Special font helps dyslexic readers

New 'Font' outside of the walls of education seem a bit too much, what about "assistive technology".

Moments ago I received a 23 page contract from a new Healthcare Provider Network, I have the "Gift of Dyslexia" and I have to read this contract before I put my signature on the agreement.  No special font, I just highlight and copy to ReadPlease 2003 Plus add my footnotes to the document and send it back with my questions in the footnotes and move on.
Or if the contract is too wordy I will then paste the contract into Balabolka because it reads up to 510 words a minute, so I don't lose my comprehension by my mind drifting; most contract contain a lot of fluff.

The key to unlocking the Gift of Dyslexia is to create an environment which enables me or the person with dyslexia the ability to read.  Who wears glasses, this is in someone's world assistive technology.  Who and what gave Stephen Hawking the ability to pour out new insight to the Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics departments at the University of Cambridge and the world?

We are on the edge of the digital age where we can power up all students by advocating technology, but as it stands we are asking students in most academic settings to "power down".  Who can bring it better than those who have mastered it, through achievement.

Bookshare.org is doing such, all should embrace it with passion, and if you want to know the outcome, ask me or visit My travels with the "gift of dyslexia: www.manateediagnostic.com/davisgraham.aspx and my blog at www.mygiftofdyslexia.blogspot.com

All who touch a child with the Gift of Dyslexia have the ability to send them to the boardrooms or prison cells, I was blessed with compassionate ears and hearts, so my path has placed me in the boardroom.

"Once I was lost now I am found, once was blind to the written word, now I read."

Sincerely,
Davis W. Graham

The Case Against Assistive Technology

Steve Jobs impressions.

Blogs - Ron Hutchcraft's Blogs
When you're a kid, you're wet cement. Impressions get written so easily - and so deeply. Then they harden into the beliefs - or unbeliefs - of that kid-become-adult. Apparently, Steve Jobs was no exception.

Apple's communications genius/revolutionary, has been described as "intriguing, yet inscrutable." But as he battled cancer, he opened some windows into his mind and soul to the author writing his life story. According to the new biography that bears his name, Steve Jobs studied Zen Buddhism for years. A recent article in USA Today said, "He never went back to church after he saw a photo of starving children on the cover of Life and asked his Sunday school pastor if God knew what would happen to them. He was 13 at the time."

In a separate article, USA Today includes this near-the-end spiritual observation from Steve Jobs' biography: "The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith rather than on living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it."

None of us knows exactly where Steve Jobs finally landed in his spiritual journey. But in his words about Jesus is a glimmer of the bedrock truth that answers so many spiritual questions: It's all about Jesus.

Christianity, the religion, never has been the issue - although many have been unable or unwilling to separate Jesus from the religion that is about Him. But Jesus made it all about Him, and Him alone, in the simple two-word invitation He extended over and over again - "Follow Me." Jesus never said "follow My religion" or "follow My followers." And He didn't say "follow My rules" or "follow My leaders." No, the only reason to turn away from Jesus is if you have a problem with Jesus.

As for "seeing the world as Jesus saw it," He saw it broken because people walk past the wounded, absorbed with themselves - as in His story of the Good Samaritan. He saw it cold and lonely and twisted because every man has chosen to ignore the Manufacturer's instructions and become our own god for our life. And that has brought us a world of bleeding families, greedy hoarding that produces global hungering, and an endless drama of people being used, abused and walked on.

And what about those starving children? Jesus said when we reach for them to help them, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me." And, "whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me" (Matthew 25:40 , 45/). Jesus is so personally identified with the hurting people of our world that He takes our treatment of them as our treatment of Him. With eternal consequences.

This Jesus that's it all about came here as "a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering...pierced for our transgressions...crushed for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:3 , 5). This is the God who leaves the Throne to die on the Cross. He's a God you can believe in. A God who stands alone above all the wannabe gods of earth's spiritual pantheon. And ultimately, we find in Jesus the only man of the billions who've lived who has come back from the grave - and promised eternal life to all those who would "follow Me."

Behind all the fog of all the "sophisticated" spiritualities and dueling religions of our world stands one real God. One real Savior. The God who hung on a cross.

USA Today - October 21, 2011, 1B; "Jobs biography pulls back web of privacy;" Rachel Metz, Associated Press.
USA Today - October 25, 2011, 2B; "Jobs lived intriguing, yet inscrutable life;" by Jon Swartz and Scott Martin.

Thank you Steve Jobs and hello to Read2Go

Thank you Steve Jobs and hello to Read2Go:

Steve Jobs was to us like baseball was to the great depression. We as the American public and the world watched the big west coast Apple waiting for the next homerun.

Steve Jobs was fun to watch, he was fun to talk about as we waited his next up to bat and talk to each other about what it is like to experience his last homerun. The field of technology was changed forever as was the field of baseball when Babe Ruth called his shot in the 5th inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series.

We have been blessed; Steve Jobs creations have touched the world of communication, the world of children, artist from musician to software writers and touched the person who has the print disability who was given Read2Go. We have now all been put into the mainstream of the amphitheater of life to discover, express and read in valleys and places we thought our minds would never have been able to go before.

As his life light has been blown out he has left this world his creative light, like Edison. He has given us a table to place our reading light which has changed hearts and encouraged minds to the next generation.

Steve Jobs gave us a new image to technology just as Babe Ruth gave an everlasting image to baseball; we all have been given a new view in our inning of life.

Thank you Steve Jobs, and to your wife and family and your creative team who forever changed our lives. We will pass our given light on to our children as we read on.

In Christ service,
Davis Graham

Dyslexia the Mysterious Gift of Intelligence: (Click to listen)

The key to unlocking the Gift of Dyslexia is to create an environment which enables me or the person with dyslexia the ability to read. Many times I have heard the call for help and desperation for those parents, adults and children who have dyslexia. There is crying for direction and what will it be like at the end of the road.

If any one has dyslexia they are living in a technical dream come true world which can equip the 10-20% of those who have the Gift of Dyslexia with tools such as Balabolka, Readplease, Xmind (note taking tool), Read2Go and Bookshare.org which will change the landscape of their future outlook. It is my hope nobody has to go through what I went through in high school, grade and middle school, but the word needs to get out to the public. 

Today I read with not boarders or hurdles to the written word at speeds of 340 to 510 words per minute with 90+% comprehension. Bookshare has changed my life and Bookshare® is free for all U.S. students with qualifying disabilities, thanks to an award from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). Bookshare has 125,000 digital books and textbooks of which are awaiting access to those who struggle with the printed word.

Read:OutLoud is the text to speech software which comes with the membership (free for students or $50 for non-students who qualify) and can take any textbook and turn it into a virtual book. For instance when I read if I come to a person, place or thing, I don't know who, where or what the subject is all I have to do is with one click of the mouse I can surf the net to find out who it is with a picture, or where it is on the map and then read on.. If I was in the class room without this and other tools I would never had raised my hand nor would I have ever gotten to the point where I would look up a subject as I do today.

Recently, I finished reading The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, when I came to the "Dust Bowl", I knew a tiny bit of what the Dust Bowl was but with a few clicks of the mouse I found out the facts.

Below is my testimony and my life travels with the gift of dyslexia but I know it would be encouraging to many millions of students and then parents or adults, to know the tools are here and ready to use.

As a point of insight we (dyslectics) are way ahead of the dawn of the "digital textbook" era, and we have a great chance of being the navigators of how it can change the life of a student and family, if not a nation.

From a recent blog post comment I made:
Yesterday I read "Dyslexics are overrepresented in board rooms and prison cells", and yet our archaic education system remains. Today, like ‘many who have the Gift of dyslexia’ my life has changed with the "Gift" of Dyslexia. The mountainous boarders of books which blocked my self-esteem has been all but flattened. Bookshare free for all United States students with qualifying disabilities (dyslexia being one of them) has changed who I perceived myself to be and who I am today (Jesus is the biggest part of this change). Now when a book is mentioned at a conference, the waves of failure which use to wash over me are now a wave of anticipation of reading the book. Text to speech software, like Readplease, Balabolka and Read:OutLoud combined with Bookshare digital books have made reading a decision not a chore or dreaded thought of me thinking I'm a failure.

Today, in this awesome digital and software landscape for a dyslectic I am free to read. Thank you for your inside look into your road of freedom. The journey I have experienced has been similar and can be read at: www.manateediagnostic.com/davisgraham.aspx

Helping Struggling Students To Succeed

SCHOOL NEWS AND NOTES

Helping Struggling Students To Succeed

(NAPSI)—For some students, trying as hard as they can just isn’t enough. These students may be at a disadvantage because of widespread learning differences such as dyslexia or because of disabilities like visual impairment. Studies show that for these students to succeed, an online audio library of core curriculum textbooks and literature titles can make all the difference.

Research by Johns Hopkins University and case studies in the Baltimore City Public Schools showed significant improvements in students who use audiobooks. Reading comprehension improved by 76 percent, content acquisition by 38 percent, reading accuracy by 52 percent and self-confidence by 61 percent.

Scott Bartnick was diagnosed with a severe learning disability in 1st grade. His parents were told he might never be able to read, yet the 19-year-old recently graduated from high school with a 4.35 GPA-no easy feat given his disabilities in reading, decoding, fluency and spelling. Bartnick relied on a service called Learning Ally, which offers the most advanced library of accessible audiobooks in the world.

“Learning Ally helped me achieve academic success,” said Bartnick, who is now thriving in his junior year at the University of Florida in Gainesville. In fact, his elementary school awarded him the “Disney Dreamers and Doers Award,” an honor presented to just one student every year for “curiosity, courage and constancy.”

Early intervention can deliver dramatic results. When Leslie H. was in 2nd grade, teachers informed her mother, Lisa, that her daughter was only reading at a kindergarten level. A friend of Lisa’s told her about the Learning Ally website. Within 24 hours of signing up for the program, Leslie, who has severe dyslexia, had read three books. Lisa reported that her daughter’s speech pathologist noted a major difference in her daughter’s fluency and self-confidence. “She embraced words and books in a way she never had and that was really exciting.”

Originally founded in 1948 as Recording for the Blind, the nonprofit Learning Ally has grown to serve a complete spectrum of individuals from kindergarten through 12th grade, as well as college students and working professionals.

Learning Ally’s digital library of audiobooks has special accessibility features for readers with print disabilities, and can be played on popular devices like the Apple iPad and iPhone, as well as MP3 players, Mac and PC computers and CD.

Students with a certified print disability are eligible for an individual membership from Learning Ally, allowing them to work on assignments at home as a supplement to their school’s membership. Institutional memberships are available for schools and districts to accommodate students with IEP and 504 plans. To learn more, visit www.LearningAlly.org.

 

Early intervention for reading difficulties can deliver dramatic results.
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Dyslexia Is the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me, by Donna Flagg

My mother would disagree. She still agonizes over how I went through living hell in school as a result of being dyslexic and undiagnosed. It pains her to think that there was something my father and she could have done to spare me the grief, humiliation and shame of not functioning, and therefore performing, in line with the rest of my peers. She blames herself regardless of how many times I try to tell her that it all went exactly the way it was supposed to go, that is, if you use my life as it exists today as the means to measure. I'm healthy and happy and highly engaged in my life, all things I consider more valuable than regrets over what had been. Plus in some weird, ironic way, my success today is directly tied to my ostensible failures of the past, not because of the scars, but because of what I had to learn in order to survive a system that did not recognize me as a legitimate member.

I didn't always feel as though my years struggling in school were the gift that I do now, however. After I was diagnosed in college, I was angry and full of resentment toward the people who were unable to see the truth of what I was, and a system so small-minded that it couldn't function without labels. But it wasn't just the labels that angered me; it was the derogatory, demeaning, minimizing, soul-sucking nature attached to them and how they were used against well-meaning and talented kids without even the slightest awareness or concern of how it would affect the child's view of him or herself. Today I've come to see it as selfish to teach in such a way that suits the teacher more than it does the student. For a while, every time I thought about the level of ignorance, myopia and critical judgment rampant in my school, I felt my heart skip into my throat carrying with it an intense desire to tell every last one of them that it was they who were stupid. Eventually bygones became bygones and it was clear to me that once I got out from under the misguided goals of education, I was free. Second chances, as it were, I was away from the grinding toll of being reminded daily of all the things I couldn't do.

My first job was working for Chanel, my last was at Goldman Sachs, and in between there was a string of other companies whereby I was surrounded by business people who weren't looking for what was wrong, but saw what was right, and beyond that, wanted to use it constructively toward a common goal. As you might imagine, I found this very refreshing. Work ended up being the antithesis of primary school, which is to say positive, enriching and highly instructive. Between that and a successful run in college and graduate school twice, the glaring flaws in education became even more blinding. With no appreciation for cognitive diversity whatsoever, the system churns out more of the same old thing falling to realize that when children become adults, they will need to compete in an environment where innovation, creativity and point of difference are together the single most coveted competencies in organizations. Schools, as we know them, don't get that.

Additionally, it does nothing to prepare kids for the real world of work where emotional and psychological skills come into play as much as, if not more than, the tactical and technical. For me, it so happens that what made the situation unbearable from K through 12, is also what forced two things to happen which could not have been foreseen at the time. One, I developed the kind of survival skills that can't be taught from a textbook. And two, my brain was unable to adapt to the status quo. As a result, it's as if all the best parts were preserved, which turn out to be the most valuable assets I've brought to bear on my professional life. Not to mention that in the process, I learned to fight the system, communicate very well verbally as I dodged bullet after bullet, and most importantly, discovered that there was no point in listening to people who thought they knew about me and believed they had the authority to define who I was under the guise of their authority and/or title. They didn't.

So, here I am. I write, I teach, I dance and I have created two businesses that I run, all from the failure that everyone believed I would ultimately become.

Kindles Replacing Textbooks at Tech Savvy High School

Kindles Replacing Textbooks at Tech Savvy High School
May 25, 2011 12:00 PM EDT
Kindles replacing textbooks at a tech savvy high school in Clearwater, Florida has been completed. In Florida textbooks are now considered old-fashioned with a new law waiting for Governor Rick Scott's signature.

The law would replace all old-fashioned textbooks in Florida by the 2015 school year and replace them with digital textbooks. Technology is now moving forward at blinding speed in just about every area of modern living.

Kindles Replacing Textbooks Well Received by Students and Teachers

Teachers at Clearwater High School say that the conversion to Kindles is already improving students grades. The students are already so immersed in the high-tech world of the Internet, smartphones, SMS texting, Facebook, Twitter, and the like that digital textbooks seem only a natural evolution. Students note that the Kindles replacing textbooks provides them with helpful features like instant access to a dictionary, required reading material, and the ability to research just about any subject. Students rapidly adapt to a technology that most are already familiar with.

In addition, students are quick to note that the convenience of carrying around only one light device instead of several pounds of heavy textbooks makes accepting the Kindle a pleasure. Besides that, the Kindle is considered way more cool than a backpack full of textbooks.

Students seem to be thrilled with the changeover. The following remarks are typical. "This is so light, you can read for hours," says Sabrina Shore, 17, a senior at Clearwater High School.

"It's better than carrying all those textbooks and remembering to go to my locker put it away carry my other textbook," adds Samantha Frank, 17, senior at Clearwater High School.

Students Take Care of Their Kindles

One other benefit that teachers and students have noted is that students take care of their technology far better than they took care of their textbooks. Students seem excited about having Kindles. Were they excited about carrying around heavy old-fashioned textbooks between home and the high school campus? The short answer is - not so much.

The cost of Kindles replacing textbooks is about $400,000. Clearwater High School received Federal technology fund and grant money to pay for the Kindles. So far it looks like those funds will be well spent and will produce better more involved students as well for teachers improve the teaching experience.