{"id":4528,"date":"2020-05-13T11:30:11","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T15:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=4528"},"modified":"2020-05-13T11:30:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T15:30:11","slug":"in-the-classroom-dyslexia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=4528","title":{"rendered":"In the Classroom: Dyslexia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Noah Jacobson, Sophia Bergey &amp; Hannah Woehrle<\/strong><br \/>\nFocus<br \/>\nMidland HS<br \/>\n1st Place Division 2, News Writing<br \/>\nInformative Feature<\/p>\n<p><b>JUDGING CRITERIA<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leads capture attention, arouses curiosity<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Topic relevant to interests and\/or welfare of school or students<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thorough investigation through research and interviews<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Combines basics of good news and feature writing<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Organized with smooth transitions<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sentences, paragraphs of varied length; written clearly, concisely and vividly<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Uses proper diction and grammar<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Balanced and fair presentation<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When freshman Alyse Barton was in 5th grade, she traveled to Lansing to be tested for dyslexia. After several rounds of math problems and reading questions, she was informed that she was dyslexic. However, this did not come as a surprise to her. \u201cI started to notice that I wrote my b\u2019s and d\u2019s backwards and I switched my m\u2019s and w\u2019s and my p\u2019s and q\u2019s,\u201d Barton said. Dyslexia is defined as the discrepancy between intelligence and achievement. Having dyslexia can, among other things, make it harder for people to read, write, and spell. Barton is one of the 20-25 percent of the population who have this reading disability. Aside from switching letters, Barton said she finds herself taking longer to complete her schoolwork, and struggles with spelling. Barton also said that reading out loud in class is a challenge. \u201cIt takes me so much longer than other people to do my homework,\u201d Barton said. \u201cFor most people, if it takes them like an hour to do their homework, then for me it probably takes more like two or three more hours to do it.\u201d Jennifer Ruegsegger, a special education teacher who specializes in English, said students with dyslexia and other disabilities frequently struggle with time. She said that it might take them more time to process information, and that oftentimes they focus on the wrong information. \u201cSometimes with a learning disability, you might focus on the wrong things, the wrong information or information that\u2019s not as important,\u201d Ruegsegger said. \u201cWe do a lot of practice with that. For example, when we read a passage in here I\u2019m like \u2018Okay what\u2019s the important information?\u2019 So I think distraction and time management is a big issue for students with a learning disability.\u201d Before coming to high school, Barton would go to a special learning class during her school day. This would require her to go into a separate room and receive help in a personalized setting. Even though this would help her with her reading, Barton said that she felt dumber than the other students who did not need extra help. Thayon Barton, Alyse\u2019s mother, has worked with her for many years and has seen how Alyse\u2019s dyslexia has challenged her. \u201cShe fell behind in school in the earlier years and she would go into the special learning class and she\u2019d be taken out of the main classroom,\u201d Thayon said. Alyse said that after a while the other kids would call her stupid because she would need extra help. Even though she had friends at her school, she said that she got bullied because of her dyslexia. \u201cWhen I was in elementary school, I was always really sad,\u201d Alyse said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to go to school and I always begged my mom, \u2018Please I don\u2019t want to go to school.\u2019\u201d Thayon said that it was very difficult to watch her daughter go through this. She said that she wished she could take it for her, but that they went through it together. \u201cKids would call her stupid and so that was really hard,\u201d Thayon said. \u201cShe\u2019d come home and say, \u2018Mom am I stupid?\u2019 I would say, \u2018Come on. No honey. You\u2019re really smart. Matter of fact, you\u2019re probably smarter than a lot of those kids and you\u2019re a much harder worker because you\u2019re doing twice as much time into homework to get the same grades they are.\u2019\u201d Despite having dyslexia, Alyse still gets good grades and was even on the All-A Honor Roll at Northeast. Both Alyse and Thayon attribute this to Alyse\u2019s hard work. Thayon said that she has noticed that Alyse\u2019s reading has improved and that this is because she has worked so hard on it. \u201cShe\u2019s really a hard worker,\u201d Thayon said. \u201cShe\u2019s really optimistic because she\u2019s had to learn to be, and so that\u2019s affected her.\u201d Nancy Williams, center director at the Children\u2019s Dyslexia Center of the Great Lakes Bay Region, has studied dyslexia for 22 years and works to help dyslexic students gain proficiency in reading and writing by using multi-sensory teaching methods. She said that many students with dyslexia have average to above average intelligence scores on testing but low achievement scores in spelling, reading and math. They aren\u2019t able to produce the work that their intelligence levels say they should. \u201cIt\u2019s the most under-diagnosed and the most frustrating,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThe dyslexic students are really smart, know that they should be able to do the things that are being asked of them, and they can\u2019t.\u201d Williams said that kids come into their center in grades 3-6, when reading is becoming important enough that they can\u2019t just guess and cope their way through assignments. She said they seem to be very smart but are struggling in school, and that this is when parents start to push that something is wrong and that they are working too hard. This is when multi-sensory teaching comes into play. \u201cWe do a lot of things with visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile learning,\u201d Williams said. \u201cOur whole purpose is to create neural pathways from the right side of the brain to the left side of the brain to connect the areas that the dyslexic brain uses for language to the actual language centers in the brain.\u201d Williams said that by using multisensory teaching methods, they are able to access both sides of the brain. If they access the learning components of the brain, and connect it to the language side of the brain, it works very quickly and it works very easily. She also added that the multi-sensory ways of teaching benefits 100 percent of students, not just those with dyslexia. \u201cNon-dyslexics really focus their left side of their brain when they\u2019re engaged in language,\u201d Williams said. \u201cDyslexics will focus their right side of the brain. They\u2019ll always focus their right side of the brain. But if they\u2019re taught in a multi-sensory way, they will actually use both the left and the right side of the brain. That\u2019s really the key for them to successfully manage their dyslexia.\u201d Ruegsegger said that students who have dyslexia, such as Alyse, are at a disadvantage because much of the material they receive is written, and it can be harder to decode it. To help with this, students with a documented learning disability may receive an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) that allows them to receive personalized help. This could come in the form of being given extra time to work on tests, or having a teacher like Ruegsegger to check in on them and help them construct their schedule. \u201cI have 16 kids that I have to really focus on making sure they\u2019re doing well in their classes and other school responsibilities, which is another big help for students with a learning disability,\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ruegsegger said. Even though she believes people should be more understanding and patient with people who have a learning disability, she thinks that there\u2019s been a positive shift in how people view learning disabilities. She said that even 30 years ago when she was in high school if somebody had a learning disability, they often didn\u2019t get the help they needed since people didn\u2019t understand it as well. \u201cI think over time people have realized that you can have a lot of intelligence and still have a learning disability and I think it\u2019s just not so stigmatized now,\u201d Ruegsegger said. Williams said that much of the stigma around dyslexia comes from a lack of understanding. She added that the dyslexic brain\u2019s way of thinking is essential to society and believes that if more people were educated about dyslexia, that would help erase the stigma. \u201cMost people will say \u2018Oh my kid still writes their 3\u2019s backwards I think they have dyslexia,\u2019\u201d Williams said. \u201cThat\u2019s such an inconsistent manner of seeing whether or not someone has dyslexia. It\u2019s much more all-encompassing for them, and the word \u2018dyslexia\u2019 is misunderstood and feared.\u201d Alyse agrees that people could be more understanding of her situation. She wishes her classmates understood just how much harder it is to read and write with dyslexia and that she has to work so much harder because of it. \u201cI kind of wish that people would understand what I have to go through every day,\u201d Alyse said. However, Alyse said that having dyslexia has made her a hard worker and a more responsible person. Thayon agrees that she has benefited in other aspects of her life as a result of all the work ethic she has gained. \u201cShe\u2019s never going to take things for granted and she\u2019s always going to be a hard worker and those are things that are going to be beneficial throughout life,\u201d Thayon said. \u201cTo see her work hard and not get disappointed in herself and just pick herself up and keep trying. I\u2019m so proud of her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Noah Jacobson, Sophia Bergey &amp; Hannah Woehrle Focus Midland HS 1st Place Division 2, News Writing Informative Feature JUDGING CRITERIA Leads capture attention, arouses curiosity Topic relevant to interests and\/or welfare of school or students Thorough investigation through research and interviews Combines basics of good news and feature writing Organized with smooth transitions Sentences, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":4529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[60,4],"tags":[175,21],"class_list":["post-4528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","category-informativefeature","category-nw","tag-2019-20","tag-division2","post_format-post-format-image","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/dyslexia.jpg?resize=600%2C400&ssl=1","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/dyslexia.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Joel Beeker","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=9"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/dyslexia.jpg?fit=9724%2C5470&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-1b2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}