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Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Episode 56: Secondary Success: Addressing Dyslexia in Older Students
In this episode of the Compass PD Podcast, Dr. Stephanie Brenner and Dr. Natalie Fallert dive into the challenges of dyslexia in the secondary classroom. They discuss the importance of recognizing signs, the impact of late diagnosis, and practical strategies that empower educators to support struggling students. Whether you're a teacher, administrator, or district leader, this conversation offers valuable insights to enhance learning outcomes for students with dyslexia.
Hello and welcome to the Compass PD podcast, where we dive into evidence-based practices and research-driven strategies that empower educators and leaders to make a lasting impact. That empower educators and leaders to make a lasting impact.
Speaker 2:I'm Dr Stephanie Brenner and I'm Dr Natalie Fowlert, and today we are exploring the topic of dyslexia in the secondary classroom, Whether you're a teacher, administrator or district leader, our goal today is to provide you with insights and tools that help you navigate the complexities of education and inspire student success.
Speaker 2:October is Dyslexia Awareness Month and at Compass PD, we have dedicated a majority of our blogs and podcasts to digging into dyslexia from a variety of perspectives. In my experience, there is less of a focus on both the students and teachers of grades 6 through 12 around the topic of dyslexia in most spaces, so today we will focus on the impacts dyslexia has on older students, specifically grades 6 through 12.
Speaker 1:Today's format is going to be a little different. Stephanie and I plan to just pat through this topic. For those of you who are new, I am a secondary ELA teacher by trade and then I worked as a secondary literacy coordinator, so I'll be posing a few questions that I have literally asked myself or have been asked, as a secondary educator, from both parents and teachers.
Speaker 2:And I am a former elementary teacher and literacy coach with an in-depth knowledge and passion for dyslexia. I'll be answering Natalie's questions. Many of them she has actually asked me because of her natural curiosity.
Speaker 1:So even before doing this podcast, I called her and I'm like I just want to chat through this Because I have a lot of even misconceptions about dyslexia at that secondary level and I just wanted to see if she understood my thought process and that I didn't come off sounding kind of crazy. But from the secondary educator perspective, most questions or confusions are around. Aren't kids already identified by the time that they are in secondary classes? Stephanie is going to touch on the benefits of a late diagnosis, and we're also going to talk about strategies that will help dyslexic students, in particular in secondary classroom settings.
Speaker 1:So when I think about most students I have worked with at the secondary level, they come into you with a history. Either they have an IEP or a 504 or there's some type of history or data from standardized tests that indicate that the child is struggling in a particular area. Now, this latter part about that data is only helpful if it's automatically disseminated to all teachers. In a lot of cases, that probably isn't happening, and so it might take a few weeks or months of a student sitting in your classroom before you notice this systemic struggle. So, stephanie, can you share some insights as to why symptoms might suddenly manifest at the secondary level?
Speaker 2:Natalie, you're absolutely right. Unfortunately, I don't have a definitive answer for you, but what I can say is that what I believe to be true in most cases is that students in elementary were provided a lot of supports, accommodations and even a lot of interventions by teachers, and those kiddos may have just been barely hanging on and succeeding because of that help. Then they're thrust into a setting where they have seven different teachers and the teachers don't know them as well and many of the things that the students relied on are gone or they're minimized to communicate about all the various supports and accommodations that they are giving individual, they are individually giving students and that those students are relying on. So that's one thing, and then you add into that that content and independence expectations grow significantly. So all of the strategies and coping mechanisms that they once had no longer work and we start to see their performance decline. Occasionally, anxiety and frustration levels will rise as well.
Speaker 1:So I think that that's very true, because at that secondary setting a lot of times what happens is I might notice something in my classroom, but until it's you know either a care team or a counselor is involved, you aren't coming together to talk about those kids. And so when we talk about missed opportunities of instruction, we could be looking at a half of a year or even a full year before that communication starts happening. And so that is. I think it's a part of the system, it's not a teacher's fault. That's that question. Why is this all of a sudden manifesting? And that might be it.
Speaker 1:One of the things I also heard you talk about was that anxiety and frustration levels, and I think that sometimes at that secondary level, by the time they get to us, because we assume that they've been diagnosed, we just automatically assume that it's a will versus skill, Like we'll just say no, they're lazy, they're. You know, it's a 15 year old high school boy and he's worried about getting his driver's license or these type of things. So we we push it off on that behavior side instead of acknowledging that there actually might be an undiagnosed deficit that is sitting there and that's how it's manifested, that it was fine until a certain point. But once that independence and content changed, they got seven different teachers, or eight different teachers, whatever that looks like, and everything is getting harder for them. That I think it's something for teachers to have on the forefront that it's not always behavior related.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that the idea of of it's laziness or they're not trying hard is really one of the top remaining myths around dyslexia. So often when we're talking about dyslexic students, they are trying their best and they're often trying harder than others without the same results, and that happens for years and years and years. So you might start seeing in the secondary setting that they do shut down or they do have some lazy types of behaviors, but that comes after years of not being seen, acknowledged and helped and teachers just assuming that they can't or that they're being lazy, instead of digging deeper into. Do they really have a skill deficit?
Speaker 1:Or they because they're undiagnosed and it doesn't fall under like a 504 IP. They might even just internalize that, as I'm stupid and I can't do it, and it makes me think of that book fish in a tree. If you haven't read it, it's a little bit of it's like a fifth, sixth grade book, but it's great for educators because it puts insight into a little girl's brain who is struggling through this and she doesn't know what's wrong with her. You know we we kind of were talking here about that undiagnosis aspect and that you know we have a lot of students who haven't been diagnosed by the sec by the time they're in the secondary setting. What does that kind of look like?
Speaker 1:I know that I was a literacy coordinator in the state of Missouri when they instituted a law that came out that said we had to do screenings and interventions and this caused a huge influx in teachers, especially at that secondary level, and parents, because now parents are like every parent's, like my kid's dyslexic. That's what's going on. What does that look like? How? It was hard to navigate then, and I still think that it is hard to navigate because schools really can't diagnose you with this, and so can you give some insight on that, right?
Speaker 2:So schools can't diagnose in most situations because they do not have staff, who they employ, that are certified to administer all of the necessary assessments. To provide that official dyslexia diagnosis, a team of people can look at different data points and identify the characteristics of dyslexia in a student and with high probability, entrained people can say most likely there is dyslexia at play, but we can't officially diagnose this. However, we're going to get into it a little bit later. That doesn't mean we're not going to do anything Like. We still have that responsibility to intervene and provide supports, no matter if there's a diagnosis or not.
Speaker 1:So and I think that that's important to like mention that, whether a kid is diagnosed with anything like if they're struggling in your class, you have an ethical responsibility to intervene and figure out ways for that child to be successful. But you know, specifically with an actual diagnosis which, what are the benefits of even getting that diagnosis?
Speaker 2:Right. So at the secondary stage of the game, some of the things that come to my mind most are that there's going to be increased communication among the team of teachers around the students' strengths and needs. That's guaranteed and where before we were talking that communication among those seven or eight teachers might not happen with a little more haphazard.
Speaker 2:Right. This would be a systematic way of making sure that communication happens. We would also see that there's definite instruction on strategies for skills and filling in instructional gaps. But also we start thinking about the secondary level strategies for self-advocacy. Another thing that I really my mind goes to first are that when kids are in the secondary setting, we're starting to prep them for those big college placement assessments and in order for them to receive accommodations on those assessments, they need some kind of documentation or diagnosis that there is, there has been a history of a struggle and that those accommodations address that. Then also, when they are outside of our school, then they move on to college. Receiving accommodations in that setting can be easier. And then, finally, I think one of the biggest things is that there's a reassurance that comes for those students who've been struggling for so long that there's something to blame besides themselves. They're not stupid, there is something else going on and that diagnosis can provide that reassurance.
Speaker 1:You know, you kind of talked a little bit about those strategies and those accommodations and that's going to kind of get us to our third piece and that is that like there are specific strategies that work better with students with dyslexia and we can like, as secondary educators, I can say, well, I do stuff in my classroom all the time, like I help kids, but some of the approaches are a little bit different.
Speaker 2:And when thinking about dyslexic students, and they're good approaches with any kid students and they're good approaches with any kid, but specifically for dyslexia, yes, there are some definite high leverage instructional strategies that we would most likely consider first for dyslexic students, but there are strategies that they are strategies that are good for every kid but they're just essential for our dyslexic kids.
Speaker 1:When we think about what that appropriate instruction looks like for kids. When I was doing this work, I realized that I had to learn a little bit more about it, and I don't have a fraction of what you know in this, but what I did learn is that they have to have, like, multisensory there's a multisensory approach to this, and so, like, when I think about that as a secondary educator, I go to like Howard Gardner's multiple levels of intelligence you know, kinesthetic learners, music learners or I think about Tomlinson's differentiation. But that is not what this is, and so I want, like this is where our high school teachers really need to say you want me to do what? Right, exactly.
Speaker 2:So to like take out all the fluff of what is multisensory instruction really, it just means that as many of our senses as possible are engaged in interacting with content. To help make it sticky in our brain so that things actually get to long-term memory as quickly as possible is really the nitty gritty of it.
Speaker 1:I think about, like, what could this look like in a high school classroom, and I know that you're going to give some suggestions. I know that when I saw this in really elementary like they were using shaving cream and sand and all these things and I got high school teachers doing like glitter. So that would be crazy, right, but there are still things that you can do that if you don't want to whip out the shaving cream even though shaving cream can be fun.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly. And there I mean, even if some of these things that I'm going to offer sound ridiculous or if you think it's silly, it might be, but you have to trust that it actually is working for the students. So get over that hump of I'm going to look ridiculous in front of the kids or these kids aren't going to do this. The kids who need it are going to do it. I promise, and that's the important part when I think of secondary teachers, the easiest place to start is most likely vocabulary instruction and so multisensory learning. For that, if I'm introducing a new vocabulary word, kids need to see the word, they need to say the word like literally, they repeat it. You can also have kids clap the word, the syllables in the word or individual sounds, and that's really just about getting all the sounds in the correct order imprinted into the brain. So clapping it and saying it are the two of the like.
Speaker 2:You're getting those senses engaged, having kids write the word physically instead of they just see it on the board and they might say it. They need to be engaged with doing the writing of it and engaging talk, so you can have a student work with a partner. Then they can tell the meanings of the words or tell the meaning of the word parts like the prefixes and suffixes. And I know Natalie's like that's a whole nother discussion. Don't even get me going on that. And I know Natalie's like that's a whole nother discussion. Don't even get me going on that, and it is a whole nother discussion. Talk is an important way to incorporate some multisensory instruction and also kids can create visible representations of the word so they can draw it or use manipulatives of some sort to create it. Some other simple things that I keep that I'm going to mention and I can't say this enough is that talking with a partner because if I can't say it then I can't write it and that that's a really important thing to keep in mind for our dyslexic kids.
Speaker 1:But if kids can, ask a question about that, like I think about sometimes a kid can't get something written on paper. So, like we, if I think about this dyslexic kid, do kids, do dyslexic kids and all kids have this problem. But do dyslexic kids have this problem of like, I can tell you all day long what I want to put on the paper, but I can't transfer it down there. And so I think about that sometimes that I'll just look at a kid I'm like, just talk to me, just tell me what it is, and I might even type it for them while they're telling me.
Speaker 1:I'm like, look, this came up, all came out of your brain.
Speaker 2:I just typed it. Yes, exactly, or so the idea. Getting things on paper is more challenging. So often they need the extra processing time also, and that talking with a partner before having to write it, or talking with a partner before needing to give that explanation out in front of peers with a partner, gives that processing time so they can gather their thoughts and get it in order.
Speaker 2:Some other things that you might think of and this is where Natalie's like there's no way they're going to be tapping and touching things, stephanie. But like tapping literally tapping across the fingers or counting off, gives another like multi-sensory thing. So if they're telling the steps or the process of something they need to like touch it, like first you do this, second you do this, third you do this, or if it's they're doing the order of events, that can be helpful is like just counting across your fingers or telling it across your fingers. That touch part is helpful, providing manipulatives for them to hold, move or experiment with. We know that tech is great for a lot of things not going to lie, and even for dyslexic kids it can provide a lot of accommodations. However, they need that tactile experience and so something in their hands to do or making their body move in some kind of way to act out a scene or act out a process or a series of events are some ways to have that multi-sensory learning in the secondary setting.
Speaker 1:So I know one thing that we both are really big on is readers and writers, notebooks, and we will like take notes. But our notes might be very visual, they might be pictures, so I'm even thinking of that. But you know, sometimes in a secondary classroom we might tell kids that they have to take notes a particular way, and it's like giving kids the opportunity to explore multiple ways to take notes and showing sketchbooking or sketch notes that type of thing.
Speaker 2:Mind maps are another really great way to use, a different way for note taking taking.
Speaker 1:So I think that we could spend lots of time going through like you throwing out an elementary like approach, in a sense, and me tying it to what that would look like in a secondary classroom, and then you either telling me no, that doesn't. It doesn't look like that. But we can probably do an entire segment on this, and we know that we need to wrap some things up, and so we think about the things that we talked about today. We looked a little bit at those myths that high school, middle school teachers kind of come in with kids and they're undiagnosed struggling readers. We talked about the benefits of actually getting a diagnosis at a later age and then, finally, some of those strategies which are amazing. So thank you for your insight on that.
Speaker 2:I really do hope that those insights help you navigate your educational journey more clearly and confidently. If you are interested in growing your knowledge about dyslexia even more, you are definitely in luck. All throughout this month, myself and others have been discussing this topic in podcasts and blogs. Just last week, Dr Evans published a blog titled Empowering Teachers to Support Students with Dyscalculia. Some people might say dyscalculia, but I learned it's dyscalculia there because there's a really strong connection between that and dyslexia.
Speaker 1:So be sure to check that out and if you just need an empathetic shoulder, you can always confide in me, because I don't have near the knowledge or experience on this topic that Dr Brenner does, but I do have years of experience working with undiagnosed high school kids and struggling readers. I can listen and share stories with the best of them and then possibly help you find resources that can help you by reaching out to others that I know.
Speaker 2:Please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences. We'd love to hear from you so that together we can continue to grow as educators and leaders. If you found today's episode valuable, consider sharing it with a colleague who might benefit from this message. On next week's podcast, Dr Hepburn and Dr Wharton will be shifting the discussion back to dyscalculia and they will be talking specifically about subitizing, and if you're not a math person, you're probably wondering what in the world is that? And don't worry, Natalie and I did too.
Speaker 1:We want to thank you for joining us on the Compass PD podcast and podcast and remember, at Compass PD, we believe that every educator has the power to inspire, change and transform student learning. Stay focused, stay inspired and keep making a difference. Thank you so much, stephanie, for chatting with me on this topic, and I'm always inspired and enlightened by your knowledge on this topic.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you. I'm always inspired by you or your, your curiosity and always wanting to ask questions and know more. So thank you.
Speaker 1:Have a great day.
Speaker 2:Bye.