Expect. Don't Accept

I awoke on Thursday morning to an email in my Inbox that contained a link to a keynote speech delivered by Paul Daugherty in 2009 at the Remarkable Families Symposium. You can take a few moments to read it here - it is truly inspiring!

In the speech, Paul spoke of his daughter Jillian, who was born with Down syndrome and was 19 at the time of his speech. He spoke of her impressive accomplishments such as performing in the school play, managing the school volleyball team, participating on the junior varsity dance team that entertains at halftimes of basketball games and holding the school record in her weight class for the bench press, the dead lift and the squat.

He went on to state that Jillian once had a special ed teacher who sat in an IEP meeting with him and his wife, stating that Jillian was incapable of learning. Other teachers didn't now how to teach her so they just didn't. Throughout their journey however, they have been guided by one thought: Expect. Don't accept.

Ironically, on Thursday afternoon I received a telephone call from a teacher who said she works with children who are mostly non-verbal, many of whom have Down syndrome. She questioned me about skipping the part in eReadingPro where you introduce 12 names. Her logic for skipping the teaching of names was that "names mean nothing to these children". My response, after I picked my chin up off the floor, was "why not try?" She then replied with "trust me, I've worked with these children for some time now, and I know the names will not mean a thing to them". I was appalled , and persisted in trying to convince this woman that learning what their friends' names looked like would mean a great deal to the children she was working with. The heart-wrenching part was that she truly believed what she was saying! I should have asked this woman for her email address so that I could forward the link that I had received just that morning.

I will be sharing the message of 'Expect. Don't Accept' in my eReadingPro workshops. It is a powerful message that needs to be shared, over and over again!

Friends at the NDSC Convention

Well, we are now home from Florida, where I spoke and exhibited at the 2010 NDSC convention. What an amazing time! We were reacquainted with friends, made many new friends, and had a really wonderful time.

In my last posting, I mentioned Specs4Us and my friend Maria Dellapina. I am happy to announce that Maria received a President's Award for her contribution and commitment to the Down syndrome community. We attended the awards banquet with her, and are so proud of her! Maria and I will be heading to New Zealand together in September to present and exhibit at the National Forum for Down Syndrome. Can't wait!!!

Specs4Us and eReadingPro had some really great t-shirts created (that included both of our logos) especially for this conference, and had the pleasure of supporting a new company called Down Syndrome Footprint, who employs only individuals with Down syndrome to create their awareness products. Katia Hauser is the brainchild behind this company, and we met in March at the AIA Conference in Kansas. Katia and our t-shirts can be seen in the photo below.

I really love attending the NDSC Convention, being reunited with people that I've met along the way, and meeting new people who are connected to this group in some way. Parents are so grateful for the assistance I can offer in the area of reading, and it warms my heart when they return the next year to tell me their child is now reading!

eReadingPro is continuing to work hard at bringing new products to parents and educators. In June we presented an in-service to a school district in Arkansas. More and more schools are jumping on board with our program after seeing great success by parents using the program with their children at home. Our goal is for it to be used in ALL school districts across the US! We are currently working on the next level and hope to have it in parents' hands soon!

For more information on our products, visit our site at: http://www.ereadingpro.com. View videos of children with Down syndrome using eReadingPro as young as 3 years old!

eReadingPro and Specs4US

Last year while I was at the NDSC convention with eReadingPro in Sacramento, my husband and I met an amazing woman named Maria Dellapina. Maria, her partner John, and her son Anthony were in the booth next to ours in the exhibit hall. Their booth was called Specs4Us.

Over the three day duration of the conference we spent a great deal of time getting to know them, and we have become great friends. In fact, she opened her home to me when I was touring Ohio last week, and spoiled me rotten for four whole days - it was amazing!

Specs4Us is Maria's company. Her daughter Erin was born with Down syndrome, and is now 10 years old. After spending over 25 years in the optical industry as an optician, and her daughter Erin having no success with glasses being comfortable or staying up, Maria decided to take it upon herself to create a frame that would fit her daughter - and all the other individuals of the world with Down syndrome!

Unlike other frames, the bridge of these eye glasses is adjusted to fit on their smaller noses and the temples (some people call them arms) are designed to help keep the glasses from constantly slipping. 'Erin's World' frames are available in a variety of sizes and styles to fit toddlers to adults. The BEST part is that all her frames are very affordable! Parent's report that their children are now actually leaving their glasses on, and happy to wear their new glasses, and they no longer slide down their noses.

It is Maria's mission to improve the sight and quality of life for children with Down syndrome by providing these custom frames. I think what Maria has done, and continues to do is amazing work! I'm so lucky that through our work we will be crossing paths in live over and over again, and look forward to seeing her at the 2010 NDSC Convention in Orlando this July!

If you haven't checked out her products yet, you should go to www.specs4us.com.

P.S. Maria's daughter Erin is now using eReadingPro and is doing amazing! I will be posting a video of her soon....stay tuned!

University of Pittsburgh and eReadingPro

I just returned from a driving tour presenting workshops in Pennsylvania and Ohio - 5 workshops in total. During my trip I met with Dr. Chris Lemmons of the University of Pittsburgh. I had met Chris in the lunch line at the World Down Syndrome Congress in Dublin in August, 2009, and was anxious to meet with him regarding his current studies involving children with Down syndrome and reading.

Dr. Lemmons has been studying the use of phonetics with children with Down syndrome, and his general outcome on all studies confirms previous studies that children with Down syndrome are better able to understand how to decode text after they have learned how to read a bank of words by sight (Stanovich, 1986; Lemmons & Fuch, 2010).

During our meeting, we discussed the possibility of him conducting a study using eReadingPro's system for teaching reading using the whole word approach, which takes the learner from reading single (whole) words to couplets, phrases and sentences in a progressive and systematic manner. He is very excited about setting such a study up and we will be working towards this in the very near future!

I look forward to working with Dr. Lemmons on this endeavor!

Dyslexia and eReadingPro

I often get asked about how children with Dyslexia learn to read, and why it can be so difficult for them.

One of the best books I've ever read about Dyslexia is called "Overcoming Dyslexia" by Sally Shaywitz. She explains that individuals with Dyslexia are very 'right-brain learners', and see words as a pictures. This is why the whole-word approach works so much better in these cases, and phonics is so painful.

Like any visual learner, it is much easier to learn how to phonetically decode a word AFTER the whole word is mastered. It's like assembling the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle - it's much easier when you can refer to the entire picture, and know what the final outcome is supposed to look like!

eReadingPro was created using the whole-word approach, FOR the visual learner, and therefore works very well with individuals with Dyslexia. Once the child has mastered the whole word, I recommend sitting down with the flashcard and discussing the letters and sounds that make up the whole word. Have them match letters up underneath the word as they reassemble it. Once they understand what letters make up the word, do the same exercise with phonetic components. You should find that your child begins to recognize words easier, AND understand how the pieces fit together to make up each word.

NDSC 2010 Conference in Orlando...Here We Come!

Our line-up of eReadingPro workshops this year is amazing - you should check it out! I'm so excited for many reasons - but especially because so many people will learn about a method for teaching their children to read that really works!

Today we found out that I will be speaking (and exhibiting) at the NDSC 2010 Conference in Orlando, which is being held from July 16th - 18th.

There is so much for us, as speakers and exhibitors, to learn at conferences, such as what parents are looking for in a product. I like meeting other speakers and learning about what they are doing within the Down syndrome community. I also like meeting other exhibitors and learning about their products. Last year at the NDSC conference in Sacramento we met Maria Dellapina of Specs4Us. Since then I haven't stopped telling people about the amazing eyeglass frames she has created - just for individuals with DS!

I have to say that one of my favorite parts about going to the NDSC conference is when parents come up to me, hug me, and thank me for creating a program that helped to teach their child to read. THAT is what makes my job incredibly easy! It's the joy that comes from their hearts, and that of their family when their child reads the words they see on a page with confidence.

The fact that the conference is in Orlando this year will make it fun too - as I'm just a big kid at heart, and have never been to Disney World. I will drag my husband around, and force him on a few rides while we're there I'm sure. I can't wait to see the ear to ear grins on the faces of the children as they encounter Mickey and Minnie and all the other characters that Disney has to offer!

eReadingPro and teachers

As the founder and creator of a reading program, people always ask me whether I've approached all of the various school boards to get the program used in the schools. My response is that it would be like a little mouse knocking on an elephant's door and saying "look at what I've got!"

So instead, we have marketed our program to the parents of children with special needs - particularly Down syndrome. Why Down syndrome? Well, first of all it is because all of the studies out there confirm that children with Down syndrome are very visual learners and learn best using the whole-word approach to reading, and that was who we originally created our program for. But particularly because kids with Down syndrome tend to be the most overlooked and under-taught group in the school system. Many people still have the sad misconception that children with Down syndrome will never be able to learn to read, and therefore don't spend the necessary time trying to teach them. Others want to teach them, but do not have the knowledge or resources available.

The great news is that we are seeing an emerging trend at eReadingPro, in that the schools are now contacting us! The parents are trying the program and seeing amazing results. The teachers are asking the parents what they've been doing to teach their children, as the results are shining through at school! So as a result, the teachers are pondering over just how many other children they are working with who aren't catching on to reading, and if this child with Down syndrome is learning to read at home with eReadingPro, think of all the other children that can benefit from this system as well!

As a way of opening up the avenues even wider with teachers and schools, eReadingPro has decided to offer a FREE 30-Day Trial of our CD with Printable Flashcards. It is inexpensive to ship, and therefore inexpensive to try! If the school or teacher is not impressed after 30 days, they can simply return it to us and it doesn't cost them anything other than return postage. If they like it however, then obviously they will pay us for the product ($109.90USD).

If you think any of the teachers who are working with your children would be interested in trying eReadingPro, just let me know and I would be happy to contact them myself - or you can give them our website: www.ereadingpro.com.