Literacy Talks

Dyslexia Talks: Spotlighting Strengths and Reshaping the Narrative with Jeffrey Conger

• Reading Horizons • Season 6 • Episode 9

Share episode

In this insightful conversation, Dr. Jeffrey Conger, a professor at Montana State University, shares his personal journey with dyslexia and the inspiring work he is doing to spotlight the strengths of the dyslexic mind. He provides a unique perspective on navigating education and career paths while embracing one's learning differences. 

Jeff discusses the importance of developing strengths alongside addressing weaknesses and how the Dyslexia and Innovation Symposium creates a new narrative around successful individuals with dyslexia. From leveraging visual memory to distinguishing between eye-reading and ear-reading, Jeff offers valuable insights and advice for individuals, parents, and educators looking to empower those with dyslexia.

This is part three of the Literacy Talks miniseries Dyslexia Talks, hosted by Donell Pons. 

SHOW NOTES
Literacy Leaders:

Resources:


Chat about this episode in The Science of Reading Collective.

Explore the Reading Horizons Discovery® Product Suite.

Access past show notes.

Read the transcripts.

Narrator:

Welcome to Literacy Talks, the podcast for literacy leaders and champions everywhere, brought to you by Reading Horizons. Literacy Talks is the place to discover new ideas, trends, insights and practical strategies for helping all learners reach reading proficiency. Our hosts are Stacy Hurst, a professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor for Reading Horizons. Donell Pons, a recognized expert and advocate in literacy, dyslexia and special education. And Lindsay Kemeny, an elementary classroom teacher, author and speaker. Now let's talk literacy.

Donell Pons:

So my guest today is someone that I think you'll really enjoy hearing from, and we've been having many conversations about dyslexia. Different aspects of dyslexia today might be really interesting for some because this is a conversation I'm not used to having with academics, academics who are really involved in understanding and knowing about dyslexia and being open with those conversations. So I think this is going to be a very enjoyable be a very enjoyable conversation. Today. I'm being joined by Dr Jeffrey Conger. He's a professor with the School of Arts at Montana State University. And you know, Jeffrey, I'm just going to dive right into the conversation and kind of let it unveil itself. But I was surprised when I went on to the home page at Montana State University to look at your credentials and look at your background, and right there you state, clearly, I have dyslexia, which is not something I'm used to having academics do. So tell me a little bit about that.

Jeffrey Conger:

Well, just thank you for the invitation to join. You know, just full disclosure, I'm a full professor three advanced degrees, and I still can't spell receive, right? So, you know, you we just have to get that out of the way where spelling is just one pathway to understanding, and that's in education. We have to figure out how to get at understanding in the best and most efficient way. You know, in Montana, we're still a frontier state, right? And so when it classified as education, and so when you think about that, you know, there's rural states, and then there's frontier states, and we're still hovering around that million people. We still have over 51 room school houses in Montana. We have two amazing flagship institutions, but I'm from Idaho, and literally grew up down the road from chicken dinner road, right? So that's just some context. And for me, growing up dyslexia, it wasn't even in the It wasn't even part of the conversation, right? And so I'm from the generation. We white knuckled it through. We created our own workarounds, and we made our way right if we wanted to succeed. So, yeah, you know, that's just a little bit of my background. And, you know, just, you know, a little bit about Montana,

Donell Pons:

yeah. Jeffrey, okay, I really want to hang out here for a second with your background, because I know we're missing a lot in between that white knuckling, there are many folks, as we've been going along, we've been chatting with people, and they've been talking about their own experience. And there's a lot that goes into going from Yes, reading is difficult, to how am I going to make a future for myself? So you paint a picture for us in Idaho, because you've also helped us to understand. In some places, maybe you have the benefit of information, maybe, but in other places, you really don't, so you're struggling with reading. It's difficult, and there's no one around to say, Hey, I know what this is and how to help you. What are you doing in your community? How did you come to know? How did you come to go to a university?

Jeffrey Conger:

Well, like anything, it all starts with understanding, and it doesn't matter what your learning difference is, right? If it's my case, it's dyslexia, maybe it's ADHD, maybe it's something else, but it's first starts with understanding, and then after the understanding, and that comes through the individual understanding it, and maybe the parent understanding it, then you get ownership right. And only then can, once you have ownership of it, realizing what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, then you can create action, right? And so you really have to do all three of those steps. And we all come to it at different different points in the game, right? And so I didn't realize I was identified as dyslexic until graduate school, right? So in my mid 20s, right? And so I had already navigated K through 12, and then also undergraduate and and then in graduate school. And but you we all need champions, right? So I'm gonna, I'm gonna shout out to my fourth grade teacher, you know, Mrs. Shepherd, right? And you know, she could see that I was struggling to learn to read and decoding. You know, decoding wasn't even a phrase then, right? And so she, but she can see. The outcome is, I'm having a hard time with reading, and that's the number one indicator of dyslexia. You know, on the weakness side, we'll talk a lot about the strengths. So she's like, she pulled my parents aside and they said, you know, maybe Jeff would really benefit from a picture dictionary, something that had the words and the pictures together. And I remember my, you know, she said, Well, this isn't going to be covered by the school district, and it's something that the family needs to cover. And let's say it was $20 well, $20 back that time was $200 now, and my dad just, my dad just looked at the teacher, said, Are you sure we need this, right? And you know, he, you know, bless his heart. He, you know, took $20 out of his hard earned paycheck, and, and, and bought me a picture dictionary. And you know, that was the first but even then, dyslexia wasn't. There was no screening for dyslexia or whatnot. And I was fortunate to go to a state institution, land grant institution, in Idaho. And I'm big believer in land grant institutions, because there's so much opportunity and it's access for the sons and daughters the working class. And I was fortunate to get two undergraduate degrees. Basically what I did is, like many with learning differences, I created my own workaround, right? And so I took 12 credits a semester, because I knew that if in a core class, if reading, most people took an hour to read a chapter, took me three hours read a chapter, and so I just had to pace myself. So it took me five years to get a four year degree, but in that time, I use my use that wisely, and I got two degrees in in five years, and one in education and one in graphic design. And here I am today, you know, teaching graphic design. So, yeah,

Donell Pons:

I love hearing this, and I really want people to think about this, because we've had a conversation with my husband, who has dyslexia, and he remembers Jeff the day that he drove off the campus here locally. He was on the Dean's list at the time, but he was working so hard he couldn't imagine continuing to do that work at that level, and so he drove off the campus thinking maybe one day he would return, and he never did. It's one of the biggest regrets. He still talks about it to this day, that he didn't go back to the campus. I love hearing you talk about developing your own workarounds and the kinds of opportunities that were provided for you, right, the places that you could go,

Jeffrey Conger:

right, well. And the thing is, is, with dyslexia, we, you know, we know from, you know, dyslexia, it's equal opportunity. It loves everyone. It doesn't matter what gender, age, or, you know, it doesn't matter your nationality. It loves 20% of the world, right? And, and so in education, we've done a really good job figuring out how to teach 80% of those people, right, 80% of the masses. We still figuring out how to how to teach those that are have learning differences or neuro diverging, right? And so that's where this century is really going to grow is we're going to figure out at both the K through 12 and higher ed level how to better get out understanding for that 20% or larger percent of the population. Yeah.

Donell Pons:

Oh, that's such an excellent point. Jeff, I'm very curious about that picture dictionary. Did it help that

Jeffrey Conger:

Well, like many Dyslexics, one of those their much? superpowers is visual memory, right? And so there's so many strengths with dyslexia. One is big picture, thinking and seeing patterns more peripheral. There's some emerging research that talks about more peripheral vision because of the rods and cones in the eye. But for me, visual memory has always been very, very strong, right? Very strong. And this is common with a lot of Dyslexics, and so just seeing the picture and that helped with the decoding, right? Because we have those three points, one is, is breaking down the word, then is sounding it out and then associating it to a mean. So there's really three things or more going on when we're trying to decode it. And that's why with young you know, if there's any parents out there listening just that idea of building vocabulary for children in early, early years, you don't necessarily need to rely on reading, eye reading to build vocabulary. And so that's where, like things like audio books are so powerful, is you can build that verbal and mental vocabulary, and then if you need to work. Work on the eye, reading or the decoding of words later, that's fine, but you can still, with a child, build vocabulary through, you know, little things like play away and audible. There's so many great devices out there that in this digital realm that are positive. Yeah,

Donell Pons:

I mean, that's such a great point that you make, Jeff. And you know, my son who has dyslexia, obviously, you know, there's a heritable component, so you're going to have dyslexia. And my son who has a good, solid case, we call him the good, solid case of dyslexia, one of the things that he loved to do, because very visual again and and he loved the richness of the story, because he could really create in his mind the idea of the story. And so we would buy him reams of stacks of eight by, you know, 11 sheets of paper. And he would create things in his room, you know, third grade, fourth grade. And he would create the things that he pictured in his mind from the stories that we were telling. So I love you talking about leaning into those strengths as well, right? Oh, absolutely.

Jeffrey Conger:

And, you know, there, there's so many of them. I mean, I can't envision. I mean, now I have this, I'll call it a label, right? Diagnosis, identification, whatever, dyslexia, which means word blindness, right? But, you know, that's the other part of the 21st century is we're going to look at the strengths of the Dyslexic mind and the superpowers. Because, you know, as we start to understand it better with thermal mapping of the brain, we can see how how the brain processes visuals at a faster pace, and how that cognition works. And, you know, I'm just really excited for the next 20 years as some of that research and understanding comes into life, yeah.

Donell Pons:

And, you know, Jeff, it's good to emphasize that balance in how we look at ourselves and others, right? And balancing out this may be difficult, but what else is this person completely capable of that I haven't thought about, right? And the school system doing that as well, so interesting. Well,

Jeffrey Conger:

the school system, but also to remembering that that starts at home, right? And so I, I'm, I get a lot of calls from parents, especially across the state, because I educator, and I put that out there to assist in any way. And so a lot of times I will help parents and and I'll say, Okay, right? So you've, your child's been identified with this learning difference, and we're basically going to spend X amount of hours a week trying to assist with decoding, which is always going to be a challenge, right? That's never going to go away, right? There's not going to be a magic wand. It's going to get easier, but it's always going to be there. So what on the other hand, are we going to do to develop these strengths? Right? If you're spending eight hours a week doing working on building the decoding muscle, what are you doing eight hours a week to build the strength muscle, whether that be creativity or whether that be athletics, or whether that be music, or whether that be something that they excel in, right? And finding out, doing that deep dive as a parent, finding out that area of interest and support, it at the same level that you're supporting, navigating the weakness, you're going to invest in those strengths and so maybe your child is really good, like riding a horse. Wow. How can we incorporate that into that motivational and dimensional space? Because one of the things we look at, right? So it's pretty much the accepted percentage is, is 20% or one in four of general population is, is dyslexic. And then I work in the creative industry, and because of those visual strengths that are prevalent within the Dyslexic mind, we jump up to at least 25% in graphic design. Then when we start looking at architects, that jumps up even higher. Then when we start looking at athletes, you know, it jumps up even higher because that spatial understanding that 3d i would love. And I challenge anybody out there that's a researcher to do some, uh, testing of the X game athletes. This is a Jeff-ism but I'm thinking it's over 50% dyslexic. I just, I challenge anybody out there that's a researcher to jump on this and test the X game athletes and find out what is the percentage of dyslexia in X game gold medalist, right? I think that would be a fascinating research topic or paper. Jeff,

Donell Pons:

you bring up something so interesting because it reminds me of my husband, who was also a paraglider, an expert mountain biker, and he always talks about when he reaches the top of a peak, and they're setting up as paragliders to go off that peak, as they're having a conversation. He meets somebody with dyslexia almost every time he's at the top of a peak, which I think is really interesting. And one of the things he said about. About It with paragliding is, he said that's when there are no limitations, because it's on me. I have to do every I don't have to read something. It's all on me to know this thing and to know it well. I think that's really interesting

Jeffrey Conger:

well. And I come back to this idea, which is, we start, you know, a lot of times when we're doing advising, everyone's like, what kind of job can I have as a dyslexic, right? So let's take this paragliding. I would say that that's a natural ability, that spatial ability, to move through the 3d and I would even call that moving through 4d right with time. And so let's call that a pilot, right? And how many different pilots do we have, right? Obviously, we have, you know, the classics in our brain, which are, you know, a commercial pilot or maybe someone in the military. But then I think I start thinking about other types of pilots, right, adventures or race car drivers like so Lewis Hamilton, who drives for Mercedes and Formula One. I think he has seven World Championships, right? So it's hard enough just to get one world champion. He's done it seven times severe dyslexic, right? But, you know, at 200 miles an hour, navigating through the streets of Monaco, boom, boom, boom, it's just like the magic comes alive. And so that's the message that we need to hear in concert with developing areas of hey, how do I navigate this other part that might be a weakness,

Reading Horizons:

Educators and administrators know how important it is to close the gaps in foundational literacy skills for older learners. Reading Horizons Elevate is designed to help students in grades four through 12 and beyond master foundational skills they may have missed. By combining direct instruction with engaging age appropriate software Reading Horizons Elevate makes reading proficiency attainable for older learners, helping students build a strong literacy foundation is key to unlocking success across all academic subjects. Visit readinghorizons.com/elevate, to learn more.

Donell Pons:

Jeff, I just love this conversation. It's going to lead us right into what you're doing at Montana State University about dyslexia and innovation and hosting a conference. Tell us how that got started, what it does. Yeah,

Jeffrey Conger:

so Dr, Sarah Pennington and myself are co founders of the dyslexia and innovation symposium hosted here at MSU, and it's in its third year. We did the first year in person, and then, of course, COVID pushed us online. And that was a silver, silver lining. We went from having 300 participants the first year to 600 the second year to 900 the third year, and all across the we had, I think, 42 of the 50 states. We had 40 of the 56 counties. We had six countries. So there's, there's need for this conversation. And so this is a collaboration between Dr Pennington and myself. It's also a collaboration between our two colleges. So she's in the College of Education, EHHD, education, health and human development, and I'm in the College of Arts and Architecture. And so when those two worlds collide, then some new thought comes out of the process, and so I'm the lifetime dyslexic. She's the educator, teaching the teachers and working on curriculum for the future. And through that conversation, we created this symposium. And like any any initiative or something you need, you need some champions. You need some people cheerleading for you. And so I'll tell you a quick little story. It was probably a few years ago. Is before the before the before the symposium gotten started, and I got an email from our university president, Waded Cruzado, amazing president, and I, well, actually got an email from her assistant saying the President would like to see you as soon as possible. Well, you know, okay, alright. And you know, we've been having some challenges in our department, and so I spent all all night. I had two or three yellow pads, going thinking about what we were going to talk about, because it was a little elusive. She just said, I need to meet with you immediately. So I went in and that, you know, the president wonderful. You know, there's the three minutes of niceties at the beginning of the conversation, how are your family? How are you doing? We got done with the niceties, and all of a sudden the president leans forward and and, and she says to me, she says, Jeffrey, have you thought about your future here at Montana State University? Oh, my God, in the back of my mind, I thought the worst, right? I like this is this is not a good way to start a conversation. And there's all. I, you know, there's only been three times in my life where I've answered with the right response and and this was one of those days, thankfully. And I leaned forward and I said, Madam President, would you mind expanding on that question? And she says, Well, I hear a rumor that you or mentoring Dyslexics on your lunch hour. Is this true? Well, my blood pressure dropped considerably, and I thought, well, I've got my job for another day. And she said, Tell me about it. And so I we started this conversation much like you. You have asked me to talk about today and fast forward, and that led to a lot of different opportunities, and we started working with grants. And she said, here's some things that I think you might not know about that you should consider applying for, right? And funding in these areas. And we, you know, we were competitive with everybody else, right? So there was no preferential treatment, but I just didn't know about these opportunities. And she laid out two or three opportunities that that weren't even on my radar, and that's how I met Dr Pennington. We put together the proposal for the first dyslexia and innovation symposium, and we basically got a startup grant for that and proof of concept, and it was so well received that we were able to go back and get funding for more and largely the funding, what it did is it allowed us to host a national level conference with zero fee, right? So the participants, we wanted to create access, and that's one of the key mission statements of a land grant university, is access. And so by eliminating even a modest fee to register for the dyslexia symposium, we could get all income levels. We could get students, we could get parents, we could get educators, we could get administrators, so there was no financial barrier. And so just just a huge and that was through what's called a Haas grant. And just a huge shout out to to the Haas grant people, because that allowed us to build, build it into what it is today. And it was definitely a grassroots movement, right? We didn't know that we were going to triple participation every year. I mean, those are, that's dynamic growth, and that that that, what that means to us is that there's a hunger for this information, there's a hunger for this conversation, and it's not it's not a me project, it's a we project, and it's us. And so we've had a really great group of people. We have a an advisory board that kind of gives us direction, and then we have a council of 12, which are our boots on the ground, are local people that helped pull this thing off, and they're just heroes. Every one of them is a hero, in my mind. So that's how the conference got started. And yeah, and

Donell Pons:

Jeff, what's the mission of the conference? Because you you have some interesting presentations, tell us a little bit about what the conference looks like. Who's invited, who speaks well.

Jeffrey Conger:

The mission of the conference is to spotlight the strengths of the Dyslexic mind, right? There's already a lot of conferences out there that are really well organized that deal with reading and reading systems and educating teachers. I go to a lot of them every year, right? And those are wonderful. Those are wonderful. We wanted to create something new. We wanted to break a new Blaze, a new trail, right? And Montana, it's kind of easy to do that. We just do it every day. Naturally, we get up, and whether it's shoveling our car out from the snow to get to work, we literally break trail every day. And so to come up with a conference idea that really no one in the US was doing. You know, it was, it was, it was just kind of in sync with the Montana ethic of make something out of nothing and then also improvise. And so the the conference itself brings together. Eclectic is not quite the right word, but I would say an unexpected user group. And so we bring we bring people that are successful, Dyslexics, we bring educators, we bring athletes, we bring published authors, we bring children's book authors, we bring practitioners, and we bring them all together, and we say, let's talk about. Have this strengths, let's, let's have a new conversation, and then also at the same time, and this is really important, let's make a new list of successful Dyslexics, right? So if you Google successful Dyslexics or famous Dyslexics, you'll get this list that is antiquated, right? And 50% of those people are no longer on the planet. They had great lives, good on them, but my kids don't know who these people are, right? And so we are trying to create a new 21st Century list of powerful Dyslexics like Lindsay Dyer. Lindsay Dyer is, she's a big mountain pro athlete, right? And she lives in Jackson, hole Wyoming, and she helped kick start the first all female ski film in the history of that industry. She's sponsored by small companies like GoPro and Eddie Bauer and Jackson resort, right? And she's out there killing it, right? And she got up for the very first time and talk spoke publicly about growing up dyslexia, right? And she was so brave. I mean, here's somebody that jumps off 60 foot cliffs, and here's somebody that you know has skied some of the the most insane lines in North America, but she was more nervous standing in front of a few 100 people talking about dyslexia than jumping out of a helicopter. So we need to change this conversation. And she did. She just did it a wonderful job. Another great person that was in our inaugural our inaugural symposium, was Cliff Weitzman. And Cliff is, he's an inventor and entrepreneur who went to Brown University. He's kind of a serial entrepreneur. I think while he was an undergraduate, he developed 40 different business ideas. And the one that that caught fire is the one that we know now, called speechify. And speechify is this really powerful app if you if you don't have it on your phone, you need to get it. And what it does is it can take a picture with your phone, and it can ear read you any information. And so this is a game changer. I mean, I wish I would have had this in in undergraduate. It would to transform that information from eye reading to ear reading. And now, you know, speechify has just exploded, right? And so he was one of our keynotes. Tell you a little side story. So when he was here in Bozeman, my son put speechify on our on our phone, right? And we're driving out to the airport to pick him up. And my son's like taking pictures of the the highway signs and and he says, you know, tell cliff that somewhere around 65 miles an hour, his app doesn't really work. And I said, I don't know that anybody's going to be really reading at 65 miles an hour, but, but we'll put it into R and D for that. I love that. Yeah, you know Jen, yeah, go ahead. You know Jeff.

Donell Pons:

I was just going to say my husband, that's how he gets through museums. Is using speechify. He loves a museum. Now hated him before, but now doesn't mind at all.

Jeffrey Conger:

Well, it's this idea, and this these terms, need to be integrated in to our future, which is the difference between eye reading and ear reading, yeah, and especially in education. Over the last 50 years, at least when I was going through there was a discounting of listening to things as a way to access information. Oh, you didn't really read it. Oh, yeah, I've heard it, and I've heard that 1000 times, and we just need to pivot on that, because all the research has come in, and it is 100% clear that it doesn't matter if you're dyslexic or not, if you hear it rather than I read it, you're going to remember better. And I'm just going to put this out there. This is why professors still have jobs standing in front of a classroom explaining it verbally as they demonstrate it, right? Is because the this combination of ear reading and eye reading is what leads us to understanding and please, as a parent, as a person, as an educator, please do not discount one over the other. Embrace them both and leverage them. I mean, in graduate school, my I didn't know as dyslexic yet, and so in graduate school, if you walked into my apartment, in graduate school, there was three things in my apartment. There was a table to eat at, there was a chair to read at, and there was a bed. I'm not joking, it was that awesome. Year, in my first year of graduate school, I'm really proud to say I read 70 books. I'd never read that many books in my life, but I would not literally go to the the University Library. And we had a wonderful university library, and I had one of those flight attendant bags, and I would check out as many books as I can, and then I would just put them by my chair at night, and I wish, I wish Cliff had had speech if I then, because I could have read 200 books that year. I mean, I maybe even could have read more, but I read 70. And as a dyslexic who to consume one, I reading book a year was I would call that arduous. So maybe up until that time, I had maybe read other than textbooks. Maybe I'd read 20 books for pleasure reading. I read 70, and it made me understand the difference between eye reading and ear reading.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, that's so interesting, Jeff, I remember as a parent having to defend my son's right to be able to listen to books, and he had an extensive vocabulary by the time he was just second grade, because he had listened to so many books, right? Yeah, yeah, that's terrific to emphasize, Jeff, you have taken us on a fantastic journey, and I hope for those listening that they have have picked up on some really great pieces that you've left for all of us. And I want to remind folks too who maybe weren't listening about the conference piece, that the level of your conference Jeff is such that educators who participate can get credit as educators too, for participating.

Jeffrey Conger:

Right? Absolutely. Sarah Pennington set that up, that they can get continuing education credits and just a shameless self promotion. You can find that at www.montana.edu/dxi and so we tried to make that address very simple, and you'll find out the articles, some of the articles that I've talked about, about Lindsay Dyer and Cliff are on there, as well as other amazing people like Linda Siegel, who's an educator out of Canada that wrote, not stupid, not lazy. And then we will be having a whole bunch of new articles coming out over the next few months that include one about David blank, who wrote thinking differently, and he's the founder of eye to eye, which is an amazing mentorship program that brings like 15 college students, dyslexic college students, into a high school or middle school setting, through mentorship, Through art projects and, and then also, two of my favorite people on the planet are Brock and Burnett ID out of Seattle. And these two are just total game changers, heroes in my book, and they wrote the Dyslexic advantage and, and that's a great read for any parent, any educator, any any dyslexia, and it's available on Audible as well. And they have a brand new version that just, they just did an update that came out just in the past few months.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, that's terrific. I love hearing about that. Okay, so Jeff, if you with for our listeners, and at some time we do have to stop having this conversation, I think it's fantastic. I could do it all day. But what are some thoughts that you want to leave with? And let's just kind of picture. There's an individual has dyslexia, and maybe the parent is listening and listening in on this conversation. Maybe there's a teacher listening in and they're aware of this student, or the young person in their life who does have dyslexia who saying, I don't know, it's pretty difficult. I can't see myself in college because it's so hard. What's some advice that you would recommend for them to help that person?

Jeffrey Conger:

Future is super powerful. I mean, I never envisioned myself as a college professor. I'm also a motor sports photographer, I worked for Hot Rod Magazine for 15 years, traveled north america and europe photographing for the Corvette factory team. For Corvette magazine. I had no idea one of my strengths because of my added peripheral vision, was action photography, right? And so sitting as a middle school, I didn't even know was a career path, right? In little rural town in Idaho, I didn't know the creative industry, being an art director was even a career path. I didn't know that any of this was possible, right? And so I would just encourage one is find that level of encouragement that supports the strength, right? You have to navigate the weaknesses, right? Grammarly, man, if you don't have Grammarly on your computer and your. Own and everywhere, every dyslexic should have that just that's just essential equipment, right? Because when I write an email to my president at the University, I do care about spelling, right? Because that communicates a tone, and so I always do the grammar. But once again, I still can't spell entrepreneurship, but you and I can sit here and have another podcast for the next two and a half hours about startup entrepreneurship. Spelling is not always linked to understanding. It is linked to communication and it is linked to several other things, but it's not inherently and so we need to know that, and also true, right? So my name is Jeffrey, right? And Jay is the youngest letter of the alphabet, so it's only about 500 years old, right? So we have to understand that this written language was made by humans, right? It was created by humans, and decoding was created. And when we look at the alphabet, there's 26 letters. Now we make 44 sounds out of our mouth with those those letters, but we teach our children over 250 different letter combinations to make those 44 sounds. Okay, so just do the quick math. We actually should have an alphabet of 44 letters, right? And that would make this whole thing way simpler. We'll get there, right. But realize that it's a complex problem to begin with, 26 letters, 44 sounds, over 250 combinations to make those 44 sounds, and I don't know, learning a foreign language by eye reading it is always going to be just challenging for a dyslexic, always hearing it, maybe being immersed in that culture, you're going to learn it because you've got the picture, you've got the object, you've got the sound, you've got the meaning, all in one so I don't know. I think just realizing what your strengths are what you're good at, and then investment, and that's schooling, and it's additional. Maybe it's mentorship internships, maybe it's private lessons, maybe it's just going out and playing in nature, right? It can be that simple getting a hang glider right, or doing finding something that you're really good at, but pay attention to where the skills are as much as where the skills are. And sign up for our conference, right? Your conference?

Donell Pons:

I'm going to plug that too, because when I got online and looked at all the background. It looked fantastic. I'm excited about it. Jeff, this has been such a fun conversation. Thank you so much. You're so generous of spirit and thought and energy, and I sure appreciate it. I know our listeners do too. Thank you. Well,

Jeffrey Conger:

thank you. It's been, it's been great to have this talk. Thank you. You bet.

Narrator:

Thanks for joining us today. Literacy Talks comes to you from Reading Horizons, where reading momentum begins. Visit readinghorizons.com/literacytalks to access episodes and resources to support your journey in the science of reading.