Don M. Winn's Blog, page 11

Could Batman and Bottled Lightning Help Your Struggling Reader?

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In a world that demands instant gratification, it can be a
real challenge to teach kids the kind of perseverance that will allow them to
keep problem solving, keep analyzing, keep moving forward, and keep believing
in themselves and their abilities even when the going gets tough. The word
perseverance itself hints at a story, a growth arc. A related word, persistence,
is when people keep trying something—even if it doesn’t appear to be working—without
changing their approach to it. Another related word, tenacity, is when people
keep trying something, but when it doesn’t work, they try different approaches.
Perseverance is a combination of the two with the added dimension of allowing people
to continue their efforts without regard to discouragement, previous failure,
or opposition. There’s an element of real passion in perseverance, and passion
is always related to emotion and belief. More on this in a bit.

I recently read a study that made me wonder if helping a child
develop a more robust self-concept (self-concept is the answer to the question Who
am I as a person?) could help build perseverance, especially when it comes to
dyslexic or struggling readers. Dyslexic kids don’t have to spend very many
days in school to notice that there’s something very different about how their
brain works. When they reach this realization, it’s alarming and deeply
unsettling, even frightening for them. The longer a dyslexic child goes without
diagnosis or accommodations, the greater the difficulty that child has when it
comes to developing or maintaining a healthy self-concept. Helping a child
build a mindset focused on perseverance under those conditions is difficult but
not impossible. And while the study we’ll consider was not done on dyslexic
children, and has nothing to do with dyslexia per se, the data seems to be
applicable to any child facing a daunting task.

The 2017 study from the University of Minnesota is entitled,
“The Batman Effect: Improving Perseverance in Young Children.” The study’s focused
on something called self-distancing and its impact on perseverance.
Self-distancing is the term for taking an outsider’s view of one’s situation. The
researchers conducting the study tested 180 four- and six-year-olds by putting
a toy in a locked glass box and offering the kids a set of keys. But here’s the
thing: none of the keys worked. The researchers wanted to see how long the kids
would keep trying to open the box and how creatively they would do so. The
researchers offered the kids strategies. They could take a break whenever they
wanted and play a very enticing video game, or they could pretend they were either
Dora the Explorer or Batman. They even offered the children capes to help with
the illusion. The findings? The kids who pretended to be Batman or Dora worked
the longest and demonstrated the lowest levels of frustration. They were
calmer. One four-year-old said, “Batman never gets frustrated.” The kids who
met the challenge as themselves were less creative, got impatient and
flustered, and gave up quickly in order to play video games.

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What does this demonstrate? That identity and self-concept—the
way children see themselves—is a powerful tool that can be used when
encountering obstacles.

Richard Wiseman, author of The As If Principle, delves
deeply into similar research done on adult test subjects. His conclusion? “The
notion of behavior causing emotion suggests that people should be able to
create any feeling they desire by simply acting as if they are experiencing
that emotion. Or as William James famously put it, ‘If you want a quality, act
as if you already have it.’ I refer to this simple but powerful proposition as
the As If principle.” William James referred to the power of that idea as
“bottled lightning” and used this technique throughout his life as an
energizing force.

It’s an interesting conundrum that emotion cuts both ways;
when one encounters obstacles, one can feel negative emotion like frustration,
impatience, despair, or discouragement. Often, that may be the first type of
response one notices in themselves, especially if they have dyslexia or another
processing issue. But people always have a choice, and when they notice they
are reacting with a negative response or expectation they can choose to reach
instead for that bottled lightning. Positive emotion has a power all its own. The
alter ego, the best part of the self, the part with the cape that never gets
frustrated, is just a thought away. The character of Batman is motivated by passion,
dedication, and the belief that he can and must make a difference—these
emotions are what fuel his perseverance. When your child encounters troubles
with his or her reading difficulty, what if you ask, “What would Batman do?” Then
see what happens when the cape comes out.

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Cardboard Box Adventures Picture Books are
great for shared reading and can help parents establish a strong pre-literacy
foundation for their children. Check out the new CBA
2018/2019 Full Color Catalog for a full list of award-winning picture
books, chapter books, and resources for parents and educators.

Reference Link: https://experts.umn.edu/en/publications/the-batman-effect-improving-perseverance-in-young-children

Constructive Living with Dyslexia

Way back in 1984, before many of my readers were even born, David K. Reynolds published a short book. This 120-page gem goes by the title, Constructive Living: Outgrow Shyness, Depression, Fear, Stress, Grief, Chronic Pain. Achieve the Goal of Constructive Living—to Do Everything Well. The title is a bit of a mouthful, but it speaks to so many of the issues those of us with dyslexia face that it lit up my brain with possibilities as Reynolds encouraged his readers to become Artists of Living. Because although we can’t “outgrow” dyslexia, we can learn to live with it more peacefully and effectively, and this book offered some helpful hints along those lines.

Constructive Living is based on the truth that although we can’t
control our feelings, we can control our behaviors. Reynolds states, “Our
behavior is controllable in a way that our feelings are not. There is a very
special satisfaction for the Artist of Living who works within life’s limits to
produce a fine self-portrait. The more control we develop over our actions, the
more chance we have of producing a self we can be proud of.” Strong feelings
are part of the accouterments of dyslexia. But they don’t have to define us or
control us. No matter what we may be feeling, we always have the ability to
choose our next action.

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The first goal Reynolds suggests is self-mastery. “The mature
human being goes about doing what needs to be done regardless of whether that
person feels great or terrible. Knowing that you are the kind of person with
that kind of self-control brings all the satisfaction and self-confidence you
will ever need. Even on days when the satisfaction and confidence just aren’t
there, you can get the job done anyway.” Those of us with dyslexia have to accept
the fact that everything we do related to reading, writing, learning, and in
many cases, mathematics and sequencing will take a big chunk of time and
tremendous mental energy. And that’s ok—it’s our reality. We show up for it. I
think in many ways, this is one of the strengths of our “disability,” because from
a very young age, we have to begin to develop tenacity and a certain stolid
forbearance of our burden.

There’s more. “The first step in changing reality is to
recognize it as it is now. There is no need to wish it were otherwise. It
simply is. Pleasant or not, it is. Then comes behavior that acts on the present
reality. Behavior can change what is. We may have visions of what will be. We
cannot (and need not) prevent these dreams. But the visions won’t change the
future. Action—in the present—changes the future. A trip of ten thousand miles
starts out with one step, not with a fantasy about travel.” This ability to
recognize reality as it is now, and accept it as the truth it is, has been one
of the responses to my dyslexia that has given me the most peace. In talking
with others with dyslexia, they have found the same to be true for themselves.
Nothing has changed about the tremendous effort required to live as a dyslexic,
but accepting that truth frees up so much energy for action that it fosters a
real sense of liberation. There’s a freedom in accepting reality, whether it is
dyslexia or some other limitation. And it’s well-documented that we dyslexics,
no matter the degree of our sensory involvement or challenge, can become better
readers with time and effort. Action, over time, is a powerful thing. Even baby
steps are steps and yield measurable results.

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Toward that end, (measurable results, a.k.a. Constructive Living)
Reynolds makes the powerful statement “feelings follow behavior.” So although
feelings can’t be controlled by our will (we’re gonna keep having ‘em), we can
influence them in positive directions by taking action. By practicing behaviors
that align with our highest selves, we generate confidence and satisfaction,
because we know when we are showing up as the best version of ourselves. One
tool Reynolds offers toward this goal is to remember that the earth is not the
center of the universe, and neither are we. It’s easy to become overly
self-focused when struggling with dyslexia: the shame of feeling inadequate,
the efforts to hide our dysfunction from others, the mental fatigue resulting
from the level of effort required to do things, and feelings of injustice can
consume our emotional energy. But when we remember that we aren’t the center of
the universe, we have a healthy perspective once again. After all, everyone
struggles with something—everyone, without exception. We all face times of
pain, sadness, anxiety, fear, or anger. Feelings are like waves at the
seashore, constantly rolling in and rolling out, day in and day out. But what
are we going to do about those feelings?

Reynolds proposes a brilliant and powerful question, “Now what
needs to be done?” I love that. Feeling punk? Ok, but now what needs to be
done? Feeling a bit overwhelmed or anxious? Fair enough, but now what needs to
be done? Frustrated about something? That stinks, but it’s the reality of the
moment, so now what needs to be done? Once that very next action has been
identified, the universe is calling us to get on with the action. The Nike
moment: just do it. And watch what happens. “Behavior wags the tail of
feelings…We do, then we feel.”

Reynolds’ summary inspires, “Constructive Living offers a
lifestyle of worth and dignity. But this mastery of life grows slowly,
painfully, and only with effort. It requires attention, patience,
self-discipline, honesty. It asks you to face your feelings, pleasant or
unpleasant, to check out your purposes, large and small, to guide your own
behavior, whatever the pain, in constructive directions. It advises you that
when you fail, in that strain toward impeccability, that the suffering self is
lost and a triumphant self is gained.”

The obstacle is the way, folks. Here’s to our mutual triumph
over dyslexia’s challenges and all else that seems to threaten our joy and
peace. Because now something needs to be done. It’s time to become Artists of
Living, one baby step at a time.

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Cardboard Box Adventures Picture Books are
great for shared reading and can help parents establish a strong pre-literacy
foundation for their children. Check out the new CBA
2018/2019 Full Color Catalog for a full list of award-winning picture
books, chapter books, and resources for parents and educators.

Mr. Rogers On Love, Acceptance, and Overcoming Despair

Fred Rogers created 900 episodes during the thirty years his
show, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, was on the air. He wrote the story, the
dialog, and the songs to every single episode. He was a man on a mission. It is
a fair statement to say that this man had a personal ministry: to let each
child know that “I like you just the way you are,” and to let each child know
that “you are special.” His book, You Are Special: Words of Wisdom for All
Ages from a Beloved Neighbor is a compilation of his songs, newspaper
columns, speeches, books, and his television program.

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He writes, “I care deeply about communication, about words—what
we say and what we hear. While our television communication might look simple
to some, it really isn’t. Children are not simple, and neither are adults. I’ve
always given a great deal of thought to how I present ideas during our
television visits and I’m always fascinated to hear how people have used what
we have said. Often they’ve used our ideas in creative, productive ways I had
never dreamed they could be used. So may it be with the words in this book.
Once you’ve read them and made them your own, may they find a place in the
innermost part of you—in that essential part of you that inspires you to be who
you really are.”

There is so much beautiful wisdom in this book, wisdom which can enrich anyone’s life, but which will be an especially soothing balm to the abraded psyche of the dyslexic child and his or her parents. Rogers wrestled with perfectionism, despair, painful emotions, and doubts about his abilities to do work that would make a real difference for people. The lessons he learned as he worked through these issues uplift and inspire. And happily for us, he shares freely and with a generous and open heart. Enjoy!

Ever wondered what your job in life is? I know I have. Rogers
shed his light on this universal issue. “As human beings, our job in life is to
help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each
of us has something that no one else has—or ever will have—something inside us
that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover
that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.” To encourage
means to “GIVE someone courage,” to inspire hope, courage, and confidence
within a person. What a beautiful mission for each parent to embrace as they
dialog with and interact with their child daily. But Fred Rogers points out an
all-important prerequisite. “When we love a person, we accept him or her
exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong along with the fearful,
the true mixed with the facade, and of course, the only way we can do it is by
accepting ourselves that way.” How’s your perfectly imperfect self-acceptance
these days? I invite you to drop into the safety and warmth of your own
embrace. Safety and love are your birthright, and they come from within the
self first.

When Rogers stated that “there is no normal life that is free
of pain. It’s the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for
our growth,” I couldn’t help thinking about what an asset this point of view is
for the dyslexic. The obstacle is the way. Looking at dyslexia through this
lens dignifies our struggle and suffering, don’t you think? What would change
in your child’s life if he could be helped to believe this about his own
struggle?

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The value of being a living example to our children is
discussed in the chapter on discipline. Rogers writes, “that chores have to be
done before play; that patient persistence is often the only road to mastery;
that anger can be expressed though words and nondestructive activities; that
promises are intended to be kept; that cleanliness and good eating habits are
aspects of self-esteem; that compassion is an attribute to be prized—all these
are lessons children can learn far more readily through the living example of
their parents than they ever can through formal instruction.” His description
of discipline is nothing short of mind-blowing: “Discipline is the gift of
responsible love.” As someone who grew up with autocratic, draconian rules and
little warmth, this definition made my heart swell with warm feelings of
gratitude.

The chapter on creativity and play delved into his struggles
with perfectionism and self-doubt. He writes, “I’ve often hesitated in
beginning a project because I’ve thought, ‘It’ll never turn out to be even
remotely like the good idea I have as I start.’ I could just feel how good it
could be. But I decided that, for the present, I would create the best way I
know how and accept the ambiguities.” It’s difficult to imagine warm, fuzzy,
Mr. Rogers all wrapped in his cuddly sweater saying the following words, but
say them he did. In a memo he typed, (referred to in his documentary, Won’t
You Be My Neighbor?) he wrote, “Am I kidding myself that I’m able to write
a script again? Am I really just whistling Dixie? I wonder. If I don’t get down
to it I’ll never really know. Why can’t I trust myself? Really that’s what it’s
all about…that and not wanting to go through the agony of creation. AFTER ALL
THESE YEARS IT’S JUST AS BAD AS EVER. I wonder if every creative artist goes
through the tortures of the damned trying to create? Oh well, the hour cometh
and now IS when I’ve got to do it. GET TO IT, FRED. GET TO IT….But don’t let
anybody ever tell anybody else that it was easy. It wasn’t.” What a beautiful
example of the way each of us has the ability to move through our despair or
other barriers and create something meaningful. And what a beautiful attribute
to model for our children! With my own dyslexia, which is just as bad as ever,
as it will always be for every dyslexic, these words resonated with quiet
strength. How can we help the next generation of dyslexics learn to just “get
to it”? Model it for them. Rogers states, “Strengthen the parent, and you
strengthen the child.” Kinda sounds like the purpose of all my blogs!

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Regarding education, Fred Rogers comments that “as far as I’m
concerned, this is the essence of education: to facilitate a person’s learning,
to help that person become more in tune with his or her own resources so that
he or she can use whatever is offered more fully.” This statement goes
beautifully with one he has framed on his wall, “The greatest gift one can give
to another is a deeper understanding of life and their ability to love and
believe in the self.” His grasp of the main impediment to that belief in self
is succinctly put with these words, “I’d like to be able to let children know
that they are not alone with their feelings—that there are other people and
other children who have those kinds of feelings…the same fears and the same
joys—to let them know there is an adult who cares.”

Amen. May we all be a safe place in the storm of life to the
struggling readers in our lives.

Link to book: https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Special-Beloved-Neighbor/dp/0140235140

Cardboard Box Adventures Picture Books are
great for shared reading and can help parents establish a strong pre-literacy
foundation for their children. Check out the new CBA
2018/2019 Full Color Catalog for a full list of award-winning picture
books, chapter books, and resources for parents and educators.

Daily Rituals–Are You Tapping into their Power?

Have you ever struggled to find a balance between doing
meaningful creative work and earning a living? Do you feel like there aren’t
enough hours in the day? Is it necessary to give things up to make time for all
the things you wish to accomplish? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you and
your kids face these issues. I know I do.

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In my own case, as a human with dyslexia, these questions are especially personal ones, because as I’ve mentioned before, dyslexia is a thief of time. For example, it takes me approximately ten times longer than your average person to read something and writing anything takes me even longer. Yet both of these activities are incredibly important to me and part of the fabric of who I am, so I do my best to make them a priority. Of course there’s plenty of room for improvement, so I’m always on the lookout for life hacks which can streamline the process, nurture precious energy and willpower reserves, or offer fresh perspectives on ways to get things done.

All of which leads us to today’s topic: a powerful book by
Mason Currey called Daily Rituals, How
Artists Work. Currey takes a novel approach: he examined the mundane
routines and rituals of 161 of the world’s most creative, prolific, or seminal
individuals to learn how they did the work that was important to them. Did they
sleep less, forego housework or laundry, sacrifice income, or did they do as
Currey’s dad always enjoined him to do, “work smarter, not harder?” Currey
strove to answer the question, “are comfort and creativity incompatible, or is
the opposite true: Is finding a basic level of daily comfort a prerequisite for
sustained creative work?”

In short, this book offers much inspiration that will serve
the needs of anyone striving for balance, but especially for a dyslexic adult
or a parent of a dyslexic child. Here’s the thing: the power of ritual can be
harnessed at any age, and the younger one can do so, the better. To be clear,
this isn’t a “how-to” manual, but rather offers real-life examples of what
worked well for others as they confronted the same challenges you and I face.

Currey states, “The book’s title is Daily Rituals, but my focus in writing it was really people’s
routines. The word connotes ordinariness and even a lack of thought; to follow
routine is to be on autopilot. But one’s daily routine is also a choice, or a
whole series of choices. In the right hands, it can be a finely calibrated
mechanism for taking advantage of limited resources: time (the most limited
resource of all), as well as willpower, self-discipline, optimism. A solid
routine fosters a well-worn groove for one’s mental energies and helps stave
off the tyranny of moods. William James, one of the subjects of this book, said
we can “free our minds to advance to really interesting fields of action,” by
forming good habits.

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Willpower is now known to be a very finite resource. All of us
can suffer from what researchers call decision
fatigue. If you or someone you love has dyslexia, willpower must be husbanded
even more carefully, because everything we do around reading, writing, and sometimes
math, isn’t automatic and requires much more effort. As quoted in the book,
William James offered another nugget of wisdom that spoke to me, “the great
thing in education is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our
enemy.” The nervous system of a dyslexic is an already strained-to-the-max
mechanism (voice of experience here), so the idea of making my nervous system
my ally instead of my Achilles heel was an especially powerful reframe for me.
What a great motivator for embracing more routine and structure!

The more things in our life that we can make the purview of
automaticity, the more the higher powers of the mind will be freed up to do our
best work.

Another quote, this one from composer George Gershwin, who
said that if he waited for the muse, he would compose at most three songs per
year. It was better to work every day, because “like a pugilist, the songwriter
must always keep in training.”

Author John Updike’s words contribute to this wisdom, he remarks
that he is careful to give at least three hours a day to the writing project at
hand, otherwise “there was a risk he might forget what it’s about. A solid
routine saves you from giving up.”

The last words of the book are, “Eventually, everyone learns
his or her own best way. The real mystery is to crack you.”

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This book is an invitation to observe how we each work best,
how we are inclined to structure our lives, and to optimize those routines and
make them as automatic as possible. Do we have a schedule, or is life a
chaotic, seat-of-the-pants affair? How much time is spent on email, surfing the
web, or scrolling through social media? Are there family routines and rituals
in place? Family dinners together, complete with conversation, a time and place
for homework, nightly bedtime stories together? Limiting screen time is especially
important for the well-being and productivity of our children, and even more
crucial for those with dyslexia. And they won’t have the discipline to do so
unless parents help them establish other rituals in using their time.

Currey proposes four potential approaches and invites us to
discover which works best for us. (And by extension, our kids.) Currey first
describes the bimodal strategy:
alternating between fully plugged-in and completely checked-out. The monastic model is one in which you have
simplified your life to the point that you have minimal distractions and can
live in your best work mode all day. The rhythmic
approach is a daily structure of a consistent time every day when you do your
best work, without distraction. Finally, the journalistic approach is one in which you snatch any time to do
your work whenever and wherever you can (think new mom here). Whichever one
resonates with you, or whichever combination seems to be a good fit, I’d love
to hear how you embrace the power of rituals in your life, and how they are
helping empower your child as well!

Cardboard Box Adventures Picture Books are
great for shared reading and can help parents establish a strong pre-literacy
foundation for their children. Check out the new CBA
2018/2019 Full Color Catalog for a full list of award-winning picture
books, chapter books, and resources for parents and educators.

How Many Legs Does a Dog Have?

Abraham Lincoln once jokingly asked, “How many legs does a dog
have if you call the tail a leg?” His answer? “Four. Calling the tail a leg
doesn’t make it a leg.” Lincoln’s quote does a great job of humorously
highlighting the human tendency to argue with our own reality. As a human being
with dyslexia, I’ve often wished things were different. That I could read or
write faster, with less effort. That I could remember sequences (directions,
grocery lists, to-do-lists). That my brain’s “buffer” didn’t fill up so fast
and require so much time to clear. I’d hazard a guess that I’m not the only one
who sometimes wishes their reality was different. How about you? Anything in
your life feeling like it shouldn’t be a certain way right now? Welcome to the
human race! If you are a parent of a struggling reader, your feelings on behalf
of your offspring can be particularly difficult and intense at times. No one
wants to see their child be frustrated, to see them feel defeated by the
learning process, to witness them feeling broken.

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But wishing things were different or feeling like things in
our lives should or shouldn’t be a certain way is not the best use of our time
and energy. In fact, those feelings are actually at the heart of human misery.
How so? Let’s take a page out of Byron Katie’s classic book, Loving What Is. Katie states, “The only
time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is.” Every
time we argue with what is—with reality—we will suffer. Katie likens dwelling
on the desire for our reality to be different to be just as fruitful a use of
precious time and energy as trying to teach a cat to bark! Her observation
about her own life is summed up in this pithy quote, “When I argue with reality I lose—but only 100% of the time.” For you,
for me, for our respective families, what is happening is what is happening. It
is my reality, and yours, our respective life stories. The way to make a
difference in our outlook is based on how we choose to narrate that story. The
good news is we can learn to become better narrators.

Katie opines, “Every story is a variation on a single theme:
This shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t be having this experience. God is
unjust. Life is unfair.” What this (non)coping technique boils down to, in
essence, is that humans tend to believe that the only way we can have peace or
be happy is when everything in life is perfect—no struggles, zero frustrations,
no traffic, no computer/internet glitches, and above all else, nobody being “stupid”
around us. Is that cat barking yet? Didn’t think so.

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The thought-provoking question that comes next in this
powerful book really spotlights the positive impact of changing our belief. “Who
would I be if I didn’t believe this lie?” Katie calls these skewed beliefs “lies”
because they are at odds with reality, or in effect, these beliefs are lying to
us. Katie invites readers to slow down whenever they feel stressed and notice
that the root of their suffering is that they are projecting their story of
what should be onto the reality of what is.

If you’d like to see what it feels like to turn this suffering
around, consider the process Katie calls The Work. The Work is the following
rhyme: “Judge your neighbor, write it down, ask four questions, turn it around.”
What are the four questions?

Is it true?Can I absolutely know that it is true?How do I react when I think that thought?Who would I be without that thought?

And then, turn it around.

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Let’s try one together. Let’s say, for example, that I’m
frustrated about my child’s school situation.

“This teacher is a complete jerk! She never does what she says
she’s going to do, and it makes things even harder for my kid!”

Is it
true that the teacher is a complete jerk? Yes! She’s frustrating
the living daylights outta me!Can I
absolutely know that it’s true? Well, no, if I’m being fair, she
has made herself available for meetings and brainstorming sessions. And she
answers my emails.How do I
react when I think that thought? It makes me angry. I also feel
afraid that my child won’t ever get what he needs, and therefore doesn’t have
as much chance to meet his potential and be successful. When I think like that,
I’m not pleasant to be around, and the fallout affects the whole family, and
even my relationship with the teacher.Who would
I be without that thought? I would have more peace and focus instead on
coming up with a plan for things I can do at home to help support my child
through his struggle. I would also be better able to communicate with the
school system so we can all be on the same page.

See how that turns a difficult situation around? Now I can
focus on taking positive actions that will actually improve the situation,
rather than just being frustrated that I have to deal with someone who doesn’t
live up to my expectations. When I accept and embrace my own reality, I am free
to move forward to whatever comes next. And as we master this skill as adults,
we can model it for the next generation. Could anything be more helpful to a
child who is a struggling reader than learning to accept where they are at the
moment, and then move boldly forward to what comes next? Sounds like a great
plan to me.

Cardboard Box Adventures Picture Books are great
for shared reading and can help parents establish a strong pre-literacy
foundation for their children. Check out the new CBA
2018/2019 Full Color Catalog for a full list of award-winning picture
books, chapter books, and resources for parents and educators.

The Four Degrees of Action for Dyslexia and for Life

If you’ve never heard of Grant Cardone, settle in. This will
be worth your time. His book, The 10X
Rule, the Only Difference Between Success and Failure invites readers to
adjust their thinking about what is possible, and then create a level of action
to match. He states, “You must set targets that are 10 times what you think you
want and then do 10 times what you think it will take to accomplish those targets.
Massive thoughts must be followed by massive actions.” He continues, “You never
do what others do. You must be willing to do what they won’t do—and even take
actions that you might deem ‘unreasonable.’”

These passages made me ponder their application to the
dyslexic life and mind-set. If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you’ll
be familiar with my illustration that having dyslexia is like having a dial-up
modem brain in a high-speed internet world. You spend a lot of time buffering. The
buffer fills up quickly and needs to be cleared before you can move on to the
next task.

Because of the limitations of the full-buffer effect of
dyslexia and the time requirements needed to clear that buffer during/between
tasks, I have felt in the past that it wasn’t realistic for me to have the same
types of dreams as folks who don’t have this issue. And in working with
dyslexic students, I’ve discovered that this is not a unique belief—most struggling
young readers can’t imagine a life where they would ever look forward to
reading and writing, or even consider seeking a line of work where written
words play a pivotal role.

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But what if they did? What if parents and educators supported
a change of belief in these students such that they discovered that they have
things to say, things the world needs to hear, and that they get to hone that
message as they learn to read, write, and communicate well? Instead of just
doing enough to get by, passing or failing their way through school, what if
excellence was the goal?

Enter the Four Degrees of Action. Cardone continues, “Exactly
how much action is necessary to create success? Not surprisingly, everyone is
looking for the secret shortcut—and equally unsurprising is the following fact:
There are no shortcuts. The more action you take, the better your chances of
getting a break. Disciplined, consistent, and persistent action is more of a
determining factor in the creation of success than any other combination of
things.”

Cardone says most people fail because they are operating at
the wrong degree of action.

There are four choices:

Do nothingRetreatTake normal levels of actionTake massive action

It’s important to note that humans tend to take more action in
areas where they have the most innate ability and the least struggle, while
doing nothing or retreating from tasks where we struggle or suffer. This certainly
plays out demonstrably in school and in life; you or your child may enjoy
stunning results in one area, while not doing as well in others. But here’s the
thing: once we believe that we can make something happen, and then work in
“disciplined, consistent, persistent fashion with massive action,” we can
increase our results—and our success! Even with dyslexia!

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Goals are the next topic of focus. If you’re like most people,
you may think about goals once a year. Students often don’t consider goals until
they’re near graduation! Cardone suggests writing down meaningful goals every
single day, with a view to stretching ourselves just outside our comfort zone.
Here’s a powerful question that sets the tone, “Ask yourself whether the goals
you have set are equal to your potential.” Most dyslexic students demonstrate
well above average intelligence, and yet they feel stupid or less gifted than
their peers because of their struggle to read and write. It’s our job as the
adults in their lives to remind them of the things they do well—their tenacity,
their discipline, the way they show up every day for school even though it is
difficult, and their work ethic, and that these very abilities and qualities
will allow them to succeed. People who are vulnerable and overwhelmed often
need to borrow another’s confidence in them until they can relax enough to
believe in themselves.

Starving fear of its favorite food is the next powerful concept. Anyone with dyslexia will be intimately acquainted with performance anxiety. Knowing that there’s a written test, an essay, lots of reading, or other labor-intensive tasks coming up is enough to cause physical symptoms of distress. So much energy goes into this existential dread that there’s literally nothing left with which to exert ourselves academically.

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Cardone states, “I handle this dilemma (fear) myself by omitting time from the equation—since that is what drives fear. The more time you devote to the object of your apprehension, the stronger it becomes. So starve the fear of its favorite food by removing time from the equation.” How can we translate this principle to the dyslexic student? Teach them that the moment they start to feel that fear, apprehension, and reluctance kick in, that’s their trigger to start. Begin. Jump in to the task at hand. Starve the fear, and instead choose to use their energy to get their work done, to practice, to hone their skills. The best time to take massive action is that very moment. Instead of trying to avoid fear, pain, or discomfort, we need to learn to lean into it. We get to model this skill for the young people in our life, and both generations benefit.

So here’s to helping ourselves and our kids to set massive
goals, pursue massive actions, starve our fears, and reach untapped potential!

Cardboard Box Adventures Picture Books are great for shared reading and can help parents establish a strong pre-literacy foundation for their children. Check out the new CBA 2018/2019 Full Color Catalog for a full list of award-winning picture books, chapter books, and resources for parents and educators.

Adolescent and Adult Dyslexia Diagnosis Survival Tips

Normally around here I tend to focus my energies and
strategies by writing about helping children at as young an age as possible to understand
and manage their learning differences. But countless thousands of individuals with
dyslexia were never diagnosed or accommodated in their younger years. That
includes middle schoolers, high schoolers, college age students and adults.
What can be done for them? For the rest of us?

Read on.

Your
Brain at Work, a book by David Rock, offers many helpful
strategies for optimizing brain function that translate well for dyslexics. It
features a creative approach: it is written as a play, featuring a husband and
wife as they traverse their workday. Each scene plays out twice, once
sub-optimally, and secondly with optimal brain principles at work. In addition,
the brain is represented as a stage on which the performance of life takes
place. There is a director for this play, and we learn how important a strong
directorial presence is in “overcoming distraction, regaining focus, and
working smarter all day long.”

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This book highlights the fact that tiny changes in how we
approach our work (and our struggles to do so) can make a huge difference in
life. And although this book is not specifically written for people with
dyslexia, it contains many useful brain management strategies for all of us,
including dyslexics. These strategies certainly won’t make dyslexia go away,
but every single thing we can do to free up bandwidth in the brain will help.

The first scene of the play features Emily starting her day as
many of us do: checking email. Within minutes, she gets embroiled in all the
attention-hungry scenarios of that world and becomes so depleted that she
cannot prioritize her day. The re-take features Emily embracing the fact that
her attention and focus are finite resources, and taking charge of how she
wants to use them. In a word, prioritizing first. The compound effect of that
“mundane, unsexy, unexciting, and sometimes difficult daily discipline” changes
her life. Prioritize first, then do the
most important task, before you get sucked into the email/Facebook/Instagram
vortex. Rock adds, “Learning to say no to tasks that are not among your
priorities is difficult but very helpful.”

One of our biggest brain drains is staying constantly plugged
in to texting and email and social media. We see this in scene three, which explores
the science of “dual-task interference,” aka multitasking. Interestingly, in a
University of London study, researchers measured the reduction in mental
capacity caused by constant texting and emailing: astonishingly they found that
it caused an average drop in IQ points of up to 15 percent! That’s three times higher
than the effect of smoking cannabis! (Not suggesting that either!) How ironic
that what so many of us think of as productivity tools can actually—if not
carefully used with good judgement—make us into a virtual stoner. Hardly the
place from which to do our most productive work.

In this section of the book, the author introduces us to the
term allostatic load, which is a
measure of stress hormones and other factors relating to a sense of threat. Too
much of an allostatic load leads to a “constant and intense mental exhaustion.”
And too much texting and emailing greatly increases our allostatic load.

I invite those of you with dyslexia, which requires so much additional
effort to get things done, to ask yourselves, “Do I really need one more reason
to feel constant and intense mental exhaustion?” If not, how about unplugging
on a regular basis? In connection with this, Rock observes, “The surprise
result of always being on is not only its negative effect on mental
performance, but it also tends to increase the total number of emails you get.
People notice you respond to issues quickly, so they send you more issues to
respond to.”

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Now we get to the intermission of the play and meet the director.
The director makes sure the show is a success by constantly monitoring the
performances, doing re-writes when called for, and staying true to the message.
The neuroscientist’s definition of our director is mindfulness. Rock quotes
scientist Daniel Siegel, “With the acquisition of a stabilized and refined
focus on the mind itself, previously undifferentiated pathways of firing become detectable and then accessible to
modification. In this way we can use the focus of the mind to change the
function and ultimately the structure of the brain.” In other words, we can
learn to make choices about where we direct our attention.

Here’s the thing: by understanding your brain, you increase
your capacity to notice your experience, whether it’s the high dopamine level
of a novel experience, the small attention bandwidth of your stage, or the
fatigue of struggling to read or write. We can’t change what we can’t see, and
we need the big-picture perspective of our internal director to intervene when
necessary and help us make tiny shifts that lead to big gains in productivity.

How? Practice, practice, practice noticing your own experiences.
Rock emphasizes the importance of minimizing unmet expectations, since these
generate a stronger threat response. He states, “with any brain function, the
important thing is firstly to minimize threat. Only once you have minimized
threat can you focus on increasing possible rewards.” Threat, a.k.a. emotional
arousal, is a constant in a dyslexic’s life: we always feel pressed for time
and wonder if we’ll be able to meet deadlines and other expectations with our
current bandwidth. What tool can we use for this scenario?

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Enter reappraisal. Reappraisal
is the term for emotional regulation that we can access as we choose how to
interpret a life event. Something happens, and we instantly jump into fight or
flight, worst-case-scenario land. Our brain goes down the rabbit hole of, “Oh,
no! I’m struggling (or failing) again! I can’t ever do anything right! This is
so unfair—it sucks!” OR, we can allow our director to notice that we are
feeling fear, but then change our interpretation of that emotion. Maybe we just
need a break from that task. Maybe we didn’t rest well last night. Maybe our
blood sugar is low. Maybe we didn’t prioritize that morning, and so have let
unnecessary tasks gobble up our bandwidth. None of these is terminal. We just
need to re-set, respond appropriately, and move forward. Rock cites the
scientific definition of reappraisal: it’s the switch from a limbic dominance
(that panicky, reactionary, powerless victim-mode part of the brain) to our
highest self that lives in our prefrontal cortex, the part that says, “Ok, this
is hard, but what do I need to do next?” Rock calls reappraisal the killer app
for our well-being and performance.

What if this skill were taught in school right alongside the
basics? What if every parent could model it for their kids? Methinks a lot
would change.

In short, I found a lot of useful tips in this book that
helped me re-think some things I experience, and hopefully these notes will
help you or the dyslexic in your life do the same.

Cardboard Box Adventures Picture Books are great for shared reading and can help parents establish a strong pre-literacy foundation for their children. Check out the new CBA 2018/2019 Full Color Catalog for a full list of award-winning picture books, chapter books, and resources for parents and educators.

Dyslexia and Grit: What You Need to Know Now

Those of us with dyslexia know (as do parents and teachers of dyslexics) that one of the frequent hallmarks of dyslexia is that accomplishing anything requires sustained levels of intensive effort with slower-than-usual-appearing results. As I’ve discussed before (see my archived blogs on dyslexia) some of the greatest frustrations with this condition revolve around the extreme levels of effort required to perform seemingly simple tasks. If you are dyslexic, or love someone who is, how can you help yourself or that special someone keep doggedly showing up for your (their) best life? Enter grit.

What is grit, anyway? Angela Duckworth, author of the book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,
defines it this way: the combination of
intense passion plus intense perseverance toward a long-term goal that matters
to you. As the cover of her book states, “Psychologists have spent decades
searching for the secret of success, but Duckworth is the one who found it.” In
her study and analysis of what makes high achievers so remarkable, she
observes, “Even if some of the things they had to do were boring, or
frustrating, or even painful, they wouldn’t dream of giving up. Their passion
was enduring.”

Boring. Frustrating. Painful.

Sure sounds like the fabric of life with dyslexia to me.

[image error]Are you teaching your children to have grit?

Let’s read on: “In sum, the highly successful had a kind of
ferocious determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars
were unusually resilient and hardworking.  Second, they knew in a very, very deep way what
it was they wanted. They not only had determination, they had direction. In a
word, they had grit.”

Duckworth defines the psychology of achievement thus:

Talent × Effort = Skill

Skill × Effort = Achievement

Skill is how your talent improves when you invest effort.
Achievement is when you take your acquired skills and use them repeatedly. Duckworth
also states, “Talent—how fast we can improve a skill—absolutely matters. But
effort factors into the calculation twice, not once. Effort builds skill. At
the very same time, effort makes skill productive.”

This was one of the passages of the book that resonated with
me the most, because an effortful life is something I really relate to as a
dyslexic. In other words, it takes greater-than-normal effort to develop skill
and eventually achievement with dyslexia because reading and writing never
become automatic, and everything always, always, always takes much more time
than I want it to. Accepting this reality, even learning to embrace it, is part
of our growth as human beings and is one of the key coping skills to teach our
young ones who are just starting to get to know their learning challenge.

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Duckworth then describes four psychological assets we can
cultivate (and help our kids cultivate) to get the grit on.

Interest



Practice



Purpose



Hope

Interest: If our
passion is to prove sustainable, it needs to be deeply meaningful to us. We
need to get fired up about it. There may be aspects of it that are a little
less interesting, engaging, or glamorous, but we need to have “an enduring
fascination and childlike curiosity” about our pursuit. In raising readers, one
of our biggest opportunities is creating
a love of story, and another is reading books to your child that
offer heroes
of self-reference. These two tools can make all the difference in
helping struggling readers develop a passion for reading.

Practice:
Duckworth refers to Anders Ericsson’s research on deliberate practice to show
that one key aspect of grit and its attendant perseverance is the ability to
show up every single day with a winning attitude. “Whatever it takes, I want to
improve!” Are you reading to your child every day, no matter what?

Purpose: This
aspect means seeing that our work matters in the world. Bringing our best self
to the table every day, and seeing how that impacts others in a positive way,
is key to sustaining long-term effort. Duckworth states, “In my grit lexicon,
purpose means ‘the intention to contribute to the well-being of others.’”

Hope:
Duckworth says that hope defines every single stage of grit. It lives in the
unshakeable knowledge that we have the ability to achieve what we set out to do
when we keep showing up. Are we assisting our struggling readers to build hope
in themselves by demonstrating that we believe in them?

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Duckworth quotes author James Baldwin, “Children have never
been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to
imitate them.” We can each ask ourselves how well we are demonstrating grit for
the tender, impressionable youth in our lives. In the Duckworth household, they
have what she calls “The Hard Thing Rule.” Everyone in the family picks
something challenging that they’re committed to mastering. And then they work
on it every day. No quitting allowed.

She states, “Grit depends on a different kind of hope. It
rests on the expectation that our own efforts can improve our future. ‘I have a
feeling tomorrow will be better’ is different from ‘I resolve to make tomorrow
better.’ The hope that gritty people have has nothing to do with luck and
everything to do with getting up again,” after a failure, struggle, or fall.

Duckworth quotes an old Japanese saying, “Fall seven, rise
eight” to encapsulate what grit looks like in practice. May we all rise one
more time, and teach our children this invaluable trait.

Cardboard
Box Adventures Picture Books are great for shared reading and can help parents
establish a strong pre-literacy foundation for their children. Check out the
new CBA 2018/2019
Full Color Catalog for a
full list of award-winning picture books, chapter books, and resources for parents
and educators.

When Reading is Hard

Author Kate Di Camillo said, “Reading should not be presented
to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious
gift.” I couldn’t agree more. But the sad truth is that millions of children
view reading as a chore (and avoid it as much as possible) because of learning
difficulties like dyslexia. In fact, countless children can’t conceive of a
world in which they could ever be a reader, let alone a good reader who
actually runs toward books rather than away from them.

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March is Reading Awareness Month, and is therefore the perfect
time to consider why we should all be concerned about the reading crisis taking
place in every school, neighborhood, and community. And it’s time to get
curious about what can be done differently to help raise the next generation of
readers.

As I’ve discussed before (See blog: Helping
All Kids Learn to Read) children have a small window of time during
which they learn to read, after which they must be able to read well with good
comprehension in order to continue to learn. When that window isn’t optimized
due to an unsuspected learning challenge, the child undergoes tremendous stress
and anxiety, falling farther and farther behind their peers, and often develops
a negative self-concept that can seem almost impossible to redirect.

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Ellen Langer, author of The
Power of Mindful Learning, states, “When faced with something that hasn’t
been done before, people frequently express the belief that it can’t be done.
All progress, of course, depends on questioning that belief.” This belief
certainly occurs in a struggling reader: I
can’t read now, so therefore I never can.

One of psychology’s most effective tools to change this
mindset is called reframing. We can learn to use this tool at any age. When
facing a challenge, rather than distract ourselves with screen time, video
games, junk food, or other unwholesome excesses, we can ask ourselves (or our
child): Can anything good come from this experience? What lessons can I/you
learn from this that will help in the future? What advantages come with this
challenge? What opportunities come with this challenge? These techniques can
make all the difference; Langer writes, “The rigid mindsets we hold about ourselves
affect our performance.” The same holds true even in childhood, perhaps even
more so, since beliefs formed during our tender years often haunt our
subconscious mind and limit our ability to tap into our potential.

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Langer’s earlier book Mindfulness
shares her research that simply describing an activity as “play” rather than “work”
results in a higher level of enjoyment. Could this fact be used to help
struggling readers? Absolutely! Communicating differently about reading is an
important part of supporting struggling readers. (See blog: Helping
the At-Risk Reader by Fostering the Love of Story)

But how to encourage a struggling reader to persevere? We can
gain a clue from another set of wise words. Rollo May, author of The Courage to Create wrote, “Courage is
not the opposite of despair. We shall often be faced with despair as indeed
every sensitive person has been…it is, rather the capacity to move ahead in
spite of despair.” So it’s important to acknowledge
the despair and other difficult emotion associated with the struggle to
read, and to teach the child that every
time they practice, they are showing courage, and that we are proud of them
for that courage and effort!

We can also support them by believing in their ability to
learn to read well with comprehension. Communicate that belief to them. Read
with them daily, at any age (!), to help them see that great stories are teaching
us the most important thing: how to live. It will be time well-spent.

Cardboard
Box Adventures Picture Books are great for shared reading and can help parents
establish a strong pre-literacy foundation for their children. Check out the
new CBA 2018/2019
Full Color Catalog for a
full list of award-winning picture books, chapter books, and resources for
parents and educators.





e

A Trip in Time: Exploring the Great Frontier, the Western Railroads

According to the excellent reference book, West Texas, A History of the Giant Side of
the State, at the end of the nineteenth century, the federal government
classified any county with fewer than two persons per square mile as “frontier.”
Astonishingly, more than a few counties in north and west Texas still (!)
qualify as a frontier by that standard. My wife and I recently spent a few days
driving through a handful of the vast spaces in the western part of the state,
and it was a literal trip through time in many ways.

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First, the mundane: unbeknownst to us, although our cell phone
carrier purports to offer the largest network in the lower forty-eight, and
serves us well in all the urban areas to which we’ve ever traveled, they
obviously haven’t heard of west Texas. For the first time since the late 1980s,
we were without coverage. That also means no navigation—out came the paper
maps! And asking people for directions and dining recommendations. It was quite
a window into how much we’ve come to rely on these handy devices.

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Second, the vastness of the west part of Texas must be
experienced to be believed. Literally, hundreds upon hundreds of miles of road have
a 75-mph speed limit due to the extreme isolation and lack of traffic, and they
stretch as far as the eye can see, often without even a mailbox to hint at a
human presence. The Texas Forts Trail is a 650-mile loop through a region that
encompasses the 44 major forts and over 100 camps set up by the federal
government between 1848 and 1900, as well as republic-era forts and Spanish
Presidios that predate the former by up to 100 years. Much of the area along
the trail allows a glimpse of life as it was generations ago, wild, isolated,
untamed.

The natural progression of westward growth went something like this: folks from the East or overseas sought their fortunes in the remote areas of the country, taking what they wanted, coming up against the Native Americans who resented their intrusion. Enter the soldier, who was entrusted to build fortifications on the advancing frontier. As the forts grew and became established, little towns sprung up around these bastions of protection, and as the demand for supplies grew, the railroads came along and laid track to connect these far-flung outposts to the rest of civilization.

The Homestead Act of 1862 offered 160 acres of land to anyone who would pay ten dollars, live on the land for five years, and care for and improve the land. By 1872, under the Pacific Railroad Act, Congress had awarded the railroads over 170 million acres in land grants, largely to facilitate the railway connection of the East Coast and the West Coast.

[image error]A map of the Kansas City Mexico and Orient Railway original route leading through San Angelo.

Railroads represented a monumental undertaking, cutting through the wilderness of the West with nothing but hand tools, strong backs, and a dream of conquering the distances that separated people from their dreams, and entrepreneurs from their desire for wealth and power. The railroad companies had heretofore unheard-of power: they literally made or broke towns as they decided which path or route would be their next stop. They also encouraged immigration by offering free transportation to the West and offering loans that could be repaid through the sale of crops grown on one’s own 160-acre homestead. To illustrate, Fort McKavett, discussed in my previous blog, once home to several thousand individuals, did not get selected for a rail stop. It’s now a ghost town.

San Angelo, Texas, however, was originally the home of another fort in the Texas fortification endeavor, Fort Concho, and although the Fort only existed from 1867-1889, the town that sprang to life across the river was selected first by the Santa Fe Railway System and roughly twenty years later by the Kansas City, Mexico, and Orient Railway as a stop on the way to a deep-water port in western Mexico on the Pacific Ocean, through which it could ship goods to the Orient. For anyone who’s counting, San Angelo now boasts over 100,000 residents. What a difference a rail-stop made in this and many another town!

[image error]A timeline of the Kansas City, Mexico, and Orient Railway of Texas (KCM&O) and Santa Fe Railway System. First circled date is in 1888 when the Santa Fe Railway arrived in San Angelo. The second circled date is when the first scheduled train on the KCM&O line arrived in San Angelo.

Reference:

https://www.historynet.com/westward-expansion

Cardboard
Box Adventures Picture Books are great for shared reading and help to establish
a strong pre-literacy foundation. Check out the CBA 2018/2019
Full Color Catalog for a
full list of award-winning picture books, chapter books, and resources for
parents and educators.