Dyslexia in the news

Dyslexia news from Canada

• The Fonz gives thumbs up in a letter to dyslexic students in BC (Nelson Star, June 20, 2019)

• Harden: Ontario’s accessibility standards are falling woefully short (Op-Ed, The Ottawa Citizen, May 30, 2019)

• Collective Voice: Kids with dyslexia need support (Op-ed by grade 9 student, Madeleine C., The Saskatoon StarPhoenix, March 25, 2019)

• How Paul Dewar is living and dying with love and community (Ottawa Citizen, September 7, 2018)

• 15-20% of children in the classroom have dyslexia (Radio interview, Ryan Jesperson, 630 CHED, Dyslexia Awareness Month interview with Dyslexia Canada Executive Director Christine Staley)

• Sopel: I wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until I was 35 (TSN, October 2018)
• All children should feel like they belong at school (Toronto Star, Sept. 2, 2018)
• Ableism rife in Ontario schools (CBC, August 30, 2018)

• Midland student hoping to erase stigma surrounding dyslexia (Midland Mirror, May 2018)

• Grade 8 math scores improve across Canada over six-year period, except in Ontario, report finds (Globe and Mail, April 2018)

• Why some parents of children with dyslexia feel they have to take matter into their own hands (Global News, Nov. 2017)
• Lack of funding in B.C. makes helping students with dyslexia a challenge (Global News, Nov. 2017)
• Interview with Keith Gray, Dyslexia Canada (Video, CTV News, Oct. 2017)
• Updated Curriculum, New Report Cards Coming to Ontario Schools (MOE website, Sept. 6, 2017)
• Dyslexic kids in Canada deserve better (op-ed by Keith Grey, Dyslexia Canada,  Globe and Mail, August 27, 2017)
• Half of Grade 6 students fail to meet Ontario math standard (Globe and Mail, Aug. 30, 2017)
• Red Deer grandma returns to school at age 76 to graduate alongside her granddaughter (CBC, May 11, 2017)
• Undiagnosed and misunderstood, students with dyslexia face stigma and shame (CBC, September 9, 2016)
• Return to basic skills first step to fixing Ontario’s math problems, teachers say (CBC, Sept, 10, 2017)
• Ontario says it won’t close schools for students with learning disabilities (CBC, Aug. 8, 2016)
• University accused of discrimination for requiring dyslexic student to take course in French (CBC, April 25, 2016)
• David Lepofsky: Special Education Update (Video, TVO, March 2016)
• How universities are helping students with ‘invisible’ disabilities (Macleans, Feb. 9, 2016)
• An alphabet soup of remedies for dyslexia (Globe and Mail, Oct. 23, 2015)
• Dyslexics of the world untie (Maclean’s, Sept. 28, 2013)
• Educational Implications of Supreme Court ruling on Moore case (LDAO, Jan. 2013)
• B.C. school area discriminated against dyslexic boy, top court rules (CBC, Nov. 9, 2012)
• Beating the Odds (Sudbury.com, May 5, 2011)

Dyslexia news from the UK

• How a little girl branded unteachable at school grew up to become a children’s best-seller (The Sunday Post, Scotland, May 28, 2019)

• Microsoft signs pledge to assist people with dyslexia (Computer Weekly, October 17, 2018)

• ‘People were very tough on me’ – Sweden’s Prince Carl Philip reveals dyslexia battle after misreading name on tv (Independent, Oct. 30, 2018)

• Richard Branson on dyslexics: We’re wired differently (USA Today, Oct. 15, 2018)

• Theo Paphitis: How dyslexia gave me confidence to tackle anything in business (CNBC, Oct. 18)

• Dyslexic employees could help to solve the skills shortages of the future (Open Access government, Oct. 19, 2018)
• The Value of Dyslexia by Made By Dyslexia and EY (Oct. 9, 2018)

• Matt Hancock dyslexia struggles ‘strengthen case against cuts’ (the Guardian, Oct. 4, 2018)

• Health Secretary Matt Hancock reveals his dyslexia (The Telegraph, Oct. 2, 2018)

• Nick Jones, the Soho House founder, on why he thinks dyslexia is an advantage (GQ, October 2018)

• Reading standards in England are best in a generation, new international test results show  (December 4, 2017)

• Did Richard Branson just pull a prank about dyslexia and sperm banks? (Stat, March 31, 2017)
• Largest UK sperm bank turns away dyslexic donors (The Guardian, December 2015)

Dyslexia news from the US

• Medford parents frustrated with school district over dyslexia screening: ‘Something is really wrong here’ (June 24, 2019)

• What parents of dyslexic children are teaching schools about literacy (PBS, April 30, 2019)
• People in prison are more likely to have dyslexia. The justice system set them up to fail. (Mother Jones, April 30, 2019)
• David Flink on how we can all think differently about learning (Alan Alda podcast, April 15, 2019)
• Hard words: Why aren’t kids being taught to read? (APM Reports, Sept. 2018)
• Master teacher helped children overcome dyslexia 
• Dyslexia found in high numbers in prison (June 18, 2018)
• By focusing on dyslexia, we address the needs of all children (IDA, April 2018)
• Rethinking how students with dyslexia are taught to read (NPR ED, March 2018)
• The Gap Between The Science On Kids And Reading, And How It Is Taught (NPR Ed, February 2018)
• When dyslexic students are denied in school (NPR podcast, Dec. 6, 2017)
• Hard to Read – States’ laws to support dyslexic children mostly lack funding, accountability, training mandates (October 24, 2017, APM Reports)
• They are turning the picture around – Sally Taylor and her husband, Dean Bragonier, are both dyslexic and share stories from their youth about being viewed as “slow.” (Boston Globe, Oct. 20, 2017)
• You are special, now stop being different (New York Times, October 12, 2017)
• My frenemy, Dyslexia (David Andrés Kietzman, HuffPost, October 11, 2017)
• Ashley Graham: ‘Being OK With Who You Are Is a Revolutionary Act’ (Glamour, Oct. 11, 2017)
• Hard to read: How American schools fail kids with dyslexia (APM Reports, Sept. 11, 2017)

• Finally getting serious about educating kids with dyslexia (NY Daily News, Sept. 6, 2017)

• From Words To Images: Understanding The Dyslexic Mind (WNPR, May 25, 2017)

• Unidentified Dyslexia Takes Heavy Toll (Kyle Redford, Education Week Teacher, May 24, 2017)
• Denied – How Texas keeps tens of thousands of children out of special education (Houston Chronicle series, 2016)
• His Teacher Told Him He Wouldn’t Go To College, Then He Did (NPR, April 23, 2017)

• Does dyslexia even exist? (Medidcal Republic, March 27, 2017)

• Lost in my mind (Brent Sopel, The Players’ Tribune, February 2017)
• Unlocking Dyslexia (National Public Radio series, December 2016)
• How Children Learn to Read (The New Yorker, February 2015)
• The Advantages of Dyslexia (Scientific American, August 2014)
• The Paradox of Dyslexia: Slow reading, fast thinking (Yale Scientific, 2011)

Twice exceptional – giftedness and LD

• Gifted, but struggling to read (Daily Journal, April 13, 2019)
• Why So Many Gifted Yet Struggling Students Are Hidden In Plain Sight (NPR Ed, May 2018)

Dyslexic talents/Role models

• Happy Birthday Sir Paul McCartney! (USA Today Network, June 18, 2019)
• Why I’m finally proud to be dyslexic by CEO Vanella Jackson
• Dyslexia has played a vital role in my success by CEO Vanella Jackson
• How Dyslexia Helped Me Cheat My Dyslexia (Lisa Wood Shapiro, Wired, June 2018)
• The Dyslexic Professor: Story of survival (Youtube video)

• I Was Always Told My Dyslexia Was a Disability. Then I Developed a Relationship With It. (Gil Gershoni, Medium, April 23, 2018)

• Dyslexic spies: There are benefits worth waiting for (The Independent, September 22, 2014)
• Dyslexia and me: How identifying a hidden disability revealed new strengths. One man’s story of how he was catapulted into a successful career at GCHQ (Oct. 10, 2016, GCHQ website)
• Those with dyslexia don’t just think outside the box, they build a new one…(Theo Paphitis, Linkedin, October 4, 2017)
• 7 Amazing Children’s Authors With Dyslexia (Scholastic, Oct. 11, 2017)
• ‘I was very bad in school:’ Swiss Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017 winner (The Local, Oct. 26, 2017)
• ‘People always assume it’s awful’: Broadcaster/author Cerrie Burnell on her life with dyslexia (BookTrust, Oct. 2, 2017)
• My Letter to Dyslexia by Vernon François (Youtube video, Oct. 4, 2017)
• A DYSLEXIC teenager who was turned away from 30 schools has started his dream course at university (Bracknell News, Oct. 3, 2017)
• Ameer Baraka – Undiagnosed dyslexia turned him to a life of crime, now he’s helping children learn to read (Sept. 28, 2017)
• Loyle Carner and Benjamin Zephaniah talk art, dyslexia and Shakespeare (The Independent – video – Sept. 28, 2017)
• Jamie Oliver is right: people with dyslexia really do look at things differently (The Guardian, Sept. 5, 2017)
• “I HAVE DYSLEXIA”, profile of Graphic Designer Hope Oliver (Ligature journal, April 18, 2017)
• Young and dyslexic? You’ve got it going on – Benjamin Zephaniah (The Guardian, Oct. 2, 2015)
• Dyslexic entrepreneurs – Why they have a competitive edge (The Guardian, Jan. 15, 2015)
• The Advantage – Interactive Installation (Madalyne Marie Hymas, design blog)
• Danny Glover – Lake Oswego Review (June 29, 2017)
• Cath Kidston – I’m not someone who wants to be famous – (The Guardian, July 4, 2017)
• Nigel Lockett – Disability on Campus: ‘I have decided to go public as the Dyslexic Professor’ (The Times Higher Education, May 25, 2017)
• ‘I’m just wired differently’: Why advertising seems to have so many people with dyslexia (Digiday, April 28, 2017)
• What would I tell my younger self? (Child Mind Institute – videos – May/June 2017)

What dyslexia feels like

 

 

Mental health

• Almost half of Ontario youth miss school because of anxiety, study suggests (Toronto Star, Nov. 14, 2017)
• How to handle anxiety-fueled refusals to go to school (Mindshift, Oct. 17, 2017)

• One in 6 women with learning disabilities has attempted suicide (Science Daily, June 21, 2017)

• Five Stages Of Developing A Positive Dyslexic Identity (Dyslexic Advantage website, April 26, 2015)

Diagnosis

• When your kid is diagnosed with dyslexia (Today’s Parent, Oct. 3, 2017)
• Talking to my 8-year-old about her dyslexia (The Washington Post, Oct. 17, 2017)

Early intervention

• 91% of teachers agree that unidentified dyslexia damages children’s self-esteem (Breaking News IE, Ireland, Oct. 1, 2017)
• Early intervention in dyslexia can narrow achievement gap – Intervention should begin in first grade, or earlier (Science Daily, Nov. 2, 2015)

Accommodations/Accessibility – school

• STUDENT VOICE: How one college student found success by “leaning in” to dyslexia (Hechinger Report, November 14, 2017)
• “Willing, Able and forgotten”, Hechinger Report series on learning disabilities in the US (November 2017)
• Accommodations for Students and Employees With Disabilities Can Take Many Forms (Global Accessibility News, Nov. 10, 2017)
• Children with disabilities are being denied equal opportunities for a quality education across the world, including in the UK (University of Cambridge, Nov. 13, 2017)
• Don’t Confuse Accommodating Mental Health With Lowering Standards (Renu Mandhane, Chief Commissioner, Ontario Human Rights Commission Huff Post CA, Oct. 13, 2017)
• Sats: ‘Gone are the days when perfectly good writers are unfairly penalised’ (TES, Sept. 14, 2017)

Accommodations/Accessibility – work

• How to Create Better Employee Experiences for Workers with Disabilities – Canada (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act blog, May 15, 2018)
• What is neurodiversity? Opening the door to competitive advantage (Text Help website, April 2018)
• 8 top tips for people with learning and attention issues to find success in the workplace (Forbes, May 2018)

Education/teaching for dyslexia

• A student take on what works and what does not when it comes to teaching children with dyslexia (TES, Oct. 8, 2017)
• Five ways school leaders can demonstrate they take dyslexia seriously (TES, Oct. 5, 2017)
• Understanding Teachers Make “All the Difference” for a High School Student with Dyslexia (Office of Special Education, US, Oct. 3, 2017)
• Seven ways to increase a student’s chances of exclusion (Thinking Reading, Sept. 24, 2017)

Dyslexia and vision

• Joint Statement: Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, and Vision – Reaffirmed July 2014 (American Academy of Opthomology statement)

Human rights

• The opportunity to succeed: Achieving barrier-free education for students with disabilities (OHRC consultation report, 2017)

• Moore v. Her Majesty the Queen – decision in favour of the right to dyslexia accommodations at school (OHRC, Canada)
• Accommodating students with disabilities (OHRC, Canada)
• Human Rights Council (HRC) approves Resolution on Mental Health and Human Rights (Sept. 27, 2017)

Web design for dyslexia

• How to design for dyslexia (UX Blog)

Tools

• Structured literacy – Ladder of reading (Nancy Young, information sheet – pdf)

• The great and powerful graphic organizer (Cult of Pedagogy blog, Oct. 22, 2017)
• Good fonts for dyslexia (Spanish study, nd)

Reading, writing and the dyslexic brain