Helping Kids With Dyslexia Read, with Susan B. Kahn, M.Ed. | EDB 228
Educator and author Susan B. Kahn, M.Ed. returns to discuss dyslexia reading tips.
(VIDEO – 22 mins) Inspired by her experience as a parent and by her fascination with language, Ms. Kahn spent over forty years changing and improving lives. She taught for twenty-five years in Arlington, MA as a special needs, public school educator. She has also written a number of books dedicated to teaching learners of all types how to read. Ms. Kahn discusses the need for teaching students as individuals, the importance of support for dyslexia, and why she feels the first 9 years of a child’s life are the most crucial for learning.
For more about Susan B. Kahn, M.Ed., her books, and the free resources she offers, visit her website: suekahnreadnow.com
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HACKIE REITMAN MD (HR):
Hi, I’m Dr. Hackie Reitman. Welcome to another episode of Exploring Different Brains. And today, we have returning to us, the person who for like a gazillion years, at least 40 — Sue Khan has been doing reading, reading, battling with dyslexia, writing books, teaching people. And she’s gonna tell us all about it today. Sue welcome back to different brains.
SUE KAHN (SK):
Thank you, I’m very happy to be with you.
HR:
What’s the latest and the greatest you’re doing with writing and reading and arithmetic? really read it?
SK:
Okay, I’m helping parents. A couple of years ago, my students begged me to make videos. And I mentioned to a colleague that the kids say we learn best from idiot videos, why aren’t you making them for us? And I said, I don’t know how. But my friend Michael Bill said, I know how I will help you. So together, we have created 30 animated videos that will teach parents and kids simultaneously, everything they need to know about phonics to become good readers and spellers. So that for me is very exciting. And the reason that I’m working so hard, right, this moment, I’ve just published one new workbook, I have another workbook set to go in November. And I’m about to begin writing workbook three, which I hope will be ready for Christmas because parents have been forced into teaching. And they don’t know how to teach and they don’t have the materials to give the students well, if they just go to YouTube, so strategies channel, and two, three and four minute animated videos, they can learn whatever it is, they need to be teaching their child at that moment. Then if they go to PSS for phonics, which is an instruction book I wrote, it’s only $15 in it translates what’s in the videos into print with illustrations, then they have a written record of the strategy they just watched on TV or on their computer. And then the workbooks that I’m working so hard on right now will give them additional drill and practice. In 2016, I prep I publish workbooks, one for two syllables, two for three syllables, and four for three syllables. But there are about 50 practice exercises in each book. In a school year, his four semesters which works out if you do five lessons a week, and the lessons take only five minutes, then you actually need four books to do a years of reading instruction. So what I’m doing now, is I’m doing a workbook of practice exercises that’s partially two syllables, and partially three syllables. So that the families can move from one to 1.5, and then two, two, and then no November, I will publish 2.5, which will give the students practice on syllables that are three into four. And then of course, I’ll be creating an advanced workbook, but that would give parents a whole year of practice the instruction from the made videos and from the PSS for fun. And they should be ready to roll. Now I expect a minimum growth of two years reading accuracy from someone who does this new strategies program. And I am sure that these parents can manage because lots of parents are using the materials without me. And some of them are nice enough to write me.
HR:
So you’ve been doing this for 40 years special education?
SK:
Yes, even longer.
HR:
Oh, boy. It’s closer to 50, a half a century.
SK:
My son was born with dyslexia, and I didn’t know what it meant, and attention deficit disorder. And I didn’t know what that meant. And when he was six, and went to a public school in Lincoln, Massachusetts, which is a very wealthy suburb, and it was supposed to have fabulous teachers, not one person in the school could teach my son to read. And that was when I became a teacher. I’ve taught my son to read and write. He has a graduate degree in business administration. So if you give the right instruction, it doesn’t really matter what the problem is, you will show the child how to cope with the problem and overcome it. That’s what’s great about my profession, people become better.
HR:
Well, we’re so lucky to have you in your profession. So tell us about tell us more about your kids. Oh,
SK:
Well. I choose to discuss all One of the three because two of the three haven’t made it. And that’s probably why I’m so devoted to children. Douglas is the dyslexic ADHD kid who has been a success. One died and one is a victim of mental illness. Uh, so I am really dedicated to helping families, make sure that their children are as healthy and successful as possible. I know what it’s like to have a child fail. It’s so hard for the kid. But it’s also so hard for the parent, I don’t want any families to have what I call unnecessary reading failure. And we know exactly how to teach dyslexic children, we can make sure that the 20% of the children who are born dyslexic overcome their reading problems. And it is so sad that the schools and the universities are not keeping up with the research. Now, as you know, I worked for three years to pass alar, Massachusetts, so that dyslexic children and others with neurological challenges could be identified before age seven in that way, a treatment could be instituted right away when their language brains are flexible. And when it’s easiest for them to learn. Well, I’m in Waltham, mass, and walsim doesn’t have a program yet. And that’s just typical of what’s happening. Um, I fight for a program regularly. But the COVID has said everybody back the schools are so overwhelmed with just managing teaching that they can’t be bothered with, you know, testing for these children, which he said, but the universities also need to step up to the plate. Ah, why is it that universities will graduate a teacher without a programming phonics? If 20% of the population need phonics in order to succeed in reading, that they should feel obligated to require a course in how to teach phonics of all their elementary school teachers and all their special education teachers. I know that’s not happening because I still tutor children from eight different communities in Massachusetts. And the parents are quite upset, because of the poor instruction that the children are receiving. Sometimes the special educators gives the child the wrong sounds like they tell them P is puck in CS cup, and then they wonder why they want to say sound of the word place as police, or why they want to say candy as Andy. I mean, it’s, it’s sad.
HR:
Tell us some of the newer legislation that you think ought to be on the horizon to help those of us with different brains.
SK:
Okay. Well, we need to implement early screening, because if we don’t know that children have different brains, we can’t help them. So I think that most states have adopted laws for dyslexia. Now, I’m not sure that they’ve adopted laws for autism, but I know Massachusetts has. So if there aren’t laws, then states need to pass laws, but there doesn’t seem to be a method of enforcing the law. And a lower is only as good as its implementation. So as long as these school systems refuse to test to find out exactly what is holding the child back, they will just do any thing they know how to do and it may be the wrong educational treatment, so then the child doesn’t make progress.
HR:
Okay, so now say I’m a parent, and I’m listening to this and I’m seeing you now. And I say, Well, you know, my child has some trouble reading. Okay. And the school especially during these Coronavirus times is kind of dumping it on me. Okay. What do I do? How do I get a hold of you? For instance, what, what do I do give us some idiot proof instructions here.
SK:
Okay. I go to suekahnreadnow.com it’s kind of my philosophy of life, but also my website and go first to the videos, the animated videos, and I have a list of them right here, which I won’t give you because they were 30. But the first one to look at would be number seven finding syllables. If they don’t know what a syllable is they need to know about it. And the second In one would be vowel power. A vowel makes two sounds if the child doesn’t know which sound to make, he will read it wrong when I look at is it cat? Or is it Kate. And actually a vowel can make a third zone us, so sometimes they think it’s cut. So that’s not an effective way of teaching a child to say make three sounds as up, you need to have flashcards that gives a rule so I have actually created a unique book. I don’t know whether you can see this, this is phonetic flashcards to remember.
HR:
Yes, we can see it. That’s good Sue’s Strategies, phonetic flashcards to remember.
SK:
Okay, now what I’ve done in this book that no one else has done, is if you open it up, and you see about such as a, it says a when not last? No, that’s very important, because if you don’t know the position of VA, you can’t possibly read it right. And on the reverse side, it says Sam can catch. And that phrase was intentional because tch follows a that’s three letters following the a DA isn’t last. But Sam has one letter following the a DA isn’t last and you get the same sound. So it’s important for the child to know a knot last says its name with a blast like Sam can catch them. The opposite of that is what do you do if the vowel is last. And when you say baby, which is a two syllable word, the a is last and it said a. So in order to read the parents have got to teach their children sounds, I have a book of 99 sounds if you learn five a week, it takes four months and you know all the sounds you need to sound out words. Now I have another book, p SS for phonics. And all of these books are available on Amazon and on my website. And this book takes the rules that I explained in the animated videos. And the animated videos are cute. They have motion and music and pictures and patterns and stories and instruction. But that doesn’t mean that you remember the rule long enough to teach it. So you need a book that says Oh, you want me to learn about the bowls. I can do that here. If one vowel is last it says its name with a blast David and baby. Oh, it’s different if it’s not last Yeah, ends in -an like Dan and Bab cat. So the whole point is that water if it were about or litter like that made two cells or ants that makes two sounds. If you don’t know where the labor is in the word, you can’t figure out the sound it will make. And so then that brings us to syllabication. kids who are taught to clap their hands don’t know what they’re doing, they put the wrong pieces together. And if you put the letters in the wrong pieces, then you think the C is saying when it’s supposed to say because you didn’t know how to advocate the word and put it in the right place. So it’s not just learning the sounds, you must select advocate correctly. And there are only two rules of syllabication needed for about 98% of all the words. So I couldn’t teach those in less than an hour. And I have an animated video on that. And that’s number nine, which is the share in three quarter rule. So if a parent Oh, that’s on YouTube Sue’s strategies channel. And on my website, this is Khan reno.com calm if you just hit the videos button. Now, some of these are more popular than others, but over 107,000 people have watched my Ed makes three sounds video, and that last three and a half minutes. So I mean, people are learning this way.
HR:
It’s great, especially during these Coronavirus times where we Parents need all the help we can get.
SK:
Well, I have tried very hard to give the parents whatever they need to end reading failure based on reading accuracy. comprehension is more complicated, but I have programs for that too. But we can’t even assess comprehension except by reading to the child and finding out that he understands everything. If he’s not reading for himself, then we don’t know what his reading comprehension or his regular comprehension is. But if you will illuminate within one year all most all the reading and accuracies then you’re ready to tackle the broader problem of how does he comprehend and how does he writes And of course I have programs for all of that.
HR:
You got it all covered Sue!
SK:
I’m trying very hard. I don’t want children to be unsuccessful. I lived through it. I want every child to succeed.
HR:
That’s just great. That’s great. Is there anything we have not discussed today you’d like to discuss have you shown us and told us about your newest books coming out or?
SK:
Well, my newest books are these new workbooks. They have a red number on the rather than the blue number. I published three workbooks in 16. And I aim to publish three and 20.
HR:
And it’s spelled KAHN. And that’s right Sue Kahn.
SK:
The other thing that I’m working very hard on our writing skills, because once the children learn how to read, a lot of them have no trouble comprehending, but the parents tell me their writing is awful. So I’m now making animated videos on writing. And I just did one on how to write a paragraph with te da, I released it two weeks ago, and this is a winner.
HR:
We talk about writing do you mean typing or cursive writing?
SK:
I don’t mean any of that. I mean, composing the paragraph. Now I took apples as my theme. And in a tea a paragraph, the topic sentence would have to answer the question who, what, where and when. And then it’s up to the author to give three pieces of evidence. But nobody will believe the author without proof. So in the video, I tell them that people Americans like to eat foods with apples in them. And then I have a picture of an apple pie, I have a picture of an apple juice, and I have a picture of a Carmel apple. So that’s my proof. And then I tell them that apples provide good nutrition. And I have a quote, An apple a day keeps the doctor away. And I have a bottle of juice, which says high in vitamin C and fiber. And then I have a third reason, which is the people like to pick apples of the type they like the best. And I wrote in they were picking honey crisp, and Red Delicious apples. So from that outline of three specific reasons, with at least two pieces of proof for each reason, we’re now ready to build our paragraph. And in the video, I show them how we outline it with the pictures and then I translated into a paragraph and I write the paragraph in sentences. And kids asked me if I would make a video for them because they were having trouble remembering the parts of it. So I think that this one will be equally popular. But I’m also working really hard on grammar. That is just becoming a hot topic in America, they have finally figured out that if you your grammar is mixed up, you actually misunderstand the sentence. And if you miss understand the sentence, it affects your reading comprehension badly. So people are now beginning to talk about grammar. I find that in the dyslexic population, most of the time that children do have a peculiar sense of grammar. And as soon as I straighten it out, by teaching them sentence formulas, they suddenly improve their comprehension by about two grade levels. And of course, their writing is now understandable because they know what they’re doing. So I have this book here for high school kids, this is right to be right. And this one gives you how to write the introductory paragraph and the concluding paragraph and how to organize. And then for younger kids. I simply have how to create effective sentences because that’s where they’re stuck. But that brings me to another project that I have. I became very upset when I found that my teenagers didn’t care about America. They cared only about the sport they were playing. And they didn’t listen to news. And I thought I wanted to do something about this. So in my book, I have self correcting practice exercises both for the younger kids and the high school kids. And most of my practice exercises involve learning about American presidents. Learning how the government works, the executive, legislative, judicial, I have it I think something on infinitives on how to vote. I have just an I have American culture and authors covered. So I have done everything possible to educate the kids not just about how to write a decent sentence or a decent paragraph. But please love your country and participate. So that’s my other mission.
HR:
Well, you Got a lot of missions. So you’re doing everything. You’re touching them all. That’s great. Great. Well, Sue this time flew by, it’s been great to see you again, Sue Khan, everything you doing all of these best spelling choices, reading, writing your cover at all.
SK:
And it’s language. I’m not that good in math, but I love language. And I’m trying to share what I know.
HR:
Sue Kahn, what is one thing society does not understand about children with dyslexia,
SK:
That children with dyslexia need to be taught to read spell phonetically. And that they also need a different method of being taught grammar and writing. The children need intervention, phonics, and syllabication of at least a year before age nine in order to make the children successful in language.
HR:
Can you state for our audience again, your website? Yes.
SK:
Suekahnreadnow.com I think it’s what most of us parents want, when our children are succeeding. We just want them all to read now. So I just put my name on it. So Khan read now.com and I sincerely hope that every parent will be successful in educating their children because right now is parents who are doing the teaching.
HR:
Amen to that Sue Khan with a K — k a h n. Yes. sukar. Well, thank you very much, Sue. It’s been wonderful to see you again.
SK:
Oh, the same. I missed you.
