On Friday, September 1, 2023, Columbia University's Teachers College released the following statement: https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2023/september/advancing-literacy-through-teachers-college-programs-research-and-partnerships/?mibextid=Zxz2cZ&fbclid=IwAR0Wbr93WZFm_GWVEzkdoi9SrAAooU6J0inz8wdQ5sXDyNzWB9OJQjQFE20 Within the text of this statement, Columbia University states that Dr. Lucy Calkins will no longer serve as the director of Teachers College Reading and Writing Workshop, which is also being dissolved. Dr. Calkins will retain her professorship at the university, a role in whi ..read more

By Ashley Roberts Yesterday this podcast started to go viral within our community: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/podcasts/the-daily/reading-school-phonics.html?showtranscript=1 I listened to it and honestly nothing surprised me. I’ve heard all of this before. I felt it was a good introduction to the “Reading Wars” for people who might not be immersed in it. However, like everyone else, the idea that Lucy thinks the Structured Literacy camp owes any kind of apology, even though she has said this before, was laughable at best. If you’re curious to what I’m referring the transcript can be r ..read more

by Ashley Roberts I don't know why the image of the Phoenix is something I embraced, but it spoke to me and the anxiety I was feeling when it came to advocating for my child. There are times I'm energetic, driven and possess a "nothing will stop me" attitude, yet there are times when I just wish it would all stop being so hard. I mean, it's infuriating! It's not like we as parents are asking for much. We approach this institution which we are taught to hold in high regard asking for a simple thing, for our dyslexic children to be educated. We know they can learn to read, and read well. The dat ..read more

by Kerry Yonushonis, LCSW It’s that time of year when swim team ends, school supplies are flying off the shelves, and peaceful vacations are in the rearview mirror. School is approaching fast; younger children hope to have friends in their classes, while the older students are excited to be around their peers and away from their parents. But for our children with dyslexia, the return to school can be all the above… with a hefty serving of anxiety on the side. Some of you may be new to the dyslexia journey and think that you have it all figured out since the time your child was diagnosed last y ..read more

by Missy Purcell Dear Balanced Literacy Teacher, I will never forget taking my current 6th grader to his first day of kindergarten. He was wide-eyed and full of wonder. As the 3rd child, he couldn’t wait for his day to join his older brothers at our local elementary school and do all the things they had done! The one thing he was most excited about was learning to read. Our home was filled with books, and he spent countless hours in his preschool years pretending to read along with me and his brothers. As a former elementary school teacher and having already raised two proficient readers, I kn ..read more

by Sherri Lucas-Hall My Dear Fellow Teacher: As you return to the classroom to serve students, I want to share the story of my 5-year journey with you, in hopes that you will join me. I began this journey in 2016, when I didn’t even realize what the journey would involve. I was doing research so that I could perfect the craft that I had loved and wanted since I was a little girl with a dream. You see, I have wanted to teach since about third grade. (My family tells me it was before that because I was a mean pretend teacher. LOL!) Anyway, my journey began because for the 5 years that I had bee ..read more

by Ashley Roberts Hope... ...comes through raising one's voice, speaking truth, telling others they are not alone. Hope comes through shining a light into darkness. Hope comes from forging a path and showing others where to go. Hope comes from being a listening ear, a soft shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold when you're doubting or scared or angry or just need a friend. Hope comes from giving a voice to all aspects of our world, of our community, even if that may be painful for some to hear, it is necessary to shed truth, to shed light, to end the darkness, and to create a pathway to change. F ..read more

by Ashley Roberts We as parents tend to get lost on the road to remediation because there is so much to learn, and with various and possibly multiple diagnoses for our children, sometimes it becomes a juggling act of where to start, how much can I afford, what is the school willing to do, and more. I know for my family, we had a diagnosis of both dyslexia and dysgraphia, but we did not deal with our son's dysgraphia, not when we should have, and now we are playing catch up. The facts of our story are: At the point of diagnosis my son could not read at all. We thought the dysgraphia diagnosis ..read more

by Ashley Roberts In more ways than I can imagine the universe has been speaking to me a lot lately. I've been having the most interesting exchanges, whether it's been in conversations, comments on our page, or just a series of events that leads to introspection. Despite the title, I'm going to work backwards to my point, by first sharing the attached article: https://hbr.org/1991/11/barriers-and-gateways-to-communication The CEO of a company I used to work for was a big fan of the Harvard Business Review and hosted a brown bag lunch once a month for a group of us. He would personally print an ..read more

by Eric Staib A couple weeks ago I was contacted by Chontae asking if I would be sooooo kind as to submit an article and picture to 'The Dyslexia Initiative'. At first I was like "wow, thank you for thinking of me" and without hesitation, I replied "YES, I would love to!" As I hit the return send, My chest seized up mind yelling "wwwwaaaiiiittttt, what are you doing, we avoid writing at all opportunities!" I have just thrown myself back into those dreadful K-12/college days of excruciating torture. For me, school days were fun and yet at times full blown anxiety stress. Will today's class inv ..read more