cartwheels classroom worksheets
cartwheels classroom worksheets
Reading Cartwheels: Finding Your Special Kind of Smart in the classroom?
These teacher resources will help you help all your kiddos find their special kind of smart.
What is Alopecia?
Alopecia affects roughly 6.8 million people in the United States. In the majority of cases, hair falls out in small patches around the size of a quarter. For most people, the hair loss is nothing more than a few patches, though in some cases it can be more extreme. Sometimes, it can lead to the complete loss of hair on the scalp (alopecia totalis) or, in extreme cases, the entire body (alopecia universalis).The condition can affect anyone regardless of age and gender, though most cases occur before the age of 30.
There is currently no cure for alopecia areata, although there are some forms of treatment that can be suggested by doctors to help hair re-grow more quickly. Alopecia areata does not directly make people sick, nor is it contagious. It can, however, be difficult to adapt to emotionally. For many people, alopecia areata is a traumatic disease that warrants treatment addressing the emotional aspect of hair loss, as well as the hair loss itself.
Support groups and counseling are available for people to share their thoughts and feelings, and to discuss common psychological reactions to the condition.
What is Dyslexia?
Reading is a complex task. It requires our brains to connect letters to sounds, put those sounds in order, and pull words together into sentences and paragraphs we can read and understand. People with dyslexia have difficulty making the connection between sounds, letters, and words (decoding). When they have trouble with that step, all the other steps are harder.
Affecting up to 20 percent of the population and representing an estimated 80 percent of all those with learning disabilities, dyslexia is quite common. (1)
Children with dyslexia struggle to learn to read at the same pace as their peers, to read fluently, and to spell words correctly, among other challenges. It is important to note that these difficulties have no connection to their overall intelligence. Dyslexia is an unexpected difficulty in reading in an individual who has the intelligence to be a much better reader. While children with dyslexia struggle acquiring reading skills, they are often very fast and creative thinkers with strong reasoning abilities and may even have above-average intelligence.
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin—or related to the brain. Scientific research shows differences in brain connectivity between dyslexic and typical reading children, providing a neurological basis for why reading fluently is a struggle for those with dyslexia. Dyslexia can’t be “cured”; it is lifelong. But with the right intervention and support, those with dyslexia can become highly successful students and adults.
If you suspect your child might be struggling with dyslexia, early intervention is a key. Research shows that if a child shows markers of dyslexia, the earlier they receive specific, research-based individual instruction, the greater likelihood of achieving reading success. The information on dyslexia can be overwhelming, and no two children are alike, so there is no cookie-cutter intervention. The best place to start is with your child’s teacher or your pediatrician and reassuring them that the adults in their life will work as a team to find their own “special kind of smart.”
(1) Shaywitz, Sally and Jonahtan Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia: Second Edition, Completely Revised and Updated (Knopf, 2020), 29.