Dyslexia Tool Kit Expanded Edition

An Easy-to-Use Handbook for Parents, Teachers, and Tutors

A dyslexia diagnosis often brings both relief and panic. It's good to know why a bright child fails to read, but it's overwhelming to sort through the mountain of programs, books, and techniques touted to be the ultimate answer to dyslexia.

This dyslexia book is different from most because it focuses on using the dyslexic gifts of pattern recognition and complex thinking, rather than dwelling on the dyslexic weakness in phonemic awareness. When children experience repeated failure or hear that they could read if only they would try harder, it destroys the joy and motivation that empowers learning.

Yvonna Graham (BA Psychology, MA Special Education) brings over 30 years of tutoring experience to this project.

Her daughter and co-author, Dr. Alta E. Graham, (D.A. Music, MS Computer Science) was pronounced "uneducable" by her first-grade teacher. The counselor thought Alta could learn to wipe tables with special training. Neither prediction was correct. Alta was a music professor and academic tutor before switching careers to work in orbital dynamics.

This book is not a "program" to be followed, but a tool kit to meet individual children's learning needs. Yvonna and Alta Graham distill decades of tutoring experience into simply described, easy tools for parents, tutors, and teachers to use with a dyslexic student.

This approach allows dyslexic students to learn to read without stress. Do you wish you could read hundreds of books and research papers on dyslexia, try it all out to see what works, then condense that information into an easily accessible handbook to guide your teaching? No worries! The Grahams did that for you!

This expanded edition includes added chapters on phonics (what to do and not do), music training (how it affects long-term outcomes in reading), and Speech-to-Text technology as a dyslexia tool. There's a section in which the authors answer questions from readers of the first edition.

Reading needs to be happy to become a life-long skill. If children feel like failures when they try to read, they will avoid books. If the teaching method does not produce happy, eager readers, it's time to change something. This book gives you ideas for how to do that. Dyslexia doesn't have to feel like chains; it can be wings instead! Let your dyslexic students soar!