SLAyyy: Second Language Acquisition for Everyone
Join Ben (he/him), Bryan (he/they), and Bill (he/him) as they Gaslight (reflect), Gatekeep (read research), and Girlboss (share successes) language teaching!
SLAyyy: Second Language Acquisition for Everyone
Ep. 15: SLAyyy Supporting Students with Dyslexia with Sara Lee
Gaslight
Lack of Training and Preparation
Reading IEPs and 504s
Diagnosis - or No?
Gatekeep - Sara Lee, 2024 Southwest Conference on Language Teaching TOY
Formative Assessment to Evaluate Strengths and Needs
Teaching for Proficiency
What About Explicit Grammar Teaching?
Anxiety!
Theory: Mental-Graphemic Representation
Girlboss
Readable Fonts
Identify the “Easy” Spelling Rules
Differentiation
Alternatives to Writing
Pro Tip!
Equality and Equity: Are Accommodations “Fair?”
The Most Efficient Thing is the Thing That Benefits the Largest Number of Students
What is the Learner Able to Do?
References
Lexend Font
OpenDyslexic Font
Supporting Language Students with Dyslexia - blog post at The Comprehensible Classroom by Kelly Brandon and Elicia Cárdenas
German Educational Multiplier (GEM) Network for German Teachers
Text us about how you’ve Gaslit, or Girlbossed your language classroom.
Email us at SLAyyyForEveryone@gmail.com
Hi everybody, and welcome back to Slay Second Language Acquisition for Everyone. This week we are honored to have yet another guest who was highlighted in the Actful Teacher of the Year process. Through this process, teachers across our country get to learn and meet and enjoy the expertise and experience and wisdom of so many teachers of so many great individuals that, that we just got highlighted through this process. So we are very thrilled to have yet another in Sarah Lee, who is our guest today Sarah Lee. It was the 2023 Arizona Language Association Teacher of the Year, the 2024 Southwest Conference. on language teaching teacher of the year and was an actual teacher of the year candidate in November of 2024 representing Southwest Colt. And Sarah, we are so excited that you're here. Welcome to the podcast.
Sara:Well, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's so great to be on here.
FishRod:Yay. so Sarah told us a little bit about your teaching background, what you teach, where you teach and how you got to where you are now.
Sara:Okay so I'm an associate teaching professor at Arizona State University. I'm teaching German, I'm teaching really all different levels, from German 101 from the beginners up to our higher undergraduate classes. I developed a fairy tales class, although I'm a linguist, so my heart is really in everything linguistics and especially I developed a class on language and disability, and that is That is my hard child. So that is the class I I love teaching. Did I get here? Oh my goodness. This is, I mean, how, how much time do we have? Right? I I grew up in Germany. I went to school in Germany. I I. I didn't quite know what to do, I was never a great student, and now I know that I was never a great student because it was all just lecturing, and it was all just like, totally not the way that I learn, and absolutely not the way that I teach and so I was struggling in school, and there was always the question, oh, is she really? you know, smart enough. Do you think she can do it or not? And then eventually I was like, well, I'm at least nice to children. So I'm going to become an elementary school teacher because it's like, you know, so yeah, so I did my, it's called Erste Staatsexamen. So it's kind of like a BA in elementary school teaching. And then when I got my degree, They sent me for my teacher training into the middle of nowhere, you know German Germany, in Sauerland, in tiefster Sauerland. And I was like, no. And then my brother was actually doing a study abroad at Michigan State. And so I visited him and I was like, I was talking to some professors there and they were like, Hey, don't you want a TA ship? We still have a TA ship open and you could come and get your master's here. And I was like, okay. And so I went to Michigan State and got my master's in German. And then I went back to Germany and I was thinking about what I could do, for my master's thesis, and my mom, I was really interested in linguistics, and my mom, she was a family counselor, and she was working with a dyslexia institute in Germany, and she was telling me about it, and I was like, oh, that sounds so interesting. So I actually wrote my master's thesis on dyslexia in German. And then when I came back to Germany, I actually got an offer to work at that Dyslexia Institute. And so I worked there for a few years and I really didn't want to go back to Germany. I felt like I wasn't ready, but my parents were like, yeah, come on and you have a job and this is so awesome. And well, and then I met my husband who is from England, but who actually just moved to the US. And so we had a long distance relationship. for a while. And now I ended up here again. And, then I was actually, I desperately wanted to do, so I got also my second so called Zweite Staatsexamen, so like a master's in teaching for middle school. And I really wanted to teach middle school again because I love middle schoolers because they, I think middle schoolers need the best teachers because they have no idea who they are.
FishRod:And how
Sara:yeah, exactly. You're an elementary school teacher and a high school teacher. both at the same time when you're teaching middle school. And so that's why I, love middle schoolers. And I wanted to start teaching here in Arizona. And it took forever to get my teaching credentials transferred from Germany. And during that time I got an offer to teach at ASU because they didn't care about my teaching credentials. And so somehow I got stuck there. So that was my weird, weird way to where I am right now.
FishRod:life finds a way that's amazing.
Sara:Yeah.
FishRod:we we, I, I have to mention for the good of the order that we are down a bill this evening cause he is not feeling well. But Bill and I are high school teachers. I was a former middle school teacher and I think Brian is teaching at the middle school in his district. Jerry teaching one course right now, Brian,
Bryan:Yeah, I teach one course at the middle school and the rest in the high school. So. Both.
FishRod:that? How's that middle school?
Bryan:You know, it definitely takes a lot of energy, but I do enjoy it because you're right, it is kind of like there, I mean, there are middle schools that are between like the cuteness that you might see in elementary kids and then like excitement about learning and also like the ability to, you know, do a little bit more than you might be able to go without elementary kids. So I like it. But yeah, it definitely tires me out.
FishRod:That's a personality thing. That's so funny to find to find a middle school person here. That's so great. so it sounds like you had a lot of experience with professional experience working specifically in the realm of dyslexia. And dyslexia therapy and serving students with dyslexia, and we're so happy to have you on the podcast to talk about this. I think I'm speaking from personal experience. Just as a general education teacher, this feels like an area where we don't get enough professional development, or it is spotty, or you have to seek it out and sometimes it is luck if you come across a great resource or great you know, trainer, or whoever it is to share these ideas with. So we're so happy that you're here. Brian, speaking now between me and Brian again as Gen Ed teachers, Brian, where's some spots where we have in Gaslight Land, where we have maybe not lived up to the promise of serving our dyslexic students to our best?
Bryan:You know, I have to admit, I've never had a dyslexic student, so I can't say a whole lot. But I mean, I guess I can talk a bit about what I've tried to do in case I might have a student that could be undiagnosed or something like that. I know that there are certain, like, I mean, this might be something that you're planning to talk about, but I know that there are certain fonts that, you know are easier for students with dyslexia to read. I think it's the ones that don't have serif, and so I've tried to make as many of my, like Texts that I create for my class in the language to use those, like, sans serif fonts. And I think even for, like, students who don't have dyslexia, it just seems a little bit easier for them to read. Like, they're already reading in a different language than their first language, and so just making, like, presenting things in a way that seems approachable. Has seemed to, I mean, I actually don't know if it's effective because like I said, I don't know, I don't think I've had any students that have dyslexia, but I guess I'm just saying that I'm open to learning more. What about you?
FishRod:I think for me, I I had a couple moments this year where I recognized that I had not read my students IEPs or 504 documents. And just to be totally transparent, that's a, that's a thing that I think is so important and you would hear me say that in a presentation at a professional conference, like the IEP is a legal document, read the individualized education plan for each student that has one read all the 504 documents, understand the accommodations and implement them. And I've had some moments this year where. I have, I don't know. I think I did this. This is so embarrassing, but I made a comment like, oh, you know, like, oh, so and so's handwriting, like, wow, sure is lovely. And they're like, I have dyslexia. And I was like, I am so sorry. I am the meanest person. I am so, so sorry. That's right. It is totally not your fault. You're learning another language. I'm so sorry. But again, that was me. Like, you know, we have a lot of you know, plates that we are spending at the same time as teacher, but it really, really is fundamental. Yeah. To do the universal accessibility things like you were talking about, Brian, but I think also then looking into the specifics for the students that are in the room, knowing them very well, and then doing them with fidelity. Again, I'm so embarrassed that this happened, this, and this was not super long ago. So I'm like, Oh gosh. So
Bryan:Yeah.
FishRod:everybody.
Bryan:And I think, too, I believe, I mean, there is, I mean, I'm sure there's overlap, but isn't there a difference between dyslexia and dysgraphia? Because I've had students with dysgraphia, who have trouble with handwriting, which might overlap, but I don't believe is exactly the same as dyslexia. So, I've thought about things that I've done to help those students, which is mostly allowing them to type. Which is kind of a pretty simple solution, although it comes with lots of caveats because, you know, as language teachers we want students to learn how to be able to produce the language as accurately as they can and with the advent of spellcheck and Students already not really, I mean, I think being able to use a tool like spellcheck requires like knowing what it's supposed to look like. And so sometimes I think students aren't using it as well as, or as effectively as they could be. And so that's something else that I'm open to learning more about.
FishRod:I think the other thing too for me is that I, you know, we talk a lot about acquisition and that it's piecemeal and that there is going to be influence from the first languages. And so I always, I'm like, should I worry about dyslexia here when I see this? Or is this indicative of or dysgraphia? You know, is this is indicative of something, you know, neurological or something that I just don't see or that is undiagnosed, like you said, or. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That I apparently forgot to read and remember the documents about, you know so like, what is the difference between something that is a developmental form for someone who's acquiring the language for the first time and something that might give us pause in that room might require accommodation, remediation, some sort of extra support. Then, lucky us, we have exactly the person in the room that we would want to talk to about these things who, who winced with me at my story of embarrassment, but also is celebrating our, you know, our conversation and wanting to help us move forward. So, Sarah. Please tell us, what do our teachers need to know? What does the S. L. A. Y. audience need to know to S. L. A. Y. supporting students with dyslexia in the classroom?
Sara:Okay. And the, the most important thing dear Slayers, is really to, for you to listen to this and to be interested is the most important thing because the point is that, that we rarely in our teacher training we don't really hear about dyslexia. It's just not one of these big things. So what helps our students with dyslexia the most by far is to have you on their side. And even if you're, if you realize afterwards, oh my goodness, I shouldn't have said that, saying, I'm so sorry, that was mean, or that wasn't good, and showing them your human side and saying, hey, this was a mistake I made, because I'm human as well, right, that makes you relatable, and that makes you relatable. Human. And so for you to show this interest in, in your students and just trying to, to be there for them and have understanding, that is 90 percent of, of your job. So even if a student is coming to you and is saying, Hey I'm struggling with this. And you say, okay, I hear you. Let's sit down. Let's talk about it. That's 90%. And now I'm going to tell you about the other 10%. So
FishRod:Thank you, thank you for I will sleep easier tonight. for that, thank you for that.
Sara:I mean, honestly, this
FishRod:That is
Sara:is to, to show that empathy and to show them that we believe in them and that they, that their worries are, are meaningful to us and that we take them seriously is more important than anything else. That just, that's just for everything. It comes to, you've talked about so much, you've talked about the IEP and the 504 and, and all that. Yeah. I think something, some, you call it the gaslighting that's still going on, that I would really, really like to address overall, and that is my overall goal before I retire, I hope that I'm going to be getting there, so I only have another couple of decades to do that, is to, is to get away from has this or has a diagnosis of this, because the truth is that When you think of, and we are getting more into the understanding of, that there is this range. For someone to say, this person has dyslexia and this person doesn't have dyslexia, it needs just a completely random person to say, this is where we call it dyslexia and this is where we're not calling it dyslexia. And that is just completely unrealistic. We cannot rely on just having an arbitrary point where we say now a person has a diagnosis, because the truth is that as teachers, what we have to do is we have to take each student, each learner in their own makeup, in their strength and in their challenges, and we're looking at what are their needs and how can we help them. So actually, my goal would be to get away from the diagnosis, that we get away from having a word for What someone is or what they have and going towards let's address the heterogeneity that we have in our classroom and say this these are the needs of the students and this is how we help them and that is also something that I'm trying to do in my workshops that I'm saying it is not our job job to have a diagnosis it's not our job to say If this child is presenting or this learner is presenting with this, this disability we're, so to say, are going to give them our teacher medicine, right? That's not how it works. But we're saying what our job is, we're looking at what, what do they show and what proficiency levels do they show already and what skills have they acquired already and which skills have Do they, have they not acquired and therefore we have to look at them. So really the, the most important first step is an assessment and that sounds like, Oh my goodness, how should I know what, how to do an assessment? Because I'm just a regular language teacher. I'm not a dyslexia specialist, right? But assessment is as simple as. What we do all the time every day in our classroom is we have a, for example, a written text and we're looking at what are developmentally appropriate errors that we, when it comes to spelling, that we expect of our learners, and what are errors that are maybe out of the norm, and why are they out of the norm. for example, if I have a student, and we do that all the time, if I have a student who constantly doesn't use any capitalization in their writing, what we would do as teachers is we say, okay, let's talk about capitalization, right? And that's what we do with all other spelling errors as well. What we can do best as teachers is to look at what our learners present to us not just the errors that they make, but also the skills that they have already acquired, so we know what their strength is and how we can build on that, and at the same time, what, where can we address something that they may not have acquired yet. And that is, sounds, I know that sounds like, okay, that's great theory, but how do you put that into practice, right? So, of course a lot harder, but there is this ideal of what you can do if you had all this knowledge about, you know, the linguistics of it and the dyslexia and how to help someone and auditory processing and all that goes into it. but you can always start with the tools that you already have and the tools that you already use, and that's my best advice for, for teachers to start there.
FishRod:a relief to hear and that's interesting. What I've been thinking about while you've been talking about this is that I'm going from the assumption that we're giving assessments of real language use, as in teaching for proficiency, right? That we are not, you know, hammering a grammar point and then testing the hammering of that grammar point. That we're learning about the world you know, through interpretive texts and, and listening texts and conversations and having interpersonal discussions and pairs and and then giving presentational tasks that these are tied to actual communication how does the, like, grammar hammer teaching world kind of into this or how does it, how can a heavy focus on explicit grammar maybe be harmful or maybe like what could be the effects of that, I guess, for a dyslexic learner or for general, you know, for a learner without dyslexia. Hmm.
Sara:Because you may get very different answers depending on who you're asking. so from a dyslexia standpoint, I've actually, my experience is that there are students and learners who actually appreciate this grammar hammering because it is something that they have control over. When they have such problem with reading and spelling and writing. Then they feel like they're, they're, it's chaos and they, they're not in control. And so grammar is a very controlled thing and a logical thing that they can apply and that they feel like they can actually, they can be successful in. So as a short term psychological aspect, it's definitely Good to do that. Putting on my teacher hat. Don't do that. Don't do grammar
FishRod:Yes.
Sara:grammar
FishRod:Thank you.
Sara:It's like, I'm so opinionated about that because this is about proficiency and communication. And this is like sending our kids out there to be able to speak and to enjoy and you know, dive into the culture. So let's stop with this fanatic focus on grammar, because that's just, sorry, that just my, I spoke there from, from my teacher heart.
FishRod:Okay. That is a welcome viewpoint in this podcast.
Bryan:It's interesting to hear you say this because it's kind of like making my wheels turn and think back to things that have happened, like hearing comments from students about how, you know, I really just want to do worksheets. And like, just really thinking like, what could possibly make a teenager want to do worksheets. And so then I think like, well, maybe they might have, you know, some degree of dyslexia or some kind of reason behind wanting that, you know, that's not just, I don't like the activities that we're doing in class, you know, like there could be something behind that kind of comment.
Sara:Oh, absolutely. Because in order to be enjoying a fully Like a class that is really just focused on proficiency and speaking and you have to put yourself out there. It's freaking exhausting to be having these come like to come to never know what's coming, right? When you think of, I don't know if you've ever like talked about executive functions, but the executive function of like having this mental flexibility. That is in our classroom 100%. So it is actually a mental relief for our students to just do worksheets. And that's not just for students with dyslexia. That's for a lot of students. And that's why they're craving it sometimes because they, they need a break from our creative, communicative classroom.
FishRod:I mean, yeah, the true interpersonal communication does, you don't know what the other person is going to say, like, in the, in the mark of a good interpersonal task is that you don't know what they're going to say in advance that you're seeking some sort of new information or to come to a compromise or agreement. And I can see, I can very much see how, you know, that, that, that, that kind of uncertainty where you enter with it. And that is where a lot of the magic in our language teaching happens that we feel so much joy from that something unexpected happens. Someone makes an unexpected comment about something and it really feels a discussion or, you know you know, a total side path that you go into the conversation where you fall down a rabbit hole together. And that's delightful. I always tell my kids like, don't get me started on like East Germany stuff. Cause I lived in the former East and that is just like, I will just go, I'll be like, Oh, you want to talk about that? And like, blah, blah, blah. But that's the joy of it, but the danger then is, yeah, you're in a very uncontrolled, like, the purpose is that it is uncontrolled and that what happens next, question mark, maybe it's good, maybe it's bad.
Sara:Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I always, I picture it still when, you know, when you're a 14 year old teenager and you're just thinking that the whole world is constantly looking at you and just waiting for you to do, like, the wrong step and, like, you're so hyper aware of, like, your peer group and the class and feeling like you're constantly, you have the focus on you constantly, and I feel, and I think that's even Mm hmm. For my college students, when they come into the classroom, you have to be really willing to be vulnerable in our classroom to start learning a language the way we teach it. And I appreciate that about every one of my students. At the same time, I think there are a lot of ways of making it more, making it easier for them. So for example, when I work with students who have super high anxiety, I, for example, I ask them if they feel better when we do partner or group speaking assessments, I sometimes sit with my back to them so they don't feel watched. while they are speaking to lower the anxiety levels that they have. And I think that is, again, this goes back to what I said at the beginning, when we as teachers just show respect for them and for their mental health in that, you know, in our classroom, I think it is so incredibly important to support them and, and to just do everything to show them that we take them seriously.
FishRod:Excellent. I'm hearing approach them, approach each learner as individuals and try to understand their strengths and where they're coming from and how they're attacking any sort of, you know, communicative task. Know, and get away from labeling as much as we can. I think those are useful to start conversations, but they are not the end of the conversation.
Sara:Right.
FishRod:and what are some other strategies? What are some other things that maybe through your experience or research that you found to just like that really support those students with dyslexia,
Sara:Mm hmm.
FishRod:further along?
Sara:Mm hmm. So, something that I would like to, to share with you guys, and of course, all the listeners, if you're interested, so one of the things that I like to do to give you A feeling for how, what it, what it's like to be a learner with dyslexia is So, usually, how we start learning a language, and this is for the first language that we learn how to read and write, is that We are learning, usually around preschool age, that there are certain sounds, and the sounds are connected to letters, right? So when we learn to, to write, we are thinking about what do we want to write, we have a word, a certain word, for example, mom, and then we are learning that that consists of the sounds and then we're trying to find letters that are representing those sounds. The next step of, and then pretty much when we're reading, it's the other way around. We see the letters and we're trying to make sense of them as the phonemes, so the sounds. And then the next step that is happening almost parallel is when we have, for example, in English, the sight words. So and a good, way to show you how that works is Oh, actually, I want you to unmute yourself. And I want you to, ah, I know I want you to to speak while you think you have to speak out loud. I want you to say the word tomato backwards for me.
FishRod:Oooooooots. O'tem, O'tem.
Sara:Ah,
Bryan:I can't do it. I don't know.
FishRod:us.
Sara:beautiful. Okay, so I have to tell the listeners what just happened because I can see you two. So what just happened is both of them actually looked up. Like, either to the left or the right, they opened their eyes a little bit wider, and they were trying to see the word in front of their, in their eye. They were trying to read the, the word backwards. They were seeing the image, and they were trying to read it backwards. By the way, I would never, ever do this in a classroom where without, I'm telling you, hey, just, do this now. And you could actually, by the way, also a little bit see how you were like, Oh my goodness, what's she doing now with us? So, so
FishRod:talking about anxiety. Please.
Sara:So yes, please don't do that with your own people. I feel comfortable enough that I think, I hope, you know. Yeah, you may not invite me back, but so what just happened is you all looked up, you both looked up and you try to see the word written in front of your MRI, and then you try to read it backwards. What that is, it's the so called mental graphemic representation. So what your brain does is it's taking pretty much the picture, the written picture, and you store it in front of your NRI, and you can pull it up whenever you need it. So when you're reading, you're not translating letters to sounds anymore, but you see the word as a whole. Your brain is telling you, oh, this is the word umbrella. If you see these letters, and maybe you've seen those funny things when the letters are scrambled, but if you have the first and last letter and you still know what the content, yeah, it's like it's going, it's all over social media, right? That's you activating your mental graphemic representation. where your brain is saying, Hey, in that combination, it is most likely this word. And especially if I have a whole sentence. this mental graphemic representation is super important when we're reading, of course, because we're doing the so called whole word reading, but it's also important when we're writing because we're not translating. sounds into letters anymore when we're right, but what you do is pretty much you just copy it from the inner eye that you have and you copy the word there and then you probably know when you write a text that you say, oh, that, that word looks weird. Let me double check. you have that feeling, what your brain is doing, it's telling you Hey, this doesn't work. Like, this mental graphemic representation that I have does not match what you just wrote, so let's go back. And if you're unsure, then you can maybe apply some rules. So what's happening is, if I gave you a new word that doesn't exist, you could not just, you, you don't have to go back to the, to this phoneme grapheme correspondence, so the letter sound correspondence. But what you do is your brain even Internalizes spelling structures that are very common. So in English, for example, the super silent E at the end, at at the end, right Plain and same and game. So if I ask you, how would you write the words? Now I can't think of one they all exist tame and fame. And ba if I ask you how to spell it, how to spell the word ba, you could probably either say BAME, or BAIE b. A I M, BAME, because you would you would transfer those structures that you have internalized to new words without even thinking about them, without knowing those spelling rules. And so when we talk about dyslexia, we have pretty much the severity of dyslexia, where I said it's You know, the, the starting point of dyslexia is artificially chosen by our society. But what's really happening is when you are a very, very strong speller, then your phoneme grapheme correspondence, so the sound letter correspondence, and your mental graphemic representation are super strong. And you can see that with, you know, if you did this tomato thing, some people can do it immediately. because they have such strong mentographemic representation. the more intense the dyslexia is, the more the person is going to struggle. So almost all people with a diagnosed dyslexia are having mentographemic representation problems. And if you have a very severe dyslexia, then you actually have phoneme grapheme correspondence problems. So problems with the with the processing of the phonemes and the auditory processing and the phonological processing are then really impacted.
Bryan:This is fascinating. Thank you for sharing that with us.
FishRod:Yes. I'm thinking then about like when, when we, we make that transfer, you know me and Sarah are, have the luck, the luxury of teaching the world's most beautiful language, which is German. And then the phoneme, grapheme correspondence is pretty high in Spanish as well. Brian has the distinct pleasure of teaching French, which is fun and special when it comes to spelling. But I'm thinking from the, on the spectrum from, you know, German, which is fairly, fairly one to one in most cases in terms of like, this looks like this, sounds like this, and you can sound it out pretty pretty straightforwardly, and Spanish is fairly similar all the way to languages like English or French that have, you know, or I'm, I don't know how to pronounce Gaelic, and so when I see all those letters, I, you know, go like, well, what's happening there What are some ways that we can support, what are the strategies then, is it, does it help to say things like, you know, like, Oh, in German, when you see this letter, it makes this sound always like, and I think that just feels like best practice anyways, but is that something that we do more? Is that something we emphasize? Like, what, what do we do?
Sara:that's such a, such a, there's so many wonderful questions in there. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. So, anything that, that is really building up this, the, the phonological processing, so helping our students, because it's not, it's on the one hand, it is, being able to differentiate the sounds in hearing, but it's also being able then to produce those sounds. And if I can't differentiate them in hearing, I'm not going to be able to produce them. So especially when we also have new sounds that are new to the language, it actually takes practice to keep on saying them and then also being able to hear them and then also being able to say that. what's up, what's really, really interesting is and very, very difficult when it comes to dyslexia and second language acquisition. It can present significantly different from first language acquisition if we do use these old terms of first language, second language, right? So I mean them in the broadest term possible. Because if you are a, if you grew up monolingual with German, in Germany, Yeah. Yeah. Because German, exactly like you said, is so much straightforward when it comes to spelling, only, only about 10 percent of people are have a diagnosis of dyslexia, whereas in English speaking countries usually the number is around 20%. And that is not because are so much smarter. No, it really is not. But it simply has to do with the linguistic makeup of the language. And that also means We have to look at what was the language that the learner really started to write and read, and what is our second language, so how are they interconnected, which means, in translation, if I'm a German speaker who wasn't considered Having dyslexia in German growing up, and then I learn English, and suddenly I'm really struggling because English is not as straightforward. The other way around, my English speakers who grew up here speaking English and who are learning German, they suddenly show far fewer spelling errors and have less problems with reading because German is so much more straightforward. Which also means, my dear listeners, please advocate for people learning German because it is so much easier. Sorry, I just had
FishRod:Sorry, sorry.
Sara:This is not just something I say because I teach German, but this is something I say because I truly mean it when it comes to Latin, when it comes to Spanish, when it comes to German. It is so much easier to study those languages for when you know that you have trouble with the grammar. Okay. Mental morphemic representation or the phoneme grapheme correspondence. 100%.
FishRod:then more, you know, is going to have to do a lot more like you're going to see a lot of letters that look like this and it's going to make this sound just like very strongly make those connections for them.
Bryan:So hearing you say that made me wonder about, you know, non alphabetic languages such as Japanese, which is another language that I know. So I just did a quick Google search as you were talking because I was curious, like, what is the rate of dyslexia in Japan? And I'm seeing a study that says it's 0. 98 percent, which says it's 10 times lower than Western countries. And you know, like, I I personally have the experience of learning Japanese as a new language, and there are like three different writing systems in one, and it can be very challenging for people for whom that's not their first language, so that's very surprising to me to To see that the rate of diagnosed dyslexia is so low in comparison to, you know, English speaking countries. And, I mean, I guess I don't really know why, but it's just a curious data point.
Sara:It, it really, really is. And there's so much that goes into it, because at the same time, because most of the, of these Asian languages, they are, when you look at the I don't know the exact numbers, but how many hours it takes to get to a certain proficiency level, you know, those languages are the ones that take forever, because pretty much in Japanese 101, the goal is to know at the end a certain amount, like a small amount of words, because they are so much harder to, to memorize. Whereas when I take German or French, at the end of 101, imagine how many hundred words they are supposed to know, and when it comes to writing, how pretty much they should be able to write. Almost everything, even if they don't know the meaning of the word. So that is, I mean, that is definitely one of the things. The other thing that's also really important to mention is, we're always talking about dyslexia, but dyslexia is one of those one of those learning disabilities. that often comes with a lot of comorbidities. So it is really, really difficult to say when it comes to, for example, the visual processing. So is the visual processing also impacted by this learning disability, yes or no? No. And this is really hard to differentiate what is a comorbidity, what is maybe a different disability that, that goes with it. Maybe the dyslexia is, oh, Just the the consequence of something else that is there. So that's why I'm, coming back to what I said at the beginning. Thankfully, we as teachers, it is not our responsibility to diagnose people. It is not our responsibility. I Barely ever, no, I never, like I, when someone comes to me and shares that they have, that they have dyslexia, then I say, okay, thank you for letting me know, but what I really trust is that I'm looking at their proficiency and their errors and how they work, because that's where they need help, and not everyone who is diagnosed with dyslexia is struggling in my classroom, and I have a lot of people who are struggling in my classroom who are not diagnosed, so it's not my job to diagnose them, and it's not my job to say, I only do this if you have a diagnosis of this kind or that kind, but in the end what matters to us is helping each individual student. And picking them up where they are and trying to help them as best as we can. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
FishRod:Brian kind of alluded this to this earlier about the kind of, you know, what are some low hanging fruit kind of like tier one interventions that we apply to the entire class. And he was talking about. font. I also got on the like dyslexia friendly font train. I use Lex end for most of my typed resources. I make myself and there was another one. I think there was one, it was called open that was like a, an open source dyslexia friendly font as well. And I can't remember the exact name of it. I'll find it in the background in just a second. So using dyslexia friendly fonts and obviously trying to make our. less cluttered. I think that helps a lot of students, especially who approach reading with anxiety, just to, you know, about blocks of text. That's going to help more students than just the students with dyslexia. Working on strong to show the sounds of the language, like, oh, you know, in English, this might make this sound, but in German, it makes this sound, like making, helping make those correspondences more explicit and clear as we're still communicating in the language and using the language for communication. What are some other kind of, I don't know, maybe low hanging fruit practices that we can apply in our classroom that will serve everyone in the end,
Sara:Mm
FishRod:then also maybe specifically give a boost to our dyslexic students.
Sara:Yeah, that's, that's a great question. So, really the most important thing for us as teachers is to realize if, if you, if we were, let's be honest, talk about the ideal. The ideal is that we have a teacher who is a trained linguist when it comes to dyslexia, who knows about dyslexia in the first language, in the second language, and who, who has at least 20 hours a week to just work with this one student. So, just not happening. Like, I I'm trying to do as much as I can, but when I talk about the ideal, situation, I'm not doing that because I don't have the time. And I have small classes still don't have the time to do it because it's unrealistic. So we have to get away from this ideal and we have to see what works for our classroom. So rather than addressing the dyslexia itself, the best that we can do when it comes to addressing the dyslexia would be the you know, the, the phonetic training that we do with them and to work with the with the spelling. Rules that are easy. So for example, for German, it would be the capitalization of the nouns or for English, it would be with a super silent E at the end. So something that is true for, let's say 90, 90, 95 percent of the time, and it's easy to do that. So that is when it comes to spelling. For everything else, the, the, the low hanging fruit that you can do that are especially like really, really efficient is to make our classroom easier for our students with dyslexia. So, for example, if your students are old enough and it's you're allowed to do that, let them take pictures of, for example, the whiteboard or of a PowerPoint, rather than having them write something down. So whenever you can avoid writing in the classroom, avoid it. Have them do something else. Have them do it in, in Verbal form. So, instead of a vocab quiz, do the vocab quiz if it's really about the meaning of the word. Just do a quick oral test, and however you give the test, the vocab quiz in written form, just do the same thing in oral form. So, that would already take a lot of pressure from the student. When it comes to writing in a group, let them decide, the group decide who's going to write on the whiteboard. So the person who's really, really afraid to write on the whiteboard because they could, you know, make spelling errors, don't do that. Don't ever have someone read out loud in class who doesn't want to do it. Always choose. And I love that both of you are, like, nodding, like, of course, right? And this is, that makes me so happy because see how you are already doing exactly the right thing without, because you're like, yes, absolutely. Ben is by the way, dancing right now. I wish you could see that. So like a lot of the things that we do anyways, in order to not have students have this high anxiety. And when we just translate that to reading and writing, that is the best you can do for your students, the low hanging fruit, but low hanging means. sounds like they're not efficient. That's actually the most important thing you can do because it is the everyday thing that makes your students feel comfortable in your classroom. And so if you do that, see, you're already doing all the right things.
FishRod:Come for
Bryan:I just
FishRod:for the affirmation.
Bryan:It makes me kind of reflect on my own, like, teacher education. And, you know, like, back in the day when I was learning about different disabilities and how to support students, I felt like I felt a huge amount of pressure of, I need to be the expert on every possible kind of student, and I must have 100 different strategies that I can pull out of my, you know, giant tool belt or whatever, and, you know, know exactly, like a surgeon, when to apply them. But, like you said, the most efficient thing is the thing that benefits the largest number of students, and that's the best thing that we can do, because if we are just, you know, having that pressure on ourselves of having to, you know, be perfect all the time, like, that's just not realistic. And then we'll start to feel bad about it and then feel, like, doubt our own teaching skills. But I think the best teachers know that, like, like you said, it's just those universal practices that benefit most to all students whether they have any kind of diagnosis or not. So yeah, just, I hope people can reflect on that for themselves too.
Sara:and, and I think, and there's, this is, this is so important, exactly what you just said. If you, Brian, if you asked your students, if you meet them ten years later, and you ask them, Hey, what did you like about my class? Or why did you continue learning French? They're gonna either say, because you made class fun, Or, because I felt good about French. Or because you, you made me feel good in that class. And that is all, those are all the things. So, it always comes back to that. I do have actually, I was just thinking of one little trick that may be new to you, that I, that I love to do. Which is, When you have students write a text and when you ask them to check their own text, when we, when we talk about the metrographemic representation, so this picture that you have in front of your NRI our brain is, when we're reading what our
FishRod:Okay. So this is a. This is a, this is a. This is a. This is a.
Sara:what comes next. So a really great tip what to do is to tell the students to read their text backwards. So start with the last word and then the second last to last and then the third to last. Because this way you're forcing your mental graphemic representation to focus on each word because it's not about the context, but it is about each individual word. So isolating this word for your mantrographemic representation is really an efficient tool to find errors.
FishRod:We were not nodding vigorously while she said this because we were both going, Oh, you know, like internally mind blown. Amazing. I hear sometimes, you know we can do our best efforts to make it. Yeah. A student's students, all students feel comfortable and implement these best practices a low anxiety classroom that really serves everyone's brains. And, know, we're doing the best we can. And like Brian said, we can't beat ourselves up for not being the expert on every single thing that a kid could bring into the classroom, but they also bring attitudes from outside the classroom into the classroom about the world, but then about themselves as well. I'm thinking, do you have any advice or thoughts about, you know, a student, I have had a student say, you know, I can't read and they're in high school and they're clearly have been reading for a long time in English. You know, you're passing their classes and moving on and say, and have knowledge of the world. And, you know, so there's still, they're learning through reading, but are still coming in with that mindset. Do you have any advice for how we might address that?
Sara:that's such a great question. Yes, absolutely. So I would always start with what are, what is the learner able to do? So, when they say, I can't read, then I would say, well, you can't read a word, you can't read your name, where does it start, and pretty much putting the responsibility back on them and saying you know, for them to and when they say, well, I don't think I can read a whole sentence in German, then I'm happy that they give me that information, because even though I may think, well, that is not true, you can, that's, that's how they feel, and that's how they may downplay their ability, because they're so afraid of failing and failure, so they want, they want to downplay what they can actually do and cannot do. So, if you do have the time, to do that, to sit down with a learner, and then pretty much start on, even if it's just the one word, even if it's like the simplest word that you work with in 101 but, and then just throw a lot of praise at them, because I, I mean, taught all ages from elementary school now to college kids, and I have, I've yet to meet a learner who doesn't love praise. And so I think that that is our strongest tool that we really have. So I would, I would absolutely, absolutely start there. I do have kind of like a moral question or moral problem, though, for you, I'm really curious to hear your, your opinion, and then I can give you my opinion or my thoughts on it. So when it comes to accommodations, when it comes to accommodations, a discussion that I always, or often have with, with my fellow teachers is accommodations are fair? So we're talking about equity, right? We're talking about equality. Ideally, we want to achieve equity, so picking them up where they are and helping them accordingly being successful. And we have that conversation a lot at the university level, where the question is, well, if these students get more time, for example, to take a test, or if I don't grade their spelling errors, but they get the same degree than someone else, didn't get these accommodations, is the degree worth the same if you get a degree with accommodations? And that's the same with a high school diploma, right? When the student or the learner always had double the time for everything, is it worth the same as for someone who didn't have double the time? that is, yeah, I want to hear your opinion on this or your thoughts on this.
FishRod:My first instinct when you started talking about this is wondering about like is specific time pressures Why are the time pressures there? Is the exam an hour because class is an hour long? Is in that is convenient for me to grade and us and plan for? You know, what what are the time pressures specifically for things that you get more time? I also think about how the task would be applied in the real world and, you know, sometimes I'll see notes about presentational tasks or, or, you know, commentary about presentational tasks where students are directed to give speeches off the cuff or, or whatever it is, or, you know, all these sorts of things for which they don't have preparation, but for which I, in the real world, If I were giving a presentation, even to my colleagues, who know that I'm a teacher and, you know, improvising sometimes and that sort of thing, I might, I would might still prepare myself some notes to look down at. So I think it's for me that my first question is, can I look at the things that I'm asking them to do and asking what are these constraints that I'm placing on their performance are just artificial? There because of my convenience or because of the structure of our school and, and, and such, or is it something that is necessary I might, you know, give access to a dictionary if, you know, if they are polishing up a piece of presentational writing, but they're not going to have access to that in a live interpersonal conversation. So that does not seem like a, you know, like a logical accommodation and stuff like that. So I think really being clear with yourself about the task and what those. Yes. restrictions are before you start, you know, devaluing the work that the student produced with the little boost.
Bryan:As an advocate for standards based grading, I would encourage all teachers to focus on what is it that you want students to learn from your class and know, like, what are the outcomes that are expected and how is that It has to be generalizable so that it is not just about you are able to take a one hour long test. It should be something like you are able to communicate in the language using this amount of, you know, these kinds of structure about these kinds of topics. And that can Manifest in a lot of different ways and if it can manifest in a lot of different ways, like you could have them do a project, you could have them do an oral assessment, whatever, whatever. Why would you then say that a student who needs accommodations that can do those things in this specific way shouldn't deserve the same benefits as a student who meets the criteria? meets the standards in a different way. Like, I just, I, I don't, I would not be able to defend the argument that those things are not fair. In fact, making them separate, or, you know, not equal would be very unfair. Because students have accommodations for a very good reason. And I think that if we have, like, very clear in our minds, again, what our expectations are for our students, and they are something that can be assessed in a variety of different ways, then that should include modifications or, you know, to the, the constraints of the assessments.
Sara:And this is why you two are amazing teachers, because that would have been 100 percent my response to this. If we do true proficiency based teaching and assessments then, and using universal design to understand that there is different different pathways to testing proficiency, then we don't have this challenge and this is not what our world looks like. Like my students who are graduating and going into the workforce, they are not going to be sitting down to take standardized tests, right? They are, they are working, they're having jobs where they are applying what they've, what they've learned and how they, what they've learned. They're growing constantly in their job. And so that's exactly. I thought I wanted to make it a little challenging for you and you just, you are the best. That is awesome.
FishRod:We both ate our pre, our pre podcast snack and came ready to play. We were, were ready.
Sara:awesome. This is really great. It makes me so happy that you said that.
Bryan:And I guess I, like, I can hear the concern that a teacher who might I say that when being presented with, you know, challenging thoughts, such as, like, you know, is this fair, is this equitable, because they just, they might just have it in their mind that, fair is equal, rather than fair is equitable, and, like, I think people throw the word equity around it without necessarily knowing what it means, and it necessarily means that things are different for different people because people need different things. So
Sara:yes, yes, 100%. And that's why, I think it is also going back to, we shouldn't have groups. That's why, you know, I find the word inclusion is so important, but at the same time, so, so dangerous, because it means that you're a special group and that you you need to You know, what's normal? I always say when we talk about disability, when we talk about neurodiversity, we have to define a normal and normal is non existent. Every, every, label that we put on people is, is just an arbitrary label that society decided this is where it starts or this is when, when you get this label. And so understanding it as Again, this heterogeneity, everyone has their own needs and strength. And this is what we're building on. And we are all one group with our with our abilities. I think that's super important. And that's why a lot of the things that we talked today about with taking the pictures or something like maybe allowing an audio book when you when you don't like you know, like my 14 year old just had to read a book and said, you know what, I really would prefer to listen to the audio book because I, I like that as input. And I was like, go ahead. Yeah, absolutely. Perfect. You know, and like having all of these. all these teacher tricks that we use and allowing that for the whole class and saying, yeah, pick whatever you need and what works for you. And I'm your biggest fan of giving this to you and fearing you on. I think that is, that is absolutely the way to go.
Bryan:I just want to add one more comment like I'm just reflecting back on a conversation that I had recently at my school at our leadership meeting where we basically talked about this very thing and they're like, you know like how many minutes is double time and like, is it fair if we give like two extra minutes and all these things and I was just like, Okay. What are you guys talking about? If my student comes to me and says, Hey, I need more time, I give it to them. I don't ask questions. I want them to finish. So I give it to them. That's my opinion on that.
Sara:Thank you for that. So important. So important.
FishRod:Amazing. We have, we have been girl bossing so hard. We we have, we have girl bused to the moon and back in this in this podcast. And we're, again, we're so thankful that you're here to, to talk about this. To, to maybe to, as a way of wrapping up the, the girl bossing that we have been doing, we seamlessly transitioned into, looking at the current landscape of education policy and changes that might be coming down the pipeline at the local or state or national level, is there any, you know, encouragement or thoughts that you can give our listeners about how to continue supporting students with disabilities, with dyslexia, as we are moving forward?
Sara:Oh, this is so difficult. And it is difficult because as, as we've talked, I think I've made my point really clear that I would like to move away from looking at the disability and saying, hey, let's let's look at heterogeneity in every student and what they need and how we can support them. is that at the same time, the positive aspect of having a diagnosis is also that we do sometimes get more support and we get more time, and if we were to say, hey, we're taking away all the 504s and all the IEPs and we're saying, hey, we just look at what they need, then our classes would just grow bigger and bigger and bigger and teachers had less time and had less time to actually work with each student. So, what I, what I hope what we're going to get to is that teachers are trusted to know best of how they can help the students. I absolutely believe that 99. 99 percent of teachers are teachers because we care about students and because we care about people and because we want the best for them. And that means when we have that trust, that we also make, we have the power to make the decision what our students need, exactly what Brian just said. I want them to succeed. So I give them the extra time because I You know, I have that for all of your listeners to listen because in their free time, because they want to learn more and they want to get input and we want to learn from each other. Right. So give the teachers the, the power back that we know what we're doing. And I think that's really, really important. What I personally really dislike is that the whole idea of disabilities is has become a bit has become a political point. I think that is really, really dangerous for our society because this is not about any kind of politics. This is about what do our students need and how can we best support them? Is it always to put, you know, labels on them or diagnosis on them? I don't think so, but I can also see advantages. But more so. How can we help our, our learners? And so I think what we have to do is we have to go back into our own bubble in which we live, which is in our classroom. To say, I try to, to not listen to the noise that is outside and where, where there's this big, Discussion of what is disability or not or which rights do they have or not and see this is my student and this is how I can support my student and I think this is how we can, if we start there, if we start in our own classroom and then we make it bigger into our language programs into other languages at our schools and then maybe at conferences and then on a national level. I think that is the most natural way of how we can grow out of this These extreme views on what it is and really start to focus again on what really, really matters, which is our students.
FishRod:It's sort of the mic dropped. My goodness, Brian, do you have any do you have any additional thoughts, comments, questions, concerns?
Sara:Well, thank you, thank you, thank you for everyone who made it to this point, because I really, really appreciate it, because all you teachers, we are all so super busy, so for you to take the time to listen to this Thank you, thank you, and I thank you from your students, who are going to be very appreciative of you spending the time outside of school to learn more and to engage and to think.
Bryan:Yeah I don't really have much else, but I do want to express my gratitude for you joining us. And I certainly learned a lot and it's got my wheels turning, like I said, thinking about more things that I can do to support my students.
FishRod:So thank you, Sarah Lee, for your, your expertise and for sharing your wisdom and your experience. We are so grateful and we hope our learners took as much from it as we did. go forth and slay supporting your students with dyslexia and other disabilities or slay supporting your students exactly in who they are. Bye.
Bryan:Bye.
Sara:Tschüss!
