In this episode of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter speaks with Faith Borkowsky, Founder of High Five Literacy, Author, and Literacy Consultant.
Faith is widely recognized for her expertise in literacy education. Her book, “Failing Students or Failing Schools?” critically examines challenges in education. She is also author of the “If Only I Would Have Known…” series for parents, offering practical advice, specific recommendations, and their perspectives on language, literacy, and dyslexia in the critical years of development, birth to five, and in later early childhood grades. Borkowsky’s work in consultancy and writing underscores her commitment to improving literacy and empowering parents to support their children’s education.
Tune into to the episode to hear about:
The importance of detecting early educational deficits
Finding the right tutoring support
The importance of asking questions when meeting with your child’s teachers
Frances Shefter is an Education Attorney and Advocate who is committed to helping her clients have a Stress-Free IEP® experience. In each podcast, Frances interviews inspiring people to share information, educate you, empower you and help you get the knowledge you need.
VOICEOVER: (00:00:00): Welcome to Stress-Free IEP®. You do not need to do it all alone with your host, Frances Shefter, Principal of Shefter Law. You can get more details and catch prior episodes at www.Shefterlaw.com. The Stress-Free IEP® video podcast is also posted on YouTube and LinkedIn and you can listen to episodes through Apple podcast, Spotify, Google podcast, Stitcher and more. Now, here’s the host of Stress-Free IEP®. Frances Shefter.
Frances Shefter: (00:00:36): Hello everyone and welcome to our show. Today’s special guest. I’m so excited to have because she has the same exact theory I do of earlier is always better. So today’s guest is Faith Borkowsky. I got it right. And Faith is a literacy consultant and the founder of High Five Literacy. She’s also an author and she’s written the book, “Failing Students or Failing Schools?”. And she has a series for parents called, “If Only I would have known” . So, Faith, welcome to the show. Please introduce yourself. Tell us a little about yourself for the listeners.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:01:13): Sure. Thank you, Frances. I was a classroom teacher and a reading specialist and then I went on to become a regional literacy coach for Reading. First. I was also an administrator and presently I am a consultant and I still tutor as well and I’ve been in education for over 35 years. I’ve written books that have been very popular, especially with parents, that is my target and we’ll talk about that soon. But it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Frances Shefter: (00:01:54): Thank you. So, you know, I wanna jump right in because I mean, I love the titles “If Only I Would Have Known” because I hear that so often as an education attorney, so many parents are like, “oh, I wish people like you, I wish I knew people like you were available”. And even still today, people don’t know. And that’s part of the reason we have this show is to get information out there. So how did you identify this need for the books?
Faith Borkowsky: (00:02:17): So it actually started from private practice tutoring many children and having parents cry in front of me. Especially when I assess their children and they realized immediately that, “oh, so it’s not that my child was just being lazy and maybe I was doing everything I could but, you know, the school was not doing what they needed to do on their end.” And so there would always be this sigh after and I would hear those words and I put it in quotes the title. “Oh, I Would Have Known”. And it was just so sad to me and it didn’t just happen once it was quite often. And I said, well, you know what I could write the script for this and I did and that’s what the book is. It’s really a series of accessible graphic plays so that any parent could identify with the main character.
Frances Shefter: (00:03:32): I love that because it’s true. Like, I mean, we talk about it all the time. I mean, being a parent alone is difficult, I was just talking to another friend of like, you know, we get released from the hospital with this baby and we’re like, wait, what, like, you know, like we’re ready to be a parent but are we really ready and then add the fact that if our child’s not what everybody says is normal, where do we go? Who do we talk to? So I love that you have this book and I love that we’re getting this out there to parents and I want to make sure that I, I’m gonna probably send it to most of my preschool director friends, you know, to, to let them know. Yeah, because we don’t know as parents, you know, like I’ve had so many times conversations with parents, especially when I was a new parent of, you know, well, what do you do with this or that? And we want to trust the schools and most of the time the schools are doing the right thing, but you never totally know.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:04:25): No. And often it’s only once they’re in school and then a series of unfortunate events will happen where parents are forced to start to seek outside help because they’re just not trusting anymore. And so the book, I wrote it so that parents could identify with the issue and it’s about a mom with three children. And the first two Children, she had, she trusted the school system. By the third, she made up her mind that she was going to do things differently. And so it starts with the pediatrician in book one, the conversation with a pediatrician and kind of getting to the heart of the matter which is really understanding what’s going on and then it moves on to book two, which is the preschool teacher or you can substitute daycare or kindergarten, you know, any professional in early childhood. And that’s where the parent starts to learn what should really be happening in this setting. And then book three is the librarian where now the parent is going out to try to find books and what she was told originally isn’t really what she needs. And now this librarian knows better and is able to share what decode books are and getting the parent to know how to use them and the importance of also having authentic literature too. So it really takes a parent through the different stages through these conversations that she had so that when parents read these books, they could learn from somebody else’s journey without having to go the same path.
Frances Shefter: (00:06:42): And it’s so like, I love that you touch on all because as parents, we have our team, you know, we put our professionals in place and sometimes they’re so compartmentalized and we don’t, you know, we think the doctor’s doing what the doctor needs to do, which the doctor is. But you know, how often is the doctor seeing your child? You know, 15-20 minutes, once or twice a year, you know, I know a lot more when you’re younger. But if you don’t know the information to tell your doctor, your doctor doesn’t know how to advise you. And if the doctor doesn’t see the behaviors, they’re not gonna know it’s there.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:07:16): Yeah, exactly. And a good amount of time Frances, the doctor doesn’t know literacy health. So I’m trying to educate these professionals as well. So, you know, you talk about target audience. Well, sure, it’s meant for parents to be able to get this understanding. But through the back door, I want pediatricians and early childhood professionals and librarians to also know what language literacy and dyslexia should look like in terms of this knowledge base, which you know, many of whom they don’t have this information and they don’t have it in an easy to understand way. And I wanted this information to be quick accessible and to convey what this is so that anybody, somebody without a college education could understand it. And it’s written with illustrations as well with lots of white space on the page. So that you know, somebody who might have dyslexia, we know that it runs in families and would be able to read this book with understanding without struggling. It’s a quick accessible read for both professionals and parents.
Frances Shefter: (00:08:42): That is so great. It, because there’s not, I mean, there’s so many books out there we know. And, you know, you can Google like what, what do you read for dyslexia and to know what to know. You know, we don’t know what we don’t know and, and we, you know, shoot in the dark and like, ok, well, this book sounds good but it sounds like you’re starting at the very, very beginning and which people don’t realize or maybe they, you know, they, especially with dyslexia. I know I was told that they don’t diagnose dyslexia before the age of seven.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:9:16): That’s, well, that is changing quickly because the markers are there. If you know, one understands that speech and language is connected to reading, then you could really see the writing on the wall early on. And I go through some of the different markers for problems. So it’s written in a way that it would be easy enough where parents could say. Oh, my goodness. You know what my child has a speech delay. Well, you know what my child does confuse those sounds and it is going on kind of longer than would be expected. You know, maybe I should get a speech and language evaluation early enough and not wait on this because, you know, many, well, meaning people tell parents give it time, wait and see they weren’t doing this on purpose, you know, to damage a child. They really believe, believe that, you know, you just let a child mature that this is going to all work itself out. But we know that early intervention could really change a child’s life where a child, you know, by the time that child gets to fourth grade, you could almost look at this child and it, you wouldn’t even recognize that there was ever a problem. If you catch it early enough. It also depends on how profound the problem is. We know like autism, dyslexia is also a spectrum and there could be mild issues, there could be some profound issues. But if you teach the right way from the beginning, really good classical instruction and we know what to focus on early enough with enough practice opportunities, we could change the course of somebody’s life.
Frances Shefter: (00:11:23): Completely. And it’s not like I know with my daughter, I remember talking to a friend that was a special educator. And I was like, yes, I don’t think she’s talking as much as she should. And she’s like, oh, wait till she’s two. I’m like, yeah. No. You know, and I got her evaluated and she was delayed in speech and because I got her so early and, you know, I, of course, got from infants and toddlers. Plus we did private and just really got as many services. She, now, her expressive language is off the charts. People are like, wait, she was delayed because she just has conversations like crazy. But because we got it early enough, whereas if delayed, who knows where that would have been.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:11:59): Exactly. And you don’t want to leave this up to chance. And that’s also the point of the book because, you know, it’s kind of like the luck of the draw with schools and teachers and intervention teams. So if you speak to parents directly and they get this information in their hands in an easy to understand way. At the very least they’ll know the questions to ask. But more importantly, they could then advocate for their children without having to feel like they’re a step behind because we know there’s a lot of lingo in education. And if you’ve ever been, I’m sure you were at these meetings, you know, that often the parents are just sitting there with conversations going back and forth, they feel completely overwhelmed and you know, you add in all the acronyms and this lingo that they’re unfamiliar with and it’s intimidating, it really is quite intimidating. So my whole role I feel is to try to help and to protect families so that this doesn’t happen.
Frances Shefter: (00:13:26): Right. And that’s the whole reason for like I had my YouTube channel and I started this show is to let parents know and to educate parents. I say all the time, like, I wish I didn’t have a job. I wish parents didn’t need me because then parents would have the information and schools would be doing the right thing. Not that school and I don’t knock schools ever, they’re overwhelmed and the schools don’t even know sometimes and, you know, you have 30 kids in a class, 25 kids in a class. Sometimes the kids slip through the cracks unfortunately. And in these cases when the children are even younger, you don’t know if your daycare center definitely knows. You know. Do you have a good preschool? Does your preschool director, teachers know what to look for? Those are all things that I guess, I mean, I would say your book would probably be important to help parents identify the right preschools to send the children to.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:14:18): Exactly. As a matter of fact, this young woman, , I know, actually told me that her book helped her so much that she started to interview preschools to know if it aligned with what she was seeing in the book and that was great. So that’s another purpose. I know someone else who gave the books out at a kindergarten orientation so that they would have this knowledge when they’re testing the kids and trying to screen them before they go in that it would be right in the folder with all the other information. So, you know, I love that. And then another group of people out in Pennsylvania used the book as a book club read and it was a group of men wanting to be involved in their community. And this is on YouTube, they’re called the Lit Champs. And you see how they move from book 1 to 2 to 3. And by the end, there was this air of confidence about them that they didn’t have when they first met and they recorded the whole thing. So it’s so gratifying to see how the book is being used and how it can be used in many different environments as well as communities with parent groups and you know, church groups, however, you want to use it. I just think that it’s better sometimes to be able to have those discussions with other people. I put up on the books website, www.ifonlybooks.com there is a list of questions for anybody who wants to go in that direction with a book club. So the discussion questions are right there. They can download the questions.
Frances Shefter: (00:16:19): That is so great and it’s so true because I know I’m thinking back like when I had my first child and the parent group that I joined the, the, the hospital where I gave birth did an mom’s group, they did do, I think they did eventually do a dad spinoff but it was mom’s bringing the babies and a lot of times we’d be nursing in the middle of it. So we just kept it as women. But I’m thinking like this would have been great. Usually we went around and what issues we’re having and stuff. But again, like, you don’t know what you don’t know. And as new parents we don’t necessarily know what we’re looking for.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:16:52): Exactly. And, you know, when you’re a mom or dad with a baby, you know how much time you have. Zero. So, the thought of reading this big book is overwhelming. How many parents really have time to sit down and digest a book. Even if the information is fabulous, they just don’t have that time. Many of them are working, they come home, they’re with the baby. The last thing they’re going to do is start reading this dense book. So I kept that in mind as well. So I’m hoping that Maternity Wards would even think about this mommy and me type groups where the books are small enough with the illustrations and the dialogue that it’s quick enough and that it could be read in small spurts without losing a beat. And people tell me they appreciate that, that it’s packed with information and it’s not a heavy read.
Frances Shefter: (00:18:00): Yeah, that’s such a great gift and technique of being able to put it in layman’s terms basically because as you said, especially having been a special educator. And, you know, I was also and you go to IEP meetings and you start talking the lingo and the parents are lost and I, I’ve been at IEP meetings where I take a step back and I’m like, wait, let me check in with my client because I’ll just get going with the, the school and we do da da da da, you know, most of the time the clients like, nope, you got it.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:18:40): I think you froze.
Frances Shefter: (00:18:43): I think you froze for a second also but I think we’re back. Right? OK. Good. Technology today, right?
Faith Borkowsky: (00:18:53): I know we just have to, we just have to go with it. But yes, just what she was saying that you know, the parents can really understand this. It’s not that difficult to understand. And once they see what the underlying issues are and what they should look for. There’s such a difference. These are parents who then could really participate and sit at the table without allowing other people to do their talking. Now, there’s always going to be a need for parent advocates and attorneys. Always, but it is nice when a parent could participate as well because you want to please your clients, you wanna make sure that you are following what they need and, what the child needs. So I think these books absolutely can help with your clients as well.
Frances Shefter: (00:19:56): Right? And I want, you know, it’s, you know, IDA says meaningful participation and that’s always such an argument with the parents, whether they’re meaningfully participating. And I definitely, I tell my clients all the time, you know, no participate. If you don’t understand something, stop the meeting, ask a question. The phrase I like to tell my clients is be the parent ask questions. There’s nothing you can say in an IEP meeting that I can’t turn around to what my client is trying to say and put it in the words that the school needs to hear to get the outcome we want. And that to me, I know the parents relax a lot because I know, I mean, I’ve been a parent in an IEP meeting, even with all my knowledge and background, it’s challenging sometimes it’s about my child and like, wait, I don’t wanna say the wrong thing. I don’t want them to think the wrong thing and those parent questions, they go in my head also. So it’s, you know, it’s knowing that you can do this.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:20:50): Yes. And, you know, it gets emotional and that’s the other thing. You know, I’ve seen parents where they have all these ideas and they know what they want to ask but when they’re listening to this they’re getting angry and emotional and it’s very, very hard to keep that under control when it’s your child. It’s very different when it’s someone else’s child. But when it’s your child, it is very hard not to either cry or get angry and lose it. And you know, you really don’t want to go there if you can help it. Not to say that people aren’t understanding of those emotions, but you want to be able to try to keep it in check and stick to what you want. You know, you want to really get that message across clearly and succinctly. So I do think that that’s important. I just want to say one other thing about meetings because I’ve been to a number of them. One thing that parents should do when they’re under pressure like that, bring paper and pen and start taking notes because you will forget. You will definitely, as this conversation is going on, you will forget what’s happening. So you want to try to catch it at the moment and just jot down a couple of notes to yourself so that you could circle back and ask when maybe you’re not heated or when there’s a break in the conversation.
Frances Shefter: (00:22:34): Yeah, that’s true. I mean, and I do it also, even for, with my clients, we review the IEP or evaluations, whatever we’re discussing. I review it all before and take my notes, talk to my clients and take the notes so that when I have the meeting, I have my notes up because schools will try to go this way or that way. Like no, no, no, no, no, I know that’s your agenda, but this is our agenda and this is the way we need to go.
Frances Shefter: (00:23:01): And when parents come in, I know from when I was, you know, my teaching days when I was in LEA or Special Ed teacher, when parents came in with their, the notebook of all the stuff and their notes as a teacher, as an LEA I listened more just because I knew they were prepared.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:23:19): Correct. Now, you know, one thing that I want to get across is there are parents out there who are not on Facebook and they are not understanding any of this. They might work two and three jobs and they really are just trusting the school. So when they are called to these meetings, they are completely thrown unprepared and they are leaving it to the professionals and trusting to sort things out. And you know, I just think one lesson, if there’s something a parent could take away from our conversation today, Frances is, you have to be in charge of your child’s education and academic health. You can’t just like you have to take charge of your own physical health. Yeah, you have to do the same with education. You cannot leave it to somebody else because you will be sorry later on in a year, two years, three years that you did not participate when you had the chance.
Frances Shefter: (00:24:37): And there’s you know, I’ve had clients before that. If you wait too long, especially with dyslexia, it gets to the point that the schools can’t do what your child needs. And I’ve told parents before, they always look at me like, I’m crazy, I’m like, look, you guys can hire me. I can get you a perfect IEP. But in reality, for a 7th grader with dyslexia, use your money to hire a private coach that will teach your child the way your child needs to be taught because the seventh grade school is not gonna do it.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:25:08): Exactly. And that’s 100%. And yet there aren’t people out there who are as honest as you, they’re just not. And so, these parents are spinning their wheels, wanting certain programs and wanting certain things done and what they don’t realize is that there’s not enough practice opportunities in the day to make this stick that they don’t realize that. Yeah, that one period in the day of resource room when you’re in middle school and high school is not going to be enough to turn this around. If the rest of the day, they are overwhelmed by all this other work that they have and all this other content that comes, that’s why I always say early, early, early, you know, it’s not that kids can’t learn to read or adults can’t learn to read. Of course, any age someone could learn to read, but we have to be realistic. We have to understand that with all the other demands in high school, middle school, you know, and in the future and of course their social lives and all the clubs that they want to be in after school that it’s just not enough time to really turn this around. It takes a while until kids could internalize the code to be able to make it fluent enough to be able to help them with their school work.
Frances Shefter: (00:26:45): Right? And it’s, you know, I say this often my, you know, a lot from my story of growing up, usually our kids with dyslexia are very bright and they compensate and it’s not found until later. And so they’re overcompensating and as they get older, they start getting that feeling of I’m different. I’m not as smart as everybody else because it’s starting to show and as a younger child can compensate and, and hide it, but, you know, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade as it gets harder, it comes out more. So that’s the other reason why it’s important to know the markers of when your child’s 2-3-4 to look for so that you can get that help before they have to even learn how to mask or overcompensate.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:27:35): Yes. And that is what happens and what you said is absolutely true. I am presently working with a young man who is 19 years old and he went away to college. His first year just was so hard for him that, the mother ended up contacting me to work with him. Now at this point and, you know, he’s doing quite well, but all along he was getting help, it’s the right help. You know, like anyone could get help, schools could offer help. But if it’s not the right help and it’s not enough help, it’s not going to get that child where he or she needs to be. And then what happens is they get to high school, they might be able to get into college and maybe even a very good college. But will they be able to last in college when they’re on their own? Completely independent? Having to keep track of all their work and reading and writing is not strong enough to be able to sustain them. It all falls apart.
Frances Shefter: (00:28:55): Right.I love to hear that you’re working with a 19 year old and then you work with everyone because that’s, you know, it’s never too late. You know, that’s the other thing. Like, I, you know, I tell my clients, like, don’t beat yourself up, you know, because parents will say to me, I wish I had known sooner. I wish I had done something sooner. And I’m like, don’t, don’t do that to yourself. You’re reaching out now. You know, you knew you. I used to tell my father all the time that yes, he screwed up when we were kids, but he did the best he could with the knowledge he had. And that’s what it is like, you know what parenting is hard. We don’t get, we don’t get a manual even if we did. Child number two comes along and they’re throwing that one out with something totally different.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:29:36): 100%. Absolutely. We’ve all been there, we’ve all been there and I think we all wish we could have a do over, right. Who doesn’t, you know, would want to turn the back, but you can’t turn the clock back, but you could always move forward, you could always move forward and there’s always something that can be done, but we need to be realistic. And so going back to what the schools can do and what they should do are very different from what parents think they should be getting and what, in fact they do get, they’re in like two different worlds. And so I do think it’s important for parents to get the information the same way you get information before you buy a car. You know, you look up different cars, you look at track records, you want to know what you’re getting. Well, you need to do that with tutors as well. You need to understand what that background is. What they know. Are they able to be flexible? Do they only know one type of program? You know, and I know tutors out there that know a program, but they don’t know how to be flexible enough to be able to say, well, you know what, this program isn’t working and maybe the wrong program was chosen and maybe we need to now switch it up and start going into other issues such as vocabulary or language or writing at this point. So, you know, you need to kind of ask the right questions and in order to ask the right questions, you need to have some foundational knowledge. You don’t have to be an expert, but you have to have some foundational knowledge to be able to communicate your needs.
Frances Shefter: (00:31:33): Right. And I mean, that’s true with any, like finding a tutor also, but picking a preschool, picking a mechanic, picking, you know, absolutely any profession an advocate an attorney. There are so often that I’ll see people post, you know, on Facebook or Instagram or whatever. And they’ll say, like, does anybody know a reasonably priced whatever it’s like, well, do you want reasonably priced or do you want somebody that knows what they’re doing because they’re not always hand in hand. And if you go with the reasonably priced or the cheapest one, chances are you might have to go again and pay to fix it.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:32:10): Do you know how many times parents came to me after tutor, after tutor did not do the job and, you know, no fault of their own. But many times parents are hiring tutors based on a teacher who chooses to moonlight. Oh, yeah, this teacher could help. She’ll do some extra work. But that’s not the kind of tutor you’re looking for. Like, not somebody who’s going to repeat the exact same things they did in the classroom that did not work.
Frances Shefter: (00:32:49): And in some cases that might be the right thing. They just need that extra help. But most cases probably not.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:32:55): Right. But again, you need to look into who it is and what they do. And, you know, I also work with all ages. I’ve taught first grade but I work with adults. You know, I, I really could work with any child and I have the experience to work with different ages. But there are some tutors who just prefer to work with kids. Up to second grade and they don’t want to go beyond that. And then there are people who work with just adults and they don’t want to deal with the behavioral stuff, so they choose not to go in that direction. So that’s part of the question that you need to ask is what experience do you have in this age group or this grade? What have you done in this area as far as fluency? If that happens to be the issue, oftentimes parents will ask me about fluency yet they have underlying problems in decoding and phonemic awareness. Like, oh wait a minute, you might not even be up to fluency yet. You know, like sometimes they’re rushing to have kids sound like readers when there are missing pieces in the foundation that need to be addressed, that they don’t understand. So, yeah,
Frances Shefter: (00:34:25): I’m assuming that your book goes into all of that stuff where the foundations are and builds on it.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:34:31): At a very basic level. Yes, I do. I talk about that now, obviously, there is more to say in each one of these areas and I wrote a book, “Failing Students or Failing Schools”, which is behind me. And you mentioned that my very first book was “Reading Intervention Behind School Walls, Why Your Child Continues to Struggle” and it was republished into “Failing Students or Failing Schools”. But that was really from you know, journal writing. I would put all my ideas into a journal, my frustrations with dealing with schools and I, that would be my way of getting it out. And I said, this is a book the same way I said with, if only I would have known I could write the script, I could write the book. And that was my memoir and my experiences in school. And in those books, that’s where I go into a little bit more detail into the five pillars of literacy and writing. And that you know, what could be done more. But this book does have those tips as well. But like I said, it’s meant for parents of Children up to age seven where those other books are really for when kids start school and move up.
Frances Shefter: (00:35:55): Which makes sense. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s giving the basic foundation and like as we said before, like just knowing the questions to ask, so they don’t need to understand what decoding is and what fluency is and all that. But they do need to understand that decoding comes before fluency.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:36:12): Well, I actually do explain it to be honest, Frances, I do explain what it is decoding and fluency in phonemic awareness. But I do it in layman’s terms. It’s very, very easy to understand. And I also, in my other books, I use analogies. I’m very big on analogies to explain more difficult concepts in this book. I chose to do it as a graphic play so that it’s like you’re seeing the action unfold in front of you with these conversations that a mom who is frustrated and not really knowing, having these conversations with professionals and learning from each person along the way.
Frances Shefter: (00:36:59): Yeah, that’s so wonderful. I love hearing that. It’s in layman’s terms because that’s, that’s what it’s all about. You know, I mean, my whole firm is based on educating families, you know, empowering families with the knowledge they need. You know, but again, we’re also the, the community, you know, it takes a village, you know, we’re the village and it’s OK to ask for help. I say all the time, like we’ve been talking about it, that, you know, our society is so like we have to do it all, we have to do it all. But we don’t, there are people out there that can help us, there are books out there that can help us and us reading the books and us asking for help is such good role modeling for our children.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:37:39): Yes, absolutely. And you know, learning is never finished. There’s never an end point to what you can learn. I’m always learning from other people. I don’t feel like I have all the answers, but I do have experience the same way you have experience and you know, I think a combination of those experiences and what we learn along the way, do make us set up to help others. And I’m happy to do that. I love doing that. And I, I think this role right now is so gratifying to be able to be that person, for a family, for a child, to be able to help when others might not understand. They might be well meaning, but they just don’t understand how to help.
Frances Shefter: (00:38:30): And it’s the best feeling in the world. I have a client that, you know, came back to me and he just, you know, says all the time, she says all the time that, thank you so much because what you did for my son changed his educational course. For the rest of his life.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:38:47): Yeah. And, and that’s what it’s about changing the trajectory for a child. We know when we look at data and the data shows that kids are on this downward hill and or leveling off, which is very common where you see this leveling off or maybe moving up a little bit and then parents are told, oh, they’re making progress. Well, this type of progress is not enough. You have to know how to close a gap. That should be the goal in early childhood intervention is closing a gap, not just moving up a little bit at a time because then they’ll always need this, there’ll be lifers in these types of services. We want to see gap closing work. At least as well as we could. That’s the goal.
Frances Shefter: (00:39:46): Right. Yeah, I mean, they’ll catch up. When are they gonna catch up? Like, you know, the whole thing, it just baffles my mind that the kids have until their 22nd birthday or 21 to be in school but nothing’s changed in the schooling to help spread it out a little bit to give them. Like, I know there used to be like a K1 class. So, like kindergartners when they finished kindergarten, they weren’t ready for first grade yet. There was like that split class in between.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:40:16): Yeah, they have that in my home district. Yes. They have that kind of catch up time and, which is very good for some, but believe it or not even in that catch up class, it’s not always targeted intervention with what they need. So some kids do get out of those classes and they’re not much better off than they were. I’ve seen that too. But you, what you said really makes me laugh because I have a sign on my office wall that says intervention. Nothing changes. If nothing changes. And that kind of summarizes what exactly you’re saying. You can’t keep thinking that something’s going to be better, and improve unless you do something different along the way..
Frances Shefter: (00:41:08): Right. You gotta change and, and I see, I mean, in my years of being in education, which I think we’re about the same amount of years. , you know, it’s, I’ve seen the changes and the differences. I mean, it used to be that dyslexia wasn’t even a thing. And now it’s getting there, but unfortunately a lot of people are like, oh, you need Orton Gillingham. You know, that’s the only thing to do. Or Wilson is a new one that’s popping up. But it’s, that might not be what you need for every child and, and we’re in the program. And so it’s knowing that there are other options out there.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:41:48): I’m so glad you said this and there are parent advocates out there who will say right away, get the testing, get all the testing, you can, you know, neuropsychologist and get, you know, this label and that label and then they go in there and the only thing they’re fighting for is Wilson or OG and I do believe in structured literacy. I am not saying that that is not important, but you need to know why and you need to know what you’re getting and you know, just these kinds of statements, OK? Just it has to be somebody who knows this program. It’s not the answer always. That’s a good start. Perhaps if it points to a decoding problem, maybe that is the best course of action. But you need to be able to find someone who knows how to be flexible enough to give more of something when needed and take away something when it’s not working. So, you know, I’m glad you did mention that.
Frances Shefter: (00:43:9): Yeah. No, it’s true. And it’s to remember that just because the program is not working for your child, it’s not your child. It might not be the right program because I’ve seen that so many times also of, like, I don’t know why he’s not, I’ve had a tutor for a year and a half. Ok. Well, if he’s not learning and there’s been no progress in a year and a half, why are you still with that tutor? You know what I mean? Like, change it. It’s not working for your child. Find a different way.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:43:36): Right. Right. And then the other issue could be, there are some profound cases out there and I mean, very few. I mean, in all my years, I can count them on like one hand where you had these kids who really have some profound disabilities. And I hate to use that word and I don’t use it freely. But, you know, where they are these outliers where it does take a lot and that’s something that I don’t think parents are prepared for. It might not go according to the plan that you think or the timeline that you think, like you have this extreme case here where this kid has such attentional difficulties and such severe language issues that it’s going to take a village for this one. You know, it’s not going to happen the way you think so. And I do want to put it out there that yes, most of the time it should happen much faster. But there are those few which I would consider those are your true kids with dyslexia. Sometimes kids are labeled as dyslexic and all it is is this teacher, that they were not taught from the beginning the correct way and they continue to be taught with ineffective strategies and programs that encourage whole word memorization. And, , you know, it’s not right for them. And if they were only given the right tools, they would be ok. But then you really do have these kids with profound language problems and other problems that interfere with the course of learning that you have to be prepared that it’s going to maybe take more than one professional. It might be a speech and language person. It might be somebody who is controlling, , you know, the mental health aspect of this child which plays into it. There are those kids that just can’t sit for any length of time, even with the most patient person, even with the most hands on program, you do have some of those kids, but they are outliers. You know, it’s like the one with 2%.
Frances Shefter: (00:46:17): And I’m sure they have other talents that you can then tap into not try to force, like we need to know reading, we need to know math, we need to know writing. It’s not for everyone.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:46:28): No, I mean, you could, you could get most kids, I would say most kids up and reading, at least at an adequate level. You could, you really could in all my years, most kids you really can’t. But you do have some that, you know, whether it’s intellectual deficits or other types of things interfering, it will take longer and that’s the reality and it will not be realistic for those kids to be ever on a level that you would hope they would be at. But for the most, like I said, 99% if you have within normal intelligence and you have adequate speech and language, there’s no reason that those kids can’t read or write.
Frances Shefter: (00:47:22): Just getting them in the right program.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:47:25): Yeah. With the, with the right people also guiding it.
Frances Shefter: (00:47:29): And the right fit because there’s, you know, that’s the other thing is that there’s a lot of professionals out there, there might be great but it might not, it might not mesh with your child. It’s not saying anything’s wrong with the professional. It’s just not the right fit. Let’s find somebody that’s the right fit and a good professional. I know I’ve had somebody on my show with the tutor is like a good professional will be able to be like, you know, what, this isn’t working. Let’s find somebody else that makes it’ll work better. Rather than trying to force it.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:47:54): Right. Right. Exactly. And, you know, if you are just not getting along with the family, you know, it’s almost like you have to fire them and just say, and I’ve done that because part of the work I do it requires practice. So in between what I do in tutoring sessions, there needs to be consistent, deep practice going on, not for very long, but daily I really require something that is consistent. You know, in order to change brain patterns, you need to be able to have your eyes on the page looking at it working it. And then parents will say to me, oh, yes, of course. And then all of a sudden every excuse comes up, oh, we had a birthday party, the birthday party lasted a week, you know, and I understand vacations and, and breaks. But I’m talking about constantly having interruptions where they cannot get themselves back on track. And I’m not the right person for you because I will tell you right out, everything requires lots and lots of practice. And I have parents sitting in with me so they could see how I work and I coach them to be able to help their children. So if, if you’re hiring somebody where you don’t know what they’re doing and what’s going on and there’s no practice in between. And you’re wondering why is this taking so long? Well, that could be the missing piece. There’s no practice going on.
Frances Shefter: (00:49:40): Yeah, because once a week isn’t gonna do it. This has been so wonderful and so great. And I know you mentioned your website for the book. , “The If I Only Would Have Known” book.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:49:52): The website of that book is www.ifonlybooks.com And that’s just to get kind of information about me about the books, just seeing if this is the right fit and on that website, I have the discussion guide and I also have a workbook for, school districts and PTAs to be able to use to see if they could recognize a child who might be slipping through the cracks. So it’s a free workbook that’s on www.ifonlybooks.com , my personal website is www.highfiveliteracy.com where people could just learn about my services and you know what I do for schools and who I am.
Frances Shefter: (00:50:42): Great and those things are gonna be in the show notes and I’m assuming they can contact you through the website and buy the book through the website.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:50:50): Yeah. So through both websites, there’s contact information and both websites lead right to Amazon where uh, the book is but, and people could go directly to Amazon. There’s also a Spanish version of, “If Only I Would Have Known”. So, yeah, I have it somewhere and let me see here it is. It’s same, same book, but it’s with the Spanish title. And I did that so that people where English is not their first language, they could also participate and have book club groups as well.
Frances Shefter: (00:51:33): It’s wonderful. That is so wonderful. This has been so great. I just realized like I looked up, I’m like, oh my gosh, we’ve only been on for almost been on an hour which has been so wonderful. I love talking to you and like, you know, there were both on the same wavelength of where like let’s educate families and I hope my listeners enjoyed it as much as I did. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Faith Borkowsky:: (00:51:53): Thank you. And I hope we collaborate Frances. I love to recommend people who I really think get it and you do so. Thank you.
VOICEOVER: (00:52:06): You’ve been listening to Stress-Free IEP® with your host, Frances Shefter. Remember you do not need to do it all alone. You can reach Frances through www.Shefterlaw.com where prior episodes are also posted. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments and sharing the show with others through YouTube, LinkedIn Apple podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and more.
Stress-Free IEP® with Frances Shefter and Faith Borkowsky
In this episode of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter speaks with Faith Borkowsky, Founder of High Five Literacy, Author, and Literacy Consultant.
Faith is widely recognized for her expertise in literacy education. Her book, “Failing Students or Failing Schools?” critically examines challenges in education. She is also author of the “If Only I Would Have Known…” series for parents, offering practical advice, specific recommendations, and their perspectives on language, literacy, and dyslexia in the critical years of development, birth to five, and in later early childhood grades. Borkowsky’s work in consultancy and writing underscores her commitment to improving literacy and empowering parents to support their children’s education.
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Learn more about Faith Borkowsky:
Stress-Free IEP®:
Frances Shefter is an Education Attorney and Advocate who is committed to helping her clients have a Stress-Free IEP® experience. In each podcast, Frances interviews inspiring people to share information, educate you, empower you and help you get the knowledge you need.
Watch more episodes of Stress-Free IEP®:
Connect and learn more from your host, Frances Shefter:
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
VOICEOVER: (00:00:00): Welcome to Stress-Free IEP®. You do not need to do it all alone with your host, Frances Shefter, Principal of Shefter Law. You can get more details and catch prior episodes at www.Shefterlaw.com. The Stress-Free IEP® video podcast is also posted on YouTube and LinkedIn and you can listen to episodes through Apple podcast, Spotify, Google podcast, Stitcher and more. Now, here’s the host of Stress-Free IEP®. Frances Shefter.
Frances Shefter: (00:00:36): Hello everyone and welcome to our show. Today’s special guest. I’m so excited to have because she has the same exact theory I do of earlier is always better. So today’s guest is Faith Borkowsky. I got it right. And Faith is a literacy consultant and the founder of High Five Literacy. She’s also an author and she’s written the book, “Failing Students or Failing Schools?”. And she has a series for parents called, “If Only I would have known” . So, Faith, welcome to the show. Please introduce yourself. Tell us a little about yourself for the listeners.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:01:13): Sure. Thank you, Frances. I was a classroom teacher and a reading specialist and then I went on to become a regional literacy coach for Reading. First. I was also an administrator and presently I am a consultant and I still tutor as well and I’ve been in education for over 35 years. I’ve written books that have been very popular, especially with parents, that is my target and we’ll talk about that soon. But it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Frances Shefter: (00:01:54): Thank you. So, you know, I wanna jump right in because I mean, I love the titles “If Only I Would Have Known” because I hear that so often as an education attorney, so many parents are like, “oh, I wish people like you, I wish I knew people like you were available”. And even still today, people don’t know. And that’s part of the reason we have this show is to get information out there. So how did you identify this need for the books?
Faith Borkowsky: (00:02:17): So it actually started from private practice tutoring many children and having parents cry in front of me. Especially when I assess their children and they realized immediately that, “oh, so it’s not that my child was just being lazy and maybe I was doing everything I could but, you know, the school was not doing what they needed to do on their end.” And so there would always be this sigh after and I would hear those words and I put it in quotes the title. “Oh, I Would Have Known”. And it was just so sad to me and it didn’t just happen once it was quite often. And I said, well, you know what I could write the script for this and I did and that’s what the book is. It’s really a series of accessible graphic plays so that any parent could identify with the main character.
Frances Shefter: (00:03:32): I love that because it’s true. Like, I mean, we talk about it all the time. I mean, being a parent alone is difficult, I was just talking to another friend of like, you know, we get released from the hospital with this baby and we’re like, wait, what, like, you know, like we’re ready to be a parent but are we really ready and then add the fact that if our child’s not what everybody says is normal, where do we go? Who do we talk to? So I love that you have this book and I love that we’re getting this out there to parents and I want to make sure that I, I’m gonna probably send it to most of my preschool director friends, you know, to, to let them know. Yeah, because we don’t know as parents, you know, like I’ve had so many times conversations with parents, especially when I was a new parent of, you know, well, what do you do with this or that? And we want to trust the schools and most of the time the schools are doing the right thing, but you never totally know.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:04:25): No. And often it’s only once they’re in school and then a series of unfortunate events will happen where parents are forced to start to seek outside help because they’re just not trusting anymore. And so the book, I wrote it so that parents could identify with the issue and it’s about a mom with three children. And the first two Children, she had, she trusted the school system. By the third, she made up her mind that she was going to do things differently. And so it starts with the pediatrician in book one, the conversation with a pediatrician and kind of getting to the heart of the matter which is really understanding what’s going on and then it moves on to book two, which is the preschool teacher or you can substitute daycare or kindergarten, you know, any professional in early childhood. And that’s where the parent starts to learn what should really be happening in this setting. And then book three is the librarian where now the parent is going out to try to find books and what she was told originally isn’t really what she needs. And now this librarian knows better and is able to share what decode books are and getting the parent to know how to use them and the importance of also having authentic literature too. So it really takes a parent through the different stages through these conversations that she had so that when parents read these books, they could learn from somebody else’s journey without having to go the same path.
Frances Shefter: (00:06:42): And it’s so like, I love that you touch on all because as parents, we have our team, you know, we put our professionals in place and sometimes they’re so compartmentalized and we don’t, you know, we think the doctor’s doing what the doctor needs to do, which the doctor is. But you know, how often is the doctor seeing your child? You know, 15-20 minutes, once or twice a year, you know, I know a lot more when you’re younger. But if you don’t know the information to tell your doctor, your doctor doesn’t know how to advise you. And if the doctor doesn’t see the behaviors, they’re not gonna know it’s there.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:07:16): Yeah, exactly. And a good amount of time Frances, the doctor doesn’t know literacy health. So I’m trying to educate these professionals as well. So, you know, you talk about target audience. Well, sure, it’s meant for parents to be able to get this understanding. But through the back door, I want pediatricians and early childhood professionals and librarians to also know what language literacy and dyslexia should look like in terms of this knowledge base, which you know, many of whom they don’t have this information and they don’t have it in an easy to understand way. And I wanted this information to be quick accessible and to convey what this is so that anybody, somebody without a college education could understand it. And it’s written with illustrations as well with lots of white space on the page. So that you know, somebody who might have dyslexia, we know that it runs in families and would be able to read this book with understanding without struggling. It’s a quick accessible read for both professionals and parents.
Frances Shefter: (00:08:42): That is so great. It, because there’s not, I mean, there’s so many books out there we know. And, you know, you can Google like what, what do you read for dyslexia and to know what to know. You know, we don’t know what we don’t know and, and we, you know, shoot in the dark and like, ok, well, this book sounds good but it sounds like you’re starting at the very, very beginning and which people don’t realize or maybe they, you know, they, especially with dyslexia. I know I was told that they don’t diagnose dyslexia before the age of seven.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:9:16): That’s, well, that is changing quickly because the markers are there. If you know, one understands that speech and language is connected to reading, then you could really see the writing on the wall early on. And I go through some of the different markers for problems. So it’s written in a way that it would be easy enough where parents could say. Oh, my goodness. You know what my child has a speech delay. Well, you know what my child does confuse those sounds and it is going on kind of longer than would be expected. You know, maybe I should get a speech and language evaluation early enough and not wait on this because, you know, many, well, meaning people tell parents give it time, wait and see they weren’t doing this on purpose, you know, to damage a child. They really believe, believe that, you know, you just let a child mature that this is going to all work itself out. But we know that early intervention could really change a child’s life where a child, you know, by the time that child gets to fourth grade, you could almost look at this child and it, you wouldn’t even recognize that there was ever a problem. If you catch it early enough. It also depends on how profound the problem is. We know like autism, dyslexia is also a spectrum and there could be mild issues, there could be some profound issues. But if you teach the right way from the beginning, really good classical instruction and we know what to focus on early enough with enough practice opportunities, we could change the course of somebody’s life.
Frances Shefter: (00:11:23): Completely. And it’s not like I know with my daughter, I remember talking to a friend that was a special educator. And I was like, yes, I don’t think she’s talking as much as she should. And she’s like, oh, wait till she’s two. I’m like, yeah. No. You know, and I got her evaluated and she was delayed in speech and because I got her so early and, you know, I, of course, got from infants and toddlers. Plus we did private and just really got as many services. She, now, her expressive language is off the charts. People are like, wait, she was delayed because she just has conversations like crazy. But because we got it early enough, whereas if delayed, who knows where that would have been.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:11:59): Exactly. And you don’t want to leave this up to chance. And that’s also the point of the book because, you know, it’s kind of like the luck of the draw with schools and teachers and intervention teams. So if you speak to parents directly and they get this information in their hands in an easy to understand way. At the very least they’ll know the questions to ask. But more importantly, they could then advocate for their children without having to feel like they’re a step behind because we know there’s a lot of lingo in education. And if you’ve ever been, I’m sure you were at these meetings, you know, that often the parents are just sitting there with conversations going back and forth, they feel completely overwhelmed and you know, you add in all the acronyms and this lingo that they’re unfamiliar with and it’s intimidating, it really is quite intimidating. So my whole role I feel is to try to help and to protect families so that this doesn’t happen.
Frances Shefter: (00:13:26): Right. And that’s the whole reason for like I had my YouTube channel and I started this show is to let parents know and to educate parents. I say all the time, like, I wish I didn’t have a job. I wish parents didn’t need me because then parents would have the information and schools would be doing the right thing. Not that school and I don’t knock schools ever, they’re overwhelmed and the schools don’t even know sometimes and, you know, you have 30 kids in a class, 25 kids in a class. Sometimes the kids slip through the cracks unfortunately. And in these cases when the children are even younger, you don’t know if your daycare center definitely knows. You know. Do you have a good preschool? Does your preschool director, teachers know what to look for? Those are all things that I guess, I mean, I would say your book would probably be important to help parents identify the right preschools to send the children to.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:14:18): Exactly. As a matter of fact, this young woman, , I know, actually told me that her book helped her so much that she started to interview preschools to know if it aligned with what she was seeing in the book and that was great. So that’s another purpose. I know someone else who gave the books out at a kindergarten orientation so that they would have this knowledge when they’re testing the kids and trying to screen them before they go in that it would be right in the folder with all the other information. So, you know, I love that. And then another group of people out in Pennsylvania used the book as a book club read and it was a group of men wanting to be involved in their community. And this is on YouTube, they’re called the Lit Champs. And you see how they move from book 1 to 2 to 3. And by the end, there was this air of confidence about them that they didn’t have when they first met and they recorded the whole thing. So it’s so gratifying to see how the book is being used and how it can be used in many different environments as well as communities with parent groups and you know, church groups, however, you want to use it. I just think that it’s better sometimes to be able to have those discussions with other people. I put up on the books website, www.ifonlybooks.com there is a list of questions for anybody who wants to go in that direction with a book club. So the discussion questions are right there. They can download the questions.
Frances Shefter: (00:16:19): That is so great and it’s so true because I know I’m thinking back like when I had my first child and the parent group that I joined the, the, the hospital where I gave birth did an mom’s group, they did do, I think they did eventually do a dad spinoff but it was mom’s bringing the babies and a lot of times we’d be nursing in the middle of it. So we just kept it as women. But I’m thinking like this would have been great. Usually we went around and what issues we’re having and stuff. But again, like, you don’t know what you don’t know. And as new parents we don’t necessarily know what we’re looking for.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:16:52): Exactly. And, you know, when you’re a mom or dad with a baby, you know how much time you have. Zero. So, the thought of reading this big book is overwhelming. How many parents really have time to sit down and digest a book. Even if the information is fabulous, they just don’t have that time. Many of them are working, they come home, they’re with the baby. The last thing they’re going to do is start reading this dense book. So I kept that in mind as well. So I’m hoping that Maternity Wards would even think about this mommy and me type groups where the books are small enough with the illustrations and the dialogue that it’s quick enough and that it could be read in small spurts without losing a beat. And people tell me they appreciate that, that it’s packed with information and it’s not a heavy read.
Frances Shefter: (00:18:00): Yeah, that’s such a great gift and technique of being able to put it in layman’s terms basically because as you said, especially having been a special educator. And, you know, I was also and you go to IEP meetings and you start talking the lingo and the parents are lost and I, I’ve been at IEP meetings where I take a step back and I’m like, wait, let me check in with my client because I’ll just get going with the, the school and we do da da da da, you know, most of the time the clients like, nope, you got it.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:18:40): I think you froze.
Frances Shefter: (00:18:43): I think you froze for a second also but I think we’re back. Right? OK. Good. Technology today, right?
Faith Borkowsky: (00:18:53): I know we just have to, we just have to go with it. But yes, just what she was saying that you know, the parents can really understand this. It’s not that difficult to understand. And once they see what the underlying issues are and what they should look for. There’s such a difference. These are parents who then could really participate and sit at the table without allowing other people to do their talking. Now, there’s always going to be a need for parent advocates and attorneys. Always, but it is nice when a parent could participate as well because you want to please your clients, you wanna make sure that you are following what they need and, what the child needs. So I think these books absolutely can help with your clients as well.
Frances Shefter: (00:19:56): Right? And I want, you know, it’s, you know, IDA says meaningful participation and that’s always such an argument with the parents, whether they’re meaningfully participating. And I definitely, I tell my clients all the time, you know, no participate. If you don’t understand something, stop the meeting, ask a question. The phrase I like to tell my clients is be the parent ask questions. There’s nothing you can say in an IEP meeting that I can’t turn around to what my client is trying to say and put it in the words that the school needs to hear to get the outcome we want. And that to me, I know the parents relax a lot because I know, I mean, I’ve been a parent in an IEP meeting, even with all my knowledge and background, it’s challenging sometimes it’s about my child and like, wait, I don’t wanna say the wrong thing. I don’t want them to think the wrong thing and those parent questions, they go in my head also. So it’s, you know, it’s knowing that you can do this.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:20:50): Yes. And, you know, it gets emotional and that’s the other thing. You know, I’ve seen parents where they have all these ideas and they know what they want to ask but when they’re listening to this they’re getting angry and emotional and it’s very, very hard to keep that under control when it’s your child. It’s very different when it’s someone else’s child. But when it’s your child, it is very hard not to either cry or get angry and lose it. And you know, you really don’t want to go there if you can help it. Not to say that people aren’t understanding of those emotions, but you want to be able to try to keep it in check and stick to what you want. You know, you want to really get that message across clearly and succinctly. So I do think that that’s important. I just want to say one other thing about meetings because I’ve been to a number of them. One thing that parents should do when they’re under pressure like that, bring paper and pen and start taking notes because you will forget. You will definitely, as this conversation is going on, you will forget what’s happening. So you want to try to catch it at the moment and just jot down a couple of notes to yourself so that you could circle back and ask when maybe you’re not heated or when there’s a break in the conversation.
Frances Shefter: (00:22:34): Yeah, that’s true. I mean, and I do it also, even for, with my clients, we review the IEP or evaluations, whatever we’re discussing. I review it all before and take my notes, talk to my clients and take the notes so that when I have the meeting, I have my notes up because schools will try to go this way or that way. Like no, no, no, no, no, I know that’s your agenda, but this is our agenda and this is the way we need to go.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:22:58): Perfectly said. Yes, 100%.
Frances Shefter: (00:23:01): And when parents come in, I know from when I was, you know, my teaching days when I was in LEA or Special Ed teacher, when parents came in with their, the notebook of all the stuff and their notes as a teacher, as an LEA I listened more just because I knew they were prepared.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:23:19): Correct. Now, you know, one thing that I want to get across is there are parents out there who are not on Facebook and they are not understanding any of this. They might work two and three jobs and they really are just trusting the school. So when they are called to these meetings, they are completely thrown unprepared and they are leaving it to the professionals and trusting to sort things out. And you know, I just think one lesson, if there’s something a parent could take away from our conversation today, Frances is, you have to be in charge of your child’s education and academic health. You can’t just like you have to take charge of your own physical health. Yeah, you have to do the same with education. You cannot leave it to somebody else because you will be sorry later on in a year, two years, three years that you did not participate when you had the chance.
Frances Shefter: (00:24:37): And there’s you know, I’ve had clients before that. If you wait too long, especially with dyslexia, it gets to the point that the schools can’t do what your child needs. And I’ve told parents before, they always look at me like, I’m crazy, I’m like, look, you guys can hire me. I can get you a perfect IEP. But in reality, for a 7th grader with dyslexia, use your money to hire a private coach that will teach your child the way your child needs to be taught because the seventh grade school is not gonna do it.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:25:08): Exactly. And that’s 100%. And yet there aren’t people out there who are as honest as you, they’re just not. And so, these parents are spinning their wheels, wanting certain programs and wanting certain things done and what they don’t realize is that there’s not enough practice opportunities in the day to make this stick that they don’t realize that. Yeah, that one period in the day of resource room when you’re in middle school and high school is not going to be enough to turn this around. If the rest of the day, they are overwhelmed by all this other work that they have and all this other content that comes, that’s why I always say early, early, early, you know, it’s not that kids can’t learn to read or adults can’t learn to read. Of course, any age someone could learn to read, but we have to be realistic. We have to understand that with all the other demands in high school, middle school, you know, and in the future and of course their social lives and all the clubs that they want to be in after school that it’s just not enough time to really turn this around. It takes a while until kids could internalize the code to be able to make it fluent enough to be able to help them with their school work.
Frances Shefter: (00:26:45): Right? And it’s, you know, I say this often my, you know, a lot from my story of growing up, usually our kids with dyslexia are very bright and they compensate and it’s not found until later. And so they’re overcompensating and as they get older, they start getting that feeling of I’m different. I’m not as smart as everybody else because it’s starting to show and as a younger child can compensate and, and hide it, but, you know, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade as it gets harder, it comes out more. So that’s the other reason why it’s important to know the markers of when your child’s 2-3-4 to look for so that you can get that help before they have to even learn how to mask or overcompensate.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:27:35): Yes. And that is what happens and what you said is absolutely true. I am presently working with a young man who is 19 years old and he went away to college. His first year just was so hard for him that, the mother ended up contacting me to work with him. Now at this point and, you know, he’s doing quite well, but all along he was getting help, it’s the right help. You know, like anyone could get help, schools could offer help. But if it’s not the right help and it’s not enough help, it’s not going to get that child where he or she needs to be. And then what happens is they get to high school, they might be able to get into college and maybe even a very good college. But will they be able to last in college when they’re on their own? Completely independent? Having to keep track of all their work and reading and writing is not strong enough to be able to sustain them. It all falls apart.
Frances Shefter: (00:28:55): Right.I love to hear that you’re working with a 19 year old and then you work with everyone because that’s, you know, it’s never too late. You know, that’s the other thing. Like, I, you know, I tell my clients, like, don’t beat yourself up, you know, because parents will say to me, I wish I had known sooner. I wish I had done something sooner. And I’m like, don’t, don’t do that to yourself. You’re reaching out now. You know, you knew you. I used to tell my father all the time that yes, he screwed up when we were kids, but he did the best he could with the knowledge he had. And that’s what it is like, you know what parenting is hard. We don’t get, we don’t get a manual even if we did. Child number two comes along and they’re throwing that one out with something totally different.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:29:36): 100%. Absolutely. We’ve all been there, we’ve all been there and I think we all wish we could have a do over, right. Who doesn’t, you know, would want to turn the back, but you can’t turn the clock back, but you could always move forward, you could always move forward and there’s always something that can be done, but we need to be realistic. And so going back to what the schools can do and what they should do are very different from what parents think they should be getting and what, in fact they do get, they’re in like two different worlds. And so I do think it’s important for parents to get the information the same way you get information before you buy a car. You know, you look up different cars, you look at track records, you want to know what you’re getting. Well, you need to do that with tutors as well. You need to understand what that background is. What they know. Are they able to be flexible? Do they only know one type of program? You know, and I know tutors out there that know a program, but they don’t know how to be flexible enough to be able to say, well, you know what, this program isn’t working and maybe the wrong program was chosen and maybe we need to now switch it up and start going into other issues such as vocabulary or language or writing at this point. So, you know, you need to kind of ask the right questions and in order to ask the right questions, you need to have some foundational knowledge. You don’t have to be an expert, but you have to have some foundational knowledge to be able to communicate your needs.
Frances Shefter: (00:31:33): Right. And I mean, that’s true with any, like finding a tutor also, but picking a preschool, picking a mechanic, picking, you know, absolutely any profession an advocate an attorney. There are so often that I’ll see people post, you know, on Facebook or Instagram or whatever. And they’ll say, like, does anybody know a reasonably priced whatever it’s like, well, do you want reasonably priced or do you want somebody that knows what they’re doing because they’re not always hand in hand. And if you go with the reasonably priced or the cheapest one, chances are you might have to go again and pay to fix it.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:32:10): Do you know how many times parents came to me after tutor, after tutor did not do the job and, you know, no fault of their own. But many times parents are hiring tutors based on a teacher who chooses to moonlight. Oh, yeah, this teacher could help. She’ll do some extra work. But that’s not the kind of tutor you’re looking for. Like, not somebody who’s going to repeat the exact same things they did in the classroom that did not work.
Frances Shefter: (00:32:49): And in some cases that might be the right thing. They just need that extra help. But most cases probably not.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:32:55): Right. But again, you need to look into who it is and what they do. And, you know, I also work with all ages. I’ve taught first grade but I work with adults. You know, I, I really could work with any child and I have the experience to work with different ages. But there are some tutors who just prefer to work with kids. Up to second grade and they don’t want to go beyond that. And then there are people who work with just adults and they don’t want to deal with the behavioral stuff, so they choose not to go in that direction. So that’s part of the question that you need to ask is what experience do you have in this age group or this grade? What have you done in this area as far as fluency? If that happens to be the issue, oftentimes parents will ask me about fluency yet they have underlying problems in decoding and phonemic awareness. Like, oh wait a minute, you might not even be up to fluency yet. You know, like sometimes they’re rushing to have kids sound like readers when there are missing pieces in the foundation that need to be addressed, that they don’t understand. So, yeah,
Frances Shefter: (00:34:25): I’m assuming that your book goes into all of that stuff where the foundations are and builds on it.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:34:31): At a very basic level. Yes, I do. I talk about that now, obviously, there is more to say in each one of these areas and I wrote a book, “Failing Students or Failing Schools”, which is behind me. And you mentioned that my very first book was “Reading Intervention Behind School Walls, Why Your Child Continues to Struggle” and it was republished into “Failing Students or Failing Schools”. But that was really from you know, journal writing. I would put all my ideas into a journal, my frustrations with dealing with schools and I, that would be my way of getting it out. And I said, this is a book the same way I said with, if only I would have known I could write the script, I could write the book. And that was my memoir and my experiences in school. And in those books, that’s where I go into a little bit more detail into the five pillars of literacy and writing. And that you know, what could be done more. But this book does have those tips as well. But like I said, it’s meant for parents of Children up to age seven where those other books are really for when kids start school and move up.
Frances Shefter: (00:35:55): Which makes sense. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s giving the basic foundation and like as we said before, like just knowing the questions to ask, so they don’t need to understand what decoding is and what fluency is and all that. But they do need to understand that decoding comes before fluency.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:36:12): Well, I actually do explain it to be honest, Frances, I do explain what it is decoding and fluency in phonemic awareness. But I do it in layman’s terms. It’s very, very easy to understand. And I also, in my other books, I use analogies. I’m very big on analogies to explain more difficult concepts in this book. I chose to do it as a graphic play so that it’s like you’re seeing the action unfold in front of you with these conversations that a mom who is frustrated and not really knowing, having these conversations with professionals and learning from each person along the way.
Frances Shefter: (00:36:59): Yeah, that’s so wonderful. I love hearing that. It’s in layman’s terms because that’s, that’s what it’s all about. You know, I mean, my whole firm is based on educating families, you know, empowering families with the knowledge they need. You know, but again, we’re also the, the community, you know, it takes a village, you know, we’re the village and it’s OK to ask for help. I say all the time, like we’ve been talking about it, that, you know, our society is so like we have to do it all, we have to do it all. But we don’t, there are people out there that can help us, there are books out there that can help us and us reading the books and us asking for help is such good role modeling for our children.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:37:39): Yes, absolutely. And you know, learning is never finished. There’s never an end point to what you can learn. I’m always learning from other people. I don’t feel like I have all the answers, but I do have experience the same way you have experience and you know, I think a combination of those experiences and what we learn along the way, do make us set up to help others. And I’m happy to do that. I love doing that. And I, I think this role right now is so gratifying to be able to be that person, for a family, for a child, to be able to help when others might not understand. They might be well meaning, but they just don’t understand how to help.
Frances Shefter: (00:38:30): And it’s the best feeling in the world. I have a client that, you know, came back to me and he just, you know, says all the time, she says all the time that, thank you so much because what you did for my son changed his educational course. For the rest of his life.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:38:47): Yeah. And, and that’s what it’s about changing the trajectory for a child. We know when we look at data and the data shows that kids are on this downward hill and or leveling off, which is very common where you see this leveling off or maybe moving up a little bit and then parents are told, oh, they’re making progress. Well, this type of progress is not enough. You have to know how to close a gap. That should be the goal in early childhood intervention is closing a gap, not just moving up a little bit at a time because then they’ll always need this, there’ll be lifers in these types of services. We want to see gap closing work. At least as well as we could. That’s the goal.
Frances Shefter: (00:39:46): Right. Yeah, I mean, they’ll catch up. When are they gonna catch up? Like, you know, the whole thing, it just baffles my mind that the kids have until their 22nd birthday or 21 to be in school but nothing’s changed in the schooling to help spread it out a little bit to give them. Like, I know there used to be like a K1 class. So, like kindergartners when they finished kindergarten, they weren’t ready for first grade yet. There was like that split class in between.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:40:16): Yeah, they have that in my home district. Yes. They have that kind of catch up time and, which is very good for some, but believe it or not even in that catch up class, it’s not always targeted intervention with what they need. So some kids do get out of those classes and they’re not much better off than they were. I’ve seen that too. But you, what you said really makes me laugh because I have a sign on my office wall that says intervention. Nothing changes. If nothing changes. And that kind of summarizes what exactly you’re saying. You can’t keep thinking that something’s going to be better, and improve unless you do something different along the way..
Frances Shefter: (00:41:08): Right. You gotta change and, and I see, I mean, in my years of being in education, which I think we’re about the same amount of years. , you know, it’s, I’ve seen the changes and the differences. I mean, it used to be that dyslexia wasn’t even a thing. And now it’s getting there, but unfortunately a lot of people are like, oh, you need Orton Gillingham. You know, that’s the only thing to do. Or Wilson is a new one that’s popping up. But it’s, that might not be what you need for every child and, and we’re in the program. And so it’s knowing that there are other options out there.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:41:48): I’m so glad you said this and there are parent advocates out there who will say right away, get the testing, get all the testing, you can, you know, neuropsychologist and get, you know, this label and that label and then they go in there and the only thing they’re fighting for is Wilson or OG and I do believe in structured literacy. I am not saying that that is not important, but you need to know why and you need to know what you’re getting and you know, just these kinds of statements, OK? Just it has to be somebody who knows this program. It’s not the answer always. That’s a good start. Perhaps if it points to a decoding problem, maybe that is the best course of action. But you need to be able to find someone who knows how to be flexible enough to give more of something when needed and take away something when it’s not working. So, you know, I’m glad you did mention that.
Frances Shefter: (00:43:9): Yeah. No, it’s true. And it’s to remember that just because the program is not working for your child, it’s not your child. It might not be the right program because I’ve seen that so many times also of, like, I don’t know why he’s not, I’ve had a tutor for a year and a half. Ok. Well, if he’s not learning and there’s been no progress in a year and a half, why are you still with that tutor? You know what I mean? Like, change it. It’s not working for your child. Find a different way.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:43:36): Right. Right. And then the other issue could be, there are some profound cases out there and I mean, very few. I mean, in all my years, I can count them on like one hand where you had these kids who really have some profound disabilities. And I hate to use that word and I don’t use it freely. But, you know, where they are these outliers where it does take a lot and that’s something that I don’t think parents are prepared for. It might not go according to the plan that you think or the timeline that you think, like you have this extreme case here where this kid has such attentional difficulties and such severe language issues that it’s going to take a village for this one. You know, it’s not going to happen the way you think so. And I do want to put it out there that yes, most of the time it should happen much faster. But there are those few which I would consider those are your true kids with dyslexia. Sometimes kids are labeled as dyslexic and all it is is this teacher, that they were not taught from the beginning the correct way and they continue to be taught with ineffective strategies and programs that encourage whole word memorization. And, , you know, it’s not right for them. And if they were only given the right tools, they would be ok. But then you really do have these kids with profound language problems and other problems that interfere with the course of learning that you have to be prepared that it’s going to maybe take more than one professional. It might be a speech and language person. It might be somebody who is controlling, , you know, the mental health aspect of this child which plays into it. There are those kids that just can’t sit for any length of time, even with the most patient person, even with the most hands on program, you do have some of those kids, but they are outliers. You know, it’s like the one with 2%.
Frances Shefter: (00:46:17): And I’m sure they have other talents that you can then tap into not try to force, like we need to know reading, we need to know math, we need to know writing. It’s not for everyone.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:46:28): No, I mean, you could, you could get most kids, I would say most kids up and reading, at least at an adequate level. You could, you really could in all my years, most kids you really can’t. But you do have some that, you know, whether it’s intellectual deficits or other types of things interfering, it will take longer and that’s the reality and it will not be realistic for those kids to be ever on a level that you would hope they would be at. But for the most, like I said, 99% if you have within normal intelligence and you have adequate speech and language, there’s no reason that those kids can’t read or write.
Frances Shefter: (00:47:22): Just getting them in the right program.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:47:25): Yeah. With the, with the right people also guiding it.
Frances Shefter: (00:47:29): And the right fit because there’s, you know, that’s the other thing is that there’s a lot of professionals out there, there might be great but it might not, it might not mesh with your child. It’s not saying anything’s wrong with the professional. It’s just not the right fit. Let’s find somebody that’s the right fit and a good professional. I know I’ve had somebody on my show with the tutor is like a good professional will be able to be like, you know, what, this isn’t working. Let’s find somebody else that makes it’ll work better. Rather than trying to force it.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:47:54): Right. Right. Exactly. And, you know, if you are just not getting along with the family, you know, it’s almost like you have to fire them and just say, and I’ve done that because part of the work I do it requires practice. So in between what I do in tutoring sessions, there needs to be consistent, deep practice going on, not for very long, but daily I really require something that is consistent. You know, in order to change brain patterns, you need to be able to have your eyes on the page looking at it working it. And then parents will say to me, oh, yes, of course. And then all of a sudden every excuse comes up, oh, we had a birthday party, the birthday party lasted a week, you know, and I understand vacations and, and breaks. But I’m talking about constantly having interruptions where they cannot get themselves back on track. And I’m not the right person for you because I will tell you right out, everything requires lots and lots of practice. And I have parents sitting in with me so they could see how I work and I coach them to be able to help their children. So if, if you’re hiring somebody where you don’t know what they’re doing and what’s going on and there’s no practice in between. And you’re wondering why is this taking so long? Well, that could be the missing piece. There’s no practice going on.
Frances Shefter: (00:49:40): Yeah, because once a week isn’t gonna do it. This has been so wonderful and so great. And I know you mentioned your website for the book. , “The If I Only Would Have Known” book.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:49:52): The website of that book is www.ifonlybooks.com And that’s just to get kind of information about me about the books, just seeing if this is the right fit and on that website, I have the discussion guide and I also have a workbook for, school districts and PTAs to be able to use to see if they could recognize a child who might be slipping through the cracks. So it’s a free workbook that’s on www.ifonlybooks.com , my personal website is www.highfiveliteracy.com where people could just learn about my services and you know what I do for schools and who I am.
Frances Shefter: (00:50:42): Great and those things are gonna be in the show notes and I’m assuming they can contact you through the website and buy the book through the website.
Faith Borkowsky: (00:50:50): Yeah. So through both websites, there’s contact information and both websites lead right to Amazon where uh, the book is but, and people could go directly to Amazon. There’s also a Spanish version of, “If Only I Would Have Known”. So, yeah, I have it somewhere and let me see here it is. It’s same, same book, but it’s with the Spanish title. And I did that so that people where English is not their first language, they could also participate and have book club groups as well.
Frances Shefter: (00:51:33): It’s wonderful. That is so wonderful. This has been so great. I just realized like I looked up, I’m like, oh my gosh, we’ve only been on for almost been on an hour which has been so wonderful. I love talking to you and like, you know, there were both on the same wavelength of where like let’s educate families and I hope my listeners enjoyed it as much as I did. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Faith Borkowsky:: (00:51:53): Thank you. And I hope we collaborate Frances. I love to recommend people who I really think get it and you do so. Thank you.
VOICEOVER: (00:52:06): You’ve been listening to Stress-Free IEP® with your host, Frances Shefter. Remember you do not need to do it all alone. You can reach Frances through www.Shefterlaw.com where prior episodes are also posted. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments and sharing the show with others through YouTube, LinkedIn Apple podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and more.
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