District Dyslexia Specialist

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Yvonne Herrera-Gonzales

Did You Know...???

 

Salma Hayek is Dyslexic

When Salma Hayek came to the United States she did not know what she was getting herself into.

But I came here and I didn’t speak English, I didn’t have a green card, I didn’t know I had to have an agent, I couldn’t drive, I was dyslexic. “Turn left”? That alone was a blur.

At first, she struggled for work, then she struggled to cope with her work.

I certainly had my moments of desperation, of anger, of self-pity, of self-deprecation. Yet after a lot of struggling, I am finally working. I am beginning to make money. I am famous. And I say, ‘This is not what I wanted, either. It doesn’t feel good, either.’ And I go, ‘Why?’ Well, I am famous, doing movies that my agents want. People around me are saying, ‘This is what you need to do now so that you can get to do what you want later.’

Today she sees her struggles as a blessing.

I had an acting teacher who once told me that you could never really create from comfort. To do well as an actress, you have to push yourself to the edge.

I’m very lucky I didn’t have it easy, because I’ve learned so much from having to figure out everything on my own and create things for myself. Now I can teach what I’ve learned to the next generation.

When Salma Hayek came to the United States she did not know what she was getting herself into.

But I came here and I didn’t speak English, I didn’t have a green card, I didn’t know I had to have an agent, I couldn’t drive, I was dyslexic. “Turn left”? That alone was a blur.

At first, she struggled for work, then she struggled to cope with her work.

I certainly had my moments of desperation, of anger, of self-pity, of self-deprecation. Yet after a lot of struggling, I am finally working. I am beginning to make money. I am famous. And I say, ‘This is not what I wanted, either. It doesn’t feel good, either.’ And I go, ‘Why?’ Well, I am famous, doing movies that my agents want. People around me are saying, ‘This is what you need to do now so that you can get to do what you want later.’

Today she sees her struggles as a blessing.

I had an acting teacher who once told me that you could never really create from comfort. To do well as an actress, you have to push yourself to the edge.

I’m very lucky I didn’t have it easy, because I’ve learned so much from having to figure out everything on my own and create things for myself. Now I can teach what I’ve learned to the next generation.

"Dyslexia is NOT a disability, It is an ABILITY to see things in differently!"

  Tom Wallace

What Is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede the growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.

 


What are possible difficulties my child is experiencing that might be associated with dyslexia?

The following difficulties may be associated with dyslexia if they are unexpected for the individual's age, educational level, or cognitive abilities.

• difficulty with the development of phonological awareness and phonological processing skills (Processing the sounds of speech), including segmenting or breaking spoken words into individual sounds
• difficulty accurately decoding nonsense or unfamiliar words
• difficulty reading single words in isolation.
• inaccurate and labored oral reading
• lack of reading fluency
• variable degrees of difficulty with reading comprehension
• variable degrees of difficulty learning the names of letters and their associated sounds
• difficulty learning to spell
• difficulty in word finding and rapid naming
• variable difficulty with aspects of written composition
• difficulty with learning and reproducing the alphabet in correct sequence (in either oral or written form)
• family history of similar problems

This affects the way children with dyslexia learn to read and spell. Fortunately, major strides have been made in understanding the language-based disorder.

Dyslexia Program

The Fort Stockton School District Dyslexia Program is committed to the development and implementation of a program which addresses the mandates of the Texas Education code, Section 38.003, the Texas Administrative Code, Section 74.28, and the local board policies. It is our goal to test students identified to be at-risk for dyslexia and related disorders; to provide a therapeutic research based program that is specific to the needs of the dyslexic learner; to equip teachers with alternative teaching techniques, modifications, and strategies for students identified at-risk for dyslexia, and to provide support for dyslexic students and their families


Dyslexia Therapist: Yvonne Herrera-Gonzales

The dyslexia program offered at F.S.I.S.D is Take Flight: A Comprehensive Intervention for Students with Dyslexia, a curriculum written by the staff of the Luke Waites Center for Dyslexia and Learning Disorders of Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children (TSRHC). This curriculum was designed for use by academic language therapists with children 7 years and older who have developmental dyslexia. It was developed to enable students with dyslexia to achieve and maintain better word recognition, reading fluency, reading comprehension and aid in the transition from a therapy setting to “real world” learning.

Take Flight contains the five components of effective reading instruction supported by the National Reading Panel research meta-analysis and mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act: Phonemic Awareness, Phonic Skills, Vocabulary, Fluency, and Reading Comprehension.

With Take Flight, students will learn all 44 phonemes of the English language, 96 grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules and 87 affixes. The students will also learn spelling rules for base words and derivatives. Practice opportunities are also provided that are designed to improve oral reading fluency. Finally, Take Flight introduces comprehension and vocabulary building strategies for both narrative and expository text in the context of oral reading exercises, preparing students for successful, independent reading.

Students struggling with some or all of the many facets of reading, writing and/or spelling are provided specialized assessment in order to determine if a student may be identified as a student with dyslexia. The difficulty of the child identified as having dyslexia is in reading, single-word decoding, reading fluency, reading comprehension, written composition, and spelling. Those students who are identified are provided with 45 minutes to 1 hour of dyslexia therapy 4 to 5 days a week.