Fonts for Dyslexia

I was introduced to some fonts that were designed for dyslexic brains to make reading easier. I have yet to try these fonts with the gentleman I am tutoring who has dyslexia, but I thought I would share these resources in the interim.

The first font is called Dyslexie, and it looks like this:

To learn more about Dyslexie typeface, visit their web page: http://www.studiostudio.nl/lettertype-dyslexie/. This font is not free of charge, but it appears that they have done their research on why their font was designed the way it was.

The second font is called Open Dyslexic, and it is a free and open source typeface. It was created by an individual who has dyslexia. I pulled a sample paragraph displaying the Open Dyslexic font from the "about" page of the website and included it below:

Open Dyslexic is created to help with some of the symptoms of dyslexia. Letters have heavy weighted bottoms to indicate direction. You are able to quickly figure out which part of the letter is down which aids in recognizing the correct letter, and sometimes helps to keep your brain from rotating them around. Consistently weighted bottoms can also help reinforce the line of text. The unique shapes of each letter can help prevent confusion through flipping and swapping.

(Open Dyslexic font is available for free download at http://dyslexicfonts.com. Thanks to the developer, Abelardo Gonzalez, for offering this free resource!)

If anyone has success with these fonts, or fonts similar to these, feel free to comment!

Success Stories in Adult Literacy

I have blogged before about my experience tutoring a gentleman in his 60's who is learning to read for the first time. (See my blog posts here, here, and here.) As many of my colleagues and associates are aware, I have developed a passion for literacy--especially adult literacy. I love hearing success stories of individuals who have overcome the monumental obstacles of illiteracy and who are now confident and productive members of society. I recently heard a Canadian radio interview with such an individual who is a recipient of a literacy award. He is a father and a cancer survivor. He mentioned using the Reading Horizons program to help him learn how to read, which is the software program I helped to author. It is stories like these that remind me of why I do what I do. 

Listen to the interview here. 

See videos of other inspiring success stories here.

Free Webinar on Transfer for Improved Reading

An essential part of the process of teaching one to read is not only teaching effective reading strategies to help students decode automatically and effortlessly (to achieve fluency and comprehension), but also to provide opportunities for students to transfer these learned reading strategies to connected text. A free webinar hosted by Reading Horizons was recently delivered by Shantell Barrett and Jay Kelly on transfer. The title of their webinar is "Getting From Point A to Point Z." Shantell and Jay discuss ways to provide opportunities to transfer decoding strategies to help the students become autonomous readers. The webinar can be viewed here. (The power point slides can also be downloaded on the link.)

View other free webinars on the Reading Horizons website here.

Child Literacy: The Need to Read to Children Daily

I recently read an article about the great need to read to young children. Though the article is specific to my neck of the woods (Utah County), it is clear that the issues raised in the article are applicable to other contexts, and the plea to act can be generalized to most, if not all, locations within the U.S. and the world. 

The article is entitled, "Child Literacy: A Looming Crisis in Utah County." I recommend reading the article in full, but here is a brief excerpt:


"READING TO YOUR CHILD has never been more critical than it is now. It plays a key role, especially before third grade, in keeping that child in school, out of jail, and off welfare.

"It is so important, in fact, that if your next-door neighbor is a single mother who works two jobs and doesn't have time to read with her children, you should go over and read to them for her. It will pay huge dividends in the future--not just for those children but for society as a whole.

"That is the finding of a growing body of research that can no longer be ignored. Statistically, at least, you can make accurate predictions of a person's whole life by third grade based on reading ability."

Read more here.

I encourage us all to think about ways we can get involved in literacy efforts in our own communities, and then to act on these ideas, even if it's as simple an act as reading to children in your neighborhoods...or better yet, reading to your own children, grandchildren, nieces, or nephews.


For other ways to get involved in literacy efforts, see these blog posts:
Adult Education and Family Literacy Week 2011: Teaching Struggling Readers
Adult Education and Family Literacy Week 2010

"ELL Emerging Literacy": Free Webinar by Dr. Robin Schwarz

For those of you who missed the free webinar conducted by Dr. Robin Lovrien Schwarz on teaching ELL Emerging Literacy, the link to watch the recorded webinar and to download the power point slides is available here.

In this webinar, you will learn what research tells us:

• About adults who have never been to school.
• How acquiring literacy changes the brain.
• What this all means in thinking about how to teach these learners to read.

The webinar was very well-received with an impressive number of attendees. Following is some feedback from one of the attendees:

Wow!  This was by far the BEST training I have ever seen on the topic of how to teach ESOL low literacy students.  Robin gave very useful information that is practical and easy to implement.  The tips were eye-opening and so clear.  I kept saying, “Well, of course!”  “That is so obvious!”

I have taught this level of student, and throughout the presentation I remembered individual students who fit descriptions she gave.  The beauty of the presentation was that it gave ideas on how to work with the students.

I really appreciate that Reading Horizons has done this.  It is extremely helpful to the field that is so bereft of solid professional development on this topic.


(For a list of other free webinars on literacy, click here.)

On the Journey to Read

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I have the privilege of working with a gentleman in his sixties who has never learned how to read. As you can imagine, his illiteracy has affected his ability to find and keep a job, which has become quite a discouraging problem for him. There aren't a lot of jobs out there that don't require at least a minimal level of reading ability. And when you can't read AT ALL, which is this gentleman's case, your ability to compete for jobs that are available is definitely compromised.

Yesterday I worked with this gentleman for two hours on just five letters of the alphabet. I admit that I thought we would get through more content than we did. But that is where he's at right now, and he's comfortable with that. He was soaking it in. We practiced the names and sounds of the letters, practiced the concept of the slide, and began to sound out three-letter words. We would exchange high-fives to celebrate his successes, and we discussed vocabulary meaning and real-life application with each word as we went along. He is definitely motivated to learn, and he's already talking about what he will be able to do in another couple months after getting some more reading skills down. But I recognize that consistency and self-motivation will be a key to his success. He's committed himself to review and practice on his own at home (he offered to do that before I even had a chance to make that suggestion), and he will continue to do some independent work on the Reading Horizons software program to supplement our one-on-one instruction time.

As I think about the beginning of his journey to learn how to read--something he has never been able to do up to this point in his life--I think about some things I need to keep in mind as I continue to work with him that hopefully could be relevant to you in your particular educational and life-learning contexts. I'm sure you have your own list of ideas, as well, so feel free to share them.

Adult Education and Family Literacy Week 2011: Teaching Struggling Readers

This week, once again, commemorates Adult Education and Family Literacy Week. A year ago, I wrote a blog post sharing a few ideas about how to get involved in literacy efforts to commemorate this event.  As a recap, some of my ideas included the following:

• Check out volunteer tutoring opportunities in your local community. 
• Learn how to teach someone to read. A helpful, free resource is found at http://www.phonicstraining.com/.
• Join a book club or an online book-sharing group, such as goodreads, which allows you to see what your friends have read, keep track of what you've read and what you'd like to read, and get ideas for additional books to read.
• Read a little more for pleasure. We often take the fact that we can read for granted.
• Write in a diary or journal.
• Consider how your ability to read and write affects your life. Consider the privilege it is to be literate. I've documented some of my thoughts in the previous blog posts "Lessons Learned from Life" and "The Value of Literacy."

(For additional ideas about ways to promote literacy, visit my blog post "Adult Education and Family Literacy Week 2010".)

Reviewing these lists of ways to get involved in literacy efforts again, one year after I wrote this blog post, I am prompted to recall my personal efforts to promote literacy. Something I recently engaged in (as recently as today, in fact) includes teaching someone how to read.

Teaching Literacy Strategies to Homeless Children and Individuals in Secure Care Facilities

This has been the year of travel! My job has taken me to various places around the nation and the world to present, train, and observe literacy instruction. This year, I have traveled to New York City twice, India, the Middle East, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. Last week, I traveled to Phoenix, Arizona. The purpose of my trip to Arizona was two-fold: 1) to present literacy strategies at the Arizona Correctional Educators Conference in Tempe; and 2) to make site visits to locations where literacy training is being implemented. 
 

I had the privilege of visiting the Children First Academy in Phoenix, the largest school for homeless kids in the nation, which is part of the Sequoia School District. Sequoia Schools are non-profit, K-12 public charter schools. I had heard about Children First Academy in January, and I was very intrigued by it. I had visited their website and read the speech that one of the students gave at a fundraiser. (It's amazing, by the way, as it provides a glimpse into the realities of life as a kid who comes from a homeless background. You can read Janet's speech here.) When I arrived at the school, I was greeted by Dina Gerdon, Community Development Director, and warmly welcomed by the principal and superintendent. This school has been using Reading Horizons since the beginning of January, and they have grown to love the program. There is a new principal at the school, and he said the first thing the teachers said to him when he arrived at the school was, "Don't take our Reading Horizons away!" The superintendent and I then had an engaging conversation about the importance of reading and literacy, and we discussed implementing a program for parents to learn to read English along with their children at Children First Academy. I'm very impressed with the support the principal and superintendent offer the school, including professional development, technology, and other resources.

New York City Public Schools Teach Students to Read: Part 2

I spent the last week in New York City following up with administrators, teachers, and students at several public high schools that I visited the first week in January. The purpose of my visit this time around was to discuss the Reading Horizons pilot that is currently being conducted there. I visited one or two public high schools each day, riding the subways to various parts of the city, including Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, and walking to the historical school buildings (some days in the rain and snow, which added to the adventure). In this blog post, I wanted to provide a snapshot of what I experienced there by including a highlight of each day:

Free Phonemic Awareness Activities

I read an article the other day published by the International Dyslexia Association about spelling. In the article, the idea is stated that poor spellers often have underlying weaknesses in language issues, including the ability to recognize and segment individual sounds and syllables. I read another article recently about the strong influence of oral development on reading readiness, meaning that the more oral language someone has, the better prepared they are for reading.

Both spelling and reading require a solid foundation of phonemic awareness before reading and spelling instruction can take place. Phonemic awareness includes such language elements as phoneme (sound) identification, syllable identification, rhyme, and identifying words within sentences.

I conducted an ESL training recently for volunteers who work with refugees, and much of their time is spent on developing early literacy skills with their pre-literate and low-literate students. I thought it would be helpful to post the following information about phonemic awareness-building activities for these volunteers, and any others who are seeking free resources for phonemic awareness-building activities. This information was adapted from the Decoding Strategies for Literacy Development teacher's manual published by Reading Horizons, and is posted here with permission. See the page to the right entitled, "Free Phonemic Awareness Activities".

What Research Says About Using Phonics to Improve Adult and Adolescent Literacy

I wrote an article for a research packet provided by Reading Horizons available online, and I included it below. The article highlights some of the key problems associated with the lack of sufficient literacy skills in adolescents and adults, and the role that phonics plays in addressing these issues.

--

“As the key that allows access to many forms of knowledge and information, reading literacy is perhaps the skill most critical to learning” (emphasis added). --The National Assessment of Educational Progress

Curriculum Vision - Helping Struggling Readers

As the Curriculum Director at Reading Horizons, I have learned a lot about the "development" aspect of the coined term "Curriculum Development." To "develop" in this context means to create, polish, and improve materials and to oversee projects to completion. For me lately, it means getting down in the trenches, rolling up your sleeves, and going to work. As I have been actively engaged in improving the Reading Horizons software and direct instruction materials over the last few years, I have learned the role of patience, balance, and vision. I have been reminded of the importance of character in the work place--sincerely caring about your work, consistently striving to do your very best, and putting in an honest day's work.


I mentioned the word vision. Under the leadership of Tyson Smith, President of Reading Horizons, each department has its vision "emblazoned" on the wall in each respective department to always remind its employees of what we are there to do. I want to share the vision statement for Reading Horizons' Curriculum department. It reads: Produce excellent-quality curriculum that fills expanding needs without compromising the simplicity and effectiveness of the method.


I had an experience this week while engaged in a significant, "brain-draining" task that kind of popped up out of the blue. I was "in the zone," concentrating deeply on the task at hand, when the end users of the materials I was working on came to mind. I thought of students learning how to read for the first time in their lives. I thought of refugees who have had very little formal education who would learn life-long literacy skills. I thought of non-native English speakers who have never learned strategies that have "clicked" for them before. I thought of teachers and tutors and volunteers who have a noble "vision" and a strong desire to help their students learn to read, to learn literacy skills, to learn English. It put things in perspective for me. It made my efforts seem worth it. It made the workload, though very heavy and overwhelming at times, seem lighter. It made me want to try even harder to "produce excellent-quality curriculum that fills expanding needs."


There are a lot of needs out there. I'm grateful to work for a company that assumes a small role in helping to fulfill some of those needs. I appreciate those users, both students and teachers alike, who motivate me to do my best to live up to this curriculum vision while fulfilling their own.


(To see where this blog post coexists, see, click here. See also my blog post here.)

Curing Illiteracy With Literacy Programs

Have you ever wanted to help people with illiteracy but not known how to help? I encourage you to visit a great website that has initiated a worthy cause to help cure illiteracy called "Lemons for Literacy"...and it relies on people like you to help make it happen. Here is a little blurb about it found on the Reading Horizons and the Reading Horizons at Home websites:
As the old saying goes, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”
Over 40 million Americans struggle with literacy problems. People who struggle with reading can be seen as having been given lemons in life. With the support of effective reading instruction, these people can turn their lemons into lemonade.

We want to celebrate and support the resiliency of people who overcome their struggles with reading. Thousands of inspiring people have turned their struggles with reading into strengths.


Lemons for Literacy has two goals:
1. To help cure illiteracy by providing free literacy materials to people in need.
2. To provide free education for everyone.



Visit http://www.ReadingHorizonsatHome.com/LemonsforLiteracy/ to help individuals
Visit http://www.ReadingHorizons.com/LemonsForLiteracy to help institutions.

Teaching Reading "Fundamentals" to Older, Struggling Readers

My colleague gave a presentation recently about the importance of not neglecting to teach the fundamentals of reading to older, struggling readers who need it, even though you may fear that going back to the basics would turn these older learners off. Going back to the basics, including instruction in such skills as phonics, when teaching older, struggling readers is important in order to locate and fill the gaps in these students' reading skills. Of course, it is crucial to match your reading instruction to these specific students' needs. It is also important to convey to these older, struggling learners why you are going back to the basics so they can see the purpose of doing so. My colleague (previously mentioned) suggested one effective way to do this is by sharing an excerpt from Randy Pausch's book, The Last Lecture, that relates the importance of going back to the basics--learning fundamentals. I've included her reference to Pausch's experience here:

Randy Pausch's experience on the importance of fundamentals

Randy Pausch is the professor who last fall gave the “Last Lecture” at Carnegie Mellon and has a book published with the same title. He recently passed away from pancreatic cancer. He loved football, but he did not start with much enthusiasm since he was a “naturally wimpy," small kid. He was very intimidated by his hulking, six-foot-four coach, but he said he learned some of his greatest lessons from that man. This is an excerpt from his lecture:

“On the first day of practice, we were all scared to death. Plus he (the coach) hadn’t
brought along any footballs. One kid finally spoke up for all of us. ‘Excuse me, Coach. There are no footballs.’

And Coach Graham responded, ‘We don’t need any footballs.’

There was silence, while we thought about that…

‘How many men are on the football field at a time?’ he asked us.

Eleven on a team, we answered. So that makes twenty-two.

‘And how many people are touching the football at any given time?’ One of them, we said.

‘Right!’ he said. ‘So we are going to work on what those other twenty-one guys are doing.’

Fundamentals. That was a great gift Coach Graham gave us. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. As a college professor, I’ve seen this as one lesson so many kids ignore, always to their detriment: You’ve got to get the fundamentals down, because otherwise the fancy stuff is not going to work.”

(Pausch, Randy. 2008. The Last Lecture (pp. 35-36). New York: Hyperion.)


See also the following posts about teaching "fundamentals":

Phonics for Middle School and High School Classrooms

What Research Says About Using Phonics to Improve Adult and Adolescent Literacy

ESOL Instruction from the Bottom-Up: Using Reading Strategies