In this episode of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter speaks with Sarah Bobal, a dyslexia specialist and owner of Right Start Reading, a virtual reading tutoring service that specializes in Orton-Gilingham tutoring and science-based reading instruction for students with and without dyslexia. Sarah is also an Associate member of the Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators, as well as a Certified Wilson Reading Dyslexia Practitioner.
In this episode, Sarah shares her journey from being a reading specialist to focusing on dyslexia and explains how she helps students overcome reading difficulties through scientific, systematic methods.
Tune in for these key takeaways:
The challenges and misconceptions surrounding dyslexia diagnosis and support in schools.
Effective strategies for supporting children with dyslexia both at home and in educational settings.
The importance of early intervention and comprehensive reading instruction.
How parents can advocate for their children’s needs and ensure they receive appropriate support.
The benefits of specialized reading programs like Orton-Gillingham and Wilson Reading System.
Read the whole transcript of this interview below.
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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.
Voice-Over: 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 podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, and more.Now, here’s the host of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Hello everyone and welcome to the show.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: So today’s guest, Sarah Bobal, is a dyslexia specialist and the owner of Right Start Reading. And I’m really excited about that because dyslexia has been something that has been coming up more and more. Um, and I’ve been having more and more clients that their kids [00:01:00] are dyslexic and we’re going to talk a little bit about that.
What can I do? What can the do schools do to support? So, Sarah, I would introduce yourself. Tell us why you do what you do. How did you get into being a dyslexia specialist?
Sarah Bobal: Sure. Well, um, thank you for having me. And, um, yeah, I think if I think back to the reason I’ve really got into this is that I was a reading specialist, right?
So I had gone to school for to teach reading, basically, and you would have thought I would have got all of my credentials and had all the right training and teaching in order to be able to provide the right instruction to students. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, that wasn’t exactly the case for the certain types of students that I was working with, and I can think of, regarding my why, one student in particular.
And this student, I can remember she was in like 7th or 8th grade, she didn’t know her short vowel, like she had made it all the way to 7th or 8th grade, she didn’t know her short [00:02:00] vowel sounds, there were some consonants she was missing, she couldn’t blend. And, and even though I had spent all of this time, um, You know, learning about reading instruction, learning how to be a reading teacher.
I, I couldn’t believe that. I was like, I don’t know what to do to help this student. I am not equipped. Um, and that just can’t be because this is my passion. I want to be able to help her. And I just felt so stuck. So. Basically, uh, I was like, what can I do? How do I get better at this? Just started researching, like this was back in 2017.
So like the science of reading hadn’t really, I guess, reached the forefront at that point yet. There wasn’t a really a lot out there. So, um, I eventually found my way through the IU. So Pennsylvania has intermediate units or IUs and, um, I found free, uh, Wilson reading system training for the level one, uh, which is, uh, it’s a dyslexia.
It’s a program. for dyslexic students, but you can obviously use it for just students who have reading difficulties. It’s [00:03:00] a systematic sequential, that kind of thing. That was my first introduction to teaching reading in a scientific, more systematic way. And, um, like I said, that was back in 2017 and it kind of just spurred this interest, this interest in this passion, just ignited the passion even more because through that program, um, I was able to help her, you know, and I know I’ve, I’ve learned a lot more since then, but that initial program that was, that worked.
And, um, once you experienced that where you’re, you feel like what you’re doing is helping a child that greatly needs help. Um, you don’t want to stop doing that. So that’s, that’s my why. So, um, uh, yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: You know, the fact that you say that because I have a friend of mine did her master’s in uh, reading specialist also and had no special ed training.
And I’m like, how could you be a reading specialist with no special ed training, right? I didn’t have special ed training either. Right. And it just amazes me because like [00:04:00] thinking about like schools and what they do and who You know, so they have a reading specialist or they have a special ed teacher, special ed teacher usually doesn’t have the reading specialist, reading specialist doesn’t know the special ed, and who’s pulling the child out to work on the reading.
Sarah Bobal: Right, exactly. They’re not communicating or the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, that sort of thing. I’ve definitely, definitely seen that in schools. It’s unfortunate, but. And it’s such,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: it’s such a challenge. And I know.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: So, um, I know with dyslexia, there’s like the screeners, the school does.
What I found is usually the screeners are not telling the truth
Sarah Bobal: and
Frances Shefter, Esq.: what, or I should say not telling the truth. They’re not accurate. They’re not very accurate. They don’t, they’re not
Sarah Bobal: sensitive. Yeah. They’re not as sensitive as, um, maybe they need to be. Yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And then, you know, the other thing that I’ve seen a lot is that people get growled in that if you’re dyslexic.
You can’t read at all and you can’t [00:05:00] pass the tests and, you know, so it’s a challenge for getting a child, you know, um, an IEP for dyslexia because, you know, the discrepancy model, usually there, that’s not a discrepancy,
Sarah Bobal: right?
Frances Shefter, Esq.: But the problem is, is that when, when kids are tested, they’re tested on reading fluency.
Then they’re tested on reading words, then they’re tested on comprehension, and a dyslexic child can usually do all three. Right. Yeah. But not when you put them all together.
Sarah Bobal: Well, I was thinking about that too, because so many of the parents that I’ve talked to, that they find me through whatever means, usually an Orton Gillingham list or something.
Someone’s recommended. Right. Right. Right. You know, that specific approach to them, but, um, they’ll come and they’ll tell me their stories about, well, you know, I’m really trying to get help for my son, but, you know, or daughter, whatever. They have average reading scores. So the school isn’t, you know, offering to help them, but I know that they’re [00:06:00] struggling.
There’s some kind of missing link there. And I don’t know what And then I, of course, the discrepancy model, and I had thought, you know, um, of course, in various trainings I’ve done, we’ve talked about this, how that’s, uh, not a, not the best way, obviously, to get help to the, to the students who really need it.
And I didn’t realize that there were so many schools that still use that. In fact, I think the school district that I taught in previously, uh, does still use that model. Um, I
Frances Shefter, Esq.: got, I was at a meeting and, uh, when I said something about using the discrepancy metal, um, model, the psychologist is like, well, that’s archaic, archaic.
And I’m like, you know, it’s not really nice, but like it is, but it isn’t. But like that, and that was one, like, what I’ve done is that if you look at the base scores, you usually don’t have the discrepancy, but once you go into the subtests, you
Voice-Over: can And
Frances Shefter, Esq.: a lot of times the schools don’t report all the subtests, but [00:07:00] that’s how I was able to get one of my children because the psychologist goes, well, you know, in the subtests, the seven is, is, you know, one, um, standard deviation, a six is two standard deviation.
So the six, so I’m like, so any subtests that is a six means there’s a discrepancy and she would qualify. And she said, yes, I’m like, okay, so look at spelling, uh, decoding and encoding, you know, and they’re like, oh, they’re all six. She qualifies. And the teacher still would say, no, no, no, no, no. She’s reading.
And I’m like, but unfortunately you can say no, as much as you want. The data is the data. And so thankfully we were able to get it. But the problem is, is that I know what I’ve seen, at least, and tell me if you’ve seen something different is that our kids with dyslexia are very, very bright. And they learn how to compensate
Voice-Over: and it
Frances Shefter, Esq.: doesn’t truly come out until they’re hitting the older grades.
Third grade, fourth grade, sometimes not even until middle school and [00:08:00] that’s when it’s discovered and the problem is what I find is that you’re not going to get the instruction you need for dyslexic child in the school system without missing too much curriculum. We’re just going to cause a whole nother issue.
And so there’s times I’ll tell potential clients, I’m like, look, I can get you a perfect IEP, but that’s not going to help your child in the way your child needs to help.
Sarah Bobal: Right. You need a
Frances Shefter, Esq.: specialist.
Sarah Bobal: Yes. Um, and I’ve definitely seen the same thing. In fact, a lot of the students or a lot of the parents that have come to me have been parents of older students and they exactly what you said.
A lot of like a classic, I mean, you can’t really put them all in a box, but I guess you could say like a very typical dyslexic. Profile would be a student who does struggle with reading and spelling, but who is very bright and has strong oral vocabulary, you know, so they can use those compensating skills to, you know, a little bit, a fake, a little bit of their [00:09:00] knowledge so that they kind of are hidden under the radar, so to speak.
And, um, they don’t get the help that they need. And really it’s so essential to get that help in the early years, because That’s when you can make the most impact. And I mean, of course, you can help these students once they get, you know, past grade three or whatever, but it’s going to take a lot more work a lot.
It has to be a lot more intensive, and it takes a lot more time. And I think that, um, unfortunately, that’s not something parents always want to hear. But that’s the case. And that really starts, I think, with the school systems, especially at If you’re in a public school system is having that teacher training or having teachers who have the ability to see what those signs are as early as possible.
And like you were saying, the dyslexic screeners, the screeners that they’re using may not be as sensitive as they need to be to pick up on some of these students. And I think that’s when you have to have a teacher who sees the whole child and recognizes those signs to get them the help that they need as early as they need [00:10:00] it.
Um,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And it’s even like I’ve had teachers that that teachers know something’s wrong, you know, knows something’s up and they see it. And so they have, you know, so they’ll mention it to the parents or whatever. And then you have to convince the school to do the testing, um, you know, and then it’s, do you want to do the school testing?
Or do you want to do your private testing?
Voice-Over: Right.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Because, you know, like that’s always a battle of what are you going to do? Because the school only does so much. Um, and. Does it do everything comprehensively? Yeah. Right.
Sarah Bobal: And those tests, those private tests are so expensive. I mean, I don’t have my, my children are young.
I’m not, um, we’re, we’re not at that stage by any means. And I, you know, I don’t know if they’ll have, I don’t think that they will, but if they did, I couldn’t afford testing like that. You know, I don’t know, you know, for many of these parents, the school system testing is. Their only option. Um, right. [00:11:00]
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And which is fine, which is fine.
It’s just, you know, and that’s, and I always say that start with it. Sometimes, sometimes we have clients that are lucky that have insurance, but I know here in Maryland, you’re on like a 12 to 18 month waiting list to get into the ones that take insurance. But I mean, I guess the important thing with the school one is that.
Yeah. If you know, as a parent going in what you’re looking at what you’re looking for,
Sarah Bobal: right?
Frances Shefter, Esq.: So that when the school does do the testing, you can then look at the tests and go, Oh, wait a minute. But what about this? And what about right?
Sarah Bobal: Yeah. Why wasn’t this included? Or? Yeah, exactly. And I think that, um, Melissa Farrell does a lot of presentations on assessment.
She’s written a few books and part of my research. Teacher training or, uh, Orton Gillingham based training. Those are the books on the list that we have to read. And actually, um, when I went back to school, I went back to school, to Drexel, to get my reading specialist certificate, because in Pennsylvania, [00:12:00] I had, anyway, it’s a long story, but I didn’t have my certificate in Pennsylvania.
Her books were also on the, um, the list of books. So Melissa Farrell, she does wonderful work in that area. And she says, you know, the scores are just the beginning and all of that. nitty gritty stuff where you can really find out where they’re really struggling or why they’re presenting a certain way.
It’s all in those subtests. And that’s something that we study a lot of, um, in the Orton Gillingham training. Um, to help us say, let’s look at this, the students testing and let’s see where exactly their strengths and needs are so that we can design an intervention that really targets what they need. Um, so yeah, I think the testing is super important.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And that’s, and for the parents to know if they’re going the school school route, which of course, you know, is fine. The schools have to, um, then walking in saying, I think my prop, my child has dyslexia. I want. the testing done. I want to [00:13:00] make sure we look at all of the sub test scores because a lot of times schools won’t even report the subtests.
Sarah Bobal: Yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: So you gotta be specific and say, I want to see the subtexts. Yeah. I want to see absolutely every little score.
Sarah Bobal: And I don’t think unless you had someone like you or someone like a parent isn’t going to know that. Right. I mean, that’s, and I wouldn’t know that if I wasn’t in this field, I mean, you would get what you get and then you assume that’s all that there is.
And then, you know,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: and that’s a lot of the reason of why I do this show is to let parents know like, Hey, you know, you don’t, you don’t have to have somebody with you, you know, you can, as long as you’re armed with the information and that’s what it’s all about is empowering the family is to be able to go in and fight.
I always say, I wish I didn’t have a job. That meant all schools are doing what they’re supposed to be doing and supporting children appropriately.
Sarah Bobal: Right.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Unfortunately they don’t. And so, you know, here’s where I am. So now I just help families. I try to help them without like, here’s some free resources. Do it on your own.
If you can, great. [00:14:00] If you can’t come back and call me and I got you. We’ll get you, your child, what you, your child needs.
Sarah Bobal: Yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: You’re a great
Sarah Bobal: resource to have, I’m sure, for so many parents out there. Like, I think about the parents that come to me, too. And they’re, they’re just looking for help, you know, and guidance.
They just don’t know. Um, so, yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. So, what are some things, like, for any parents that are listed? What are some like, you know, especially for parents that might have younger kids that aren’t quite here yet. What are some like best at home literacy practices? I mean, obviously the reading to your child, but what are some other things that they can do?
Sarah Bobal: I think that especially for the youngest, the youngest ones, um, of course, like you said, reading to them, building up that oral vocabulary is, is really huge and you can’t like out, I guess read like a learning disability. You can’t just read and read and read and expect it to resolve itself. I think people know that by now, but, [00:15:00] um, it’s still a huge benefit for their oral vocabulary because we know that oral vocabulary facilitates fluency.
It facilitates their ability to, you know, if they have a word in their, in their Brain already. They know the word, they know how it’s supposed to be pronounced. And when they’re reading that word, it’s easier for them to decode that word cause they already, they already know it and they can flex the vowel sounds or whatever.
So, um, if that’s something you’re doing with your child, continue it, keep it up, keep looking for books that, you know, might be just at or above their, their reading level, uh, even for the younger ones and speaking with your child. So this is outside of letters or words or anything, the young, the younger ones, especially that.
Talk, you know, just having those conversations, the back and forth. Um, and just, you know, really encouraging them to keep going. I think that’s so huge. And that, uh, that isn’t always focused on enough the oral language part of it. I think if you talk to any speech language pathologist, they would tell you the same [00:16:00] thing.
Um, And then, you know, if your child is showing an interest in letters or showing an interest in sounds, you could start playing, you know, little like phonological awareness games with them or doing some rhyming or something like that. Dr. Seuss books are great for those kinds of things, you know, because the rhyming’s kind of built in and you’re reading.
And then you can kind of almost assess like, are they picking up on rhyming? Because, you know, If they are, then they’re probably, you know, that’s a great sign. If they’re not, then they’re like four or five, you know, you might want to, it just might be something to watch out for. It might be something to keep in the back of your mind, um, for the future.
And of course, you know, so those photological awareness, phonemic awareness games, you could say, what’s the first sound you hear in sat, you know, or, um, You know, and keep building on that. And then
Frances Shefter, Esq.: we did, um, I was just gonna say we did as kids when we did road trips, um, we did the animal game. And so somebody would say an animal, so like [00:17:00] tiger, and then the next person would have to say something that an animal that started with the last letter.
It
Sarah Bobal: started with the last
Frances Shefter, Esq.: letter, so tiger, and then you would have to use the R. So I do that with my kids now, but my kid’s like, I can’t think of any more animals, let’s just use any word. So we use, which is fine, because it’s still, that’s the idea, of recognizing the first sound and recognizing the last sound and connecting it.
And it’s just so funny because I think back, I mean, because when I grew up, there really wasn’t special ed or anything like that. Yeah. But this is something my parents did naturally that we would play in the car, you know, like we would do that and then we would do the rhyming that we would just like, you know, pay what rhymes with pay and pay, day, K, you know, go through the whole alphabet and just, you know, um, and I do that with my kids now and then we’ll just start laughing because we make up nonsense words.
Sarah Bobal: It’s so fun for them. It’s a game. They don’t know that, you know, you’re actually targeting any specific skill, but I mean, I think too, like nursery rhymes, there used to, it used to be a lot more, uh, emphasis on nursery rhymes. So I think it’s coming back, but it’s those, they’re great. [00:18:00] And, uh, the, any kind of alliteration, like you were saying, or, uh, you know, focusing on the first sound of a word or, you know, and keeping it going, um, songs, those kinds of things.
You know, anything like that is, is great. And, you know, I will tell you that, um, with my son, he’s five and he, I think he’s going to be a fine reader. It’s just, he’s like, not interested at all. And it’s very frustrating. Yeah. I’m like, I’m a reading specialist. You have to be interested, like what’s wrong with you?
But no, he, he just, um, he’s very much more into math, but I used a lively letters. It’s something you can order. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it or if you’ve heard of it, but, um, so it’s, it’s a, it’s a program and they sell it online. You can buy it online. They do a lot of pretty low cost trainings.
So, um, anyway, their cards, they sell these cards where they have the, uh, the letter, but it’s, uh, it’s, there’s like a character embedded in the letter to [00:19:00] help them with the sound and it’s kind of all tied in and then focusing on the sounds first instead of the letter name. Um, so he, we’ve done a lot with that and he really does enjoy that.
They come with stories for each letter character. Um, and it just really helps to cement the sound and then the letter. And then of course you can take that through to blending words and reading words. And, I found that to be really fun and engaging for A child who really probably could care less, you know, couldn’t care less at this point, you know, so it’s um, it’s a fun program Yeah as
Frances Shefter, Esq.: a former teacher.
It kills me. It’s like like One that loves to go to school and one that hates school They’re so different.
And it’s funny. Cause my younger one, um, she said to my husband a couple of weeks ago, she’s like, daddy, why do you always use such big words that I don’t understand? He said, because I want to help develop your vocabulary. And she’s like, [00:20:00] Oh, , you know, , that was it. So now she’s fine, you know, but they just wanna know why.
That’s the thing. Right. I like, I used to, I mean, I always, when my kids were babies, I would flip out if somebody tried to talk baby, talk with that, because I’m like, oh, really? Yeah. Not baby talk with a child. You know what I mean? Like Mm-Hmm. , they’re not going to learn how to talk when you baby talk. Right.
They know how to do that, you know? Yeah. And that’s the thing. And it’s, it’s, it’s that reading and, and, and just language rich environment.
Sarah Bobal: Absolutely. Yeah. So important, um, to lay that foundation.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. What are like, have you, what are some myths out there about reading instruction? I mean, well, clearly you’ve already busted one of them that specialists know how to teach special ed kids.
Sarah Bobal: I know that’s a really unfortunate one. Yeah. I think it’s getting, it’s getting better. I definitely think it’s getting better. Um, but it’s funny. I, I think there’s, There’s a lot, unfortunately, and sometimes I’m, I’m thinking like, is this a myth or do we just need more research to support this or [00:21:00] to refute it some, some things I think there just needs to be a little bit more research on, but, um, I mean, your, your audience might.
I think there’s, there’s some myths here that they probably.
Sarah Bobal: Perhaps they, they’ve heard this before, or maybe not, but, um, one of the biggest ones I know when I was first learning, going into the science of reading, uh, learning through Wilson, and then eventually OG and everything, is that reading’s not a natural process.
When I was just going through school, like bachelor’s degree in elementary education, that was not Ever said to me, we just assumed reading was the same as speech, right? You can speak, you pick up on speech naturally. Um, you don’t have to teach necessarily your child how to talk. They just pick it up, um, because it’s biologically ingrained, right?
And reading is an invention humans invented, right? It hasn’t even been around that long. And, um, you can’t just. through osmosis. Most kids [00:22:00] can’t through osmosis pick it up. So explicit phonics instruction is really needed for most kids. Of course, you have your outliers will, they’ll just pick it up no matter what, they’ll pick it up.
It’s just all in, you know how their brains Or wired essentially, but most kids will require that explicit teaching, um, in practice. So I think that was, it seems like that’s, um, becoming a myth that’s more well known. And I think more and more people realize that that’s not the case, but, um, that was just a huge one for me when I first started on this journey.
Um, And then, like you said, does your, your reading specialists or even your special education teacher might not be, they might not be trained in the way that they need to be trained, that’s keeping up with the research in order to provide the best instruction, um, to students who struggle. So, yeah. Um, do you want me to keep going?
I have, there’s, I have this, I was trying to think of like [00:23:00] other ones that
Frances Shefter, Esq.: I know were busted for me, like, you know, just, but that’s, that’s That’s so true that it’s not innate. Like you need to be taught.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: I, and I, I know one of the myths often is like, if you’re struggling in reading, you just need to make them read more.
Sarah Bobal: Oh my gosh. Yes. That’s one that I definitely have written down. Cause I used to say that when I was a kindergarten teacher and my, we would discuss in our team meetings, like, Oh, you know, they just need to do it more. Or they just need to, you know, like there’s like 75 sight words they had to memorize in kindergarten.
And I remember I had one, one of our admin was like, well, I guarantee you if you were paid, if you got Hey, to have these kindergartners learn their sight words, then you would be, you know, if we paid you a million dollars for these kids to learn their sight words, you would, they would know them. And I’m like, really?
And now we know, of course, that that’s so not true and so not backed by science. But, um, yeah, that was a big one. I definitely had that written down.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And I remember what I taught, what I taught reading. So I, when I taught in elementary school in the inner city, they had started this new [00:24:00] reading program. And, um, we were like this pilot’s water to remember the name of it.
It was so many decades ago, but I remember learning it and I was a reading reading specialist, I guess, technically, like I pulled out the kids and you would like reread the books. And then once you passed on, you went to the other.
Voice-Over: And
Frances Shefter, Esq.: when I noticed it was like a program that just, wasn’t going to work is when my kid said, look, Ms.
Shefter, I can read the book without looking at the pages.
Sarah Bobal: Wow.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah.
Memorize the book, which makes sense because you hear the same book over and over and you memorize it. You’re not reading
Sarah Bobal: it.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: You’re memorizing
Sarah Bobal: what you hear. Exactly. Yeah. There’s no tie to the print there. Uh, my two year old does that, you know, she can just hears it and memorizes it. Um, it’s, it’s just, um,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: or look at the picture and tell their own story.
Sarah Bobal: Oh, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Guess, just, just take a guess. Um,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: um,
Sarah Bobal: okay. So I [00:25:00] definitely, Had that one that we just discussed reading more is the answer. No.
Sarah Bobal: Um, I guess this one is more specific to kind of like what I do. Um, so I, I’m an Orton Gillingham practitioner or I teach through the Orton Gillingham approach.
It’s not a program. It’s an approach, but some people, um, Which is a myth in
Frances Shefter, Esq.: itself.
Sarah Bobal: Uh, yeah. Everybody
Frances Shefter, Esq.: thinks it’s a specific program, and it’s not. Exactly, yes. Yes, exactly. I
Sarah Bobal: mean, there’s some programs that are aligned to it, which would be considered programs, but that’s not what Orton Gillingham is. Like, it’s not scripted.
It’s a lot of training. But, um, A lot of people think that it is just phonics, and I think, you know, maybe if you have someone who isn’t maybe as well trained or someone who is just kind of going off the fly, maybe just providing phonics and okay, that’s what they’re doing, but the approach itself is very comprehensive in that it includes, you know, phonemic awareness, phonics, [00:26:00] fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, all of those things.
And, you know, I think another myth that kind of ties into that is that. Those skills need to be taught separately, um, or outside of each other, but they really have to be interwoven and interconnected to make the most, to make the most of it for, for a child, um, to help them really build those sight words and keep, keep them in their brains and, uh, you know, propel them forward.
And I, you know, it’s my opinion that Orton Gilling, that approach does a good job with that interweaving all of those concepts and not teaching them a separate entities. Um, but kind of building it all up. Yeah,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: we talked about before is that the reason dyslexia is not picked up earlier in schools is because a lot of times they could do the individual part.
It’s being able to do them all together that the dyslexic child has the issue. Yeah. So why wouldn’t you be teaching with all of the parts together?
Sarah Bobal: Exactly. Yeah. [00:27:00] And that application, um, really having that application, um, yeah.
Sarah Bobal: So I kind of alluded to this earlier, but your school administration knows best.
I think when you go in, I know, right. I know. I mean, I think when you go in, you just kind of assume, well, these people are in leadership roles. And I mean, there are. There are wonderful administrators out there and wonderful teachers out there who really do want to do the best for their students. And I don’t want to like lump them all into one category.
But first of all, if you’re a parent and you suspect that something is wrong, it probably is. I’ve never encountered, encountered a situation where a parent thought that something was off and they were wrong. They’re always right. You know, your kid and admin can come and tell you, well, you know, you’re wrong.
You know, these scores are average, they’re fine. They’re not, you know, they’re reading okay. And it’s like, but you know, right. And, um, so you have to kind of trust your gut as a parent and realize that the school admin doesn’t know all the time. [00:28:00] They don’t, um, can’t
Frances Shefter, Esq.: and the teachers don’t know all the time they can’t, you know, and I say that, and it’s not, they’re not doing it maliciously.
It’s not like they don’t want to teach a child. It’s not like they don’t want to help. They only have so much they can do. And they only have so much training because like gen ed teachers aren’t given any special ed training. They’re not given how to recognize and how to do a quick little assessment of, you know, simple things that we learned with special ed training, you know, which is so crazy because it’s the gen ed kit teachers that need to be like the, are, you know, the search team, you know, and you know, they’re the first.
Sarah Bobal: I don’t even think, you know, and I’m speaking from my own experience as well here. So, um, I’m, yeah, I don’t think that they’re super equipped to deal with the IEPs either, because as a general ed teacher, you weren’t trained in how to construct an IEP or what the IEP goals mean. And, you know, I [00:29:00] worked in a school recently where the child would have an IEP, student teachers wouldn’t even know.
And if they did know, They didn’t check up on the IEP and make sure that, you know, either focusing on these goals or they would have, be able to have students with a specific learning disability or dyslexia, and they would be having them read, you know, a science test or a social studies test. And it’s like, no, this, you know, this isn’t assessing what they know you’re assessing their decoding ability.
And it’s specifically outlined that tests are supposed to be read to them. And you’re not following the IEP, maybe because you don’t, you know, So, know to do that or because you’re not aware of even where to find it, you know, I mean, I just think that it’s, there’s a lot of things that should, I think, be more overlapped between special ed and general ed and reading specialists, like you were saying earlier, because we’re all, we all have the same goal, essentially, to help these kids.
So, um, Yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. It’s frustrating because I get that a lot is that the IEP is not being implemented. The teachers [00:30:00] didn’t even know like, I mean, I’ve had teachers like actually in writing email clients and be like, your child has turned in the, you know, the last five assignments, two days late. And it’s like, IEP says my child can turn in the two days late.
That’s one of their accommodations, you know, and Oh, you know, like clearly you don’t have the IEP
Sarah Bobal: giveaway.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. And again, like, you know, this is a middle school, high school teacher, which they know their content. They’re not even necessarily totally taught teaching skills. Um, you know, and, and, you know, they have 30 kids in their class.
40 kids in their class to know all the IEPs, you know, that’s not difficult. Yeah, I don’t put that on the teacher. I put that on whoever the special ed coordinator is to make sure the teachers all have the support that they need, right? Yeah, administration, which that’s a whole nother story, right?
Absolutely.
Sarah Bobal: Yeah,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: I said it always like how The [00:31:00] principal or even assistant principals, you know, the administrative staff, how they look at special education is like a huge determiner of what the special ed department is going to look like. And what’s it going to look like? Um, I’ve had schools that were like top of the list schools.
And I was like, Oh yeah, this is the great special ed school. Principal changed. And like, all of a sudden, like, holy crap, what just happened? You know,
Sarah Bobal: right. It changes the whole dynamic in the whole outlook of everything. Yeah, that’s unfortunate. Um, and
Frances Shefter, Esq.: so I want to talk a little bit more about what you do and how you do it.
So I think you said like with O. G. that you start with an assessment. Yeah, so how did what does that look like? So somebody says, All right, I think my kid has dyslexia. I need help. What do I do? What do I ask for? How can you help?
Sarah Bobal: Sure. So [00:32:00] I think the first place to start, if possible, would be with like a psychoeducational eval, you know, and that’s, that’s It’s not always possible, but that is where you get like the cognitive testing, uh, working memory processing speed and all of those underlying subtests, like we had talked about that kind of give a clearer picture.
And I don’t do that. Right. I’m, I’m not a psychologist or anything, but what I do. do is once I get a child, whether they have dyslexia or not, I can work with them, you know, um, they don’t necessarily need a diagnosis, but, uh, my first step is always like a diagnostic assessment, but I’m only assessing, um, well, all of those like comprehensive reading skills, but I’m not going into, like I said, the cognitive thing.
piece of it, just basically reading. So we know they have a reading issue somewhere. The purpose of the diagnostic test is for me to figure out where that issue is and where strengths and weaknesses and then where I can begin. The best place to begin for [00:33:00] the student that’s not too low but not too high, um, so that we can begin at the right pace and at the right level.
For the student. So,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: right.
Sarah Bobal: So that’s great.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And then are you in person or virtual or both
Sarah Bobal: right now? I’m only virtual. We, um, we are moving. My husband and I were moving and where we’re moving, um, has an office space. And so my hope is to bring students in in person because I mean, I love teaching online. I really do think you can do.
Pretty much anything online that you can do in person, but in person is of course like, I mean if I had to choose, I would want to be in person if I could. I just don’t have the space right now. But so yeah, I do both eventually.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah, no, that makes sense. You know, it’s so funny ’cause I always think like, how the heck do you teach reading without being next to the kid?
Reading? I guess you each have your own copy of the book or something, right?
Sarah Bobal: Yes. Or it’s taken a lot of, you know, AADA adaptation. Of course, COVID helped. In [00:34:00] that aspect, it helped a lot. I know I hate saying it helped, but I know it’s terrible. I know. But in that aspect, it did because you were forced to adapt and learn different strategies, learn different programs.
And really just the zoom tools of sharing the screen is, is it seems so simple. But I can put whatever texts I need to on the screen and share it. I also have a document camera, so I can share that. So, you know, It’s not the same as seeing it in, you know, in person, um, but they’re still able to read, we’re still able to read the same words or share the screen and, um, do much of the same things that we would do if we were in person.
And, um, And as a parent,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: I’m thinking, if it wasn’t a tutor coming into my house, which is its own other thing of like, Oh, wait, my house needs to be clean enough for somebody to come in. Right. Yeah. Just pick everything up and clear up the table. There you go. And then the thought of driving the kids, like, I got to get this one to this, and this one to that, and this one to [00:35:00] the other, it’s, it’s rough.
So virtual, I kind of, I only have to carve out an hour, like, period, an hour, you know. Yeah,
Sarah Bobal: there’s definitely benefits, definitely benefits to it. And I think, you know, I have, uh, I’m, I’m have mixed feelings about the real young students. Like I don’t think I would take on a kindergartner online personally.
Um, I know other teachers who do and they probably do just fine, but I’m not comfortable with that. I think that in person for them is much better. Um, so many of my students are second grade and above, and They really do zoom. It’s almost like it’s intuitive for them. Many of them. I sometimes I do go through like a tutorial of like, this is where the annotation tool is.
This is where, you know, this, you know, whatever other button they need, they need is the mute button or whatever, um, might have to do that. But many of the older students already know how to work it and they’re pretty adept. And, um, yeah, it’s a lot of the same things [00:36:00] that you would do in person. Of course, I can send, um, I can send parents things to print so that they do have it, you know, if they prefer that.
I’m always like, I don’t want to give the parents something extra to do, but um, you know, then their eyes aren’t on the screen. So it is possible to do that. It’s just one more step.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And so do you, I know you said something about having a certificate, but do you, um, are you just with Pennsylvania students or is it you can teach anywhere?
Sarah Bobal: Well, online I can teach anywhere. Yeah. Um, it’s not like speech pathology. I think where you have to have like a license in a certain state to serve those students, um, because it’s my own private practice. I can, um, I like I’m tutoring. I used to tutor two children in Oregon, a brother and a sister. Now I’m only tutoring the brother, but it’s a three hour time difference.
So, you know, I’m tutoring at like seven and it’s, you know, four o’clock his time. And it works pretty well, actually. So, [00:37:00] uh, yeah, different time zones, different places, you know, whatever works. That is so awesome.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: This has been so great. I love it. And like dyslexia is such a hot thing, right? You know, topic right now.
It’s one of the big ones, um, because it’s again, it’s not getting picked up early enough. And then where are you
Sarah Bobal: right now?
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And that’s if a child is above fourth grade, I always say, you know what? Go hire a tutor. Right. Find a good tutor that’s trained. You want Wilson or OG. I know I’ve heard both of them that knows what they’re doing, has had the training, has a certificate, check into all of that stuff because they’re going to be able to get your child where your child needs to be
Sarah Bobal: without
Frances Shefter, Esq.: missing content.
Sarah Bobal: Exactly. Um, and don’t just don’t wait. And you know, no, no fault on the teachers at all. But many of these dyslexic students do need that one on one. They just really do. Um, and you can’t replace, you just, that’s irreplaceable really for a student that needs help. [00:38:00]
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And so if people are listening and they want to get in touch with doing like, oh, wait, maybe we should have her at least do a diagnostic.
What’s the best way for people to reach you? Well,
Sarah Bobal: I do. I have my website. So that’s just www dot right. Start reading. com. And there’s like a place on the website where you can send me a message or something. Um, and then I have my email, uh, Sarah at right. Start reading. com. Sarah with an H. And I do have an Instagram, which, uh, if you, I think just search right.
Start reading. It should come up or Sarah at right. Start reading. We’ll have
Frances Shefter, Esq.: all the links in the show notes. So when we publish
Sarah Bobal: it. That’s where you can contact me. Yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. So awesome. This has been so wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Sarah Bobal: Thank you so much for having me. I love collaborating with like minded people and this has been a great experience.
So thank you so much.
Voice-Over: 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 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 Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.
Navigating Dyslexia Support with Sarah Bobal
Stress-Free IEP® with Frances Shefter, Episode 56
In this episode of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter speaks with Sarah Bobal, a dyslexia specialist and owner of Right Start Reading, a virtual reading tutoring service that specializes in Orton-Gilingham tutoring and science-based reading instruction for students with and without dyslexia. Sarah is also an Associate member of the Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators, as well as a Certified Wilson Reading Dyslexia Practitioner.
In this episode, Sarah shares her journey from being a reading specialist to focusing on dyslexia and explains how she helps students overcome reading difficulties through scientific, systematic methods.
Tune in for these key takeaways:
Learn more about Sarah Bobal:
Read the whole transcript of this interview below.
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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:
Read the whole transcript here:
Voice-Over: 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 podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, and more.Now, here’s the host of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Hello everyone and welcome to the show.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: So today’s guest, Sarah Bobal, is a dyslexia specialist and the owner of Right Start Reading. And I’m really excited about that because dyslexia has been something that has been coming up more and more. Um, and I’ve been having more and more clients that their kids [00:01:00] are dyslexic and we’re going to talk a little bit about that.
What can I do? What can the do schools do to support? So, Sarah, I would introduce yourself. Tell us why you do what you do. How did you get into being a dyslexia specialist?
Sarah Bobal: Sure. Well, um, thank you for having me. And, um, yeah, I think if I think back to the reason I’ve really got into this is that I was a reading specialist, right?
So I had gone to school for to teach reading, basically, and you would have thought I would have got all of my credentials and had all the right training and teaching in order to be able to provide the right instruction to students. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, that wasn’t exactly the case for the certain types of students that I was working with, and I can think of, regarding my why, one student in particular.
And this student, I can remember she was in like 7th or 8th grade, she didn’t know her short vowel, like she had made it all the way to 7th or 8th grade, she didn’t know her short [00:02:00] vowel sounds, there were some consonants she was missing, she couldn’t blend. And, and even though I had spent all of this time, um, You know, learning about reading instruction, learning how to be a reading teacher.
I, I couldn’t believe that. I was like, I don’t know what to do to help this student. I am not equipped. Um, and that just can’t be because this is my passion. I want to be able to help her. And I just felt so stuck. So. Basically, uh, I was like, what can I do? How do I get better at this? Just started researching, like this was back in 2017.
So like the science of reading hadn’t really, I guess, reached the forefront at that point yet. There wasn’t a really a lot out there. So, um, I eventually found my way through the IU. So Pennsylvania has intermediate units or IUs and, um, I found free, uh, Wilson reading system training for the level one, uh, which is, uh, it’s a dyslexia.
It’s a program. for dyslexic students, but you can obviously use it for just students who have reading difficulties. It’s [00:03:00] a systematic sequential, that kind of thing. That was my first introduction to teaching reading in a scientific, more systematic way. And, um, like I said, that was back in 2017 and it kind of just spurred this interest, this interest in this passion, just ignited the passion even more because through that program, um, I was able to help her, you know, and I know I’ve, I’ve learned a lot more since then, but that initial program that was, that worked.
And, um, once you experienced that where you’re, you feel like what you’re doing is helping a child that greatly needs help. Um, you don’t want to stop doing that. So that’s, that’s my why. So, um, uh, yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: You know, the fact that you say that because I have a friend of mine did her master’s in uh, reading specialist also and had no special ed training.
And I’m like, how could you be a reading specialist with no special ed training, right? I didn’t have special ed training either. Right. And it just amazes me because like [00:04:00] thinking about like schools and what they do and who You know, so they have a reading specialist or they have a special ed teacher, special ed teacher usually doesn’t have the reading specialist, reading specialist doesn’t know the special ed, and who’s pulling the child out to work on the reading.
Sarah Bobal: Right, exactly. They’re not communicating or the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, that sort of thing. I’ve definitely, definitely seen that in schools. It’s unfortunate, but. And it’s such,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: it’s such a challenge. And I know.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: So, um, I know with dyslexia, there’s like the screeners, the school does.
What I found is usually the screeners are not telling the truth
Sarah Bobal: and
Frances Shefter, Esq.: what, or I should say not telling the truth. They’re not accurate. They’re not very accurate. They don’t, they’re not
Sarah Bobal: sensitive. Yeah. They’re not as sensitive as, um, maybe they need to be. Yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And then, you know, the other thing that I’ve seen a lot is that people get growled in that if you’re dyslexic.
You can’t read at all and you can’t [00:05:00] pass the tests and, you know, so it’s a challenge for getting a child, you know, um, an IEP for dyslexia because, you know, the discrepancy model, usually there, that’s not a discrepancy,
Sarah Bobal: right?
Frances Shefter, Esq.: But the problem is, is that when, when kids are tested, they’re tested on reading fluency.
Then they’re tested on reading words, then they’re tested on comprehension, and a dyslexic child can usually do all three. Right. Yeah. But not when you put them all together.
Sarah Bobal: Well, I was thinking about that too, because so many of the parents that I’ve talked to, that they find me through whatever means, usually an Orton Gillingham list or something.
Someone’s recommended. Right. Right. Right. You know, that specific approach to them, but, um, they’ll come and they’ll tell me their stories about, well, you know, I’m really trying to get help for my son, but, you know, or daughter, whatever. They have average reading scores. So the school isn’t, you know, offering to help them, but I know that they’re [00:06:00] struggling.
There’s some kind of missing link there. And I don’t know what And then I, of course, the discrepancy model, and I had thought, you know, um, of course, in various trainings I’ve done, we’ve talked about this, how that’s, uh, not a, not the best way, obviously, to get help to the, to the students who really need it.
And I didn’t realize that there were so many schools that still use that. In fact, I think the school district that I taught in previously, uh, does still use that model. Um, I
Frances Shefter, Esq.: got, I was at a meeting and, uh, when I said something about using the discrepancy metal, um, model, the psychologist is like, well, that’s archaic, archaic.
And I’m like, you know, it’s not really nice, but like it is, but it isn’t. But like that, and that was one, like, what I’ve done is that if you look at the base scores, you usually don’t have the discrepancy, but once you go into the subtests, you
Voice-Over: can And
Frances Shefter, Esq.: a lot of times the schools don’t report all the subtests, but [00:07:00] that’s how I was able to get one of my children because the psychologist goes, well, you know, in the subtests, the seven is, is, you know, one, um, standard deviation, a six is two standard deviation.
So the six, so I’m like, so any subtests that is a six means there’s a discrepancy and she would qualify. And she said, yes, I’m like, okay, so look at spelling, uh, decoding and encoding, you know, and they’re like, oh, they’re all six. She qualifies. And the teacher still would say, no, no, no, no, no. She’s reading.
And I’m like, but unfortunately you can say no, as much as you want. The data is the data. And so thankfully we were able to get it. But the problem is, is that I know what I’ve seen, at least, and tell me if you’ve seen something different is that our kids with dyslexia are very, very bright. And they learn how to compensate
Voice-Over: and it
Frances Shefter, Esq.: doesn’t truly come out until they’re hitting the older grades.
Third grade, fourth grade, sometimes not even until middle school and [00:08:00] that’s when it’s discovered and the problem is what I find is that you’re not going to get the instruction you need for dyslexic child in the school system without missing too much curriculum. We’re just going to cause a whole nother issue.
And so there’s times I’ll tell potential clients, I’m like, look, I can get you a perfect IEP, but that’s not going to help your child in the way your child needs to help.
Sarah Bobal: Right. You need a
Frances Shefter, Esq.: specialist.
Sarah Bobal: Yes. Um, and I’ve definitely seen the same thing. In fact, a lot of the students or a lot of the parents that have come to me have been parents of older students and they exactly what you said.
A lot of like a classic, I mean, you can’t really put them all in a box, but I guess you could say like a very typical dyslexic. Profile would be a student who does struggle with reading and spelling, but who is very bright and has strong oral vocabulary, you know, so they can use those compensating skills to, you know, a little bit, a fake, a little bit of their [00:09:00] knowledge so that they kind of are hidden under the radar, so to speak.
And, um, they don’t get the help that they need. And really it’s so essential to get that help in the early years, because That’s when you can make the most impact. And I mean, of course, you can help these students once they get, you know, past grade three or whatever, but it’s going to take a lot more work a lot.
It has to be a lot more intensive, and it takes a lot more time. And I think that, um, unfortunately, that’s not something parents always want to hear. But that’s the case. And that really starts, I think, with the school systems, especially at If you’re in a public school system is having that teacher training or having teachers who have the ability to see what those signs are as early as possible.
And like you were saying, the dyslexic screeners, the screeners that they’re using may not be as sensitive as they need to be to pick up on some of these students. And I think that’s when you have to have a teacher who sees the whole child and recognizes those signs to get them the help that they need as early as they need [00:10:00] it.
Um,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And it’s even like I’ve had teachers that that teachers know something’s wrong, you know, knows something’s up and they see it. And so they have, you know, so they’ll mention it to the parents or whatever. And then you have to convince the school to do the testing, um, you know, and then it’s, do you want to do the school testing?
Or do you want to do your private testing?
Voice-Over: Right.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Because, you know, like that’s always a battle of what are you going to do? Because the school only does so much. Um, and. Does it do everything comprehensively? Yeah. Right.
Sarah Bobal: And those tests, those private tests are so expensive. I mean, I don’t have my, my children are young.
I’m not, um, we’re, we’re not at that stage by any means. And I, you know, I don’t know if they’ll have, I don’t think that they will, but if they did, I couldn’t afford testing like that. You know, I don’t know, you know, for many of these parents, the school system testing is. Their only option. Um, right. [00:11:00]
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And which is fine, which is fine.
It’s just, you know, and that’s, and I always say that start with it. Sometimes, sometimes we have clients that are lucky that have insurance, but I know here in Maryland, you’re on like a 12 to 18 month waiting list to get into the ones that take insurance. But I mean, I guess the important thing with the school one is that.
Yeah. If you know, as a parent going in what you’re looking at what you’re looking for,
Sarah Bobal: right?
Frances Shefter, Esq.: So that when the school does do the testing, you can then look at the tests and go, Oh, wait a minute. But what about this? And what about right?
Sarah Bobal: Yeah. Why wasn’t this included? Or? Yeah, exactly. And I think that, um, Melissa Farrell does a lot of presentations on assessment.
She’s written a few books and part of my research. Teacher training or, uh, Orton Gillingham based training. Those are the books on the list that we have to read. And actually, um, when I went back to school, I went back to school, to Drexel, to get my reading specialist certificate, because in Pennsylvania, [00:12:00] I had, anyway, it’s a long story, but I didn’t have my certificate in Pennsylvania.
Her books were also on the, um, the list of books. So Melissa Farrell, she does wonderful work in that area. And she says, you know, the scores are just the beginning and all of that. nitty gritty stuff where you can really find out where they’re really struggling or why they’re presenting a certain way.
It’s all in those subtests. And that’s something that we study a lot of, um, in the Orton Gillingham training. Um, to help us say, let’s look at this, the students testing and let’s see where exactly their strengths and needs are so that we can design an intervention that really targets what they need. Um, so yeah, I think the testing is super important.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And that’s, and for the parents to know if they’re going the school school route, which of course, you know, is fine. The schools have to, um, then walking in saying, I think my prop, my child has dyslexia. I want. the testing done. I want to [00:13:00] make sure we look at all of the sub test scores because a lot of times schools won’t even report the subtests.
Sarah Bobal: Yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: So you gotta be specific and say, I want to see the subtexts. Yeah. I want to see absolutely every little score.
Sarah Bobal: And I don’t think unless you had someone like you or someone like a parent isn’t going to know that. Right. I mean, that’s, and I wouldn’t know that if I wasn’t in this field, I mean, you would get what you get and then you assume that’s all that there is.
And then, you know,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: and that’s a lot of the reason of why I do this show is to let parents know like, Hey, you know, you don’t, you don’t have to have somebody with you, you know, you can, as long as you’re armed with the information and that’s what it’s all about is empowering the family is to be able to go in and fight.
I always say, I wish I didn’t have a job. That meant all schools are doing what they’re supposed to be doing and supporting children appropriately.
Sarah Bobal: Right.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Unfortunately they don’t. And so, you know, here’s where I am. So now I just help families. I try to help them without like, here’s some free resources. Do it on your own.
If you can, great. [00:14:00] If you can’t come back and call me and I got you. We’ll get you, your child, what you, your child needs.
Sarah Bobal: Yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: You’re a great
Sarah Bobal: resource to have, I’m sure, for so many parents out there. Like, I think about the parents that come to me, too. And they’re, they’re just looking for help, you know, and guidance.
They just don’t know. Um, so, yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. So, what are some things, like, for any parents that are listed? What are some like, you know, especially for parents that might have younger kids that aren’t quite here yet. What are some like best at home literacy practices? I mean, obviously the reading to your child, but what are some other things that they can do?
Sarah Bobal: I think that especially for the youngest, the youngest ones, um, of course, like you said, reading to them, building up that oral vocabulary is, is really huge and you can’t like out, I guess read like a learning disability. You can’t just read and read and read and expect it to resolve itself. I think people know that by now, but, [00:15:00] um, it’s still a huge benefit for their oral vocabulary because we know that oral vocabulary facilitates fluency.
It facilitates their ability to, you know, if they have a word in their, in their Brain already. They know the word, they know how it’s supposed to be pronounced. And when they’re reading that word, it’s easier for them to decode that word cause they already, they already know it and they can flex the vowel sounds or whatever.
So, um, if that’s something you’re doing with your child, continue it, keep it up, keep looking for books that, you know, might be just at or above their, their reading level, uh, even for the younger ones and speaking with your child. So this is outside of letters or words or anything, the young, the younger ones, especially that.
Talk, you know, just having those conversations, the back and forth. Um, and just, you know, really encouraging them to keep going. I think that’s so huge. And that, uh, that isn’t always focused on enough the oral language part of it. I think if you talk to any speech language pathologist, they would tell you the same [00:16:00] thing.
Um, And then, you know, if your child is showing an interest in letters or showing an interest in sounds, you could start playing, you know, little like phonological awareness games with them or doing some rhyming or something like that. Dr. Seuss books are great for those kinds of things, you know, because the rhyming’s kind of built in and you’re reading.
And then you can kind of almost assess like, are they picking up on rhyming? Because, you know, If they are, then they’re probably, you know, that’s a great sign. If they’re not, then they’re like four or five, you know, you might want to, it just might be something to watch out for. It might be something to keep in the back of your mind, um, for the future.
And of course, you know, so those photological awareness, phonemic awareness games, you could say, what’s the first sound you hear in sat, you know, or, um, You know, and keep building on that. And then
Frances Shefter, Esq.: we did, um, I was just gonna say we did as kids when we did road trips, um, we did the animal game. And so somebody would say an animal, so like [00:17:00] tiger, and then the next person would have to say something that an animal that started with the last letter.
It
Sarah Bobal: started with the last
Frances Shefter, Esq.: letter, so tiger, and then you would have to use the R. So I do that with my kids now, but my kid’s like, I can’t think of any more animals, let’s just use any word. So we use, which is fine, because it’s still, that’s the idea, of recognizing the first sound and recognizing the last sound and connecting it.
And it’s just so funny because I think back, I mean, because when I grew up, there really wasn’t special ed or anything like that. Yeah. But this is something my parents did naturally that we would play in the car, you know, like we would do that and then we would do the rhyming that we would just like, you know, pay what rhymes with pay and pay, day, K, you know, go through the whole alphabet and just, you know, um, and I do that with my kids now and then we’ll just start laughing because we make up nonsense words.
Sarah Bobal: It’s so fun for them. It’s a game. They don’t know that, you know, you’re actually targeting any specific skill, but I mean, I think too, like nursery rhymes, there used to, it used to be a lot more, uh, emphasis on nursery rhymes. So I think it’s coming back, but it’s those, they’re great. [00:18:00] And, uh, the, any kind of alliteration, like you were saying, or, uh, you know, focusing on the first sound of a word or, you know, and keeping it going, um, songs, those kinds of things.
You know, anything like that is, is great. And, you know, I will tell you that, um, with my son, he’s five and he, I think he’s going to be a fine reader. It’s just, he’s like, not interested at all. And it’s very frustrating. Yeah. I’m like, I’m a reading specialist. You have to be interested, like what’s wrong with you?
But no, he, he just, um, he’s very much more into math, but I used a lively letters. It’s something you can order. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it or if you’ve heard of it, but, um, so it’s, it’s a, it’s a program and they sell it online. You can buy it online. They do a lot of pretty low cost trainings.
So, um, anyway, their cards, they sell these cards where they have the, uh, the letter, but it’s, uh, it’s, there’s like a character embedded in the letter to [00:19:00] help them with the sound and it’s kind of all tied in and then focusing on the sounds first instead of the letter name. Um, so he, we’ve done a lot with that and he really does enjoy that.
They come with stories for each letter character. Um, and it just really helps to cement the sound and then the letter. And then of course you can take that through to blending words and reading words. And, I found that to be really fun and engaging for A child who really probably could care less, you know, couldn’t care less at this point, you know, so it’s um, it’s a fun program Yeah as
Frances Shefter, Esq.: a former teacher.
It kills me. It’s like like One that loves to go to school and one that hates school They’re so different.
And it’s funny. Cause my younger one, um, she said to my husband a couple of weeks ago, she’s like, daddy, why do you always use such big words that I don’t understand? He said, because I want to help develop your vocabulary. And she’s like, [00:20:00] Oh, , you know, , that was it. So now she’s fine, you know, but they just wanna know why.
That’s the thing. Right. I like, I used to, I mean, I always, when my kids were babies, I would flip out if somebody tried to talk baby, talk with that, because I’m like, oh, really? Yeah. Not baby talk with a child. You know what I mean? Like Mm-Hmm. , they’re not going to learn how to talk when you baby talk. Right.
They know how to do that, you know? Yeah. And that’s the thing. And it’s, it’s, it’s that reading and, and, and just language rich environment.
Sarah Bobal: Absolutely. Yeah. So important, um, to lay that foundation.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. What are like, have you, what are some myths out there about reading instruction? I mean, well, clearly you’ve already busted one of them that specialists know how to teach special ed kids.
Sarah Bobal: I know that’s a really unfortunate one. Yeah. I think it’s getting, it’s getting better. I definitely think it’s getting better. Um, but it’s funny. I, I think there’s, There’s a lot, unfortunately, and sometimes I’m, I’m thinking like, is this a myth or do we just need more research to support this or [00:21:00] to refute it some, some things I think there just needs to be a little bit more research on, but, um, I mean, your, your audience might.
I think there’s, there’s some myths here that they probably.
Sarah Bobal: Perhaps they, they’ve heard this before, or maybe not, but, um, one of the biggest ones I know when I was first learning, going into the science of reading, uh, learning through Wilson, and then eventually OG and everything, is that reading’s not a natural process.
When I was just going through school, like bachelor’s degree in elementary education, that was not Ever said to me, we just assumed reading was the same as speech, right? You can speak, you pick up on speech naturally. Um, you don’t have to teach necessarily your child how to talk. They just pick it up, um, because it’s biologically ingrained, right?
And reading is an invention humans invented, right? It hasn’t even been around that long. And, um, you can’t just. through osmosis. Most kids [00:22:00] can’t through osmosis pick it up. So explicit phonics instruction is really needed for most kids. Of course, you have your outliers will, they’ll just pick it up no matter what, they’ll pick it up.
It’s just all in, you know how their brains Or wired essentially, but most kids will require that explicit teaching, um, in practice. So I think that was, it seems like that’s, um, becoming a myth that’s more well known. And I think more and more people realize that that’s not the case, but, um, that was just a huge one for me when I first started on this journey.
Um, And then, like you said, does your, your reading specialists or even your special education teacher might not be, they might not be trained in the way that they need to be trained, that’s keeping up with the research in order to provide the best instruction, um, to students who struggle. So, yeah. Um, do you want me to keep going?
I have, there’s, I have this, I was trying to think of like [00:23:00] other ones that
Frances Shefter, Esq.: I know were busted for me, like, you know, just, but that’s, that’s That’s so true that it’s not innate. Like you need to be taught.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: I, and I, I know one of the myths often is like, if you’re struggling in reading, you just need to make them read more.
Sarah Bobal: Oh my gosh. Yes. That’s one that I definitely have written down. Cause I used to say that when I was a kindergarten teacher and my, we would discuss in our team meetings, like, Oh, you know, they just need to do it more. Or they just need to, you know, like there’s like 75 sight words they had to memorize in kindergarten.
And I remember I had one, one of our admin was like, well, I guarantee you if you were paid, if you got Hey, to have these kindergartners learn their sight words, then you would be, you know, if we paid you a million dollars for these kids to learn their sight words, you would, they would know them. And I’m like, really?
And now we know, of course, that that’s so not true and so not backed by science. But, um, yeah, that was a big one. I definitely had that written down.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And I remember what I taught, what I taught reading. So I, when I taught in elementary school in the inner city, they had started this new [00:24:00] reading program. And, um, we were like this pilot’s water to remember the name of it.
It was so many decades ago, but I remember learning it and I was a reading reading specialist, I guess, technically, like I pulled out the kids and you would like reread the books. And then once you passed on, you went to the other.
Voice-Over: And
Frances Shefter, Esq.: when I noticed it was like a program that just, wasn’t going to work is when my kid said, look, Ms.
Shefter, I can read the book without looking at the pages.
Sarah Bobal: Wow.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah.
Memorize the book, which makes sense because you hear the same book over and over and you memorize it. You’re not reading
Sarah Bobal: it.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: You’re memorizing
Sarah Bobal: what you hear. Exactly. Yeah. There’s no tie to the print there. Uh, my two year old does that, you know, she can just hears it and memorizes it. Um, it’s, it’s just, um,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: or look at the picture and tell their own story.
Sarah Bobal: Oh, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Guess, just, just take a guess. Um,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: um,
Sarah Bobal: okay. So I [00:25:00] definitely, Had that one that we just discussed reading more is the answer. No.
Sarah Bobal: Um, I guess this one is more specific to kind of like what I do. Um, so I, I’m an Orton Gillingham practitioner or I teach through the Orton Gillingham approach.
It’s not a program. It’s an approach, but some people, um, Which is a myth in
Frances Shefter, Esq.: itself.
Sarah Bobal: Uh, yeah. Everybody
Frances Shefter, Esq.: thinks it’s a specific program, and it’s not. Exactly, yes. Yes, exactly. I
Sarah Bobal: mean, there’s some programs that are aligned to it, which would be considered programs, but that’s not what Orton Gillingham is. Like, it’s not scripted.
It’s a lot of training. But, um, A lot of people think that it is just phonics, and I think, you know, maybe if you have someone who isn’t maybe as well trained or someone who is just kind of going off the fly, maybe just providing phonics and okay, that’s what they’re doing, but the approach itself is very comprehensive in that it includes, you know, phonemic awareness, phonics, [00:26:00] fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, all of those things.
And, you know, I think another myth that kind of ties into that is that. Those skills need to be taught separately, um, or outside of each other, but they really have to be interwoven and interconnected to make the most, to make the most of it for, for a child, um, to help them really build those sight words and keep, keep them in their brains and, uh, you know, propel them forward.
And I, you know, it’s my opinion that Orton Gilling, that approach does a good job with that interweaving all of those concepts and not teaching them a separate entities. Um, but kind of building it all up. Yeah,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: we talked about before is that the reason dyslexia is not picked up earlier in schools is because a lot of times they could do the individual part.
It’s being able to do them all together that the dyslexic child has the issue. Yeah. So why wouldn’t you be teaching with all of the parts together?
Sarah Bobal: Exactly. Yeah. [00:27:00] And that application, um, really having that application, um, yeah.
Sarah Bobal: So I kind of alluded to this earlier, but your school administration knows best.
I think when you go in, I know, right. I know. I mean, I think when you go in, you just kind of assume, well, these people are in leadership roles. And I mean, there are. There are wonderful administrators out there and wonderful teachers out there who really do want to do the best for their students. And I don’t want to like lump them all into one category.
But first of all, if you’re a parent and you suspect that something is wrong, it probably is. I’ve never encountered, encountered a situation where a parent thought that something was off and they were wrong. They’re always right. You know, your kid and admin can come and tell you, well, you know, you’re wrong.
You know, these scores are average, they’re fine. They’re not, you know, they’re reading okay. And it’s like, but you know, right. And, um, so you have to kind of trust your gut as a parent and realize that the school admin doesn’t know all the time. [00:28:00] They don’t, um, can’t
Frances Shefter, Esq.: and the teachers don’t know all the time they can’t, you know, and I say that, and it’s not, they’re not doing it maliciously.
It’s not like they don’t want to teach a child. It’s not like they don’t want to help. They only have so much they can do. And they only have so much training because like gen ed teachers aren’t given any special ed training. They’re not given how to recognize and how to do a quick little assessment of, you know, simple things that we learned with special ed training, you know, which is so crazy because it’s the gen ed kit teachers that need to be like the, are, you know, the search team, you know, and you know, they’re the first.
Sarah Bobal: I don’t even think, you know, and I’m speaking from my own experience as well here. So, um, I’m, yeah, I don’t think that they’re super equipped to deal with the IEPs either, because as a general ed teacher, you weren’t trained in how to construct an IEP or what the IEP goals mean. And, you know, I [00:29:00] worked in a school recently where the child would have an IEP, student teachers wouldn’t even know.
And if they did know, They didn’t check up on the IEP and make sure that, you know, either focusing on these goals or they would have, be able to have students with a specific learning disability or dyslexia, and they would be having them read, you know, a science test or a social studies test. And it’s like, no, this, you know, this isn’t assessing what they know you’re assessing their decoding ability.
And it’s specifically outlined that tests are supposed to be read to them. And you’re not following the IEP, maybe because you don’t, you know, So, know to do that or because you’re not aware of even where to find it, you know, I mean, I just think that it’s, there’s a lot of things that should, I think, be more overlapped between special ed and general ed and reading specialists, like you were saying earlier, because we’re all, we all have the same goal, essentially, to help these kids.
So, um, Yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. It’s frustrating because I get that a lot is that the IEP is not being implemented. The teachers [00:30:00] didn’t even know like, I mean, I’ve had teachers like actually in writing email clients and be like, your child has turned in the, you know, the last five assignments, two days late. And it’s like, IEP says my child can turn in the two days late.
That’s one of their accommodations, you know, and Oh, you know, like clearly you don’t have the IEP
Sarah Bobal: giveaway.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. And again, like, you know, this is a middle school, high school teacher, which they know their content. They’re not even necessarily totally taught teaching skills. Um, you know, and, and, you know, they have 30 kids in their class.
40 kids in their class to know all the IEPs, you know, that’s not difficult. Yeah, I don’t put that on the teacher. I put that on whoever the special ed coordinator is to make sure the teachers all have the support that they need, right? Yeah, administration, which that’s a whole nother story, right?
Absolutely.
Sarah Bobal: Yeah,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: I said it always like how The [00:31:00] principal or even assistant principals, you know, the administrative staff, how they look at special education is like a huge determiner of what the special ed department is going to look like. And what’s it going to look like? Um, I’ve had schools that were like top of the list schools.
And I was like, Oh yeah, this is the great special ed school. Principal changed. And like, all of a sudden, like, holy crap, what just happened? You know,
Sarah Bobal: right. It changes the whole dynamic in the whole outlook of everything. Yeah, that’s unfortunate. Um, and
Frances Shefter, Esq.: so I want to talk a little bit more about what you do and how you do it.
So I think you said like with O. G. that you start with an assessment. Yeah, so how did what does that look like? So somebody says, All right, I think my kid has dyslexia. I need help. What do I do? What do I ask for? How can you help?
Sarah Bobal: Sure. So [00:32:00] I think the first place to start, if possible, would be with like a psychoeducational eval, you know, and that’s, that’s It’s not always possible, but that is where you get like the cognitive testing, uh, working memory processing speed and all of those underlying subtests, like we had talked about that kind of give a clearer picture.
And I don’t do that. Right. I’m, I’m not a psychologist or anything, but what I do. do is once I get a child, whether they have dyslexia or not, I can work with them, you know, um, they don’t necessarily need a diagnosis, but, uh, my first step is always like a diagnostic assessment, but I’m only assessing, um, well, all of those like comprehensive reading skills, but I’m not going into, like I said, the cognitive thing.
piece of it, just basically reading. So we know they have a reading issue somewhere. The purpose of the diagnostic test is for me to figure out where that issue is and where strengths and weaknesses and then where I can begin. The best place to begin for [00:33:00] the student that’s not too low but not too high, um, so that we can begin at the right pace and at the right level.
For the student. So,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: right.
Sarah Bobal: So that’s great.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And then are you in person or virtual or both
Sarah Bobal: right now? I’m only virtual. We, um, we are moving. My husband and I were moving and where we’re moving, um, has an office space. And so my hope is to bring students in in person because I mean, I love teaching online. I really do think you can do.
Pretty much anything online that you can do in person, but in person is of course like, I mean if I had to choose, I would want to be in person if I could. I just don’t have the space right now. But so yeah, I do both eventually.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah, no, that makes sense. You know, it’s so funny ’cause I always think like, how the heck do you teach reading without being next to the kid?
Reading? I guess you each have your own copy of the book or something, right?
Sarah Bobal: Yes. Or it’s taken a lot of, you know, AADA adaptation. Of course, COVID helped. In [00:34:00] that aspect, it helped a lot. I know I hate saying it helped, but I know it’s terrible. I know. But in that aspect, it did because you were forced to adapt and learn different strategies, learn different programs.
And really just the zoom tools of sharing the screen is, is it seems so simple. But I can put whatever texts I need to on the screen and share it. I also have a document camera, so I can share that. So, you know, It’s not the same as seeing it in, you know, in person, um, but they’re still able to read, we’re still able to read the same words or share the screen and, um, do much of the same things that we would do if we were in person.
And, um, And as a parent,
Frances Shefter, Esq.: I’m thinking, if it wasn’t a tutor coming into my house, which is its own other thing of like, Oh, wait, my house needs to be clean enough for somebody to come in. Right. Yeah. Just pick everything up and clear up the table. There you go. And then the thought of driving the kids, like, I got to get this one to this, and this one to that, and this one to [00:35:00] the other, it’s, it’s rough.
So virtual, I kind of, I only have to carve out an hour, like, period, an hour, you know. Yeah,
Sarah Bobal: there’s definitely benefits, definitely benefits to it. And I think, you know, I have, uh, I’m, I’m have mixed feelings about the real young students. Like I don’t think I would take on a kindergartner online personally.
Um, I know other teachers who do and they probably do just fine, but I’m not comfortable with that. I think that in person for them is much better. Um, so many of my students are second grade and above, and They really do zoom. It’s almost like it’s intuitive for them. Many of them. I sometimes I do go through like a tutorial of like, this is where the annotation tool is.
This is where, you know, this, you know, whatever other button they need, they need is the mute button or whatever, um, might have to do that. But many of the older students already know how to work it and they’re pretty adept. And, um, yeah, it’s a lot of the same things [00:36:00] that you would do in person. Of course, I can send, um, I can send parents things to print so that they do have it, you know, if they prefer that.
I’m always like, I don’t want to give the parents something extra to do, but um, you know, then their eyes aren’t on the screen. So it is possible to do that. It’s just one more step.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And so do you, I know you said something about having a certificate, but do you, um, are you just with Pennsylvania students or is it you can teach anywhere?
Sarah Bobal: Well, online I can teach anywhere. Yeah. Um, it’s not like speech pathology. I think where you have to have like a license in a certain state to serve those students, um, because it’s my own private practice. I can, um, I like I’m tutoring. I used to tutor two children in Oregon, a brother and a sister. Now I’m only tutoring the brother, but it’s a three hour time difference.
So, you know, I’m tutoring at like seven and it’s, you know, four o’clock his time. And it works pretty well, actually. So, [00:37:00] uh, yeah, different time zones, different places, you know, whatever works. That is so awesome.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: This has been so great. I love it. And like dyslexia is such a hot thing, right? You know, topic right now.
It’s one of the big ones, um, because it’s again, it’s not getting picked up early enough. And then where are you
Sarah Bobal: right now?
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And that’s if a child is above fourth grade, I always say, you know what? Go hire a tutor. Right. Find a good tutor that’s trained. You want Wilson or OG. I know I’ve heard both of them that knows what they’re doing, has had the training, has a certificate, check into all of that stuff because they’re going to be able to get your child where your child needs to be
Sarah Bobal: without
Frances Shefter, Esq.: missing content.
Sarah Bobal: Exactly. Um, and don’t just don’t wait. And you know, no, no fault on the teachers at all. But many of these dyslexic students do need that one on one. They just really do. Um, and you can’t replace, you just, that’s irreplaceable really for a student that needs help. [00:38:00]
Frances Shefter, Esq.: And so if people are listening and they want to get in touch with doing like, oh, wait, maybe we should have her at least do a diagnostic.
What’s the best way for people to reach you? Well,
Sarah Bobal: I do. I have my website. So that’s just www dot right. Start reading. com. And there’s like a place on the website where you can send me a message or something. Um, and then I have my email, uh, Sarah at right. Start reading. com. Sarah with an H. And I do have an Instagram, which, uh, if you, I think just search right.
Start reading. It should come up or Sarah at right. Start reading. We’ll have
Frances Shefter, Esq.: all the links in the show notes. So when we publish
Sarah Bobal: it. That’s where you can contact me. Yeah.
Frances Shefter, Esq.: Yeah. So awesome. This has been so wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Sarah Bobal: Thank you so much for having me. I love collaborating with like minded people and this has been a great experience.
So thank you so much.
Voice-Over: 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 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 Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.
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