My son wrote this note and gave it to his mom without any apparent reason other than sharing. His mom and I thought is was something others would appreciate too so we asked him if we could take a picture and share it. Justin is sounding more positive about dyslexia and the Barton Reading Program […]
Picture My Interest
Lot’s of boards and pins on Pinterest for and about dyslexia. Here’s a great one called Dyslexic Diamonds . Lead with an image then added supportive words. Pinterest is great for the visual thinkers. Check out: Four Things All Educators Should Understand About the Dyslexic Brain -edutopia.org The Gift of Being a Dyslexic Teacher -edutopia.org […]
Capoeira: Martial Arts with Music, Dance...
I saw the movie “Only the Strong” where an instructor decides to teach Capoeira to troubled inner city high school students. This was my first introduction to a brazilian martial art that incorporate music, rythmn, and fighting practice into one art form. I found a local Capoeira Club in San Jose within a couple of weeks. I started […]
TakeTINa: Rhythm is Your Teacher
TakeTINa is a Rhythm and dance therapy that is very healing. The coordination of movement that is in patterns with speech and hand movements that is in different patterns causes some type of neurological reset that is very healing. It was hard for me to do simple synchronous dance steps in a group while performing some […]
Choir and Pitch Recognition
Pitch recognition is related to sound recognition. In some languages the pitch between sylables makes up unique words. In addition to getting the sequence of sounds right a singer has to get the pitch or melody of the sounds right to communicate the unique meaning. I wasn’t tone deaf but it was hard to hear parts especially […]
Folk Dancing is Therapeutic
In junior high school, on rainy days, we had co-ed dancing in the gym. Sometimes this was line dancing or square dancing. Listening to instructions or the “caller” while staying in step with the music and circling in a “grand right and left” was great multi-sensory activity. Integrating listening, movement, touch, in sync with music and song […]
Karaoke and Interactive Media
Learning to enjoy singing led to the problem of memorizing the words. Videodisc and CD+G made synchronizing lyrics possible. Synchronizing the sound with the visual was the early part of my entrepreneuial career. When I learned that “Dragon Lair” game was run from a computer driving the playback of the video, I knew that interactive […]
I Had A Secret
Why do we keep certain things personal and private. Is it because we are afraid of judgement or embarassment? The Boston Globe staff writer, Gareth Cook, said in his article on ‘Life with Dyslexia’ , “For more that 15 years, I have had a secret”. Cook spoke with Dr. Shaywitz, the co-founder of The Yale […]
Can word usage rules be any harder?
If you want to be perfectly accurate, listening and memorizing how to say words isn’t enough. Because often what people say isn’t always accurate. Sometimes non-dyslexic learn from hearing what is popularly spoken whether it is right or wrong. Trained dyslexics learn rules to speak more correctly because they can’t just remember what everyone is […]
Music Improves Listening
I Like Music All kids like music. Music not only make learning words and sound fun, it actually helps with the memorizing the order of words when there is the sequence of a melody and rhyming. Music often is associated with a mood, an emotion. The association of an event with an emotion helps my […]