I was honored to be invited to David Lipscomb University by Professor Lance Forman to be interviewed for a Ed.S-level course called “Systems Thinking” which focuses on the history of inequities in the public school system, the legislative process, and using our voice to be advocates for change. I was asked to speak on a variety of advocacy-related issues, but the heart of the interview is learning how to tell your story and how to use that story to build connections to empower your advocacy. Each of the videos below are about 16 minutes long. Thank you for taking time to watch. Introduction a ..read more

Having a child with dyslexia in your classroom can be challenging in a normal year. In the virtual setting, it can feel overwhelming to give them the accommodations they need. As a parent of an 8th grader with dyslexia who is beginning her second semester of virtual learning, I have identified our main challenges and some tips with how teachers can address them in a virtual setting. The first step to helping a child with dyslexia in any setting is to dive in and learn about what dyslexia is and what it isn’t. Visit websites like the understood.org for more information or look to see if your s ..read more

In the past weeks, I have spoken with advocates from Chicago to Connecticut who either need help getting started in advocacy or who are looking to take their advocacy to the next level. Since there is such a hunger for this kind of information, I thought I would just compile some of the ideas, advice and templates I have been sharing. Please remember that I have dyslexia and that you will want to spell check all of these before you send them on. If I took time to make sure everything I posted was perfect, I would never post anything. ADVOCACY IDEAS: HOW TO START Often, the hardest part of advo ..read more

Advocating for your child with a disability is really hard. I was contacted this week by a mom whose child with dyslexia is starting a new school this semester. She needed advice about how to reach out to teachers to help them get to know her daughter, which is especially complex in this time of virtual school. I wanted to share the advice I gave her with you. Most likely it will help you in the next school year when you have new teachers, but it is never a bad time to send teachers information about your child with a disability. As a parent, oftentimes there is so much information you wa ..read more

A published author reached out to me on Twitter this week wanting to learn more about how to teach creative writing to kids with dyslexia. (Love that!) My daughter, Clara, is 13 and wants to be an author when she grows up, so I knew that she would have lots of great advice to share with the author. This afternoon, we sat on the porch and together we brainstormed ideas about how to encourage kids with dyslexia to be creative writers. I was so impressed by the candor and depth of what Clara shared. Below is what we come up with. We start with tips for teachers and below we share tips for parent ..read more

The beginning of a normal school year for a child with dyselixa is hard. In the viritual setting, it can feel impossible. I have an 8th grader with dyslexia who is in her 8th week of virtual learning and these are the challaneges and tips that I have compiled so far. First, what aspects of virtual school are particularly difficult for students with dyslexia? There are a lot. Here are some of them we have encountered so far: Lots of reading with no built-in read aloud feature. Our district uses Florida Virtual School and upper grades have no read aloud, although the younger grades do have limi ..read more

My daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia in the 2nd grade.  She read slowly.  She spelled poorly.  Over the last 5 years she received good interventions and accommodations from her caring and supportive Nashville public schools.  Today she is in 7th grade.  She reads slowly.  She spells poorly.  But you know what? She is THRIVING and I am not worried about her one bit. What I have learned from watching her journey and advocating for her for 5 years is that even with great interventions and accommodations, many children like her with severe dyslexia may never r ..read more

As I continue to push my city and my state on reading reform for students with dyslexia, the voices attacking me will get louder. They will mock me. Threaten to shoot me (like Richard Allington did). They will accuse me of being a puppet or convert agent for the rich and private companies. That is okay. I will just keep doing my work. If you want to know my story, it is below. I am a parent with dyslexia. All the work I do, I do for free. I don’t work for anyone. I never get paid. (But sometimes a parent I speak with buys me a coffee or a muffin. ) I have no affilations to any billionaires or ..read more

Today I added a feather to my cap. I have been volunteering my time tirelessly for almost 5 years to promote dyslexia awareness in Tennessee and today I learned that the notorious dyslexia-denier Richard L. Allington has mentioned me (this website really) by name (that he got a little bit wrong if I am being nit-picky, but I am not since I rarely spell things right myself due to my real, not imagined, dyslexia) on the first page of a 14-page anti-dyslexia tirade in a literacy journal (in which he mostly just quotes his own research in the third person which is sad but almost endearing). Now th ..read more

Tonight I will be part of an important forum on Reading and the School to Prison Pipeline in Nashville, TN. As I prepare, I feel a hair-on-fire urgency about how our current system is teaching reading and how crucial it is that we ALL engage on this topic. To prepare, I am looking anew at the statistics around dyslexia and prison. A highly disproportionate number of students with learning disabilities end up in prison because we never teach them to read and they learn early that they cannot succeed in school.  (For more statistics and information click Why We Should All Care About Dyslexi ..read more