{"id":1398,"date":"2011-07-20T12:39:04","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T16:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=1398"},"modified":"2016-07-15T10:10:24","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T14:10:24","slug":"pam-how-old-am-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/pam-how-old-am-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Pam &#8211; How Old Am I?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Pam%20-%20How%20Old%20Am%20I%3F\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>How old are you? Ninety-nine percent of us answer this question reflexively, without having to think.<\/p>\n<p>A reporter who asked Pete this question on the phone several years ago, was stunned when Pete\u00a0 called to Pam and asked\u00a0 &#8211; &#8220;How old am I?&#8221;\u00a0 On other occasions, he resorts to using a calculator before answering and readily admits &#8220;I have trouble with math.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pete also has trouble with &#8230;<!--more-->reading and writing.\u00a0 &#8220;It all stems from a familiar learning disability that affects millions of children. The disability seems to center in the part of the brain that processes language, making it difficult for even genius-caliber children to learn the sounds that correspond to the letters of the alphabet. The simplest rules of language elude many of them. Ask for a word that rhymes with &#8216;cat,&#8217; for example, and they may have no idea what the question means.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;[Pete&#8217;s] first grade teacher told his parents that the boy had &#8220;a good mind,&#8221; but complained that he could not keep his mind on work. [Pete] remembers being picked on by peers in elementary school and humiliated by the staff. Teachers openly ridiculed him when he wrote letters backward or mispronounced words.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> &#8211; taken from <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blogs\/2003\/wright.staples.nytimes.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Championing Children for Whom Reading and Learning Are Difficult<\/span><\/a> by Brent Staples, New York Times<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/conf\/newsclips\/2003NewYorkTimes.champion.pdf\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/conf\/newsclips\/2003NewYorkTimes.champion.pdf<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What smacks you right in the face is that most learning-disabled  children today face the same obstacles and ill-prepared teachers that  Pete faced when he started kindergarten in 1951.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>The Same Story, Year After Year, Decade After Decade<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Just last week Pam said, <em>I&#8217;m upset because I just answered a question from another mom whose son is dyslexic.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He has been held back twice.<\/li>\n<li> He&#8217;s 13 and is reading on a 2nd grade level.<\/li>\n<li>The school agreed to get technology but the teacher doesn&#8217;t know how to use it (and isn&#8217;t taking the time to figure it out).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>No one is teaching this child how to read.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>How many millions of people have had the same experiences as Pete who is 65? When he was in elementary school the teachers didn&#8217;t know what to do. In Pete&#8217;s case, his parents got private tutoring.<\/p>\n<p>We continue to hear the same story, year after year, decade after decade, with no end in sight.<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"data\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/mHGo-64dXJc&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/mHGo-64dXJc&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/mHGo-64dXJc&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" data=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/mHGo-64dXJc&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;\"\/><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How old are you? Ninety-nine percent of us answer this question reflexively, without having to think. A reporter who asked Pete this question on the phone several years ago, was <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/pam-how-old-am-i\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,33,161],"tags":[1308,1300,413],"class_list":["post-1398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-reading","category-teachers","tag-dyslexia","tag-reading","tag-teaching-reading"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1398"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17632,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions\/17632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}