Welcome And Faye’s Story

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Welcome back to Speak Out Standout. I'm Elizabeth Green, and today's guest is Faye Hisself. Faye is a dyslexia therapist who works with families wanting to support their child's dyslexia at home. And Faye, we are so excited to chat with you today. I know there is so much to talk about about this, and this applies to so many families. So thanks for being here. Oh, thank you. I'm so I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

I really am.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

So one starter question. Are you dyslexic or do you work with dyslexic families or both? Is that that's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

I myself am not dyslexic. I am neurodivergent. I have ADHD, and I have a lot of qualities that dyslexic people have as far as when I'm speaking. So I do have that. My son, who um also has ADHD, was uh he had a he had a whole host of um developmental delays when he was really young. And my background's in early childhood education and special education. And so poor baby, I like I knew all the I caught all the signs. And so he was in therapy, he was in speech therapy at 12 months, he was in occupational therapy multiple times a week. And I was sort of anticipating that it might be dyslexia. And, you know, I told my husband we're gonna have to watch out because there's a really good chance that he has dyslexia or there's gonna be some sort of reading issues. And so I sort of was already thinking and gearing up about um becoming a dyslexia therapist, and then sure enough, he hit kindergarten and he just was not it, it was not clicking. So I sort of pulled from my special ed background to really do come some multisensory work and launch him, and then that really kicked me into high gear uh to working with with to to becoming a dyslexia therapist and then working with tons of kids in public school and private practice with dyslexia.

How Common Dyslexia Really Is

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, and I have several questions about all of this, but uh well, my first one is how common is dyslexia?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Oh, that's a great question. So uh dyslexia is estimated to be one out of five. So 15 to 20 percent. I will say that of that one out of five, the estimate is that maybe only five percent of those actually get identified. Um it's it's under identified. It's the most frequent learning disability. Um, and I I am certainly finding that as I am working with this younger generation and teaching them that a lot of times their parents will then say, maybe I have dyslexia. That would explain so much, you know, because they'll tell me like reading was always a struggle. Everybody told me that I wasn't trying hard enough, you know. Yeah. So I think that in older generations, um, it was not as identified.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Right. I think probably very similar to autism. Right. You know, people say to you know, say, oh, we have it so much more prevalent now. When it seems like, no, it's just being caught and diagnosed now. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Right. No more, the science is better. We have more sensitive assessment tools all the time. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Well, so you mentioned when your son was 12 months old, you were noticing things. So my son, who is now 17, he also has a learning disability. They called it basically dyslexic dysgraphia. So a little bit of, you know, of both of those things, I think he has struggled with. Um, incredibly intelligent, a great communicator, but struggled reading early on and handwriting and those things. And for us, I noticed and and remember asking his first grade teacher if it could be that. And she was like, oh no, no, we don't diagnose things like that to at least third grade. Just keep working with him at home school. And ultimately, it went to fifth grade before he was diagnosed. And so that was five years of struggles in school, which absolutely impacted his perception of school. So you're saying like that this can be diagnosed and recognized much earlier than that.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yes. So the science now tells us that with about 92% accuracy, uh, dyslexia can be identified at age five and they don't even have to be reading. So, because the impact is on the phonological processing system. And so it really is the putting together and splitting apart sounds. So you don't need to be reading in order for us to test you. Now there is unfortunately a couple of things at play from what you described. One is that the colleges of education have not done a great job of teaching any educator who walks through the door kind of the signs of dyslexia and the science of it. So a lot of classroom teachers, you know, people are trying to go back and sort of train them on what they're looking for. But that old idea of it'll kick in, they need to try harder, you know, that kind of thing, um is unfortunately still there. The other thing is, and this is inaccurate as well, but some even administrator school personnel will say we don't test until third grade. That is also inaccurate and incorrect and also not in alignment with IDEA. Um, but and and then of course, parents who really have a hunch and also really trust the school. Um, you know, it just there's a lot of misinformation. And what's unfortunate about that is, first of all, like you said, uh kind of the first thing to go is the self-confidence, the the enjoyment of school. Um the social emotional impact can be really huge when you don't intervene quickly. The other thing is that the data now shows that if we intervene, if we start dyslexia intervention in first grade, kind of the first year that we can take, there's a 90 to 95% chance of success, meaning that by the time that child is in third, fourth, fifth grade, you might not see the signals of dyslexia so much anymore, right? They would be at grade level and can maintain. Um, whereas if the diagnosis happens in third, fourth, fifth, it's diminishing returns. So by the time you're in fourth grade, the success rate drops to 40, 45%. It's how. And it takes, let's see if I can remember this right, I want to say it takes three times as long the intervention, four times as long. So it's in everybody's best interest to go in fast and furious at first grade um or second grade, you know, and there are a lot of advocates of people working out there. So I um I work with families a lot of times who are kind of shut out of that, whether the school has said, we will not test your kid, or we've tested them, but they're not failing, therefore they are not dyslexic, which also is not accurate. Um and so a lot of times they'll come to me. So important things to know are you don't need your child to be labeled dyslexic in order to feel comfortable intervening. If you're concerned, you just follow your gut as a parent because there's nothing that I'm gonna do with your child that's going to negatively impact them. You know, if everybody, you know, the thing that we say about sort of structured literacy is it's beneficial for all and essential for some. So nobody is gonna be harmed by doing a really sequential, explicit approach to reading. For some kids, they would have learned how to read without that. Um, and that's sort of a small fraction. And so those kids would be bored with me, maybe. Um, but and say, like, hurry up, I already know this. Um, but really it benefits everybody.

Early Signs Parents Can Spot

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah. Well, for sure. Just like, you know, you can you can never read too much, you know. I mean, so well, so you mentioned, and I know a lot of our audience is homeschoolers, but for those of you who do have your kids listening and you're in in school systems, and you've been told, um, no, it's not that. I mean, in our case, he was our oldest child, we didn't know. So if you become an expert tells me, no, we don't think that's the problem, okay, you know? Yeah. Um, so and so I like it that you've said, you know, it go with your gut, but you know, that that can be hard to do, especially when we don't have anything to compare it to. Younger child, you can see, oh, I can see there's a difference here. But if your older child, and or this is just your first go-round with experience in this, what kind of signs can parents spot early on?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Um, so a couple of things. I'm so glad that you mentioned the homeschoolers, um, because I do work a lot with homeschoolers, and I came across some um misinformation before. So I just want to say for your homeschoolers, then if you do want free testing, you can get that through the public school. You do not need to be enrolled, registered, any of that. Um, so so if there is a history of speech and language delays, your child is more at risk for dyslexia. There's there's a that's a good indicator that something might be going on. Any kind of developmental delays, which is like I said, with my son while I was on the lookout. Then some of the things that before reading that you might kind of do with your child that could clue you in, when I talk about breaking apart and putting together sounds, it could look like if I'm playing a game with my kid and saying, Hey, guess my word, you know, can they push it together for cat? Can we break apart the sounds of dog? Uh do they recognize, are they catching on to the letters? Um letters in their name or their siblings' names are gonna be the most important letters for them. So they're usually motivated to learn those first. Are they picking up letter sound, you know, mmm for M, for S, that sort of thing. And then just sort of breaking apart, let's say compound words, cowboy, cowboy, take away the cow, you still got boy. Then you can start playing with syllables and sounds. If they're if they're not catching on with rhymes, that's a really good telltale. Um and so many children's books have rhyme and rhythm to them. So, you know, it's a higher uh skill to be able to generate your own rhyme, but certainly when you've modeled what rhyming is, and then you're reading a passage and you have cat and bad in there which words rhyme, or say three words and pick out, you know, the rhyme, or do these two words rhyme? I will work with fourth graders, but I'll say, you know, this word, this word, do they rhyme? And they'll just they're not certain, they'll kind of nod and look at me. So that's a great indicator that you've got something going on. As they get older, you know, you could say things like, let's say, you know, bright, bright, take away the buff, you know, can they have the right, switch out the sounds, that kind of stuff. Um, but those are some really good early indicators that you want to get in there and um start working on phonological awareness things.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Okay. And so so dyslexia is not just writing your letters backwards.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

No, that idea has really persisted. Some people with dyslexia do uh write words backwards. And another idea that persists is is this idea that the letters move around. That is an experience for some people with dyslexia, but it is not universal. When it was first being studied, people thought it was a vision issue. What it really, what it really is, is a processing issue. So I heard a great professional um give an analogy of a computer, you know. So for a person with dyslexia with a processing, um, any kind of processing issue, your hardware can be very sound, your hearing, your vision, your everything. But the software that's running has some glitches in it. So that you're maybe not picking up on the sounds and words and rhymes and that kind of thing. Now, for people who struggle to decode, if they hit a page with a lot of text on it, it can feel like the letters are jumping around, that sort of thing. Um, but it's it's not it's not rooted in the visual system. It's more in how the brain is processing the information that's coming in. And like people will say with autism, you know, or with dyslexia, you meet one person. With autism, you meet one person. You know, everybody is a spectrum of how people experience it. So there's not a universal, this is what, you know, this is what it's like for you when you have dyslexia.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Okay. No, that's great information. And I remember when we finally did get the diagnosis, you know, that they were like, well, he's in this world of it. You know, like dysgraphia was definitely one of the things they said that they said maybe dyslexia too, but but it was interesting because I couldn't understand at that point why they just couldn't say, yes, this is what it is. But now that makes more sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Right. Yeah, because it's sort of a continuum. And dyslexia co-occurs about 30% of the time with ADHD. I will say, in my personal experience, you know, as a mom, but also as an educator, it it can look a lot like maybe that's ADHD. Um and one thing that I just sort of tell parents is if it looks like ADHD, go ahead and test and make sure it's not dyslexia. You know, like go ahead and and see what you've got going on. And then if it's ADHD, you can make your choices about how you want to work with that. Um a lot of the multisensory and things will continue to apply and be useful, but um, but it can really kind of mirror it. And then you have things like uh dysgraphia and and other sort of related co-occurring things. And just I will say I've most of the kids that I work with, if they haven't been identified as dysgraphia, there's there's some some whiffs of it in there, you know. I guess it's a challenge. Yeah.

unknown 16:47

Yeah.

Dysgraphia And Why Cursive Helps

SPEAKER_01 16:47

And will you do you mind to uh briefly explain to what dysgraph is for someone who's hearing that for the first time? Because I know when we found out, that was the very first time we had heard of it. And and even to this day, some of his teachers have never heard of that. So can you just briefly explain what it is?

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Yeah, dysgraphia is I would say it's sort of like the dyslexia of writing. Um, so it's very much about getting your words out on paper. There's a fine motor component that you'll see the handwriting might be all over the page and um can be very illegible or struggle forming the letters. So there's that physical piece. Uh then there's just also a real challenge stringing together a written sentence, right? Getting composing your thoughts. So some and a, you know, some occupational therapists are really good supports uh for dysgraphia, regardless. Any kid with dyslexia, you want to do a really strong handwriting intervention because um having fluid handwriting, and I know now all over the news people are sort of talking about let's get rid of these computers and get back to pencil and paper. And you know. I'm on the side of my because it actually, when when kids can write really fluidly, it brings down uh the cognitive load. So like they're able to get their ideas out much more quickly, and they're not having to try to hang on to everything that they want to say while trying to get their hand to cooperate with getting it out. So um so for kids with dyscrampia and kids with dyslexia, certainly kind of when they're in that later second grade age, so kind of a I really like to do cursive with them because you're not lifting and moving the pencil around the page. So it's a much more fluid, faster way to write. Also, it is really common for kids with dyslexia to have um letter confusion with PQBD. That is developmentally appropriate for all kids. Um it usually goes away at kind of seven and a half, but if it's hanging in there, then that's a that's a sign that you might want to pay close attention and see. Um so they can have a a really hard time distinguishing that. So with cursive, all those letters look different, um and they're more distinctive. So it's helpful for the kids to be able to differentiate.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Had definitely heard that, and um, my son has learned some cursive. Um, I have, but I did not understand why. So I'm glad you explained that. And everything you said, I wish I would have met you years ago because we would have been able to figure this out much sooner. But my son is a fantastic communicator. He knows just about anything that there is to know about animals and insects, that was his passion when he was younger. He could give you like a TED talk on any insect that you asked him about. But if you asked him to write about it, we would barely get two sentences. And and so that was a frustration for him. And for like I said, for so many years, it was you're not trying hard enough. You just have to try harder. And then so it was such a relief whenever. And like I said, we asked several teachers. And then finally in fifth grade, his teacher pulled me in and said, look at his work compared to another's. I think that there's an issue here. And I was like, well, that's what we thought. Everybody wants to know. So I am glad that this is a conversation that people are having more. And if if you're listening to this and you're hearing this for the first time and you're like, oh, that sounds familiar, check it out. I mean, in our case, it was literally just a Google uh, you know, discrepia checklist. And it was bam, bam, bam. It was so easy for us to see, wow, yes, this is absolutely the issue. And so, and and for him, one of the helpers for him, because they don't teach cursive in school, my mother-in-law taught him some at home, was to use um talk-to-type things like that, those programs. So he could, and it instantly made such a difference in the quality of work he was able to put out because he had all the thoughts here. And like you said, it was like just getting them from here to make his hand function the way it needed to was such a challenge.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Yes. And and you're so right. There are so many technology is a blessing. It can be a curse sometimes, but it is a blessing. And there are so many programs um the talk to type uh spell correct. I mean, most kids always use that, you know. Um uh there's also just the audio notes, there's an app um where you can take a screenshot of a piece of text and it'll just start reading, you know, the sheet to you. So there's a lot of workarounds and for teachers and for parents, and certainly when I was in public school uh working uh with kiddos, but in the general ed environment, the messaging for me was always what what are you trying to get them to show you? Because if you want him to show you his thoughts and his ability to compose, we could remove the writing here because that's more of a test of his hand stamina and his frustration, you know, and just get him. So for those older kids, particularly who are doing essays, we would sit down and they might start the speech to text, and then we go back and revise and go back and do things. Because if what we're going for is how they're thinking and arguing a topic, for example, we want to kind of circumvent the handwriting of that particular moment. Absolutely makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

Building Confidence Plus Reading Support

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Well, so for the parents listening who are like, okay, yes, I feel like this sounds familiar. What can I do? Whether I'm a homeschooling mom or I'm just helping my kid with their homework after school, what can I do to help relieve these struggles?

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Great. Well, the I would say the first and most important thing is tackling the social emotional piece. So that can look a few different ways. But if your child is really resisting work and really resisting reading, then it might be that they're that emotional piece is already coming in, this feeling of failure, right? Nobody wants to do anything that they feel like they are terrible at. Right. And um so if you know that your kid is dyslexic, I really encourage you to talk about it and to name it. Um, there is a lovely book called Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shewitz, and I sort of borrow her imagery and definition. So she talks about dyslexia, and I think you can apply it to any kind of struggle that a kid is having as an iceberg of weakness within a sea of strengths, right? So you are strong and all these things. The reading is hard, you know. Dad, what's hard for you? Mom, what's hard for you? What's hard for you? What's easy for you? What's easy for you? Like I learned how to tie my shoes really quickly, but I can't hit the tennis ball or whatever, you know? So we all have these strengths. So really kind of housing it within that understanding that we all have a lot of strengths and we all have things that need more practice and are not going to come as easily. With dyslexia, I also borrow her sort of terminology where when I talk to kids about dyslexia, you know, I'll tell them you have dyslexia. Do you know what that is? If they have been identified. And I define it as when smart kids struggle with reading. Does that sound like you? Sounds just like your son, you know. I mean, sounds like my son. My son can tell you everything about World War I, and I don't think you know. Like all this, you know, battleships and all this kind of stuff, but open a book and it was just like, exactly, you know, couldn't couldn't craft the code. So um, so I think that that have framing it that way, and then also talking about how this is something that happens, it's natural. About 20% of people have it. We can watch, you know, TED Talks, YouTubes, whatever, of people who have it who've done amazing things. We've had about five presidents that had dyslexia. We've got leaders of industries, Steven Spielberg, you name it, they've done it. So so I think that in fact, a lot of adults and older people with dyslexia will credit their dyslexia as giving them their work ethic. And that is something that many parents will say about their child is like they work harder than any other kid, and they just accepted that they're gonna work hard, and that serves them well. So I think that really going back and rebuilding um that piece, and then for kids with dyslexia, you know, I tell them there's a certain kind of teaching that's really helpful, and I know how to do it. So, like we've got we've got a plan of attack. Um, for homeschoolers, there are some curricula that are better than others, and I'm not gonna pretend that this is my wheelhouse, but um the I do know from being on boards and talking forums and talking to different homeschooling parents that it seems like the logic of English has um some really good uh approaches to um to laying things out in a way that I might with kids with dyslexia. Um you can, you know, certainly, uh certainly just get the hearing and vision check just to make sure if there's any kind of speech delays, any kind of articulation, go ahead and look for a speech therapist if that's if you're comfortable with that. And a lot of times insurance will cover it. It's a big umbrella. So if you do want to meet with a speech therapist, you might look for somebody who's been trained in a program called letters, L-E-T-R-S, or something like that, that's sort of that bridge into reading and writing. Because speech therapists work with, you know, my my mother-in-law, after she had a brain tumor removed, uh, you know, I they work with such a broad range. So looking for that. Um, and then really going back and shoring up the foundations, making sure that the child knows all their letters, that they know the letter sounds, and then starting with the phonemic awareness. Um on my website and uh on my socials and everything, I have the free dyslexia roadmap for families. And a lot of the stuff that we've talked about here is in there. It's just sort of a starting point of places to go to get information, um, if you do want to get tested, that kind of stuff. And there are home programs, so a lot of homeschooling families will use Barton, uh, reading and spelling, which was developed by uh dyslexia, an OT teacher, dyslexia teacher, and that is designed for the parents to do at home. It's very affordable. It is reading and spelling, so it's not as robust. Um, so you want to stuff with it, but that's a good one. I am launching a home program as well, um, that's even more economical than Barton, and again, where I'm teaching the parents and they can also opt into coaching calls and that sort of stuff. Great. Because at the very beginning, it's really foundational. So you want to make sure the foundation is sound if you're concerned.

Baselines Masking And Final Advice

SPEAKER_01 29:12

All right. Well, Faye, this has been extremely helpful. And we will link to your uh free roadmap and all your socials and all that. So anybody who's listening who wants to learn more, it'll be easy to access. Uh, but before we go, Faye, is there anything else that we didn't talk about that you'd like to share with our audience?

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Hey, I just just to say it again, like a broken record. I just trust your gut. If you feel like something's not here, it's always even if you suspect it's something else, then just go forward to rule out that something else. You know, I think it will help you, it will help you and empower you as your child's first teacher or olden teacher um to just feel like you have a lay of the land. And then secondly, if your child does have dyslexia or some sort of reading struggles, I really encourage parents to, um, and you can you can Google kind of oral reading fluency and uh phonics assessments, but I really encourage them to get their own sort of baseline understanding of what their kids know and where their struggles are, so that you can make sure they're going in the right direction and that um they're going on and on and on and up from there.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Yeah. Well, and and like you said too, the sooner the better. And even if you find out, no, it's not this at all. Okay, great. So now you can look at a different avenue just because you know you don't want them to struggle for so many years. It just, you know, like you said, it just affects them so much socially and emotionally. So the sooner.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Yes. And I will say the other thing, sorry, I yeah, no, myself all of them try. But I will say when you're using a really solid phonics program, and when I meet kids who are at schools or whose homeschool has just a really solid phonics program, sometimes you won't see the cracks until third grade or so. Or if your kid is really cognitively precocious, because those kids are able to mask really well, and it only really starts to peek through at third grade when they just can't memorize the words anymore, you know, um, or they're moving away from the high frequency words, or now there are so many more kind of content, second, you know, tier two, what we would call vocabulary that they can't decode. So I would say that's another point where if you feel like everything's been going great and then it's not, before you sort of fall back on a feeling of like they've stopped trying, just make sure that something else isn't going on.

unknown 31:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

This has been a tremendous conversation. I have learned so much from you, even though we have personal experience with this. I've learned so much and appreciate you coming on to chat about this. And you know, our whole goal here is to build confidence and communication skills, and this falls directly in line with that. So um again, we will link to everything. So if you're listening or watching, the links are going to be like above or below wherever you're at, and you'll be able to get phase free roadmap, check out more of her programs, and reach out if you have any questions. Thank you for being here. And thanks for listening.