0:00

I don't know what's real. I don't know what's not

0:02

real. Limited Capacity is a

0:04

collection of six darkly amusing stories about

0:06

the mysterious ways we interact with the

0:09

internet and with each other. There's something

0:11

going on with him. It's like an

0:13

act. I don't trust him. What?

0:15

You're staring at me like I should say something,

0:18

but I don't really know what to do here.

0:20

That's the whole name of the game. Don't talk

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about how the town isn't real. Do you understand?

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Limited Capacity. Available now on CPC

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Listen or wherever you get your

0:29

podcasts. This

0:32

is a CBC Podcast. We're

1:06

back. We're here. We're back. It's you and I

1:08

today, Brian. Jair

1:10

is with us on

1:13

this plane, on this earth, but he

1:15

is not. He's not with us. He

1:17

is no longer with us today, but

1:19

still alive. He's not feeling very

1:21

well. We are back

1:23

for another great episode and we are joined

1:25

by our new friend, Alicia Smith. Alicia

1:28

is the Executive Director of Dyslexia

1:30

Canada and the past president of

1:33

the International Dyslexia

1:35

Association Ontario. Alicia

1:39

is dyslexic. Man,

1:41

I am messing that up. Alicia is

1:43

dyslexic herself and the parent of a

1:46

brilliant child with dyslexia. She

1:48

brings a personal and passionate perspective to her

1:50

advocacy work. I

1:52

know it's really fascinating. I'm so interested to

1:54

talk to you today. Alicia, go interrupt me,

1:56

Brian. It's funny that you stumbled over the

1:58

word. Dyslexia because

2:00

before we started recording this morning,

2:03

I was talking to Taylor and he

2:05

said to me Isn't it funny

2:07

how hard it is to spell the

2:09

word dyslexia? like I

2:13

did kind of I did go there must be an easier

2:15

way to spell this It's

2:19

completely cruel I agree it's completely cruel that

2:21

that's the word that is chosen for this

2:24

And you know as a dyslexic person, I'm

2:26

an avid user of you know Grammarly like

2:28

grammarly is a huge thing and they send

2:30

you that report every week You know about

2:32

your all your word choices and

2:35

your most common errors and every single

2:37

week My most common error is

2:39

misspelling the word dyslexia They

2:42

actually have us they have a column and they're like you've

2:44

never spelled this word, right? Yeah,

2:52

because how many it's like it's like, you know

2:54

If you have like a four or like a

2:56

six like a six number code, there's like however

2:59

many million different combinations,

3:01

I guess I wouldn't be the same for words, but But

3:04

like there's probably a lot of ways you can go about that So

3:08

I gave that I gave a very simple overview

3:10

or a very simple introduction to you Let

3:14

let us know what have I what have I inevitably

3:16

missed in this introduction. Tell us about your yourself Alicia

3:19

Sure. Well, first of all, thanks

3:21

for inviting me to chat with you today I

3:25

think your introduction pretty much sums up what

3:27

I you know what it is that I

3:29

do I'm the executive director of dyslexia Canada

3:31

and I am a person who has dyslexia

3:33

myself I

3:35

got involved with dyslexia advocacy

3:37

in general because as a person

3:39

with dyslexia I honestly

3:41

I knew I had dyslexia. I was identified

3:43

as having dyslexia when I was in high

3:45

school But I was never

3:47

even really equipped to know Exactly

3:49

what it was or how to advocate for myself

3:51

or how to speak about it And

3:54

so it wasn't until my own child

3:56

was identified that I really realized that

3:58

there was this need for more public

4:00

conversation, better awareness about what

4:02

it actually is and what can be

4:04

done to support people to sort

4:07

of break the silence. So that's

4:09

why I am doing what I do

4:11

and why I'm so excited to talk to you today about

4:13

it. I'm really curious. I

4:15

feel like this is one of those conversations

4:18

where stigma is going to play a

4:21

big part. I

4:24

know broadly and

4:26

vaguely what dyslexia is

4:28

from the sort of culturally

4:30

in the psychos like how people

4:32

refer to it. But I

4:34

feel like oftentimes you'll hear people who

4:37

are writing something down or typing something

4:39

out and they make a spelling error

4:41

and they're like, oh, I'm totally dyslexic.

4:43

I can't spell anything right. When

4:47

really they probably or might

4:49

not have a diagnosis of actually

4:51

being dyslexic, in the same way

4:53

that somebody might say, oh, I'm

4:55

totally OCD right now because they're cleaning

4:58

their house and trying to be really neat about it. Is

5:01

that from your experience, is

5:03

stigma a big part of the

5:05

advocacy work that you do, trying

5:07

to reduce that? Yeah, definitely the

5:09

stigma piece and also clearing up

5:11

a lot of misconceptions about which

5:13

dyslexia is. So you

5:16

were talking about the spelling piece there. That's

5:18

actually pretty accurate in terms of one of

5:20

the things that people with dyslexia struggle with

5:22

is spelling for sure. But

5:24

a lot of the times in those sort of

5:26

popular ideas of dyslexia, people think it's

5:29

about flipping letters around or seeing letters

5:31

move around the page or seeing things

5:33

backwards or in reverse. So

5:36

that is something that we're really trying to

5:38

clear up because that isn't what dyslexia

5:40

is. It's really a difference

5:42

in brain structure that makes it more

5:44

difficult for people to learn how to

5:46

read, write and spell accurately

5:49

and quickly. And

5:51

that can really slow people down. But

5:54

because of other popular ideas about

5:56

reading in general, there is an

5:58

idea that all... smart people learn

6:00

to read really easily and that, you

6:03

know, smart people can all spell things, you

6:05

know, so there, this stigma comes in when

6:07

you're a person who struggles with the learning

6:09

to read and spell, it

6:11

gets wrapped up with ideas about

6:13

your intelligence and how you see yourself, which

6:16

aren't accurate at all, like individuals with

6:18

dyslexia are, you know, every bit as

6:21

smart as everyone else, there's no link

6:23

between dyslexia and intelligence. So

6:25

there are lots of very, very intelligent

6:27

people who have horrendous spelling, like

6:30

I do, and who struggled with learning to read

6:32

when they were little. But because

6:34

that hasn't been discussed very much, there

6:36

really truly is this stigma and

6:38

it impacts, you know, those of

6:40

us with dyslexia, like there's a huge amount of shame

6:42

that I mean, I still feel as an adult when

6:45

I have to go and, you

6:47

know, write something on the fly, like fill out

6:49

a, you know, a congratulations card to

6:51

somebody or something like that, you know, I know it's

6:53

going to look like it was written by a toddler,

6:56

and it's really hard to shake that. And

6:58

there's also that stigma and

7:00

that shame really helps people, prevents

7:02

people from asking for the help that they

7:05

need or the help that their kids could

7:08

benefit from that could really make their

7:10

lives so much better. So

7:12

that's why I think it's really important to

7:14

have these conversations and clear some of that

7:16

stuff up. When you

7:18

say you said that you learned that

7:20

you that you

7:23

had a diagnosis of dyslexia in

7:25

high school and so, you

7:28

know, obviously I'm assuming,

7:31

I'm making an assumption here, but I'm

7:33

making the assumption that dyslexia is something that

7:36

is sort of inherent within you that sort

7:40

of shows itself as you begin to

7:42

start to learn to read and write

7:44

and those things. But

7:47

high school is obviously well beyond that

7:49

point. And so what were

7:54

the things that up and from the

7:56

kind of like your early days of

7:59

going to school and reading and writing and

8:01

all that stuff to the point where you got diagnosed.

8:06

You know, was there something where you like, I

8:08

know I don't read and write like other people.

8:10

I know that there's something that I have difficulty

8:12

with. Or was

8:15

it like a total surprise and it

8:19

was a huge revelation for you? I

8:24

would say that I managed to

8:26

fly under the radar when

8:28

I was younger. Things were definitely harder

8:30

for me and I didn't really understand why

8:33

they were hard. So it was very frustrating.

8:35

I had a lot of frustration in early

8:37

elementary school. But I

8:39

also worked really hard. So like with

8:42

dyslexia, learning to read is harder, but it

8:44

doesn't mean that you can't read. It just

8:47

means that reading is going to take longer.

8:49

Writing takes longer. All of those things. So

8:51

I did work very hard and I

8:54

had to put in so much more

8:56

work to get the grades than other

8:58

kids. That was really frustrating. Especially since

9:00

I felt like I was smart and

9:03

that I understood things, but I couldn't

9:05

understand why it took me so long.

9:08

So it wasn't until high school that

9:10

that was explained to me that I had some testing

9:13

done and that sort of thing. But

9:15

at the same time, it wasn't a huge relief because

9:17

they didn't really explain to me what dyslexia was. They

9:19

just sort of said, well, this is what's going on.

9:21

And what we're going to do is we're just going

9:23

to give you extra time. That's it. There

9:26

was nothing beyond that for me at that point.

9:30

But I think a lot of kids

9:32

really do sort of cope well

9:35

and fly under the radar. But

9:37

a lot really don't and are

9:39

really struggling. And it's

9:42

really unfortunate because it shouldn't be

9:44

happening. Like we can actually screen

9:46

children now. And when

9:48

I was a little kid in the 80s, we

9:51

didn't necessarily have the screening tools we do

9:53

now, but we've had screening tools for over

9:55

20 years where we could actually look at

9:57

the pre-reading skills of children. when

10:00

they're in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten,

10:03

and look at the early markers and warning

10:05

signs that are indicative that these kids are

10:07

at risk for dyslexia. It's not a diagnosis,

10:09

but it's a flag of risk. And

10:12

if we do that, then we can get in there

10:14

when they're in kindergarten, and we can provide them

10:16

with additional support so they don't have to struggle

10:19

and be frustrated the way that I was. Sorry,

10:23

go ahead. Oh,

10:25

I was gonna say, that was the most

10:27

frustrating part for me with my son was

10:30

discovering that that was the case. So, I

10:33

knew what my experience was. I knew that I

10:35

felt like if it had been identified earlier, it

10:37

would have been better. But

10:39

when he started school, even though he's only 15 now, but

10:42

he started school in, I

10:45

don't even know what year he started school in, but when he did, I

10:48

identified to the teachers that I wasn't identified

10:50

with dyslexia until I was in high school.

10:52

I know it's hereditary. I

10:55

think that, you know, please take extra

10:58

care and check out what's going on

11:00

with him. And then we started noticing

11:02

that there were challenges, but we kept getting

11:04

told essentially, well, we can't do any testing

11:06

until he's in grade three. We

11:08

can't really do anything to do extra

11:11

support until he's had this period of

11:14

time, basically to fail first. And

11:17

I didn't know as a dyslexic person that

11:19

that wasn't true. So, that was what really,

11:21

when I finally, my son got to grade

11:23

three and we got the testing done and

11:25

he sure enough, he was dyslexic. And

11:29

then I started to learn about, you know,

11:31

these early screening tools that have existed for

11:33

over 20 years and the possibility that that

11:35

has. That's what really turned me into

11:37

an advocate because

11:40

the impact on kids as they're

11:42

struggling, it's just horrendous. What

11:45

are some of those markers? Because

11:47

I have a daughter who's

11:49

just a little over a year and a half

11:51

and she can't read yet. She

11:54

can't read yet, which

11:56

is really frustrating for me. And

12:01

yeah, like for example,

12:04

I was I am looking I was

12:06

looking up last night like what are some of

12:08

some of the the signs and things that I

12:11

should be looking for to to

12:14

know when she is seeming like she's

12:16

ready to be potty trained and and

12:19

I was looking at some of

12:21

these signs and I was like man some of

12:24

these are hard to pick out like what is

12:27

an example One of

12:29

them was like that What

12:31

was one of them that was really hard? I can't

12:33

I actually there was there was five of them and

12:36

two of them I was like, I think I see

12:38

those pretty clearly and then there was two or three of

12:40

them that I was like, man I have no idea if that's

12:42

because it's sort of pertain to

12:44

things that I was like, she can't even do

12:47

those things yet She

12:49

can't even do the expression thing that you're

12:51

telling me I need to look for a

12:53

juggle three balls in the air Right,

12:56

but so what I'm so so I

12:58

think there's so many things within kids

13:02

That is it's hard. It's really hard

13:06

especially if it's if it's your first child

13:09

to be able to know like what is

13:13

What is what is

13:15

like normal development in

13:17

quotations or like whatever those milestones are and

13:19

like what are the Variations

13:21

are like what like what's a standard deviation

13:23

one way or the other I have

13:26

no idea and Some

13:28

of those things are just really hard as a

13:30

parent to pick out. I'm assuming

13:32

these screening things though. They happen with It's

13:35

like it would be something that would it be something that

13:37

a parent is looking for would it be something that you

13:39

know You would go to a professional or what happened in

13:41

like a clinical setting? So

13:44

that the those are all really good questions So

13:46

I guess I'll answer them in order So it's

13:48

the first one around the early warning signs and

13:50

like the things to look for as a parent,

13:52

right? So we actually at

13:54

the dyslexia Canada website We have a list

13:56

of things that parents can look for and

13:59

we also have checklists

14:01

for parents that we, at different

14:03

ages, like here are some things that you can

14:05

look for. Those are actually

14:08

like printed checklists that we send those

14:10

out to schools and libraries and doctor's

14:12

offices across Canada to hand out

14:14

to parents to kind of look at. But some

14:16

of the big ones to sort of look for

14:18

in a young child, like preschool age child, are

14:21

really around use of language.

14:23

So one thing is that individuals

14:25

with dyslexia often really have a

14:27

difficulty in accurately hearing the different

14:30

sounds in words. So again, people

14:32

think dyslexia is visual and it's

14:34

actually more linked to auditory processing

14:36

and that sort of thing. You need to

14:38

be able to accurately hear all of the

14:40

individual sounds in a word if you're going

14:42

to be able to map those sounds onto

14:44

letters so that you can read it or

14:46

spell it. So in

14:48

the case of my son, for example, there

14:51

were lots of things that he said that I thought

14:53

were really cute, but were actually

14:55

kind of warning signs of there was something going

14:57

on. Right. That's exactly what I mean. I'm

14:59

like, what's huge and what's something that I should

15:02

be like? Oh, that's a sign. Yeah.

15:04

So like he would say the word pretzel

15:06

instead of pretzel. Like he thought there was

15:09

an N sound in the word pretzel, right?

15:12

Crayons. He would always call them crowns, which

15:14

we thought were again, very cute, but he

15:16

just, he wasn't hearing those sounds even with

15:18

correction, that sort of thing. He had some

15:21

difficulties with pronunciation, which could be a speech

15:23

issue, but it could also end up being

15:25

indicative of dyslexia

15:27

happening. So those are sort of

15:29

like pre-reading type

15:33

warning signs. Also really

15:35

a difficulty with playing with language. So

15:37

like rhyming. So a lot of little

15:39

kids games are rhyming games. You might

15:41

play a game. And that

15:44

was a concept that it was very difficult

15:46

for him to wrap his head around. And

15:48

that again is indicative of kids with dyslexia

15:51

is a difficulty with rhyming. Hearing

15:53

the beginning sounds like if you were to play a game

15:56

with your child where you're like, I'm going to say a

15:58

word. And

16:00

then you're going to say another word that starts with

16:02

the same first sound. Like I say, like pink.

16:04

And then you're expecting the kid might say a

16:07

rink or something like that. Or sorry, that would

16:09

be rhyming or something else that

16:11

starts with pink pop. You know, and

16:13

they couldn't quite peel off that first

16:15

sound and and come up with an

16:18

accurate word for you. Those are

16:20

sort of the early ones. And then as kids are

16:22

getting a little bit older and sort of the kindergarten

16:24

age, it's really around difficulties with

16:26

learning the alphabet, right? So if they're

16:29

having an extreme difficulty with remembering the

16:31

different letters and

16:33

being able to accurately identify them, learning how

16:35

to print them, all of those things like

16:38

that is, again, an early warning sign. And

16:41

then in terms of the screening, how that works, that's

16:43

actually something that can be done in school by a

16:46

classroom teacher. It doesn't need to

16:48

be done in a clinical setting. It's

16:51

the sort of thing parents could look into it, but it'd

16:53

be really better to be done at school by a teacher.

16:56

So one of the things that we're advocating

16:58

for, just like See Canada, is for

17:00

provincial governments across the country to

17:02

implement mandatory universal screening for kids

17:05

from kindergarten to grade two so

17:08

that we can get that done. So there's

17:10

been a bit of movement on that, which

17:12

is exciting. Ontario is going

17:14

to be implementing mandatory screening next year.

17:18

This year, they're training all the teachers or

17:20

school boards have been provided funding to train

17:22

teachers. Some of them are

17:24

doing it. Some of them are not yet doing

17:26

it, but that's happening. Alberta has put in place

17:28

universal screening as well. And

17:30

we're working on convincing the rest of the

17:33

provinces to do the same. I'm

17:35

curious now to go back to

17:37

your early experience and contrast that

17:39

with what's being done

17:41

now in the case where

17:43

you're able to detect that somebody

17:46

may have dyslexia, you

17:49

screen them and they screen positive for it. What

17:52

sort of supports are

17:55

there now that

17:57

there weren't when you were

17:59

in high school? school? Um,

18:02

actually it's a little bit the opposite to be totally true.

18:05

Like I feel like my experience of learning to

18:07

read was actually a little bit easier than that for

18:09

my son, um, just because

18:11

of the approach to teaching reading in school. So

18:14

I'm old enough that, um, when I went

18:16

to elementary school, it was in the early

18:19

eighties we'll say that they, uh,

18:21

they were still teaching explicitly

18:23

teaching kids things like spelling lessons.

18:26

So explicitly teaching how to sound out

18:29

words using phonics skills and things like

18:31

that. So that was my base layer

18:33

that I was getting. I was getting an extra dose

18:35

of that kind of stuff at home from my mom.

18:39

Whereas when my son started school in

18:41

Ontario and things have changed in Ontario,

18:43

but not everywhere, uh, the

18:46

general approach to teaching kids to read

18:48

was not that it was based on,

18:50

um, a different approach to teaching kids

18:52

to read that started from the whole

18:54

language movement. And so there wasn't as

18:56

much of an emphasis on teaching

18:59

kids how to break apart words, how

19:01

to identify the individual sounds, how to

19:03

map those sounds onto letters. Um,

19:06

they had taken out explicit instruction in printing and

19:08

writing and that sort of thing. So I might've

19:10

thought it was boring when I was a child

19:12

that I, you know, had to sit there and

19:15

like learn how to write the letter a over

19:17

and over and over again. But

19:19

doing that was actually really, um,

19:21

helpful, right? So because of

19:23

that, the struggles and the experience that I

19:25

had, I don't think were as extreme. I

19:27

know they weren't, it wasn't as extreme as the struggles

19:30

and the difficulties that my son

19:32

had. That, that movement, was

19:34

it, um, I think I've heard something about

19:36

this. I'm not sure if this is right,

19:38

but was it, was it like a move

19:40

from like phonics of sounding things out and

19:42

learning the spellings to, to like

19:44

pattern recognition or something like that?

19:48

Yeah. So it, um, it's called balanced literacy.

19:50

Now it comes out of this idea

19:52

of whole language, but what it was

19:54

is the idea that skilled

19:57

readers when they're reading, aren't

19:59

actually. looking at all of the letters in

20:01

the word, that instead what they're doing is

20:04

they're predicting what word comes next based

20:06

on the context. Like,

20:09

yeah, based on the context, the syntax, or maybe

20:11

a sampling of the letters, just looking at the

20:13

first letter or the last letter. So that's

20:16

an idea that was first floated in the 1960s.

20:20

And it took a while before it really took on,

20:22

it took off in education, but it was sort of

20:24

the late 80s, 90s, that

20:26

it really took over in education in a

20:28

big way. The problem is, is that that's

20:30

not actually how people read. Like it was

20:33

a theory, it sounded nice, it came

20:35

out, it was studied quite

20:37

thoroughly in the 90s as it was becoming

20:40

popular in schools. So they, you know, put

20:42

it into schools before actually proving it. When

20:45

they went to the research, they found out that

20:47

it's not how kids learn to read, but once

20:49

they release something like that into the world, it's

20:51

really hard to walk it back, right? So

20:53

we've been trying to walk it back for 30 years now. And

20:55

it's been, it's been a

20:57

disaster, like a complete and unmitigated disaster

20:59

on the reading achievement for

21:01

kids, like not just in Canada, but

21:04

in the English speaking world. I can imagine. Do

21:06

you guys remember Hooked on Phonics? Yeah. Yeah, I loved

21:08

Hooked on Phonics. Yeah, yeah, it was awesome. It's

21:10

actually, it's actually blowing my mind because when you kind

21:12

of explained that, when you were explaining what that theory

21:14

is, I was like, yeah,

21:16

I guess maybe, maybe I

21:18

do some of that. But then at the same

21:21

time, I read quite

21:23

slowly, but I read a lot. And like reading and

21:25

writing is a bear, is like a strong suit of

21:27

mine. And then I was

21:29

thinking about Hooked on Phonics. And I was

21:31

like, huh, it's

21:33

so interesting. Because I find

21:36

that sounds like a really hard,

21:40

it sounds like a really hard idea

21:43

to convey to children.

21:49

That is the way that your brain

21:52

is in taking information. I mean,

21:54

I feel like that's, I feel like that would be kind of hard

21:56

for a fairly

21:59

large swath of adults. You mean balanced

22:01

literacy, this idea of... Yeah, to

22:03

convey the idea that your

22:07

brain is filling in the spaces between

22:09

words and you're filling

22:13

in words based on a selection

22:15

of letters in the words. Dude,

22:17

what's funny is I have ADHD

22:19

and I feel like that is

22:21

more how my brain works.

22:25

I don't know if that would have been more

22:27

beneficial as a kid and

22:30

learning, but I know that

22:32

there are ADHD reader tools that

22:35

bold the

22:37

first two letters of each word

22:39

and it can greatly increase the

22:42

speed at which you can read, but

22:44

I don't know that it

22:47

increases my level of comprehension. That's

22:50

very interesting. Yeah, it is

22:52

interesting. The way that they use

22:54

it as an instructional approach for teaching kids

22:57

is also caught up in

22:59

this idea that learning to read

23:01

is something that happens naturally, just through the

23:03

act of reading. We don't need

23:06

to explicitly teach kids things like

23:08

how letters and sounds relate to each other.

23:12

The way that works in the classroom is that

23:14

reading instruction for the last 20 years or so

23:16

has really been based

23:19

around these sets of books that are

23:22

set up in a way that kids

23:26

can read them independently without really being

23:28

readers. And

23:31

then they take away those scaffolds over

23:33

time. The beginning books are super

23:35

repetitive. I don't know

23:37

if you guys, you can say you have a kid, but

23:39

I don't know if you've seen these little books because this

23:42

was new to me when my child started school. But

23:45

the first book would be at the zoo. I

23:48

see a monkey, and there'd just be a picture of

23:50

a monkey on the page, and that's it. I see

23:52

a giraffe, and there's just a picture of a giraffe.

23:55

And that's the whole book. You go through the

23:57

book first with the kid, and you tell them the

23:59

pattern. I see it. and

24:01

then they guess based on the picture, right? And they just

24:03

work their way through the book and they

24:05

feel like they're readers. And the

24:07

idea is that by doing this over time that

24:09

the kids will either memorize the words that are

24:12

there or that they'll tease those

24:14

words apart and they will come up with

24:16

their own sort of understanding of how the

24:19

S in the words C, you know, represents

24:21

the sound and the double E is a

24:23

long E, like they're supposed to tease that

24:25

apart on their own, as opposed

24:28

to the phonics approach where we start with the sounds and

24:30

the letters and we show them how those work and we

24:32

leave them together to make words. And then, so

24:34

it's like a top down approach as opposed

24:36

to a bottom up approach. And

24:38

it's, you know, very, very, very confusing

24:40

for a lot of kids. They really

24:43

never do come up with

24:45

their own set of understanding of how spelling

24:47

works. I can imagine the last

24:49

word in that book is, I see a xylophone.

24:54

Well, it's good that we're not trying to sound this. It's

24:57

like, it's very interesting. It reminds me of,

24:59

this is sort of, this is only at

25:01

best adjacent to the topic of our conversation,

25:03

but it does have to do with reading. When

25:07

my wife was pregnant with our first daughter,

25:10

she was reading a book called,

25:14

it was called Growing Up Bay Bay, I think it was what

25:16

it was called. It was an American woman who

25:18

moved to Paris in her 20s, ended

25:23

up staying there, living there, had a

25:25

child there. And it was like

25:27

this contrast of child

25:30

rearing in North America versus child rearing

25:32

in her experience in France. And

25:35

there was like a lot of interesting

25:37

tidbits out of there. And one of them was

25:39

the sort of like

25:42

race to, in

25:45

North America, this like race to teach your children

25:47

things younger and younger and younger. It

25:50

was like, you know, math and reading in

25:52

particular. Like the, you know, if

25:55

we just teach them these things younger

25:58

and younger and younger bit by bit, then. they'll

26:00

get smarter faster and faster and faster and

26:02

we'll just have this army of economic machines

26:08

to churn out whatever. And

26:12

it was like, well, actually, what ends

26:14

up happening is when you

26:16

teach a child something, like

26:19

reading before they're ready to

26:21

start learning, they become

26:23

so frustrated internally with the

26:25

fact that they can't do it because they're

26:27

not ready, that

26:30

they ultimately end up learning to read at

26:32

a much slower pace and much later than

26:36

they otherwise most likely would

26:38

have because their

26:41

association with reading is that they hate

26:43

it because their association is

26:45

automatically that they can't do it. And

26:48

it slows down development in children for things

26:50

like reading and math in particular, I think

26:53

it was. It

26:55

just struck me as on the

26:58

reading thing, it's just something

27:00

really interesting about the way in which

27:02

we think about kids

27:05

and teaching them things, that

27:08

whole top-down approach

27:11

versus bottom-up approach and how you

27:13

teach children. Again, I have a

27:15

year and a half year old, so I'm very interested in all

27:17

of this stuff and I'm kind of like a sponge when it

27:19

comes to trying to figure out what are the

27:21

ways in which are most beneficial

27:23

for my kid to come

27:25

into the world and learn things. This has already been

27:27

like, this is just a personal benefit to

27:29

me, this whole thing. I

27:32

wanted to quickly come back to the

27:34

point about the supports

27:36

that are in place now or at

27:39

least what could be beneficial to someone

27:41

who is screening and caught early knowing

27:43

that screening is a focus right now.

27:47

What are some of the supports that could be in

27:49

place? Sure,

27:52

I think the first thing that could

27:54

be in place, and again, this is our

27:56

mission at Dyslexia Canada, is getting these things

27:58

into place, is that we can get the support that we need. that the

28:00

schools actually provide reading

28:03

instruction that aligns with what we know about

28:05

how children learn, right? So

28:07

getting down to that, back to what you were saying

28:09

about are the kids developmentally ready? There's

28:13

a lot that we know about what is

28:15

appropriate for kids in kindergarten. And a

28:18

lot of it is making sure that they have those foundational

28:20

skills in place. So things like being able

28:22

to hear the sounds and words. So

28:25

that's a piece that can

28:27

be taught. You can do instruction and you

28:29

can also do intervention for the kids that

28:31

are really struggling with that. Making

28:33

sure that they really know their alphabet before we give

28:35

them books and expect them to read entire books. Like

28:38

let's just make sure they know their alphabet. You know,

28:40

that's a good place to start too. So

28:42

in terms of what could be in place, the first

28:45

thing could be that classroom instruction, making

28:47

sure that we're actually using evidence-based approaches

28:50

that are developmentally appropriate for all of the

28:52

kids right across the board. And

28:54

then for those kids that are identified for

28:57

screening as being at risk for having difficulty.

29:00

And I should clarify too, it's not just a

29:02

risk of difficulty due to dyslexia, but

29:04

those screeners actually catch kids that are at risk

29:07

of having difficulties with literacy for other

29:09

reasons, right? All of those

29:11

kids need to have intervention early for whatever

29:13

it is that they are at risk for.

29:15

You know, there are interventions that can be

29:17

put in place to help

29:19

them so that they can stay on track

29:21

with their peers so that they don't end

29:23

up falling behind and getting really frustrated. So

29:27

that's really what could and should

29:29

be happening in that preventative

29:31

piece for little, little kids. But

29:34

for older kids, like we have an

29:36

entire generation of students that didn't get

29:38

that foundational instruction, really

29:41

struggled with reading. And many of them have just

29:43

been pushed through the system all

29:45

the way along. Like it is not uncommon for me

29:47

to talk to high school teachers that

29:50

have students in grade nine that are reading

29:52

at a grade three level, for example. And

29:55

there are intervention programs that those kids

29:57

should have access to as well. Unfortunately,

29:59

mostly. This is the sort of

30:01

habit that's coming from the education system. So

30:04

making those programs available is really one

30:06

of our best positions to develop. I

30:16

don't know what's real. I don't know what's not real.

30:19

Limited Capacity is a collection of six

30:21

darkly amusing stories about the mysterious ways

30:24

we interact with the internet and with

30:26

each other. There's something going on with him. It's

30:29

like an act. I don't trust him. What?

30:31

You're staring at me like I should say something,

30:33

but I don't really know what to do here.

30:36

That's the whole name of the game. Don't talk

30:38

about how the town isn't real. Do you understand?

30:41

Limited Capacity, available now on CBC

30:43

Listen or wherever you get your

30:45

podcasts. It

30:48

sounds so challenging to... because

30:51

the basis of our education

30:53

is basically built on the

30:55

ability to read and write. I

30:59

personally struggled with that when

31:02

I made the transition from going to

31:04

university. I

31:06

just found that all of a sudden there was a lot

31:09

of reading that had to be done on your own time.

31:11

As someone who was undiagnosed at the time

31:14

with ADHD, finding

31:16

being able to prioritize that time to sit

31:18

down and read was really

31:20

challenging for me. Then

31:24

not knowing that information, going into

31:26

class and

31:28

struggling because I wasn't able to do

31:30

the task. I feel like I have

31:32

an appreciation for how hard school can

31:35

be when you're not

31:37

able to do that. How

31:40

can the system... because it seems like

31:42

that is such a systemic problem. I

31:45

don't want to say problem necessarily. It's certainly a

31:47

problem for these people. But

31:50

how do we accommodate this

31:53

large portion of people who

31:56

might be struggling with these things? It

31:59

is a systemic. problem. I think problem

32:01

is the right word and it expands

32:03

beyond students with dyslexia. Just

32:06

the general approach that we have to teaching people

32:08

to be literate and the skills that they need

32:10

so that they can read at the university level

32:12

and keep up. We're just not doing a very

32:14

good job of it. We've got

32:17

multiple sources of data that show that

32:19

across Canada currently we've got about a

32:21

third of students who are 15 years

32:24

old in grade 11 that

32:26

haven't yet reached the level of literacy that

32:28

they need according to Statistics Canada to be

32:30

successful in post-secondary or to

32:33

participate in the you know fully participate

32:35

in the modern economy is the term that you

32:37

use. That's a third,

32:39

that is that is huge. So yes

32:41

it is a systemic issue and that's

32:43

why we've been addressing this as

32:45

a human rights issue right because

32:48

as you said before like everything

32:50

in education is based on your ability to

32:52

read and write like that is how you

32:54

learn across subjects and that's the skill that you

32:56

need so that you can be successful in university.

32:58

So Dyslexia

33:01

Canada has worked with parents in

33:03

three provinces now to bring these

33:05

issues forward to human rights commissions

33:09

and we've had well one full

33:11

public inquiry and two systemic inquiries

33:13

that have been launched. So

33:15

the biggest one was in Ontario, excuse me, where

33:18

in 2019 the Ontario Human Rights Commission

33:23

launched a full public inquiry looking

33:25

at what the province was doing in

33:28

terms of teaching all kids to read

33:30

how they were assessing kids ability to

33:32

read what they were providing in terms

33:34

of intervention and accommodations and things like

33:36

that in education and

33:38

the conclusion of that was it was

33:40

stark they concluded that Ontario is systematically

33:42

failing kids with reading disabilities and many

33:45

other students. So the only

33:47

solution is full on like

33:49

system change is what the solution is

33:52

including a real overhaul of teacher

33:54

education and teacher training because

33:57

that was what I experienced.

33:59

I was Hugely

34:01

surprised, but this is

34:03

also what the Human Rights Commission found.

34:05

They audited all of the faculties of education

34:07

in Ontario and looked at what

34:10

are teachers being taught about how reading

34:12

actually works, like the science of reading,

34:14

what we understand about reading development, developmental

34:17

milestones, all those things. And

34:19

they discovered that teachers are

34:22

not being provided with the

34:24

actual accurate up-to-date information. They're

34:26

still being trained to believe

34:28

that reading develops as that person from 1967 said

34:32

it did, that it's something that develops naturally

34:34

when kids are ready and that

34:36

people predict words based on

34:39

cues and context and all of these other sorts of

34:41

things. And

34:43

as a parent, bringing my child

34:46

into the education system, my kids had amazing

34:48

teachers. They were wonderful human beings

34:51

who I could tell were working really, really

34:53

hard. They really liked my son because he's

34:55

a charming little fellow. And

34:57

so they were working extra hard trying to help him. And

35:01

you just trust that they're the experts. They

35:03

know what they're doing and they've been prepared

35:05

to do this. Like, I'm dyslexic myself. I

35:07

can barely spell how am I to say

35:09

how they should be teaching my

35:12

child to read. So to

35:14

discover the huge gap in

35:16

that knowledge that this

35:18

information has been out there for literally decades, but

35:21

it has never been a part of teacher training.

35:24

It is not what they know. And

35:26

they've been actively telling parents

35:28

and doing things that are

35:30

counterproductive for kids. Like, that

35:33

was the biggest and most eye-opening piece to me.

35:35

So the systemic change that has

35:37

to happen really has to start with

35:39

that, with teacher education and really looking

35:41

at what's happening in those faculties of

35:43

education and why. It's

35:46

really interesting too because it feels like

35:48

such a loss for society to not

35:50

acknowledge that that's shortcoming in the sense

35:52

that, like you said something right at

35:54

the very beginning, that

35:57

it really stood out to me. is

36:00

your ability

36:02

to read and write is not a metric of

36:04

how intelligent you are. We

36:07

can test people on their

36:09

reading comprehension and their ability to write. We

36:13

could say that somebody who does a

36:15

really great job at that and communicates really

36:17

well through that medium is intelligent, but that

36:19

doesn't mean that that is the only type

36:21

of intelligence. It makes me think of, I'll

36:23

butcher this, but the

36:26

picture of a fish trying to climb a

36:28

ladder or whatever, and it's like if we

36:30

judged a fish by its ability to

36:33

climb a tree, it would live its life thinking that

36:35

it was dumb or something like that. I

36:42

felt a bit of that way with

36:44

ADHD in the sense that there are things that

36:46

I really struggle with, and when

36:49

teachers criticize you

36:51

for not performing well in those

36:53

areas, then you sort of internalize that and

36:55

think that that means that you're not smart.

36:59

That's not the reality. The reality is that

37:01

there are lots of brilliant

37:04

different ways that our brains work, and

37:06

it seems

37:08

really frustrating and

37:10

like a massive oversight that this

37:13

is not being acknowledged. To

37:16

that point, I'm interested in what you

37:18

think about this, Alicia. I feel like

37:21

over the years, and this is

37:23

fully anecdotal, but

37:26

you just start to see lots

37:29

of creative people being like, I'm

37:31

dyslexic. It seems to me

37:34

like creative people, people that we

37:36

kind of put in that box of artistic

37:38

creative, there seems

37:40

to be a high, anecdotally it seems to be

37:42

a high prevalence of dyslexia. So

37:47

A, does that feel correct to

37:50

you or is that just totally

37:52

anecdotal? If possibly

37:55

true, would that

37:57

be a result of that

38:00

people are not getting the training

38:05

or the education or learning to participate

38:09

in quotations

38:11

in what Statistics

38:13

Canada calls the, whatever

38:15

they call it, the modern economy machine of

38:18

which I am a proponent of. And

38:23

so they are therefore by default

38:25

sort of like pushed more

38:27

often pushed towards maybe

38:30

like more non-traditional career

38:33

choices or things like that

38:35

that steer them in maybe

38:37

more of a creative direction

38:39

where post-secondary education is

38:41

not as held

38:43

as such a crucial thing

38:47

to have. Yeah,

38:51

it's really hard to say to be

38:53

totally honest. Like I definitely have seen

38:55

that trend as well in recent years

38:58

as we've been successful in getting

39:00

people to start talking about dyslexia and

39:03

start to break the silence a

39:05

bit. I am seeing

39:07

lots of, as you say, creative

39:09

people, lots of entrepreneurs, lots of

39:11

people in non-traditional careers coming

39:13

forward and, you know,

39:16

talking about their dyslexia, which is amazing and

39:18

I'm very glad to see that. I'm

39:20

not sure if that is because there

39:22

is a higher prevalence in those careers,

39:25

which it might be true, like your

39:27

theory there, like I've never seen statistical

39:29

evidence to, you know, no data. It

39:34

could also be because people who are

39:36

in traditional careers are still afraid to

39:38

speak out, right? Like that's the other

39:40

thing. Talking to a number of

39:42

people who do work in large corporations who

39:45

have those sort of like, you know,

39:47

traditional job jobs, they

39:49

still are under a lot of fear

39:52

or still experience a lot of fear of

39:54

disclosing because, you know,

39:57

they're trying to climb the ladder within an organization where you're not going

39:59

to be able to do that. you've got somebody else and

40:01

their ideas and opinions. Whereas if

40:03

you're in a creative profession or if you're an entrepreneur,

40:06

it doesn't impact you in the same way

40:09

in terms of you're not trying to crime somebody

40:11

else's career ladder. So I'm not

40:13

a hundred percent sure where I fall

40:15

down on that one. And

40:17

that idea of

40:19

the successful dyslexic as well, there's

40:22

lots of intelligence and successful dyslexic

40:24

people and I'd like to encourage

40:26

all of them to talk

40:29

and share. But there's also a

40:31

lot that's unknown about the individuals

40:33

with dyslexia who never received

40:35

support or didn't have those

40:38

additional protective factors of

40:40

very high intelligence that helped them to

40:42

cope, right? And to move forward. So

40:45

another like very troubling statistic is around

40:48

the prevalence of low literacy in prisons,

40:50

right? Like this is one we don't

40:52

talk about as much. But

40:54

the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police did a

40:57

study a few years ago and they found that

40:59

65% of incarcerated people in

41:01

Canada had less than a grade

41:03

eight level of literacy, right? And

41:06

we know that dyslexia is the most common

41:08

cause of reading difficulties. So there's

41:10

a pretty good chance that a lot of the people

41:12

there are dyslexic as well. But

41:14

because there hasn't been a national program

41:17

where we're really screening kids and

41:19

identifying everybody, it's really difficult to

41:21

have any sense of accurately

41:24

where it's shaking out. Is

41:26

one of the hopes in screening to

41:29

be able to provide that data and say, and to

41:31

be able to like actually point to it and go,

41:33

this is, I mean, this is

41:36

as big of a problem as we know

41:38

it to be and possibly even bigger? I

41:41

think we already have the data to show that

41:44

it's a huge problem. The big hope with

41:46

screening is really to get support for kids

41:48

when they're little, right? It's just, it's

41:50

more about that individual support and also

41:53

making sure that at

41:56

a system level that we're exposing

41:58

problems in the system. So

42:01

especially when you're screening kids that are in grade

42:03

one or grade two, you know, the screening isn't

42:05

a one and done kind of screening test. It

42:08

actually happens multiple times per year. Like ideally

42:10

you'd be screening kids at the beginning of the year,

42:12

the middle of the year and the end of the year

42:14

because the milestones, they should

42:16

be needing change as they get older, right? Because

42:19

they're developmental milestones, right? So if you've got a group

42:23

of kids that come in and, you know, 80% of

42:25

the kids are on track at the beginning of the year

42:28

in grade two, and then you see

42:30

that at the end of grade two, now we

42:32

only have 40% of kids that are on track. You can

42:34

see that there's a problem in the system, right? Like that's

42:36

not a problem with those kids. So

42:38

the screening is really important for problem

42:41

solving for the individual kids, but it's

42:43

also really important for just problem solving

42:45

at the school and the system level.

42:48

Have you thought a lot about what

42:51

a, like if you could totally

42:53

reimagine the system so that it

42:56

was less reliant solely

42:59

on reading and writing comprehension, what

43:02

could that potentially look like? Well,

43:07

I think the way that I reimagine the system

43:09

is a system where we make

43:11

sure that everybody can be successful

43:13

with reading and writing comprehension, right?

43:16

So there's a lot of data now to show that over

43:18

95% of people can be very successful with

43:22

that if they receive the appropriate instruction

43:24

at the right time. That

43:26

at the right time piece is really important too. We've

43:28

got to start when kids are young. So

43:31

that's really the way that I reimagine the

43:34

system is that we're using evidence

43:36

from, you know, the last 20, 30 years of

43:38

science. There's

43:40

been lots and lots of fantastic research done here in

43:42

Canada and all around the world that

43:44

could really have solved this problem ages ago if

43:46

we just actually put the evidence

43:49

into practice. So that's really how I

43:52

envision things going forward. What

43:56

are the numbers? How common is it to

43:58

like how many in a hundred? people

44:00

are, I was gonna say

44:02

developing dyslexia, but you said it's hereditary. So

44:04

I suppose developing is maybe not the

44:07

right word to use. But what are the stats? So

44:10

the stats that we use at Dyslexia Canada

44:12

are between 10 and 20%, which

44:15

I recognize is a huge range. That's

44:17

100% different, right? But it's

44:19

a lot no matter what. It's a lot no

44:21

matter why. Yeah. And the reason for that range, there's

44:23

a couple of reasons. It

44:25

is hereditary, yes, but it's also

44:28

environmental. It's one of those things

44:30

that if there's a

44:32

confluence of things that happen, right? So

44:34

there are protective factors that can be in place

44:36

for kids that can help kids who are at

44:38

risk of dyslexia never end

44:40

up meeting the diagnostic criteria. And

44:43

that's the biggest protective factor is instruction,

44:45

right? It's instruction in early intervention. So

44:47

if we are successful in

44:50

catching the kids who are at risk for

44:52

dyslexia in kindergarten, and we start

44:54

to provide them with that early, early intervention,

44:56

we should have a huge reduction

44:58

in the number of kids who actually would

45:00

meet the diagnostic criteria down the road. So

45:03

it doesn't mean that their brains aren't organized

45:05

the way they were when they were born.

45:07

It just means they no longer meet the

45:09

threshold. I mean, that is a, like again,

45:11

10 is big and 20 is gigantic. I

45:13

mean, those

45:17

are no matter what way you cut it, that is a large

45:19

slice of the population that

45:22

is not

45:28

getting what they need to be successful

45:30

in all of the things that

45:32

we have come to establish as

45:36

important in terms of like a communal

45:40

societal contribution.

45:45

That's really big. What

45:47

is the diagnostic criteria? So

45:51

it's, okay, and again, there are different ways

45:53

that people diagnose dyslexia.

45:55

So the way that it is in the

45:57

DSM is around specifically

46:00

around difficulties with reading. So they use

46:02

a bunch of psychrometric testing, looking

46:05

at reading ability, spelling ability, things

46:07

like that, and it has to

46:09

fall below a certain threshold, right?

46:12

There are other definitions that

46:15

have that, and then they also

46:17

look at a discrepancy with IQ. So

46:19

they say that these

46:21

difficulties with reading are

46:24

unexpected because the person

46:26

meets this threshold of having

46:28

above average to above average intelligence.

46:32

That second way of doing it has

46:36

been called into question as being accurate,

46:38

like the IQ piece, right?

46:41

So one of the things that in Ontario, the

46:43

Human Rights Commission recommended was that

46:45

we stop using this second layer,

46:47

the IQ testing, because

46:49

there's so many challenges with IQ

46:52

testing itself in terms

46:54

of cultural bias and IQ testing,

46:56

that sort of thing. And it

46:58

was also being used, that IQ discrepancy

47:00

piece in education has actually been used

47:03

to prevent some kids from getting

47:05

intervention that needed, right? So

47:08

it's like we recognize that they are struggling

47:10

with reading, but because they scored below, like

47:12

two points below on this arbitrary IQ test,

47:16

we're not gonna help them because we don't think

47:19

that they qualify legally as having a learning disability,

47:22

which there's so many different problems with that,

47:24

right? So the definition that

47:26

we would go with is the one

47:28

from the DSM, like the Diagnostic and

47:30

Standards Manual that psychologists use, and that's

47:32

really based around the difficulties with reading,

47:34

writing, and spelling. That's really

47:36

interesting because I would have guessed that

47:39

having the layer of the IQ test

47:41

would help to identify people who might

47:44

not just meet the threshold of the

47:46

DSM. You

47:50

should watch the video,

47:53

the Veritasium video on IQ testing

47:55

and the following issues with it.

47:57

It's quite fast. bring

48:00

that up, I understand that. Do

48:03

you feel like, I

48:06

mean, obviously there's always people being sort

48:08

of falling through the cracks in

48:11

any system. Is

48:14

there a better way to do it

48:16

or do you think that there could be, yeah, do

48:19

you think there could be a better way to do it? Yeah.

48:22

Like the better way to do it really is

48:24

to do it in a response

48:26

to intervention model, right? Where

48:29

you're starting with the screening very young,

48:31

you're providing intervention and then you're looking

48:33

to see how are the kids responding,

48:35

right? So that

48:37

would help to determine like which kids

48:40

are struggling because they really do have

48:42

this neurologically based difference that's making it

48:45

difficult for them to learn these things

48:48

when they're being provided with the appropriate

48:50

instruction and the appropriate and sufficient intervention

48:53

versus the kids that are struggling

48:55

because they came into school starting

48:57

off further behind because they didn't

48:59

have as many literacy experiences before,

49:01

or maybe they've been absent for school or whatever it

49:03

is, right? Like that's how you can tease out the

49:06

difference too. And so

49:08

that is different than waiting

49:10

and relying on big, send the person

49:12

to a psychologist and spend thousands and

49:14

thousands of dollars on doing these big

49:16

assessments. So that's really,

49:18

I think the way that we should be moving too. In

49:21

terms of your experience going

49:23

through high school, did you go to

49:25

university afterwards? I did for

49:27

a period of time, but I actually dropped out

49:29

because I, like you, could not

49:31

keep up with the reading. Like I can read,

49:33

but I read so much. I read so much

49:36

more slowly. Actually improved my reading

49:38

now, which is very, like that's a whole other

49:40

story. But when I was in university, actually

49:43

went to university in Halifax too. I went and I

49:45

did the King's Foundation, your program. Not

49:48

in journalism. No, not

49:50

in journalism, but I did, I did the

49:52

foundation, your program, and I only picked it

49:54

because it had oral exams, right? Cause I

49:56

cannot write written exams. Like I really struggled

49:58

with that. And

50:00

then of course, like there's so much reading

50:02

in that program, right? So I, uh, I

50:04

started early, I got the reading list the

50:07

year before and started like working through it,

50:10

but I was just exhausted by the end of that, right? And

50:12

I just tried to keep up with all of that reading.

50:15

So, um, yeah. Taylor

50:17

and I, but we, um, we

50:20

didn't finish university and, and I started and

50:22

did one year and as I mentioned, I

50:24

really struggled with it. Um, but

50:26

I'm curious, like obviously you're, you're, you know, you're

50:30

the head of an organization now. You,

50:32

you have to think strategically about things. I

50:34

imagine that communication is a big part of,

50:37

of your job. Um,

50:39

how have you managed to, um,

50:43

balance your dyslexia

50:45

diagnosis with this sort of

50:48

need to have to, you

50:50

know, use reading and writing in your, in

50:52

your day to day work? Sure.

50:55

Well, I'm actually like, I've always considered myself

50:57

a fairly strong writer. Like it does take

50:59

me a bit longer than others, but, um,

51:02

like oral communication has always been

51:04

something that I've leaned heavily into

51:07

and I kind of write the way that I speak,

51:09

so that's always been fine. This

51:11

job, like there's a lot of, of talking to people

51:13

in this job of what I do. So I certainly

51:15

do a lot of that, but I

51:17

lean into things like Grammarly, like I said at

51:19

the beginning, like I'm a huge fan of that. Um,

51:22

I also have a great team of people that I work

51:24

with. So I always send things out to them to look

51:27

over and provide feedback, that

51:29

sort of thing. Um, but

51:31

I mean, I think the, the other thing

51:33

is that, you know, abilities change over

51:35

time, and even as an adult, you

51:38

can improve your reading ability. And

51:40

that's something that, um, happened

51:42

for me completely accidentally, but it

51:45

was probably the best thing that I ever did when

51:48

my son was born. Like I was really,

51:50

really motivated to make sure that he didn't have

51:52

the same challenges that I did. And

51:55

the only thing that I knew as a parent, because the only thing

51:57

they tell you as a parent is just read to your child a

51:59

lot, right? It's a. read to your children. So,

52:01

okay, great. So I started reading to

52:03

him like the day he was born

52:05

in the hospital and I read to him

52:07

out loud for hours a day like when he

52:09

was a toddler in an infant and like, you

52:11

know, just kept reading to him and reading to him and reading

52:13

to him. And the process

52:15

of doing that, by the time he was about

52:18

three years old, like I actually started to

52:20

notice huge improvements in my own reading

52:22

speed. So there was like

52:24

one thing that people had always told me that

52:26

you should be able to do when you're reading is to

52:28

like read ahead on the line

52:30

so that you can, like your eyes are reading

52:32

ahead from what you're saying when you're speaking

52:35

out loud so that you

52:37

can put the proper phrasing in place

52:39

and you know, commas and intonation

52:41

and that sort of thing. I could never

52:43

do that. Like I could never even wrap my head

52:45

around how people would even start to do that.

52:48

But by the time he was three, I remember I was reading him

52:50

a magic tree house book and I was like reading it

52:52

and it was like sounding

52:55

like a normal person reading. I

52:59

was just completely floored with myself. So

53:03

afterwards, after I started getting into all the

53:05

reading research, I found out like that reading

53:07

out loud is the, you know, the best

53:09

thing you can do to improve your reading

53:11

fluency, especially repeated reading. So

53:13

again, like when you've got a little kid,

53:15

little kids are always bringing you the same

53:18

book over and over again, like read me curious

53:20

George again. And so I was

53:22

like giving myself a reading intervention

53:24

without even knowing it essentially for, you

53:26

know, for that period of time, just

53:28

reading to him out loud. So

53:30

that's really helped. Like I don't know if I would

53:32

have been able to keep up with the demands of this

53:34

job 10 years ago, but

53:37

that experience was really good. I also

53:39

basically did all of the dyslexia intervention

53:41

with my son when he

53:43

was learning to read, right? So through that

53:45

process, because of where we live in tiny,

53:47

a small town north of Toronto where there

53:49

are no tutors, I couldn't

53:52

get, actually called tiny, I

53:54

couldn't get a dyslexia therapist for him.

53:56

So I had to learn how to do it myself and

53:58

through going through that process. with him

54:01

and doing it. I learned so

54:03

much about how the

54:05

English language works and how spelling works, all

54:07

these things that for my life had been

54:09

a complete mystery and that

54:11

was hugely helpful as well. What

54:13

are the conversations like with

54:16

your son around dyslexia? Oh,

54:20

you know, it was a really

54:24

interesting bonding experience for us is

54:26

what I'd say because like I had not

54:28

ever talked about my dyslexia until he was

54:31

officially diagnosed and I hadn't leaned

54:33

into it at all so the two of us definitely

54:35

kind of went down the rabbit hole together and that

54:38

was nice. So we spent a lot of

54:40

time reading about successful

54:42

people who have dyslexia. I was

54:44

like constantly sharing TED talks

54:46

with him and different profiles of

54:49

people, that sort of

54:51

thing and then you know he

54:53

came like along with me on

54:55

this journey of discovering everything that

54:57

I know now about you

54:59

know how reading works and the science of

55:01

reading and the disconnect between that and what's

55:03

happening in the education system. You know he

55:05

was there at the launch of the Ontario

55:08

Human Rights Commission's inquiry. He

55:10

went and he spoke at Queen's

55:12

Park and he talked to our

55:14

MPP all about the

55:16

disconnect and really what would have been more helpful

55:18

for him. So yeah, it

55:21

really though made

55:24

it very difficult for him for the rest of

55:26

school because he lost like he loved his teachers

55:29

as human beings but he lost

55:31

all trust in them

55:33

right. When he realized how

55:36

far removed what they were telling him was

55:39

from what he actually needed it got

55:42

to the point where pretty much everything that came

55:44

home he would be asking me like okay do

55:47

I do this like is this a useful assignment

55:49

that's going to help me learn or is this

55:51

just complete and utter BS you know like

55:54

so I had to sort of talk him into doing to

55:56

doing different things so it was

55:59

challenging from that. perspective. But he's in high

56:01

school now and he's doing great. He's just

56:03

got his interim report card. He was like

56:05

above 95 and everything. Like he's a very

56:07

smart kid. But just

56:09

the you know

56:12

the insecurity and all of that, it took

56:14

years, years honestly, to

56:16

kind of get him to the point where he was

56:18

a confident kid again. Speaking of

56:20

the insecurity and like lack of confidence,

56:22

one thing I like trying

56:25

to put myself in the shoes of someone

56:27

who has

56:30

dyslexia, who is in school, you know

56:32

being called on to read a paragraph

56:35

out loud or to have to do some

56:37

sort of presentation that requires doing that in

56:39

front of a class.

56:42

Did you have experiences like that and

56:44

did you feel shame or

56:47

lack confidence

56:51

in doing that when you were called on

56:53

in class? Definitely

56:57

when it came to having to read.

56:59

Like I definitely have memories of having

57:02

a book in front of me and like

57:04

trying to count paragraphs because they're kind of

57:06

going down the rows and like okay it's gonna

57:09

be this one. So I just spend the entire time

57:11

reading it and reading it and reading it and reading it so

57:13

that I could try and read it when it was my turn.

57:15

So I'd have absolutely no idea what was going on with the

57:17

rest of the reading. Complete waste of time.

57:20

So I do remember that and that sort of

57:22

sinking sense of dread. When it

57:24

came to presentations though like I always loved

57:26

giving presentations I just never read for any

57:28

of them. Right. Like I would just stand

57:30

up and talk and I was always happy

57:32

to share what I knew orally which is

57:34

I think you know not I'm not going

57:37

to generalize strengths of people but there's

57:39

lots of us with dyslexia who understand

57:41

everything that's going on. We remember what we

57:43

hear and we can participate

57:45

really well if we're giving those opportunities to

57:48

do it orally. So I really do encourage

57:50

teachers to you know know your students and

57:52

have options for how you get to express

57:54

your learning. Did you ever share

57:57

like strategies? I love it. I love a good

57:59

one. good hack. And I'm

58:02

wondering if you when you when your son got

58:04

his diagnosis, and you sort of went down that

58:06

journey together, did you share any like hacks with

58:08

him? Did he tell you anything that he was

58:10

doing in school that you were like, dang, that,

58:12

that would have been really good to know back

58:14

when I was in school. Um,

58:17

I don't know about a hack specifically, like the one

58:20

thing that we do really lean into though is audio

58:22

books. And I wish that

58:24

I had that option when I was in

58:26

high school or in in university is like

58:28

really listening, listening to text instead

58:31

of reading it or listening it, listening to

58:33

it while reading it and marking it up.

58:35

So that's like my biggest learning hack is

58:37

that for me, like even though I, you

58:39

know, as I can absolutely read now, and

58:41

I've even improved my reading speed, I

58:44

still do better when I listen, I just do. And

58:47

so yeah, we try to get as much

58:49

for him in audio as possible. And again,

58:51

he can read now too, like he does

58:53

read for pleasure, it's great, but he reads

58:55

more slowly. And so, you know,

58:57

if he's going to be able to keep up and not

58:59

completely exhaust himself and also be able to do all of

59:02

the other things that a teenager should be able to do,

59:04

you know, leaning into audio, I

59:06

think is a is a good thing. Alicia,

59:10

there, there's something that has really stood

59:12

out to me in our conversation today.

59:15

And it is a it's a it's a reminder of something

59:17

that I already know, but something that I probably don't think

59:19

about enough or think about

59:21

consciously enough is, is,

59:24

you know, I mentioned earlier in the

59:26

show that reading and writing is

59:28

something that has has come very naturally to me,

59:31

naturally to me over the years, and it's something that

59:33

that is a strong suit of mind. And

59:36

you taught me so

59:38

much about the process of

59:41

learning to be able to do

59:43

that, that, that

59:45

can only come from the experience of

59:47

somebody who struggled. And

59:50

just like highlighting the importance of

59:53

learning from people who have had a

59:55

hard time at getting to of learning

59:59

something because they're There's

1:00:01

so much wisdom in the

1:00:03

struggle and there's

1:00:05

so much knowledge in that. It

1:00:09

just reminds me to try and

1:00:11

keep learning, not

1:00:14

from people who have just been

1:00:16

able to do it, but people who have

1:00:19

really had to put in the extra work.

1:00:25

And not to say that we shouldn't put in a

1:00:27

lot of support systems to make that as easy as

1:00:29

possible. But even with those supports, it's going to be

1:00:31

extra work no matter what. And

1:00:34

that yields a lot

1:00:37

of knowledge and wisdom. I just want to echo

1:00:39

what Taylor is saying because I know now that

1:00:42

he will actually spend time with his daughter actually

1:00:44

teaching her rather than just having the expectation that

1:00:46

she'll just be able to do it because it

1:00:48

was easy for him. I'll stop putting the book

1:00:50

in front of her and going, why can't you

1:00:52

do it? Because she is

1:00:55

only one and a half. There's

1:00:57

no excuses, but no

1:00:59

excuses. So hopefully we've learned

1:01:01

at least a little bit of something today.

1:01:05

That's it. Thank

1:01:07

you so much, Alicia. I

1:01:10

do not have that expectation of my one and a half year old daughter.

1:01:13

Thank you so much, Alicia, for joining us today.

1:01:15

We had an awesome

1:01:17

time learning about everything it is that you

1:01:20

do at Dyslexia Canada and

1:01:23

your journey and your

1:01:26

experience and the things that we can learn

1:01:29

from and do better in education

1:01:32

systems and in the workplace and

1:01:34

stigma and all those things that need

1:01:36

to be thinking about. So thank

1:01:38

you for taking the time to join us today. Thank

1:01:42

you for inviting me. It was a really great conversation. That

1:01:47

is it for this week's edition of Routine

1:01:49

Checkup. Thank you so much for tuning in,

1:01:52

folks. It means the world to us. If

1:01:55

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1:02:24

podcast is produced and hosted

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1:02:28

Stever and Taylor McGilvery. The

1:02:31

podcast is managed by Jeffrey Lowness

1:02:33

at Talent Bureau. The theme music

1:02:35

for today's episode comes from Rich

1:02:37

O'Coin. Thanks

1:02:39

again folks, hope you enjoyed it and we'll be

1:02:41

back next week. That's it for

1:02:43

now, my name is Jeremy and this is Sick Boy. We

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