We Miss You, Carolyn

As I pause to remember a dear coworker, Carolyn, who passed from this earth on this day last year, I am reminded of the words of the great Roman philosopher Seneca who observed that "things hard to bear are sweet to remember."  

Losing Carolyn was a painful blow to all who knew and loved her, and how could anyone not love her?  Despite being more gravely ill than most of us realized, Carolyn was always smiling and upbeat, going about her life without squandering a moment.  

She was my Secret Santa one year and each special surprise I got was funnier than the last.  She didn't know me well personally, but managed to make me unique little gifts reflecting incredible insight into who I am as a person and what I take most delight in.

Carolyn was deeply invested in our clients and wanted everyone she worked with to know the joy of reading.  This gift of giving continues each day at Langsford, as instructors pull out hand-drawn "game boards" that Carolyn lovingly made so that the kids she taught would have reading and spelling games to play with favorites like Sponge Bob, or puppies, or robots to entice them to practice their new skills.  

In our staff room you will find a canvas of bright green, a backdrop for a painting of sunflowers she'd planned on doing for us.  In some ways it's proven to be better by not being finished.  I think each of us who looks at it are pulled into the variations of green and led down a road of memories of Carolyn that seem to take form and shape from the clouds of color.  

While losing her was hard to bear, Carolyn's spirit lives on within the walls of Langsford  and the hearts of us all.  

In loving memory of Carolyn Oakley

12/02/1958  --  04/26/2010

Practice Deficit

There are times in one's life when a little help is needed

Some kids don't read as much as others.  There can be a variety of reasons why:

They may have inefficient skills and have to work harder than others to decode. 

Who wants to do something that is difficult for them? 

 

If their decoding skills are inefficient, they may be working so hard at decoding the words that they miss the meaning.  

Who wants to read much when they aren't getting anything out of it?

Some readers are slow processors and cannot read the same amount as good readers can in a given time period.  

Who wants to read if it takes forever?  And even if I do read, I can't seem to read as much as everyone else!

Any of these common problems can lead to what has been termed a "practice deficit."  What this means is, a reader who is not reading a lot may have seen any given word maybe 100 times in print, whereas a good reader who likes to read may have seen the same word 1000 times! 

 This practice deficit means that the first reader will be less automatic and skilled at identifying those words when he or she encounters them in text, and will also be less likely to know the proper spelling of those same words.

This is one of the reasons why it is so critical to seek early intervention for decoding or fluency issues.  Every month that one waits, the practice deficit is growing.    If you are concerned that a reader in your household may have any of these problems, an evaluation with us could give you clarity and a plan of action to make reading easier for your child.

A Last Day Letter to Langsford From Max

What I Learned at Langsford

Langsford is a place that helps people with spelling, reading, handwriting, and comprehension.  Something they do to help people is by doing the “board in the air” which helps you be able to see letters in your mind.  The most helpful thing Langsford taught me was the board in the air, even though I didn’t like it.  The thing I liked most at Langsford was learning about schwa.  If a syllable schwas, it usually does it before or after the accent.  Knowing about schwa is important because it can help you get your best guess in reading or spelling.  I came to Langsford to be a better speller and I think I improved a lot since I came here.  I will never forget coming here.

                                             Max