FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23
Greetings Eddies,
October is Dyslexia Awareness Month, so this week’s digest is all about reading (to borrow a phrase from a popular curriculum).
But when families ask us about reading, we want to do more than just recommend a curriculum and say, “Good luck!”
Our team has found that with dyslexia and struggling readers, there are often two deeper questions on a parent’s mind:
What can I do on my own vs. when do I call in an expert?
If we do need outside resources, how can OpenEd help me access them?
Jamie Lesko, a former special ed teacher and our associate director of student success, answers the first question in this week’s Deep Dive.
But wait, there’s more!
ALSO IN THIS EDITION:
THE PULSE: What helped parents’ struggling readers, from vision therapy to an at-home screener.
TRENDS, TIPS & TOOLS: Teacher read-aloud picks, toddler letter play, and who homeschools now.
COMMUNITY CORNER: Around the World Week is coming! (Oct 26–30)
Let’s dive in.
– Charlie (the OpenEd newsletter guy)
P.S. Know a family having a hard October? You don’t have to wait until next fall to make a change. Mid-year enrollment is open now, and applications for a January start close Friday, November 13. Apply here, or forward this email to a friend who needs a fresh start.
DEEP DIVE
Homeschooling a Child With Dyslexia: What to Do Yourself and When to Call an Expert
By Jamie Lesko
Traditional schools have special education departments, reading specialists, and teams of professionals to help struggling readers. So when you’re homeschooling and notice your child stalling on basic words or guessing from the first letter, the question hits hard: Are you in over your head?
I taught special education for years, and I still felt unqualified when I started homeschooling my own three kids. What I learned: you don’t have to become a reading specialist. At home you can give the low-stress, one-on-one attention and custom pacing a crowded classroom can’t.
Read on for my four rules, from the everyday signs worth watching to the “second person theory.”
More OpenEd Reading Resources
FOR OPENED FAMILIES
How Dyslexia Support Works in Your State
If you’re an enrolled OpenEd family wondering where to start when reading feels harder than it should, we also published a new step-by-step guide this week from our Special Education and Student Success teams.
It covers the pre-referral process and school evaluations, our free Daily Learning Labs that give live support and gentle accountability, and how you can access individual tutoring through OpenEd.
THE PULSE
13 Parents on What Finally Helped Their Kids Read
When we asked our Facebook community which tools and steps made the biggest difference for their dyslexic readers, 13 parents chimed in with battle-tested advice:
Rule out vision tracking first: Several replies urged parents to check how their child’s eyes track and converge before assuming phonics is the only bottleneck. Two families specifically pointed to Vision Reading Academy, which offers a free online screening for convergence insufficiency.
An affordable at-home screener: Two parents independently recommended reading specialist April McMurtrey’s book Is It Dyslexia?, a step-by-step screener parents can walk through at the kitchen table before pursuing formal testing.
Separate ear-reading from eye-reading: Families praised pairing physical books with audio on a Yoto player or using Bookshare so kids can absorb age-appropriate stories while doing 15 minutes of structured Orton-Gillingham work (or working with specialists like the Dyslexia Center of Utah).
This week’s question: Have you ever changed course in the middle of a school year? Whether you switched schools, curricula, or your whole approach, what told you it was time, and how did it go? Hit reply and tell us!
LATEST IN OPEN EDUCATION
Tools
Free read-along audiobooks for kids with dyslexia. (Bookshare)
A reading specialist’s step-by-step dyslexia screener you can work through at the kitchen table before paying for testing. (Boulder Bookstore)
Two free fall crafts: leaf mandalas and potato-stamp pumpkins. (Montessori From the Heart, Hands On As We Grow)
Getting reluctant readers to pick up a book, in 60 seconds. (EdWeek Video)
Spooky-not-scary read-alouds our teachers love: Pumpkin Jack and Jon Klassen’s The Skull for little ones, The Westing Game for grades 3–7.
LeapFrog Fridge Phonics plus Letter Factory had one teacher’s four-year-old twins blending three-letter words. (LeapFrog)
Starfall, which Jamie Lesko says her nearly grown kids “still sing the songs” from. (Starfall)
A free Canva template turns family and pet photos into a name book for toddlers learning their letters. (Canva)
Tips
Why drilling the three Rs on their own so often backfires. (Patterns for Life)
Can copywork make handwriting worse? (Brave Learning)
Charlotte Mason was doing retrieval practice a century early. (Simply Charlotte Mason)
If your kid tells elaborate stories out loud but freezes at a blank page, the problem may not be reading at all. (Savvy Learning)
Grades and test scores predict less than you’d think. Three emotional habits do far more for how teens turn out. (Greater Good, Berkeley)
Reluctant middle-school writer? Let them talk the first draft out with Google Docs voice typing, then edit together. (From our teachers’ Slack)
For younger kids with dysgraphia, build letters from play dough or trace raised letter tiles with eyes closed. (From our teachers’ Slack)
Mixing up 6 through 10? Skip the flashcards and practice subitizing: dot patterns at a glance, and Cheerios counted onto cards. (Third Space Learning)
Trends
Who homeschools now? Probably not who you picture. (Homeschool Boss)
Why more parents are building their own school week. (The 74)
Strict screen-time rules or a parent’s mindset? A new study of 10-to-16-year-olds found one matters far more. (Techno Sapiens)
A teacher helped his seventh grader kick a serious Chromebook habit. Then his wife asked what he was doing at breakfast. (EdSurge)
Two Missouri librarians got middle schoolers reading for fun again with 20 minutes at lunch and zero reading logs. (EdWeek)
Pizza Hut’s BOOK IT! reading challenge got a generation through the ’80s. Did it build readers, or just pizza fans? (EdWeek)
When occupational therapy stalled, one mom stopped protecting her son from risk. He now works as a New York flight attendant. (Let Grow)
COMMUNITY CORNER
Around the World Week + Field Trip Season
Next week (October 26–30) is Around the World Week inside the OpenEd community! Enrolled students can jump into K–5, 6–8, and 9–12 virtual clubs all week long to share a dish from their heritage or favorite place, compare traditions, and explore global landmarks together. (Check Wednesday’s Belong Bullet for sign-up links.)
KIT & ED
Paper Trail
One last thing: We believe families should customize their education, so why not your inbox, too? Set your email preferences to choose which emails you get. (Note: Enrolled OpenEd families will still receive required program updates.)
Have a great weekend!
– Charlie (the OpenEd newsletter guy)