Hey Teacher, My Child Can't Read! Get Answers about Learning Disabilities Here...

At the time we went through this we could not find any answers that made sense to us. Hannah loved to be read to, had an unusually large vocabulary for her age, very imaginative, she was artistically creative and while being shy, she did have close friends at school.

To us, Hannah did not appear to be dyslexic, hyperactive or autistic. But, those were the possibilities presented to us by many people in the medical and academic worlds.

The reality was that Hannah was not failing any of her subjects in K or 1st grades despite the fact that she could not pass a simple 5 word spelling test, write legibly or read any written word.

Hannah appeared to be a typical 1st grader to most people. But Hannah is anything but typical...she has a learning disability called "auditory processing disorder" aka "central auditory processing disorder". About 5% of all school age children suffer with this disability.

It took two years (through Kindergarten and 1st grade) for us to get to the point that our daughter was placed with the reading specialist that she needed.

It's an amazing story with a happy ending just 5 years later...Most of the credit goes to Hannah. It was her desire to read that made her successful.

The rest of the credit goes to her Reading Specialist, Kay McFadden. Many of the tools and techniques that Kay used to help Hannah were from the Reading Assist Institute of Delaware. I have information about RAI included on this site. Be sure and check it out.

You can hear Hannah tell her own story and find out what you can do to get your child the help they need by scrolling down to the Podcast recording box below.

Hannah is now in the 9th grade. She attends a Technical High School in our county and is interested in Environmental Science or Computer Graphics as her Vocational Study. She is also taking Academic Courses to prepare for College in four years. It has been a truly amazing transformation in just 8 quick years.

To recap Hannah's education: 2nd grade through 5th grade with a reading specialist each day for at least one period, team taught in 6th and 7th grades and mainstreamed into regular classrooms in 8th grade.

Hannah was Kay McFadden's last success story in the Milford School District as she retired the same year that Hannah graduated from elementary school. We will always be thankful that she was there for Hannah.

As for me, I am currently being trained by the Reading Assist Institute to help other young kids like Hannah learn to read in the Milford School District. It is a 48 hour training that is stretched out over 8 weeks till November.

A 30 minute recording of Dean Geyer and his daughter Hannah talking about how she overcame her learning disability. With the help of a reading specialist, she was able to catch up with the reading abilities of her classmates and become an honor student in 5 years. She will be entering the 8th grade in 2008 and will be in "mainstream classes" for the first time. This is the introduction to a series of interviews with experts to help parents find help for their kids.

I will be interviewing Reading Specialist, Kaye McFadden on Wednesday night about learning disabilities, how she helped my daughter in elementary school and what parents can do to help their child. The call should last about one hour. Recorded replay will be available.

You can listen for free on your computer or dial in

I will have more specific info available here soon.

Until then be sure and listen to my conversation with my daughter Hannah which is below.

I have prepared a Study Guide for the call...you will find a list of the questions my daughter's Reading Specialist, Kaye McFadden answered on the call, space for your notes from the call and a list of online resources that Kaye and I find useful...
Get Your Cheatsheet for the Call Here

Dean's comments on the article:

Like most families, we have a tradition of reading at least one book to our children before bed. Some people might argue that for a child with a learning disability that this would be a waste of time. I personally feel that while bedtime reading did nothing to help Hannah with her learning disability(which we weren't even aware of until she was 6), it did inspire and motivate her to want to read.

Benefits of Bedtime Reading by James Randerson
Reading to young children stimulates their development and gives them a head start when they reach school, according to researchers who have reviewed studies on the effects of reading. Apart from helping their reading, sharing a bedtime story with a child promotes their motor skills, through learning to turn the pages, and their memory. It also improves their emotional and social development.

"You can imagine if someone technologically came up with a widget that would stimulate all aspects of a two-year-old's development, everyone would want to buy it," said Professor Barry Zuckerman, of the department of paediatrics at Boston University school of medicine, who led the study.

Studies show that children who are read to from an earlier age have better language development and tend to have better language scores later in life. Getting children to grip pages with their thumb and forefinger improves their motor skills.

Most important, though, said Zuckerman, is that reading aloud is a period of shared attention and emotion between parent and child. This reinforces reading as a pleasurable activity.

"Children ultimately learn to love books because they are sharing it with someone they love," he said. The research is published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008