The Beacon Fall 2019

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Fall 2019 The Beacon

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The Windward School Newsletter for Educators and Parents Fall 2019

IN ThIS ISSuE

The Neurobiology of Dyslexia

By Devin M. Kearns, Roeland Hancock, Fumiko Hoeft, Kenneth R. Pugh, and Stephen J. Frost Page 1

HEad LINEs

Critical Conversations: A Framework for Advocating for Early Intervention

By Jamie Williamson Page 14

2019 sCHwaRTz LECTURE RECap

Dr. Aslin on Infant Brain Development

By Danielle Scorrano Page 17 INsIdE THE INsTITUTE

Advances in Educational Neuroscience

By Dr. John J. Russell Page 18

Q&a wITH INspIRINg LEadERs IN THE wORLd Of dYsLExIa

Nicole Landi Defines EEG Testing

By Heather Pray Page 21

INTERsECTINg REsEaRCH wITH CLassROOM pRaCTICE

EEG Labs Installation and Training

By Danielle Scorrano Page 24

aLUMNI pROfILE

Robert C. Carroll ’04

By Stephanie Huie Page 26

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The Neurobiology of Dyslexia

By Devin M. Kearns, Roeland Hancock, fumiko Hoeft, Kenneth R. Pugh, and stephen J. frost This article was originally published in TEACHING Exceptional Children (TEC), Vol. 51, Issue 3, January 2019.

Advances in neurobiological research have created new opportunities for understanding and exploring dyslexia. The purpose of this article is to (a) provide a straightforward, although not overly simplified, overview of neurological research on dyslexia and (b) make connections between neurological research and classroom interventions for students with dyslexia. Key ideas are that neuroscience confirms the importance of systematic phonics instruction, neuroimaging has led to new ideas about how dyslexia might be treated, and specific brain regions and pathways are involved in reading. Educational neuroscience remains in early stages, but the immediate relevance for the classroom is emerging.

T

he term dyslexia refers to difficulty in reading, a type of specific learning disability, sometimes called a reading disability or disorder. Dyslexia is complex, and varied definitions exist across educational, medical, and governmental organizations (Table 1). Despite the many differences, most definitions include one common characteristic —difficulty recognizing words. That is, students with dyslexia will encounter difficulty identifying or pronouncing familiar and unfamiliar words accurately and fluently COMMUNITY LECTURE 2019 (Hancock, Gabrieli, & Hoeft, 2016; Hulme & Snowling, 2017; Mabchek & Nelson, 2007; Tanaka et al., 2011). Individuals with dyslexia often have other difficulties, as some Thursday, October 24, 2019 definitions in Table 1 address (e.g., reading 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. comprehension challenges). However, this is The Windward School often the result of word-reading difficulty Westchester Middle School rather than a core aspect of dyslexia.

Word reading is the ability to pronounce RSVP online at thewindwardschool.org/lecture real words quickly and accurately and the See page 13 for complete details. Live stream available ability to read unknown words by decoding them. In alphabetic languages such as English, readers link the graphemes (written units that represent sounds; e.g., c or ck) to the phonemes (sounds of a language; e.g., /k/). This happens in two ways (see Figure 1).

One way involves attention to letters and letter patterns—readers link graphemes to phonemes and assemble the phonemes to say a word, as in the top path for cat. Mapping letters and letter patterns to phonemes is decoding, also called phonics or sounding out.

The other way that readers connect letters to the sounds in a word is through whole-word or sight recognition. Sight recognition occurs only when a reader has previously encountered a word and memorized the pronunciation of the printed word, as in the bottom path, where the letters are linked directly to the pronunciation. Most developing readers will

Devin Kearns, PhD

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partly rely on sight memory and partly on decoding for words that they have seen (they may remember some letters but not others).

Neuroimaging allows researchers to understand how readers with dyslexia use decoding and sight recognition to read words and how the reading behavior of students with dyslexia differs from that of students with typical reading development.

2007; Hoeft et al., 2011). In theory, these kinds of data could be used to decide the intensity of intervention needed to help a struggling reader. Although researchers have yet to make instructional decisions for individual students on this basis, the fact that neuroimaging data can provide information that tests cannot is alone one reason for educators to understand what neuroscientists have learned about how the brain works when students read.

Why Study Neurobiology?

Another benefit of knowing what parts In special education, many researchers of the brain are activated during reading Neuroimaging allows and practitioners focus on students’ is that this location-based information is observed difficulties when reading, rather researchers to understand now being used to develop new reading than the possible internal processes that interventions that target the specific brain cause dyslexia. For example, researchers regions implicated in dyslexia. For example, how readers with dyslexia will examine the effects of specific some researchers found that stimulating approaches to word-reading instruction use decoding and sight certain reading-related regions of the on students’ word-reading ability brain with a tiny electrical current (safely (Reschly, 2005). Examining the relation recognition to read words and nonsurgically) in adults (Turkeltaub between specific approaches to reading et al., 2012) and school-age students and how the reading instruction and changes in the reading (Costanzo et al., 2016; Costanzo et al., ability of students with reading disabilities Costanzo, Menghini, Caltagirone, behavior of students with 2018; and those at risk for reading failure has Oliveri, & Vicari, 2013) during reading resulted in a strong body of knowledge leads to more improvement in reading as dyslexia differs from that related to effective reading instruction for compared with nonstimulated reading students with dyslexia (e.g., Wanzek et al., conditions. This promising, albeit unique, of students with typical 2013). Therefore, the benefits of technology can work because researchers understanding the neuroscience of reading reading development. know what part of the brain to stimulate. (i.e., the internal processes associated with Neuroscientific reading research makes reading behavior) may not be apparent. that possible.

Some special educators are also wary Finally, a benefit of showing how the brain operates during of neuroscience because they associate it (understandably but not reading is that it provides an objective understanding of how correctly) with the “brain based” education of the 1960s and 1970s. reading works. If it is known what brain regions are strongly At that time, the promoters of the “Doman-Delacato treatment of activated during reading and what their general functions are, it is neurologically handicapped children” (Doman, Spitz, Zucman, possible to understand how the brain operates when a student tries to Delacato, & Doman, 1960) said that reading difficulties were read a word. Neuroscience now provides such information. Without caused by brain damage that could be reversed with activities such neuroimaging data, it might be easy to argue about the processes as crawling, breathing through masks, and doing somersaults. that readers use to recognize words and the instruction that will help Others recommended cognitive interventions based on students’ them best—as was the case in the past (e.g., Adams, 1990). With cognitive profiles identified by the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic neurological data, however, researchers and educators can know Abilities. These “brain based” interventions became very popular, but studies showed that they did not improve students’ reading Figure 1: Two ways a reader might pronouce the printed (American Academy of Pediatrics, 1982; Hammill & Larsen, 1974). word cat There are more “brain based” or “cognitively focused” interventions available today, but most do not have supporting evidence (see Burns et al., 2016; Kearns & Fuchs, 2013).

Despite the misuse of the concept of “brain based” approaches, an understanding of the neurobiology of dyslexia can be beneficial le ers sounds to special educators for several reasons. First, examining the brain phonemes in graphemes in at a fine-grained level can provide insights about how students are human speech printed words decoding performing in ways that performance (i.e., evaluations of external (phonics) behaviors) on tests cannot. For example, researchers have shown that data from brain scans can demonstrate whether students will respond to reading instruction even before it begins (Hoeft et al.,

/k/ /æ/ /t/

c a t

cat

/kæt/

sight recogni on

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Table 1 Different Definitions of Dyslexia

Source

Definition

Included skills

NINDS of the National “Dyslexia is a brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a person’s ability to read.”

Institutes of Health (n.d.)

Identified cognitive processes

Decoding, fluency, reading comprehension, spelling

Phonological processing.

Rapid visual-verbal processing

International Dyslexia Association Board of Directors (2012)

“Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities.”

Decoding, spelling, word reading. Possible related skills: background knowledge, reading comprehension, vocabulary

“Phonological component of language”

Understood Team of NCLD (n.d.)

“A specific learning disability in reading. Kids with dyslexia have trouble reading accurately and fluently. They may also have trouble with reading comprehension, spelling and writing.”

Fluency, word reading. Possible related skills: reading comprehension, spelling, writing

Not addressed

American Psychiatric Association (2013), DSM-5

None—given as a type of “specific learning disorder”

Decoding, fluency, spelling. Skills in broader category (specific learning disorder): reading comprehension, spelling, writing, word reading

Not addressed

ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Code F81.0

“Developmental dyslexia is marked by reading achievement that falls substantially below that expected given the individual’s chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education.”

Reading achievement. Skills in broader category (specific reading disorder): reading comprehension, spelling, word recognition, writing

Not addressed

“A specific learning disability that affects reading and related Learning Disabilities Association language-based processing skills. The severity can differ in each individual but can affect reading fluency, decoding, reading of America (n.d.) comprehension, recall, writing, spelling, and sometimes speech and can exist along with other related disorders. Dyslexia is sometimes referred to as a Language-Based Learning Disability.”

Decoding, fluency, reading comprehension, recall, spelling, writing. Possible related skills: speech

Language processing

Language processing

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004)

None—given as a type of specific learning disability

Not addressed. Skills in broader category (specific learning disability): reading, spelling, speaking, writing

American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Ophthalmology et al.a (2009)

“Dyslexia is a primary reading disorder and results from a written word processing abnormality in the brain. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent sight word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities.

These difficulties are unexpected in relation to the child’s other cognitive skills” (p. 838).

Word reading, fluency, spelling

Phonological processing.

Also in some individuals: rapid visual-verbal processing, working memory, attention

Note. DSM-5 = Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition; ICD-10-CM = International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification, maintained by the World Health Organization; NCLD = National Council for Learning Disabilities; NINDS = National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. a Joint statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Ophthalmology, Council on Children with Disabilities, American Academy of Ophthalmology, American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, and American Academy of Certified Orthopedists (2009). Most definitions also implicitly or explicit proscribe the inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities from the category of dyslexia.

how the brain processes word information with little room for debate. It may not end disagreements about how reading works or what kind of instruction is best, but neuroscience provides an objective biological starting point that can offer some clarity. For these reasons, we think that it is worthwhile for educators to understand the neurobiology of reading among students with and without dyslexia.

It is also important to acknowledge the limitations of the neuroscientific research on dyslexia. Neuroscience has improved our understanding of reading, dyslexia, and the effects of reading intervention, but it has not yet resulted in direct changes to instructional approaches for students with dyslexia (Bowers, 2016; Gabrieli, 2016). There are other limitations and many things still to learn. One goal of this article is to provide a straightforward picture of the state of the art in the neuroscience of dyslexia to provide an

understanding of what neuroscience can and cannot presently demonstrate about reading and dyslexia.

Neurobiology and Reading

Neurobiology is a way of describing the organization of the brain and the uses of its various parts. The brain has four main lobes—the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes in each hemisphere—as well as the cerebellum, subcortical nuclei, and brainstem that underlie these. Although humans constantly use all of these systems, researchers have long known that different regions within these lobes are more active during some tasks than others.

The systems of the brain support many basic human functions, such as movement and communication. However, reading is unique because it is not an innate human ability. Humans invented reading more than 5,000 years ago (Daniels, 2001) primarily to allow efficient,

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Dorsal (top) regions

direct communication with others without Figure 2 being in the same place (Seidenberg, 2017).

What makes reading remarkable is that Frontal Lobe Parietal Lobe humans can learn to do it with such great SMG supramarginal gyrus automaticity despite the fact that our brains ANG links letters and speech PrG angular gyrus precentral gyrus are not specifically organized to do this processes meaning controls articulation Occipital (Dehaene, 2009).

Lobe It is also remarkable that—across many STG superior temporal gyrus people and cultures—readers use the same IFG processes speech inferior frontal gyrus parts of the brain to accomplish the task of stores & sequences speech MTG reading. Researchers are still debating whether middle temporal gyrus OT processes sight words occipito-temporal region reading “takes over” a part of the brain & meaning letter & word recognition (Dehaene & Cohen, 2011) or whether the reading parts still have other functions. For cerebellum example, researchers are not sure if the part of the brain that recognizes letters also performs Temporal Lobe subcor cal nuclei other visual processing tasks (Price & Devlin, (deep inside the brain) dorsal/decoding pathway 2003). Research is clear on one point, brain stem ventral/sight recogni on though: Reading does not happen in just one pathway region of the brain. During the reading process, regions from all four lobes work When individuals participate in neuroimaging research with together. Neurobiological research has revealed patterns of fMRI, the “functional” part refers to the fact that they perform tasks coordination among these regions in good readers, demonstrated in the scanner that involve some kind of reading-related processing. how the brain scans of students with dyslexia differ, and indicated For example, words may flash on the screen in rapid succession how reading intervention can change the brain activation patterns (Malins et al., 2016). Because it is virtually impossible not to read a of students with dyslexia. word if one knows how, participants will read the words as they are Researchers have studied the neurobiology of reading for more than a century. Early studies examined individuals who had acquired flashed on the screen. Performance on the word-reading tasks can be compared with nonreading performance tasks, such as looking at a word-reading problems as a result of a lesion (e.g., tissue damage as picture, so that researchers can identify differences in location and a result of an injury) on the brain (Hinshelwood, 1900). In these activation levels during reading and nonreading tasks. studies, individuals with lesions in different areas of the lbrain demonstrated different kinds of difficulties with word reading.

The Reading Brain in Typical Readers Some had great difficulty reading nondecodable words, such as As a result of many fMRI studies, researchers have identified eye and who, but could still perform decoding tasks. Some had the what is now considered the “classical” pattern of activation in the opposite problem: They could not decode but could remember reading brain. Specifically, three regions across the four lobes are words that they had read before. Researchers then began to involved in decoding or sight recognition reading: the left inferior theorize what these patterns revealed about how humans use frontal gyrus in the frontal lobe, the left temporoparietal cortex, and the brain when they read. the left occipitotemporal region. fMRI studies of good readers have Researchers have now developed special techniques to better shown that these regions are more active than other parts of the understand how the parts are being used in people who may not brain during reading (Price, 2012; Turkeltaub, Eden, Jones, & have brain damage—and without surgery. Today, one of the most Zeffiro, 2002). However, the story of the reading brain is a little common technologies used to analyze the reading brain is more complex because researchers have identified areas within functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). fMRI allows these three regions that have a role in reading (Figure 2). Table 2 researchers to see what is happening in the brain using information provides an overview of the regions of the brain and their functions. about how much blood flows to different parts of the brain during the reading process (i.e., while a person is actively decoding). The The Inferior Frontal Gyrus in the Frontal Lobe circulatory system provides oxygen to all parts of the brain at all The inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, in particular the posterior IFG), times, but additional oxygenated blood is provided to some parts which overlaps with what some call Broca’s area, has several of the brain when they are particularly active and have depleted language-related functions. In reading, the IFG stores information the oxygen. The fMRI machine can detect when there is more about the sounds that words contain, and it links this information oxygenated blood in a part of the brain—the more oxygenated to other representations of the word in the brain and motor regions, blood, the greater the activation. ventral (bo om) regions

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even during silent reading (Richlan, Kronbichler, & Wimmer, 2011). The IFG also has a more general role in sequencing information, and researchers think that this may help readers put the sounds in the correct order when they are ready to say a word aloud. The IFG is used regardless of whether the reader decodes the word or recognizes it by sight.

are recognized in the fusiform gyrus and linked to pronunciation in the IFG (Levy et al., 2009).

Finally, the brain has a subcortical system that lies underneath the four regions and above the cerebellum. Its components, the striatum (a region including the caudate nucleus, putamen, and basal ganglia) and the thalamus are thought to have a role in reading as well. However, their contributions are less well understood.

Temporoparietal Region The primary areas of focus within the temporoparietal region The Reading Brain in Readers With Dyslexia are the superior temporal gyrus (which overlaps with what some The primary difference between developing readers with call Wernicke’s area), supramarginal gyrus, dyslexia and their peers with typical reading and angular gyrus. The superior temporal skills is that those with dyslexia show less gyrus is the main speech-processing region increase in brain activation in the Neurobiology is a and helps extract phonemes from the speech temporoparietal regions and the that we hear. The supramarginal gyrus serves way of describing the occipitotemporal regions during reading and as a link between phonemes and graphemes. rhyming tasks (Martin, Schurz, Kronbichler, The angular gyrus may be involved in & Richlan, 2015). Some studies showed that organization of the processing word meanings (Seghier, Fagan, readers with dyslexia even have less gray brain and the uses & Price, 2010). The temporoparietal matter (brain tissue) in the temporoparietal region serves as the decoding center of regions that involve decoding and the of its various parts. the reading brain. occipitotemporal regions involved in sight word reading (Richlan, Kronbichler, & Occipitotemporal Region Wimmer, 2013). The lower activation and The occipitotemporal region includes the fusiform gyrus and smaller amount of gray matter in these areas align with the fact that the inferior temporal gyrus. This region is very close to the parts of students with reading difficulty have weaker decoding skills and the brain that process visual information. Researchers believe that more difficulty recognizing words by sight than do their peers with this region is used to process familiar visual information, such as typical reading skills. letters and words (Kronbichler et al., 2004; Schlaggar & However, a few studies found that students with dyslexia show McCandliss, 2007). A portion of the fusiform gyrus is sometimes some areas of greater activation as compared with their peers with called the visual word form area (McCandliss, Cohen, & Dehaene, typical achievement. The left precentral gyrus—a region involved in 2003). However, not all researchers use this term, because it implies articulation (i.e., the production of speech sounds)—shows more that the region is specialized for words. To the contrary, researchers have shown Table 2 Left hemisphere Regions of the Cerebral Cortex Involved in Reading activation in this area when readers process Region Involved Areas (Near) Synonyms Function Pathway other types of familiar visual information Posterior inferior Pars opercularis Broca’s area Storing and sequencing Dorsal and (e.g., images of objects; Devlin, Jamison, frontal gyrus Pars triangularis speech ventral Gonnerman, & Matthews, 2006).

Controlling articulation Dorsala Precentral gyrus The Reading Network The IFG, temporoparietal, and occipitotemporal regions interact to link printed words to sound and meaning. The dorsal pathway uses systems on the top half of the brain (the parts linked by the red line in Figure 2) and is used by good readers to decode unknown words. Researchers think that readers use the systems in the parietal lobe to link letters to sounds and activate their pronunciations in the IFG. The ventral pathway (shown by the green lines in Figure 2) is used by good readers to read familiar words, likely because known words

of speech sounds

Temporo-parietal region

Occipito-temporal cortex

Parietal • Supramarginal gyrus • Angular gyrus

Perisylvian regions

Temporal • Superior temporal gyrus

Wernicke’s area

Temporal • Middle temporal • gyrus Occipital • Fusiform gyrus • Inferior temporal gyrus

Visual word form areab Extrastriate cortex

Linking letters and speech sounds

Dorsal

Processing meaning

Dorsal

Processes speech

Dorsal

Processing sight words and meanings

Ventral

Letter and word recognition

Ventral

Note. The dorsal pathway is often called the decoding pathway. The ventral pathway is the often called the sight recognition pathway. aActivation in the precentral gyrus is particularly associated with a potentially compensatory mechanism for students with dyslexia. b This refers to the fusiform gyrus specifically. Many researchers prefer not to use the term visual word form area because activation in this area is not exclusive to words.

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activation in children and adults with dyslexia than that of their one of the most promising outcomes relates to findings associated typical peers (Richlan et al., 2011). Currently, researchers have with neurocognitive flexibility. That is, researchers have hypothesized that readers use articulation to compensate for their demonstrated that students’ patterns of brain activation can change weakness in the temporoparietal system that involves decoding as a result of reading intervention (for a review, see Barquero, Davis, (Hancock, Richlan, & Hoeft, 2017). For example, a reader might & Cutting, 2014). In an increasing number of studies, researchers try to pronounce an unknown word using the visual information have placed students with dyslexia in reading interventions designed without trying to link letters to sounds. This could explain why to improve their word-reading skills—namely, interventions that some readers with dyslexia appear to be focus on building their decoding skills. guessing when they read—it may be an As a result of these interventions, adaptation that the brain makes due to students read words more accurately and The primary difference difficulties in the decoding system. fluently. These studies demonstrated that Finally, there is evidence that students between developing readers (internal) neurological change was with dyslexia activate subcortical regions evident as were changes in (external) (parts of the brain covered by gray and reading behaviors. with dyslexia and their white matter), including the striatum and The ways in which the brain changes peers with typical reading are not completely understood, in part thalamus, more than their typical peers do (Richlan et al., 2011). These regions because of the few studies that involve skills is that those with interact with many other parts of the reading intervention and neuroimaging. brain and are involved in motor control For this article, we reviewed recent dyslexia show less increase studies of the effect of intervention on (Alexander & Crutcher, 1990), learning (Packard & Knowlton, 2003), and neurobiological processing and Barquero in brain activation in the cognitive control (Aron et al., 2007). Parts and colleagues’ (2014) analysis of earlier of the thalamus are involved in attention. studies. Unfortunately, there are still not temporoparietal regions The diverse functions of these regions enough studies to draw specific make it difficult to make inferences about conclusions about exactly how and the occipitotemporal their role in dyslexia. Some researchers intervention changes brain activity. regions during reading and However, the studies almost all included have suggested that the striatum and thalamus may be important in developing approaches that will not surprise; they are rhyming tasks. the ability to learn without being taught the same kinds of word feature–focused directly (Ullman, 2004), which is strategies contained in many programs impaired in some individuals with designed for students with dyslexia. dyslexia (Lum, Ullman, & Conti-Ramsden, 2013) and thought to Changes in Activation: Different From Typical Readers be important for learning phoneme-grapheme correspondences Neuroimaging data now appear to indicate something that (Deacon, Conrad, & Pacton, 2008). Others have suggested that typical intervention studies have not. Successful intervention these circuits have a direct role in phonological processing (Booth, changes the patterns of activation of students with dyslexia, but Wood, Lu, Houk, & Bitan, 2007; Crosson et al., 2013). It is not the patterns are still different from those of students with typical simple to derive an overall finding from these results, but these areas achievement (Peck, Leong, Zekelman, & Hoeft, 2018). One of overactivation indicate that readers with dyslexia are using other important finding is that readers who respond to intervention systems to read words rather than relying on the process of mapping increase their activation in the precentral gyrus, the region that graphemes to phonemes as other readers do. In terms of the reading activates the articulation (physical formation) of sounds in the network, poor readers do not always use the pathways in the same mouth (Hancock et al., 2017).

Students who benefit from reading way as good readers. For example, they may activate the ventral intervention also appear to rely more on meaning than do their pathway even when reading nonwords. This is one possible reason peers with typical achievement.

The subcortical systems play a role why readers with dyslexia try to read nonsense words as real words in processing meaning (Yeatman et al., 2012), so students who (Yeatman, Dougherty, Ben-Shachar, & Wandell, 2012). Taken respond may be using meaning information to support their together, these data suggest that readers with dyslexia activate reading.

Finally, increased activation in the left thalamus in the different regions and use different pathways when reading as subcortical region could also indicate improvement involving compared with peers with typical reading. language and memory; increased right IFG could indicate The Reading Brain and Reading Intervention improvement related to attention; and middle occipital gyrus Although neurobiological research has yielded a clearer picture could indicate a role for visual processing. of the reading brain in typical readers and individuals with dyslexia,

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Fall 2019 The Beacon Figure 3: A dialogue between a teacher (wider boxes) and student designed to teach the production of the speech sounds /p/ and /b/ associated with the letters p and b Learn to feel the pronuncia on of sounds

p p

P says /p/ What does it say?

You use your lips to say /p/.

What do you use?

You blow out a puff of air.

What kind of air?

Look at your lips in the mirror and say /p/.

What are you use?

What kind of air? /p/ is voiceless. Say /p/ and feel your voicebox. Does it vibrate?

Your lips blow a voiceless puff of air to say /p/. How do you say /p/?

/p/ / My lips.

A puff. /p/.

My lips.

A puff.

No. My lips blow a voiceless puff of air.

Figure 4: Words and sound-spelling units that students with dyslexia need to learn L Learn sound-spellings.

S

sh

/b/ /b/ Your lips blow a puff of air for both. /b/ Yes. A voiced sound.

My lips blow a voiced puff of air. /b/ My lips blow a puff of air. /b/ is voiced.

Figure 5: Activities to practice decoding skills

SH says /ʃ/.

What does SH say?

What letters says /ʃ/?

The ship sails as the wind blows /ʃ/. The clue is ship. What is the clue?

/ʃ/

SayS the sounds for each spelling.

Say it slowly.

Then read it.

SH

shell

ʃ Ɛ l /ʃʃʃƐƐƐlll/ shell.

Ship

Read R sentences and texts containing taught sound-spellings, phonograms, and high-frequency words.

The shells on the ship’s hull were shining as it sailed along the shore.

L

Our keyword is back. What is our keyword?

If we know back, we know pack and rack. What do we know?

What’s our keyword?

Back

Pack, rack.

Back

Let’s review our new sight words first. I’ll point and say them. Then you. Were. Along.

Your turn.

If you need help, look at the clue. What is the clue? What is the sound? What is the spelling?

Good. Read the sentence slowly. Watch for SH words.

Now read it fluently.

Were. Along.

Ship, /ʃ/, SH.

The shells… on the ship’s… hull were shining… as it sailed… along the shore…

The shells on the ship’s hull were shining as it sailed along the shore.

Spell words containing taught sound-spellings and phonograms.

Learn high-frequency words.

were

b b

Decode Decode wri wrienen words words using using sound-spellings sound-spellings oror phonograms. phonograms.

Learn phonograms.

back

/p/ has a partner, /b/. What partner? / B says /b/. What does B say? /p/ and /b/ are a pair. For both sounds, your lips blow a puff of air.

Why are they a pair?

They are different because /b/ is a voiced sound. Say /b/.

Feel your voicebox. Does it vibrate?

For /b/, you use your voice. It is a voiced sound. What kind of sound?

Right. To say /b/. your lips blow a voice puff of air. What do you do?

Look in the mirror and say /b/.

How is /b/ like /p/?

How is /b/ different?

This is were.

What word?

Yes, were.

W, E, R, E. Spell it.

were

W, E, R, E

sh s

The T word is wish.

What word?

Say the sounds in wish.

Say each sound as you spell it. Check the ship clue for /ʃ/

wish /w, I, ʃ/

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Table 3 Possible Causes of Reading Difficulty and Their Relationships With Dyslexia Cause

Description

Relationship with dyslexia

Phonological deficit

A core deficit associated with dyslexia

In neuroimaging, students with reading difficulty always show this difficulty.

This type of difficulty is at the core of the cognitive and neurobiological understanding of dyslexia.

General difficulty

A level of cognitive functioning that is below average for all academic areas, not just reading

Many students have difficulty in multiple academic areas. If dyslexia is a deficit related to reading specifically, it is unclear whether this fits into the definition of dyslexia.

Attention, behavioral, or emotional difficulty

Challenges that affect a student’s ability to focus on reading instruction, even if one does not have dyslexia

If students have not paid attention to reading instruction, their brain activity will look the same as the activity of a student with only a phonological deficit.

In this case, the neurobiological origin of the problem is very different than it is for those with a phonological deficit.

Limited evidence-based word-reading instruction

A school-based reason why a student may not have developed good word-reading skills, including (a) limited word-reading instruction altogether or (b) word-reading instruction that does not include evidence- based practices

Some students start to improve their word reading as soon as they receive evidence-based instruction. This could mean that these students did not have a phonological deficit but had not received the instruction that they needed to start to use the brain for reading.

Phoneme Sequencing Program (Lindamood & Lindamood, 1998), Changes in Activation: Implications for Intervention The data on these unique patterns among students with dyslexia includes instruction on how sounds are formed in the mouth, including the parts of the mouth that are used (e.g., lips, teeth, have led to questions about whether students should learn tongue), whether the sound is a stop sound (e.g., /p/) or a compensatory strategies—that is, strategies that focus on using the continuous sound (e.g., /f/), and whether the sound is produced parts of the brain that students with dyslexia appear to use after with or without activating the voice. Figure 3 provides a dialogue intervention anyway (e.g., meaning-focused approaches). However, that a teacher might use to teach a student with dyslexia about the the data are not yet conclusive about the efficacy of targeting pronunciation of the /p/ and /b/ sounds for compensatory areas only. There are, though, the letters p and b. Even though it is not yet evidence-based approaches that align with a Researchers have clear whether increased activation in the focus on meaning and articulation—areas of precentral gyrus indicates compensation, the higher activation among readers with dyslexia. demonstrated that Lindamood-Bell Phoneme Sequencing Meaning-Based Approaches. In terms of students’ patterns of Program has evidence of increasing reading meaning, it is possible that students with achievement (e.g., Kennedy & Backman, dyslexia might receive benefits from learning brain activation can 1993). As a result, teaching about speech about the meaning parts within words—that sound formation may help readers even if is, morphemes such as re-, -ment, and -s in change as a result of research has not empirically demonstrated replacements. Given the possibility that this approach reflects compensation. It is readers with dyslexia are using some meaning reading intervention. that important to be clear that the word-reading information, it may be beneficial to teach strategies described in Figures 4 and 5 are still students how morphemes affect meaning and essential, even if there are potential benefits of morphological and how they are used to change the part of speech of base words, as suggested by Ullman and Pullman (2015). Morpheme units are also speech-production instruction. In addition, some researchers have found that instruction does produce a more typical pattern of valuable even within the typical reading system because they are activation, similar to students without difficulty (Peterson & recognizable units that might be processed similarly to familiar Pennington, 2015). In short, teachers should use evidence-based words in the occipitotemporal region, and data suggest that phonological strategies for word-reading instruction, but they might students benefit from instruction on morphemes—regardless of the consider some supplemental instruction on morphemes or speech neurobiological data. See Kearns and Whaley (2019; this issue) for production for some students. The phrase “for some students” is further details on how to teach morphological units. important. Students with dyslexia begin intervention with unique Articulation-Based Approaches. For the data showing that patterns of brain activity during reading, so they will not all respond readers use information about speech sound formation, one way exactly the same way to instruction. to help students compensate might be to teach them about how Phonological word-reading strategies should be used for sounds are produced. At least one program, the Lindamood-Bell teaching all students (National Institutes of Child Health and

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Human Development, 2000; Stuebing, Barth, Cirino, Francis, & Fletcher, 2008), but educators can optimize instruction by considering additional strategies when students do not respond.

Complexities Associated With Neurobiological Reading Research

At the outset of this article, we described that students are typically identified with dyslexia because they have poor wordreading skills. The problem for reading researchers and educators is that there are many reasons why students might exhibit poor reading skills (see Table 3). Difficulty linking letters to speech characterizes most cases of dyslexia, but there are other factors related to reading difficulty that could result in a diagnosis of dyslexia.

Some students have difficulty in all academic areas, not just reading. Others may have attention, emotional, or behavioral difficulties that make it hard for them to stay focused during reading instruction. Another group may struggle due to an inadequate amount of evidence-based word-reading instruction. In the early elementary grades, students require extensive instruction and practice to help them learn grapheme-phoneme connections and recognize many words by sight. Some kinds of instruction— especially explicit, systematic phonics instruction—are especially effective in helping students acquire word-reading skills. In its absence, some students will not develop good word-reading skills.

In short, there are many possible reasons why students may experience difficulty learning to read.

It is tempting to think that the effects of attention, inadequate instruction, and inherent problems processing graphemes and phonemes can be separated by analyzing fMRI data, but they cannot. It can be hard to separate students with dyslexia from those with attention difficulty because children often have both problems and it is difficult to separate issues of attention from those related to dyslexia. In terms of inadequate instruction, individuals with reading problems often have patterns of activation similar to those of students with dyslexia before they receive instruction (Dehaene et al., 2010). Thus, researchers cannot identify the source of reading problems, even using advanced neuroimaging techniques.

Therefore, although neurobiological research has yielded new insights about the reading brain of students with dyslexia in general, the research has not resulted in the identification of unique groups of students to target instruction. We are also still unable to scan students, determine their patterns of activation during reading, and decide on appropriate instruction. However, researchers think that this may be possible, and they have made some progress in this direction (Hoeft et al., 2011). The data presented in this article reflect studies where performance has been combined across many students. This body of research has resulted in a deeper understanding of components and related areas of the reading brain, but fMRI data cannot yet be used to diagnose and identify interventions for individual students.

Conclusion

As we have made clear, researchers have a strong understanding of how readers use their brains to read and how the patterns of activation differ between students with and without dyslexia. In addition, researchers’ understanding of the relation between intervention and neurobiological change continues to improve— although there is much more work to do in this area.

Overall, there are several key findings about the neurobiology of reading among students with dyslexia. First, individuals with good and poor reading differ in their patterns of activation, in terms of the degree to which they activate parts of the brain associated with reading, such as recognizing familiar print (the occipitotemporal region), linking letters and sounds (the temporoparietal area), and processing phonemes (the inferior frontal gyrus). Importantly, readers with dyslexia are not just showing less activation overall; they show a different pattern of activation. In other words, their brains are not working more slowly—they are working differently.

The second important finding is that when students with dyslexia successfully participate in reading interventions, their patterns of brain activation do not always end up the same as those of students with typical reading achievement. These differences occur even when students with dyslexia participate in phonicsfocused, word-reading interventions. This means that a foundational word-reading intervention will help students with dyslexia, but there are still differences in the brain. The data showing differences may also suggest that students with dyslexia might benefit from different kinds of instruction—but the data on this are not conclusive.

Third, neuroimaging data appear to provide support for using the word-recognition programs upon which many educators have long relied. Although this is obvious, we think that it is important given the continued debate about the value of foundational wordrecognition instruction. There are decades of data demonstrating the efficacy of these programs (Scammacca, Roberts, Vaughn, & Stuebing, 2015; Stuebing et al., 2008). We think that it is helpful to illustrate the same effect via a very different approach—differences in patterns of neurological activation before and after instruction of this kind.

A fourth point is that educators should continue to stay tuned.

Researchers are working on new ways to do intervention based on some of these preliminary neuroimaging data and to continue refining understanding of the activation patterns associated with response to intervention. We also expect that revolutionary approaches such as the one by Costanzo and colleagues (2018) and Turkeltaub and colleagues (2012) will continue to emerge as more is learned about the reading brain. Compared with 10 years ago, there is much more known about the impact of intervention on the way that readers use their brains, and we expect that there will be much more to say in the next few years.

Finally, in this article, we present current scientific understandings of the neurobiology of reading and dyslexia. There are many unfounded claims about the “brain science.” Therefore,

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separating fact from fiction is important. We are aware that educators, advocates for students with dyslexia, and students with dyslexia themselves have turned to neuroscience to understand this serious difficulty. All of us are likely to hear more frequent discussions of the neurobiology of dyslexia in the next few years, and we think that this article may facilitate engagement in these conversations. We also hope that the educators reading this article

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported in part by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grants R01HD090153 to Kenneth Pugh (KP), R01HD086168 to KP and Fumiko Hoeft (FH), R01HD094834 to FH and Roeland Hancock, and R01HD078351, R01HD096261 and P50HD052120 to FH.

ORCID iD

Devin Kearns https://orcid. org/0000-0001-9703-0932

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About the Authors Devin M. Kearns, Assistant Professor, and Roeland Hancock, Assistant Research Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs; Fumiko Hoeft, Professor and Director of Laboratory for Learning and Engineering and Neural Systems, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, and Professor and Director of Brain Imaging Research Center, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs; Kenneth R. Pugh, Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, and President and Director of Research, Haskins Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut; and Stephen J. Frost, Senior Scientist, Haskins Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Address correspondence concerning this article to Devin Kearns, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Connecticut, 249 Glenbrook Road, Unit 3064, Storrs, CT 06269, USA (e-mail: devin.kearns@uconn.edu).

This article was originally published in TEACHING Exceptional Children, Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 175–188. Copyright 2019 The Author(s).

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COMMUNITY LECTURE 2019

Spring Fall 2019 2018 The Beacon

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Windward Teacher Training Institute

Why Some Children Struggle to Read:

The Neurobiology of Dyslexia and Other Reasons Children Struggle Dyslexia is one of the most prevalent disabilities affecting American school children. Between 8% and 10% of American children have dyslexia, and more than 10% of other children are at risk of identification. The question addressed in this lecture is why children have dyslexia. Dr. Kearns will explain how children with this language-based learning disability have brains that process specific tasks differently and how this relates to their performance on readingrelated tests as well as other possible causes of word reading difficulty that can be confused with dyslexia. He will also address controversies about dyslexia— including why some people do not even like the word. The goal of the lecture is to help people understand what dyslexia is and what it is not.

Thursday, October 24, 2019 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

No Fee – reservation required. Live stream available RSVP online at thewindwardschool.org/lecture

Devin Kearns, PhD Presented by

Devin Kearns is an associate professor of special education in the Department of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, and he is a research scientist for the Center for Behavioral Education & Research (CBER) and Haskins Laboratories. He holds a PhD in special education from Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Kearns researches reading disability— including dyslexia—and designs, implements, and tests reading intervention programs to help these students. He examines intervention impact on reading achievement and neurobiological processing.

The Windward School Westchester Middle School 40 West Red Oak Lane White Plains, NY 10604-3602

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Head Lines

Critical Conversations: A Framework for Advocating for Early Intervention

By Jamie Williamson Head of The Windward School

A

ccording to a 2015 report from the U.S. Department of swim by simply throwing them into the deep end and seeing what Education, about 4 million students enter kindergarten happens? Do we think, “Surely they’ll learn how to tread water by each year, and the unfortunate reality is that many of those watching the swimmers around them”? Or do we just hope that the students are not equipped with the necessary skills to succeed in new lifeguard will know the right instructions to offer from the school; moreover, thousands of those students will struggle to learn chair while the child struggles in the water? Of course, we do not; to read. I began my career in education as a school psychologist, that approach seems absurd—dangerous, even. Yet, many educators support struggling young students with strategies just as flawed. and my perspective on education continues to be informed by It is unfortunate, but regulations at the state and federal levels this training. Though my place in the educational landscape has that determine funding for intervention often result in initial changed, I believe that my primary purpose in this work is to be an rejections for services, requiring additional advocate for students and their families. proof, more data, and more time, which can Early on, I spent a great deal of time be a persistent, frustrating cycle for parents reflecting on the role that I wanted to fulfill in With everyone and guardians and their already vulnerable schools, and I consistently pursued working together in children. This common experience is opportunities that I felt aligned with my goals especially troubling when one considers that and expanded the impact I could have on a collegial and the data on the positive impact of early students. While the focus for most school is well documented. A multitude psychologists primarily involves assessment cooperative manner, intervention of studies have demonstrated that the gains around special education eligibility determination, there are myriad other ways to so-called past failures students receive from early, targeted expand the role. I came to believe that it was interventions are significant (Blackman et al., crucial for me not only to help students 1999; Foorman et al., 1998). Still, too many transform into proactively access appropriate services but also schools fail to or provide or even recommend to educate and build parents and guardians’ targeted interventions to students in puzzles to solve. skills so that they can, in turn, be stronger, kindergarten or first grade, and parents and more well-informed advocates for their guardians are often at a loss as to how best to children and thoughtful consumers of educational services. proceed. I cannot count the number of times I have heard families express an incredible sense of helplessness as their cries for support how Delaying Intervention Impacts Our Children are met with indifference, passivity, or at times, firm resistance by An effect of my evolving mindset over the years was that I often school officials. As a result of our failures to address student learning wrestled with the “wait and see” or “you’ll love the teacher next challenges early with teachers trained in research-based methodologies, year” model of service. Perhaps it is my inherent impatience, but children in the United States get off to a poor start in reading, and I have never found the strategy of waiting until next year while they rarely catch up (National Reading Panel, 2000). implementing the same, ineffective interventions to be particularly useful. The fact is, when we wait for students to fail, we lose Breaking the Wait to Fail Cycle valuable time to address their learning disabilities early—when the For educators, parents, guardians, and advocates, the solution science says students have the best opportunities for remediation. must be to keep the student at the center of the conversation.

Furthermore, allowing children to struggle without hope for success This requires strong relationships and engagement on all levels: stifles their growing sense of independence, diminishes their consistent support and accompanying infrastructure from the confidence, and injures their sense of self-worth at a critical period administration; clear communication and documentation between of emotional and social development. Do we teach children how to teachers, parents, and guardians; and a safe environment in which

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the student may express unique challenges and concerns without judgment.

This model creates a natural collaboration among educators, parents, guardians, and students. With everyone working together in a collegial and cooperative manner, so-called past failures transform into puzzles to solve. Through open communication, parents and guardians share important insights with teachers who interact with children during a finite window of each day, which enables educators to serve each student’s specific needs, and ultimately foster successful outcomes.

The National Center on Improving Literacy has created a framework for parent, guardians, and educators to use in assessing literacy needs, which is a beneficial tool to initiate conversations about intervention (Christman, J. & Sayko, S., 2017).

Review, Record, Request, Refer

Review: The first step parents and guardians can take when reviewing a school is to perform good research on behalf of their child. Adopting a curious mindset and asking questions can often reveal possible gaps in the school’s approach to learning disabilities which can prove overwhelming to address if identified too late.

The following are useful springboards for discussion: • Tell me about the district’s approach to teaching reading.

• How do you incorporate direct, research-based phonics instruction?

• What core reading program are you using?

• What tools do you use to identify students at risk?

• Does the district have a universal screening process?

• Is there a formalized reading intervention program?

• How do you monitor progress? If so, how frequently do you collect data?

• How is this information communicated to parents/guardians?

The hope is that through this dialogue, parents and guardians can gain a better understanding of the school’s or district’s approach to teaching reading. There are a number of red flags that parents and guardians should listen for throughout this process. For example, when a school or district does not have a clearly defined approach to teaching reading or protocols for screening to identify students who are not progressing, they are going to struggle to be responsive to a student’s needs.

Further, if a parent or guardian does not see or hear any evidence that the district or school has adopted a strong research- and phonics-based approach, then the district may be using an approach that is not grounded in good research. Additionally, it is important for parents, guardians, and teachers to establish and understand where the child fits into the school’s or district’s structure for determining intervention services. If the student already has an intervention plan, it helps to request the records and recommendations for further action. Parents and guardians should also be aware of their rights and responsibilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Record: Documentation is a critical piece of the process. Therefore, copious notes on the part of parents, guardians, and educators can be an invaluable tool.

This includes recording daily observations, noting conditions where the child is successful and conditions where the child struggles. Further, it can be very helpful for parents and guardians to recount their child’s progress toward developmental milestones and markers. Family history can also be informative; for example, there is a strong genetic link for dyslexia through a complex set of interactions across multiple genes (Dorta, 2018). Parents and guardians should be encouraged to share these insights with teachers, as well as with the larger academic team, and document those conversations and requests for help along the way.

about

Jamie Williamson Jamie Williamson joined The Windward

school in July 2019 as head of school. Mr.

Williamson is a passionate educational leader,

proven creative problem-solver, and steadfast advocate for children with 16 years of

experience supporting families and children

with learning disabilities. Throughout his career, he has been a standard-bearer within schools

for partnership and collaboration that seeks to empower students, families, faculty, and staff.

Mr. Williamson frequently presents at local,

regional, and national conferences and events

on a variety of topics, including dyslexia, aDHD, parenting, assessment, resilience, vocabulary

instruction in math, leadership, and hiring for culture.

Prior to his arrival at Windward, he served

as the head of school at Marburn academy,

which is a grades 1-12 day school program for

students with learning disabilities in columbus,

ohio, and as the principal at the springer school and center in cincinnati, ohio, which is a

grades 1-8 day school program for students

with language-based learning disabilities. Mr.

Williamson is a graduate of Western Kentucky university with a Ba in psychology. He also

holds a Ms and an education specialist degree

in school psychology from Miami university. a licensed school psychologist, Mr. Williamson

spent four years prior to his tenure at springer as the school psychologist at Bridgetown Middle school in cincinnati.

Mr. Williamson also previously served as

board president of the southwest ohio school

Psychology association and on the board of the ohio association of Independent schools. Mr.

Williamson lives in Irvington, NY, with his wife, a former art teacher, and his two children.

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Request: Often, it can be overwhelming for parents and guardians to navigate the seemingly countless online resources about intervention. Asking for help can facilitate a shift toward targeted efforts that are more likely to result in successful outcomes.

Speaking to other families, connecting with families that have accessed district services, and asking educators directly for more information about reading development and research-based practices can save time and frustration. Parents and guardians can also meet with a knowledgeable advocate about their parental rights.

Finally, the state’s procedural safeguards summary can be a useful resource as well (see Resources below for a link to Procedural Safeguards in IDEA).

Refer: For many parents and guardians, a key step is requesting a school evaluation or pursuing a private evaluation. For students in kindergarten and first grade, diagnosis can be a challenging pursuit and is often inconclusive. The skill gap is not as pronounced in this age group. If that is the case, the focus should be on identifying at-risk areas, not on definitive diagnoses. It can be helpful to view early assessment from a public health perspective. A good comparison here would be screening for heart disease. While this process certainly involves looking for active issues, it also includes trying to identify those at risk of developing heart disease and then mapping possible treatments before it becomes a bigger issue.

Reading is an essential skill for life, and it is imperative to think about intervention as proactively as possible. If a parent, guardian, or teacher struggles with gaining traction, they can seek outside support in the form of tutoring, special education advocates, and psychologists.

In an ideal school setting, all of these factors work together in the interest of the individual student. The approach at The Windward School is to utilize all the resources at our disposal to develop a path to success for each student. Waiting to intervene until significant problems reveal themselves has historically resulted

Infographic courtesy of the National Center on Improving Literacy, improvingliteracy.org

in negative outcomes: academically, socially, and psychologically (Schatschneider & Torgeson, 2004). As educators, parents, guardians, and student advocates, we have the responsibility to demonstrate a willingness and an eagerness to “show up” for each child—to listen to their concerns, to implement solutions, and to celebrate successes. Anything less is our failure, not theirs.

Resources Christman, J. & Sayko, S. (2017). Advocating for my child’s literacy needs. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Special Education Programs, National Center on Improving Literacy. Retrieved from improvingliteracy.org IDEA: https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/your-childsrights/basics-about-childs-rights/individuals-with-disabilities-educationact-idea-what-you-need-to-know

Is Dyslexia Genetic: (https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attentionissues/child-learning-disabilities/dyslexia/is-dyslexia-genetic) Procedural Safeguards in IDEA: (https://www.understood.org/en/schoollearning/your-childs-rights/basics-about-childs-rights/10-key-proceduralsafeguards-in-idea)

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2019 Robert J. schwartz Memorial Lecture

Fall 2019 The Beacon

Dr. Richard Aslin Shares Research on Infant Brain Development

By Danielle Scorrano, Research Coordinator and Manhattan Middle School Teacher

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ew innovations in brain and behavioral research inform both scientists and practitioners about the brain. The most powerful and complex organ in the human body, the brain changes with experience in different stages across life.

Remarkably, the brain develops rapidly even during the earliest stages of our infant life. During the annual Robert J. Schwartz Memorial Lecture on the evening of April 9, Dr. Richard Aslin, distinguished research scientist at Haskins Laboratories, shared research on how the brain develops learning and language competencies during infancy. This was the first time in the Schwartz Lecture’s history that the event was hosted at Windward’s Manhattan campus.

Infancy is a critical time period for language development and learning. According to Dr. Aslin, “Early experience matters a lot.”

For decades, Dr. Aslin and his colleagues have conducted studies of infant brains using brain imaging and behavioral techniques to track their visual and auditory processes. Infants have the capability to understand and show preference to visual and auditory cues in their environment. Through even the first year of life, young children can quickly develop an ability to perceive and discriminate sounds including vowels, consonants, and segmentation of syllables.

How is it possible for infants to develop the skills for spoken language at the earliest stages of life? Statistical learning, a process where an individual learns from simply being exposed to the environment around them, allows infant brains to develop more sophisticated skills for early learning (Aslin, 2017). In fact, infants start to learn about their own spoken language, the written structure of language, and the organization of their environment just from exposure to their native language and their visual environment.

In addition to discovering the early mechanisms of infant learning, research has enabled scientists, like Dr. Aslin, to understand language deficits during early childhood. Due to the complexity of the human brain, deficits in language could be impacted by a variety of underlying causes. However, innovations in brain and behavioral measures hold promise for continued understanding of language development throughout childhood. Beyond the advances in these technologies and understanding of the human brain at the earliest stages of life, Dr. Aslin also believes in a closer integration of research, policy, and education for developing measures for early screening, diagnosis, and intervention of language and reading deficits.

Pictured are Jon Rosenshine, Associate Head of School; Sandy Schwarz, Director of Windward Teacher Training Program; Dr. Richard Aslin, 2019 Schwartz Lecturer; and Dr. John J. Russell, Executive Director of The Windward Institute

To see the full video of the 2019 Schwartz Lecture, visit thewindwardschool.org/schwartzlecture

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The Beacon Fall 2019

Inside the Institute

Advances in Educational Neuroscience

By Dr. John J. Russell Executive Director of The Windward Institute

The Windward/haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project

The Windward School has entered into a formal partnership with Haskins Laboratories. As a result of this relationship, The Windward School is now a contributing member of the Haskins Global Literacy Hub which is an international and interdisciplinary collaborative that brings together researchers, practitioners, educators, and education technology specialists. The mission of the Hub is to improve language and literacy outcomes for children at risk for reading difficulties across languages and cultures. Through

Introducing

The Windward Institute (WI or The Institute) provides professional development based on scientifically validated research to Windward faculty and to the broader educational community. Courses, workshops, and lectures address a comprehensive range of topics appropriate for both mainstream and remedial educational settings. The WI also directs the Windward/Haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project. The initial project of this partnership is the in-school research study, Predicting Literacy Outcomes at The Windward School. This study will use neurocognitive measures to better understand which instructional strategies work best for students, a critical step in moving toward individualized brain-based instructional programs. The overarching goal of this partnership is to improve literacy outcomes for all children.

Cognitive and brain imaging research will also be carried

formal affiliations with the Yale University School of Medicine, the Yale Child Study Center, the University of Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and extensive national and international research partnerships, the Windward/ Haskins partnership is in a unique position to efficiently impact positive changes in language and literacy skills and develop scalable solutions to improve literacy rates. Haskins scientists, working with Windward faculty, will conduct in-school research using neurocognitive measures to better understand individual differences in response to different treatments with the goal of establishing a

Institute out to improve early diagnosis of language-based learning disabilities in at-risk preschool children. Finally, a joint Windward/Haskins training and professional development program has been created for Windward teachers, educators, clinicians, researchers, and other stakeholders so that critical research-to-practice goals can be achieved.

In addition to the work above, The Windward Institute plays a critical role in fostering communication and collaboration with all Windward’s external constituents such as alumni, institutions of higher learning, research centers, and secondary schools that may provide post-Windward placements for The Windward School’s students. In doing so, the Institute further enhances The Windward School’s reputation as a leader in the field of language-based learning disabilities.

Editor’s Note: Beginning with the Spring 2020 issue, The Beacon will be published by The Windward Institute.

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While introducing a Windward student to the Manhattan campus EEG lab, Dr. Russell demonstrated the ease of wearing an EEG cap.

better understanding of what works for whom and why, a critical step in moving toward individuated brainbased instructional programs. The project will also include cognitive and brain imaging research aimed at because of their extensive knowledge in a field and, as a result, are improved early diagnosis of language-based learning disabilities in also able to make predictions and recommendations that are worth at-risk children. In addition, the creation of a joint Windward/ heeding, but not necessarily as absolutes immune to change over Haskins training and professional time. development program for educators, Responding to a surge in quackery The model of Haskins clinicians, researchers, and other stakeholders around instructional practices that will facilitate the transfer of critical research claimed to be “brain-based,” John T. scientists and Windward findings to instructional practice.

Bruer published an article entitled This groundbreaking partnership “Education and the Brain: A Bridge educators working marks an important milestone in the Too Far” (1997). In it, he warned that, efforts to achieve the long-sought-after “Practical, well-founded examples of together to translate synergy among cognitive science, putting cognitive science into practice neuroscience, and education referred to as already exist in numerous schools and neuroscience into educational neuroscience. This is an classrooms. Teachers would be better emerging interdisciplinary field that seeks educational practice is off looking at these examples than at to translate research findings on the neural speculative applications of neuroscience.” at the vanguard of these mechanisms of learning to educational Are his admonitions still timely? Do practice and policy and to understand the applications of neuroscience by efforts to realize the effects of education on the brain (Thomas teachers remain speculative? A et al., 2018). Over the last 25 years, the limited chronological review of papers enormous potential of feasibility of educators being able to use focused on the potential link between neuroscience to shape policy and to refine educational neuroscience. neuroscience and education reveals a instruction has undergone intense scrutiny significant level of optimism emerging and debate. over the last 25 years.

The Evolution of Educational Neuroscience

Paraphrasing an old Danish proverb, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr said, “It is very hard to predict, especially the future.” Numerous other notables have proven this to be true. In a speech at the 1977 World Future Society meeting in Boston, Ken Olson, President, Chairman, and Founder of Digital Equipment Corporation stated, “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” Examples abound of very knowledgeable people making some very shortsighted recommendations and doing so with absolute certainty. Obviously, experts are designated as such

Continuous Progress

In fact, soon after the publication of “Education and the Brain: A Bridge Too Far” Bruer published a paper (1998) for the James S. McDonnell Foundation that presaged the changes that were to come. In it, he states, “Truly new results in neuroscience, rarely mentioned in the brain and education literature, point to the brain's lifelong capacity to reshape itself in response to experience. The challenge for educators is to develop learning environments and practices that can exploit the brain's lifelong plasticity; define the behaviors we want to teach; design learning environments to impart

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them; and constantly test the educational efficacy of these environments.”

Striking a similarly optimistic but cautious tone in “Pedagogy Meets Neuroscience” (2005) Elsbeth Stern noted, “This desire for ‘evidence-based’ education has coincided with a period of tremendous progress in the field of neuroscience and enormous public interest in its findings, leading to an ongoing debate about the potential of neuroscience to inform education reform. Although the value of neuroscience research on this front is seemingly promising, collaboration with educators is doomed to failure if the public is not correctly informed and if the research is not considered in an interdisciplinary context.”

In 2006, Usha Goswami noted that neuroscience had made significant advances in areas highly relevant to education, however, she counseled that “there is a gulf between current science and direct classroom applications. Most scientists would argue that filling the gulf is premature.” That gap shrank a bit with the publication of Neuroscience Core Concepts (2008). In it, the Society for Neuroscience stated that neuroscience has the potential to transform teacher preparation and professional development and to ultimately affect how students think about their own learning.

Building on this work, Dubinsky, Roehrig, and Varma (2013) proposed that far from abstract background material, the core concepts of neuroscience represent practical knowledge that has the potential to inform teacher practice in classroom settings, as well as to motivate students to learn. Riffing on the title of Bruer’s 1998 article, Sigman et al., published “Neuroscience and Education: Prime Time to Build the Bridge” (2014) arguing, “Neuroscience methods, tools and theoretical frameworks have broadened our understanding of the mind in a way that is highly relevant to educational practice.” This position is further reinforced in “Neuroscience and Education: We Already Reached the Tipping Point” (Martin-Loeches, 2015) in which a series of contributing researchers argue that it is not necessary to wait any longer for educational neuroscience to inform curriculum (Zadina, 2015).

In the same publication, Goswami (2015) expounds on the effectiveness of electroencephalograph (EEG) systems in the early diagnosis of the phonological processing issues that are characteristic of dyslexia. The editor concludes, “It is not necessary to wait any longer; there is already sufficient neuroscientific knowledge. The most exhilarating is, however, that the future of educational neuroscience appears highly fruitful and promising.”

The Future of Educational Neuroscience

Just as Ken Olsen wrongly predicted that there would be no reasons to have computers in homes, Howard-Jones (2010) has gone on record saying that no classroom-ready neuroscience knowledge is ever likely to exist. This overstatement has already been contradicted by researchers working in several areas where the impact of neuroscience on education has been clearly documented.

For example, exposing pre-service and current teachers to the concept of brain plasticity, the brain's ability to change structure and function (Kolb et al., 1998), leads to critical transformations in the ways teachers and learners perceive their roles—moving from the long-held belief of “using the brain” to one of “changing the

brain” (Dubinsky et al., 2013). Brain plasticity has resulted in the emergence of a new perspective on instruction, “one where teachers come to see themselves as designers of experiences that ultimately change students’ brains” (Dubinsky et al., 2013). Teachers are likely to be highly motivated by knowing that they have the ability to design and provide experiences that will shape students’ brains, and students will be empowered by understanding that their experiences in school can actually change their brains.

Neuroscientists have also made considerable progress in explicating the neural processes that make reading possible and have begun to describe at the neural level the biological basis for reading difficulties (McCrory, Mechelli, Frith & Price, 2004; Shaywitz, Shaywitz, & Fulbrigh, 2003; Hoeft, McCandliss, & Black, 2011). Still, our knowledge of these processes is evolving and is difficult to translate directly into educational practice (Bowers, 2016), however, the progress that has been made has begun to have a profound effect on education.

Neuroscience at The Windward School

Research conducted as part of the Windward/Haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project will further strengthen the link between neuroscience and education. The inaugural project will use EEG and behavioral measures to assess individual differences in response to core components of the Windward curriculum. These brain measures will be used to explicate key neurocognitive predictors and to link outcomes to diverse learning experiences demonstrating how brain responses can actually guide instructional choices for a given child; indeed, the brain responses can predict, long before behavioral changes can be measured, if a teacher is on the “right” track in shaping a learning event to the child's unique brain organization (Pugh, 2019). This project builds upon an ongoing NIH-funded study at Haskins Laboratories that combines frequent, simple, and non-invasive brain imaging measurement (EEG; fNIRS) before, during, and after a given treatment experience to better understand how treatments work when they do; why some children fail to respond to a given treatment approach; and how to modify treatments to better support individuated training especially for non-responders to conventional approaches. Bringing this NIH-funded infrastructure to the Windward/Haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project will allow the partnership to contribute to cutting-edge issues in educational neuroscience including fostering the use of structured, sequential, systematic, explicit instruction that is so important in learning to read in the broader educational community (Dehaene et al., 2010).

Over the past 25 years, the bridge between education and neuroscience has evolved from its meager and often misguided beginnings into a field with an ever-increasing research base to support it. The model of Haskins scientists and Windward educators working together to translate neuroscience into educational practice is at the vanguard of these efforts to realize the enormous potential of educational neuroscience.

To stay informed on the Windward/haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project, visit thewindwardschool.org/haskins

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Q&a with Inspiring Leaders in the world of dyslexia

Nicole Landi

Defines EEG Testing and its Educational Impact

By Heather Pray, Director of Communications Dr. Nicole Landi is an associate professor at the university of connecticut, adjunct

assistant professor at the Yale child study

center, and director of electroencephalography (EEG) research at Haskins Laboratories.

Her research focuses on language and

reading development in typically developing children and in children with complex

neurodevelopmental disorders, including

dyslexia, developmental language disorder (DLD), and autism. she uses multiple

methodologies—magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), EEG, and genetic analyses—with the intention of identifying causal mechanisms that contribute to reading and language

difficulties. Dr. Landi received her PhD and

Ms in psychology and cognitive neuroscience from the university of Pittsburgh and her

Ba in psychology from university at albany. she resides in New Haven, cT.

To begin, how did you first become interested in scientific research and what sparked your initial curiosity?

In part, I was always someone who was really interested in the way things work. When I started college, I began as a biology major because I enjoyed discovering how humans work. At that time, at my university, it turned out that there weren’t a lot of opportunities to explore the aspect of human organization that I was particularly interested in, which was the brain. I started to take a lot more psychology classes and eventually worked in a couple of cognitive psychology research labs. That’s what started getting me thinking in an experimental way.

how did you come to narrow your focus on language and reading development in typically and atypically developing children?

I developed a deeper interest in language and reading from my time working in the two research labs in college. One of the labs focused broadly on language acquisition. The other lab specifically focused on the semantic, orthographic, and phonological relationships among words; to do this we studied priming, which is a phenomenon where if you briefly see a word and then you see a related word— related in one of many different ways—you will be faster able to identify that second word. This approach affords a deeper understanding of the kind of information we automatically extract from words and how quickly we can do so. When I began to consider what I’d like to pursue in graduate school, I realized then that I wanted to combine my interest in neuroscience with my interests in psycholinguistics. So, I sought a program in the emerging area of cognitive neuroscience, and ultimately, I studied at the University of Pittsburgh’s interdisciplinary program, The Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. My advisor there, Dr. Charles Perfetti, introduced me to the study of individual differences in reading, and his work has strongly influenced my thinking.

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What questions about dyslexia or language and reading development keep you motivated to continue your research?

One motivator for me is identifying causal mechanisms. How do we come to have individual differences in reading or language? What are the neurobiological factors? What are the genetic factors? What are the things that fall into place biologically or environmentally that lead to those individual differences? Another big question that drives me is: How can we, as scientists who study reading, help in the effort to identify at-risk children early? And, can we figure out why some kids continue to struggle, despite receiving the best evidence-based treatments available?

Through this work with Windward, we see how our research might change the way children are taught, which is an amazing opportunity for me and my team.

Now you are leading the haskins research team on the Windward/haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project by overseeing the EEG lab research. In your own words, can you describe what this project entails?

The Windward/Haskins collaboration is a multifaceted project that’s part of a larger global initiative aimed at further developing educational neuroscience within the realm of reading. The project seeks to understand if, within a population of children who all have language-based learning disabilities, we can determine why some children respond well to evidence-based treatments and other children do not.

how does a researcher design an EEG study and decide which tests—like the ones that will be used in the Predicting Literacy Outcomes at The Windward School study—to conduct?

When it comes to picking specific tasks and designing specific experiments, it is tricky. For example, we know that standardized assessments used to measure skills such as phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming are useful and predictive, but they have many subcomponents. They are not pure measures. Many phonological awareness tasks, for example, involve phonological processing but also executive functions. As researchers, we try to design behavioral and electrophysiological experiments that will measure independent components to get a finer grain of assessment of relevant processes, and, ultimately, to see if these will be predictive of treatment response.

For those who may not be familiar with EEG testing, what should people know?

First of all, EEG studies are safe. Whenever we’re going to be using something technology based and with children involved, we want to make sure it’s safe. The equipment and the technology is very noninvasive.

What differentiates EEG testing from other types of assessments?

EEG is a sensitive measure. Parents might ask, “Why do you need to do this testing in addition to all of the behavioral assessments that my children routinely get that are supposed to tell you all about their phonological processing, their working memory, etc.?” To that I would say behavioral assessments are very useful metrics, but they’re not necessarily able to provide as sensitive a measurement as we might need. With the example of the Windward study, we are gathering a lot of sensitive information that might help us better understand when kids are or are not responding well to treatment and why that might be so. EEG testing might tell us something about the participants’ underlying cognitive processing that will help us get a better understanding of what is going on.

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Nicole Landi (second from right) with members of the Windward/Haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project team

What will the impact be of researchers working with educators, as you are doing with the Windward/haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project?

Bidirectional learning. I don’t have a background in education and most cognitive neuroscientists do not. If our goal is to probe into and understand the cognitive neuroscience of reading, those of us who do this research need to understand how children are being taught to read. Being able to expose my team of students, postdocs, research associates, and myself to the field of education firsthand has already been an incredible learning experience. I expect it will continue to be so. Through this work with Windward, we can see how our research might change the way children are taught, which is an amazing opportunity for me and my team. Reciprocally, I hope the educators involved will learn from us about experimental methodology and cognitive neuroscience techniques, both the benefits and the limitations. It’s my hope that this will help all of us to shape our work in a more enlightened way.

Are there any resources that you would recommend to parents to learn more about EEG labs or cognitive neuroscience?

For EEG, there aren’t many. We should have more resources geared toward consumers, and I hope we can create some through the Windward/Haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project. That said, there is a lot of overlap in terms of the information obtained from different cognitive neuroscience tools. If someone learns about functional MRI (fMRI) for example, some of what is learned will transfer to EEG. fMRI in particular has been much more widely used to study dyslexia, and these findings have been made available in a way that is easier to digest.

Why is collaboration between experts of different disciplines, like cognitive neuroscience researchers and educators, so vital?

Researchers and teachers working directly together is important because it facilitates progress. When we have open dialogue, a common headspace, benchmarks, and goals, our work is more likely to benefit children. We have been thrilled to work with The Windward School, and we have already learned so much. I really am so thankful for the opportunity to come into Windward and do this exciting work.

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Intersecting Research with Classroom practice

EEG Labs Installation and Teacher Training

By Danielle Scorrano, Research Coordinator and Manhattan Middle School Teacher

A

s The Windward School’s research coordinator and an eighth-grade teacher, I regularly reflect upon how research informs my teaching. Understanding that our brain is malleable has profoundly impacted the way I teach my students.

While I continue to learn about the research about our reading brain, I am excited about the future of neuroscience advancements in education. Neuroimaging technology has enabled researchers to understand the functions and neuroplasticity of our brains, providing stronger insights into how we learn to read.

As a key educational partner with Haskins Laboratories through the Haskins Global Literacy Hub, The Windward School is now contributing to the research scholarship by participating in a pioneering neuroimaging study, Predicting Literacy Outcomes at The Windward School. Through the Windward/Haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project, we hope to better understand the plasticity of the reading brain in order to improve language and literacy outcomes for children at risk for reading difficulties locally and globally.

In preparation for the study, custom electroencephalography (EEG) laboratories were installed at the Manhattan and Westchester campuses this past June. EEG, a non-invasive, low stress method of neuroimaging, allows researchers to deeply understand our students’ brains at a granular level that may not be evident in traditional “pen and paper” behavioral assessments. The Predicting Literacy Outcomes at The Windward School study will demonstrate changes in brain activity that are involved in reading.

As teacher training has been a hallmark of Windward, the School expanded upon its professional development offerings for faculty by offering a unique learning opportunity to participate in the study and engage deeply in the current research of educational neuroscience, alongside research experts in the field. In August, groups of volunteers, including Windward teachers, guidance counselors, and speech-language pathologists, arrived at the Windward campuses in Westchester and Manhattan for training days in the foundations of educational neuroscience and the use of EEG to measure brain activity. Trey Avery, a senior research applications specialist at Philips, led a morning presentation about neuroscience and brain imaging measures used in research studies.

In addition to learning about brain measuring techniques, the faculty volunteers practiced applying EEG caps with the guidance from Dr. Avery and Vishakha Agrawal from Haskins Laboratories.

The teachers precisely and deliberately measured their colleagues’ heads and ensured the electrodes on the EEG cap were placed correctly. Once the caps were positioned, many teachers

commented on how comfortable the cap felt. Teachers gained a better sense of how they would explain the process to student participants during the school year. As a current Windward teacher, I know students will appreciate the opportunity to contribute to science and to learn more about how their brain works.

Throughout the school year, faculty volunteers will have an opportunity to participate more in the study by assisting Haskins researchers in data collection. Adding this element of participatory research will enable Windward teachers to experience the direct connection between research and practice. In addition to the research project, ongoing professional development led by Haskins scientists will continue throughout the school year, so all Windward teachers will be equipped with an extensive understanding of how scientists and educators can further collaborate.

Incoming students in grades 1 through 6 have been invited to participate in phase one of the in-school research project, Predicting Literacy Outcomes at The Windward School. This research will examine the neurocognitive bases of individual responses to the well-established evidence-based interventions delivered at The Windward School. Using a variety of research techniques, the Haskins researchers and Windward educators will gain new insights into how evidence-based academic intervention modulates brain organization for literacy, language learning, and remediation but also why some students respond to interventions more robustly than others with similar neurocognitive profiles. A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of speech and print processing for children with language-based learning disabilities will help identify new biomarkers of response to intervention. This research represents a key step towards the further development of comprehensive models of the neural basis of reading development in children who learn differently.

The Windward/Haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project has the potential to contribute to much more than our school community; we expect that it will influence the field of education more broadly. The study will continue to leverage Haskins’s expertise to further the research-based practices that Windward teachers are expertly applying in their classrooms every day. The intersection between research and classroom at The Windward School is one step toward our larger vision: a world where every child with a language-based learning disability is empowered to achieve unlimited success. Difference is power.

Learn more at thewindwardschool.org/haskins

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Stay updated about Windward’s neuroimaging study and the Windward/haskins Laboratories Collaborative Project by visiting thewindwardschool.org/haskins

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The Beacon Fall 2019

alumni profile

Robert C. Carroll ’04 Fights for Dyslexia Screenings for All

By Stephanie Huie, Associate Director of Digital Communications & Publications

D

annually at Windward’s graduation and id you know that one in five recognition ceremony to an individual who students in the New York City has made an impact helping children with public school system is dyslexic? learning disabilities to reach their full potential Did you know that if you intervene with with advocacy efforts in research, pedagogy, proper instruction by the second grade, it is legislation, education, or business. much more manageable and economical to “As someone who is dyslexic and learned ensure children with dyslexia are reading at to read only because of The Windward School grade level? So, if 20% of the 1.1 million and the educational foundation that it laid for New York City public school population is me,” Robert said upon receiving the award, dyslexic and early intervention is critical, why “I am committed to working every day as a is every student not screened for dyslexia? legislator to make sure every student in every These are the questions that school gets the opportunities and the learning Assemblymember Robert C. Carroll has that I received at Windward.” been posing to the New York State Assembly.

Windward is a shining experiences Robert was diagnosed with dyslexia when Elected in November 2016 to represent the he was in the first grade. He was a precocious 44th District of New York, he has advocated beacon of what a and talkative child, answering questions when for legislation that implements universal smart curriculum that is called upon by his teachers, but he could not dyslexia screening of all kindergarteners and at all and struggled mightily with basic dedicates the resources necessary to provide research-based can do read spelling. His family realized he needed more effective teacher training. personalized and direct instruction, so he “Many students with dyslexia are for dyslexic children transferred from P.S. 230, his local elementary struggling with the same issues that I had in and that model should school in Brooklyn, to The Gateway School, school,” said Robert, “and we know that a at that time located on the Upper East Side. science-based, multisensory, phonics-based be exported around Then, for middle school, Robert took the long curriculum works to make sure every child bus ride from Brooklyn to Westchester each can become a fluent reader. We have access the globe. day to attend The Windward School. to cheap and accurate screening methods to “Windward saved my life and changed the determine who is and who is not at risk for trajectory of my academic career,” Robert said. “Without dyslexia, and many states have already adopted screening programs, Windward teaching me the foundational academic skills that I so early intervention can be provided for students who are dyslexic.

“Windward is a shining beacon of what a smart curriculum that needed to thrive, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Following Windward, Robert attended Xaverian High School is research-based can do for dyslexic children and that model should be exported around the globe,” he continued. “As an assemblymember, before moving on to SUNY Binghamton for his undergraduate a goal of mine is to make sure that not just the lucky few who get to degree in history and theatre. He then attended New York Law School, where he earned his JD. As an attorney, Robert specialized go to Windward get a proper education. All students in New York in contract law, election law, trusts and estates, and real estate law City must be given an appropriate and free public education they for three and a half years before being elected to public office. In deserve.” addition to his practice, Robert simultaneously served as In acknowledgment of his legislative work on behalf of the development director and fundraiser for an independent theatre hundreds of thousands of dyslexic children throughout New York, company in Manhattan. One of his plays, The Believers, which he Robert was named the inaugural recipient of The John J. Russell wrote during law school, was produced in the fall of 2014.

Award for Advocacy in Education in June. The award will be given

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Fall 2019 The Beacon

When the 44th District seat became vacant, Robert decided to run for the New York State legislature based on his desire to represent his home community and neighbors while helping to set public policy for Brooklyn and the state. Robert is a lifelong resident of Windsor Terrace and Kensington, part of his district that includes portions of the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope, Borough Park, Victorian Flatbush, Ditmas Park, and Midwood.

“It’s very fulfilling to represent the neighborhoods I grew up in; it’s a great responsibility and a great honor as well,” he said.

Although seemingly disparate, Robert’s areas of study and practice—history, theatre, law, and politics—are all about understanding how people interact with one another in order to solve problems, he explained. This has always motivated him.

Whether it was through portraying the emotions of a character on stage as an actor, mediating contract disputes as an attorney, or drafting laws to benefit his constituents as an assemblymember, Robert has drawn on his empathetic skills at every stage of his career.

Upon reflection, Robert noted the Windward connection to his academic and professional achievements. “I probably would never have gone to college and law school without having attended Windward,” he said. “Ever since I was young, I thought I might like to pursue theatre or politics, but those types of endeavors are next to impossible if you are not a strong reader or writer. That is why I am passionate about effectuating real change in the New York public education system through dyslexia screenings and specific curriculum interventions. All children deserve to get a great education, so they can become fluent readers and pursue their dreams.”

In addition to advocating for education, Robert adamantly supports green energy adoption, transparent election laws, and fair workers’ rights. He splits his time between his district office in Brooklyn and his capitol office in Albany. When he is in the borough, Robert may be found attending a parent-teacher association meeting at a local school, discussing the closing of a bus route with commuters, getting briefed by a local precinct on

NY State Assemblymember Robert C. Carroll ’04 at a press conference

neighborhood crime rates, hearing constituent needs at a senior center, or speaking with the department of environmental conservation about green energy policy. While in Albany, he is busy drafting legislation, sitting on committee hearings, and collaborating with fellow assemblymembers on the issues that affect their districts.

Robert enjoys working with local leaders and concerned constituents of the 44th District. He encourages all young people, whether they are interested in a career in public service or not, to be active in their communities and to be attuned to local matters.

“I am a big believer in the phrase ‘think global, act local.’ You can see and effectuate change on the local level in big and powerful ways that affect people’s lives every day—be it making local schools better, making the environment healthier and more energy efficient, or making the criminal justice system more humane. We are desperately in need of insightful thinkers and people who can think outside of the box. Be legitimately sincere and generous with people, and you will always be performing a great public service for your community.”

All children deserve to get a great education so they can become fluent readers and pursue their dreams.

To stay abreast of future New York State Assembly legislative developments concerning dyslexia screening and curriculum intervention, visit nyassembly.gov/mem/Robert-C-Carroll To view Robert speaking at Windward’s 2019 Dream Big event, visit bit.ly/dreambigcarroll

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The Windward School Newsletter for Educators and Parents Fall 2019

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