Lois Letchford & Lisa McCarty discuss dyslexia & "When Learning is Trauma."

Start streaming. We go, go live. Start streaming. And you're live for five seconds. Go live. And then you want to click on here and you want to try saying something. Hello, Lisa.

Hello, Lois, how are you?

I'm doing well. You're the one who's had the traumatic weekend.

Yeah, you could say that, but it's all good. I've been in nurse mode.

How's your new job?

It's going well. Um, yeah, that's going well. But we were, um, we spent the weekend— well, not the whole weekend, but we were down at Children's Hospital for a few days, so I'm sort of, uh, Trying to get back on a regular schedule, and then I'll go to work this week at the end of the week. So busy, busy, busy.

Yes, yes. And how is your son doing?

He's hanging in there. It's a rough, um, surgery, so he's— he's— it's painful and he's sort of down and that sort of thing, but he's doing well. And this isn't the first time he's been through something like this, so We're kind of used to this, unfortunately. And he's hanging in there.

Then you've got the movement back in your hand, you know, once it's been in a position for so long, you know, that's all painful.

Yeah, well, his jaw is banded shut.

Sorry, it's not working. That's all right. What did you say?

What did I say? Yeah, I said his, his jaw is banded shut right now. It was a jaw surgery.

It was, uh, pretty extensive jaw surgery.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, I thought it was hand.

Oh no, no, I was wondering why you said hand, but, uh, it's still a good analogy because his, his jaw can't move, and I'm just— I just feel bad for him. Like, once this whole thing is over, it's going to take a while to get his mouth moving again. But he's a strong kid, so—

Well, that is good.

How was your weekend?

I don't know. One day blends into the next with me thinking, what else do I have to do?

Well, you talked to Martin Bloomfield on Thursday, right?

Yes. Yes.

And I, I watched it later. Um, as I mentioned, we were at Children's Hospital, but once we got up into a room, I, I put that on, and I loved that conversation. Um, I just I just— that was amazing. I mean, you had mentioned that you don't know how he survived that experience, and now I see what you mean. I don't know how he did.

Articulate, confident man. And I think his first words were that I feel sick, I feel depressed, I feel angry, I feel nauseated thinking about my schooling. were his words. And then he goes on to say, you know, why do we think caning children or depriving children of lunch breaks is going to help them learn? And really, that's what the series encompasses, the whole series.

Right.

Why do we do these things to children? When, you know, my sister Lenore is going to be talking about Well, and I think in America—

I mean, I think he's from the UK, is that correct?

Yes.

And he's— I don't know how old he is, but he's, um, he's, he's older than a teenager. And I don't think it's so much that we wrap kids on the, on the hands anymore. And I know that people that have gone to Catholic school will say that was their experience. But, but even things like— and I was thinking about this today— when my kids were in school, they were required in, say, elementary school to read 20 books in a certain amount of time. And if they didn't do that, they weren't allowed to go on the field trip. Now, the field trip, um, you know, a couple things here. For one, Hands-on learning and experiences, as you know with your son—

Critical.

Are critical, for one. And some kids really learn best this way. To deprive them of that experience because they couldn't read 20 books is insane. You know, not to mention that this is the time also where you get to kick back a little, you know, and, and be with your friends. And to take that away Yeah. Is so— is that's traumatic.

Yeah.

You know, I, I wouldn't even say that like physical abuse in today's world is okay, but we're talking about what is that doing mentally to the kid who, because they can't perform the set of skills that you want them to perform to a certain standard, you treat them like they're not Worthy of the rest of the school experience.

That's right.

And that was, that was hard to listen to when Martin was talking.

You know, Martin isn't as old. He's not as old as me or you. He talked about going to school in the 1980s. It makes him 10 or 15 years older than my son. I mean, you know, we're talking the late 20th century.

Yeah.

And things haven't got much better.

Well, that's the problem. And once again, I'm not— I don't want to come across like we don't respect teachers. That's not the case at all. You know, I think it's the whole system. And back when we had the No Child Left Behind, it was such a mistake to tie in all of the funding to how well these students can perform. Like, they're not circus dogs. You know, students are, are not performers that— well, here's an example, and I won't give a name, but a principal had said to a parent that her salary depended on how well the children did in school. Now, you know, parents knew this, but she actually came right out and said that. That's wrong. That the money that— I mean, I understand holding teachers to a standard and you want all the schools to be able to perform, in other words, to teach.

Yeah.

I think we should say teach instead of perform.

Yes.

I think that's part of the problem.

The problem I'm seeing is that learning is not— it's not linear, not always linear.

Mm-hmm.

It's not always, you know, you want to teach one thing, but you can't just teach A. You know, A is dependent on B, C, D, E, F, and G. And so, and when we end up teaching a particular set of skills, we forget about how children learn. And I suppose that's what, that's what I've been focusing on all the time, you know, and, and I think I know what upsets me most is that the reading research is there and has been there for a long period of time. And this is not new. And yet when it comes to testing it, we ignore the reading research and say this is how we're going to do it. And I think big business has got far too much say in what's happening in our schools.

Oh, absolutely. That's what I'm saying. Like, I don't want teachers to think that we're just coming down on them. They're trying to do the best they can in a system that doesn't value their opinion for the most part. And everybody's salaries are tied into how well they're performing, as opposed to teaching and enriching children's lives the way they want to do.

Yeah.

They get into this business because they want to make a difference. And very quickly, they understand that their hands— I've heard, my hands are tied, so many times, you know, from teachers, that I think it's time that we untie everybody's hands and throw them up and say, we're not doing it this way anymore. And you're right, the reading research has been around for a long time. And it was so sad, Sir Ken Robinson, his passing. I was devastated by that.

Yes.

And the weird thing was that Martin, had posted one of his little tidbits. And I've seen him before, but I haven't watched Ken Robinson for a long time. And the day, the morning of the day that I found out that he died, I had watched what Martin had posted. And I was like, that was so strange to me that like, what a coincidence. But I think that, you know, it sort of reignited in me his passion, the passion of what Sir Ken Robinson was, was all about.

Yes.

He was all about— you mentioned the linear, the linear, um, you know, schooling experience, and he was set against that because he says it's not how it happens. It's not how life goes. He said nobody, or very few people, can say, this is how I knew my life was going to work out. I was going to start here and do these things and end here. Most of us have this You know, up and down and roundabout way of getting to the, the thing that we're passionate about in life. And I was devastated by that. I was floored by it.

But I hope people— He was only 70. Yeah, yeah.

What a great guy though. And I hope people, you know, um, if they don't already know who he is, to look him up and watch some of his TED Talks. They're the best. And he was funny too, but he was spot on. With education, you know, he fought to try to change education, and here we are still fighting about it.

And that brings me to our first speaker, who is Dr. Steve Dykstra, who— and I've got to read what we're going to say about him, and that is, Dr. Steve Dykstra is a clinical psychologist, advocate, and troublemaker in the reading world. I love that. He has worked with the most severely traumatized and mentally ill children for more than 25 years. His passion for reading comes from the recognition that the thousands of children he serves often pay the highest price for our failures and mistakes. And I think that's what Martin Bloomfield's talk emphasized.

Right. Yeah, and the seriousness of this too. And here is Dr. Steven Dykstra, who, as you said, deals with the most severely, you know, severe cases. And he's found that if we don't teach these kids those strong literacy skills or teach them the way they need to be taught, it's, it's, it's so dangerous for them. I mean, I don't think people quite understand. I don't think people put that connection together.

I, I totally agree.

And I, and I think it's that kind of thing that once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Yeah.

And so to me now, it seems obvious that if you struggle in school, if you feel like a failure, Day in and day out. It's a no-brainer to me what happened.

Teachers have got a challenge because, you know, it's about control in the classroom too, isn't it? And that's where you get, um, you know, what are we doing in the classroom with teachers? I'm trying to find the right— ah, there we are. If I do one thing, then I lose something else. And nothing clicks on. You know, control, and with the control, that's where you end up. If I treat these children differently, everyone else sees that they're not doing the work, therefore everyone thinks they can get away with it.

Right.

And, and so that dynamic is going on as well.

Right.

So how do teachers then deal with that? Do they say, well, this kid is different, therefore You know, so, and that's a real struggle, I think, that they deal with, right? How do I get this child to appreciate, or the rest of the class to appreciate, standards are different for different children?

But that's why I'm so— I'm passionate about the recognition and understanding about what dyslexia is. Because still, when you ask the regular person walking down the street what dyslexia is, they'll say, oh yeah, I know what that is. I I've heard of that. That's where they see backwards, they read things backwards. The understanding of the nature of this problem is not out there in the general public.

Yeah.

And, and it's not in the schools.

No, you're right.

And I've told you, it's not in the special education department.

Yeah.

As evidenced by the special education director.

Yeah.

Not, not knowing what it was and, and, and not taking any steps to find out. So if you don't understand That these kids, they are different. I mean, we try to include everybody in the classroom. And I think that's— I mean, I think there's arguments for that. Teachers have an enormously tough job. They have to have— they're trying to educate so many different types of kids in the same classroom. And so you say, well, that's tough. But also you want kids to feel normal.

Yeah.

You see? And so But they are a little different. If you're teaching the lesson or the reading instruction or whatever it is this way, just this way, and these kids are struggling in this way, they are different than the kids that are able to understand it in that way. But if you don't know why they're struggling with this way, you don't know what to do with them.

Or what else you have to do to change it to include them.

Right. And, and also to understand that the— and this is why we're doing this series— that the traumatic effects, the emotional effects of the kids that are outside of this normal teaching way over here, yeah, it's, it's devastating for them.

Yeah, yeah. And even, yeah, even if you change the teaching and said, well, I have to do it for this one child, You've ostracized that kid then and humiliated them.

Right. So it is a big— it is a huge problem, and it is really tough for teachers. That's why I say I don't, you know, I don't want teachers to think that we're just coming down on them. But if you understood the nature of what's— how this other child is thinking and how you can better teach them, if you just understood that, You'd be ahead of the game.

And see, that's— that goes back to understanding that dyslexia is a language problem. And they don't see language in the same way that the normal person does. And that's, you know, and oftentimes, I think the focus is on phonemic awareness, and only phonemic awareness. And, you know, like Nicholas says, phonemic awareness still today is poor. You can do phonemic awareness activities till the cows come home. He's not going to learn through pounding phonemic awareness. So then teachers have to say, what else is going wrong and what else do I have to know?

Right.

And I think that, you know, even with all of this science of reading stuff, unless there's an acknowledgement that it's more than phonemic awareness, Yeah, it's a giant chunk of it.

And, and you said that your son still struggles with that, whereas my son has had training for that, and he's better at that than he was, but it's not the whole thing.

Yes.

And I think, again, with my medical background, things that are just inherently interesting to me, you know, looking into what dyslexia is, When you look at the brain, it makes sense to me. Now, I would think that teachers who, you know, are in their field probably aren't necessarily as interested in anatomy and physiology. I'm just saying, like, I think if you're a teacher, your focus is over here.

Yes.

But to understand dyslexia from this physiological perspective is helpful.

Yes.

Because then you know that, yeah, phonemic awareness does need to be worked on. It is a giant piece of this, but it is not the only piece of this. So I'm afraid that— and I'm glad for the science of reading. I like that catchy term, but I just hope we don't take that and, as you've said, box it in and put it into a little— into a a reading program and wash our hands with it. There, we taught phonemic awareness, we're done. Because it is much more than that. And how helpful for the kids to understand themselves what the nature of the problem is.

Yes.

For their self-esteem, you know, so they can say, I'm not dumb.

Yeah.

I'm not that different. And there's other people that are doing, you know, learning the same way as me. That's huge for kids. And we don't do that. We see the kid who's acting surly. We see the kid that's acting like the class clown. We see the kid that's, you know, spitting spitballs at other kids. And we say, well, he's got emotional problems. He's a behavioral problem. And then everybody focuses on just that piece. They have behavioral plans in school, pages and pages of behavioral plans. And their reading level is still basic. And they're not helping them. I mean, this is from personal experience. Pages and pages of behavioral, behavioral, you know, contracts or whatever. The kid has to act this way or he whatever. And the kid is still a basic reader. He's not keeping up in the classroom. They're terrified. You spoke to Martin. He was nauseated. As an adult. So it's so important to understand that when you see that surly kid or the kid that's truant, look at his reading score, you know. And there's other reasons, of course, that kids could have some of these problems, but we've got to look at that piece of it. Are they keeping up in the class, or As my middle son, I mentioned, he had tricks that he could get around so that his scores didn't look so bad. But there were other issues.

Look at his—

look at the kid's writing. Look at their spelling.

Look at—

understand what the nature of this is. Look at all of this and say, hey, could it be that this kid is this type of thinker?

Yeah.

And then, you know, even kids that did pretty well in school, as adults, they still harbor those Feelings of they weren't good enough, they didn't measure up enough. And I told the story of the woman who in her, um, adult years said, oh my gosh, I thought I was the dumb one all this time. All this time she had to feel like she was the dumb one. How unnecessary was that? She's clearly not the dumb one, but that's how she felt in school, and it's— and that carried her into her adult years.

And that's what Lenore talks about. Lenore talks about the formation of identity so early on. And that's what we're dealing with. And even the books we read then comes into that. You know, what are we exposing our children to?

Yeah.

And that's a— I've got to do a paper. I'm with Dr. Doreen Myron, I think her name is. And we're talking about the books we use with early readers and how that hinders and helps development and causes children to think or be alienated. Be alienated. You know, and what we forget about reading is reading is about making connections.

Right.

Connections on numerous levels that we You know, normal children make those jumps instantly, right? They make them so quickly, we don't even see them happening. And that's the problem.

Well, here's an interesting— because you've talked about that before, and I, and I love that. Because when my, when my son was first in a reading program, the books that they would send home for him to read, As though we didn't have a million books already, were horrendous. They were— they— and I used to read these and think, who wrote these? Like, these are horrible. They're boring.

They're boring. They're boring.

They're boring. And so, as you said, kids who don't have— who aren't dyslexic, they pick these things up easily. Then they're sort of free to go read whatever they want, anything that's interesting to them. But our kids Are stuck with these boring— So, so how are we engaging them, really? You know, with these— I still have— I showed you the books a few weeks ago. They're horrible. They're, they're right here. They're in the big bag of disgusting books that I have. I think I was supposed to return these. So, so if the school district's watching, sorry, I still have them. But they're trash. So it doesn't matter. They're so boring. And so, you know, our kids are already struggling to read, they hate reading because it's hard. Now you hand them these books that are just— just, it's, you know, that's not going to make them want to read more.

Which brings up another problem, the time that teachers have to plan for these children. They really want, you know, cookie-cutter plans. They want cookie-cutter children. with cookie-cutter plans. They don't necessarily want, how can we individualize this?

Well, they don't have time. So that goes back to the system. But then also, that also ties into the awareness of what dyslexia is.

Yes.

Know what it is on the very basic level.

Yeah.

You know, and then you can understand why It's so important that you're not just expecting a cookie-cutter program to quickly work with these kids in this sort of fashion. It doesn't work like that.

What the words will have to get is be curious about the learner.

Oh, I like that. I think you just said something there, Lois. Write that down. Be curious about the learner.

Yeah.

But look, I don't think— I mean, maybe because I've been studying dyslexia for, for a little while now, and because I do have a medical background and a biology background, I don't think it's that difficult to understand it. And it is so helpful, and it explains so much. It explains what you see the kid struggling with. It explains when you see that the kid is able to do something else, you can see why they're able to this and not that. And then you tailor, as you're saying, you tailor-make the instruction based on what, what the child, you know, is experienced with, what the child can do. But I think it's not, it's not that hard to understand dyslexia once you really start to study it. And I think that's what we need. I think the teachers need to know this, not to put more on their plate, but to make it easier for them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, they're still gonna have a tough job, so, you know, but I— that would help.

Today they have a really— they have a really tough job today.

And now especially.

Yeah, now especially. Now, you know, it's impossible now.

Yeah, that's a good word for it. It really is. I mean, nothing's— nothing's You know, impossible, but it, it's close.

Yeah.

This is close.

Well, you know, well, with this coronavirus, those who can, I think, will actually fly. Those who are motivated, which may be fewer than those who go to school to just do it. But, you know, because there's options for doing things, the hope is that they will try other things and not just do a repetition of fill in the blanks, fill in the worksheets, which is the worst sort of teaching we can possibly have.

I was just having flashbacks as you said that. A name and a face came right to mind, but I'm not gonna tell. I don't want to get in trouble. But wow, you know, that's spot on. Yeah, so maybe the coronavirus in a way will get us to that next place. Maybe, maybe Sir Ken Robinson, you know, this was his passion. Where's the creativity? In our schools.

Yeah.

We kill it. Maybe now this— again, the coronavirus, it really made us push the giant pause button on life and rethink so many things. Maybe this is the thing that will help our education system. We're gonna have to think outside the box. We're gonna have to rethink how we're doing this because the old way Isn't going to work.

And as Steve Dykstra says, same as Martin, that the children who he serves pay the highest price for our failures and mistakes. You know, when we're demanding that children go to school, we must also demand that they learn to read. and not come out of it in a traumatic fashion.

Right.

Not to be traumatized. And that's happening to Steve Dykstra's children, you know, clients. It happened to your son. It happened to my son. Yeah.

And millions of others. And millions across the world.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to be writing blog posts. I've got a blog post from Elizabeth in London. I've got Lenore's. I've got a few things coming up. for people to watch out for, you know, the implications. And I think what we want to get out of this is not just the implication of the children don't or do not learn to read or learn to read. It's the implications when they don't learn to read are lifelong. That's really—

And that's what, again, our first speaker, Dr. Steven Dykstra, he's He's seen it up close and personal in the trenches, if you will.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and Lenore as well, and myself.

Yes. This is—

this has been important in my career.

Yes.

And also as a parent.

Yes. Yes. And even, you know, Nicholas now, he's— we've got to so far, then are we going to hit a brick wall? What's going to happen next?

Well, I think that this is, um, you know, get, get the information, just keep pushing the information out there so parents, teachers, individuals can, can understand.

Yes.

This whole thing.

Yes.

And so people don't have to feel like idiots and, and dummies and be put in the dummy math. That's what the kids call it, or the dummy reading class. You know, they're not dumb. They're not dumb. Do not.

Well, we've moved on from the 1950s where they used to put the dancer's hat on the child, which, you know, is just humiliating. And with, as Elizabeth said, she grew up pointing at them and saying, you're dumb, you're dumb. I mean, again, like that's going to help the child read.

But that still happens.

Even though you don't still have— yes.

So, you know, and, and, and the kids again with the, uh, with the field trips and the things that you take away. And, and I, you know, we want kids to learn.

Yeah.

And, and it's important for schools to perform, but we've got to think about that.

Yeah. Yeah.

What are we doing to the child? What message are you sending when they can't? Yeah, so I'm really excited. Dr. Stephen Dykstra, he's up first. Yes, I'm really excited about this because I want people to know and I want this to get fixed.

Well, we've got Dr. Stephen Dykstra on next Monday, August 31st. September 7th is Hildebrand Peltzner called Reading Pains. September 14th is Rosalind Kiri Gnatley, Going Through Life with Learning Disabilities— Difficulties. She didn't learn to read until she was 17. September 21st is my sister Lenore Hall, Emotionally Safe Learning Environments.

She's awesome. I love your sister.

Talking about the brain. As a fight and flight. Don Wynne, author, Learning to Read Is Not Enough for Dyslexics. That's going to be— that's interesting. He's just written a book on dyslexia too. Martin Bloomfield, When Equity of Opportunity Became an Opportunity for Equity. I've changed that. The mother in Houston, the Cost of delaying diagnosis.

Mm-hmm, that's a good one.

October 19th, Raja Mahaba, what to do when learning is trauma.

Her story is amazing.

Yes, I've got to write an article with her, and I was thinking of it today. We've written something, but you know, when you write, the first draft is always not good, so then I've got to do a lot of thinking. To how do I change it? Then on October 26th is Colleen Tarongo, The Importance of Advocacy to Avoid Trauma in Education. And finally, Dr. Neil Alexander Passé, Personal and Career Growth Following Trauma.

I love it.

I love it. A couple of these people have got books. I wonder if we should do something about that. Well, sure.

Let's, let's have people know what they are. I have Dr. Alexander Passé's book, Dyslexia and Mental Health. And yeah.

I'll have to read that.

Yeah. And yeah, I think we should definitely let people know what resources are out there. These are experts in this field who have a passion and a real good understanding of this subject matter.

Yes, yes. I'm asking people to register just so we have an idea, and so also I can send out emails to those people to remind them, either if you don't watch live— because we've got different time zones around the world— watch live or go and watch the replay on YouTube. So it'll be, you know, under my name or your name and just click it on YouTube and it'll come up.

Sounds good.

And so then we'll always be, you know, so we can check out the resources. I might get a page up on my Facebook.

Sounds good. I really am excited.

Yeah. And then we'll conclude with like us on Facebook and Twitter. And on YouTube, subscribe to the channel, and we'll see you next week.

2 thumbs up.

Thank you, Lisa. This has been a privilege.

Thank you, Lois. I appreciate all that you do.

Ah, and we can stop it, and then I'll talk to you. Stop. Have I stopped? And I've got to edit this. End stream. End. And I've got to go here.