Interview: Rob Langston, Author & Inspiration

Today’s interview is with inspiring individual Rob Langston. Rob is a graduate of the University of West Georgia despite being functionally illiterate. He is a published author even though he toils to accomplish what many of us do with ease—read and write. He has conducted assemblies for more than 500,000 children in the United States, traveling 100,000 miles annually to present his powerful message. Rob is the author of For the Children: Redefining Success in School and Success in Life and The Power of Dyslexic Thinking. Since 1996, Rob has been a resource consultant to Vistage, an international organization of over fourteen thousand CEOs (many of whom also have dyslexia). Camp Spring Creek: For those of us who aren’t CEOs or likely to run into one of your professional development sessions, can you briefly tell us about the steps you used to overcome your personal battle with dyslexia?

Rob Langston: Anything smarter, faster, stronger, or that can overcome obstacles is what CEO’s want. That’s what the dyslexic mind wants, too. Being dyslexic, the majority of my problems had to do with getting through school in classrooms. I looked back and realized I was going through the same 5 steps every time and I turned those steps into a three-hour program. By the end of the program, people can help themselves think like a dyslexic, if they don’t already. A high percentage of CEO’s come up to me after each program and tell me they are also dyslexic or ADHD. It’s always refreshing to have something that had been a negative thing in school turn into a really positive thing in life.

The five steps are: First, set a goal and write it down. Second, get educated on your goal (what it will take to accomplish it). The third step is what really sets this program apart, because it has to do with how to set up reinforcement for the motivation for each goal. For example, your ringtone can be an affirmation or your screen saver can be a typed message of your goal, etc. Once you set that up, the fourth step is focus. You can see the path and get what you want when no one else does. Another name for that is leadership. The fifth step is the action initiative. We take action and get started.

CSC: How do you learn best?

RL: I’m an auditory/visual learner. Because I read so poorly, every member of my family read to me when it came time to study. I could listen and absorb for longer than they could stand to read. Today, I devour audio books. Sometimes I’ll listen to the same audio book two or three times until I’m learning at full capacity and taking it into my life as something that will impact me. The repetition of listening is a very strong learning tool for me and I think it works for many others. As far as visual learning, I observe and watch everything until I feel I have visual mastery of what I want to accomplish—whether watching sports or a social situation, etc. When I am ready, I join in and I usually find great success. Today, I use many YouTube videos for everything from work-related issues to learning how to build a chair. I repeat the watching until I have visual mastery and then I’ll go do it. My main weakness is that if you hand me a manual and say, “Read this, then do it,” that’s challenging for me.

CSC: You have spoken to hundreds of thousands of youth across the country. What commonalities amongst these children and young adults do you encounter? Is there one question they all seem to ask? A set of shared concerns or misunderstandings that they have in common?

RL: My observation is that kids are kids are kids. I have spoken in schools in Harlem that hadn’t had school assemblies in 15 years because they went so poorly and we’ve had great success. I’ve also spoken in private schools in San Francisco and had success. Dyslexia is not a place or race thing; it’s a brain thing. If you talk to kids about what they’re interested in, you’ll have them. I tell them about what it was like emotionally to hide, lie, and cheat in first grade and they can relate to that.

As far as the kids asking me something, for most of them it is more about feeling so relieved that someone is talking about this struggle out loud and in a positive light. The most common thing I get is when a kid will raise his/her hand and say, “I’m dyslexic too,” in front of all their peers. I always congratulate them. That’s a powerful event for them. Finally, they don’t feel alone and are held in a positive light. This also helps the unidentified dyslexics start thinking about things and getting help or being fearless and accepted. I also talk to teachers because they’re the first line of defense.

CSC: You published your first book, For the Children, using the author name “Rob Langston, LD.”We assume the “LD” stands for learning difference, and enjoy that you included it in your title where most people include a list of their educational degrees. Can you tell us a little more about this decision and what it says about your approach to life and work?

RL: That’s part of taking ownership of who you are. Having dyslexia is a part of who I am, no matter what. My struggles with reading make me who I am. My empathy with other people who struggle with any types of challenges is part of who I am, too. The strengths that come from the way my mind works in business and life are a part of me, too. When I first got out of college and started making money, I went out and bought a shiny, red, turbo sportscar and got a specialized tag. I had the tag say: ABLE  LD. I’m a learning abled person with a difference. My son has dyslexia and I want him to see the benefits to the way his brain works, too. He had early intervention and is in 3^rd grade and reading at a 3^rd grade level, so he has a better jump on life than I had. His creative mind is still there, too, and I’m so glad for that. Everyday, I see him using his dysxleic mind right alongside his reading mind.

CSC: You’ve blogged for Psychology Today about being a “techno dyslexic” and, specifically, how your GPS unit saves you throughout your travels. Are there any other tools you “can’t live without,” technological or otherwise? If so, what are they and how have they become so important in your life?

RL: Today, we have voice recognition technology. You pick up any iPhone or Android phone and the little microphone is right there to press and tell what to do. It’s a more efficient way of working. I can also dictate into my phone while I’m driving and I’ve done that for entire books that I’ve written. Just recently, I started using the calendar function on Macs a lot. Dyslexics can be disorganized at times, to say the least. I switched everything over to Mac and iCloud and everything syncs no matter what device I have with me at the time. My son is involved in project-based learning in school and he’s used the iPad for that twice now. It’s really nice because there are so many apps that can help him with spelling and writing.

YouTube is also a huge technological resource. I do lots of editing and I utilize that as a technology advantage everyday because it like the audio/visual way of taking in information as well. There’s a lot of other help out there, but it’s text-based. Now that I’m all Mac-based, I find myself using the text-to-voice reader a lot and that helps utilize those text-based sites. Social/visual media is also so accessible. What I do at dyslexia.com couldn’t have been done 3 years ago because the broadband wasn’t available. Now, we broadcast in 34 countries. I’m proud of reaching 500,000 kids live in the school system, but, online, things are unlimited and available on every SmartBoard for every teacher that wants it.

Local Focus: Geraldine Ellis on Dyslexia and Success

Today's post was originally published as a feature in our local newspaper. Geraldine Ellis Retires, Reflects

When Geraldine Ellis was passed the basketball during the final seconds of a game at Mitchell County’s then Bowman High School, she could fire off the winning shot. Not too many years later, when hired as an assistant for a local dentist’s office, she could remember patient names and faces with uncanny precision. Despite never earning her college degree, Ellis would go on to work in banking and customer relations for over twenty years, become Director of Mitchell County Chamber of Commerce, and eventually retire as Executive Director of United Way of Mitchell County in late 2013. But for all the things Ellis proved she could do, what she couldn’t do was easily spell or quickly comprehend large blocks of text.

“Connecting with people comes naturally to me…but if you hand me a folder and say, ‘There’s something interesting in here. Take a look at it and we’ll discuss it tomorrow,’ you can bet I’m not going to read it,” says Ellis, who was diagnosed with dyslexia in the early ‘70’s. Today, Ellis is speaking out in the community she dedicated her career to, with the hope that other children and adults who struggle with learning differences will have their needs met.

One in five children in the United States has dyslexia, along with more than 40 million adults, although very few are diagnosed during their education years, if ever. Parents and teachers are in the best position to notice early signs of dyslexia or other learning differences. In an atmosphere of support that is rich with resources and options, this potentially devastating setback can in fact be revealed as an exceptional gift.

Fourteen public school teachers in Yancey County and fifteen from Mitchell County have received Orton-Gillingham Associate Level certification. Five teachers from Mitchell have continued their training and mentorship, incorporating the strategies they have learned into their everyday teaching. Two feel so strongly about this training that they now present how to use these strategies in statewide teaching conferences sponsored by the Department of Public Instruction and Exceptional Children’s conference. This training and tutoring methodology uses a diagnostic and prescriptive, multi-sensory approach to teach the structure of language to children of all ages, abilities, and learning styles. “My great regret is that I did not go on to college,” says Ellis, who did not receive special assistance or tutoring of any kind during her education years. “I think the dyslexia held me back. I didn’t know my options at the time.” Although Orton-Gillingham, or OG as it is commonly called, provided successful remediation for children with dyslexia as early as the 1950s it is still a distant possibility in many education systems today.

“I remember one day working at the dentist’s office when my good friend Jane Brown brought her boys, Billy and Jerry, in for an appointment. She happened to be in the room when a supply salesman came in. The doctor told me to write a list down and place a supply order from that list. He said we needed ‘blue periphery wax,’” recalls Ellis. “I wrote ‘periphery’ and then I got stuck. I could not get the word ‘blue’ onto the page because of the ‘b.’ I asked, ‘What does blue start with?’ and they all looked at me. At that point, Jane asked me if I’d mind taking a few quick tests…come to find out, I had dyslexia.”

Dyslexia is a diagnosable learning difference under the umbrella of the Americans with Disabilities Act, guaranteeing equal access education through the public school system. “Dyslexia doesn’t necessarily mean you read backwards, as people often think,” says Susie van der Vorst, Co-Director of Camp Spring Creek and its Outreach Center and one of only 145 OG Fellows in the United States with almost 30 years experience.“People with dyslexia have difficulty processing language but they are often very gifted in analytical reasoning and creativity,” she explains, “which is why a high percentage of people with dyslexia become corporate CEO’s, engineers, artists, entrepreneurs, surgeons, and architects.”

Or community activists. Although Ellis is too humble to call herself as much, it’s difficult to take a look back at her career without noticing her gifted ability at viewing the big picture. While one common indicator of dyslexia is struggling with minute details or seemingly unconnected pieces of information, one strength of many dyslexics is their talent for thinking outside the box. When serving as Director of Mitchell County Chamber of Commerce, Ellis pinpointed a major local misconception that could potentially hinder growth and development. “It saddened me to hear local people—and I’m one of them—say, ‘Tourism doesn’t mean anything to us.’ In fact, the number of people our local craft artists attract is a huge part of Mitchell County tourism. We do have another industry besides mining and it’s been here all along, too. We can make both work for us and become aware of our unique offerings,” says Ellis.

Ellis applied this same creative thinking to get through challenging situations in school or, later in her professional life, business conferences and classes for professional development. “I’m a very visual person so I try to visualize success. It’s not helpful to look at some things as a negative; we need to look for the positive. I had to stop taking notes in class even though I was scolded for not paying attention. But I knew what I needed to do for myself in order to succeed and if I took notes, I got confused while trying to listen at the same time. I learned to rise above the confusion and I learned to worry about the resources that I had, instead of the ones I didn’t.” Furthermore, in her work for United Way, Ellis focused on “the big pool of people falling through the cracks.” She knew the support that local government and other organizations provided, but because of her longtime commitment to Mitchell County and her sense of vision, she also understood that huge numbers of people were being overlooked and were still in need. “At United Way the theme was ‘Taking care of our own,’ and I could really get behind that,” says Ellis.

Several months into retirement, Ellis says she is enjoying Bible Study and getting back to her walking routine. When asked what advice she has for those entering retirement themselves, she says, “Enjoy it!” When asked the key to a successful marriage, she advises: “The year that’s critical in your marriage is the year you’re in!” She and her husband, Kenneth, will celebrate 50 years of marriage this June.

Interview: Wendy Welshans & Forman's Rainforest Project

Today’s interview is with inspiring individual Wendy Welshans. Wendy has been a teacher at the Forman School for students with dyslexia and learning differences for 22 years. She is the director of the Outdoor Leadership Program and the Rain Forest Project. She teaches biology, anatomy and physiology, and the Tropical Ecology Seminar. Wendy is head of the Forman Boat Works, Forman's own wooden boat building program. She coaches the whitewater slalom team and leads weekend backpacking trips. The highlight of many students’ experience is the scientific research expedition to Costa Rica that Wendy leads each year. Wendy is also a Registered Maine Guide and a Wilderness First Responder. She and her daughter, Jorie, live in an alternative energy home in Sharon with their dog, Max, and 18 chickens.

Camp Spring Creek: From what I understand, The Rainforest Project that you founded at Forman School is open to students from area Connecticut public high schools as well as Forman School students. How do you find this blending aspect of the program and in what ways do the students surprise themselves when they work with others of different backgrounds, strengths, and weaknesses?

Wendy Welshans: That’s an interesting question. Many times it is the public school kids who learn and change attitudes—they have a completely different view of learning differences than is the reality. Many times you hear them say things like, “You guys are so smart” or “You’re so creative” or “How did you come up with that idea?” For our Forman students with learning differences, sometimes they feel inadequate initially, then after they get to know the public school kids they see how they themselves shine and how everyone’s strengths help the team.

CSC: At the end of the day, when all the testing, measuring, tagging, sorting, and hypothesizing are done, even the most gifted, fortunate, or enthusiastic science student needs to be able to articulate his or her findings in writing so that others can understand. Likewise, truly innovative research offers something new, implying that students must be well-read in their particular area of research in order to come up with a new finding. Do you encounter resistance to in-depth reading and writing from your students and, if so, how do you approach this?

WW: Good question. Because the students pick one of our 4 or 5 research projects to focus on, there is a sense of ownership from the beginning. It also helps that, for the most part each year’s Rainforest Project team is chosen by the previous team, as people that could take their research to the next level and start where they left off. Students on the team feel that sense of ownership and want to have that, too. We try and pair them in research teams where everyone has a certain affinity. Say Jon doesn’t like to write and Sam loves to write, but doesn’t like to read. They know that the key to scientific breakthroughs is knowing when you are witnessing one, and you can’t witness one if you don’t have background knowledge on your species.

CSC: Among many other accomplishments, The Rainforest Project and its working, learning, students and staff members have earned two patents. One is shown in Journey Into Dyslexia: the extraction method you use to extract spider silk from the Golden Orb Weaver for commercial use. How did you take your students through the patent process and, in particular for those students struggling with writing or reading, how did you find their experiences of these final steps?

WW: So…getting our patents on spider silk is quite a story unto itself. These webs are strong! In the mid 1990’s, we would play with these spiders after coming back to base camp from hiking to where we were collecting specimens. We would feed them in their webs and have contests between spiders on the speed it took them to capture their prey.

The more we read about the spider in the field, the more curious we became as to why the webs were so strong. We made funnel traps which were 4’ high to capture the insects drawn into the area of the web. This was to see if particular insects were giving the spiders the ability to produce strong silk. One day, a student of mine was holding one of these golden orb weavers and said, “Look!” As he let the spider fall, he spun a Coke bottle to collect the silk. It seemed to never run out of that silk. Since then, each year we would try and collect it in a more efficient manner. Because this method had not been tried in the field before, the patents were applied for as a protection for the people and the species not to be exploited. We obviously knew this could and will go somewhere.

The students and I wrote our scientific methodology for our extraction technique and a few years later another group of students and I wrote up the methodology of the spider farms. For the students, doing the illustrations or labeling the illustrations was just as much a gas as seeing our science paper turned into legalese!

The motivation for what is legit rivals most. Our kids want their creative juices to flow and for a reason. Seeing their names published or, better yet, hearing a professor ask their opinions on a subject they have immersed themselves in is quite a motivator. For some, it is the first expert advice they have ever given. The students like that feeling of knowing and understand that they have earned that knowing through their prior research. The hope is, they take that feeling, that success, to college with them and they immerse themselves into each class as they did studying spider silk at Forman. They have seen where immersion can go.

CSC: What was your own path of discovery like with dyslexia? How did you feel at first, where had you struggled most, and—following diagnosis—where did you find the most relief?

WW: I knew I was a little different from my friends, who walked through the academics like eating a bowl of cereal…effortless. I struggled with reading and writing and sitting in one place. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 12; after college, my testing showed dyslexia. My parents were very supportive and gave me a vast array of projects on our property. I have had a creative, scientific mind since the age of 3. My folks were so disappointed when I failed Biology and struggled with Ecology, which seemed to be what I had a propensity for. My teachers, though supportive at public school, had no faith in my ability to go to college, especially SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse University. I attended Erie Community College and took every science course they had to offer. It was very hands-on and challenging. I received an Associate Degree in Applied Sciences and the Science Award at graduation and I matriculated to SUNY-ESF at Syracuse. I found college to be amazing because I was immersed in heavy science curriculum that was hands-on and rigorous.

Always, my relief or maybe my break from my LD has been building things, usually out of wood. Usually, I build something out of my head. When I was a child, it was small boats or game boards. Now, it is not much different. I teach wooden boatbuilding at Forman and am immersed in the Rainforest Project and in the species of that tropical forest just as I was as a child in our forest at home. I have always lost myself in the forest, exploring with a backpack of field guides.

Interview: Jack Horner

Today's inspiring individual is John R. “Jack” Horner, an esteemed paleontologist who was once a senior technical advisor (and part character inspiration) for the Jurassic Park films. Jack's story of struggle and triumph is especially powerful, as he moved from undergrad drop-out to the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship. Jack was born and raised in Shelby, Montana and attended the University of Montana for seven years majoring in geology and zoology. Although never completing a formal degree, the University of Montana awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Science in 1986. Jack and his students excavate and study dinosaurs, particularly their growth and behavior. Jack has published more than 180 professional papers, 9 popular books, and more than 100 popular articles. Jack is Regent’s Professor of Paleontology in the Department of Earth Sciences, and Curator of Paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. He is also a Senior Adjunct Scientist at the Smithsonian Institution. Jack lectures on dinosaurs, evolution and dyslexia. He lives in Bozeman. Camp Spring Creek: In addition to your accomplishments in paleontology, you’re also an author. Which aspects of writing come naturally to you and which do you find you have to make accommodations for? Many writers are often told to “write the kind of book you’d love to read yourself.” Several of your books are for children. What were reading and writing like for you as a young child?

Jack Horner: Reading is the hardest thing I do in my life, so with regard to reading, nothing comes easy and I have to make accommodations for every part of it. Writing is also difficult, but I learned two things early in my life that have helped a great deal. One was learning how to type. My mother was a typist and spent much time teaching me how to type, and I also spent a great deal of time learning how to make letters so that I could write well enough that I could read what I wrote, even though I read one letter at a time. As a child and young person, K – 12, I didn’t read much of anything, but I loved to look at the pictures in books and did my best to read the captions. I didn’t write much either, but always liked the idea of writing.

CSC: It’s long been accepted that one thing people with dyslexia naturally excel at is thinking outside of the box. In your field in particular, you have to manage so many eons of historical information, manage teams of people on a dig, organize your thoughts for academic research, as well as constantly push for the “next big thing.” Are there ways in which you’ve noticed your own abilities to “think outside the box” in your line of work? Please tell us about one or two by way of example.

JH: I have no idea what or where this box is or what it's like to be in it! Managing eons of data, together with numerous teams of people on digs, in labs, or any place else, and thinking and writing about new ideas that come from many different sources is what I do best. It only requires spatial thinking.

CSC: Speaking of thinking outside the box, what’s this we read about a genetically created dinosaur chicken? (We had to ask…)

JH: It’s a long story, but basically I have a team of geneticists working on retro-engineering a bird back to a dinosaur, or at least some of their characteristics by modifying genes that have been dormant for many generations.

CSC: You spent seven years studying as an undergrad and did not earn your bachelor’s degree. Years later, all of that was moot, but there must have been moments when you considered giving up or feared the worst. What would you share with a student in a similar position right now? What could you tell that eager, smart learner to help him or her stick with it?

JH: Giving up never entered my mind, but there was always the chance that my dreams would have to be modified, and for some period of time they were. My profession is also my hobby so there is no way it can be taken from me or that I could not do it. For a few years I worked for my father in his gravel business, and on the weekends or my time off, I worked on my hobby. I was always striving to get a job in paleontology, but I always knew the chances were slim. But, what was the worst that could happen? Work as I was, and do my hobby on my own time? Not so bad! When you have nothing to lose, even the smallest of accomplishment is success!

A Message from Jeanne Betancourt

Today we are pleased to publish this message from author, artist, teacher, and inspiring individual Jeanne Betancourt. Jeanne has been honored by the Kildonan School and also received the 2004 Life Achievement Award from the Hamilton School at Wheeler. Jeanne has taught in junior and senior high schools and was on the graduate faculty of the Media Studies Program at the New School for Social Research. She has served as a consultant, speaker, and workshop leader on adolescents, writing, and the media, and is a past president of New York Women in Film and Television. Her website offers a wealth of resources and we encourage you to check it out.

I took my first tap class when I was six-years-old, the same year I was supposed to learn to read and spell. I loved my Saturday morning classes in Miss Irene’s studio above a storefront in downtown Rutland, Vermont. When Miss Irene realized I was having trouble following her right foot/left foot directions, she put a red ribbon on my right tap shoe. I am convinced that my 12 years of tap classes as a kid and the tap classes I take today help me with my dyslexia. My feet learn what to do and which foot does what. While the beat goes on, my brain easily identifies right and left as I learn dance steps and routines.

People are often surprised to learn that I am dyslexic. They think that being dyslexic would prevent me from being a successful writer. I believe that being dyslexic has helped me as a writer.

Since learning to read and write was difficult for me growing up, I paid more attention to the world around me. I took clues to what people were thinking and feeling from their speech and body language. Today, as an author, it is easy for me to imagine what it would be like to be in someone else’s shoes. Being able to put yourself in another person’s place and understand how they feel is a key to being a good writer. I also have strong visual memories and can easily imagine the places I’ve been as I describe them for the reader. These skills are more important for me as a storyteller than the skills I don’t have because I am dyslexic—like being a good speller and a speedy reader.

The story I wrote in MY NAME IS BRAIN BRIAN follows Brian’s adventures, friendships, and family life before and after he learns that he is dyslexic. By the end of the story, he realizes that the mistake he made spelling his name on the board the first day of sixth grade is true. He is a Brain.

Anna, in a series I wrote called The Pony Pals, is also dyslexic. In every book, I remind my readers about that. Anna doesn’t like school as much as Pam and Lulu. When they write their ideas for solving Pony Pal Problems, Anna draws hers. Like many dyslexics, she has artistic talent. Anna’s dyslexia is a big part of the plot for two of the Pony Pal books, #2: A PONY FOR KEEPS and #38: PONIES ON PARADE.

I hope that my personal story and novels help dyslexics of all ages recognize their own strengths. And that the people in their lives—teachers, parents, friends—acknowledge that we all have individual learning styles. Here is my twist on the American proverb: “You can’t tell a book by its cover.”  You can’t tell a child’s potential by how easily they learn to read.

Interview: Dr. Keeney, "Hero Award" Recipient & More

Today’s interview is with inspiring individual Dr. William Keeney. Bill is the English Department Chair and has taught English at Delaware Valley Friends School for over a decade. Bill has a strong interest in educational research and pedagogy and was featured in the HBO documentary, Journey Into Dyslexia. He has published poetry, plays, and scholarly articles in American Literature, and presents on reading at national conferences such as the IDA. He was awarded the West Chester Public Library's Literacy Hero Award in 2007. Bill earned his B.A. at Columbia University and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Boston University, where he studied with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. Camp Spring Creek: We were so moved by your classroom demeanor and educational philosophy in the HBO documentary, Journey Into Dyslexia. For our readers who have not seen the video, would you mind summarizing your points?

Bill Kenney: Not being able to read is not your fault. One in five people have trouble learning to read if they are not taught well. This is because of a specific part of your brain that is different from the “norm” but is NOT the same as a difference in intelligence. You can have superior intelligence and still not be able to read without effort. If you didn’t get taught well, that is the fault of the educational system that didn’t get you the help you need and deserve. (If you are at Camp Spring Creek, count your blessings because they will be able to teach you to read the right way.) Even if you were taught to read, reading still might be a struggle because of how your brain processes writing into oral language. Because our current society is so dependent on text, you do have to read well enough to get by. Fortunately, there are some pretty good technological aids that you can use that will help you get through, such as audio books (particularly Learning Ally, especially for schoolwork) and text-to-speech tools. However, even if reading remains a struggle for you, you can still live a productive, successful, and happy life using your other gifts and talents.

CSC: We understand that, despite stereotypes, many children with dyslexia come to love reading and stories. When teaching required texts in a mandatory education setting, we’re curious about what you see on “the front lines” and how you address that. As an English teacher at a school specializing in dynamic learning experiences for students with learning differences, some might think that you have “the hardest subject” to teach. What kinds of resistance do you face in the classroom and how do you work with that?

BK: The key to getting “buy-in” is hope. It begins by “de-mystifying” the problem by explaining its origin in scientific terms and re-assuring the students that reading and intelligence are two very different things, and the fact that they might be struggling to learn to read is not their fault. However, I also emphasize that learning to read is a very core skill, and that with effort and skilled instruction, they can learn to read better and with less effort. I am honest that it will take time and hard work, and that they may never become readers who “enjoy” reading, but they can become readers for whom the value of reading and what reading brings into their lives can be a reality. Finally, I provide audio (with variable speed playback so that they can listen along faster, if they can process it) so that they can have access to books that are at grade level even if their reading is not there yet.

CSC: As a lover of literature and writer yourself, can you tell us about a peak learning experience you had growing up—something that involved realizing how much you loved stories or how you discovered the power of literature? Feel free to share some of your favorite book titles with us from childhood to present day!

BK: I was blessed with the ability to read easily from a young age, so I began reading everything from a young age, so I don’t know if my story is going to resonate with people who struggle to read, but I am glad to share it. I remember the first time I “fell through a book.” I was sitting in an armchair and suddenly was just effortlessly reading. My memory is that the book was called Ab the Caveman, although I have looked for it since and have never been able to locate a copy. In my youth, I devoured comic books, sports stories, science fiction, horror, etc.

Then, in my senior year of high school, I read Robert Penn Warren’s novel, All the King’s Men. I remember thinking: This is a book that was not written for me, it is not about a world I know anything about, but it is absolutely compelling, rich, and insightful—this is what literature is all about. In college I began to enjoy poetry such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, WB Yeats, TS Eliot, and Wallace Stevens.

Some of the things I have read most recently that I love to recommend are: Paul Harding’s Tinkers, Annie Proulx’s short stories, and Charles Frazer’s Cold Mountain.  However, I don’t think what I read is necessarily what someone decades younger than I should read! For young adults, I think The Hunger Games is the best of these kind of series, I always recommend To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye for high school students, and many students in my school love The Alchemist and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian.

But my final word would be: Find your own book recommenders. Read what your friends have read and liked. Read several books by the same author or in the same genre. Your teachers will probably introduce you to “classics” like The Great Gatsby, but on your own, explore. Read widely. It doesn’t matter nearly so much what you read as whether you read!

CSC: Camp Spring Creek feels strongly that the Orton-Gillingham approach can be beneficial to all types of learners, not just children with dyslexia or other learning differences. We also stand behind the belief that this approach can be integrated successfully into the public school and home learning environments, with proper training and information. For our parents or teachers with children at home, can you share a basic technique or skill that you teach in your English literature classroom? Perhaps something that could easily transfer into the home or public school learning environments such as a word game, a reading challenge, or some other exercise…whatever comes to mind.

BK: You are correct that good, systematic teaching is beneficial to everyone, particularly when it comes to the basic skill of reading. Research shows that there is only one pathway in the brain to efficient reading, and that everyone who learns to read builds those same neural networks—some just build them faster and with less effort, but the process is exactly the same. So, if we all teach all students in explicit, multi-sensory, structured and systematic ways, everyone will learn to read as quickly and as well as they possibly could! My motto is, this isn’t special education, it’s education by specialists—“It’s just good teaching.”

Since I teach in a high school and primarily with literature, I have two basic pieces of advice: If you still have difficulty reading, use audio as a support to help your speed, accuracy, fluency, and comprehension; and, for comprehension, re-read. This is what all readers do to improve their comprehension; it is just that “natural” or skilled readers can do this quickly and efficiently (as well as having the freed-up space in their minds to monitor their comprehension because the reading process has faded into automatic).

Interview: Esteemed Author Amanda Kyle Williams

Today’s interview features author and inspiring individual Amanda Kyle Williams. Amanda is the author of the The Stranger You Seek, Stranger In The Room and Don’t Talk To Strangers (July 1^st). The Random House thriller series is set in Atlanta and features former FBI criminal analyst turned private investigator and police consultant, Keye Street. Williams was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 22 and read her first book at 23 years old. The journey from struggling to read to becoming a full time writer is one she now speaks about publicly in hopes her story will inspire others with learning differences.  Camp Spring Creek: Many people hear the word “dyslexia” and the last thing they think is “accomplished writer.” How do you respond to this preconception? Are there tools or techniques you employ as a writer with dyslexia that you find especially assistive?

Amanda Kyle Williams: First of all, the perception that dyslexia is a disability creates more hurdles for a person with dyslexia than dyslexia itself. It’s a learning difference. That’s all. Apart from difficulties with the written word, we have learned that people with dyslexia are critical thinkers who think and perceive multi-dimensionally. Dyslexics have the gift of imagination, of intuition, of curiosity, and acute visual awareness and memory. Other writers sometimes ask me how I can write with dyslexia, and I always think; how can you write without it? Dyslexia isn’t a deal breaker. It comes with challenges, yes, but it comes with gifts as well. For me personally, dyslexia gave me a way of listening, of hearing, of finding the rhythm and music in the spoken word. Long before I had learned to read, I was a student of language, a mimic, a listener. This would serve me well as a writer of dialogue later in life. And when I was finally given the tools to learn to read, when I was told for the first time that it wasn’t intelligence I lacked, I began to discover literature and it was transformative. I had found that same music in books and words that I’d heard all my life.

Yes, I will always, always be a slow reader. Sometimes that means I’m a slow learner. But I’m a thorough one. And because I am so visual, I see my work in pictures as I write, in scenes—something else that serves me well. I want to be very clear. I wasn’t suffering from dyslexia before I was diagnosed. I was slamming into walls erected by a system that didn’t understand or accommodate for it. Dyslexia isn’t my burden. It’s my gift. All gifts come with responsibilities and challenges. What I want to say to everyone who has struggled to learn, struggled with the perception of others, watched their children struggle, is that the key for me has been to recognize the natural talents that set us apart as dyslexics and focus on developing them. So we’re slow readers. So what? Once we are able to read, we do it with the kind of clarity and absorbency that is another gift of dyslexia.

CSC: You and Camp Spring Creek co-director Susie van der Vorst recently met at the Georgia IDA Conference. Tell us a little bit about what you presented there regarding your own story with dyslexia:

AKW: It was a great honor to be asked to speak at IDA. For me, in a way, it felt like some far off mountaintop. There was a time in my life that I couldn’t have imagined myself doing anything beyond toiling to buy the groceries and protecting the biggest, darkest secret I’d ever had—that I couldn’t deal with long text. I could read you a sentence when I dropped out of school at 16. I could spell words. But string them together into paragraphs and pages and my recognition and comprehension went out the window. It was a kind of jigsaw puzzle for me, reading, and it was one that didn’t begin to piece itself together until I was diagnosed at 22 years old. I read my first book cover-to-cover at age 23.

CSC: You’ve held jobs in more than half a dozen different fields, from textiles to pets to private investigations. How did you find your way to writing, and at what point along that journey did you first identify as “a writer”?

AKW: [laughing] My resume is a great example of someone incapable of holding down a job, isn’t it? Well, let me first say that you have to work a lot to pay the rent when you don’t have a formal education. I did the kinds of jobs I could do without a diploma or a college education. I bluffed my way into some of them. We get good at bluffing when we’re hiding big secrets. Dyslexia wasn’t something I talked about for most of my life because it was surrounded by a lot of shame when I was a kid. I wasn’t performing the way my peers were performing. Words like "slow," "stupid," and "doesn’t apply herself" were the everyday norm for me. Takes a while to shake that. Even after I was diagnosed, I shared it only with my family. Most of my friends had no idea at all until I began to speak publicly about my experiences. I had a job as a courier in Atlanta for a time and they’d give you those huge street maps. There were days it was a complete jumble to me. I think I used more gas than anyone else on the team trying to find delivery addresses.

I actually started writing about 5 years after I learned to read. Inexplicably, words and sentences, the things that had turned my young life into a secretive little cave, just wouldn’t let me go. I wrote my first book at 28. It wasn’t very good. The next 3 weren’t any good at all. It would take me many years of nurturing the craft and working odd jobs to support my writing habit before my work was strong enough and honest enough to have some commercial success.

CSC: It can take years for writers to find and hone their own voice so that it becomes uniquely, undeniably theirs. The same might also be said for someone living with undiagnosed or unsupported dyslexia—it can take years for him or her to feel as though their individual voice has a place and audience in society. Why do you think that is and what advice do you have for someone in this situation?

AKW: I lived in that undiagnosed, unsupported world for many years. When you grow up feeling less than, feeling dumb, being told you’re not trying or not smart enough to do what is asked of you in school, it marks you. It just does. This is why it’s so important that educators understand and accommodate for the symptoms of dyslexia. Everything started to turn for me the day I was diagnosed, the day I learned there was a name for me, an explanation, and it wasn’t "slow" or "stupid." I was told for the first time I could learn, that I was smart even though I’d tested impossibly low on standardized testing in school. The diagnosis changed every way I felt about myself and every way I felt about my chances in the world. "Dyslexia" was about the most beautiful word I’d ever heard.

Recently, just for fun, I took another IQ test. Guess what? I scored impossibly low. I write police procedurals. I plot murder mysteries. I regularly speak to forensic scientists and pathologists and psychologists and physicians who consult on my books. But I’m somewhere in the idiot range on IQ tests. I guess I would say to anyone who struggles to learn and to read, to first remain calm. Because when you panic and you’re stressed out, the world turns into a giant crossword puzzle. It takes support, patience and persistence. Secondly, find the tools to tackle it. There are organizations now with systems for learning for children and adults that didn’t exist when I was a kid in school. I’m now 56 years old. Find those tools, use them, don’t be afraid to ask for help, and know that you have all the talent and intelligence of your peers.

So, you’re a square peg in a round hole. Embrace it and let yourself soar. I’m not diminishing the challenges. You have to want it. You have to be prepared to study and practice with the tools available. It can be frustrating and slow. It takes persistence. But the point is, you are no less capable than anyone else. It’s a matter of tapping it. And the truth is, all independently successful people have had to work their butts off in this world. All of them. And not all of them had the added gifts that come with dyslexia. So go for it.

CSC: If you have children of your own or young people in your life that you are close to, how have your experiences as a child influenced the role and influence you strive to have in their lives?

AKW: What I want every child and every adult who struggles to learn to know, is that not only is it possible to learn to read, to comprehend, to enjoy reading, to be a functioning contributor to society, and even to love literature, to get great jobs, to follow your bliss—it’s also possible to soar, to reach any height. You have as much opportunity and capability as everyone else. You walk through a different door to get there. That’s all. Just kick it open and get there.

And what I want to say to educators, especially those in the public school system, is if you have children who seem intelligent and are not performing, please look a little deeper and find out about learning differences, because sometimes all a child needs is opportunity and the accommodation of time to fully blossom.

A Tribute to Anna Gillingham

Today's blog post is a tribute written by Helene Dubrow about Anna Gillingham. Helene trained under Samuel Orton, Anna Gilingham, and Bessie Stillman and went on to found Camp Mansfield, the first camp for children with dyslexia, among other programs. Her grandson Van Westervelt was recently featured on our blog and assists us with staff training each summer. Thanks, Van, for sharing this very special document with us.

I first met Anna Gillingham when she came to Verona, New Jersey in October 1936 to give a series of three lectures to teachers. The first pertained to reading, the second to spelling, and the third topic was not announced. As we later found out, the final meeting related to handwriting and difficulties students experienced with written expression. All three meetings were stimulating and increased my interest in understanding specific language-learning difficulties.

For the previous three years I had been training individual elementary school children with some degree of S.L.D. under the direction of Dr. and Mrs. Samuel T. Orton. As a result of this experience, I was eager to learn more about programs to assist older students at junior and senior high school levels. Accordingly, I approached A. G. after the final session and asked where one could get additional training and knowledge about remediation for older dyslexic students. She was quick to respond, saying “Why don’t you come and work with me?” Anna was then a psychologist at Ethical Culture, Fieldstone School, New York City. By November 1936 arrangements were complete, and I traveled five days a week from Montclair, New Jersey to Fieldstone School, where I was scheduled to instruct individual students under A. G.’s supervision. This program was continued until June 1937 when Bessie Stillman and A. G. went to Punohu School, Honolulu.

My experience at Fieldstone was particularly important, for as a teacher A. G. was thorough and demanding. She was explicit in giving directions and took time to explain procedures as they related to individual students' needs. One cannot forget her ability to understand the learning problems and present a program for remediation. As almost no materials were available at that time, 1936-1937, Anna made her own drill cards, books, and word lists for reading and spelling. Before the Manual was developed, Florence Aiken’s book Word Mastery was of prime importance.

It was Anna who helped me to understand the specific handicaps related to dysgraphia. She increased my interest in handwriting and how it handicaps academic achievement. For some children who have serious difficulty with fine-motor functioning, she believed time spent trying to develop legible hand-writing was a waste of time. For those students she recommended learning to type. Under her direction, I taught typing to fourth and fifth grade students. Anna devised a clever scheme to teach the touch system. A frame was built over the keyboard. A bib was fastened about the child’s neck and attached to the frame. With this arrangement, children could not watch their fingers, and the system seemed preferable to covering the keys. With the latter there was a tendency to look at the hands but with the bib, this was eliminated. I believe this unique idea has not been put in practice.

During the year at Fieldstone School, I had frequent sessions with Bessie Stillman. These conferences at her apartment were scheduled after school hours and related to spelling. Such meetings with A. G. and Bessie Stillman were particularly helpful, for they were directed to the needs of older students.

At the end of the school year Anna and Bessie left for Punohu School, Honolulu. Upon their return they learned of the death of my husband August 1937. As Anna was acquainted with my family she showed special interest in our welfare and was most helpful with suggestions and frequent conferences. She followed my programs at public and independent schools with interest. She was most supportive and made trips to schools and centers to give talks to faculties. In this way she spread the word and improved understanding of specific language disability.

While I was on the staff at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, Anna lectured there to members of the English Department. During this period 1943-1947, I learned about her programs for early identification of children with some degree of S. L. D. This interested me particularly, for I had spent over ten years trying to retrain bright, able students whose early language-learning programs were inappropriate and ineffective. Accordingly, when I accepted a position at Sidwell Friends School, Washington, D. C., 1948, it was with the understanding that a program for early identification of S. L. D. students supervised by A. G. would be initiated. It was agreed that Kindergarten children would be examined and those indicating the need for Orton-Gillingham approach would be selected and have special training in grade I through grade IV. During those years, Anna came six times each year to review data and train teachers to use phonetic-alphabetic approach for learning to read, spell and write. When Anna came to Washington she lived with me and visited the school each day. At night she reviewed the children’s folders which contained results of tests and teacher’s observations. This information she discussed in detail with me. From the data collected and consultations with teachers, decisions were made about appropriate methods to be used with individual children in grade I. The small number of students chosen for special training was mainstreamed. The classroom teacher was prepared to present phonetic alphabetic approach for learning to read, spell, and write. Similar programs were continued through the first four grades. The results surpassed our expectations and proved A. G.’s theory important. This was an experimental pioneering project which demonstrated A. G.’s belief that characteristics of S. L. D. could be identified at kindergarten level, and if taught using appropriate methods, frustrations and discouragement would be reduced. I was happy to participate in the experiment at Sidwell Friends School and the experience strengthened my interest in programs for early identification and prevention of severe consequences related to dyslexia. My enthusiasm for early identification of language-learning difficulties has never diminished.

When I joined Dr. Roswell Gallagher, 1953, at the Adolescent Unit, Children’s Medical Center, Boston, and trained tutors to instruct S. L. D. students, A. G. came frequently to lecture and confer with professional people interested in the “Cause.” She gave willingly of her time and energy. Though her sight was failing she continued and was steadfast in her desire to spread her message. This she did well.

A.G. was always interested in my Camp Mansfield project. This camp was established as a result of Dr. Samuel T. Orton’s urging. He sensed the need for summer programs to train children diagnosed S. L. D. and was eager to provide individual remedial instruction along with recreational activities. This plan was developed in a rural setting among the hills and mountains of Vermont.  A. G. followed our program at Camp Mansfield. She visited on several occasions and loved to walk about the fields near the streams talking with campers and staff members. With her experience and knowledge she had much to offer. She gave freely of her time which benefitted all.

It was the occasion of her last summer when I visited her at the Methodist Home in Mt. Vernon, New York, that she mentioned while others were going off on vacation she had no place to go. It was then that I, along with a few Boston friends, arranged for a vacation at Camp Mansfield, Vermont. At that time Anna was without sight, but she was eager and happy to make the airplane trip to Burlington. There I met her and completed the journey to Camp. Because she was familiar with the setting and remembered how we were situated, she was delighted to find her way about and enjoy the country atmosphere. Campers and staff members were quick to assist and guide her when necessary. She attended staff meetings and made wise comments. Teachers were grateful for the opportunity to share her thoughts and wisdom. A. G. was pleased and thoroughly enjoyed her visit.  When the time came for departure and return to New York, I found her fully dressed lying on the bed. As I entered, she spoke firmly and said. “Don’t think I’m tired, but when you can’t see, you have lots of time to think.” With this characteristic remark, we bade farewell. Her spirit and desire to assist children never dimmed. She labored unceasingly to promote the “Cause” in which she was so completely dedicated.

We who worked with her can never forget.

Interview: Mick Wilz

Today's inspiring individual interview is with Mick Wilz, Director of Enterprise Excellence at the family owned and operated business, Sur-Seal. Mick is the Keynote Speaker at this week's American Society for Quality conference in the Carolinas, meeting Charlotte, NC. Mick is driving his large, Lego-built model of the Sur-Seal floor plan with him to talk about visual workplaces. He's also taking time out of his schedule to come visit us at Camp Spring Creek, for which we're very grateful. Read more to learn about Mick's inspiring take on life, which focuses on a wholistic approach to communication and setting people up for success.

Camp Spring Creek: Your email signature includes two thought-provoking tidbits. First, a cautionary tagline stating, “Please consider energy conservation before printing,” and second, a quote from Anthony Robbins: "The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.” Can you explain your philosophy behind these two mottos?

Mick Wilz: The communication quote is how you communicate with yourself and with others. I include it so that people think about it, but when you’re communicating with yourself you have to be a whole person. You can’t be fake in this world anymore. When I’m communicating, especially as a leader, I can’t go into work and preach one thing and then live a different lifestyle outside. People can tell if you’re fake. You have to be honest with yourself and follow the Golden Rule. Communication is also very in depth. It’s about how you listen to people: Are you truly listening, or just blowing people off? This sums it up: “I am the message.” As a leader, everything I do is a message. People watch you for the positive things you do and the negative things you do. This just the same for parents; kids are always watching. Communication is not just talking: You have two ears for listening so you should be listening twice as much and giving people room and time to talk and process. You have just one mouth for talking. Great communication can save your life!

As far as energy conservation goes, I found that quote someplace and I added it because it reminded me of my mother. She passed away, but we were environmentalists when we were kids and my Mom was so far ahead of the times. Recyling was part of our lives. You have to take care of the Earth and of everything. It has to do with the whole person concept, and that works with communication as well as with the environment.

CSC: We love that your title at your family owned and operated business, Sur-Seal, is “Director of Enterprise Excellence.” Tell us a little about what that means to you as a successful businessman, but also as a successful life-long learner:

MW: We’re encouraged at work to "work yourself out of a job." Not everyone has heard that before but basically, if you’re a good leader and hold on to tribal knowledge, when you die you’re not going to help anyone. Some people are afraid to share or they’re afraid they’ll lose their jobs if they give away tribal knowledge. I’m not afraid to share.You have to share the tribal knowledge and make it public so everyone knows what’s going on. As Director of Enterprise Excellence, I’m looking for what knowledge is out there that we can use (in our external environment) but I’m also doing this in our internal environment. I’m interested in anything that will help our business, but I want to make it easier for everybody and step up the bar for everybody. It doesn’t make sense to accumulate knowledge for myself only. I accumulate it for the company as whole wherever I can find it, and that feels right. I want our company to be great and to have a great company you have to have great people, so we build ourselves strong, from the internal environment out.

CSC: After building a Lego-based layout of your building and involving workers in planning the redesign, you incorporated more changes in the work environment to make it a “visual workplace.” In the New York Times, you wrote that these changes “send a message to anyone who might be struggling because they’re different: not only can they measure up in the workplace, but they can exceed expectations.” Respecting the anonymity of your employees, can you tell us an anecdote about how you have seen these changes create positive results in one individual who was struggling before those changes were made?

MW: It’s hard to focus on just one. Making these changes have helped so many people—I keep notepads full of positive notes that people have sent about the changes we made. I feel everyone has some form of learning disability. Dyslexia is just one that is in the media now and that everyone talks about. When I look back at school, there was always someone who couldn’t do math or couldn’t do sports, etc. There are just some learning differences that are more transparent in people than others. That’s just part of life. When you find your weakness, you focus on it and then move forward.

We have one mother of three children that works for us and her husband does construction work. She worked at McDonald’s and then came to work for us. She went there just for a job based on money to help the family out. She didn’t think she had much value but she came to us and was doing everything she could to make ends meet in her family. She probably struggled through school. She never went to college. Right now, she’s the first female manager on the floor at our company and she leads a team of 38 people. She’s our largest team leader and her group today just announced that they have made $460,000 worth of improvements for her department. What that means is that, last year, her team of 38 people improved processes and saved the company that much money. She’s a total hero. She walked into our plant and understood me.

What I'm trying to get at is somewhat like this YouTube video. I’m the lone wolf dancing; I’m that first guy dancing in the video. That’s the role I play. I encourage people to run and follow and I’m always looking for that first follower. This employee was a first follower and those people are the most important. She understood me and got everyone else to follow. Let people take that idea and make it their own and be proud of it. Never tear down. You have to build, build, build. As a dyslexic, I was torn down a lot so I learned that you never do that. I could tell you ten stories like this, but that one stands out today.

CSC: How have you learned to operate in the business world or what tricks of the trade have you used as a successful entrepreneur with dyslexia?

MW: I’m visual, so to get my ideas across sometimes I say, “Watch this video.” I have a bank of 40-50 videos that I refer to often to help get my ideas across. I was diagnosed with dyslexia in 1964. Temple Grandin had an HBO movie and she was autistic. She’s one of the most amazing people I met. She told me that when you’re diagnosed with something, you just guess at it. She encouraged me to always go back and get re-tested. At age 55, I went back and got myself re-tested and I came up dyslexic but also “twice exceptional.” I wish I had known that earlier. I had a high IQ and my visualizing was off the charts. I took that information and learned from it. I’m very aware of that now and I made our entire factory visual. You can come in there and see how to run a piece of equipment without even having to read a manual. You’d be surprised how many people in the world really can’t read or who will benefit from these visual aids. I was public about struggling with reading and wasn’t afraid of it, but there are a lot of people who are afraid of that. I had reading issues and I never dealt with them. They do the same thing at McDonald’s in their work environment. It’s all done with pictures now and that’s helpful. Also, with new technology such as Audiobooks and iPads, things are changing. If that had been around when I was a child, I would not have had a problem. I feel like I’m ahead of the curve now because of technology. So, did I have a learning disability or was the world just not ready for us? I think the world just wasn’t ready for us yet. ☺

Profile: John Chambers, CEO Cisco

We reached out to John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, and received appreciation for our efforts at camp and a few words about John's success. Read below to hear what his executive assistant shared with us: "John has personally asked me to relay to you his appreciation for extending this invitation to participate in your [blog] project. It certainly is a worthy cause. We would like to extend these notes: John is just one of many individuals who have been able to have a successful career even with a disability such as dyslexia. One attribute which has led to John’s success is his infectious attitude about life. From a young age, John had a very optimistic outlook on everything. He had a wonderful teacher in his early years who recognized his challenges and worked with him to overcome it. His parents, both being doctors, also supported and encouraged him throughout his childhood. John’s attitude and emotional insight has proved to be one of his most powerful tools, coupled with his perseverance, John has not let his learning disability be an excuse. He hopes the campers will find his words and suggestions encouraging."

John Chambers is Chairman and CEO of Cisco. He has helped grow the company from $70 million when he joined Cisco in January 1991, to $1.2 billion when he assumed the role of CEO, to record revenues of $48.6 billion in FY13. In 2006, Chambers was named Chairman of the Board, in addition to his CEO role. Chambers has received numerous awards for his leadership over his past 18 years at the helm of Cisco, including the 2012 Bower Award for Business Leadership from the Franklin Institute, Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People," one of Barron's' "World's Best CEOs," the "Best Boss in America" by 20/20, one ofBusinessWeek's "Top 25 Executives Worldwide," "CEO of the Year" by Chief Executive Magazine, the Business Council's "Award for Corporate Leadership," and "Best Investor Relations by a CEO" from Investor Relations Magazine three times. Read more.

Interview: Steve Walker (Get Ready for Incredible)

Today's interview is with inspiring individual Steve Walker. We're not even going to introduce you to him. We're just going to let him speak for himself. Read on...you'll see why... Camp Spring Creek: We enjoyed your interview on HBO’s Journey Into Dyslexia. Your story is very moving. For our readers who have not seen the documentary, could you briefly tell us about the positive learning experience you had working in the machine shop in high school?

Steve Walker: It was the only thing as a young adult that I could get a result from that was positive and also created something that had immediate, tangible purpose. I had one teacher, Joe Pasenka, and he saw me checking out from life in general and I think it was a really honorable thing he did by letting me play in that machine shop. The school was shutting the machine shop down, so you weren’t technically supposed to be there. He really let me do my thing which, as it turns out, is the correct way to think. He knew I pushed back against traditional learning, so he didn’t push instructions at me. He let me work until I came across a problem and then I’d ask a question. If you think about it, a person is much more motivated to learn when they have a need to understand.

CSC: That reminds me a little of the Montessori teaching method or some of the research discussed in Flow by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi. What have you been learning about education methods today?

SW: I went on an educational tour of my own recently, because I wanted to understand education. I was a little horrified by how everything was going. I felt shameful about what had happened to me as a child--being made to feel stupid, being so misunderstood--and I felt despair about how little people know about learning. There are places where great things are happening, of course, but the general system is really antiquated and needs spiffing up. So I went on this tour...I talked to some teachers who were threatened with getting fired if they used the word “dyslexia.” It was quite an eye-opener and frustrating enough that I’ve joined a number of university boards and have met with leaders of schools or superintendents and tried to have exchanges about about how we can make changes in the system.

On my end of things, I hire a lot of engineers and so I've been talking to engineering schools about what they teach. Teachers are teaching math...but you don’t do math in engineering. Computers do the math. It’s creative thinking that needs to be taught and that’s what employers like me look for. I’m trying to tell people that if you back off on the math a little, which is so automated, the engineers don’t need it and they will be fine. I don’t discourage people from learning math, of course. But we need to look at the content that we’re teaching as well as the way we teach it. It's great if you can spell correctly. But some things have pretty limited applications to a job and I’m having conversations with people, especially in engineering schools, about this. These conversations are powerful; sometimes people are blown away by my perspective. After thinking about it, they’re usually quite open. Look at the TED Talk on self-teaching. It’s about a global initiative to examine how we teach and it’s a little extreme, but it’s also very enjoyable and funny. I just like to try and challenge people’s minds a little. I don’t know all the solutions but I do know that a lot of what we’re doing right now doesn’t make sense.

CSC: You built a successful, multi-million dollar business by solving a simple problem: Certain wood stoves being sold in the United States required wood pellets for fuel. At the time, the pellets were only available overseas. From scratch, you built the machines and designed the company—starting in your own basement—that is now New England Wood Pellet, the largest manufacturer and distributor of clean, renewable wood pellet fuel in the Northeastern United States. What is it about the “dyslexic brain,” as they say, that enables you to think outside the box more effectively than others?

SW: I think there are two things. First, if you’ve had to struggle a little or if you’re dealt some challenges or if you’re not “normal," especially when you're younger, then you automatically get a different perspective and I think that perspective is extremely helpful. What seems daunting and impossible as a kid going through school, possibly turns out to be the best lesson you’re going to get.

Second, there's neurology and the physics of the brain. Dyslexics do think differently and in my own experience and research, the dyslexic mind in general is lacking in reading. Not always, but often. Some of society’s most pressing issues have been solved by dyslexic brains. There are some true, honest to goodness, neurological differences that make us better at certain things than the majority of other people. Of course, running or starting a business requires you to be the ultimate multi-tasker and synthesizer. We can do that. We have very cluttered files in our brains, which makes it very difficult to organize, but that can work out okay in the end. Think about solving crimes: It’s all these little things that seem completely irrelevant and we’re used to that. We can work with that. We’re constantly being bombarded by things that seem irrelevant so, eventually, we find things we weren’t even looking for…and solve the crime. The military is especially looking for dyslexics for this exact reason.

I know I’m a little jaded because I had such a profoundly tough time in school, so I understand that. I’m only now linking a lot of challenges in my life back to those challenges in school. Dyslexia was not commonly identified then. It was not a familiar term. Kids today aren’t alone, at least. This is where I see that places like Camp Spring Creek are just great. You can get these kids together and they all feel it, it’s a good thing. Everyone’s got their head around it and they’re working together. What you’re doing at camp is probably an exception to the rule, because so many people still get lost in the system and don’t get help. Let’s keep the pressure on people and say that our work isn’t done yet. We need more of this, we need people who really do get it.

CSC: Can you tell us your personal story of embracing dyslexia?

SW: Four or five years ago, if you had asked me if I was dyslexic I wouldn’t have gone there. It reminded me of school and I was done with that. I wasn’t going down that route and I wasn't talking about it. Later on, what changed is that there was an in-depth study by the Kauffman Foundation done on entrepreneurs. They found there was an earth-shattering number of dyslexics who succeeded as entrepreneurs. Then, they wanted to find more people to study from around the world and all kinds of professions. The Kauffman Foundation called and said, “We heard you’re dyslexic,” and I had to stop. The call had to do with my brother, who has a dyslexic child. The Kauffman Foundation was studying my nephew and they got to talking. I met the profile and they placed the call.

I agreed to the study and I got over the shame because they’d already “found me out” anyway. Besides, it was the Kauffman Foundation, which has an incredible reputation. As it turns out, it was life-altering. It led to the HBO documentary Journey Into Dyslexia and numerous speaking events. You name it. It was all very good...but quite frankly, it’d probably be more fun to hang out with you guys at Camp Spring Creek for a week.

Once I learned how screwed up our education system was, there was a lot of anger that came out of that. Anger is a great motivator, unfortunately, but steered in the right way it can do great things. I came out, I talked about it, I told the world. I realized that it was important for kids and other adults to see that and I got fan letters from both. Appropriately, there’s a huge emphasis on kids, but I also think that our whole society would do well knowing that this is in your DNA. It is what it is. You are who you are. It doesn’t go away for adults and so many of them need to hear that, too. People don’t like talking about it. It’s very, very hard. I’ve had to learn to be gentle when I’m talking to people I don’t know very well because you have to treat these things delicately.

At the end of the day, once we get our education system figured out, I don’t think the word “dyslexia” will even be necessary. It’s about recreating how people learn, but ultimately it’s no different than remembering that we’re all physically different. We’re tall, we’re short, we’re fit, we’re not. Our brains are different from one to the next to the next, too. The beauty of all of this is that there’s just so, so, so much that can be done and that’s inspiring. Places like Camp Spring Creek are what need to happen now, until someday in the future we can just make education work for everybody.

Wrightslaw: An Interview with Peter Wright

Pete Wright is an attorney who represents children with special educational needs. In second grade, Pete was diagnosed with learning disabilities including dyslexia, dysgraphia and ADHD. He was fortunate—his learning problems were identified early. His parents obtained intensive Orton-Gillingham remediation for him by Diana Hanbury King. Pete's determination to help children grew out of his own educational experiences. While attending Randolph Macon College, Pete worked in a Juvenile Training School as a houseparent. After graduation with a degree in Psychology, he worked in another Juvenile Training School and ultimately was honored as Virginia's "Juvenile Probation Officer of the Year." During that time, Pete was also attending evening college in a graduate psychology program at Virginia Commonwealth University. In 1977, Pete graduated from T. C. Williams Law School at the University of Richmond. In 1993, Pete successfully represented Shannon Carter, a child with dyslexia, before the U. S. Supreme Court. (510 U.S. 7) This landmark, 9-0 decision, resulted in the Carters, and many parents since, being able to recover the cost of their child’s private, Orton-Gillingham, special education tuition. We were honored to interview him. Camp Spring Creek: It’s been so moving for us to review and share your story over the past week and half with our readers, so let us begin by saying “thank you” on behalf of all parents, children, and advocates in the learning differences field. We’re thrilled that your grandson will be joining us at camp this summer. We know that dyslexia is genetic and that both you and your grandson have been diagnosed with it. Were you the first to recognize this learning difference in your grandson? What do you hope he will gain from Camp Spring Creek?

Pete Wright: No. Both my son and daughter-in-law recognized these issues early on, in part because of knowing my history and my son’s own personal experience with LD in his early elementary years. My grandson’s biggest issue is more dysgraphia than anything. He is very, very bright and yet, because of the dysgraphia, and being so far behind his peers, he feels very inadequate and it’s having an adverse impact on his self-esteem and perception of self. I’m hoping that, as his written language skills improve and increase, the self-esteem and emotional issues that relate to that will dissipate.

I can tell you from my own personal experience and having worked with so many kids since the ‘60’s, that children with dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia, often feel stupid because of their inadequate skills and they get depressed. When that happens, many individuals recommend counseling and therapy. I disagree. I have always taken the position with my clients that we have to teach the youngster how to read, write, spell, and do arithmetic and the self-esteem will improve, the depression will go by the wayside, and things will turn around. Almost always, that has been the case.

CSC: You were diagnosed with dyslexia before it even had an official name in the United States. Now, as a result of your work and Wrightslaw, “dyslexia” is much more of a household word and many parents of children with learning differences now understand that their children have a legal right to equal education opportunities. We’ve come a long way. That said, you’re still hard at work. What do you see as some of today’s greatest remaining challenges in the LD advocacy and legal rights world?

PW: I was actually diagnosed with Strephosymbolia, also known at that time, as Word Blindness. (See my YouTube video about Strephosymbolia and Dr. Orton.) Strephosymbolia was the word used by Dr. Samuel T. Orton on July 25, 1925 when he presented the concept to the American Neurological Society. Strephrosymbolia later became known as dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia.

From a legal perspective the word “dyslexia” has been in the special education statute since 1975 when the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed. (It is now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, i.e., “IDEA 2004.” The last revision was in 2004.) Even though it has been in the law as a part of the definition of a learning disability since 1975, some special educators and school psychologists around the country deny that it exists or assert that it’s a medical issue, not an educational issue, and it’s not covered by the federal special education law. This tells you that they have not looked at either the law or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) which identifies it under “Specific Learning Disorder” subtype, “Impairment in Reading.”

Because of resistance in some school districts, parents have formed Decoding Dyslexia groups nationwide and approached their state legislatures to put the word in the state statute, define it, and also define the nature of services that children with dyslexia are supposed to receive. As a result, a number of states have since passed statutes that define dyslexia and spell out what needs to be done. The definition used by most of these states, word for word, tracks the definition used by the International Dyslexia Association (IDA).

The big challenge will be to change the outdated beliefs of many special education administrators and school psychologists in the bureaucratic sector and also those in the trenches working with the kids—getting them to accept that they do have to teach children with dyslexia the proper way so that the children will learn how to read, write, spell, and do arithmetic. Using talking books, having others read textbooks aloud to the child or having others write for the child,  becomes the focus, that is to provide modifications and accommodations, rather than teaching the critical reading, writing, arithmetic and spelling skills. Sadly, it is often rooted in the belief that, because the child has dyslexia, the child cannot learn how to read or write, spell or do arithmetic. The heavy reliance on modifications and accommodations does not help the child in later years, once they’re out of school and employed.

CSC: Many famous dyslexics have been interviewed about their struggles with early education and have moving stories to share about how they finally moved past their learning differences and were able to see them as learning advantages. Did you experience a similar pivotal turning point in your own education? If so, please tell us about that moment or realization:

PW: In 1952, at the beginning of my second grade year, I was totally illiterate. I could not read, write, spell, or do arithmetic. My parents were told that I was uneducable and that nothing could be done. They were also told that I was mentally retarded and emotionally disturbed. Fortunately a private evaluation identified me as having “Strephosymbolia" and my parents were told to find someone skilled in teaching children using the approach created by Dr. Orton and Anna Gillingham. They found Diana Hanbury King who tutored me, every day, one-on-one, after school, using the Orton-Gillingham approach, for two years. Her goal was to get me two years above my age and grade level. Several years later, when I was in the sixth grade, I was tested and my scores were at the eighth grade level.

The changes in me were slow, over two years, during almost all of the second and third grades. Thus there was not a pivotal turning point, or “eureka” moment or realization. I simply learned how to read, write, spell and do arithmetic, at a level surpassing that of my peers.

Diana Hanbury King is now considered to be one of the top experts in the world. Years after working with me, she founded The Kildonan School in Amenia, NY. Last year my grandson spent several days with her as she worked with him and my daughter-in-law. Since then, every day, he works on the exercises Diana created for him and we have seen great progress. It is hard work for him. I remember my own experiences with her and how hard the work was. She is a task-master and has very high expectations. My grandson has become quite aware that putting in the time and working hard is generating great benefits. As expected, at first he complained, but as he saw his own changes in legibility of the written letters, numbers and words, and increased typing speeds, he has become self-motivated.

On another note, there’s a lot of talk about the gift of dyslexia and that dyslexics think outside the box and I agree. But Diana Hanbury King has a different stint on that and she has absolutely nailed it! In December 2012, she spent several days with me and my wife Pam at our home in Deltaville, VA and I did a YouTube interview of her  in which she discusses her theory. All parents of children with dyslexia need to see it. It will surprise you and you, too, will agree. I won’t give away her theory here. Seeing it is believing.

CSC: There are so many resources online that are helpful, but the Internet can also be a dizzying place for a parent looking into his or her LD child’s educational rights. For a parent just starting out, what top three links can you share to help them understand their rights and options?

PW: In all honesty, there is nothing that is comparable to our website. We have more traffic than the US Department of Education. We have almost 100,000 subscribers to our online newsletter. If you research something related to special education law, so often Google will take you back to our wrightslaw.com website. Between our Wrightslaw: Special Education Law book, our Wrightslaw: From Emotions to Advocacy book, and our Wrightslaw: All About IEPs book, we have sold almost a half million copies. In my Wrightslaw training programs, (about 25 per year), I tell parents that they have to read our From Emotions to Advocacy book three times. The first read is an emotional roller coaster for the parents. The second read they can digest it and highlight and take notes. The third read is the synthesis of the second read and putting it all together.

Wrightslaw: The Orton Connection

Note: This article was originally published in the Winter 1994 issue of Perspectives, the Journal of the Orton Dyslexia Society, now known as the International Dyslexia Association. It is written by Peter W. D. Wright, Attorney at Law, Deltaville, VA  of Wrightslaw and reprinted with permission. For more about Peter, see our previous blog post featuring his educational experiences as a child with dyslexia and ADHA in the 1950's education system and stay tuned for his forthcoming interview on our site. The case of Florence County School District Four v. Shannon Carter was set in motion by four distinguished members of The Orton Dyslexia Association - Helene Dubrow, Diana Hanbury King, Roger Saunders, and Linda Summer. In 1953, Orton member, Diana Hanbury King tutored a severely dysgraphic, dyslexic and hyperkinetic youngster. During the next summer, that eight year old boy attended Helene Dubrow’s camp at the base of Mt. Mansfield, Vermont where he continued to receive intensive Orton-Gillingham remediation from his tutor and counselor, Roger Saunders, another Orton member.

Remediation with Diana King continued through the next academic year. Later, Diana King founded the famous Orton-Gillingham based Kildonan School, which is located in Amenia, New York. Dr. Roger Saunders founded the Jemicy School in Maryland and became one of the most prominent psychologists in the field of dyslexia.

Thirty years later, in 1985, another Orton member, Linda Summer began working with Shannon Carter, a severely depressed fifteen year old. Shannon had been misdiagnosed by the school system as a "slow learner," who was "lazy and unmotivated." Despite an average to above average IQ, Shannon was functionally illiterate. Linda Summer discovered and diagnosed Shannon’s dyslexia. She insisted that Shannon needed a self-contained classroom to remediate her disabilities. The public school refused to provide this and proposed to give Shannon three hours a week of special education. Her parents refused this.

As members of the Orton Dyslexia Society, Mr. and Mrs. Carter attended state and regional conferences. When the school refused to educate Shannon, the parents placed her into Trident Academy, another Orton-Gillingham based program. The parents sought reimbursement for the cost of the tuition at Trident Academy and took their case to court.  Eventually, Pete Wright, a Richmond, Virginia attorney and former pupil of Diana Hanbury King and Roger Saunders, represented Shannon.

Pete Wright argued Shannon’s case before The U. S. Supreme Court on October 6, 1993. Three generations of Orton Dyslexia Society (now known as the International Dyslexia Association) members were present during oral argument. While Pete argued Shannon’s case, Roger Saunders and Shannon Carter watched from the audience. On November 9, 1993, thirty-four days later, the Court issued a unanimous decision on behalf of Shannon Carter and affirmed the decision of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Emory and Elaine Carter sought a more intensive program – and the school refused to provide this, in part because no such program was available in School District Four. After losing both a due process and review hearing, Shannon’s parents took their case to the U. S. District Court where they prevailed. On appeal to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the school system changed tactics. They argued that Trident Academy was not a certified approved school. Dr. Lucia Karnes, a member of the Orton Dyslexia Society, helped to set up Trident Academy. The public school argued that because Trident was not an "approved" school, the parents should not be reimbursed, even though the private school provided Shannon with an appropriate education. The Fourth Circuit upheld the trial court’s decision. In making their argument, Florence County School District Four followed the rationale and the rule of law that existed in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

In that Circuit, a trial judge found that The Kildonan School provided a youngster with an excellent education and that there was not an appropriate education available either within the public school or on the state’s list of approved schools. Because of the prior Second Circuit precedent, the trial judge expressed concerns that he could not rule in favor of the child. The judge said that although the parents obtained an appropriate education for their son, it was not free.

In Carter, the Fourth Circuit took a different position. If the school system defaults on its legal duty to provide the child with an appropriate education and if the parents obtain an appropriate special education for their child, then the child’s education should be free -- regardless of whether the school was on an "approved list." (South Carolina did not have any pre-existing list.) Because of the "split" between the Second Circuit and Fourth Circuit, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the Carter case. School officials hoped that a favorable decision in Carter would reduce the costs of special education.

The U. S. Supreme Court did not agree. They gave short shrift to the "financial catastrophe" arguments raised by the seventeen states and dozens of educational organizations that filed briefs against Shannon. Legal scholars were surprised at the speed with which the Court reached its decision. Carter was considered a stunning victory for parents of handicapped children. The Supreme Court agreed with the trial court that Trident Academy provided Shannon with an excellent education and that the public school program was "woefully inadequate." Children with handicaps are entitled to a continuum of educational alternatives, including self-contained and residential programs. Schools that provide fixed rigid programs directed by staffing convenience are ill-advised to draw lines in the sand, provide inadequate programs, then suggest that parents "take it or leave it." Parents may reject the school’s proposal, secure an education privately, then present the school with a bill and collect in the end.

This was the outcome in Florence County School District Four v. Shannon Carter, a case set in motion by the involvement of four distinguished members of The Orton Dyslexia Society - Helene Dubrow, Diana Hanbury King, Roger Saunders, and Linda Summer. Children with all types handicaps, disabilities, and learning differences benefit from the work of The Orton Dyslexia Society, now called the International Dyslexia Association.

(Note: Click here to see a YouTube video portion of Pete's Keynote at "Decoding Dyslexia Day - Richmond, VA and stay tuned for our next post--an interview with Peter Wright himself.)

Wrightslaw: The Untold Story

Note: Today's blog post is an excerpt from "The Untold Story" written by Peter Wright of Wrightslaw and is the first in a 3-part series exploring the inspiring story of one man's personal experiences with dyslexia, from student to nationally known advocate. We'll follow Peter through his early years all the way to his landmark Supreme Court victory that has made a positive difference for thousands of children that have learning differences. We'll conclude this series with a new interview with Peter himself. Read here and stay tuned! In 1951, my kindergarten teacher told my parents, "Peter does not listen to his teachers, does not respond to school rules and definite directions . . . listening and doing are necessary requisites for first grade." The following year, my first grade teacher said, "He makes most of his numbers backwards . . . I am having a little trouble understanding Peter; he is a nice little boy, but he does not appear at all interested in first grade . . . I know he has a good mind."

Later, teachers said that, "He is fussy, too free with his fists." "I am quite disappointed in Peter . . . He does not pay attention to directions and he has to be spoken to frequently for talking." (Next marking period) "Peter continues to disappoint me . . . He does not do his best at all times because he does not keep his mind on his work and wastes a great deal of time . . . I hope he will try to improve before the closing of the school year as he is a capable boy."

At different times, I was labeled as borderline mentally retarded and emotionally disturbed. During my public school career, I was never viewed as having college potential so I was placed in the general track, where I took touch typing for two years (when it was called typing, not keyboarding).

Who is Pete Wright? For the special educators in the audience, I was one of your children.

From elementary school to the third grade, I reversed not only my spoken speech, pasghetti, for spaghetti, concepts, over under in out, and reading and writings were filled with reversals. I also had what was called "mirror writing".

My teachers told my parents that I could do well if I would only try harder. I had ants in my pants and could not sit still. I was eventually diagnosed as having strephosymbolia and word blindness. These are labels for what we now call Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

I received extensive individual tutoring every day after school in 1953. In 1954 I attended a residential camp. I continued one-on-one tutoring the next year. I was prescribed Dexedrine and took that through elementary and junior high school years as a means to reduce the hyperkinetic behavior.

The tutoring technique used with me in 1953 is what is known today as the Orton-Gillingham multi-sensory, visual auditory, kinesthetic tactile approach to language learning. My tutor was Diana King who later founded the Kildonan School and is referred to in several of the cases that preceded Carter.

I attended Washington D.C. public schools and, by the end of the 11th grade had a strong D+ average. My parents sent me to a small New England prep school with student teacher ratio of 6 to 8 students per class where the professors were aware of my dyslexia.

After graduating from that school, I attended Randolph Macon College in Virginia and worked in Virginia’s juvenile training schools and juvenile courts. At the same time I attended Virginia Commonwealth University and took 30 graduate credit hours in psychology, intending to become a psychologist. I needed a practicum which was hard to do while working full time.

While working as a probation officer, I became involved with the Orton Dyslexia Society and the Association for Children with Learning Disabilities (now LDAA). Many of the youngsters that I worked with in the training schools and juvenile courts had undiagnosed, unremediated learning disabilities. I used educational remediation to reduce delinquent behavior and spoke at the National Conferences of the ACLD and Orton Dyslexia Society about LD and juvenile delinquency in 1974 and 1975.

Later in 1975 I attended Law School and immediately became involved in special education litigation after passing the Bar. By the early 1980’s I was handling a large number of special ed cases and in the Fall of 1984 was a primary speaker at the National Orton Dyslexia Annual Conference which was held in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I held a training session for lawyers and parents about special ed law and actual trial tactics in the litigation of special education cases.

That led to my talking to parents and educators at the North and South Carolina Annual Orton Conference in the spring of 1985 at Wingate College, North Carolina. Shannon Carter’s parents were in the audience. Who is Shannon Carter? Stay tuned for next week's blog post about her landmark Supreme Court case...

Interview: Sara Hines

We are delighted to announce that today’s inspiring individual interview features educator and advocate Sara Hines. Sara grew up in Washington DC and earned a PhD in Special Education from the University of Maryland. She has taught at public and private schools in the DC area, was a professor at Hunter College in Manhattan, and currently serves as the Lower School Head at the McLean School of Maryland. Many students at McLean have learning differences, ADHD, or had school anxiety when they entered. Read more: Camp Spring Creek: As Head of Lower School at McLean School, we’ve read that your personal motto is “Children first!” You’ve been described as “vibrant” and “driven.” What is it about your work on behalf of children with learning differences that fills you up with such inspiration?

Sara Hines: I find students with learning differences incredibly interesting and filled with potential. I think that allowing any student to reach their full potential is a very rewarding and important aspiration. Each child, in my opinion, is unique, and educators are responsible for investigating those unique gifts and qualities to design accessible instruction. Teachers must be creative and flexible in designing instruction.

CSC: Tell us more about the importance of early intervention for children with learning differences. For instance, for the parent who is reticent to have his/her child “singled out,” what advice might be good to keep in mind?

SH: The older the child, the harder it is to remediate in academic as well as social areas. A child with LD in a regular classroom often develops self-esteem issues that are hard to reverse. Also, to compensate for, or pretend that they do not have academic issues, children develop maladaptive approaches that are hard to unlearn. At our school, parents usually tell us that their child “is a different person” after entering McLean.

CSC: What were your own classroom experiences like as a child? Did you struggle in a traditional setting, were you nurtured above and beyond by a particularly gifted teacher, did you cruise right on through, or struggle daily? We’re curious how whatever you experienced as a youth informs the work you do today.

SH: I was a strong student but I usually earned “fair” in effort. I day-dreamed all day and only paid attention when I needed to respond. I never was engaged or motivated in school until I earned my PhD. I believe that I had several learning differences that were undiagnosed because I was able to do well enough in a very traditional, language driven curricula. There were 36 students in my class in Elementary School, so I was able to stay under the radar. It is only through my studies in LD that I realized my very uneven learning profile.

Interview: Van Westervelt

Camp Spring Creek: Please tell us briefly how you become involved with the Learning Assistance Center at Wake Forest University and what your role is there:

Van Westervelt: Sure. I’m in my 16^th year as the Director of the LAC and Disability Services. It has been a great experience here and I am highly engaged in providing academic support services for the undergraduate, graduate and professional school student body as well as disability services for any students who disclose a disability. We serve only Wake Forest students. To understand what we do, our mission statement best represents that. Here’s an excerpt: “…Our purpose is to strike a balance between providing direct assistance for skill building, while facilitating each student’s own discovery process for their individual learning and achievement style in and beyond the classroom…We strive to assist students in receiving accommodations that improve their ability to learn while assisting them to better understand their disability and realize that disability can co-exist with outstanding talents and outcomes.”

CSC: What fueled your interest in psychology and specifically in learning disabilities and dyslexia?

VW: My grandmother, Helene Durbrow, in the mid 1930’s had one son who in the 4^th grade was struggling significantly with reading and getting very frustrated despite being quite bright in other areas.  From her educational connections as a kindergarten teacher, she was referred to Samuel Orton MD, a neurologist at Columbia in NYC, who was working on intervention approaches for children with dyslexia, so she took her son to him for a consultation.  Dr. Orton instructed her in a remediation plan for her son that was based on what is now known as the Orton-Gillingham Multisensory approach.  He responded well and she was so good at applying this methodology that Dr. Orton began referring other students to her and that became her educational specialty.  She received extensive training from Anna Gillingham, Mrs. Orton and Bessie Stillman as she started remedial programs at several private schools including  Sidwell Friends in DC and Phillips Academy in Andover, MA.

Spurred on by encouragement from Dr. Orton and Anna, in 1946 she started a camp in Vermont at the foot of Mt. Mansfield and called it Camp Mansfield.  Dr. Orton and his team realized that his students often lost significant ground over the summer and also the summer could provide an opportunity to focus on specific skills in need of remediation.  Along with the educational focus at times in the day for peak attention, the camp had an array of recreation and outdoor challenge activities.  My mother happened to be the Camp nurse, so from infancy my two brothers and I were able to escape the humidity of Baltimore city each summer and be fully involved in the nature and outdoor activities that Vermont had to offer. Helene took a position at Children’s Hospital in Boston training teachers there and continued to run the camp for 16 years.  I remember the large wooden plaque that had the camp motto carved in it “A Strong Mind in a Strong Body.”  I think that life style and philosophy must have really imprinted on me because first I became a physical therapist and then a child-adolescent psychologist!

Helene recruited a faculty of teachers who would reside at camp or commute from local towns for the whole 8-week session.  One British teacher from the DC area, Diana King, was so impressed with the remedial approach that she learned from my grandmother that she would go on to establish her own school, Kildonan, and summer camp, Dunnabeck, both originally in PA, geared for bright students with dyslexia. My brother, Mark, would also go on to establish camp programs in the Baltimore area and become the Assistant Head of the Jemicy School for dyslexic students in Baltimore.

CSC: Your area of expertise is assessment and intervention. What would you say to a parent who does not have extra time, energy, finances, or community resources…but has a hunch that “something’s up” with their child’s learning style? How can this parent get his or her child what is needed within the family’s means?

VW: I think the first step would be to consult with the child’s teacher and see what his/her current school has to offer as far as assessment and intervention.  A next option, if there is not insurance or funding for a private evaluation, would be to see if a local university has an evaluation clinic for learning difficulties.  For example in our area, UNCG has two clinics, one for LD and the other for ADHD (336-334-5662), that offer evaluations on a sliding scale basis as far as costs.  The testing is carried out by a doctoral student under the supervision of a faculty member.  The assessments are quite thorough and the students from Wake Forest who I have referred there have found the results to be very helpful.

CSC: If you could help dispel one myth or stereotype about children with dyslexia, what would it be and how would you address it?

VW: Some of the early descriptions of difficulties experienced by children with dyslexia focused mainly on letter reversals and writing backwards.  Through multiple research studies we now know the primary core deficit is in “phonemic awareness,” which for children without dyslexia is the rather automatic process involved in learning that words are comprised of particular component sounds that can be related to letters.  Visual process difficulties that may show up as letter reversals can be associated with dyslexia but that is not the primary problem to focus on in remedial efforts.

Parents are sometimes told by well-meaning physicians or teachers  “Oh he’ll grow out of it” but, as my grandmother used to advise, “You will either pay now or pay later!” This I took to mean that it was important to rally your resources early on to address the problem because addressing it later in a student’s life can be more complicated and require greater resources.

Journey Into Dyslexia

We can't recommend this HBO Documentary highly enough. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will change how you think about everything regarding dyslexia--right down to the very word we've chosen to talk about it. According to the film synopsis, "Oscar®-winning filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond...visited innovative programs where dyslexic students learn to read and develop compensatory skills at schools throughout the U.S.  In talking with students from elementary grades to college, as well as teachers, researchers and thriving adults, the Raymonds reveal how dyslexia informs who they are and how they learn or teach, and explore the ways dyslexics develop different skills to navigate a world where standardization is the norm." You can read more here, view the trailer here, and order the DVD here. You won't be sorry! If you live locally, call us--we've got the DVD in our office library!

Interview: Nicole Baker

This week we interviewed inspiring individual Nicole Baker. Nicole has a Master of Arts in Psychology and is also a Specialist in Education with a concentration in Special Education. She’s also a Licensed Psychological Associate. Nicole founded and runs the Academic Assessment Center in Asheville, NC where we frequently refer families. Enjoy her thoughts on educational environments, parent advocacy, and more--including her own experiences being diagnosed with dyslexia. Camp Spring Creek: What is your area of specialty?

Nicole Baker: My specialty is children, reading, education, and implementing interventions within school systems. I assess children with standardized tests, but at the same time I look at their behaviors when performing academic tasks. We talk about school (what is fun, what is hard, what is easy, etc.) and I compile a report with my findings and suggestions for curriculum planning and accommodations. I also consider modifications that I think will be most helpful for the student. When doing this, I like to reference current literature and research and draw upon my individual experience as a learner with dyslexia. I use a multifaceted approach that is individualized to each student and takes into account their needs and applies best practices. In the end, my job is to identify a child’s needs and create a plan for them to succeed academically.

CSC: What are the most common psychological difficulties that children with dyslexia face and why do you suppose that is the case?

NB: I believe that ALL preschool and kindergarten education programs should be multisensory and developed around the Montessori/multisensory methodology of education. It is my belief that this type of education will do two things. First, it will help with early identification of students with learning differences. Second, it will help kids that may not be 100% LD make the early gains necessary to not go down the LD path. Strong, early multisensory education that is peace-centered and based in imaginary/play while also fostering independent learning ultimately builds the strong, early skills needed to form an exceptional backbone for future learning.  Quality early childhood education is ESSENTIAL.

I also find that, in most cases, learning differences are being identified too late. I often get students in my office at the 3^rd and 4^th grade levels that are just being flagged as struggling in the classroom. Parents will often say that they asked teachers early at the kindergarten or 1^st grade level, and they were told “it is too early to tell; you need to wait.” This is incorrect!

CSC: Recognizing that you respect the confidentiality of your clients, is it possible for you to tell us in general/anonymous terms about a particular moment of "ah-hah" or realization that you had with a child in your practice? What did you learn in that moment and what corner do you think the child turned?

NB: I work with a lot of high school and college age kids who are frustrated that their LD (dyslexia, ADHD, Executive Dysfunction, etc.) makes learning “hard.” I tell kids all the time: “Life is hard, but worth the work.” I think we are setting kids up for failure by letting them believe life is going to be easy or by protecting them from failure. I tell clients that my failures and struggles as an undiagnosed dyslexic have made me a tough, hard, worker who will almost never give up. If you want something bad enough, then it is worth working for. Beat the challenge and see how good it feels. I know better than anyone how hard your struggle feels, but if you find the one thing that you are passionate about (in my case psychology, reading, children) I call it a “hook,” then you can read higher than your reading level, comprehend better than any of these tests say, and “beat the odds” because that’s what LD kids do. We/dyslexic kids are great at thinking outside of the box and making things happen. Find your “hook” and make it happen!

CSC: If you could give one message to parents and educators of children with dyslexia, what would that message be?

NB: I would say to surround your children with books, music, art, and love. Turn off the darn TV and put down the cell phone (advice I should follow myself). All of these things will make he/she well-rounded, develop their vocabulary and experiential knowledge, and give them a sense of peace and well-being. Reading to your children and exposing them to books and print increases print awareness, love of reading, and general reading skills. Homes and schools filled with books, poetry, music, and art are fun, peaceful places where children can learn and grow happily.

Also, follow your parental intuition. If you feel early on in your child’s development that there is an issue or a need that your child has, listen to your gut and pursue answers. Further, pursue multiple opinions and work with people you are comfortable with and that you trust. If an answer, report, or finding from an expert feels wrong or off and doesn’t reflect what you honestly see in your child on a day-to-day basis, then dig deeper. Always be your child’s biggest advocate!

Interview: Nancy Burleson

Camp Spring Creek is delighted to welcome Nancy Burleson to our Board. Nancy brings decades of educational and literacy experience to the Board, not to mention an affinity for Western North Carolina. Camp Spring Creek: Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Nancy Burleson: I grew up in Spruce Pine, NC and have lived here all my life, with the exception of the four years I spent in college at UNC-Greenboro. I am a retired teacher with thirty years of experience in the Mitchell County School System. During that time, I spent most of my career in the fourth and fifth grades. For the last six years, I served as the Reading Coordinator for the county and worked in all of the schools. I have enjoyed being a part of the community and currently serve on the boards of the Spruce Pine Public Library, Spruce Pine Montessori School, and the Foundation Board of Blue Ridge Regional Hospital, in addition to that of Camp Spring Creek.

CSC: Can you share an early education memory of your own with our readers?

NB: I was fortunate to grow up in a home where education, and reading in particular, were valued and encouraged by my parents. I had a great uncle who lived with us when I was a child who read to me constantly. My mother told me that he enjoyed the experience so much himself that he would often read to me until he had no voice left. My parents were also avid readers, and I am sure their example had an early impact on my love for books.

CSC: What inspired you to volunteer for the Camp Spring Creek board?

NB: I am very interested in the mission and the entire experience of Camp Spring Creek. I have always had a passion for the importance of reading, especially in the early years, and feel that success in reading is necessary for success in school and in life. By meeting the needs of struggling readers, Camp Spring Creek is preparing children for success in both.

CSC: What part of the Camp Spring Creek mission or experience do you find most inspiring or important?

NB: I believe that the most inspiring and most important part of Camp Spring Creek is their genuine concern for education of the whole child in a rewarding and fun-filled experience. The desire of the directors to connect with the public schools is also commendable. Their commitment to the constant improvement of every area of their camp is truly inspirational.

Interview: Ben Foss

In our next installment of interviews with Inspiring People, Ben Foss talks to us about shame, empowerment, and some of the tools and organizations that are most successful in their help for children with dyslexia today.

Ben Foss is a prominent entrepreneur and activist and the founder of Headstrong Nation, a not-for-profit organization serving the dyslexic community. Foss graduated from Wesleyan University and earned a JD/MBA from Stanford Law and Business Schools. He invented the Intel Reader, a mobile device that takes photos of text and recites it aloud on the spot. Ben is a co-founder of Integration Ventures, a venture capital firm that is looking to invest in dyslexic entrepreneurs. He has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fox Business News, ABC, CNN, HBO, and the BBC. Represented by the Random House Speakers Bureau, he regularly speaks to Fortune 500 companies, public policy organizations, and colleges and universities across the country.

Camp Spring Creek: We're a fan of your work because of your book, The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan, but the truth is that you've also completed many other successful projects in various fields. Can you briefly tell our audience about the Intel Reader you invented?

Ben Foss: I invented the Intel Reader in 2006. Eventually, I received five U.S. Patents for my initial idea of a device that would take a photograph of any printed material and read aloud on the spot. The device began shipping in 2009 and was the first consumer product in 7 years from Intel. It is still in the marketplace today. It is currently sold by Care Innovations, an Intel and GE focused healthcare company.

CSC: As founder of the Headstrong Nation, which believes that "dyslexia is not a disease, it is a community," what do you see as the single-most significant struggle facing children with dyslexia today? By contrast, what is a struggle that, because of organizations like Camp Spring Creek and Headstrong Nation, many children with dyslexia don't have to face anymore?

BF: The central issue for all dyslexics is shame. Kids are told they are unworthy in the first, second, and third grade if they cannot read or spell with ease. There are three types of reading: eye reading, ear reading, and finger reading. Mainstream people read with their eyes, blind people read with their fingers, and dyslexics read with their ears, listening to text very fast. There are really telling videos of that experience right here.

Shame makes you feel as though you are a bad person just for being who you are, not what you did. To get rid of shame, someone needs to understand that they are not broken and that they have strengths and weaknesses. A truly successful and resilient person learns how to play to their strengths and compensate for weaknesses.

The big change in dyslexia is that there are now public role models that people can look up to. These role models come from organizations teaching that dyslexia is not a disease and, in fact, is your ticket to enter a fabulous community. Camp Spring Creek does this in spades.

CSC: Please describe a turning point or moving experience you've had in your life as an adult advocate for people with dyslexia. Perhaps you remember the first time you saw a child with dyslexia using the Intel Reader. Maybe an audience member approached you at a book-signing event and shared a moving, personal story with you. Whatever the case, when did you most recently find yourself moved beyond words, feeling satisfied that true change and positive advocacy for dyslexics had been accomplished?

BF: One of my favorite stories about the Intel Reader involves a young man of nine years old who came to me and told me that he used the Intel Reader on the instructions for the board game Risk. After hearing the instructions out loud, he figured out that his friends had been cheating! That is what advocacy and independence look like. Having access to learning on your own terms and using it to something that you do enjoy.

CSC: Is there a book, organization, leader, or artist in the field of education advocacy or dyslexia studies, etc. that you wish more people knew about? If so, please share your recommendation with us!

BF: Eye to Eye is a  great organization. It is wonderful because it is led by people who are dyslexic and offers mentoring between college kids who are dyslexic and elementary school kids with dyslexia. When I see “dyslexia,” I mean dyscalculia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, and ADHD. Everybody is in the club!