The Dyslexia Educational Network (DEN) is the world's first broadcasting company for dyslexia. DEN broadcasts worldwide at DyslexiaEd.com. Founder Robert Langston has dyslexia, is a parent of a dyslexic child and has authored of two books about his experiences with dyslexia in school and life.
Topic:
Dyslexia Resources for Parents
Dyslexia Resources for Children
Dyslexia Resources for Teachers
Dyslexia Resources for Educators
Video Transcript
Why its important you’re here. I know you’re probably seating there saying Rob you don’t have to tell me, I’m a parent I’m a teacher, I’m a grandparent… you know. I know why it’s important I’m here. I take care of kids. I make a difference in kids’ lives. And you do, but I got to tell ya, I didn’t know how important it was what you do until about – I guess it was almost 15 years ago now. About 15 years ago I got a phone call and the guy I was sharing the office with at the time, yelled into my office and he said ‘Rob you have Fulton County prison on the phone.’ I said ‘well tell them I’m not here.’ And he said, ‘no I think they want you to come down to the prison, right there in the middle of downtown Atlanta and do your program for kids. I was… I picked up the phone. I was like ‘this is Rob Langston.’ Sure enough they said ‘this is the Fulton County prison. We would like for you to come down here and speak.’ I said no. I work very hard to stay out of your prison. I am not coming down there. And they said, well Kroger food stores said you would.’ And at that time the Krogering for Kids program at the Kroger food stores was sponsoring me to the tune of a hundred programs a year in the school system. So now I’m thinking I can’t turn this down, right. So in order not to bite the hand that feeds me, I agree. I said okay I’ll do it. Let’s set a date. We set it, I write it on my calendar and I promptly forget it right. The day of the talk comes. I get in my car and I’m driving down to Fulton County prison. Now I hope none of y’all have an instance to even visit one of these institutions, but I’m telling you, I was about a mile from it and I was starting to be able to see it, cause it is ten stories tall. And I’ looking at this thing and I’m thinking ‘Rob what have you got yourself into?’ And as I get closer to it I realize the windows are not shrinking. All they have are little gun slats for windows to look out of. And I’m thinking ‘oh my gosh.’ And I pull into the parking lot, and I park my car. And the program I do for kids, I do a board breaking demonstration at the end. So it’s kind of a visual demonstration of breaking through their obstacles, right. And I want to give them that but I also thought this would be a good group to do this for as well right. So I pull up, I park my car, I pop my trunk – and back then I was just literally carrying around cinder blocks to rest the wood on – and I grabbed two cinder blocks out of the trunk of my car and grabbed two pieces of wood; and I walk in the front door of Fulton County prison and I said ‘I’m Rob Langston and I’m here to do my program... Join DyslexiaEd.com for full broadcasts and transcripts.
The Dyslexia Educational Network (DEN) is the world's first broadcasting company for dyslexia. DEN broadcasts worldwide at DyslexiaEd.com. Founder Robert Langston has dyslexia, is a parent of a dyslexic child and has authored of two books about his experiences with dyslexia in school and life.
Topics:
Dyslexia help for kids
Dyslexia help for adults
Dyslexia help for college
So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to tell you some stories about the charismatic adults in my life. The #1 one being my mother cause my mother had an impact on me that was amazing, because of the way she thought about me, and the way she thought about school and education. Because when we were going through school we didn’t realize we’d done anything all that special. Until I actually graduated from the university and then people started saying ‘Rob how’d you do that? You know with no reading, writing or arithmetic skills, how do you have a diploma? How are you out there? So what we’re going to talk about today is what the education system can do for you. Cause people also say ‘Rob the education system really failed you didn’t it?’ No. It didn’t fail me at all. It turned out a lifetime learner that loves learning, by meeting my learning style and meeting my learning needs. That’s powerful stuff. And that’s what education can do today. We have a system in place to save these kids before they go to prison. It’s called education. And we can do it. So how important is it that you’re here today? What I’m telling you is it’s life or death for these kids. It is literally life or death for these kids. Cause if they’re not making it in education today, they’re not making it. It’s absolutely that simple. So in understanding this I got to thinking about it and I thought ‘well I need to reflect back on how this all happened.’ Now I could get up here… and I have a little sheet of paper here… and I could just go down and tell you, okay if you make these accommodations for students they’ll have a chance to survive. And I could tell you the oral testing, untimed test, separate classroom… I could tell you all these accommodations but what I want to do today for you is tell you the story behind the accommodation, cause that’s where we are. That’s where the charismatic adults are. That’s where the people who can make a difference for these children are... Join DyslexiaEd.com for full broadcasts and transcripts.
The Dyslexia Educational Network (DEN) is the world's first broadcasting company for dyslexia. DEN broadcasts worldwide at DyslexiaEd.com. Founder Robert Langston has dyslexia, is a parent of a dyslexic child and has authored of two books about his experiences with dyslexia in school and life.
Topics:
Dyslexia Educational Programs
Dyslexia Educational Strategies
Dyslexia Educational Psychologist
Transcript:
So we’re protecting my self esteem; we’re protecting my intelligence; getting tested for what I know…. So far what do we have? We have oral testing, untimed test, separate classroom. Well this next one happened in college – alternative class list for foreign language. Alright I’m at the University of West Georgia, right, and had been there for five years. I’m feeling pretty successful. I had gotten into college, you know, despite all these other things. With these accommodations I was able to score high enough on my SAT test to actually get a score to go to college, you know. So this is translating to my… my testing, you know – my standardized testing. I was able to take my regents test, as a sidebar note, untimed, in a separate classroom with a reader and I was able to score high enough to pass out of college of my own volition because of the way they were meeting my learning style and learning need. The problem was I wasn’t going to learn a foreign language. I was having enough problems with English and now we’re going to have to…. And you know back then – before any foreign language teachers jump on me and say ‘we do it different today Rob’, cause I know you do – but back then what they did was they took the English language, they taught you to write the written language from the English language, then they asked you to speak the foreign language from the written foreign language. Right. I’m not going to be able to do that. I’m on my fifth year of college. I’m excited; I’m blazing trails; I’m making differences that I never knew possible. And then I asked Dr. Anne Phillips, she said ‘I’ve been thinking about this a long time. I don’t know what we’re going to do about the foreign language requirements.’ So what do I do? I learned from my mom, go straight to the top, right. So I go to the dean of students and I walk in there. ‘I’ve been here five years. These are my grades. I’ve been doing wonderful. You know, everything’s going great but I got the foreign….’ Sorry Rob you won’t receive a diploma from this university. So now I’m thinking, ‘five years I’ve put in here.’ Now why am I keep saying five years? Tool me seven years to graduate from college. Was it because I was slow and lazy and dumb? No actually I had to take the caseload that I could handle. Right. I had to understand that this is what it’s going…. I only found one course, my entire college career – and that was by accident – because I actually would withdraw... cause see my important thing is who’s the teacher teaching me. So if I had a teacher that I liked and would work with me, I knew I would keep them, but I had to take the course for a little while to know. Well you’ve got a withdraw date, right. This one teacher was… I’m talking about… was a charismatic teacher. The problem was his test didn’t match with how he was teaching. He loved his subject and he kept me inundated everyday but the fact of the matter is when the first test came it was impossible for me to pass it because he had… what he was testing me on was never covered in the class, right, as much as he loved the subject. So I wasn’t able to withdraw him, not understanding his testing style. So that’s the grade… the only class I ever failed in college. So I went seven years and this was including every summer but one. I only took two quarters off in seven years. One was to recruit for the college and two was to… I actually just took a year off in the… I mean a quarter off in the summer cause it was getting to be too long, too hard on me. So I’m five years into this and at this point I hadn’t taken a quarter off yet. And now I’m told I’m not going to graduate. Sorry Rob you just going… that’s… your diploma’s done. Right. So I go back to Dr. Anne Phillips which is what – my partnership, my support group. And I go to Anne and I say, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. You know they’re saying I’m not going to graduate.’ She sad ‘well let’s get your mom on the phone.’ You know, cause that’s what we do, right? So we call mom up and mom says, ‘okay well we need to get... Join DyslexiaEd.com for full broadcasts and transcripts.
The Dyslexia Educational Network (DEN) is the world's first broadcasting company for dyslexia. DEN broadcasts worldwide at DyslexiaEd.com. Founder Robert Langston has dyslexia, is a parent of a dyslexic child and has authored of two books about his experiences with dyslexia in school and life.
Topics:
Dyslexia Resources For Parents
Dyslexia Resources For Children
Dyslexia Resources For Teachers
Transcript:
Can one person… lot of people in here… can one person really make a difference in a child’s life? Yeah, oh your mom can, sure, a parent can, a guardian can, a teacher can… that’s powerful stuff. But one single person? How about someone who didn’t believe in it in the first place? Like my high school science teacher, who said ‘Rob’s failing my class.’ Right. The F comes home. What happens? Mom’s in there, right. We’re both in there, Dr. Newton says, ‘okay you’re failing my class, you’re not really doing that well, I don’t know what to do about it. What can we do?’ Right. Well how about you give me oral testing, untimed tests, separate classroom to take the test in…. Dr. Newton says ‘okay meet me before school test day; I’ll actually read it to you myself cause I like administering my own tests, and if you answer the questions I’ll give you credit for knowing the answers.’ Right. And he did that. And so the end of the semester…the end of the school, he then turns around – and I’m going to see if I can nail it quickly or not in here – he turns around and writes a letter. A one-page hand-written letter that paraphrasing says ‘Rob was failing my class until I gave him alternative class time, oral testing and maybe the combinations for him. When I did that he became an A-B student in my class. Why do I have this one hand written letter... Join DyslexiaEd.com for full broadcasts and transcripts.
The Dyslexia Educational Network (DEN) is the world's first broadcasting company for dyslexia. DEN broadcasts worldwide at DyslexiaEd.com. Founder Robert Langston has dyslexia, is a parent of a dyslexic child and has authored of two books about his experiences with dyslexia in school and life.
Topics:
Dyslexia Accommodations
Dyslexia Accommodations High School
Dyslexia Accommodations in College
Transcript:
So what do we have? So right now we have oral testing, untimed test, separate classroom, alternative class list for foreign language, readers, note takers, the next one…early bird registration. Early bird registration. Where did that one come from? Well I figured out early on not every teacher could teach me. It really took the very best teachers to teach me. Now what do I say when I say… how do you criteria-ize the very best teachers? For me it was simple. The very best teachers are the teachers that care. Absolutely that simple. It’s the teacher who’s going to make the extra effort in the classroom for the child. And I always tell people, how do you find the teachers that care? How do you find the best teacher? You do just like we do in business. You poll everybody. You ask, ‘who is the best?’ So I go to Ann Phillips, ‘who is the best teacher for English?’ That’s going to be my toughest subject at the university, you know. I ask my friends, ‘who did you take? Who did you like?’ I asked everybody and guess what? If you poll people, one or two names will come up every time. Those are your best two teachers. It’s absolutely that simple. And also when I talk to teachers I say, ‘I challenge you to be that name that comes up every single time. Because if you do that you’ll know you’re meeting the needs of your children in your classroom. And it’s simple – you care. So all of sudden I’m asking and sure enough one or two names come up every single time. And so I choose one of the names to take for my English class, right. So also I’m thinking I’m going to take… so now I got to go talk to this professor. So sure enough I call their office and I say, ‘I would like to set up an appointment and come talk to you about taking your class.’ Right. Professor automatically thinks well that’s kind of weird, but ok; sets the appointment. Sure enough I walk in, ‘hey my name is Rob Langston. I have my wheel chair form with me.’ Right. So I walk up and I hand them my wheel chair form and I say, I would like to take your class in the fall. This is what I’m going to need... Join DyslexiaEd.com for full broadcasts and transcripts.
The Dyslexia Educational Network (DEN) is the world's first broadcasting company for dyslexia. DEN broadcasts worldwide at DyslexiaEd.com. Founder Robert Langston has dyslexia, is a parent of a dyslexic child and has authored of two books about his experiences with dyslexia in school and life.
Topics:
Dyslexia parent forum
Dyslexia parent support group
Dyslexia parent survival guide
Dyslexia Parent resources
Transcript:
I hit middle school – and every teacher’s different, right – so I hit a teacher who said, “I’m not going to oral test Rob. I just don’t believe in it. Not gonna do it.” So before my mom moved me to my new teacher – whoever that was going to be – she would ask a question… you know what’s so funny, and again going from your gut… After serving on the state advisory panel for special education for the Georgia Department of Education for 7 years, taking the reauthorization and making it fit the rules and regs for Georgia, I realize that mom actually asked the question that is the letter of the law today. She would always say, ‘what do you believe a reasonable accommodation for my child is based on his learning disability?’ So when she asked that, this one teacher said, “well I’ll give him all the time he wants to take this test. I think that’s a reasonable accommodation.” Right. So then my mom turns to me and says, ‘can you do that.’ Now that’s a powerful part of this. My mom turns to me and says can you do that. .. Join DyslexiaEd.com for full broadcasts and transcripts
The Dyslexia Educational Network (DEN) is the world's first broadcasting company for dyslexia. DEN broadcasts worldwide at DyslexiaEd.com. Founder Robert Langston has dyslexia, is a parent of a dyslexic child and has authored of two books about his experiences with dyslexia in school and life.
The Dyslexia Educational Network (DEN) is the world's first broadcasting company for dyslexia. DEN broadcasts worldwide at DyslexiaEd.com. Founder Robert Langston has dyslexia, is a parent of a dyslexic child and has authored of two books about his experiences with dyslexia in school and life.
Topics:
Dyslexia parent forum
Dyslexia parent support group
Dyslexia parent survival guide
Dyslexia Parent resources
Transcript:
So you know, when do you let go? You don’t have to let go. And so all of a sudden, here we come into the school with me in tow. This time mom doesn’t go to the teacher though. She goes to the administrator, right. She goes to the vice principal. And she said, I’ve got a problem. Rob… the changing of bells and the changing of classes is messing up Rob when it comes to his testing. What I need is the third accommodation – I need for you to give him a separate classroom for him to take his test in. Right so what’s the school say? Oh we have tons of class, we’ve got tons of room, tons of teachers. Yeah, we’ll do that for Rob. No problem. Well no it wasn’t that easy, right? But my mom will tell you, she cried, she got angry. She did whatever she had to do to get me what I needed. So what they literally did… Join DyslexiaEd.com for full broadcasts and transcripts.
The Dyslexia Educational Network (DEN) is the world's first broadcasting company for dyslexia. DEN broadcasts worldwide at DyslexiaEd.com. Founder Robert Langston has dyslexia, is a parent of a dyslexic child and has authored of two books about his experiences with dyslexia in school and life.
Topics:
Dyslexia Resources for Parents
Dyslexia Resources for Children
Dyslexia Resources for Teachers
Dyslexia Resources for Educators
Transcript:
And actually my foreign language requirement set up my next accommodation which is a reader. Because when… what they do when they test you for foreign language… I mean, your learning disability, what they’re looking for, right, is the variance. You know, is he really high on some levels and then really low or blocked on other levels. Cause that tells you it’s not an IQ problem, right. It’s actually an intelligence… it’s a blocked way that the brain is wired. So that’s what causes that variance. Well in testing that, I tested out at functionally illiterate. Lower than a 5th grade reading level, right. So now they’re saying, so Rob, we need to give him a reader, you know, in the classrooms. Now I’m five years into college. How did I get five years into college without the reader before this? Well I’ll also tell you what my mom and I figured out is. There’s a blue-collar method – that’s just what I call it, a blue-collar method – to get anything you want in school, it feels like. So what was my blue-collar method? My blue-collar method… by the time I left college I had this down to such an art… I actually listened to my friends’ voices and if I heard a voice that I liked and thought I could to for a long period of time, I would ask them ‘do you read well?’ and if they said ‘yes I do’, I would say ‘I would like to pay you to read my syllabuses on to tape for me.’ Now understand this, people who can read have no clue what a great gift that really is. None whatsoever. So I’m talking about pennies on the dollar. I’m talking about five dollars, ten dollars, to have an entire syllabus read onto tape for me by someone who reads really well. And if they were in the class, they weren’t going to read it anyway. They were going to go get the cliff notes; they were going to knock it out, right. But now if they’re in my class it’s a dual benefit because they’re actually going to hear the information, right. So now okay I’m going to have it read onto tape for me and you know because when the teacher says we’re reading Machiavelli next week. Pages, you know, 300 to 500… what do I do? Back then I grabbed my cassette which I had it recorded on; I popped in my cassette and I listened to it while I drove around town… while I drove back and forth from the college to home. And guess what?... Join DyslexiaEd.com for full broadcast and transcripts.