to bring to the New York City public schools in this regard, Michael, did you find certain best practices in your child's private school that were not present in the public school system?

Michael: Well, small class sizes are crucial, absolutely. We're looking at high schools now, and the typical classroom for what they call integrated curriculum teaching, where they mix kids with learning disabilities with Gen-Ed kids, general education kids, they have class sizes of 28, 30, 31. These are the schools that have programs that say that they're dedicated to helping these kids. There's just no way that kids with these types of learning disabilities can keep up in a class that large.

Brian Lehrer: Michael, thank you so much for your call, very instructive. Let's take one more call before we get a response from our guests. Debbie, in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi Debbie, thanks so much for calling in.

Debbie: Hi, Brian, this is great. Hi Shawn, you're my friend. Susan, I've met you. This is so exciting. What questions do you have for me, Brian?

Brian Lehrer: Oh, a question I have for you. Well, you called us, I see you're with the Dyslexia Alliance for Black Children as a board member.

Debbie: I am, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Were you heartened by hearing Mayor Adam say that he wants to institute screening for dyslexia, and other programs to address it?

Debbie: Yes, because I've been the one briefing Mayor Adam since he was Borough president, I started briefing him in 2016 about the dyslexia-to-prison pipeline.

Brian Lehrer: Talk about it. Tell me about that.

Debbie: Sure. Actually, so there's been a study in Texas that 50% of their prisoners were functionally illiterate due to dyslexia and poor instruction, another 30% were functionally illiterate only due to the poor instruction. I can tell you about all the poor instruction. There's another study coming out from the prisons in New Orleans and Louisiana, including a women's prison that is showing about the same thing.

The study should be out any day now. We just don't teach our kids to read, we don't align our curriculum horizontally or vertically, we teach haphazard phonics, if we teach phonics at all. Thanks, Susan. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much.

Professor Neuman: I can't help, but [unintelligible 00:11:26]

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead, Professor Neuman.

Professor Neuman: I'm delighted by what she's saying, obviously. I think that the mayor and the new chancellor, it's a very exciting time for us because we recognize that early screening and early diagnosis is essential for dyslexia and reading difficulties at large. I think they're on the right track. One of the things that will be critical is what do you do next?

In other words, once you diagnose, what do you do? Your first caller really called it out correctly, that we need programs like Orton-Gillingham, research-based programs that really know how to deal with dyslexia in a very specific way, and right now, we haven't had the bandwidth to do that.

Brian Lehrer: Dr. Robinson, the first caller about small class size is really important. Do you agree with that?

Dr. Robinson: Yes, I agree with that. I also agree with the fact that we need instruction that's tailored to meet the student's needs, particularly, that's Orton-Gillingham or based on the science of reading to really give these kids opportunity to excel and have hope in your life, because regardless of what color you are, if you can't read, you don't have any hope in your life.

You're not going to feel like you have a place on this earth, and you're not going to feel value, or your voice is going to be heard. Small environments are very healthy to really acknowledge students' own personal growth. It really starts with the instruction and honoring students where they're at, because, again, if these students don't have instruction in a small classroom environment, they're going to have a hard time navigating this academic space and the reality.

They're going to have a lot of, I wouldn't say issues, but depression because I've lived it before. I was in special education my whole career, self-contained classes, special Ed, I was kicked out of high school. I understand what these small learning environments can do, only if students are provided the right intervention at an earlier age, just to give them a success they need to move forward.

Brian Lehrer: I see that Orton-Gillingham, which you both referred to is a multisensory and sequential approach, teaching literacy, often one-on-one or in small groups. Dr. Robinson you just talked about not liking being put in special classes, it's in sounded like, but New York City School Chancellor David Banks says he's looking into separate schools for students with dyslexia. Do you think individualized schools like that would be helpful, or does that do more to just separate kids from others in a unproductive way?

Dr. Robinson: For me, I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer. I don't think separations is the solution. If we just provide teachers to train, to help the students in their current classroom environments, where they can learn from others, and learn how to communicate and just be themselves. I think that's as critical as kids develop, they're going to have these experiences in life, and there's not always going to be segregation or separated. Again, I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer to it, but for me, I think separating them is not always is a positive thing.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have an opinion on that, Professor Neuman?

Professor Neuman: Very much so. I would not separate these children, because one of the things that we have to be very careful about, is while we give excellent instruction and Orton-Gillingham really to some extent, has to be done as a tutorial program. In my view, it's not a group intervention, but we have to worry about these children's self-esteem and their desire for learning.

Now, you can imagine if a child is having difficulty learning to read, he feels pretty bad about himself. You can hear what Shawn has said in his own experiences. It really affects children's self-esteem. We need to have excellent instruction for the children, but we also need to help them interact with other children, and feel good about themselves and their learning.

One of the things that we also have to do, while we are doing that very specific instruction, is we have to give these kids an opportunity to learn, and learn content and learn about science and social studies. They actually want to come to school and learn.

Brian Lehrer: Susie, in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Susie.

Susie: Hi. I just wanted to share my story that I didn't find out I had dyslexia until I took my SATs in high school. Having some kind of earlier intervention would have changed exactly what you guys were just talking about, my self-esteem, which I still have issues with as an adult, because of my learning disability with dyslexia, and growing up with any intervention or help, because I was lucky that I developed my own strategies to be able to get through school, without anyone being aware that I had dyslexia, because I was embarrassed, and didn't want anyone to know that I had trouble reading. Just sharing my experience.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Let me go next to Kathleen, parent and teacher relevant to this in Windsor Terrace. Kathleen, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Kathleen: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I am almost in tears right now. I am so happy that there's attention being drawn to this. I am an educator, I happened into a classroom. I was a teaching fellow who got placed in a self-contained classroom with kids in Brooklyn, who were 12 [unintelligible 00:17:32] to one-to-one kids, and they were all reading below a second grade level.

I did not know what I was doing, I was so grateful to have a mentor who helped me help these kids and introduced me to the Orton-Gillingham method. Fast forward, I had two of my own kids after I had become a teacher, and both of them have dyslexia. One got intervention, one did not, and it just makes a world of difference. This is the biggest open secret in Brooklyn or in New York public schools.

There are so many kids with reading issues. Part of the problem, I think is that, the poor instruction, there's not a consistent instruction. People are giving a special education certification that just oversees all special Ed issues, and teachers are not actually given the training that they need to help kids specifically with reading.

I have been fighting my entire career for my kids, both students, and my own children around this. Even the special Ed teachers who there are in the classroom, they don't understand dyslexia. It's so difficult to get the instruction they need.

Brian Lehrer: Kathleen, when you said one of your kids got intervention, the other did not, what did the intervention look like?

Kathleen: The intervention, I actually moved him. He was in an elementary school, where I advocated for Orton-Gillingham method and this school never picked it up. I eventually moved him to a school who had just begun using Orton-Gillingham in their pre-K through second grade. They started to see their reading scores go up. He got in there only in second grade after being held back once, and it changed his life.

He struggles still, but he actually has a foundation from which to function at this point. He still needs a lot of support, but he has a foundation and he has hope. Whereas my older one did not get that, and she is still, on a really good day is reading at a sixth grade level. She's now 20-years-old, and on a bad day, she's more at a third or fourth grade level.

Brian Lehrer: Kathleen, that's so instructive. Thank you very much for your story. Dr. Robinson, do you think that there needs to be different kind of training like dyslexia-specific training? Maybe even a dyslexia-specific certification. I'm not sure if that exists because that caller was suggesting that there are too many general special Ed teachers who aren't specialized enough in dyslexia to really know what to do with dyslexia kid.

Dr. Robinson: Yes, there are specific trainings that are tailored towards meeting the needs of students with dyslexia, but also meeting the needs of helping teachers be trained in the science of reading. I believe my colleague can talk about that from her perspective as another professor in the field, but yes, there are specific letters. There's other trainings out there that help teachers get the knowledge that they need to be able to implement these practices within the context of their classroom, and their instruction too.

One thing that the caller said about having hope, that's so true, because once teachers have this knowledge base to provide this curriculum to students, we're helping them, we're giving them opportunities to make progress and they become empowered. We think about hope, it's help, opportunity, progress, and empowered. It all starts with having teachers be equipped with the knowledge to provide students with this type of curriculum, so they can soar in reading.

Brian Lehrer: Professor Neuman. You want add to that?

Professor Neuman: Well, I totally agree with what Shawn is saying, but one of the problems in New York, and this is a plea to our new mayor and our new chancellor is that, the callers have called it out a fair amount, and that is there lacks a consistent approach throughout New York. For example, many of our children are highly mobile. They go from one school to another, and this, as you can imagine, breaks some of the instructional history that these kids are likely to have.

We need greater consistency in our programs, so that schools are doing the same thing. They're talking the same thing. They've had the same training, so too often, one school will be doing one thing, another program will be doing another thing, and that hurts kids, especially, those who are struggling readers. We need to have a common language Across our city, so that our children can have a yearly approach. We can't think of it as a pre-K. It has to be pre-K first grade, second grade, all the way through to ensure these kids are successful.

Brian Lehrer: Kate and Glen Ridge, has I think a very important point to make. Kate, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Kate: Yes, and dyslexic people are not lazy. I'm almost brought the tears by the fact that we are painted with this broad brush of being lazy and we're not a monolithic--[crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Why does that happen, Kate? Let me stay on that one first. I know you want to make a point about there being different populations, but what is something in particular mistaken for laziness?

Kate: I would write my spelling words a hundred times a day, and I would still not be able to do it the next day. It was just so hard.

Brian Lehrer: I hear you. You wanted to say about dyslexic people not being a monolith.

Kate: My son presented one, way and I presented another. My brothers and sisters, my nieces and nephews, we all have a particular inabilities and abilities, and they must be not-- My son was taken by the system and said, "This guy needs help." I didn't have any part of it. They looked at him and they moved forward to get him in special needs.

That was a disaster because they were monolithic in what his problem was. This is what we're going to do. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Do you think? [crosstalk] No, go ahead.

Kate: It's just, here, this is the solution, this whatever reading program that you advocate. Yes, it'll help, but most of us have other issues, learning disabilities.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think from your experience with you and your family members, Kate, that some of the screening methods for dyslexia are too broad, and so they miss some of these differences that you're talking about?

Kate: We're major dyslexia family, and we've done really well. We have doctorates, everything, but it's really hard to-- You grow into it. You grow into your abilities. Yes, I couldn't write a paper until I was 23.

Brian Lehrer: Kate, it's so instructive, [crosstalk] Go ahead. You want to finish your thought? Go ahead.

Kate: It was just so hard to be-- I present as super, super smart, and yet everyone was like, "Oh, well, you're lazy because you present one way, and what your work is, is another."

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much for your call. Dr. Robinson, Professor Neuman, you can hear her brain, you can hear her heart in that call. Last thing, we're almost out of time. Listener on Twitter asks, screening for dyslexia is great, but who does it? Don't dump another evaluation tool on classroom teachers as so often happens. Professor Neuman, is that a cautionary tale or a apt warning in terms of getting this done well?

Professor Neuman: Yes, frankly. One of the things I want to just highlight is that, we have so many wonderful teachers out there who are doing great work. Please be aware of that, but, yes, we can't burden our teachers anymore. We can't ask teachers to do things like we've described one program, Orton-Gillingham, there happened to be others that are very good as well, but we can't ask the teachers to do everything. We need additional supports in our schools.

For example, if we're going to have children who are defined as dyslexia, this is not something that a classroom teacher with 25 kids can possibly handle without additional support. We have to think about this program broadly as a systems approach, where the school works together with additional specialists to help our teachers, and help our kids.

Brian Lehrer: Shawn Anthony Robinson, give people a last word just about your book series. We could go on for another hour, and not run out of calls, just from the people who have already called in, and are waiting. We'll have to take what we've already heard from many calls we've already had on the air as a sampling of people's experiences and people's feelings, and people's hopes with respect to people with dyslexia, and especially, children right now with dyslexia.

Shawn, tell us a little more about your series of graphic novels, Doctor Dyslexia Dude, because I'm sure a lot of people out there would like to read it for themselves, or give it to their kids.

Dr. Robinson: Oh, yes. Again, Doctor Dyslexia Dude was based on my own lived experiences, and I wanted to find a way that I can use my lived experiences to connect with the youth, let them know that there's hope at the under other side. To really empower them to become dreamers, and chase after their dreams, and not be fearful, not listen to what people tell them, because we have a lot of people out there do tell kids that they're slow, they're lazy, they never make it.

I heard those things, "Shawn, you're stupid." "Shawn, you can't do this." "Shawn, you won't do that." We wrote the book to change that narrative, particularly, for students with dyslexia, but also students who look like me. We just wanted to empower kids to allow them to understand that they are creative, they are talented, they are gifted, they have a lot of abilities that they can tap into.

We just wanted to make that book something that was culturally responsive and authentic for students. In fact, we just had Gary Payton II from the Golden State Warriors last week with Decoding Dyslexia in California, did a book read, and they read our book, and it was amazing to see a NBA player read our book to kids. It was just hard work. You just got to keep working, put your head down, stay focused, and dreams do come true.

I'm a testament to it. You know it took me 18 years. I was in undergrad, five years. Master's, six years, and a PhD, seven years. I was in school 18 straight years after I graduated reading with elementary level. Anything's possible if you just believe in yourself, and keep loving your heart, and just move forward like a little train choo-choo just got to keep believing in yourself. You got to keep moving.

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] On the holistic view that you were just talking about, I'll just add one last note from Twitter. Someone writes, "Trying so hard to call in, but wanted to add that we are also focused on what dyslexic individuals are lacking. As a special Ed and literacy teacher. I can say they are also so talented in ways we can't imagine, arts, music, dance, sports, et cetera." Writes that listener on Twitter.

Shawn Anthony Robinson, reading instructor at Madison College in Madison, Wisconsin, and author of the Doctor Dyslexia Dude graphic novels, and Susan B. Neuman, Professor of Childhood and Literacy Education at NYU. Thank you both so much for a very important conversation. We thank Mayor Adams for putting this more in the public spotlight, and inspiring this segment. Thank you both. Absolutely.

Professor Neuman: Absolutely. Thank you.

Dr. Robinson: Thank you. Have a good day.

 

 

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