Connecting the Dots.

“Nothing.” “It’s boring.” “I guess.” “This sucks.” “I don’t know.”Every educator gets these responses from students now and again. In 25+ years of teaching students who struggle with language, with school, or with themselves… Read more

Patterns. They’re everywhere. In our decorating, in our favorite song, in our behavior, and, perhaps most importantly, in our language.But what exactly ARE patterns? And what would happen if we didn’t have them or couldn’t recognize them? Read more

If you teach language and literacy for a living, I bet you had at least one moment recently where you thought you’d be put out of work by a bot.I did, too. But only one. (Okay, maybe two.)For sure, bots are here to stay. Educators are using AI to… Read more

I teach writing. Well, that’s not completely accurate. I teach students in grades 3 and up how to get ideas out of their heads and onto paper. So technically, that’s writing. I also teach teachers how to… Read more

Sometimes you meet someone whose passion feels bigger than life. Jennifer King is one of those people. After watching her own child’s struggle with dysgraphia and school writing, she set out to change the world… Read more

I read an article today that offered a handful of strategies to develop students’ executive function skills. I see articles like this all the time these days, and I have a confession: they make me bonkers.While I’m thrilled to see more and more educators embracing the term executive functions, too often suggestions for teaching executive functions don’t… Read more

A former colleague sent me an article the other day asking for my thoughts. The article, something along the lines of Reasons Kids Can’t Write and What to Do About It, was similar to others I’ve come across.The text started with… Read more

Travel journals. They are a great way to capture memories of zipping all over the world with friends and family. Unless you’re a 10 year old who hates writing. Everyone, meet my nephew… Read more

You are the only person who can say what you have to say. No one else can capture your ideas. They might have similar ones, but they won’t… Read more

The first rule of Brain Frames is you don’t teach Brain Frames. You teach… Read more

As much as we long to get back to our “life before Covid” — seeing each other and working with SLPs, teachers, and schools in person — we can’t…. Read more

“A high school senior without a driver’s license is like a…”I struggled to complete that sentence as my student gave me a rueful smile and nodded his head… Read more

Some sentences are harder than others to understand, especially for students with developmental language disorders (DLD). Comprehension suffers when meaning doesn’t follow the order of the words or sentences are dense with details. For example:… Read more

I was chatting recently with a fifth-grade teacher I’ve gotten to know through several of our trainings and workshops. I mused that the switch to online teaching last year must have wreaked havoc on her planning. “Not really,” she said. “I used… Read more

If you are like me, you are a geek about language. You love how language works. And, as heartbreaking as it is to witness, you are fascinated by how it can get muddled up. Read more

Classrooms are orderly because chaos does awful things to students. Everything is coming at them at once, and they can’t sort it or make sense of it. They don’t know what to do next. Bombarded by what feels random and confusing, they become… Read more

When schools shut their doors this past March, teachers world wide headed home to begin teaching online, and we began searching for ways to help them do the job that they love to do. Knowing teachers new to the world of online instruction needed resources… Read more

I’m noticing a new language trend lately that is, admittedly, driving me slightly batty: use of the word “issues” as a substitute for the word disorder or disability – as in, “reading issues” or “language issues” or “attention issues.” Hello…these are not ISSUES!… Read more

Sitting on an airplane, there’s little to do other than reflect on where you are going or where you just came from. In this case, I am heading home from working with a school in Michigan that kicked off an EmPOWER training for their elementary and middle school teachers this year. I’m struck by two lingering images… Read more

There are so many different ways for students to study and learn effectively. If you ask them which one they rely on, though, most will say the “F” word. No, not THAT one, this one… Read more

This past weekend, I had the honor of officiating the wedding of two of my dearest friends, Chris and Andrea. It was a thrilling experience for a whole host of reasons, but one of them continues to resonate with me days later. It has to do with language (one of my favorite subjects)… Read more