Picture your four-year-old standing on the front porch in a backpack that hangs down past their knees. Everybody is smiling for the first-day-of-preschool photo. Not one person in that picture is thinking about the early signs of dyslexia.

After this episode, you'll know what to watch for in a two year old toddler, in a four year old preschooler, and for a six year old child. Plus discover one easy thing to do that takes five minutes a day.

Brain differences linked to reading show up in babies who are still in diapers, years before anyone hands a child a book. Meanwhile, the average child in this country isn't identified until after the third grade. The windows are in the wrong order, and that gap is where families lose years they never needed to lose. I missed every one of these signs in my own daughter, which is exactly why I'm walking you through the early signs of dyslexia.

Learn to:

1. Recognize the early signs of dyslexia by age 

2. Read your family tree like a detective

3. Explain what at risk actually means

4. Use the five-minute-a-day activity that predicts reading success 

5. Ask your child's school the specific question about reading instruction 

If you know another parent of a struggling reader who's been told to wait and see, please share this episode with them. Tap follow so next week's episode finds you, and leave a quick rating.

If you're seeing a cluster of these early signs of dyslexia in your child and you want a second set of eyes on it, book a free 15-minute consultation at https://theliteracykeys.com/contact/ No pressure and no pitch, just a clear next step.

Cheers, Tracy Young, 

Orton Gillingham Tutor

 The Literacy Keys

Find The Literacy Keys 

Instagram: @theliteracykeys 

Facebook: theliteracykeys 

YouTube: @theliteracykeys 

Website: TheLiteracyKeys.com

Resource mentioned:

Yu X, Ferradal S, Dunstan J, et al. "Patterns of Neural Functional Connectivity in Infants at Familial Risk of Developmental Dyslexia." JAMA Network Open, 2022: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2797787

Picture your child at the table, counting a small handful of coins for the third time while telling time on the clock is a total mystery. You’re concerned but aren’t sure why.

Let me share that dyscalculia symptoms rarely announce themselves in one dramatic moment. By the end of this episode, you'll know nine signs to look for; understand what is dyscalculia in plain language and discover five books that will make your journey feel a lot less lonely.

A while back, a family asked if I could help their dyslexic son with math. I said yes, and then went straight down the research rabbit hole. Dyslexia and dyscalculia travel together far more often than parents are told. Roughly 30% of kids who have dyslexia will also have dyscalculia. That doesn’t mean that you need to have dyslexia to have dyscalculia. 

Here's what this episode hands you:

Recognize the nine dyscalculia symptoms parents and teachers miss: from telling time on an analog clock, to retrieving basic math facts. This will help you explain: “what is dyscalculia?” to your child's teacher, without any clinical jargon.  Then discover 5 must-have books on the subject.

If your child is fighting reading or math and you are not sure where the foundation cracked, book a free 15-minute consultation at https://theliteracykeys.com/contact/ No pressure and no pitch, just a clear next step.

Lastly, if you know another confused parent, please share this episode with them, follow the show so next week's episode finds you, and leave a quick rating.

Cheers, Tracy Young

Orton Gillingham Tutor 

Find The Literacy Keys 

• Instagram: @theliteracykeys 

• Facebook: theliteracykeys 

• YouTube: @theliteracykeys 

• Website: TheLiteracyKeys.com

Key Points

(00:00) What is dyscalculia?

(06:42) Recognizing signs of dyscalculia

(13:07) Dyscalculia challenges

(15:39) Recommended books on dyscalculia

Your child holds it together for seven hours at school, but then walks in the door, drops their backpack on the floor and quickly comes undone over a granola bar!

For many 2e kids, that end-of-the-school-day meltdown is the most honest assessment you’ll get all year. Discover what makes 2e kids unique.

By the end of this episode you will know what the term means and what to do with it. Learn

* Why strong grades and real struggle can live inside the same child

* The kind of evaluation that actually finds the gaps

* The two grades where twice exceptional teens most often stop coping

My guest is Mark Talaga, owner and director of the Center for Identity Potential, a practice in Michigan and Chicago that works with gifted, neurodivergent, wonderfully complicated kids. Mark got fired from a video game job years before anyone told him that he was twice exceptional. He believes the 2e label is too small, and that most of these kids are closer to 10e. That's why so many 2e kids get told they are too smart to qualify for an IEP.

Now, if you are wondering whether your child's reading, writing, and spelling struggles are the whole story, book a no pressure, free 15-minute consultation at https://theliteracykeys.com/contact/

If you know another parent whose bright kid is quietly running on empty, please share this episode with them. Hit the +follow button (under the three ... on the top right) so next week's episode finds you.

Cheers, Tracy Young,

Orton Gillingham Tutor

The Literacy Keys

Resources mentioned:

Center for Identity Potential: https://www.centerforidentitypotential.com/

Mark's podcast:

The Hopelessly Gifted Podcast, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Find The Literacy Keys

Instagram: @theliteracykeys

YouTube: @theliteracykeys

Facebook: TheLiteracyKeys

Website: TheLiteracyKeys.com

This episode is all about read alouds and unlocking why oral reading is important for your child. Hint: Because their ears are years ahead. By the end of this episode, you’ll: 

• Know why picking up books for read alouds does more for your child than another thirty minutes of sounding out words.

• Explain why your child's listening brain is years ahead of their reading brain, and exactly how long that head start lasts

• Use the stop, swap, and go method to hand your child a new word in about six seconds, without turning the story into a vocabulary quiz

• Pick the right book for a read aloud, 

• Run the whole plan in fifteen minutes a night, three nights a week

If you're wondering whether read alouds are enough, or if your child also needs decoding work, book a free 15-minute consultation at https://theliteracykeys.com/contact/

No pressure and no pitch, just a clear next step.

If you know another parent who quietly put the bedtime book away too soon, please share this episode with them, follow the show so next week's episode finds you, and leave a quick rating.

Cheers, Tracy Young, 

Orton Gillingham Tutor

Find The Literacy Keys 

Instagram: @theliteracykeys 

Facebook: theliteracykeys 

YouTube: @theliteracykeys 

Website: TheLiteracyKeys.com

Resources mentioned:

Core Knowledge, Listening and Learning research summary: https://www.coreknowledge.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Listening-and-Learning-research.pdf

Key Points:

00:00 Unlocking Success with Read Alouds

03:06 How Listening Comprehension Outpaces Reading Until Early Teens

10:11 How Read Alouds Combat The Matthew Effect For Struggling Readers

12:43 Engage Your Reader With Stop, Swap, and Go

18:42 Tips For Older Kids

A school district in New York just spent $57,590 on a humanoid robot named Sally, then hit pause days before the robot reached the classroom. The story behind robots for education is messy, and a lot more useful to you than the headlines made it sound. By the end of this episode, you'll know which tools can actually help your child read, and which ones to keep at arm's length.

Here's what got lost in the noise. The robot was never the scary part. What matters for your child is who's in charge, and what the technology is really being used for. In this episode, host Tracy Young breaks down what happened in that New York classroom, why the backlash had less to do with the robot than you'd guess, and what it signals for the school your own kid walks into this fall.

She also shares a quieter story: a group of students who built and programmed their own robot years ago, with nobody panicking at all. That one detail will change how you see this entire debate.

After listening, you'll:

- Tell the difference between a tool that builds your child's thinking and one that just hides the gap

- Ask your school the question that reveals whether robots for education are actually being supervised

- Use AI at home for practice without letting it replace the real teaching

- Protect the human connection your child needs most, in ten minutes a night

- Feel calm, and in control the next time an artificial intelligence in schools headline lands in your feed

About Tracy:

I'm Tracy Young, an ALTA certified Orton-Gillingham Educational Therapist, founder of The Literacy Keys, and mom to a dyslexic daughter. If you're worried your child is falling behind, reach out: https://theliteracykeys.com/contact/

If this episode helped in any way, please tap follow and share it with another parent. Together we can make a difference.

The Literacy Keys:

1. Instagram: @theliteracykeys

2. Website: https://theliteracykeys.com 

3. Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/4fFa92F

4. Spotify: https://bit.ly/4ascryE

Resources:

• New York Focus, "NY School District Hits Pause on Robot Teacher": https://nysfocus.com/2026/07/24/new-york-robot-teacher-plan-paused

#RobotsforEducation #StrugglingReaders #Dyslexia #OrtonGillingham #AIinSchools #DyslexiaInTeens

Chapters

00:00 Unpacking Robot Teacher Headline

01:50 What Really Happened?

08:46 Control Factor

16:13 Role of AI and Robots in Education

21:34 Three Tips for Parents

transcript

When was the last time anyone asked your teenager what they actually think of high school tutoring? My daughter Alexandrine joins me to provide her perspective.

By the end of this episode you'll know why tutoring quietly fails so many in high school, and exactly what to look for and how to:

Alexandrine was diagnosed with dyslexia as a junior in high school, and she will tell you plainly that she despised high school tutoring. Her first tutor was wonderful with little kids but had limited experience with a sixteen-year-old taking AP classes. They talked about the alphabet. Alex shut down completely, and stayed shut down.

That wasn't a discipline problem or a bad attitude. It was a mismatch, and it's the most common reason tutoring stops working for older students. Virtual tutoring wasn't really a thing and we didn't have many high school tutoring options.

If you're not sure whether your teen needs tutoring, testing, or something else entirely, book a free 15-minute consultation. No pressure and no pitch, just a clear next step.

https://theliteracykeys.com/contact

Resources mentioned:

• PRIDE Reading Program, a scripted Orton-Gillingham curriculum for parents

• UFLI, from the University of Florida, affordable and downloadable

• ESA vendor states

Follow the show so next week's episode finds you and if you know another parent whose teenager has quietly given up on tutoring, please share this episode.

Cheers, 

Tracy Young, 

Orton Gillingham Tutor

The Literacy Keys

p.s. Check out episodes on YouTube

Chapters

00:00 Starting the high school tutoring conversation

08:36 How to choose the right tutor for your child

16:33 Customizing Orton Gillingham for different age groups

25:00 Resources for all parents of struggling readers in high school

Today's thirteen-year-olds read at about the same level teens did back in 1971. If you're raising a struggling reader that explains a lot. By the end of this episode, you'll reframe your child's struggling reading as Swiss cheese, holes you can find and fill.

Kids who slip past the early school years get very good at hiding. They memorize, they guess, they lean on others. That isn't laziness. It's a gap in the system, and gaps can be filled.

I'm Tracy Young, an Orton-Gillingham trained, ALTA-certified tutor and the mom of a dyslexic daughter. In this episode I walk you through how to help a struggling reader who is already past the early grades.

Here's what you'll walk away with:

• A way to find your child's real reading level

• The one kind of instruction older kids almost never get

• A plan for finding books that respect a fourteen-year-old's age and their reading level at the same time

If you'd like help mapping your own child's reading holes, book a free 15-minute consultation at The Literacy Keys. No pressure and no pitch, just a clear next step.

If this episode resonated with you, please share it, follow the show so next week's episode finds you, and leave a quick rating.

Cheers,

Tracy Young,

Orton Gillingham Tutor at The Literacy Keys

p.s. Check out episodes on YouTube

Chapters

(00:00) The fear every parent of an older struggling reader knows

(01:30) You are not imagining it, and you are not alone

(04:00) Why so many older kids slipped through

(06:30) The myth that steals years: "it's too late after nine"

(08:30) How to help struggling readers: five things to do at home this month

(14:00) Getting the school to act

(18:00) Protecting the reader, not just the reading

Checkout Episode 27

Struggling Readers Aren't Broken: Science of Reading for Parents with Brett Tingley & Laura Stewart

transcript

If you've been searching for how to improve reading comprehension for your tween, teen, or even yourself, this episode hands you the missing piece that everyone forgets to share. Plus you’ll find three fixes you can try this week.

Somewhere between Middle School and High School the format of our books change. The sentences get longer, twistier, and they start hiding "who did what to whom" inside layers of clauses. So someone who was a perfectly fine reader in the lower grades can suddenly hit a wall in reading comprehension. New research suggests that understanding sentence structure can provide improved comprehension in older students.

In this episode, I walk you through that research in plain English, including the sneaky little sentence that inspired this title.

After listening, you'll:

1. Know why readers suddenly struggle in the upper grades, and why it's not laziness, attention, or too much screen time.

2. Be able to spot the exact moment a tricky sentence derails your child's understanding, using one simple question that takes thirty seconds.

3. Have three practical ways to improve comprehension at home this week, including the one technique with the strongest research behind it.

4. Understand what not to waste your time on.
5. Walk away knowing a short list of learnable patterns.
   

If your older student is hitting this wall and you're wondering whether this is the missing piece or something more, let's figure it out together. Book a free 15-minute consultation at The Literacy Keys

If you know another parent whose child has hit a mysterious reading comprehension wall, please share this episode with them. Don't forget to follow the show so next week's episode finds you.

Cheers,

⁠Tracy Young, Orton Gillingham Tutor⁠

⁠The Literacy Keys ⁠

p.s. - Check out episodes on ⁠YouTube⁠

Resources mentioned:

• Natalie Wexler, "A (Relatively) Easy Way to Boost Reading Comprehension"

Chapters

00:00 How to improve reading comprehension

01:50 Unmasking the problem

08:10 What outperforms vocabulary in reading comprehension?

18:20 Avoid this activity

24:32 Unlock reading comprehension

transcript

A parent's guide to graphic novels for kids: what they build, what to skip, and how to choose well. After this episode, you'll view graphic novels for kids for what they really are: a powerful tool to build a confident reader.

Right around age nine, the number of kids who read for fun falls off a cliff. Researchers call it "the decline by nine," and it hits struggling readers the hardest.

In this episode, I'll share why your child is not giving up on reading if they choose this genre. Think of graphic novels for kids as your child opening another door. Discover the surprising history of the format, what the research says about how pictures lighten the decoding load, and why the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity calls graphic novels "grand equalizers."

After listening, you'll:

* Understand why so many kids quietly quit reading around age nine

* See how graphic novels for kids free up brain power to enjoy the story

* Spot the difference between layouts 

* Have five simple, low-pressure ways to build a love of reading 

* Feel confident saying yes to graphic novels for teens without letting your child off easy

If the decoding underneath is still a real battle, that's the work I do every day. Book a free 15-minute consultation at https://theliteracykeys.com/contact/ to discuss your needs.

If you know another parent whose kid only reads graphic novels, share this episode with them, and click that follow button so next week's episode lands right in your feed.

Resources mentioned:

American Library Association, Best Graphic Novels for Children reading list: https://www.ala.org/gncrt/2023-best-graphic-novels-children-reading-list

It’s never too late for a teen to read well! This episode is all about explaining the Science of Reading to Parents, minus the jargon. think of it as a roadmap.

By the end of this episode, you'll know exactly why struggling readers get stuck even when they’re in high school and three moves to help your child catch up, starting this week.

Here's what nobody tells you: most reading help is built for little kids. Then when your child hits middle school, the support disappears, and you're left with a teen who's been told to "try harder" for years.

Tracy sits down with Laura Stewart, Chief Academic Officer at 95 Percent Group, and Brett Tingley, founder of Parents for Reading Justice, to translate the Science of Reading for Parents into plain, kitchen-table language. All three are moms of dyslexic children. They've lived this.

After listening, you'll:

• Spot the hidden foundational gaps that get mislabeled as a "comprehension problem"

• Know what to say the next time someone tells you to "wait and see"

• Understand why rebuilding your teen's trust comes before rebuilding their skills

• Walk away with the Science of Reading for Parents playbook Brett used to transform her entire district, starting as "the cupcake mom"

• Know that it is never too late for struggling readers to catch up

  
  

  
  

If this episode has been helpful, follow the podcast, share it with another parent, and leave a rating.  Your support helps more parents find us.

Cheers,

⁠Tracy Young, Orton Gillingham Tutor⁠

⁠The Literacy Keys ⁠

p.s. - Check out episodes on ⁠YouTube⁠

RESOURCES

Resources mentioned:

Parents for Reading Justice A free virtual conference

Science of Reading 3.0 (featuring Brett Tingley's chapter on parents as advocates)

95 Percent Group parent resources

CHAPTERS

00:00 Personal Connection with Struggling Readers

03:06 Brett Tingley's Journey

06:06 Foundational Gaps in Older Students

17:39 Adopting Science of Reading

23:25 Empowering Parents

transcript