Dyslexia-dedicated fonts usually feature an extreme design, which renders them “exclusive”, making reading harder for all other readers. The EasyReading™ font has been created through the “Design for All” technology, whereby diversity is not considered an obstacle, but rather an asset, improving word comprehension for all readers. This feature renders EasyReading™ an effective offsetting tool for dyslexic readers and an improved font for all other readers. This is why it does not bear a name directly linked to dyslexia.
The EasyReading™ font design counters the crowding effect and the visual misunderstanding of similarly-shaped letters (see website http://www.easyreading.it/en/caratteristiche-grafiche/prova to write a sample with the EasyReading font).
EasyReading™ was scientifically studied through the research “Easyreading™ as a compensating tool for readers with dyslexia: a comparison between Times New Roman and Easyreading™ in Good Readers and Dyslexic Fourth Grade Children”. This autonomous and independent research has been carried out on a valuable number of candidates and draws the conclusion that: “the EasyReading™ font renders reading easier both for dyslexics and unimpaired readers, therefore can be considered a compensating tool for dyslexic readers and a simplifying font for all readers”.
References: the research has been published in the scientific magazine: “Dislessia. Giornale italiano di ricerca clinica e applicative” (Volume 10, n. 2, May 2013). The scientific board sees the presence of the major Italian researchers in the industry.
Written by the designer of the EasyReading font, Mr. Federico Alfonsetti
What does being a dyslexic mean to someone learning he is one at age 42? Very little, and I am speaking with the exclusive authority of being me. What does it mean to a lad having so much trouble learning to read that a private school kicked him out, but then a public school teacher provided him with patient attention? Life-changing good! In this case, I am speaking of my younger brother, a wide-ranging, avid reader, with an unconventional problem-solving mind.
I became a dyslexic at the age of 42, the result of running into my senior year high school English teacher. She was an exceptional teacher. In the course of our conversation, she told me that I was the most dyslexic student she ever had. I asked why hadn’t she told me? Obviously, she understood I was asking why hadn’t she helped me? She said she’d told my parents at a teacher conference, “and that didn’t go well.” She figured smart, affable me would acquire a secretary and I would be fine.
I had been married three years when my wife announced, as revelation, “You know all those (Odd? Crazy? Funny? Sad?) stories you’ve told – they are true!” I’m still married, so I cannot divulge how downhill that conversation went. My teacher encounter ten years later was no revelation to my wife; she had been telling me I was dyslexic forever.
Shortly after I had the teacher encounter, my wife and I picked up my older brother at the airport. We stopped for lunch. In the course of our what’s-going-on-in-our-lives conversation, I told the story of learning I am dyslexic. That factoid revision was angrily scoffed at by older brother. No good comes (later in life) from opening the dyslexic closet.
I think my brother assumed dyslexia was synonymous with illiteracy. I think he also took it as criticism, since I had asked him and others for help when I was a kid, and was blown off. They had their lives; I wasn’t their job. I am a middle child; what can I tell ya.
So how does a kid go from being the dumbest kid in class in grades 2 through 7, and graduate from a good university? Seventh grade in public school was brutal, too, but there I had friends. I knew in 7th grade that the school was seriously considering holding me back, but I tested way above their expectations on a battery of tests.
The best class I ever had was University Freshman English. The teacher, a middle-aged woman, announced, “All writing assignments will be about a subject of your choosing. If you lack a fascination, you will neither be a good writer nor a good thinker.” She was an enthusiastic delight, visiting each student asking the same question, “What are you trying to say?”
I have written an Apple iBook, “Renvyle Revisited, an Irish Odyssey,” that neatly provides text and audio together. It also can be had at Amazon on Kindle and Audible.
A central theme of the book is story telling. The stories are not respectful of authority and ideologies – or what might be described as conventions. The book is a celebration of a youth finding his way from where he came.
If you know a dyslexic, have them read the blog stories and then hopefully the book.
By Chris Stanton
Please subscribe to my blog – it’s free: https://irishodyssey.wordpress.com Scroll down to the earliest blog entries; they concern dyslexia.
It’s a beautiful, clear spring day, and soon the cherry blossoms will fall from the trees and blanket the ground like snow. This season promises to be extraordinary, but it won’t be the same without Da, who passed away at Christmastime. Finn O’Brine stares out the window, taking it all in. He can’t believe his father will never spend time with him again. And he can’t believe there’s a bat at his window—talking to him.
Before his death, Mr. O’Brine told Finn many stories about colossal dragons, sorcery, and the magic of Wickum Mannor in Ireland—but they couldn’t possibly be real, right? Wrong! Magic runs in the O’Brine family; it’s part of their heritage.
Now thirteen, Finn will begin to show signs of his magical inheritance any day now. It’s time for Finn, his twin sister, Neave, his younger brother, Jack, and his mother, Ailish, to leave the comfort of their home in America and journey to Wickum Manor themselves. They expect a summer-long adventure, but the O’Brine children may not be as ready as they think. With all the fantastic things to experience and discover on the four-hundred-acre estate, will Finn want to enroll at the magical Wickum Academy, or will he choose to return to his friends and classes in America at summer’s end?
Deirdre M. Silvestri, author of children’s and YA books, was born in Sarsfield Barracks, Limerick City, Ireland. Because of dyslexia, her lifelong dream of becoming an author seemed dim. However, as her children grew, Silvestri often told them they could do anything. If the Walls Could Speak is Silvestri’s first book, the first installment of the realization of her dream.
The study summarizes the available evidence on the forms of teaching, support, and adjustment that students with dyslexia find useful for their inclusion in Higher Education.
Why did we do this study?
The number of students with disabilities and learning difficulties enrolled in Higher Education is on the rise. Universities have a duty to become inclusive environments for an increasingly diverse student population. Several researchers have conducted small-scale studies on forms of teaching, support, and adjustment that can enhance dyslexic students’ opportunities to succeed in Higher Education. However, to date, no attempt has been made to bring together all this evidence and answer the question: what does research say about how we can effectively foster dyslexic students’ inclusion in Higher Education?
How did we do the study?
We did a systematic review, a type of study that allows one to retrieve, critically appraise, and synthesize the available evidence on a type of intervention, teaching approach, or form of support. We searched databases, journals, and websites to retrieve all published research focusing on the inclusion of students with dyslexia in Higher Education. We appraised each study for the quality of the evidence produced therein, and then generated a summary.
What did we find?
We identified 15 studies dealing with the inclusion of students with dyslexia in Higher Education. The majority of them consisted of qualitative interview studies in which students had been asked about their experience of inclusion at the university. The results indicate that students with dyslexia develop many study skills and coping strategies to independently overcome the difficulties and barriers that they come across in their learning journey. Help from others (including fellow students, family, and friends) is often very important. Awareness of one’s own strengths, weaknesses, and preferred learning styles helps students to develop effective study strategies. Many of them report that becoming aware of their own dyslexia was the first important step in this direction.
For the students, it was important to meet teachers who were sensitive to their learning needs and ready to provide adjustments in teaching and assessment. Some teachers’ lack of dyslexia awareness had a significantly negative impact on the students’ learning experience. Useful teaching approaches were those that took into account learners’ differences (student-centered approach) and sought their active contribution (interactive teaching approach). The provision of study materials in multiple formats enhanced course accessibility. Teaching modalities that partly or totally relied on Information and Communication Technologies helped the students gain control over their learning process. For instance, electronic learning environments allowed students to access content at their own pace, hence reducing the gap with non-dyslexic students. Finally, there is some evidence that Universal Design for Learning can be used to simultaneously accommodate the needs of students with diverse needs (including those with and without dyslexia) and thus foster learning environments that are inclusive for all.
Sue Ryder Care Centre for the Study of Supportive, Palliative and End of Life Care
School of Health Sciences
The University of Nottingham
Room B58, Queen’s Medical Centre
Nottingham NG7 2UH
t: +44 (0)115 8230494 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marco_Pino
How many emails did you send today? What about Facebook updates or tweets?
Online communication is more important than ever. According to research by the email management company AWeber, over 90 percent of teens today prefer to communicate via email, text, and Facebook. Texting and social networking are increasingly our primary modes of talking to each other; in fact, a 2012 study found that 40 percent of Americans would rather text than call, while 30 percent prefer to connect with friends online instead of face-to-face.
Unfortunately, typical spelling and grammar checker tools aren’t available to you where you write most—online. Here are 5 tips for helping people with dyslexia to write better on the Web.
1) Create a short proofreading checklist for yourself. What kinds of errors do you most want to find and fix? Typically, people struggle with a few areas of grammar and spelling more than others. Maybe homonyms (they’re/their/there) trip you up, or maybe you have trouble remembering when to use a comma. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses as a writer is the first step to improving your prose.
2) Look for one kind of error at a time. Trying to fix everything all at once is a great way…to make yourself feel overwhelmed and frustrated. Instead of proofreading for all errors at once, break the task down into more manageable chunks. Start with end punctuation first (periods, exclamation points, and question marks), then move on to other punctuation (commas, semicolons, apostrophes, etc.), and finally tackle spelling. Pay closest attention to the problem areas you identified in step one.
3) Read aloud (or use text-to-speech to read aloud) to locate misspelled or missing words. Reading your emails or tweets out loud may make you feel a little sill, but according to the Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, it’s one of the best ways to catch errors that you might otherwise miss. “Most people have far more experience listening to and speaking English than they do reading and editing it on the printed page. When you read your draft out loud or listen to someone else read it, your brain gets the information in a new way, and you may notice things that you didn’t see before.” If you’d rather have someone else read your text, there are a number of free text-to-speech programs available such as Natural Reader.
4) Step away and look again later. After you’ve proofread a piece of writing, take a break, step away, and then come back to it with fresh eyes. The longer the work, the more time you should take between passes. Shorter pieces of writing, such as tweets or status updates, may only require a coffee break, but important emails, blog posts, and other documents may need to rest overnight.
5) Use online grammar checking tools. American Wordspeller is a phonetic dictionary that allows users to look up words based on how they sound, not how they’re spelled. Another great tool is Grammarly Lite, a free browser extension for Chrome, Firefox 4+ and Safari browsers that alerts you to potential grammar mistakes before you post or hit “send.” It also catches contextual spelling errors (typing “horse” when you meant “house,” for example) and has a built-in thesaurus for those times when the right word eludes you.
Without non-verbal cues like tone of voice or facial expressions, text-based communications rely entirely on the quality of your writing. Put your best text forward!
Grammarly improves communication among the world’s 2+ billion native and non-native English writers. Our flagship product, the Grammarly® Editor, corrects contextual spelling mistakes, checks for more than 250 common grammar errors, enhances vocabulary usage, and provides citation suggestions. More than 4 million registered users worldwide trust Grammarly’s products, which are also licensed by more than 350 leading universities and corporations. Grammarly is a privately-held company with offices in San Francisco and Kiev.
An inspirational book about empowering children and adults to deal with dyslexia has been hailed with numerous accolades since its launch earlier this year – and it’s now been awarded an Honorable Mention in the Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards 2014. Dyslexia: Time For Talent (The Ultimate Guide for Parents and Children) received glowing reviews and excellent endorsements from education and publishing experts when it was released, and has now cemented its status as one of the premier books on youth dyslexia currently on the market with the highly coveted award.
Debut author Carolina Fröhlich, who wrote the book after many years working as an educational consultant, is thrilled that her helpful and moving guide has been received so well by readers and critics alike. After suffering from dyslexia herself throughout her life, Fröhlich has dedicated much of her career to helping parents and children deal with the difficult ‘condition’, and is now reaping the rewards of her commitment.
Fröhlich says, “I’m over the moon to have received an Honorable Mention at the Reader’s Favorite Book Awards – hearing that critics and readers have been moved and affected by my book is the biggest prize of all. The book was originally intended to empower children and parents suffering as a result of dyslexia in the family, and to hear that it’s now winning awards after the fantastic reviews it initially received is wonderful.”
She adds, “My own experiences with dyslexia moved me to write the book, and it’s a real thrill to hear that my work in the field is being recognized by experts as well as by those who are confronting the challenging ‘condition’ head-on.”
The book set itself immediately apart from the crowd by helping readers to emphasize the talent of a child, rather than focusing on any shortcomings or perceived failures that occur as a result of their dyslexia. Rather than viewing dyslexia as something which needs to be cured, Dyslexia: Time For Talent encourages everyone to see it as a different way of learning. The book promotes positive attitudes in children, parents and teachers, and is equal parts informative and encouraging in the fight to overcome the challenges that having dyslexia presents for millions across the world.
The book also goes above and beyond the level set by many similar books, by emphasizing that dyslexia doesn’t stop at pre-school or infant level. With advice on how to handle the condition in later years, even stretching as far as career advice and learning to drive, the book has been rightly hailed as one of the most comprehensive and essential books on the condition.
For more information about Carolina Fröhlich and to buy her celebrated dyslexia book, visit the book’s Amazon listing.
Mistakes in spelling and punctuation in emails are forgiven every day. This is no problem if the message is about being late for dinner. It is different if the message is to persuade someone to sign a purchase order or grant a job interview. eAngel.me is a new online service for business or personal use which offers to proofread and correct email punctuation and grammar in any language. It is not a translation service and will not change the meaning of the text in any way. The corrections are made by humans and the service is available in all countries.
Users of email know that the software on their computers, no matter how advanced, cannot catch all errors because it cannot automatically put the meanings of a word which may sound the same but be spelled differently in the proper context. Professionally qualified humans can do that; and this is the premise on which eAngel.me was founded. Those who may find this unique service valuable include global businesses which have teams of salesmen in different countries, students seeking jobs or admission to schools in different countries, people with Dyslexia, technology experts who paid more attention to the technology professor than the English teacher but still need to communicate well with non-techs, and anyone studying or writing in languages other than their mother tongue.
eAngel.me has a free trial available so prospects can experience how the service works; and it supports any type of email and any type of browser. This comment from one customer illustrates its ability to save time: “Today my emails are much more professional. I can do more with my time because I don’t need to worry about reading the email over and over again before I send it”.
For information on how eAngel.me works and for a free trial, go to eAngel.me.
Cher? Tom Cruise? Salma Hayek? Anthony Hopkins? Jamie Oliver? Albert Einstein? Agatha Christie? Alexander Graham Bell? Robin Williams? Danny Glover? John Lennon? and Muhammad Ali?
What do these famous people all have in common? As you might have guessed from the title yes it is that they are all Dyslexic.
Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty which makes it hard for you to learn to read, write and spell correctly. We do know that developmental dyslexia is inherited, so that, thanks to our DNA, we can be born with it. Dyslexia affects around 8% to 10% of the Irish population. The National Institute of Health reports that up to 15% of the U.S. population have learning challenges.
If you have dyslexia you may have trouble with reading, writing, spelling, maths, and sometimes even music. Dyslexia can occur at any level of intelligence, and has many disguises so that teachers and parents may instead erroneously observe children lacking motivation or “not trying hard enough”.
A dyslexic brain shows very little activity in areas known to be of high importance to connecting the written form of words with their phonetic components. Thus to read, people with dyslexia must create new neurological pathways. Compensation is made by using more use of a front-brain section called Broca’s area, commonly connected with other types of language speech and processing.
How might I know if I or my child has Dyslexia?
Here are a few of the main symptoms: • Delayed speech development • Speech problems, such as not being able to pronounce long words properly • Problems expressing themselves using spoken language • Little understanding or appreciation of rhyming words • Spelling that is unpredictable and inconsistent • Putting letters and figures the wrong way
A Sound Solution?
Alphamusic composer John Bram Levine believes that if you can slow the brain waves down to the Alpha state, then the useless mind chatter and negative self-talk of doubt and fear may vanish, whilst the left and right brain communicate more effectively, allowing information to be more easily absorbed, processed, and remembered. Levine studied electronics, graduating with a degree in Music Composition from Sydney University, following which he learnt meditation. He challenged himself to formulate music that could induce the same Alpha brainwave state achieved during meditation. A new genre was born: ‘Alphamusic’.
Does it work?
Stewart Holmes, a dyslexic, hated studying. ‘It was all too hard and frustrating until by accident I played ‘Silence of Peace’, an Alphamusic album, whilst revising. I felt as if a curtain surrounded the words on the page, allowing me to absorb the words and meaning freely and easily. I was astonished as no other music, whether it was new age, relaxation, classical, rock, or jazz, has ever had this effect on me.
Amy Turner-Monk was determined that her dyslexia was not going to stop her from realizing her dreams, so she applied to the Open University and asked for assistance with her learning difficulties. The dyslexia assessor recommended she use Levine’s Alphamusic whilst studying. Until her discovery, Amy could only read for 10 minutes before being tired and distracted and needing to take 30 minutes to rest before continuing, ‘it all was quite draining’. ‘Using this brain wave transforming album ‘Silence of Peace’, I found I could study for more than an hour at a time without any exhaustion.’
Although such testimonials and Cambridge University studies have shown a positive link between Levine’s Alphamusic and enhanced learning, more research needs to be done in this area, to investigate if music truly could be the golden key to solving the dyslexic puzzle. Levine is interested in hearing from anyone who would be interested in engaging in such research.
“Dyslexia is a type of specific learning disorder that impacts reading,” said Dr. Sheldon H. Horowitz, director of learning disability resources at the National Center for Learning Disabilities. “It is not a disease, nor is it contagious. It is not something that goes away — you don’t outgrow it — and it is not the result of watching too much TV, laziness, vision or hearing problems, or low intelligence.
“The medical community refers to it as a disorder, and the educational community refers to it as a specific learning disability. Others are dyscalculia if the area of weakness is math, dysgraphia if the problem is writing and written expression.”
Because dyslexia is not a disease, there is not “one treatment for dyslexia. It can’t be cured, especially because dyslexia is not a medical or psychological problem,” said Livia R. Pailer-Duller, executive director of the American Dyslexia Association. “It needs to be addressed through training of the attention span, of sensory perceptions, and the practice of reading and spelling on the educational level.”
Rather, “dyslexia is a genetic disposition, which means that dyslexia is inherited,” she said. “Dyslexic individuals have different sensory perceptions. These different sensory perceptions are the reason why the attention of dyslexic people diminishes when they come in contact with letters, which in turn causes them to make errors in reading and spelling.”
What it is
There is no one profile of dyslexia, but typically, people have trouble sounding out words, blending letter sounds into words while reading, mastering the rules of spelling and grammar, and expressing what they know in written formats, Horowitz said. “Some people with dyslexia are accurate readers at a slower pace but struggle to understand what they have read because they expend all of their mental resources figuring out what the words are and keeping track of what they are reading,” he said. “Others are slow, labored readers, but do OK with comprehension.
“People with dyslexia do not have vision problems that are causing them to struggle in reading. The problem stems from the way that printed text and the sounds of the language are processed in their brains. It’s not that their brains can’t do this processing; it’s that it is done in ways that are inefficient.”
Also, dyslexia is not intelligence-related.
“Dyslexics are not less intelligent than non-dyslexics — quite the opposite is often true,” Pailer-Duller said. “However, dyslexics often score low on intelligence tests because these tests attempt to measure intelligence by measuring sensory perceptions. But these are different in dyslexic individuals, which does not make them stupid, just that the test is inadequate.” How to help
For people with dyslexia, “parents are absolutely critical and family support is hugely important,” Horowitz said. “Remember: dyslexia is what the child has, not who they are. They have areas of strength and interest just like everyone else, and in some cases, because they work so hard to compensate for their areas of challenge, they can be very high achievers and role models for their peers and for the general community. Parents need to understand as much as they can about dyslexia, abandon any feelings of guilt, and help their child to become a strong and effective self-advocate.”
Schools are not required to give dyslexics extra help, but in some states, an individualized education plan is possible where dyslexic students receive help on standardized testing, Pailer-Duller said.
As an example, “a dyslexic child with reading problems can receive additional assistance for reading instructions to solve math problems. However, dyslexic students have to do the reading portion of the standardized test themselves — without help. So this partial help does not go a long way,” she said.
Teachers who are knowledgeable about dyslexia can do a lot within the school setting to help a dyslexic child.
“Examples are that grading focuses on content and expression, and not on spelling. Teachers should avoid calling on dyslexic children to read aloud in front of the whole class if the child is not comfortable with it,” Pailer-Duller said. “It is very important to understand that the schoolteacher can only do so much. A dyslexic child will always need additional individualized training, either with a specialist or with parents.”
Written by Melissa Erickson from Family Magazine, April 2014 issue, Gatehouse Media
