[00:01] Announcer:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Baeder. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.
[00:13] Justin Baeder:
I'm your host, Justin Baeder, and I'm honored to welcome to the program Louise Selby. Louise is a Dyslexia Specialist Trainer, Consultant, Author, Assessor, and Teacher at She has 25 years of experience in working with SEND in Hertfordshire, local authority in teaching, special needs coordinator, and advisory roles. And she now works freelance, providing training and consultancy for schools, as well as dyslexia assessment. Louise believes in partnership and collaboration, and this is at the heart of all she does. She's the author of several books, including Morph Mastery, Morphological Intervention for Reading, Spelling, and Vocabulary. And All About Dyslexia, a practical guide for primary teachers and a practical guide for secondary teachers, which we're here to talk about today.
[00:54] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:57] Justin Baeder:
Louise, welcome to Principal Center Radio.
[00:59] Louise Selby:
Thank you. It's great to be here. I've been listening to your podcast and really enjoying them. So thank you for having me on.
[01:05] Justin Baeder:
Honoured to have you on to talk about dyslexia and how we can understand it better and better meet our students' needs. I wonder if we could start with just kind of some definitions or an overview of what dyslexia is, because I hear different things and I hear a lot of confusion about exactly what it is and what it isn't.
[01:21] Louise Selby:
Yeah, that's a really good question and it's a really important one. So it's good timing, in fact, because the International Dyslexia Association has just very recently released a new definition of dyslexia, which actually aligns quite closely with the definition that we use in the UK. And both of them are research based definitions. So basically, dyslexia is a reading and or spelling difficulty or difference, some people like to say, because it's certainly not related to intelligence. It can occur across the range of intelligence. You can be extremely intelligent.
[02:01]
and have dyslexia, but it always impacts some form of your reading and or spelling. The thing is that that varies according to your age, your stage of education, and also the written language that you use. So, I mean, we're generally, I'm imagining that many of your listeners use English. Obviously, we're speaking in English, but that means that our English is quite phonetic. We have letters that represent sound, partly, not completely. And a sure sign of dyslexia is where you struggle with mapping that code onto the words.
[02:40]
But the other thing about dyslexia is it can be about fluency. So sometimes schools say to me, well, this child can't have dyslexia because they can read. But then when we dig a bit deeper, we find that they're slow. We find that they find it really exhausting. And that's often the case in adults as well. Adults might have learned to read really well, but just struggle with speed and fluency.
[03:03]
So that's kind of what dyslexia is in a nutshell. There are a lot of myths. I don't know what it's like in the States, but... There really are a lot of myths which we just have to bust.
[03:14]
One of them being, I don't know what it's like for you, but in the UK, a lot of people think it's a visual thing. They think that it's linked to reversing letters. They think that you correct it by giving children coloured overlays. And that's not the case. That's a different thing. That's not dyslexia.
[03:37]
The other thing is that a lot of people think it's related to intelligence and it's a sign of low intelligence, which, again, it absolutely is not. I don't know. Does that ring true for you in the States?
[03:50] Justin Baeder:
Absolutely. I think there's an awareness that, you know, people can be, as you said, across the full spectrum of intelligence and other abilities. and yet still have dyslexia. And we've heard of some very famous and very accomplished people, intellectuals and creatives of all types who have struggled with dyslexia. And I think probably the number one misconception I hear is that it's just about reversals. And I was attending a webinar recently on some aspects of reading instruction.
[04:15]
And Talk to us about what is known about the reversals issue when it comes to dyslexia, because certainly all students struggle with reversals in learning their letters, you know, P and B and D and Q and, you know, all the letters that have, you know, some similarities can be confusing.
[04:30] Louise Selby:
the jury's a little bit out on this in terms of what the research tells us. And both definitions, both the UK, fairly recent year ago now, and the new IDA definition, refer to something called orthographic processing, which is a technical term, but basically it means how you interpret written, the written letters. Orthography is our written word, right? So Our orthographic processing is how we interpret those written words, how we remember them and how we process them. And so if you have a problem with orthographic processing, you might reverse your letters because you might struggle to recall how they're formed. You might also forget letter patterns.
[05:19]
So you might forget which of the A sounds is in a word pain, for example. for sure, is whether orthographic processing causes dyslexia, whether it is a fundamental part of dyslexia. We just know that it's often present. It's often there where there is dyslexia. And we don't know why. You know, it might be lack of exposure to print through reading difficulties that's caused that dyslexia.
[05:47]
So when you have a lot of letter reversals and sometimes visual processing difficulties, that is a separate thing. The visual processing that is diagnosed by an optometrist and, you know, any educators out there that are concerned about visual processing, please don't think that's just dyslexia. Take the child to an optometrist. That's my advice on that score.
[06:12] Justin Baeder:
Yeah, because if dyslexia becomes a catch-all term for very different causes, you know, if it's a child that needs classes or if there is an instructional deficit, a student simply has not been taught, we certainly don't want to mix those up with a diagnosis.
[06:25] Louise Selby:
And that's what it's all about, what you do about it, isn't it? We can know everything about the child, but unless we know what to do. So it's important to know what's caused a particular issue. difficulty whether it's a phonological like processing of sounds whether it's visual you know that really matters in terms of how we teach children as well you're absolutely right
[06:47] Justin Baeder:
Let's get into some of what we do and what we know about what works and what doesn't work. One thing I've seen online and then also have seen maybe critiqued is the idea that there are dyslexia friendly fonts, that there are different typefaces that we can use and different. I think your book is printed on a particular type of paper with some intentionality. So take us into some of the nuance there about the visual presentation of print.
[07:10] Louise Selby:
I'm so glad you asked that question because it's something I've been thinking about a lot. And, you know, here in the UK, we have, there's a lot of ways that you can become, we call it dyslexia friendly. And the classic ways are to have pastel paper and to have... different kinds of fault right and yes I did ask to have my book printed on pastel coloured paper that wasn't really because I know that that's not dyslexia but I for one do struggle I'm not dyslexic but I do struggle with my eyes and I find it easier to read black on cream than black on white which was why I asked for that but you know those fonts some will disagree with me I I'm not convinced.
[07:54]
I think some people find them useful, but personally, I find them really difficult to read. There are those fonts, there's a few of them that call themselves dyslexic fonts. And I suppose the thing is that, you know... What we want to do is enable children who struggle to read, if seeing print is difficult for them, then make it clear, make it use a font that's clear, that's uncomplicated, use a font that doesn't have the serif and doesn't have the fancy A's, like, you know, Times New Roman.
[08:27]
I like Arial, that's a simple one. Comic Sans is a good one. Some would say it's babyish, but... Yeah, personally, I'm not convinced about the research behind those fonts, but I know some people do find them useful.
[08:41]
Personally, I find them hard to read.
[08:44] Justin Baeder:
Yeah, I think the legibility definitely is a concern there. I wonder if we could talk a little bit about the strategies that are helpful for working with students who have dyslexia, because I've seen some arguments that there are particular things that we should know, and then other arguments that the strategies that work for students with dyslexia actually work for everybody and they don't need to be particular to students with dyslexia. What's your take on that? And what are some of the strategies you talk about in the book?
[09:10] Louise Selby:
Yeah, I think that's shades of grey, really. And I think, you know, one of the myths, actually, because the books do start with myth busting. And one of the myths is that dyslexia, oh, you need a special kind of teaching. And And I've had teachers say to me, you know, I've worked with a lot of schools and I've had them say to me, look, this child struggles with reading. I know what to do about that. This child has dyslexia.
[09:36]
Haven't got a clue. Need a specialist. And that's not the case. You know, if you know how to teach reading and writing, you know how to teach a dyslexic. The thing is that with dyslexia, it's a persistent difficulty. And we like to use the word difference because we want to celebrate that there are positives as well.
[09:58]
But when we come to reading and writing, it can be a persistent difficulty. So There can be specialist techniques, ways to teach those learners. A lot of what the books are about, in fact, is strategies for the classroom. It's not a book about intervention. It's a book about all the many, many things that you can do in the class to support. And to be honest with you, it's all just really good teaching.
[10:26]
Certainly, I would describe it as neuro-inclusive teaching because what works for a dyslexic, Works for a learner with ADHD, with language difficulties, even dyscalculia and maths difficulties. I don't know. I kind of want to come away from this. Oh, we have to be specialists. I don't know what to do because I want to empower teachers that if they're trained in how to teach reading and writing, they are trained to teach dyslexics. But then also to understand that that is a persistent thing.
[10:58] Justin Baeder:
need that will be resistant so you really need to find ways to plug those gaps you know there are no magic bullets here there's no quick fix because there are persistent difficulties but these are strategies that we should probably be using for everybody anyway right
[11:14] Louise Selby:
Yeah, I mean, I think so. So as I've said, I think, you know, a lot of the books are just about good teaching. And the main message, actually, that if I'm asked to say one thing that I think teachers should know about dyslexia and actually neurodivergences, working memory, the impact on working memory. So that's working memory is that ability to hold something in mind whilst you're working on it. Which, let's face it, is the whole of life. If I'm spelling something, I've got to hold the word in mind.
[11:49]
I've got to remember how to write the letters. If I sound out, I've got to remember those letters in order to write them. If I'm following an instruction, I've got to hold that instruction in my mind whilst I go and do it. If I'm doing mental maths, I've got to hold those numbers in my mind. I've got to remember the operation. etc etc and in dyslexia working memory is often impaired and reduced it's often children struggle more but the way to support that is to relieve the load we're talking about cognitive load here it's an old term but it's one that is so important because We just want to take that load off that verbal memory by using pictures, visuals, actions, making things memorable, making things meaningful, taking away the random.
[12:43]
And remember just how exhausting it is for those learners in class when they're working with that, that working memory. That is a struggle, which working memory just is in every area of learning, isn't it? So that's one thing that I would definitely want to stress. And I suppose the other thing that teachers... And I was talking to a secondary school teacher today, actually, about a child, and she was really...
[13:11]
really perceptive because she was talking about this child saying, I can't imagine how tired he must be when he gets home because I can see that his brain's working too quickly, but his working memory, he's struggling to hold things and that must be so frustrating. And when he gets home, there's probably a meltdown. And that's something that I wish teachers would understand a bit more because that impacts home life, it impacts It impacts homework. It impacts what parents can do to support. And those things actually definitely just things that affect all children with neurodivergence, I would say.
[13:49] Justin Baeder:
Different grade levels, because as we mentioned, you've got a version of the book for primary teachers and a version of the book for secondary teachers. So say I'm a grade two teacher and I have a student who is really struggling. It seems like they're working much harder to get through text than everybody else. The fluency is a challenge. What are some of the strategies you talk about in the book that I should keep in mind?
[14:12] Louise Selby:
Yeah, so grade two, that would be age six to seven, seven to eight. Yeah. So at that point, you're right. You would start to notice a lack of fluency. They might have got their phonics and they might not. I would say at that age, the first thing to do is to check their phonics, to check their decoding.
[14:30]
And there's ways to do that that I'm sure you do have. assessments available I've got one on my website that is free to download it's just a phonics check so I would start doing that and I would start by checking I'd do some just do some reading analysis so get them to read to you and check that they are decoding that's the first thing that I would do I would talk to them if you're finding that they're lacking fluency then I'd talk to them about what's going on for them when they're learning I'd also maybe look at whether it's just their reading that they're delayed in, whether it's impacting other subjects. And if it is just reading and writing, then you may well be looking at dyslexia. I think definitely. early intervention is key so even by age seven you know you've missed a window we don't diagnose dyslexia till age eight here but you can notice these problems even as young as five six and if you notice then plug those gaps find out what their phonics is like find out whether there's key words that you're teaching that they can't read and spell and teach them give them intervention give them phonological awareness training
[15:48]
The younger they are, the better with that.
[15:51] Justin Baeder:
I think there's some great points there about how, you know, if a student hasn't been taught their phonics knowledge, then, you know, we're not going to be able to determine what else is going on if that's a starting point that we've missed.
[16:01] Louise Selby:
Yeah, and you know, dyslexics do often mask. Often they're quite clever. Not always, but often they're quite clever. Often their comprehension, verbal understanding is good. It's just their decoding. And so some of these children, I've seen it time and time again, they find strategies that...
[16:20]
They are ever so good at reading and understanding. But then when you actually hear them read, you notice a lot of mistakes. In fact, I did an assessment quite recently where a child, the school reported that this was secondary age, but the school reported that their reading was good. And I assessed them and I found that they had outstanding verbal ability, but poor decoding. And because of their outstanding verbal ability, they were managing to guess and work out text. I said to her, how do you read?
[16:55]
What do you do? She said, well, I look at all the other words and work out what it is. what it says and actually that's what she was doing but she needs to have more strategies for decoding because that's impacting fluency and then that impacts self-esteem and mental health doesn't it and learning across the curriculum
[17:12] Justin Baeder:
that was one of our big takeaways from sold a story, Emily Hanford's podcast that, you know, struggling readers often do guess when they can't decode a word, but that's not a strategy we want to teach or encourage because often is wrong. And it just leads to big gaps in conversation.
[17:29] Louise Selby:
And I think, you know, you'll be familiar, there's a lot of debate about how we teach reading. And we do need children to decode. And guessing is not efficient. It's not an efficient way. I think all readers do guess to a certain extent. But there's a difference between using context to work things out, to help you with prosody, to help you with phrasing, to help you kind of pull apart that deeper level comprehension.
[17:56]
and just guessing by the picture what that word says. And that's not what we want to encourage.
[18:02] Justin Baeder:
Let's talk a little bit about older students. So say I'm a grade seven teacher. I have students who are maybe 12 or 13 years old and in a content area. And I realize I have students who maybe have a diagnosis by this point of dyslexia and really struggle to read fluently. What are some strategies that you talk about in the books that could be helpful in my classroom in that situation?
[18:23] Louise Selby:
Yeah, because at that stage, we're asking them to read much more challenging texts, aren't we? And at more speed. So I think the key there is partly to do with vocabulary, teaching vocabulary, pre-teaching vocabulary, helping children to really get that vocabulary embedded. I mean, vocabulary across the curriculum. It's also to do with, you know, this disciplinary reading and understanding, thinking about your subject. So, you know, let's say you're teaching, I don't know, geography.
[18:55]
What are the key skills within geography reading and geography text that you're asking them to do? Are there words that you're asking them to read which have different meanings in geography to, you know, regular use? So training them how to do that. I think also pre-teaching, providing texts in advance. There's a lot of tech out there that can help students to get to grips with these texts because across the curriculum, we want them to be able to access them. We don't want reading difficulties to prevent those lovely academic skills developing.
[19:37]
Reading with them can help, asking children just to read texts aloud. another thing that I talk about is how to assess whether a text is at the right level and that's hard with the whole class but taking a look at the text and just trying to work out right what phrases in there are complex for my I know this cohort what phrases in there are complex what words are complex is there any more challenging level of understanding and if you've got kind of more than 10 things there, let's say, you've probably got quite a complex text there that you need to teach first. You need to teach that text before you then go and teach those lovely geographical or historical skills or whatever. Being familiar with the text that you are using before you want those academic skills.
[20:32]
Sometimes it's just that reading, re-reading, understanding before delving deeper.
[20:39] Justin Baeder:
Giving kids the time they need with the text, including multiple exposures, multiple chances to understand. Louise, you talk in the third part of the book about creating a dyslexia-friendly learning environment and school culture. So any parting words of wisdom for school leaders who want to create a dyslexia-friendly school culture?
[21:00] Louise Selby:
I mean, culture is absolutely key, isn't it? In fact, I think I was listening to a podcast about that just yesterday. I can't remember the name of the person, but it was about culture. It's really interesting. You know, your culture is only as good as its weakest link, isn't it? And so if you've got that one person in that staff room who's saying, oh, that person's lazy, then...
[21:23]
That brings everyone down, isn't it? So I think it's... Often it's about challenging language. Look at the language that you're hearing around the staff moving around the school, first of all, around the stakeholders, asking, OK, I've got, let's say, 80 staff.
[21:42]
How many of those staff are likely to have dyslexia themselves? Finding out. If you don't know, then you probably do not have a dyslexia-friendly culture. Yeah. I had a headteacher ask the other day, a wonderful headteacher asked me to go and support and to go and spend some time with her neurodivergent staff members because she wants that. She knows that they have dyslexia and other neurodivergence, but she feels there's a sense of shame and she wants to bring that out.
[22:11]
She wants them to thrive. I mean, that's fantastic. Starting with the staff and the adults. Having that language throughout the school which celebrates difference, whatever the difference is. I wouldn't go as far as to say dyslexia is a gift because many dyslexics do not see it that way. But celebrating that neurodiversity is exactly that, that we are all different.
[22:37]
encouraging different ways of working having you know assemblies community days inviting people in who have dyslexia to talk about their experiences being really open about it i think is the most important thing because if children hear early on that they're successful if they can do neat handwriting or if they can write two pages or if they can get all their phonics right. If they keep hearing that, then they're going to feel like failures from a very early stage. I think the other thing that I talk about quite a bit in both books is Focusing on metacognition and thinking and talking about learning because the process of learning being so important and that can be the key for dyslexics, understanding how you learn and understanding how to learn, not worrying about the product, but more about the process.
[23:36]
So having, you know, like on your display, if you're primary school, not having beautiful finished work, but having notes on display, having how children work things out on display, having how children have overcome barriers on display, having role models on display. I think those things to do with the culture are so key to get right.
[24:00] Justin Baeder:
well said so the book is all about dyslexia a practical guide for teachers available both for primary and secondary and louise if people want to find your website where should they go online
[24:12] Louise Selby:
Oh, yeah, please do. My website is LouiseSelbyDyslexia.com. I'm also on LinkedIn. I have a Facebook page. I'm on X and Instagram and Blue Sky.
[24:24]
So it's quite easy to find me. Louise Selby Dyslexia is what you would look for and you will find me. Yeah. And I'd love to connect with your listeners. So drop me a line.
[24:34] Justin Baeder:
Wonderful. Louise, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.
[24:38] Louise Selby:
You are very welcome.
[24:39] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
