Helping Kids and the Adults Supporting Them Understand How the Brain Learns to Read (with Lori Josephson)

Are we really “overteaching” phonics, or should there be a hard stopping point where it’s not taught past a certain grade?

Are current stories trending on popular news outlets aligned with best practices for supporting dyslexic learners?

Is the public becoming more educated on how we learn to read, write, and spell?

I invited my colleague, Lori Josephson, an author, consultant, and former teacher to discuss these questions.

In this episode, we discuss:

✅ Common literacy “urban legends”, including “Dyslexia is seeing words backwards” and “look at the picture and guess the word”

✅ Why phonics gets a bad wrap and where the Science of Reading is often misunderstood

✅ Handwriting, keyboarding, and how they relate to neural connections

✅Making instruction more effective by integrating language, print, spelling, and executive functioning instead of siloing.

Lori Josephson is an Author, Dyslexia Specialist, and Educational Consultant who is a  Fellow of the Orton-Gillingham Academy, a retired Wilson Language Trainer, and holds a Master’s Degree in Special Education-Learning Disabilities. She has had the privilege of teaching hundreds of struggling students how to make sense of print and text, as well as the honor of working with thousands of teachers training them how to teach and reach their students using methods based upon the complex brain processes involved in attaining literacy, the body of knowledge referred to as the Science of Reading. Her recently published book, “Calling All Neurons! How Reading and Spelling Happen”, explains how the human brain attains literacy in a fun, easy to understand manner where specialized neurons take the stage to provide this explanation. Lori serves as a Moderator of the wildly popular Facebook Group, Science of Reading-What I Should Have Learned in College, and is on the Advisory Council of The Northern Ohio Branch of The Dyslexia Association.

You can connect with Lori in the following places:

o Website: lorijosephson.com