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Jennifer Aniston Shares That She Has Dyslexia. Full interview by Stephen Galloway Jan. 30 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Article by Liana Chandler (Bach EC, M Teach, M Ed Special).

26/1/2015

Best known for playing the role of Rachel on the iconic sitcom Friends, actor Jennifer Aniston shared in a recently with Stephen Galloway that she has dyslexia.

Aniston says she was diagnosed with dyslexia in her twenties:

“The only reason I knew [that I had it] was because I went to get a prescription for glasses ... I had to read a paragraph, and they gave me a quiz, gave me 10 questions based on what I’d just read, and I think I got three right.”

The revelation was “life-changing,” says Aniston in the interview. When she was young, she wasn’t a good student because of issues related to her undiagnosed dyslexia. She just thought she “wasn’t smart” and “couldn’t retain anything.” But with the new discovery came a new knowledge of herself: “I felt like all of my childhood trauma-dies, tragedies, dramas were explained.”

Her struggles in school pushed her to develop an “innate humor.” She channeled that humor into making friends at school and eventually into acting.

More and more Hollywood stars like Aniston are sharing their stories. Read inspiring quotes from celebrities who are speaking up about learning and attention issues.

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How to deal with NAPLAN. By Liana Chandler (Bach EC, M.Teach & M. Ed. Sp.)

17/1/2015

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Is It ADHD or Dyslexia – or Both? By Liana Chandler (Bach EC, M. Teach & M. Ed. Sp.)

10/1/2015

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It is not always easy to tell whether ADHD or dyslexia is causing your child to be inattentive, distracted, and have difficulty with reading and writing or verbal instructions. In some cases, your child may have both conditions.

For many children, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and the learning disorder dyslexia go hand-in-hand. As many as one in four children with ADHD also have dyslexia; while between 15 and 40 percent of children with dyslexia have ADHD. In those cases, children and their families must work to manage both conditions.

Distinguishing between ADHD and dyslexia may at first seem difficult, especially for a parent who has no experience with either disorder. Is your child skipping words when reading because he cannot read them or because he is just speeding ahead? With ADHD making headlines, your first thought might go toward attention problems rather than reading difficulties. But it is important to look at the whole picture when assessing your child’s performance.

With ADHD there are more behavioural kinds of problems, while with dyslexia the behavioural problems are limited to reading and writing tasks.

Despite these distinctions, experts have observed a link between ADHD and dyslexia. Similar areas of the brain are involved in both disorders. They both appear to lead to problems with executive function, memory, and processing symbols quickly. Another similarity is that children with these disorders often have normal to high intelligence and high creativity, but are frustrated academically. What’s different is how these disorders play out — with dyslexia, it’s in terms of reading and writing difficulties, and with ADHD, it involves behaviour.

ADHD and Dyslexia: Reaching a Diagnosis

The process of finding out what is causing your child’s problems could be lengthy. Because girls with ADHD tend to quietly tune out rather than act out, figuring out your child’s learning challenges could be a bit more difficult with a daughter.

In order to figure out which disorder your child has — or if it’s both — you will need:

Teacher input. Talking to teachers about your child’s behaviour in class and performance on schoolwork can be revealing. Children with ADHD may have trouble paying attention, remembering and following verbal directions, or sitting still, but if they don’t have dyslexia, their ability to read and write is often just fine — indeed, many children with ADHD are avid readers. As they get older, they tend to do better with written instructions than verbal ones. On the other hand, children with dyslexia may try to avoid reading and writing, or mix up letters when learning to write, but do well with oral testing and comprehension.
A learning ability evaluation. If you suspect a learning disability such as dyslexia, you have the right to ask for an evaluation through your public school system. Testing can help identify dyslexia.
ADHD evaluation. In order to get an ADHD diagnosis and begin treatment, you will need a psychiatric assessment from an ADHD expert.

Succeeding With ADHD and Dyslexia

Children with ADHD and dyslexia often require:

ADHD medication. With the right medical treatment, children with ADHD learn better. This is especially true for children who also have dyslexia — they need to be able to focus in order to learn how to read and write in a more intensive way.
Specialised reading and writing training. If your school system has teachers trained in dyslexia on staff, your child may be able to get this additional help during the school day. However, many families find that their child requires tutoring after school. For children with ADHD, this can be especially challenging after a long day when ADHD medication may be wearing off. Talk to your doctor about using additional smaller doses of medication to keep your child’s attention focused until dinner time.
Classroom accommodations. When you put together the classroom plan for your child with ADHD, you may need to include such things as taking breaks during long work periods, being able to get up and move around the classroom frequently, or being seated away from distractions. Be cautious about being overly reliant on audiobooks or verbal instruction for children with dyslexia, however as learning to read and write is still essential. Specialised tutoring may be necessary.

Though challenges are ahead, there is also great potential. With hard work and structure, children with ADHD and dyslexia can be successful in school.

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Learning to Read and Write; What to Expect in the Primary years. By Liana Chandler (Bach EC, M.T & M. Ed. Sp.)

5/1/2015

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As children move into the primary years of schooling, instruction takes on a more formal nature. Here it is virtually certain that children will receive at least some instruction from a commercially published product.

Although research has clearly established that no one method is superior for all children, approaches that favour some type of systematic, phonics code of instruction along with meaningful connection to reading, shows children's superior progress in reading. Instruction should aim to teach the important letter-sound relationships, which once learned are practiced through having many opportunities to read. Most likely these research findings are a positive result of the Matthew Effect, the rich-get-richer effects that are embedded in such instruction; that is, children who acquire alphabetic coding skills begin to recognise many words. As word recognition processes become more automatic, children are likely to allocate more attention to higher-level processes of comprehension. Since these reading experiences tend to be rewarding for children, they may read more often; thus reading achievement may be a by-product of reading enjoyment.

One of the hallmarks of skilled reading is fluent, accurate word identification. Yet instruction in simply word calling with flashcards is not reading. Real reading is comprehension. Children need to read a wide variety of interesting, comprehensible materials, which they can read orally with about 90 to 95% accuracy. In the beginning children are likely to read slowly and deliberately as they focus on exactly what's on the page, they are figuring out the fine points of form at the word level. However, children's reading expression, fluency, and comprehension generally improve when they read familiar texts. Some authorities have found the practice of repeated rereading’s in which children reread short selections significantly enhances their confidence, fluency, and comprehension in reading.

Children not only use their increasing knowledge of letter-sound patterns to read unfamiliar texts. They also use a variety of strategies. Studies reveal that early readers are capable of being intentional in their use of metacognitive strategies. Even in these early years of primary, children make predictions about what they are to read, self-correct, reread, and question if necessary, giving evidence that they are able to adjust their reading when understanding breaks down. Teacher practices, such as the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA), effectively model these strategies by helping children set purposes for reading, ask questions, and summarise ideas through the text.

But children also need time for independent practice. These activities may take on numerous forms. Some research, for example, has demonstrated the powerful effects that children's reading at home has on promoting confidence as well as reading proficiency. Visiting the library and scheduling independent reading and writing periods in literacy-rich classrooms also provide children with opportunities to select books of their own choosing. They may engage in the social activities of reading with their peers, asking questions, and writing stories, all of which may nurture interest and appreciation for reading and writing.

Supportive relationships between these communication processes lead many teachers to integrate reading and writing in classroom instruction. After all, writing challenges children to actively think about print. As young authors struggle to express themselves, they come to grips with different written forms, syntactic patterns, and themes. They use writing for multiple purposes: to write descriptions, lists, and stories to communicate with others. It is important for teachers to expose children to a range of text forms, including stories, reports, and informational texts, and to help children select vocabulary and punctuate simple sentences that meet the demands of audience and purpose. Since handwriting instruction helps children communicate effectively, it should also be part of the writing process. Short lessons demonstrating certain letter formations tied to the publication of writing provide an ideal time for instruction. Reading and writing workshops, in which teachers provide small-group and individual instruction, may help children to develop the skills they need for communicating with others.

Although children's initial writing drafts will contain invented spellings, learning about spelling will take on increasing importance in these years. Spelling instruction should be an important component of the reading and writing program since it directly affects reading ability. Some teachers create their own spelling lists, focusing on words with common patterns, high-frequency words, as well as some personally meaningful words from the children's writing. Research indicates that seeing a word in print, imagining how it is spelled, and copying new words is an effective way of acquiring spellings.

Nevertheless, even though the teacher's goal is to foster more conventionalsised forms, it is important to recognise that there is more to writing than just spelling and grammatically correct sentences. Rather, writing should be seen as thinking with a pencil/pen. It is true that children will need adult help to master the complexities of the writing process. But they also will need to learn that the power of writing is expressing one's own ideas in ways that can be understood by others.

As children's capabilities develop and become more fluent, instruction will turn from a central focus on helping children learn to read and write to helping them read and write to learn. Increasingly the emphasis for teachers will be on encouraging children to become independent and productive readers, helping them to extend their reasoning and comprehension abilities in learning about their world. Teachers will need to provide challenging materials that require children to analyse and think creatively and from different points of view. They also will need to ensure that children have practice in reading and writing (both in and out of school) and many opportunities to analyse topics, generate questions, and organise written responses for different purposes in meaningful activities.

Throughout these critical years accurate assessment of children's knowledge, skills, and dispositions in reading and writing will help teachers’ better match instruction with how and what children are learning. However, early reading and writing cannot simply be measured as a set of narrowly-defined skills on standardised tests. These measures often are not reliable or valid indicators of what children can do in typical practice, nor are they sensitive to language variation, culture, or the experiences of young children.

Rather, a sound assessment should be anchored in real-life writing and reading tasks and continuously chronicle a wide range of children's literacy activities in different situations. Good assessment is essential to help teachers tailor appropriate instruction to young children and to know when and how much intensive instruction on any particular skill or strategy might be needed.

By the end of year 3, children will still have much to learn about literacy. Clearly some will be further along the path to independent reading and writing than others. Yet with high-quality instruction, the majority of children will be able to decode words with a fair degree of facility, use a variety of strategies to adapt to different types of text, and be able to communicate effectively for multiple purposes using conventionalized spelling and punctuation. Most of all they will have come to see themselves as capable readers and writers, having mastered the complex set of attitudes, expectations, behaviours, and skills related to written language.

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Learning to Read and Write; What to Expect in Kindergarten. By Liana Chandler (Bach EC, M.T & M. Ed. Sp.)

1/1/2015

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About ALA

The Australian Literacy Academy (ALA) is a private English tutoring centre in Castle Hill, NSW dedicated to helping children of all levels and spectrums reach their full potential in the area of literacy: reading, writing, spelling, comprehension and speaking and listening.

Jennifer Aniston Shares That She Has Dyslexia. Full interview by Stephen Galloway Jan. 30 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Article by Liana Chandler (Bach EC, M Teach, M Ed Special).

How to deal with NAPLAN. By Liana Chandler (Bach EC, M.Teach & M. Ed. Sp.)

Is It ADHD or Dyslexia – or Both? By Liana Chandler (Bach EC, M. Teach & M. Ed. Sp.)

Learning to Read and Write; What to Expect in the Primary years. By Liana Chandler (Bach EC, M.T & M. Ed. Sp.)

Learning to Read and Write; What to Expect in Kindergarten. By Liana Chandler (Bach EC, M.T & M. Ed. Sp.)

About ALA

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