W.A.R. Podcast Russell Van Brocklen Dyslexia Truth Every Parent Needs to Hear

W.A.R. Podcast Russell Van Brocklen Dyslexia Truth Parents Must Hear About Learning Struggles

Russell Van Brocklen reveals the truth about dyslexia that most schools get wrong. In this powerful W.A.R. Podcast episode, Stryker sits down with the Dyslexia Professor to break down why so many children struggle with reading, why traditional education systems fail dyslexic learners, and how parents can finally help their child build real confidence.

This conversation goes deeper than academics. It exposes the emotional impact of learning struggles, the damage caused by the “wait and see” approach, and the breakthrough power of structured literacy. If your child feels frustrated, overwhelmed, or stuck, this episode gives you clarity, direction, and hope.

Russell explains how dyslexic learners are not broken but wired differently, and how the right strategy can unlock their full potential. Parents will walk away with practical insights, real solutions, and a new understanding of how to support their child’s growth.

Welcome to W.A.R. This is where we talk about the battles people do not see.

It’s W.A.R. We’re All Recovering.

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#dyslexia #parenting #education #learningdisabilities #structuredliteracy #specialeducation #readinghelp #confidence #kidslearning #warpodcast #stryker #wereallrecovering #childdevelopment #educationmatters

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

So let's go to the science. This is the top science book of anything to do with dyslexia. It's called Overcoming Dyslexia. This happens to be the second edition by Dr. Sally Shewitz from Yale. That's dyslexia. Do you see how the back part of your brain has this massive neuroactivity?

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Right.

SPEAKER_05 0:16

Right here? Now the back part of my brain has like about almost nothing.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Right.

SPEAKER_05 0:22

Right. Now, do you see how the front part of my brain is about two and a half times more active than yours?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 0:27

Okay. So, what's going on? Kindergarten through most of college is the back part of the brain. Okay? I'm way oversimplifying neuroscience that'll tick off my peers. But essentially, this is where stuff happens in kindergarten through high school and a lot of college. The front part of the brain is essentially grad school. That's why I dominated in law school. I just could see everything. I have two and a half times of neuroactivity. When I had to do the thing for Dr. Collins, I was done in less than two weeks, not two years. It's an unfair advantage in grad school.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Welcome home, welcome home, welcome back to war. We're all recovering. This podcast is about battles people don't always see. Some wars happen on battlefields, some happen inside homes, classrooms, and inside a child's mind where they're, you know, when they're told they're not smart enough. When the truth is, the system simply wasn't built for how they learn. Today we're diving into a conversation that I think a lot of parents and families need to hear. Our guest today is Russell Van Brocklin, known as the dyslexic professor. Russell helps families transform daily reading struggles into real academic confidence by using structured literacy methods designed specifically for dyslexic learners. His mission is to help kids move from frustration to confidence and help parents understand why traditional approaches often fail children with dyslexia. Russell, welcome to war.

SPEAKER_05 1:55

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

So let's start from the beginning. How did you get started?

SPEAKER_05 2:00

Well, this is the last thing I was supposed to do with my life. I was supposed to be a bureaucrat in the New York State government. So what happened? It was the late 90s. I was uh interested in how laws were created, not some class I wanted to know, so I signed up for the New York State Assembly internship program. Which was ridiculous on the face of it. And people are like, well, why? You were a senior university student. This is the time when you would do that. Well, I showed up and I said, Here's my neuropsychological evaluation. I have a first grade reading and writing level. And which means I couldn't do the traditional internship because back then it was the elected official, then the chief of staff, who's probably an intern a year or two before, and then the intern. I'm supposed to answer phones, write memos, write up policy things, file things, and I could do exactly none of it. So the director panicked, went up to the speaker's office, and the speaker said, You're not going to get rid of this kid because he's dyslectic. In fact, you're going to accommodate the living heck out of him and make this work. So they got a committee together, their senior people. They took me out of the legislative office building, which was a huge deal because a big part of the internship was being around your peers, which I was around them for almost no time. They moved me over to the Capitol and to the Majority Leaders Program and Council's office, which ran the assembly day to day. And they had zero idea what to do with an undergrad. I walked in, I can instantly see why they did it. There were three administrative assistants that could help with my crappy writing and turn it into something I could turn in each week. But they had zero idea what to do with an undergrad. So they treated me like a graduate student, which is a real policy position. So I have the best internship out of anyone. I'm doing real work. So then for the academic portion, I go ahead and I do an hours-long presentation instead of uh the standard paper, which is a standard accommodation for me back then. They wrap it all up together and say, recommendation, 15 college credits, a minus grade. Send it back to their flagship university, the state University of New York Center at Buffalo's and to their political science department. Little detail. The New York State government itself at the highest levels decided these accommodations. But the political science department didn't like them because they were absolutely massive. So they said, we're lowering your grade because we disagree with this assessment. What do you think they lowered it to? Hey. Nope, they flunked me. 15 credits of F.

unknown 4:19

F.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 4:20

They flunked me. Yep. At that point, remember where I came from? I spent nights and weekends working with the assembly in the majority of these programming counselors' office, my choice. Because of that, because the people that I knew, because of what they thought of me, I had all these opportunities available to me, which I've turned down because I was now going to solve dyslexia. Like so many other people who actually went through this hell. I'm like, I'm going to just fix the system. Well, I actually did. So I asked my professors where I should go to force myself to learn to read and write. And they said, well, you know, in grad school. And they said, well, if you like politics, it's easy. Law school. Will you read and write more than anyone? So I went and audited two law school classes. So I show up, I go in, and a second day of contracts, what they do is if they call on you using the Socratic method, which basically means if you don't know the answer, which nobody does the first week, they will then keep asking you questions that you don't know to publicly embarrass you until you eventually adapt.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

That's what it is, huh?

unknown 5:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:20

Well, that didn't happen to me. I didn't respond as a student. I responded as the professor's equal. Let me be very clear on that. The professor was a law professor for longer than I was alive at that point. And I responded as his equal. I was twenty-three.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:38

He was a professor for pushing 30 years. Wow.

unknown 5:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:42

So when I say I responded as his equal, he went after me, I went after him, I couldn't beat him, he couldn't beat me. We both knew where we were going, moves ahead of time. At the end of it, he said, Russell, you couldn't be any more correct. I have to move on in the interest of time. Student, my classmates who eventually passed the bar, who've been practicing for decades, said they still can't do that. So then I learned to read within a couple of months, and I learned to uh within a month, I learned to write within a couple of years. Then I go back to the New York State Senate and I said, I want you to defund my dyslexia research program, which they don't do. But my maj but my representative is the majority of the state senate, and back then it was three men in the room, the Speaker of the Assembly, the majority leader, and the governor, and they made all the decisions. So he sends me over to the education department who have to take me seriously. So then what they did is they said, Where is this out of? And I said, Buffalo. And they said, Well, we want a New York State distinguished professor in psychology to evaluate this and say that there's something here, or you're done. I said, Okay, no problem. There's got to be a bunch of them. That's their highest ranked professor. They're two. One just happens to be the one who gave me the evaluation that started this fiasco. So her name is Dr. Holichka, Irene Holichka. And I went back and she said, sure, I'll do it. Three days of testing, 20 hours over three days, of the smartest woman I ever met beating me up to make sure that this is real. At the end, she wrote a report saying, I worked with this kid, you know, like five years before. Same thing. He's reading and writing at the first grade level, like a six-year-old. When he turns his system on, jumps up, his writing goes up to about the 70th percentile of any grad students. And it turns back down. So light switch. He's going from a part of his brain that works to one that doesn't work, I mean, from that doesn't work to one that does work. Here's the five pages explaining all this. So I bring it back to the New York State Education Department. Now they're literally like, what the heck? This makes no sense, but we can't dispute it because this is our literally our top psychologist in the state. So they said, okay, go and connect this to current research. So then I went up to Professor James Collins, who's the only person that's made any sense. He had a$1.5 million grant from the U.S. Education Department, and he wrote a book called Strategies for Struggling Writers. And I had to take his work from mild dyslexia to severe dyslexia, which was supposed to take years. I got his approval, A, excellent, in under two weeks. Noticing how I'm doing really well in grad school, that's a point that we'll come back to. So then I take that, I uh I enroll in a university-wide competition, get 15,000, go to our first student. Her name is Michaela. I want to work with students like me. Michaela was a 17-year-old high school junior at the eighth grade level. All these kids all were at the middle school level. And after five months, she was writing in the 50th percentile of entering grad students. But we didn't transfer. I scored in the 70th. So the next student, his name was Adams, his teacher said he was a freaking genius, but he failed the New York State regents with a 47 and a 52. Dr. Holitschka was so angry at his writing, he should be banned from college. Five months later, Dr. Holitschka evaluates him. 90th percentile of entering grad students. It transferred. School district wanted it. I got funding for two years. We went into the Avery Park Central School District, right outside of Albany, New York, the state capital of New York State. And it was super motivated, intelligent high school juniors and seniors. They're all writing at the middle school level. One class period for the school year, one class period a day. They increased to the 30th to 70th percentile of entering graduate students. They all went on to college. They all graduated GPAs of 2.5 to 3.6. Cost New York State taxpayers less than$900 a kid, compared to the best dyslexic college out there, that was a transfer college. We were X as successful for less than 1% of the cost. And that's how I got started.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Let's let's let's back up a little bit, uh, Russell. So people could get the big picture, you know. A lot of families hear the word dyslexia, but don't fully understand what it means beyond reading difficulties. You know, from your experience working with the students and parents. What is dyslexia really? And what are the biggest misconceptions people have about it?

SPEAKER_05 9:54

Well, what if I told you I could show you in one image? So let's go to the science. This is the top science book of anything to do with dyslexia. It's called Overcoming Dyslexia. This happens to be the second edition by Dr. Sally Shawitz from Yale. That's dyslexia. Do you see how the back part of your brain has this massive neuroactivity?

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Right.

SPEAKER_05 10:14

Right here? No, the back part of my brain has like about almost nothing.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Right.

SPEAKER_05 10:20

Right. Now, do you see how the front part of my brain is about two and a half times more active than yours?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:25

Okay. So, what's going on? Kindergarten through most of college is the back part of the brain. Okay? I'm way oversimplifying neuroscience that'll tick off my peers. But essentially, this is where stuff happens in kindergarten through high school and a lot of college. The front part of the brain is essentially grad school. That's why I dominated in law school. That just I just could see everything. I have two and a half times of neuroactivity. When I had to do the thing for Dr. Collins, I was done in less than two weeks, not two years. It's an unfair advantage in grad school. The back so what we have to do for undergrads, like let's say the biggest issue we have for dyslexia. Let's talk about where parents come to be the most. The kids are in elementary or middle school typically, and they're essentially writing a bunch of randomly placed misspelled words. So do you ever know a middle elementary or middle school dyslectic kid who is writing randomly placed misspelled words any any point in your life, or not really?

SPEAKER_01 11:23

No, no. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 11:24

So I'm gonna train you in the next ten minutes how to fix this impossible problem.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 11:30

Okay? So let's assume you're I'm gonna this the student I use in this case, her name is Sarah. Sarah is at the time, she's ten years old, she's in fifth grade, and she's writing randomly placed misspelled words. Nobody has a clue what to do. So what I'm gonna tell me is how we fix this from Sarah is we have to take things from the back part of the brain where nothing's going on and move it to the front part of the brain where it's about two and a half times over at. So what we do with that is the first thing we have to do is find out what Sarah's speciality is, her area of extreme interest and ability. And for her, it's swimming. She's on the swim team, she gets in the pool every chance she can get. So, what you're gonna do to teach Sarah to do this is you're going to pull out a real laptop computer with an actual real functioning keyboard. Not an iPad, not an iPhone, and certainly not handwriting, a real keyboard. And you're gonna type out hero plus sign. What are we talking about? And then you're gonna tell Sarah to copy it. And I can hear the parents screaming now, but she's not allowed to copy. Professor James Collins, Strategies for Struggling Writers, default writing strategy of copying. It's okay. So she copies that, here's the key point, until she has it spelled correctly. Then we're going to swap out hero for Sarah. So now we got Sarah plus sign, what are we talking about? Then we're gonna go to a list of ten things that Sarah really, really likes and ten things she really, really dislikes. And we're gonna go to the top of the list of what she likes, which is swimming. So we got Sarah plus sign, what are we talking about? We're gonna swap out what are we talking about for swimming, and now we got Sarah plus sign to swimming. See how we got there?

SPEAKER_01 13:13

I am so lost right now.

SPEAKER_05 13:15

Okay. So what so let me just go over it again. You're gonna have Sarah type out hero plus sign, what are we talking about, and she's gonna copy it. See how we got there?

SPEAKER_01 13:24

I'm trying to visualize it.

SPEAKER_05 13:26

Yes. So then we're gonna swap out hero for Sarah. So now we got Sarah plus sign, what are we talking about? Okay so far?

SPEAKER_01 13:35

What are we talking about? Okay.

SPEAKER_05 13:36

Yes. Then we're gonna go up to the first thing on the list she really likes out of ten likes and ten dislikes, which is swimming. And we're gonna swap that out for what are we talking about, and we got Sarah plus sign swimming.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_05 13:49

Why are we going through this? Because the f if you ask a dyslectic in their specialty, do they have ideas flying around their head at light speed, but with little to no organization, they're going to say yes. So what we have to do is force the brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output. So, in other words, we have they there's just no organization. So we go hero plus sign, what are we talking about? Okay, I got that. Now we swap out hero for the kid's name, Sarah. Sarah plus sign, what are we talking about? Okay. What are we talking about? Well, I got to go to my list and find something, swimming. We're gonna swap that out. So we got Sarah plus sign swimming, so now they understand how we got there. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:31

Okay. So now what I'm gonna do is I'm going to try to fool you with two of the simplest questions ever. If you answer them exactly, this will work. If you don't, you're gonna get extremely confused, and then you're gonna have an epiphany on what dyslexia really is. Okay?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Okay, Russell, okay, let's go.

SPEAKER_05 14:55

Do you know just so the audience knows why I'm doing this, I'm trying to force you into that epiphany, that light bulb. Now I get what dyslexia is, because I can tell you most of the practitioners don't really understand it.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 15:09

So this is how I do that. So remember, if you answer my questions exactly, this will work. If not, you will get very confused and then have the epiphany. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah, I'm ready.

SPEAKER_05 15:20

So just remember, try to answer what I'm asking exactly, and these are very simple questions. So we got Sarah plus sign swimming. We need to swap out the plus sign for a word. Here's my question. Does Sarah like or dislike swimming? Just so you know it's her favorite activity in the world.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

She likes swimming.

SPEAKER_05 15:39

Yes, but that's not what I asked.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_05 15:42

Let's try it again.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 15:44

We have Sarah plus sign swimming. We have to swap out the plus sign for a word. Does Sarah like or dislike swimming?

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Give me a second here.

SPEAKER_05 15:55

Swimming is her favorite activity in the world.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_05 15:59

So does she like or dislike it?

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Neither.

SPEAKER_05 16:02

No, it's her favorite thing in the world.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

It's her favorite thing in the world is swap out the plus sign with what she likes, right?

SPEAKER_05 16:10

Yeah, but that's not what I do I have you completely confused now.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Just uh give me another shot. Give me another shot.

SPEAKER_05 16:16

Okay, does Sarah like or dislike swimming? It's one of the two.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Sarah. Sarah. Is it a qua you're asking me a question, right?

SPEAKER_05 16:24

Yeah, does she does Sarah like or dislike swimming? It's very simple. It's one of the two.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

I love this, by the way. It has my brain spinning right now. Sarah.

SPEAKER_05 16:33

Yeah? What's the what's the next word?

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Okay, ask me again. I got it. I got it.

SPEAKER_05 16:38

Does Sarah like or dislike swimming?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Does Sarah like or dislike swimming?

SPEAKER_05 16:44

Yes, which one is it?

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Sarah likes swimming. But that's not what I asked. Okay, give it up. Give it up. Okay. Give it up.

SPEAKER_05 16:52

This level of confusion that you're now having, you're about to go. I can't believe I didn't see it. Okay. This is what it's like for a dyslectic every day in school, all day long. Okay. Because what's going on is they're supposed to learn how to do this in the back part of the brain, and we got nothing going on. That's the problem.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

So, are you ready for your epiphany? No, I'm not, because I I know I should have got it. This happens to most trained educators.

SPEAKER_05 17:24

So when I asked, does Sarah like or dislike swimming? You did what almost every educated adult did. You went and you decided to process it in the back part of the brain, and when you came out with a sentence, you automatically added the S to make it a proper sentence. Sarah's dyslectic. She literally has nothing going on back here. She doesn't know how to add the S.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

She likes swimming.

SPEAKER_05 17:50

No. I asked Sarah like or dislike. You automatically added the S to make it a proper sentence. Right, right. Sarah is dyslectic. She can't, she doesn't know how to add the S. She would have answered exactly what I asked. Like, and it would have been Sarah like swimming. No S. No S. So Sarah or S. No S. She has It would have been Sarah Sarah like swimming. Yes. It's an improper sentence. So what you automatically did is you added the S to make it a proper sentence as you were trained. Sarah is.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

And I said it really like like I was really confident. I said likes.

SPEAKER_05 18:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

But I asked like or dislike, and you added the S and she can't add the S. She doesn't know how. Because that part of her brain just doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Right, right. So Sarah dislikes swimming. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 18:40

Okay. Well, no, Sarah likes swimming. There's just no S.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Sarah likes swimming, right?

SPEAKER_05 18:44

No, no, Sarah likes swimming.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_05 18:47

No S. So that's the problem. Now, how do we solve that problem? Well, if you're a millionaire, you could go to the Windward School in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. They would take Sarah in in fifth grade, work with her for four or five years, and return her as the most educated person in the planet. They are the best of what they do in comparison to the best private schools in the world.$75,000 a year for four to five years. And they have a 98% success rate. If you don't have an extra half million sitting around, here's how we use modern science to do it. Let's again look at the modern science. The front part of the brain is two and a half times overactive. Let's use that two and a half times. So we have to move it to the front. According to Yale, the front part of the brain deals with word analysis followed by articulation. Here's how we use it. I ask Sarah, do you like or dislike swimming? She'll say, like. And I'll say, Sarah, read what you wrote out loud. Sarah likes swimming. Here's how we use word analysis. I'll say, Sarah, read what you wrote out loud and answer this question. Does it sound generally correct? And she'll go, Sarah, like swimming. No, it doesn't sound generally correct. And I'll say, Sarah, fix it. So it does sound generally correct. And she'll go and add yes. And then we'll practice that for the other nine likes and the ten dislikes until it's all done properly. If it's not done properly, we start over again until it does.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Do you see how that's so how does she arrive at adding the S?

SPEAKER_05 20:19

Because it sounds Sarah like swimming doesn't sound correct. Sarah likes swimming sounds correct.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

So do they do they uh give her the option to to to add the s?

SPEAKER_05 20:31

Yeah, well, I say does it sound generally correct? She says no. She adds the S to make it sound generally correct. I tell her to fix it.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

So do you tell her to add what I'm asking is, do you tell her, do you give her the option between like and likes?

SPEAKER_05 20:46

And then asking, I asked, does she like or I ask if she like or dislikes? She'll say like. And then I'll ask her to read it out loud. Sarah likes swimming. Does that sound generally correct? She'll say no. So then I'll tell her to fix it. Sarah likes swimming, so it sounds correct. That's a simple form of word analysis. That's the start of pulling it to the front part of the brain. The second part is I'll say, give me a reason. Why do you like swimming? She'll say, Sarah likes swimming because she likes being on the swim team. I'll say, Great, Sarah, now type that out. Now read it out loud, and does that sound generally correct? She'll say no, and I'll say, keep doing that until it does sound generally correct. That's doing two things. Number one, do you see how the reasons are a simple form of articulation? So before the because is word analysis, after because is articulation, we now moved it from the back part of the brain to the front part of the brain. Okay? Now that's allowing her to use that two and a half times of activity. I ask her to keep reading it out loud until it sounds generally correct, and that'll make the grammar decent. We go from her randomly placed misspelled words to uh decent grammar that a teacher can work with. As far as the Spelling, I'll say drop a period, and I'm going to have you go ahead and re go ahead and retype the sentence completely each time you make a spelling mistake, which is going to be between three and thirteen times typically. She's going to keep saying, I'm not going to make that mistake, and she keeps making it until she gets it correct. Then we move on to the next one. Okay? And we keep we keep doing that until everything's spelled correct. Once we do that, then we move on to the other nine likes and ten dislikes until it's the same thing. And then we do the same thing for reason one and reason two, all 20, and reason one, reason two, and reason three, all 20. By the time you're done, she's read she's writing a decent grammar, correct spelling, three reason sentence, and her reading has also improved because if you can write it, you can read it. It's literally that simple.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

I can tell you, Russell, is really not my brain, is uh it's all over the place. I'm still going back to the whole the whole Sarah dislike swimming thing. I'm still going back to that or like swimming. Uh I'm still replaying.

SPEAKER_05 23:04

Yeah, you're you would have to replay this. Most people replay what I tell them several times. Right. But essentially, this is how we're taking a student from writing randomly placed misspelled words and doing a three-reason sentence with decent grammar and correct spelling. Right, right. And honestly, I had like August as one of our test cases. He started this literally in September, and he took him through February to get through all this. His mom is a is a trained teacher. She worked with him for 10 to 15 minute segments, but that process took five, six months for him. Now for older kids, it's quicker. We had another kid who read who went through that in probably about two to three months. Okay? And yes, it takes that, but that's it's that simple.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

You talk about how many parents feel you completely exhausted because they've tried everything and see their child struggling. Why do you think so many families feel like they're stuck in that cycle?

SPEAKER_05 23:56

Well, if you're fourth grade and above, I can tell you what, you can either sue your school district and send them to a school like the um Windward School in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or Gowell, which by the way is their hundredth anniversary this year. They're south of Buffalo. They've been doing this for a hundred years. You can sue your school district and send them to one of these private schools, or you can go. That's my beginning process. We take students through literally submitting an article to a major publication to a peer-reviewed journal for grad school. All right. We can show you how to teach your kids. So those are your two options after fourth grade. If you're in kindergarten, the smartest thing you can do is contact Yale. Just Google Yale Dyslexia. They can tell you how to diagnose your kid for like 40, 50 bucks, the school pays for it. The teacher can do it themselves. It's simple. Once you find out they're dyslexic, just ask them, what programs can we use? And they will tell you what to use. If you do it properly, if the school does it, by the time your kid takes their third grade reading and writing test, they will probably pass it. And then they should be fine. Even if it's a D, they should be okay. If they fail it, that's the 911 emergency, and then you have to go to that private school route or work with me, where we teach you to teach your kids. If they've diagnosed in kindergarten, follow those programs, they should be okay. Because in our system, K through three, we learn to read, fourth and above, we read to learn.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Do they need money to uh be in these?

SPEAKER_05 25:20

The schools should be doing it this way. A federal judge said if they don't do it this way, it's literally gross negligence. You know, a federal judge who's appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by con by the Senate. That's what they said in cases like this. Gross negligence for not doing it. Because kindergarten through third grade, if you do it properly, Yale's not the only deposit house for all this. They're just the most famous. Okay? And they can tell you school district, 40, 50 bucks a kid. You have a class of a hundred kids. What do we talk? A couple thousand bucks here? It's not a lot. Teacher can do it. Then how do we teach them? Well, they got the programs that are federally funded. We all know they work. You have to do that from kindergarten through the end of third grade, and they'll pass the test. Or be close to it. No, let parents know if the school does that and your kid still hasn't passed the test, the federal judge will not force them to send your kid to a private school at 70 grand a year, just for tuition. But if they don't do it, they will, generally. But even if you win, do you still want to send your kid off to boarding school?

unknown 26:20

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_05 26:21

And I I I've had parents that I've talked to and they decided they didn't want to work with me. They wanted to send their kids to a school like Gao, who's been doing this literally for 100 years. And I said, You will be very happy with the result. And I called them up years later after kid graduated. The kids go into a top 50 school and they are exceedingly well prepared. And I said, I'm happy that your your son is okay, that he's gonna do extremely well. But those who can't afford it or don't want to deal with it, I can show you how to solve this at home. And we literally go through uh PhD level stuff.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

That's good stuff, Ross. That's good stuff. And what are what are the most common mistakes schools or programs?

SPEAKER_05 27:01

Just so you know, your your thing's gonna stop, gonna turn off in a few minutes.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

What? What's that?

SPEAKER_05 27:06

Uh Riverside.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

It is? Why?

SPEAKER_05 27:08

Because you're on the free version?

SPEAKER_01 27:10

No, no, no, this is paid. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 27:12

All right. So this is mentioned. Okay. So sorry, uh, go ahead. What's the question?

SPEAKER_01 27:17

No, I was gonna ask, what are the most common mistakes schools or programs make when trying to help a dyslexic learner?

SPEAKER_05 27:24

Well, let's again look at the science. This is your typical student, okay? This is what they design things for, the back part of the brain being very active. The dyslexic's got nothing going on. The schools are not trying to be hard on the neurodiverse. It's just 80 plus percent of their students. It works well for them starting off at the big picture and eventually going down to the details. But for dyslectic, if you step outside their speciality, their area of extreme interest and ability, this also works for ADD and ADHD. This is less than 20% of the population. So 80 plus percent of the populations, all the kids have to do is study properly, plan out, and spend a lot the appropriate amount of time studying, and then work really freaking hard. And then they're going to be successful to monstrously successful. A dyslexic, on the other hand, could work 10 times harder and still flunk. So let's figure out how we use that. For ADD, ADHD, and dyslexia, we have to focus on the kid's specialty. Let me give you an example. I just want everybody to know nobody, I never met anybody like Casey before this. I will never see Casey anybody like Casey again. This was a one-off edge case. Casey was 10 years old when I met her in the end of fifth grade. She turned 11 over the summertime, and she was writing randomly placed misspelled words, reading and writing at about the second grade level. She was very interested in Theater Roosevelt, so I signed her this monster. The rise of Theod Roosevelt that won the Pulitzer, all thousand all 900 pages of it. This is fifteen, this is tenth grade to first year college level, depending on who you ask. She insisted on doing reading first, so I gave her a simple process. On her decision, you shut her door three hours a night for the next six months, most of the day during summertime. At the end of that, you could flip to this random page, point to that random word, and she would tell you the dictionary definition. She jumped jumped eight grade levels in six months, and I worked with her for 15 minutes a week.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

That's amazing. That is absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_05 29:26

Yes. Okay. So um that, but people ask, well, what happened? Well, she just went through a simple process, hour upon hour, and she just grinded it through.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Right.

SPEAKER_05 29:39

Now, why am I saying spending so much time on this? Because then her mom says this is just her book she likes. So then I gave her something she hated, and she said her motivation dropped about 50%. That's the key point why I'm spending so much time on this. Most motivated kid in the world dropped 50% when we moved outside her specialty, which for most of our education is everything. In grad school, we're in our specialty. That's why I dominated. That's why Casey dominated. It's the front part of the brain. So what when most students, when I asked them for outside the specialty, how much does their motivation drop? They said uh 75 to 90 percent. That's why everything you're trying doesn't work because you're down 75 to 90 percent in the motivation department. So what do we have to do during the mode during the intervention period, we have to focus on the kid's speciality. Then if you ask a dyslectic, in your speciality, do you have ideas flying around your head at light speeds, but with little to no organization, they're going to say yes. So what we have to do is force the dyslectic brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output. Let me explain that in English. Imagine you were given this assignment. What effect did Martin Luther King's famous I Have a Dream Speech have on the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s? If you were given that assignment now, could you go to a library and just have a general idea of where to get started? Go to the library and have a lot of what effect did Yeah, you go read the speech, and then you go and you start, yeah, you have you have a general idea of how to do this because that's the back part of the brain. But for a dyslectic, it's like grabbing fog. There's nothing to grab onto. We don't do big picture and then eventually get to the details. We have to start at the detail and eventually go out. So we would ask the question this way. What effect did Martin, I'm sorry, what personally compelled Martin Luther King to want to give his famous speech? I actually had a student go through that. And I'd say, that's the question. So then she went from crying to went to his biography, looked it up, and she said, Now I know what the answer is. I said, Great. Now didn't that answer give you a question? And she said, Yes. And she went back and looked, here's the next question, which was a little bit out from that. Now answer that question. What's the new question from that answer? And answer it. And what she did is she kept doing that, and she eventually went from that very narrow point, eventually out further. And that forced her brain to organize by using writing as a measurable output.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

And her teaching real investigative work, you know?

SPEAKER_05 32:20

Right. But the key thing is instead of getting the same big picture to eventual some details that the teacher got, where the top students always wrote the same paper. Now, or something very similar. Now he's he had this was a new angle. He didn't see it before. And I said, When you're dealing with the neurodiverse, you start with a very specific point and then going out because that forces our brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output. And then we do word analysis, followed by articulation, the way that I showed you. Parents will ask, Well, how does this work in reality? And I said, Okay, I'm coming out with a book soon called If You Can Write, You Can Read. And it's about, my part is about Kimberly. We met in December 27th, 2024. Kimberly is a homeschooling mom with some uh with some college. She taught her uh uh four of her five kids to read brilliantly with traditional methods. I'm talking top of the charts. But her her fifth child, Reed, was 10 years old in fifth grade, and he was doing horrible, and she was devastated, didn't know what to do, very concerned, very ashamed. And the books about her story. Just before I talked to her, a couple weeks before I talked to her, she had the state of Ohio, she paid 700 bucks, and they tested all her kids. Reed was 10 years old again in fifth grade, reading at the 10th percentile, writing at the fourth percentile. So I worked with Kimberly for half an hour a week for the rest of the school year. She worked with Reed for an hour and a half a week, three half hour sessions. Most parents do 10 to 15 minute sessions. At the end of the school year, he had an increase, which I'm not telling you about, because over the summertime, Reed's friends came to him and said, Reed, we want you with us in public school to be with us socially. So in the beginning of August, let's call it eight and a half months after we met, he was tested in a public school. Much better data. And he had a big increase. If he scored anything remotely like he did in December, he would have been placed in special ed away from his friends on a happy kid. Well, his reading went from the 11th percentile to the 64th, his writing went from the fourth percentile to the 65th, his grammar jumped to the 9th percentile. I asked Kimberly uh last month how Reed's doing. She said he's in normal classes, getting mainly A's and B's. She did what every parent dreamed of part-time in less than nine months compared to the four to five years full-time at a top private dyslexic school. That's how powerful this is.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Russell, you uh, you know, I'm gonna sidestep a little bit. I knew a kid, I know a kid. He's well, he's not a kid, he's an adult, but he won't, he's dyslexic. He won't text or anything. I've been I wasn't understanding the dyslexia at first, you know, and he didn't come out and tell me why he wouldn't text me back and everything, and then I found out from his mother why it went he wouldn't text me back, and he'll become real emotional when I would text him, you know. And um, I found out from him that a lot of kids shut down emotionally when you know, when reading comes into play and be and becomes frustrating. So, my question to you all, what are some early signs parents should watch for that a child is losing confidence in their in their ability to learn?

SPEAKER_05 35:36

Well, for boys, it's really simple. They just act out, okay? I mean, they just start crying, they start throwing temper tantrums. You know, girls are different, they generally will just take it. Okay? So what you need to do is if the kid is falling behind, you need to understand that and get them tested for dyslexia. Now, in New York State, what you do is go to a pediatrician, have them say, with notes from the teacher saying, I think we this kid's dyslectic, and a private insurer will actually pay up to$5,000 for a neural psych to do that. Okay? Or you can just tell your school under federal, notice I said federal, not state law, they have to do this. All right. So find out if they're dyslectic. If they're dyslectic, ideally what you want to do is catch it in kindergarten. Then what you do is you contact Yale, and as I said, they can test it in from, I don't know, 40, 50 bucks or whatever it is a kid. The teacher can do it. And then from there, you know, they can just they have programs at Yale that'll just tell you how to fix the whole thing. Do that. If it's fourth and later, and they didn't do the Yale thing, you can sue them in federal court and they'll eventually force the school to pay and to send them to a private school like Gowell, and then you're sending your kid off to boarding school, or I can work with you to show them how to fix it at home. Those are or you just live with a problem. And the older the kid is, the quicker they will pick it up. So that's that's essentially uh that that's simply what the ant what the answer is. Hopefully you catch it in kindergarten, work with the otherwise, those are the other two options. Okay, so what if you're an adult living with it and well the first program I created was for a very specific type of adult, highly motivated, highly intelligent. I've taught that to Ivy League graduates, and it's been tremendously helpful. Otherwise, we go through the same process I teach the kids, but you go through it at a radically faster pace. Adults go through this much faster than children do. It's the exact opposite with traditional methods. So the guy you're talking about, what does he do for a living?

SPEAKER_01 37:36

He's very, very uh talented in fishing. He can fish and catch fish, and you know that's what he does for a living, basically. He he catches fish, and I think he works for a restaurant now.

SPEAKER_05 37:48

Okay, so basically, if you ever wanted to maybe go back to a community college and do a head and hands type job, that's our first three programs to bring the reading and writing level up to us essentially a context and the craft of research. Yeah, we show parents and other adults how to work with them, and an adult, you're probably talking about 12 to 24 months to do it. All right. And we have online classes on the school platform skol.com that take care of that.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Okay. Okay. Can you share a story with us about a student you work with who was struggling heavily with dyslexia? And what changed once that right learning strategy was introduced?

SPEAKER_05 38:28

Sure, I'll give you a second um student. His name was Adam. Uh and I'm going back to my original program with this one. Adam was a genius. He failed the New York State regions with a 47 and a 52, and he uh came from a financially challenged family, and he was not going, he was not a college type guy. He was a genius. He was going to be a head and hands type kid. Who we gave we took him through the program, and five months later he was writing at the 70th percentile of undergrad students. Uh he went on to a community college, English 101 and 102, no accommodations. He got B's. He got he finished up with a with a union. You know the the school districts have the schools have these big boilers? He joined that union. They called him in to try to fix a problem that they were under contract for. Took him a day and a half, and he said, I'm sorry this took so long, but this was a tough problem. Here's how you fix it. And they said, We've been trying to do this for a month. That's we are problem solvers in our speciality. And you know, I I've done that with hundreds of families.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

That's great. You know, stories like that matter because it gives families hope. You know, progress is possible. Yes. You mentioned structure literacy as one of the most effective methods of dyslexic learners. For parents listening who may not know what that means. What is structured literacy and why does it be uh why does it work better than traditional teaching methods?

SPEAKER_05 39:49

Well, it's kind of that's the three model, the three-step model I told you. It's where we start off with the kid's speciality during the intervention period only for Reed, it was uh Logan from X-Men, uh Wolverine. Uh we then go through uh the specific to the general, then word analysis followed by articulation. Because now we're focusing on that front part of the brain where we have two and a half times the neuroactivity and transfer things up there.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 40:12

Traditional methods just try to work with the back part of the brain, as I showed you, there's just nothing going on back there. Here's here's an analogy I'd like to give. The sport that I suck at is basketball. What is it that you're really, really, really bad at? What sport?

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Me?

SPEAKER_05 40:27

Yeah, for you. What sport?

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Oh, I'm great at all of them. I'm great at all of them. Uh I'm just kidding. Um, I would say really, really bad at soccer.

SPEAKER_05 40:37

Okay. So let's say we're gonna take somebody of your age group who used to play Division I soccer in college. We're going to give you the best soccer coach on the planet for the next six months, which you'll work full-time because Bill Gates is paying you$10 million for this experiment. All right. And then we're gonna get you the best soccer equipment on the planet. And we're gonna give the guy you're going up against, that former college player at uh in soccer at the D1 level, we're gonna give him used Walmart equipment that should be in the dumpster. Is it gonna make any difference at all?

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Heck no, it's not gonna make it one one bit of a difference.

SPEAKER_05 41:15

Yeah, you're still gonna get creamed even if his shoes are falling apart.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_05 41:19

Okay. Your body was not designed for soccer. Dyslectics, ADD and ADHD kids were not designed for kindergarten through college. We were designed for grad school in our specialty, where I showed you how I absolutely dominated it. And that's a typically my story is very typical with dyslectics. Okay? So what we have to do is just get them through high school and college. If they're going to college traditional college, they're going to a graduate program, most likely a master's. And once they're once they're in grad school, it is so profoundly unfair. Profoundly unfair. I remember when I was, we had, we're giving quizzes of property, and you're supposed to think for three to five minutes because they're so good at fooling you. And I wouldn't even think for three to five seconds, so I'll just answer it, turn it in. I almost always had perfect hundreds, and I'm twiddling my thumbs, okay, and just going, do do do do do, and the rest of my classmates are like, Why is this so easy for you? I said, Yeah, just wait until we get through legal research and writing. Because I said, This is so easy, it's a joke. We get to legal research and writing, and I get killed because I just simply can't keep up. I said, That's your advantage. This is mine. I can dominate in class, I can't dominate in practice because I can't keep up with the reading, reading and writing. And they're like, So you have to focus on what your strengths are.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Right, right. It seems like it. And if a parent is watching this right now and feeling overwhelmed because their child is struggling with dyslexia, what message would you want them to hear today?

SPEAKER_05 42:47

Okay. What I would suggest, I would suggest that you first of all just breathe. Okay. Just breathe. What I would focus on is number one, where are you? It's very simple. For your kids in kindergarten or just beginning first grade, contact Yale, say, how do I get my kid tested in school? How do we fix this if it comes back? And they will tell you. And then you have to force your kid to do it, maybe through federal litigation. All right? If that fixes things, the kid's going to take a reading and ready test at the end of third grade in every state in the United States. And if they pass, they should be okay. If they fail it, if they're far behind, or you wait until fourth grade or above, you really are. I would just so you know what one option is, go to G-O-W.org. G-O-W dot or G and look at the Gow School. They've been doing this for 100 years. If you get the scholarship, I think they get the cost down to about uh twish to about 60,000 a year. They want them for fifth grade through high school. If you do that, you will be more than pleased with the result. You will be astonished at what they can do with your child. They're brilliant at it. If you don't want to do that, then the best thing to do is just go to dyslexiaclasses.com. It's within S Dyslexia Classics. Classes.com. There's a button that says download free guide. Fill out three questions. Set up a time to speak with me. I can talk to you and your child. There's no cost. Ask them a series of questions. They're like, yeah, that's how my brain works, and ask them this is how they want to learn. And we can show you how to do that. We have a learning platform called School. Most, when you have a professional instructor on a weekly basis, most of my competition is$500 to$1,000 a month. And outside parents driving new BMWs, most can't afford that. So we lowered it to$147 a month. Angela is our instructor. She is a certified elementary school teacher with a two-year master's degree in the state of Texas with a decade of experience. She is now a homeschooling mom, and she has taught her son, August. She's walked him through this process, and she's there each week for about an hour to answer your questions. And that's that's those are what the options are. Or you just kind of live with what it is.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Right. Russell, I appreciate the work you're doing. Helping kids rediscover their confidence and helping families understand that their child isn't broken. That's powerful work, man. I love it. For anyone listening who wants to learn more, Russell has also provided a guide explaining the three reasons dyslexia education often fails and what parents can do about it. We'll make sure the link is available for anyone who wants to check that out. And to everyone watching, if you're fighting battles, people can't see, keep going. Because healing, growth, and rebuilding are always possible. Russell, thanks again for being with us today. Thank you, sir, for everything you're doing.

SPEAKER_05 45:34

Well, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Stay tuned, everybody. It's war. Each one, reach one, we're all recovering.