The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
What if the way we go about teaching dyslexic children is wrong? Interview with Russell Van Brocklen
What do you know about dyslexia? Other than "it means someone has trouble reading", I mean.
In one of the most eye-opening interviews I have done on this podcast, and we're on episode 329 or something!, I have the pleasure of talking to Russell Van Brocklen, the Dyslexia Professor.
Russell has studied dyslexia for decades ( his initial research program was funded by the New York State Senate) and is able to tell you more about dyslexia than you can shake a stick at.
We talk about many, many things dyslexia related.
Why it gets diagnosed quite late on.
How you can spot signs of it earlier in your child's life (even though later is NOT the end of the world).
Why the old way of dealing with dyslexic kids is nowhere near the goldstandard anymore and what should change.
How using the right approach, and the correct teaching method, can not only increase your child's confidence but also bring their reading and writing up to the levels that you want it to be.
It is truly an amazing conversation and Russell explains the goldstandard system for dealing with dyslexia very clearly. If you know anyone who is dyslexic, or has dyslexic kids, this is a must listen!
You can download the FREE ebook Russell spoke about here.
And you can find his website here
Dyslexia Classes is also on Facebook
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BUT, if you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS! That's $50 max spend, in case you were wondering.
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Playing us out this week; "Faking all the moves" by Tiger Gang
Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert, peter Lap. That, as always, would be me. This is a podcast for the 25th of August 2025 and, you know, day before music means I have a guest on, but also, boy oh boy, do I have a guest on. I'm talking to Russell van Brocklen, the dyslexia professor. I mean, this guy is phenomenal, right. We're talking everything to do with dyslexia.
Peter:At what age you can see the first signs? How a lot of the ways dyslexia is being dealt with is actually not read in the most practical way. I mean, Russell has so much experience. It's embarrassing, really. Has so much experience. It's embarrassing really. He researched the sexuality of the New York State, senate funded, and he has a tremendous amount of clarity and expertise on this subject. I was literally and this doesn't happen often to me I was blown away by this guy. So you're going to love it Without further ado. Here we go. A lot of kids are diagnosed with dyslexia rather late on, you know, between ages of seven and nine, I believe. But at what age can we already see some of the signs?
Russell:Okay, this is what I tell parents about dyslexia. You want to get this diagnosed as quickly as possible. Where to go to do this? Here's the book that I use that's overcoming this.
Russell:Okay, this is the book in the field overcoming dyslexia by dr sally shawitz from the. Okay, so what you do is you go to google and you type in yale dyslexia. You can get the international center. Uh, you get the the yale center for dyslexia and creative studies, contact them and and you can do this, I think, as early as kindergarten. And you want to say how do I get my kid diagnosed for dyslexia in kindergarten? And, honestly, school districts do this, for it's about less than a half an hour, costs something like 30 bucks, 40 bucks or something like that, and it's like 90, 95% accurate and you can know Sounds good. And once you find that out, then you want to begin treatment immediately.
Russell:So let me give you an example of New York State, because we just did an entire state task force. If you want to know about it, if you go to New York State Dyslexia Task Force, new York State Education Department the report came out in December there was a state senator named senator hoylman, one of the nicest, smartest guys I've ever met. He's a. He's a harvard grad for law school and a road scholar. His daughter was diagnosed in dyslexia at fourth grade and they said listen, if you did this in kindergarten or beginning of first grade. We could have handled this very quickly, relatively painlessly, okay, yeah. But now that she's in fourth grade, now she now it's an 85, it's like an 80 000 a year private school for four to five years. Okay, because here's what's going on kindergarten, through third grade, you're learning to read. Fourth and beyond, you're reading to learn.
Peter:Sure.
Russell:If you fail that third grade reading and writing test, it's an academic emergency. And now you're in a private specialized school using Orton-Gillingham multi-century, and these schools are $ plus thousand dollars a year for four to five years. If you started in kindergarten, you can correct it relatively easily, right, okay? So you absolutely have to start it as quick. And why am I recommending Yale? Because, literally, with the brain scans, that center is one of the top ones in the field and you can get fantastic unbiased advice.
Peter:Cool, now that makes sense. I will link for anybody listening. Obviously, it will appear in the transcripts. Anyways, the links will automatically appear in the transcripts, but I'll link them in the podcast description as well, so you don't have to make notes as you're listening to this, just otherwise people are writing furiously, writing down as they're driving and stuff so. So if you can test, why, why is it that? If we can test for this stuff that's early on, why isn't it more common for the testing to be done at that early stage?
Russell:It's because it comes down to economics. I mean, literally, new York State just spent an entire year creating that task force report. The top people in the state came up with it and they just tried to implement it. And in New York State we are proud to be the highest taxed state in the country. Nobody beats us in that area. Why am I saying that? Because we spend more per student than anybody else in the country. California teachers wish they spent what we spent per student. They try to go ahead and essentially I think what the two main bills wanted to do was to give students an additional 45, once they're diagnosed, an additional 45 minutes of reading and writing teaching per day in addition to what they're currently getting until the problem is essentially solved by the end of elementary school. Essentially, what the New York State Assembly and Senate Education Committees were saying is we can't afford it.
Peter:Right.
Russell:So they passed some $250,000 thing to continue studying it and come up with some more reports or something. That's why. So what I want the parents to understand is, if they don't do that and you eventually sue them in federal court, here's what happens If the school contacted Yale and said how do we diagnose dyslexia, how do we treat it? Or something similar, and they give a reasonable effort at it and the kid fails the third grade reading and writing test, your child, and if they're kind of relatively close, the federal judge will look at that and say parents, you lose. You can keep the kid in the school system now if they haven't done it and now it's fourth grade, like senator hoylman's daughter sylvia, her evaluation was eight thousand dollars.
Russell:his family can afford it okay yeah, oh yeah, that's just for the neuropsych, and those are manhattan prices and those are the highest in the country. She's in a lot of money, yeah, oh yeah, that's just for the neuropsych, and those are Manhattan prices and those are the highest in the country. She's in a private dyslexic school. So she's going to be absolutely fine. Yeah, but it's going to be at least four to five years that she's in that school. Okay, so, and that's like 75 grand a year. So what?
Russell:The federal judge will look at the school districts and say did you contact jail? Did you test for this early? No, did you use any interventions? No, you are grossly negligent, grossly negligent. And now they not only have to pay for the private school, and you know all that, they also have to pay the attorney's fees that can easily go hundreds of thousands or you know five, six hundred grand, or even more if the case goes on forever. So the issue is you really want to identify this very early and you want to start treating it as soon as possible, typically starting when they're in kindergarten.
Peter:So what should parents be looking out for when their kids are still in kindergarten? What are some of the signs that your child might be dyslexic?
Russell:Well, they're simply not learning to read. They're simply not learning to write, okay. So if that's the case, then what you really want to do is insist that the school test them. Now. Here's a way of pressuring the school to have them go ahead and test them. Take your child to their pediatrician. If you think that there are signs of dyslexia. Get things from the teacher in writing this is what the child's running into. Bring it to your pediatrician. The pediatrician looks at this. And you really want, not a resident, you want this to come from an attending Right, okay, somebody who has finished their residency, and you want them to simply write if it's up to them. You can't pressure them. So the school district. I think this child is showing signs of dyslexia. You should have them tested Now.
Russell:If the school doesn't do it and it drags on, you're building a foundation. So if you need to to walk this into federal court, yeah, sure, and there are attorneys that will take it. If it comes to that, where they will? You won't see a bill. If they lose, they generally get nothing, but if they win, at the end of it the federal judge is going to say well, that's three hundred dollars an hour times. You know, here's your quarter million dollars yeah they'll, they'll do all right out of it, yeah, and then the school has to pay it.
Russell:Okay, so it. But normally that gets the school to start doing something, because they have school psychologists and that's all they do. All right, now, as far as treating it, what I'm trying to tell parents is if you understand the new science of dyslexia, you can treat it yourself. So let me give you an example. Going back again to this book, this is the top book in the field. It's based on neural scans. Here we go. This, that brain image is this is dyslexia. So I'm not going to use the word non-impaired, because I find that condescending. I'm going to use gen ed brain. So look at the general education student's brain. Do you see in the back there's a tremendous amount of neural activity? Yep, okay. Now look at the dyslexic. Do you see how there's virtually nothing? Yeah, exactly. Now look at the dyslexic. Do you see how there's virtually nothing?
Peter:Yeah, exactly, yeah, okay, very little at the front, very little at the back and much more at the front.
Russell:Yes, In the front. It's about two and a half times more active than the gen ed brain. Yeah.
Russell:Okay. So what I did initially? Why should people listen to me? My first project was funded by the New York State Senate and what we did is I took only the ideal students highly motivated, highly intelligent, college bound, excellent family support. They're very rare and these are juniors and seniors with middle school level writing skills. And I decided to give them the writing entrance test called the Graduate Rectors Analytical Writing Assessment. And I decided to give them the writing entrance test called the Graduate Rectors Analytical Writing Assessment. It's the most popular entrance exam for graduate school and assumes a college education. How do you think these kids did on that one?
Peter:Oh, they probably didn't ace, it would be my guess.
Russell:Well, yeah, most of them scored in the zero percentile. A few scored in the six percentile because their analytical scores were so high, but their writing was atrocious across the board. It was evaluated by state university of new york distinguished professor in psychology and she was. She said these kids they're spelling and grammar are horrendous. Half these kids should not even consider college ever. Oh wow, so one class period a day for the school year, avril park central school district. Susan ford was the teacher. Midnight as our mid-2000s the kids increased their writing skills from the middle school level to the average range 30th to 70th percentile of entering graduate school students. Spelling and grammar went from horrendous to clean at the graduate level and Susan Ford spent very little time on spelling and grammar. It essentially self-corrected.
Peter:Okay, that's interesting.
Russell:All these kids went on to college. They all graduated no accommodations. Cost to the New York State taxpayer less than $900 a student. Yes, we presented that in New York City in 2006 at the New York City branch of the International Dyslexia Association. Since then, the last 10 years, I came back to train new york state special ed teachers. Now, the main issue with that for what your parents are concerned about is I started off with the front part of the brain of being overactive. It says articulation followed by word analysis. But to work with the young kids, we switched it over to word analysis followed by articulation. Okay, and then what our goal was? That was part three of the model.
Russell:The first part is we have to work with your child's speciality, their area of extreme interest and ability. So for the older kids, I would ask it's a saturday morning, you can do whatever you want. What would it be that's the speciality for the younger kids? I mean, these kids are so young at five and six. Yeah, what you want to ask is what are you really, really interested in? Okay, and I'll just give you an example. Even for kindergarteners, especially for girls, they pick Harry Potter, sure, and they pick Hermione. And I asked him why did you pick hermione? And they said she's not stupid, I don't want to be stupid anymore. Okay, yeah, which is heart-wrenching, yeah, but that's what it comes down. So what we do is I'm now going to show you what we're going to do is I'm going to show you how to take their reading and writing, especially their writing, uh, from kindergarten towards the end of second grade, maybe beginning of third grade, okay, so the first thing that was before we get to that.
Russell:The next part of the model you need to understand is we never teach dyslexics from the general to the specific. We teach them from the specific to the general. Okay, okay, let me explain why. I talked to a lot of senior dyslectic professors and a lot of them were stem, science, technology, engineering or math, yep, but they would say that they took, like, art, history or philosophy class. I said, oh, good for you. And they said, no, I didn't like those. A lot of these classes I'm like you didn't have to take it. Why did you take it? They said because the professor taught from the specific to the general.
Russell:So if you ask your child when they're older, or your speciality, do you have ideas flying around your head at light speed, but with little to no organization. They're going to say yes, and I say what we're going to do is we're going to force your brain to organize itself, using writing as a measurable output. So, again, we're going to force the brain to organize itself by using the brains, by using writing as a measurable output. So we start off with a specific question and then we go out from there. Right, okay. And lastly, here's when it comes to reading. I do reading. Last, people are like don't you have to go first? I said no, we do writing Because, remember, that's our measurement about forcing the brain to organize itself. And here's what I need parents to understand If you can write it, you can read it.
Russell:So if you can write the word, you can read it. So if you can write the word, you can read it. So let's start off with the most simple task writing a basic three-word sentence with correct spelling and grammar. And I stole this from a special ed teacher that I was training in New York City. She raised her hand and she said I have students who appear to be writing randomly placed, misspelled words. I don't even know where to begin. And I said I'm stealing that from you, because that's pretty apt for a dyslexic student in kindergarten first grade. So I want you to think have you ever known a dyslexic student that age at all?
Peter:yeah, I've. I've seen some kids from the age of four till they weren't diagnosed at four, but from the age of four that I've known, from age of four till like 16, and I watched them struggle and one of the kids didn't really diagnose until the age of 16.
Russell:To be honest, okay, so let's think about kindergarten. First, I want you to pick a student that you know really well that it was essentially writing randomly placed misspelled words. Can you think of that student? Okay, now change their names to protect their identity. What's the student's name? Let's say it's called Trevor Trevor. Okay, now here's my next question. Remember, we're dealing with a speciality. What's Trevor's speciality? What is he really good at? What does he really love doing?
Peter:He loved at the age of four and five. All he ever spoke about was Obsidian, obsidian, obsidian, the hardest rock in the world. Okay, so he was really into rocks and that type of stuff.
Russell:Okay. So what we're going to do is number one. We have these kids type, not handwrite, and I'm going to have parents scream what do you mean not handwriting? I want my kids to be able to do cursive and all this. I just wanted to let you know I'm going to take one of the most brilliant students we worked with in that study at Aver Park High School. All right, you know, I'm going to take one of the most brilliant students we worked with in that study at Aver Park High School. He ended up getting a 5 at the post-test on the GRE writing assessment. Then, instead of typing, I had him handwrite it out. He barely scored in the 30th percentile and Dr Holitschka, the top professor, said that was a gift. I could have easily put this into the sixth percentile.
Russell:Wow, the spelling and grammar was horrendous no when he typed it was clean at the grad level that's interesting.
Peter:Now, what? What caused, just before you jump on what causes the difference between being able to type it better than being able to write it.
Russell:Because there are certain connections in the dyslexic brain where writing the physically writing W instead of hitting a key takes up so much mental capacity. Right, okay, it crashes the rest of what I'm trying to teach, right?
Peter:Okay, that makes complete sense. Any parents listening to this you know we start on the keyboard. That makes complete sense.
Russell:You're right. But here's the thing Not an iPad and not an iPhone, it has to be a real, real traditional keyboard.
Peter:It has to be a physical keyboard.
Russell:It absolutely has to be a physical keyboard, absolutely has to be a physical keyboard. So it's normally a laptop and a lot of parents will say, well, I can't afford this. Well, get a netbook. Yeah, a chrome, samsung chrome, a google netbook, okay, you know where. If the internet's on, it's useless. But typically those things will last for years and I see kids get through college with those things yeah, okay, and they're a couple hundred bucks, okay. So that's normally what parents will start off with. So we have them type the following zero plus sign. What are we talking about? So it's hero plus sign. What are we talking about? The student's name again is Trevor, trevor, trevor plus sign. What are we talking about? Trevor plus sign, the name of the rock.
Peter:The obsidian yeah.
Russell:Obsidian Trevor plus sign obsidian. See how we got there. Yeah, what we're essentially doing is telling the student this is what we're looking for, and then we're going to fill that space in one at a time and you're going to type that and what you're going to find is they're going to start off really slow, but as they practice this more and more and more, they'll get a lot faster at it. Now, the other thing I get from parents my kid won't do this and I said remember the model we're in their speciality. Yeah, let me give you an example of that from the movies. Are you familiar with the movie Fast and Furious?
Peter:Yes, I am, but only the first couple.
Russell:Yes, the first one, I'm not up to number nine. Yeah, but remember the first one where Paul Walker brings in this car from the junkyard and he's with this technical genius at the computer redesigning it, and he said this is what it can look like yeah, yeah.
Russell:Paul Walker asked why are you not at MIT? And he said I'm really good at this, but I got that ADD thing and I can't do anything else. But I can do this. So if you're in the speciality, they do the work. You step outside, forget it. You go specific to the general. They do the work, you do general to the specific. It's world war three do you know where I'm coming from yeah, no, absolutely okay so we got trevor plus sign.
Russell:And what's the name of the rock again? Obsidian, yep, obsidian. Trevor plus sign, obsidian. Now we need to replace the plus sign. That is a part of the visual default writing strategy from Dr Collins's book strategies for struggling writers, and what it means is, when it shows up, you probably need to add words, subtract words and move things around. So here probably need to add words, subtract words and move things around. So here we need to add a word. Now I just want to let you know when I do this at major teacher dyslexia conferences, 90% of the teachers get it wrong, because you have to answer the questions exactly what I ask no deviation, okay, okay. Do you think I'm going to fool you? Yeah, probably Okay. Well, let, I'm going to fool you. Yeah, probably Okay, well, let's see.
Russell:All right, try to follow exactly what I'm asking. Here's my question. We've got to replace the plus sign. Does Trevor like or dislike Obsidian? Well, he likes Obsidian, right? Okay, replace the plus sign with that word. What's the three-word sentence?
Peter:Trevor likes Obsidian.
Russell:Right, but that's not what I asked. I asked does he like or dislike? Obsidian? You, as an educated person, automatically added the S and made a correct sentence.
Peter:Yeah, of course. Yeah, trevor can't do that, trevor, like Obsidian that is his.
Russell:Because that's what I asked.
Peter:You're quite right, yeah.
Russell:Now the question is how do we get Trevor to add the S? And if we're using multi-sensory Orton-Gillingham, you've seen touching hearing, structured literacy. It's complicated as all heck. It would take you two years to become certified for $11,000. And Trevor's not going to enjoy going through this, all right. So how do we make it a lot faster and do it in ways that is based on Trevor's strength?
Russell:Seer is what I had to do. As a precondition, I have to assume the child speaks proper English. Yes, of course, okay, yeah. And the parents ask me well, how do I know? And I would say do you speak proper English? Does your community speak proper English? If the answer is yes, I can say almost certainly the answer is going to be yes, unless if there's some underlying concern I don't know about.
Russell:So then what we would do is we would ask Trevor to read what he wrote out loud. Now I asked you like or dislike? You would say like you replace the plus sign with that. Trevor, like obsidian. I say Trevor, read that out loud, and he would. Then I would say Trevor, does that sound generally correct? And he would. Then I would say trevor, does that sound generally correct? And he would say no, and I would say fix it. Trevor likes obsidian. So what I would do is I would have the child come up with 10 things they really like and 10 things they really don't like. Now for parents who don't like the negatives because there are some you can do 20 likes. Here's what I like about the dislikes. It tends to be a lot more fun. What's the one chore Trevor absolutely hated?
Peter:Oh, chores, putting away the dishes.
Russell:Putting away the dishes. Okay, so what I tell Trevor is is, if you do the home, you know, because this generally this is the 90, this is a 90 mom things, 10 dad thing. So it's generally mom if you don't do what your parents tell you to do, if you don't do what mom tells you to do and you refuse to do your homework because, remember, we're in your speciality now we're trying to make this as much fun as we can, but it's not all fun and games. If you don't do it and your mom didn't say you can, you didn't have to do it then you have to put away the dishes and what happens even the most motivated kid.
Russell:Did you do your homework? No? Did mom or dad say you don't have to? No, so what does that mean? I gotta put away the dishes. I don't want to put away the dishes, and they go, and I almost never have another problem again, or I'll have a kid get on who's hyper rule focused I didn't do my homework, okay, I gotta go do, in this case, put away the dishes.
Russell:You know really, down and out. Did your mom or dad say you didn't have to do it? Yes, and I said okay, then I forbid you from putting away the dishes. Huh, your parents said you didn't have to do it, so you don't have to do it this time. Your parents are in charge. Oh, and the parents get on and they're like, privately. We told him he didn't have to do it because we had a special family event and I said okay, this is how I got through to him.
Russell:Psychologists couldn't do it, but that worked, yeah, all right. So now that we, now we understand that. So what we do is we have you type it out 10 times for the likes, 10 dislikes, but if your child doesn't do it correctly, do it again. Keep doing it until you get 20 likes and 20 dislikes that are correct. All right, I'm just going to tell you what's going to happen, those spelling and grammar errors you're concerned about. When I'm talking about grammar errors, I'm talking about really nasty stuff. Don't do this with every little medium one. It'll drive the child crazy. Yeah, sure, but major ones. Or the spelling ones? So in that original program, do you remember when I told you that spelling and grammar self-corrected?
Peter:Yeah, here's how we transfer it to this.
Russell:This took me over a decade to figure out. So what we do is, as the child's typing, you tell them this don't put the period down, ask me any questions before you put the period down. Once you put the period down, let's say you didn't put the period down. Let's say you asked did I spell likes correctly? And the parent can say no, you didn't. And you can copy it and have them copy it. It's Dr Collins' default writing strategy of copying strategies for struggling writers. And then they only have to retype that one word. But if they put the period down and there's a spelling or major I mean major grammatical mistake, then they have to rewrite the entire sentence Until they get it correct. And this is what's going to shock parents. It can take three to 12 times for them retyping it to get it correct.
Russell:And I have seen kids say I'm not going to make that mistake, I'm not going to make that mistake. And they make that mistake and I would. I wouldn't do this when they're in kindergarten. You can start doing this when they're in first grade, when they're six, okay. So as they're going down and they keep making that mistake, they're making it for the fifth, six times. Then they hyper concentrate. You can see sweat coming off their forehead. I'm not going to make that mistake. And they do until they don't, which sometimes is 12 or 13 times. All right, and once and here's what I tell would ask them um, might you? You might ask them how does your brain feel if they say their brain feels tired? Just stop whatever. It is right then and there and just come back the next day or the day after. Do you remember when you were getting your education you're studying for finals and sometimes your brain was overwhelmed. You had to keep going.
Peter:Oh yeah, yeah, that was pretty much my default setting was start studying the night before the exam and just crash and burn at like four o'clock in the morning and don't absorb any more knowledge that you actually needed. Yeah.
Russell:Yeah, there's no reason to do that to a young child.
Peter:Absolutely not Okay.
Russell:Yeah, so that's so, and then I just stopped there. So, but eventually they'll get it right. And here's the thing with my approach the older the child is, the faster they pick it up, which is the exact opposite of what in Gillingham. So if you're dealing with a five or six year old and to get them to write 20 likes 10 likes and 10 dislikes and that takes you three to six months and they're in kindergarten.
Russell:Who cares? Yeah, it's fine, because once they do that, if they can write it, they can read it. Okay, so you keep having them until they can do that correctly. Then what we do starting in first grade, don't do this in kindergarten, start when they're six is to go ahead and tell them to come up with reason one, everything they like and dislike. They're going to rewrite that and then, because reason one why I'm going to go back to this, we have to keep going back to the hard science. Oh yeah, I'm sorry, let me, let's, let me get that brain image, because this point is so critical. Where is that brain?
Peter:Okay, you see the brain. Yeah, we've got it, okay.
Russell:The overactive front parts. Two and a half times is active Word analysis followed by articulation. Like and dislike are a form of word analysis. After because is articulation? Yeah.
Russell:Okay, that's a key point. So, because I would have them write it out separately. Um, I'm going to use something else. What's the student's name? Again, trevor.
Russell:Trevor likes swimming because it's fun, so I put it's fun, and so we put it's fun, and then we put it together Trevor likes swimming because it's fun. You put it together and you go through the same process for 20 likes and 20 dislikes. When you're done with that, you're going to move on to a second reason and we take the two reasons. They write them out separately and again, before they put the period down, same thing. I do that for each part to make sure they get each part correct before we put it together. If they drop the period and there's a problem, they have to retype the whole thing. Otherwise, just that work and they keep going repeating the same thing over and over again until they get it right. Then we take those two reasons and we connect them with the glue word. And Trevor likes swimming because it's fun and he likes being with his friends.
Russell:Now we get to the bane of my existence, the Oxford comma. So when you have three reasons, are you a reason one, comma, reason two and reason three, or reason one comma, reason two comma and reason three. Are you a one comma person or a two comma person?
Peter:I'm a two comma, two comma person. Okay, yep.
Russell:So and the parents ask well, how do I know if this is a one comma kid or a two comma kid? And I'll ask what are you? And I will have moms and dads sometimes have a fierce argument.
Russell:I tell them have this discussion away from your children because sometimes parents shout over it and whatever you decide, that goes in the kid's individual education plan, their IEP Set in stone and some future teacher may not like it too bad because it can really mess the kid up. So Trevor was going to call him a two-comma kid. So then we go. Trevor likes swimming because it's fun comma, he likes the water comma and he likes being with his friends. And we have them list out three reasons and each time he types this out he previously typed out, if it was, if you were on reason two, he's already typed out the front part Plus. Trevor likes swimming because reason one.
Russell:And then we add reason two, the whole 20 words 10 likes swimming because reason one and then we had reason to the whole 20 words, 10 likes and dislikes. Once you get through with that, if you start that the reasons in first grade and if it takes you the entire academic year to do it, fine, because now your kid is writing at the end of second or beginning third grade level and if they can write the words they can read them. Now they're ahead of the game despite dyslexia.
Peter:Yeah, it's fascinating because it makes sense Just purely from a structured perspective. It all sounds very logical. These are the steps and this is how you build upon all that type of stuff.
Russell:Now when I get parents and they say, well, can't the school do better than me? I said no, the school would do much worse than you. So I'm just again going back to uh and just again going to go back to this again. Yeah, now, okay. Now what the school does is they work. They tend to work with the back part of the brain. You see, a dyslexic has a distinct disadvantage. So what does the school district do? Number one they want to make us well-rounded. So here's what I found.
Russell:I'm going to give you an example Professor James Holmes. He retired as one of the top 1% of practicing professors who are in economics in the world. Yeah, okay, I even heard that his work was considered possibly for the Nobel. Never got it, never came quite close, but they looked at it All right. So what is his background? When he was in 10th grade, if you gave him, you know, a fifth grade reading and spelling test, he would have flunked with honors. He was not going to college. So sometime in the late 50s, he won. He got third place. In the late 50s, he won, he got third place in the international science competition when they they mattered third place in the country. That allowed him to go to college. Then he went to college and, uh, he started. He was interviewed after college by the second leading economist of the 20th century and got the top scholarship at the University of Chicago, which has always been essentially the best economics program in the world. And he stopped counting the number of times he rewrote his dissertation at 100. Yeah, okay.
Russell:So what I'm telling you is dyslectics tend to not excel until grad school. Before that, we have to be well-rounded, which is exactly outside the speciality. Yeah, so here's what I found with older kids you step out the most motivated ones in the world in high school, the ones that I originally taught. You step out of the speciality, you're down 50%. Typical student you're down 75, 80%. Next, next, the school loved teaching from the general to the specific.
Russell:So with martin luther king, they would ask what affected the night? Did the uh, dr martin luther king's famous I have a dream speech have on the 1960s civil rights movement, apgenic kids fly through it, dyslexic, nothing to latch on to. We want to know we're specific to the general what personally compelled martin luther king to want to give his statement speech? So now we're down even further, and then we're certainly not doing word analysis followed by articulation. So we're down like over 90, the kids frustrated like crazy. Yeah, and because we're, our brains are complete opposites and we can't function in the gen ed kid system, we're called learning disabled. Now, with parents, you can focus on the speciality, teach them from the specific to the general and do word analysis followed by articulation. You can do that at home and for kids that young, you're talking about sessions of 10, maybe 15 minutes, usually 10 yeah, a couple of times a week yeah, yeah, and you can control that and you can do far better.
Russell:You know we work with parents. We train them how to do this on a weekly basis so that they can take their kids and run through this. It's so insane that parents who are engineers or accountants can be far more productive than teachers with six years of education and decades of experience, because they're doing the exact opposite to your child of how we naturally learn yeah, absolutely.
Peter:And of course you know teachers are usually stuck in a room with 30 kids or something like that, so there's no chance yeah, I don't know how they do it no, I mean no I mean it's a shitty job. Any teachers listening to this? You can keep your job, let's go you can.
Peter:You can pay me three times as much as I'm making now. I'm not taking your job, there isn't enough money in the world to do it, but but it's it. I mean just from a child's perspective. They're not going to get that 15, 20 minutes along with the teacher.
Russell:Oh yeah.
Peter:It has to be done at home one way or the other, or with a tutor or something like that, but predominantly it has to be done outside the school.
Russell:Well, actually, what I told you, let's say you go and you're in New York City and you're going to pay $325 an hour for an experienced, certified Orton Gillingham teacher. What I just explained to you is they don't know, right? Okay, I've been teaching New York City special ed teachers this for the past decade. I taught almost every major. I taught every member of the New Jersey Association of Learning Consultants. They're the ones in public schools who diagnose dyslexia and recommend programs. I taught that entire association, over 80 members, how to take kids from C-spot run to a five paragraph essay in two hours. Okay, now you do that in Wharton gillingham. That is weeks, if not months, of training so why is that still?
Peter:I mean, I don't like throwing other, uh uh, other practices under the bus, but it it's. It strikes me as a weird why. Why is that still being used as much as it is? Because we find this in a lot of cases, with regards to programs that we would consider outdated, because we're much more in the field that we say we work in. We find a lot of within within normal schools, within normal health care systems. They use a lot of outdated methodology and and they're just not catching up. Why do you think?
Russell:that is, let me okay, what was before you started the podcast. What was your field?
Peter:uh oh, I was a postpartum trainer for for a while, but a long, long time ago I was an economist.
Russell:Okay, has the tools and theories of economics changed since the 1950s that much?
Peter:Some would argue yes, but a lot would argue no.
Russell:But generally has it advanced.
Peter:As far as I'm concerned, it's massively changed. I mean, I've been doing this for 10, 15 years. I've not done. I got my PhD in 2002. I can't go back to that, I mean from 20 years ago. I can have a conversation with economists, but I can't.
Russell:It's advanced so much, yeah. So what I'm saying is the field, field of orton gillingham. Dr orton passed away in 1948, gillingham, sometime in the 50s. It hasn't changed a tremendous amount since then, yeah. So this, this book came out in 2003 and again I noticed that. I noticed that overactive front part and I decided to say why don't we use that instead of the back part?
Russell:yeah that was my idea yeah, okay, and I spent over 20 years to figure this out. So what we're, what we're doing is in new york state. Again, what they did that dyslexia task force took a year. Then they tried to pass it and they said we can't afford it. So then, um, I'm working with evelyn white bay. She was a member of the state task force. The senior guy at the education department pushed her hard to get on it. She taught for years and she was 3x to 4x more effective than your typical special ed teacher.
Russell:All right, so we talked to a few members of the New York State Assembly and Senate and we went to some school districts to try to show them how to do this process. You know, it was a free six hour training and it would have changed everything for them to get some data to show that we can do this within a budget. The school district said no. So now what we're doing is we're working on a book. It should be out in about three months and then we'll be going to parents.
Russell:We are putting in this criteria highly motivated, highly intelligent children with excellent family support. Why? Because we're doing this essentially for free, okay, with a next to zero budget. We're paying for it ourselves and we just with with that group. Uh, we don't have the motivational issues that come up typically with typical, so narrowing it to that. And then we're inviting families to come aboard. There is a price. They have to write if, once they're successful and for these kids it would just be doing the most basic sentences, like what I just described it would be writing a few handwritten and I mean handwritten letters to a few New York State elected officials.
Russell:Yeah Well, we can say where the schools have failed to address this, where the schools have failed to address this the parents have succeeded. We have to find a way to take this and then, with at least 100 students, we have enough data to show that, yes, there is a massive improvement here and you can afford it. It'll save you so much money to put it in the schools, and the letters mean a lot, even if it's from out-of-state parents.
Peter:Oh, of course I mean letters. Yeah, I, even if it's from out-of-state parents. Oh, of course I mean letters. Yeah, I mean. That's how you get politicians on board these days. Right, you have to convince them of practical examples. In the olden days it was just a numbers game and that doesn't work anymore.
Russell:Yeah, so when the book comes out in about three months, we're going to use that as a kind of recruiting tool, kind of discussing science. We went over and we are going to discuss it through the craft of research, which is context and problem, which is bringing it through, like the eighth grade level, which is where the third to eighth grade seems to be the biggest issue. Yeah, this is, for example, my local school district, averill Park. I went to a school board meeting a couple of months ago and their third grade through eighth grade English language arts test for overall was 42 to about 59%. Okay, we want to show them how to get that past 80%, and that's just everybody.
Peter:That's a huge huge improvement.
Russell:Yeah, so we're not just looking at the selected kids, we're looking at other, you know. You know the highly motivated, highly intelligent, with excellent family support, those families we show them how to do this at no cost and the book is, is there to show people, you know the science, what we're looking to do and to get them on board so we can get those 100 families yeah, well, it sounds to me like that's.
Peter:That's an excellent plan, because of course you know it's like you said you spend money now to save it later on. Right, you can, you can spend the money on the kids early on and then later on you'll save yourself an absolute fortune by not having uh kids having to go to a really, really expensive uh special school and all that type of stuff oh, yeah, and but it's also just avoiding all the frustration.
Russell:And even if, let's just say your child, nothing gets done until past fourth grade, what do you do? I recommend the best dyslexic school in the world. It's called the gowell school, g-o-w uh, g-o-worg. It's just south of Buffalo, started in 1926. Next year is their 100th year anniversary. You send your child. They're starting in fifth grade by the time they graduate. If they're smart enough for Harvard, they'll get them in a top 50 school and they will be as well prepared as any kid anywhere in the world, even at the best private schools anywhere. But do you really? Even if you had the money, because that's over 80 grand a year, yeah do you want to send your kid away in fifth grade to boarding school?
Peter:yeah, no, exactly most parents don't no, no, you won't. If you can do it from, let's say, the comfort of your own home and in a supportive environment and all that sort of stuff, and that seems to be the much month, to me at least the much preferred method. Um, right, it's an absolute no-brainer if you can do this around the kitchen table, but then that's fundamentally what you want to do, right?
Russell:yeah, and then when I, as I said, when they have parents say well, my kid won't do the work, men, you're in their speciality, so they generally do, and if they don't, you find the thing that they don't like the most. I'll give you an example, because parents tend to get a laugh out of this. I was dealing with an older child. He was the firstborn and the thing he hated was having his younger sister tell him what to do, and he was also a clean freak. Okay, uh, his, his room was spotless. So what we did? When he didn't do his homework three times in a row, because the parents would give him a little chance, we went up. They had his little sister mess up his room on purpose and then instructed them how to clean it Move that, do that, do that. And then, once he got it cleaned up, the parents had her mess it up again and he told her what to do. He's like I hate this, you didn't do your homework. He finished it up, and next time I was on, I said so what happened?
Speaker 4:And he described he was outraged my little sister was bossing me around.
Russell:She messed up my room. I said okay, you can miss your homework again.
Peter:No, yeah, I'm sure he did it next time but they had.
Russell:They had a kick out of that. They everybody they told was just laughing at it. But that just gives you an example of or one kid. He didn't like dirty things so he hated cleaning the cat pan, missed his homework. Parents didn't give an excuse. He had I gotta clean the cat pan. It's disgusting.
Russell:They have rules and boundaries, right yeah, but that works because, remember, at the beginning I got his agreement. We went over that question. Yeah, that's me. Is this how you want to overcome things? We start off with an audio book that they really like and then we get a printed one, but when they're five or six we might usually just start with things they like and dislike because they're so young.
Peter:Yeah, so that's generally how you do it. That sounds great. That sounds very, very doable and I'm sure a lot of my listeners um will have gotten a lot of hope from that if they, if their kids, are dyslexic or showing signs of being dyslexic, and all that sort of stuff. We've covered a lot of ground. Was anything else you wanted to touch on before we?
Russell:Nope, it's pretty much. If parents are interested, what we do is I sent you a special link. I did. I received it. Yeah, all they need to do is go to the show notes, click on that link, you're going to fill out a short form and you're going to download one of our documents. It's the three reasons your child's having trouble in school due to dyslexia and how to get past it. All right.
Russell:And then we set up a 15 to 30 minute conversation with me where I speak to your child and I ask him that question and one or two more, and from there I can tell you is this kid ADD, adhd, mild dyslexia or severe dyslexia or no? They're not Okay by just a few questions. It's for treatment purposes, not a definitive thing, but it matches a $5,000 neuropsych exam over 95% of the time when I've done this in practice. And from there then I asked the child is this how you would like to overcome your reading and writing concerns? If they don't say yes, I'm not the person for you. Most of the time they say yes, and then I talk with the parents and we get things set up and the main thing is parents say, well, I'm busy, exactly, but at this age you know you're talking to only 10 minute sessions maybe a couple of times a week.
Russell:And parents say well, I'm going away for the summer, we'll pick it up when you're back from the summer. Okay, it's the cheapest way and the most effective way to work with your child Because, remember, you can do the speciality, you can go specific to the general and you can do word analysis followed by articulation, how our brain works. The school does the exact opposite, just to really drum this home. Is there a sport that you're really horrible at? For me, it's basketball. Is there?
Peter:anything you're really bad at for sports. For me, tennis just doesn't go.
Russell:Okay, Now I want you to imagine that. Just wave of the magic wand. You got your PhD in economics. You had a multi-six-figure salary job in economics and we say, if you can't be a tennis star, we're going to take that away from you and pay you according to your ability of playing tennis.
Peter:What's going to happen? I'd still be poor.
Russell:I'd be motivated. But right, but no matter how hard you try doing well at tennis, you're never going to be very good. No, true, that's what it's like for a dyslectic in school, the way that it's set up. Yeah, okay, now what is it that? What is your speciality? What are you really good at that you're really interested in?
Peter:I am superb at all the postpartum recovery stuff. This is my wheelhouse, yeah.
Russell:Okay, now imagine in school. The analogy is from requiring you to be an excellent tennis player to going into that area. Do you see how it completely changes everything? Yeah, absolutely.
Russell:That's what happens when you follow that three-step model and know your teachers have absolutely no idea what it is. I've been presenting this at major conferences since 2006. That's why I decided to jump on all the podcasts to try to spread the word, because now it's much more efficient doing that, but they still don't get it. And again, what's my credibility? I was funded by the New York State Senate. It went through the New York State Education Department, senior professors in Buffalo, the Research Foundation of the State University of New York and finally me being invited to present at major conferences all over the Northeast. For over the.
Russell:Northeast For over a decade, absolutely Well.
Peter:That's why I wanted you on the podcast. I think it's absolutely fascinating stuff and I think there's really something to this and I think it's valuable information that we should really get out there and should get out there a lot more. To be honest, on that happy note, I will press stop record here and, of course, press stop record is exactly what I did. Thanks again to Russell for coming onto my little podcast. Like I said, there are a few guests that I've had on that I'm just blown away with their knowledge and insight and expertise on a particular subject and Russell is one of those guys. I learned more in this 50 minutes or so of talking to Russell we did a bit before and after but 50 minutes or so of talking to Russell than I've done in years of casually picking up bits and pieces about dyslexia. And you know, it's one of those situations where one of those things that you know what I thought I knew, you know that you know what I thought I knew you know wasn't really the way to deal with dyslexia. And you know, like I said, I gave some examples before. I've come into contact with people with dyslexia who I think would have greatly, greatly benefited from working with somebody like Russell. I will link to everything. Russell and I discussed his dyslexia classes, websites, and he's got this amazing e-book, which is the three reasons your child's dyslexia education isn't working and how to fix it. If your kid suffers from dyslexia, or someone you know has a child that suffers from dyslexia, or you yourself suffer from dyslexia, this is definitely worth a little read and it's a free download. So you know what's not to love, right? Like I said, it was mind-blowing. I absolutely loved this conversation.
Peter:I am back with From the Vault next week and the week after that I have another interview to bring you. I just can't remember what it was about. No, we're talking postpartum nutrition. I kid, I kid, we're talking postpartum nutrition again. So you're going to dear. That's postpartum nutrition again. So you're going to dear. That's postpartum nutrition. What's not to love, right? Anyways, that's all from me. Peter at HealthyPostnatalBodycom, you take care of yourself. Bye now.
Speaker 4:What you think about that, what you think about anything, what you think about you, what you think about me, what you think about me, what you think about that, what you think about that, what you think about anything, what you think about you, what you think about me, what you think about that.
Speaker 4:I get so sick and tired Of faking all the moves. I know everything that comes between us Puts you in the mood. I get so sick and tired Of following all your rules. The next time you walk away, I'm gonna let you through. What you think about that, what you think about anything, what you think about you, what you think about me, what you think about that, what you think about me, what you think about that, what you think about that, what you think about anything, what you think about you, what you think about me, what you think about that. I get so sick and tired Of faking all the rules. I know everything that comes between us puts you in the mood. I get so sick and tired of following all your rules. The next time you walk away, I'm gonna let you through.