Many struggling readers have given up on reading. How will you get them to try “just one more time”? This seminar covers:

• The foundation of all reading success
• Using assessment to find strength, not just weakness
• How to talk to struggling readers and parents about dyslexia
• A first lesson plan – “Look Who Else Would Be In This Class!” – famous, successful dyslexics.

More Information:

It doesn’t matter what programs you use, what training you’ve had, or how thoroughly you’ve diagnosed your students’ reading problems—you won’t succeed—not unless you have convinced them that they can learn to read. Unless you catch their reading disability when they’re in kindergarten or early first grade, they will have learned one terrible lesson–“I can’t read.” No sane human being keeps trying to “do the impossible” forever.

I remember a story in psychology class during my undergraduate studies about an experiment done on a barracuda. I don’t remember the source, but I’ve never forgotten the story. Scientists were experimenting with the extinction of behaviors in animals, so they placed a healthy, adult barracuda in a tank surrounded with a large school of  anchovies, but they put a glass wall between the barracuda and his dinner. Every time the barracuda lunged for a fish, he got a nosebleed (I don’t know if barracudas get nosebleeds, but you get the picture). The scientists noticed that every strike grew weaker and weaker until the barracuda gave up altogether. At that point, they decided to end the experiment and lifted the glass wall. Soon, the anchovies swam all around the barracuda’s head, even bumping him on the nose, but he wouldn’t try to catch one. You see, he already KNEW he couldn’t do it. He died of starvation, surrounded by his favorite food.

Dyslexics are a whole lot smarter than barracudas. It doesn’t take long for them to discover they’re having much more trouble learning to read than the kid in the next desk–the stupid one who won’t stop eating the first grade paste. You can almost see their little minds reasoning, “He’s dumb, but he can read that word. I can’t … so I must be dumber.” Pretty soon, they develop every kind of strategy to avoid reading. The strong-willed ones explode and start acting out. They’re difficult to handle, but are not in as desperate a situation as the tender-willed ones who implode. They withdraw or become daydreamers. We don’t even notice their anxiety until it’s too late to nip the problem in the bud.

Before struggling readers will try to read, they have to believe it’s possible!