This is a continuation from the interview with author Don M. Winn about his life with dyslexia. Read Part I of his interview here.
8. The dyslexic child struggles to learn the language, especially in written form, but also—to varying degrees—in oral form. Could you explain how parents could recognize these challenges?
I’ll use my son as an example. He started making sounds (vocalizations) as a baby, but struggled to pronounce many words. It was sometimes a sleuthing expedition to understand what he was talking about. We live in Texas where it is really hot, and air conditioning is a daily part of existence. But it took us a while to understand that when he said “deenta-deenta,” he was talking about noticing the cool air from the vent above his bed blowing on his skin. In other words, air conditioner. He also had trouble pronouncing the letter r. He pronounced the word car as cow, for example. Another thing a parent might notice is if their child has trouble identifying rhyming words or reproducing the sounds letters make as you read together. There are many more things that can alert a parent to the needs of their child discussed in my book.
9. I can hear readers saying, “I read to my child every day, and they still struggle with learning to read.” Can you tell me why you even consider daily reading to children so important?
If your readers have made it this far, I think they can see how far-reaching the social and emotional effects of dyslexia and its sibling conditions are. They reach all the way into young adulthood and then far beyond. My story is a good example of that, of the fallout, much like toxic waste from Chernobyl, that drifts and settles into every nook and corner of a person’s psyche. So, reading daily together isn’t just about getting your child’s reading and comprehension up to par, it’s about so much more. It’s about helping them feel safe and loved.
There’s a term in psychology called attachment theory that’s good to know about. I feel like this is important to spend some time on. Psychology Today defines attachment theory this way:
“The emotional bond that typically forms between infant and caregiver is the means by which the helpless infant gets primary needs met. It then becomes the engine of subsequent social, emotional, and cognitive development. The early experience of the infant stimulates growth of neural pathways that will sculpt enduring patterns of response to many things.
“The attachment experience affects personality development, particularly a sense of security, and research shows that it influences the ability to form stable relationships throughout life. Neuroscientists believe that attachment is such a primal need that there are networks of neurons in the brain dedicated to setting it in motion and a hormone to foster the process, oxytocin.
“The genius of the attachment system is that it provides the infant’s first coping system; it sets up in the infant’s mind a mental representation of the caregiver, one that is wholly portable and can be summoned up as a comforting mental presence in difficult moments. Because it allows an infant to separate from the caregiver without distress and begin to explore the world around her, attachment contains within it the platform for the child’s ability to survive independently.”
In other words, a child’s future happiness, coping abilities, and survival skills are all linked to its earliest experiences in attachment. It’s hard to overstate the importance of this early window of developmental potential in a child’s life. Maryanne Wolfe, professor of child development at Tufts University, the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, has much to say about the manifold benefits of shared reading from infancy, but I’ll just share one quote here:
“The association between hearing written language and feeling loved provides the best foundation for this long process, (emergent or early literacy) and no cognitive scientist or educational researcher could have designed a better one.” In short, reading daily with a child is a parent’s best investment of their time, no matter what the child’s learning curve on reading and comprehension tests.
10. As I read through your book, the word “curiosity” came up again and again. Not only were you asking children to be “curious,” but for parents to be “curious.” Tell the readers more about this “curiosity.”
Curiosity is a much more effective approach to any challenge than most of our default settings as humans. We all take in information and then draw conclusions and make decisions based on what we’ve learned or observed. For example, when I couldn’t figure out how to improve my learning challenges, I assumed there were no solutions or improvements available, and then assumed the identity of a broken person with no options or hope.
This is not an unusual response, especially for a child with a very little perspective and few coping skills. Or a parent may communicate, explicitly or implied, that they believe their child must not care about them or school, must not be trying hard enough, must be lazy, or even stupid, when they see them struggling academically. Hardly an uplifting, motivating message! How much better it is to take a step back from the intense emotions and pain and ask instead, “I wonder what other reasons could be causing this to happen? I wonder if there is an approach or solution that I haven’t been able to think of that someone else could help me discover?” Curiosity is based on hope, and judgment blocks hope. Having tried both ways, I invite your readers to try curiosity.
11. Tell the readers why it is so vital to connect social and emotional learning?
Academic life is not a vacuum environment. What happens in school has lifelong effects, effects that can foster or inhibit positive relationships, peace of mind, emotional well-being, physical health, and self-sustenance, to name just a few important items. Growing up and formal education is a package deal: learning how to function socially and cope with one’s emotions is intertwined with every task required of learners, and must be considered as being just as important as the “three Rs.”
12. Who (inside and outside your family) influenced you with positive relationships?
Within my family, I’d have to say, my dad, grandmother, and my wife of nearly 40 years are my most positive influencers. Outside my family, I had a couple of older adults, friends now gone, who took an interest in me during my most turbulent and unsettled years after my parents’ divorce and gave me a home. In the last few years, I’ve met so many wonderful folks who care about dyslexia and kids as passionately as I do, including Sinclair Sherril, Peggy Stern, and Jasmine Dean.
Sinclair Sherril, head of Boon Philanthropy, is focused on educating teachers to teach all kids how to read via the current science of how the brain actually learns best. Peggy Stern, an Academy Award-winning director, created and produces SuperD!Ville, a video-based social and emotional learning curriculum for seven- to twelve-year-olds who learn differently. Jasmine Dean is a new younger force in the dyslexia world. As the head of Celebrate Dyslexia, Jasmine is proving to be a real juggernaut in this field and will help thousands of kids and their families to embrace their dyslexia with a positive, hopeful spirit of celebration. I am honored and humbled by the interest and support they continue to give me and my work.
13. You talk about “agency,” stating that “when a person feels in control of their life, capable, confident, and curious rather than threatened or defeated, they are experiencing agency. Agency affects learning at a deep and profound level of the psyche.” How did “agency” come about for you?
In social science, agency is defined as the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. In my experience, nothing hinder a person from developing agency like the self-limiting beliefs endemic to learning challenges. Coming to believe one is lazy, stupid, broken, unmotivated, or ineffectual no matter what one tries is a sure path to viewing one’s self as a victim. And victims, by definition, feel no sense of agency.
My agency journey has never stopped. It is a gradual, organic process, greatly stymied for the first few decades of my life by all of my self-limiting beliefs. But as I’ve done things, great and small, each accomplishment or victory has taken me to a place of greater hope and possibility. If someone had told me when I was 18, 25, or even 30 years old that I’d be writing children’s books for reluctant or struggling readers, and a non-fiction reference guidebook about dyslexia, I would have laughed at the idea. Yet here I am, doing my best to make a difference. While my internal voices often try to revert to old “scripts,” each time that happens, I remind myself that I don’t choose to believe those things anymore. If by doing so, I get to continue my work and make a difference for just one child, it’s all been worth it.
14. Where can we learn more about your books and where to purchase them?
My website/blog is https://donwinn.com, and you’ll find lots of information about my books and resources for teachers and parents there.
All of my books are available in softcover, hardcover, and eBook, and the Sir Kaye series (which features a character named Reggie, who has dyslexia) is available in audio: Amazon US, Amazon UK. All of my books are also available for significant discounts to schools, libraries, non-profits, retailers, and vendors directly from Cardboard Box Adventures Publishing or Ingram/LSI.
