A major step towards not letting learning disabilities hold you back is having them identified so they can be accommodated. The Center for Effective Living offers learning disability testing to people in the greater Cleveland area. Since it’s Dyslexia Awareness Month, we wanted to shine a light on this learning disability in particular– one we can help identify in children and adults. Here’s an excerpt from an article by Kyle Redford for the Huffington Post in response to her “desire to help deshame and demystify the condition.” Please read it, and click the link below for the full article.
Conditions that go unnamed go unaddressed. A few years ago I attended a week-long Reader’s Workshop in NYC with over a thousand other reading teachers and the word dyslexia was never even whispered (yes, at a reading workshop). When a colleague of mine asked Lucy Calkins, the creator of Reading Workshop, about her approach to dyslexic students, she told an auditorium packed with teachers that the condition is over-diagnosed and quickly moved on. Really? Needless to say, as the person charged with training most of NYC public school reading teachers, her lack of interest in a condition which impacts between 10-20% of students was particularly unsettling. Sadly she is in good company. There are states, school districts and schools that still avoid naming dyslexia. Naming the condition begs a differentiated strategy. It is easier to use a single method to teach all students and then act mystified when it fails to meet the needs of a variety of learners.