Overcoming Dyslexia: Second Edition (Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2020)

Image source: Amazon.com (2021.09.07 [highlighted, PB])             

For adult learners, parents, and teachers keen on learning about reading disorders, dyslexia in particular, an updated book appears to be an important addition to the field.

According to the Amazon book blurb, this edition of Overcoming Dyslexia by Shaywitz and Shaywitz (2020) offers "new information on all aspects of dyslexia and reading problems, and ... the tools that parents, teachers, and all dyslexic individuals need" (Read more, para. 1). The audible sample (Listen [1st author reading aloud?]) starts in Part I, Chapter 1, The Power of Knowing (Look inside, pp. 3-5) at Amazon.com. 

An Online Tutor Business Coach, Joanne Kaminski, who recently streamed a video review, argued that a crucial take-away from this book about dyslexia is the importance of early diagnoses (2021.08.30).

References

Kaminski, J. (2021.08.30). Overcoming Dyslexia Review [online video recording]. https://youtu.be/hscEptUgg_A

Shaywitz, S. E., & Shaywitz, J. (2020). Overcoming dyslexia: A major update and revision of the essential program for reading problems at any level, incorporating the latest breakthroughs in science, educational methods, technology, and legal accommodations. Alfred A. Knopf.

 

Online activities and opportunities: Work in progress

The short (16 slide) presentation embedded in this blog post represents on-going endeavours mainly to recover from a massive setback in online resource curation. In a nutshell:

This presentation provides snapshots of an individual teacher's recent and ongoing professional development endeavours. It reflects problems of ICT use, mainly discontinuation of a free service for educators, and outlines strategies for addressing them with collaborative partners, tools, and venues of choice. It supplements a working paper submitted to PIGATE.

(Abstract, slide 2)

If you have comments or questions with regard either to the content of slides in that short presentation or the gist of the working paper (Beaufait, 2019) submitted to PIGATE prior to its Annual General Meeting last month (2019.09.14), please feel free to spell them out in threadable comments on this post.

Reference

Beaufait, P. (2019a). Reflection in action: An unavoidable IT transition. PIGATE eigo jugyou gaku kenkyuu-kai kiyou, 26 [English language teaching action research group working papers, issue 26], 32-42.

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New presentation resources on the LTD Project Wiki

Here are two of three of today's additions to LTD Project Wiki, SpeakingPresenting page:

Prezi. (2017.07.05). Harvard researchers: Prezi is more engaging, persuasive, and effective than PowerPoint [weblog post]. Retrieved January 17, 2018, from https://blog.prezi.com/university-study/

• This weblog post summarised Harvard researchers ... findings (Moulton, Türkay, & Kosslyn, 2017; above).

Prezi. (2018 [n.d.]). The science of effective presentations [webpage]. Retrieved January 17, 2018, from https://prezi.com/the-science/

• This infographic-style web page represented Prezi-related findings summarised in Harvard researchers ... (Prezi, 2017.07.05; above).

The third addition was the research paper by Moulton, Türkay, & Kosslyn (2017).

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Three helpful Google Docs features for new users (Byrne, 2017.08.28)

In the following demonstration video, Richard Byrne pointed out Google Doc interfaces for:

1. Adjusting document layouts,
2. Counting words and characters, &
3. Sharing documents selectively online.

His blog is loaded with other resources and tips for educators:

• Free Technology for Teachers: About the Author [Richard Byrne].

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Oh, my yard! A mind map in development

The presentation that I've embedded in this post uses time-lapse screenshots to replicate several stages of mind map development. The mind map of a favorite place is a work in progress[.]

I created the mind map with FreeMind—free, open source software from SourceForge; and have continued to develop it with FreePlane—also available for free from SourceForge. The background photo in the penultimate slide, I took from my veranda on March 14, 2017.

If you have concerns or questions about mind-mapping tools; or suggestions of novel, possible, and practical uses for learning or teaching [with them]; please don't hesitate to spell them out in comments on this post.

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Nik's Learning Technology Blog: 20 + Things you can do with QR codes in your school

Those of you who've had an opportunity to peruse the slides in Social media for you and me (Beaufait & Terada, 2016.06.11) will have seen dozens of QR codes pointing out various online resources.

Here's another one:

http://goo.gl/pxDilp

It points to a 25 September 2015 post by Nik Peachey that tickled a strand in my Diigo social bookmarking network today: Nik's Learning Technology Blog: 20+ Things you can do with QR codes in your school. 

Nik's an English language teaching and technology guru that I met several years ago through a series of virtual workshops entitled Blogging for Beginners and Blogging for Educators. EdTechTalk is a Diigo group with which he shared that post 7 June 2016.

If you have any questions about QR codes or suggestions of other ways to use them around your schools, please do not hesitate to spell them out in comments on this post.

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Social media for you and me? (Beaufait & Terada, 2016.06.11)

Here is the slideshow from our presentation about social media at the PIGATE gathering on June 11, 2016:

We'd love to read [and respond to] concerns, questions, and suggestions regarding social media for learning, teaching, and professional development, both from attendees and from people who were unable to attend the session at KGU. Please feel free to spell them out either in comments on this post or in tweets to #higopigate20160611.

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Twittering _for_ children (pab's first tweet)

"I would not make kids signing up for Twitter compulsory; they can follow ... hashtag[s] without joining Twitter" (Couros, 2011.11.21).

— Paul Beaufait (@pabeaufait) 2016.06.10

Sounds good for adults, too, doesn't it?

"Special for" v. "special to": 3 to 6 or 16 to 14?

On a quick break between a family emergency and tests, I ran a few searches on the Compleat LexTutor site for phrases that someone had asked about at the PIGATE gathering on Sat., Feb. 14.

In a mega corpus of approx. 3 million words, here's what I found:

• "Special" with "for" within a few words and words that repeat 1 word to the right of special: 
• for=3, fund=2, reason=2
• "Special" with "to" within a few words and words that repeat 1 word to the right of special: 
• to=6, health=2, meeting=2, precautions=2, reason=2

The mega corpus is approx. 2/3 British National Corpus (BNC: written + spoken).


A couple of bigger, slower searches of the BNC plus the larger Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), approx. 14 million words in all, gave different results:

• "Special" with "for" within a few words and words that repeat 1 word to the right of special:
• for=16, interest=3, provisions=3, time=3, ...
• "Special" with "to" within a few words and words that repeat 1 word to the right of special
• to=14, interest=11, issue=10, attention=6, access=3, effort=3, permission=3, prosecutor=3, reference=3, way=3, ...

Though convenient findings like these may be inconclusive, since they don't directly compare the BNC to the COCA, perhaps the author of the textbook passage in question was inclined toward British usage. [As I recall, the next word after "for" or "to" was a pronoun ("special * her"?). Anyone keen to dig into that?]

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