The Writing Glitch is brought to you by Dotterer Educational Consulting. Our Founder and Owner, Cheri Dotterer, is the host.
Build courage, compassion, and collaboration to help students thrive and grow leaders that transcend a lifetime, regardless of dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia, using sensory-motor processing and neuroscience-based instructional interventions. No Pencil Required!
We interview teachers, therapists, and parents about how they have seen a transformation in children having these disabilities and co-morbid conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). They share how they help students grow and prosper.
We believe we can grow 110 million leaders together by building skills, applying knowledge, and transcending futures. Join us to hack dysgraphia. No Pencil Required.
Each episode contains one intervention to help you support students with writing challenges the next day you are in your classroom. These interventions are explicit, systematic, cumulative, and multisensory. They are designed to support ALL students through targeted, daily visual-perceptual, visual-motor, and memory interventions. These interventions benefit all students and harm none.
All students have access to writing regardless of their status in the classroom. The interventions were created to take up to 30 seconds to 2 minutes of your classroom time. Strategic lesson planning increases classroom engagement.
All interventions can be adapted for students with physical disabilities because they support the Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and well-being of all students. In addition, these interventions impact all subject matter classrooms. Whether you are teaching English language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, music, or art, these interventions will benefit your classroom atmosphere across ALL grade levels.
You have put your blood, sweat, and tears into investing in your education and children. Don’t let a misunderstanding about this disability stop you from providing best practices.
In case you don’t know me. I’m Cheri Dotterer, 2022 Dysgraphia Expert of the Year. This honor was bestowed on me by Global Health and Pharma Magazine. In 2023, they awarded my company the Best Dysgraphia Professional Development Program.
It took challenges at home and on the job to wake me up to the impact dysgraphia has on all students. Struggling my entire life with communication issues, I was mistaken that only students with learning disabilities could have dysgraphia.
My thoughts shifted when my gifted daughter asked for help with spelling. My son struggles with handwriting. Then, a parent asked me why her child could read and have trouble writing. Finding answers became the drive that gets me out of bed in the morning.
It’s a big shock when you discover how pervasive writing difficulties are and how little people know about how to help–even OTs. I used to think I was the only OT who struggled with understanding dysgraphia. It turns out many have questions.
Occupational, physical, and speech therapists are not trained to teach. Teachers are.
Occupational, speech, and physical therapists are trained in neuroscience. Teachers are not.
Let this podcast be your first line of defense to help your students transcend their learning disabilities. Show your school district how much you genuinely care about all of your students by sharing it with your colleagues.
After each episode, I challenge you to share your key takeaway from the podcast in our FREE yet private community. Share your student wins. Get support on the challenges.
Join The Writing Glitch Community. https://thewritingglitch.com/
Connect with Cheri at www.cheridotterer.com or info@thewritingglitch.com
Cheri Dotterer: Good morning,
good afternoon and good evening,
depending on where you listen to
the podcast. I'm Cheri Dotterer.
I'm an occupational therapist
and dysgraphia expert. This is
the home of the writing glitch,
hacking dysgraphia. No pencil
required. In this episode, I am
talking to Russell Loyd. He is
the technologist behind the
dyslexia campus. It's an app to
help students who are having
reading and writing challenges.
Welcome to the podcast rest. How
are you really?
Russ Loyd: I really am
fantastic. I will never
complain.
Cheri Dotterer: Fabulous. So, first of all, what is dyslexia
campus? And then number two, how
did you get involved?
Russ Loyd: So, just like, take
campus as a two-headed monster,
if you will, first. The first
the head is, and the first part
that will go public will be an
online news magazine that sort
of consolidates the web into a
single location for all
information on neurodiversity,
particularly dyslexia. In our
case, which is where we focus, and I say we. I am a
technologist for the Providence
charter school that is a charter
school in Pittsburgh, and
Western Pennsylvania that
specializes in dyslexia
remediation. And I got involved.
with that, around 2015 they
launched, and since then, we've
been, they've been having
hundreds of children through the
school is doing fantastic work, and I
support them. And in technology
role. I am a parent to a person with dyslexia. I am a
dyslexic. So it was, as soon as
I sort of realized what it was
on, on the diagnosis of my, my
the oldest child that I was like,
wow. And that sounds exactly
like me. So, I became involved.
with the school. And I came up
with this idea. For the second
part of just like the campus to
sort of with the school, they
have an expertise in all things
dyslexia or remediation, and we
employ a lot of technology. And
that role in technology plays a
significant role. And just like
the and dysgraphia and all
neurodiverse remediation or
assistance, right? So there's a
a lot of apps out there that claim
to do certain things, and some
do certain things better than
others. And there's just kind of
a lot to digest. And as a parent
of a newly diagnosed dyslexic or
just a person with the scrapping
of it, there's a lot to digest.
So, I wanted to make it easy to
find the first thing, right, so.
The second part is I
wanted to vet all these APs and
technology to choose the
best ones. And so that's what
we're doing, it has shifted a
little bit in that we are going
to have a service that offers
all of those under one umbrella.
But we're working with vendors
and trying to finalize that. So
that's the second part. The
second part would be a layer.
on top of your device, whatever
device that may be a Chromebook
or an iPad, with which these
applications would just sort of
be populated for you would be
the best ones would be
determined and vetted, and
subscribed to, and it would be
make it easy to have a
a whole toolbox of things that are
helpful for you.
Cheri Dotterer: Before I ask you
any more questions, and I've got
a couple of them brewing in my
brain. I want to stop a
minute and thank Dr educational
consulting center educational
consulting sponsored today's
episode, we offer the dysgraphia
certification course. This
course builds dysgraphia.
awareness and provides practical
intervention strategies for
lesson planning, using
development to design your
lessons. Who should take this
course? Well, it really was
designed for that general
education teacher. But I've also.
certified occupational
therapists, physical therapists,
speech therapist, dyslexia,
teachers and special ed
teachers. I also have a couple of
parents in there they are I have
I've actually been benefiting from
the material as well. So if
If you're a parent, please consider
signing up as well. To learn
more about how to get started,
you want to go to cheri
dotterer.com, and page down the
homepage, and you'll find more
information there. But I also
offer a monthly introduction to
dysgraphia and how it impacts
our service delivery webinar.
And that is held the second
Wednesday of the month. So look
for information on that on the
homepage as well. So, when you
started talking brass, one of
the things that came to my mind
is it's almost like the GPT, of
dyslexia.
Russ Loyd: I appreciate that
that's a, that's a very
complimentary analogy, but not
really, there's so much
information out there. And it's,
it's hard to find, and again,
goes back to having a new
diagnose student or young
person, as a parent, you're just
sort of overwhelmed, you know,
trying to find all the
information to try to what's
best for your child and the
student. And so we wanted to
make it easy to find all that
stuff. GPT is more of a, it's
something you just
interact with. You know, it's
it's a very different animal,
but yet is a very important
tool. Right? So we cover that as
a topic. That's one of our
focuses, like, where is AI going
to play a role in helping people
with dyslexia and dysgraphia. So
Cheri Dotterer: I could tell you
this has helped me; it has
I use it to help generate
content for social media, I use
It generates the titles
for the episodes of the podcast,
I'm so I'm utilizing it,
and asking it to help me improve
things that I've already
written. But I am going to do
something that I haven't done
here on the podcast. And one of
the things that Russ and I
talked about was to put this on
YouTube. So, if you guys want to
see this episode and see the
video version, we're going to
try something new today. For
those of you who are listening to
this episode, there are going to
be a lot of visuals that's
involved because I wanted to
make sure that you can share
and see some of the technology
that's going on. So we have this
girl over here embracing.
dyslexia, the journey of an
affiliate marketer. So somebody
wrote that for you, or not,
sorry, these are these are all
cremation.
Russ Loyd: Right? So I actually
we're using AI a little bit,
too. We're just
compiling all articles,
internationally, that is
dislikes related. And so we are
combing through hundreds of
articles a day to find the best
ones, right, and the most
pertinent ones, and compiling
them all here, you know, and
giving proper credit to authors
and links to those
sources. But making it easy to
find all things disliked in one
location. And particularly I
spend a lot of time on
celebrities, we're finding that
it has. In the past, there's
there's a lot of famous.
Dyslexics right entrepreneurs,
and they're generally the ones
that are generally cited are
white males. And so we're
spending a good amount of energy
in making sure that we're
finding dyslexic celebrities
that are of all races and genders
and highlighting them right.
Salma Hayek was one I found
recently. So, you know, those
are, there are a lot of
dislikes.
Cheri Dotterer: Right here. It
was published here on July 13.
Inside the campus.
Russ Loyd: Yeah. So there we
were, we're making just like the
Hall of Fame. So that, you know,
we can compile all these.
people that I've come across.
And just so that young person
can see how this is not
necessarily a, you know,
disability, as it is sometimes
referred to, is a
superpower in a lot of ways. You
know, there are several articles.
about percentages of
millionaires and a percentage of
those millionaires who have dyslexia. It's like 30%, you.
know, like, there is a super
drive and entrepreneurship with
dyslexic persons, and
neurodiversity as a whole,
right? It's just we're trying to
make sure that we don't use that
disability word too much, and
change that and shift that to
showcase the superpower. That
being you is, you know, only.
only you can be you, so let's
embrace that and show
these young learners
that they can overcome, you
know, they needed a
a different set of instruction
Cheri Dotterer: to get better.
Yes, absolutely. Most dyslexic
dysgraphic and just calculi
students are gifted with a
disability.
Russ Loyd: Yes. That's part of
what we're trying to showcase.
the site. Bye. Just buy
articles. And I think we have
some major sections, like
celebrity technology, business
business tends to; there's a big
push to in marketing as a whole
to target and reach neurodiverse
adults and children. So we
focus on that education,
celebrities and science and
research.
Cheri Dotterer: Yeah, I'm
pausing right here in the
the technology section of there. And, like, I'm looking at the
articles in front of me that are
up as the latest articles, one
was published on June 8, it's
about AI, the one that was
published on May 30, it's about
AI. And the one that was
published May 23, speak for me,
that's another ai, ai is going
to change the life of a
dyslexic.
Russ Loyd: Yeah, it will change
everything or change the life of
education, really, but as most
good as a lot of good things
have happened in our for, for
humanity as a whole, it started
out as an attempt to help
persons with a disability,
right, you know, audiobooks,
for example, you know, my mom
was in that field for 30-plus
years. And so I've watched a
little of that, and she
compliments on that. But, but
this is another one where AI
didn't necessarily, you know, go
for that, but it is going to
have a major impact very fast.
And I hope that you know,
educators and parents will
embrace that, and encourage
their students and families to
learn how to prompt and
how to get GPT and AI to
do what they are requesting.
Cheri Dotterer: Yes. And then
the next section down here is
about education. Some of the
stuff that's coming up today is
something is going on in
San Antonio, Texas, about
dyslexia. Incidentally, that's
where I just came from. I just
came from the region 10, which
is up in Dallas, Fort Worth,
they just had an institute to
support dyslexia. It's happening
all over the country. Do you
know why it's happening all over
the country? Russ?
Russ Loyd: I can give a couple
of reasons. But I'd like to hear.
yours.
Cheri Dotterer: Okay, there is a
federal law that is coming down
that says that it has passed
that says that all K to 12.
Teachers need some education in
dyslexia. So they're really.
trying to lay it out a
a little bit, where they're really
working on learning support
teachers and stuff. I know, in
my area, they are trying to
educate all K to eight teachers,
on at least to have the
introduction course. So
regardless of whether you're
learning support, regular ed,
music teacher, art teacher, they
want everybody to understand the
the foundation of literacy so that
we can. They can all be talking.
the same language as far as
structured literacy goes.
Russ Loyd: That is spot on. That's
amazing. I love to hear that the
I didn't necessarily know that
I've heard some of that. I think
I spend a lot of time on the
technology side. So I don't get
into that. The world of
Washington, DC, in particular. I
do see a lot of states. And I
think that makes a lot of sense to
why. For me, the people that I
work with at the school, the
administration, you know,
they've always taken the stance
that I agree that you know what
works for those kids. Let's say
it's Orton Gillingham, or if
it's Wilson or some other type
of particular instruction
methods. Those are two of several.
that, but they all work for
everyone. Right. And so I think
what I hear you saying is that
the federal government is asking
education as a whole to get
better at being able to see and
unofficially diagnosed or is
that what you're trying to say?
Like, not doing anything
about it? Because that's
generally been a problem.
Cheri Dotterer: Yeah, they want
all teachers to just be
able to understand
neurodiversity a little bit. So
understanding what the structure
the literacy program is so that you
can go, oh, so even if you're a
math teacher, you might get this
requirement coming down the
pike. And it's amazing because
there's so much language that's
associated with science and math
and social studies, and not
always necessarily do we think
the foundation of Reading to be
associated with that. I'm kind
of stuck here in the celebrity
section. And Chris Kim says that
my biggest strength is my
business and my dyslexia, Dean
and Grace, Grace Osseo. I can
never pronounce his name. He's
He's, uh, if anybody knows
anything about business, he's a
big business guy. He's one of
Tony Robbins, guys. We have
somebody from NCIS, Alex Tarrant,
Sean Connery. We'll look
at this. What is this Nobel
Prize winner? The inventor of
the lithium-ion battery?
Russ Loyd: Yeah, I mean, yeah,
dyslexia touches everything with
the lithium-ion battery. Right.
So it is. It's amazing. It
It is amazing how many
successful people and have
the fought battle fought through, but
have transcended, you know,
they're, they're just like the
to achieve, right, no matter
what. And that was before what
we have today, which is a lot.
more tools and a word to go
with it. You know, that's where
we've been for the last, it
it seems like ten years is like you
know, the federal government or
state government will use the
word just like that, you know,
if you go to a parent or you
try to get an IEP in a public
school, you find that difficulty
there. And you find resistance,
which is why the provenance charter.
school came to be right from the
founder, and a lot of other
schools in different states in
different cities. That and in
comparison with most of those
that are private and expensive. So
it's a big change. What am I
trying to say the last ten years,
we've been developing the idea
of dyslexia, right? And it seems
within the last couple of years,
that it has really
neurodiversity as a whole, as
has made a big jump and
acceptance and a lot more
resources and research, and
famous people acknowledging
their own does that, you know,
disabilities have come up.
That's what I've seen. And so
it's great, it's a great time to
be involved in it because it's
It's changing fast. And
especially with AI.
Cheri Dotterer: Yeah, I noticed
that is like the top three medical
articles that are on the site
right now, talk about rhythm,
regular rhythm, fast and slow
rhythms, and comparison and
functional head impulse test,
with bail pediatric balance.
But that has to do with
the rhythm of walking. It's
It was exciting to see the
connection with rhythm as an
advancement to linking to
dyslexia. Because rhythm really
is the core foundation of how we
process information if we don't
process in a rhythm. That's why
music is so addicting, because
it's in that rhythm state, and
It touches that subconscious
environment. And that brings it
to the conscious. So I'm, I'm
currently down at the very
bottom of the website. And it
says the dyslexia campus is an
online news magazine collecting
new and important articles,
research and news regarding
dyslexia, and neurodiversity.
And so there's a whole lot of
the stuff here that you can refer
to. And I'm going to page back.
up probably too fast for those
of you who are watching, but
just look at all the content of
information that is just here on
the front page. And then we have
all of this stuff here in the
menu to help expand it. I'm
going to click over here to
parent. So what you've done is
you've kind of in the back end,
you've set up what pages that
might be helpful to those
categories. Is that Is that what
I'm hearing?
Russ Loyd: Yeah, I mean, it's a
traditional newspaper type of
thing. You have, you know, your
local and state faction, you.
have your, your, you know, main
section, you have your sports
section, so we just have, we're
trying to classify it
into something helpful
for educators or parents. And
for I would argue now that it's
our it's a little bit more
tailored to parents and
educators, we do want to know of
come up with a little more of a
kid's version. That's a little
less wordy. I mean, this is
wordy. We are building the back.
end to accommodate, to text to
speech for the whole site. So
that will be coming soon. But we
want to have more of a kid.
friendly version that focuses on
the celebrities and some of the
tech tools that they may be able
to use themselves. Is a little
It's less wordy, but this is a new
site. So, it is wordy.
Cheri Dotterer: Got it. And I'm
on the resources page right now.
And if you look right here,
under newsletter, it says
subscribe to my newsletter so
that you can get more
information from dyslexia
campus. Fabulous. Look there,
here's an article on Chad's GPT
from May 23. But look at how old
that is already. I mean, when
you think about it, that is
old. Do you mind terribly
if I go back to dyslexia?
campus.org because that has
something exciting I
wanted to talk about. So, I'm
going to flip back to this site.
Russ Loyd: is, is one that's
under construction, that is
going to be our service that is
laying the apps and
extensions specifically for a
Chromebook, and then also for an
iPad that we have vetted as the
best of the best. And we're
going to attempt to collect them
into an umbrella service that
is easy to use, and we teach you
how to use them properly, and,
and help and assist. So
Cheri Dotterer: nice, I see that
this site is using the dyslexia
font, it has the disclaimer at
the top. I like that for the
reader. I am just going to put
this out there just so that.
everybody knows my stance on a
dyslexia font, it doesn't
translate well to writing. So, anytime that you're using a
dyslexia font, make sure that
you transpose it to another font
for the student to copy from. So, if they need to be copied, that.
you transpose it to another one,
my favorite. And this is
something from the technology
standpoint, as you're developing
this app, there's an app called
Lex and you must install it onto
the computer. You can install it
on Chromebooks, Macs on a
regular PCs, on iPads, on
Android, the fires and
everything. It is free to
download. But everything needs
to download at this at this
point in time, Lex, and is the
closest to the way we write. So
as we're sharing information,
I'm just letting you be aware of
that. So we have down here at
the bottom, we have a store. We
have founders, we have partners,
we have contact frequently asked
questions, and then the privacy
policy. And then they have the
links to where they are on
Instagram and Twitter, which is now
an X and YouTube. So I am going
to page back up to the top here.
Something else I saw was that.
you are creating this
and developing it to have a
student portal, a district
portal and an individual portal,
which is wonderful. I
I commend you. This
is amazing. I need to spend a
lot of time on this website.
to grasp all the information.
Before I close the share, is
Is there anything else that you
think that we should highlight
from this page?
Russ Loyd: Just that it's under
construction, and that it's
changing drastically? We ran into a
logistical, as we all do
everything is distilling it down
into its finest form. But we ran
into an obstacle, logistically.
So we turned our focus to get
the magazine is ready as a
marketing tool for the service
and go that way. So if you sign
up for the newsletter and
subscribe to the newsletter,
you'll be the first to know for
all that we have going, and yeah,
we'd love to have everybody
share and make people aware that
there is a place to find easily
information about dyslexia.
neurodiversity.
Cheri Dotterer: Fabulous. Now
you have said that a little bit.
about the provident school that
you are part of, can you talk a
a little bit more about maybe the
history of the school or a
a little bit more about the
school? What is it they?
provident, unique in the
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area?
Russ Loyd: Well, it's unique. As
As I said before, most schools, as
I understand, and my experience
are either private and
expensive, or it's homeschooled.
Right and the public, the public
schools or are in private
schools that are not focused on
that learning style. They're not
common. So when Curtis Kaufman
is our founder, and when he
started the school in 2015, I
think it remains one of the only
four charter schools and then
they Asian or were at that time,
there were three in Louisiana
and the first one outside of
Louisiana. So via charter
school to be not expensive,
right, and two, we were teaching,
Orton Gillingham. We are
teaching Wilson remediation
techniques to second through
eighth grade. Those are the
grades with which we go up to
white. And they have a reason.
for that, which I don't want to
speculate. But I think it has to
do with that's about the time
that you generally find out. Got
it, you know that that's when my
daughter found out when my
oldest when we found out for
her. But I don't know the answer.
for that specifically, but they
have a reason. We're the only ones.
school with a taekwondo. Back to
rhythm. Right, a taekwondo class
for all students. Yeah. And it's
amazing. We have a Sensei, and
he comes in there every day. All
the classes are like recess.
they go to they go to
taekwondo. So there's rhythm and
there's balance, and there's
tactile. And we're one to one,
we're even we were even two to
one. During COVID, who we had
one at school, and we have one at
home, we had a device. So we
started, we started children out
on second through second and
Third-graders on iPads are getting
used to technology a little bit.
And then, in fourth grade, we
moved into a Chromebook. And
it's off, and they have all the
tools they need right there
logged in to do whatever it is
they need to do. And yeah, and
teachers work hard. I commend
all teachers listening to this.
that, you know, thank you so
much for caring about these
kids. Because it's a hard job.
That's why I'm not a teacher; I do
not interact with children. But
I watched my colleagues. And I'm
blown away with how patient and
both patient and frustrating it
can be to be a teacher nowadays.
So a lot of comments everyone
listening, that is, in the
education.
Cheri Dotterer: How many
students are in your building,
Russ Loyd: we have a left 350
and one in our first building,
which is the main building's main
campus. And this year, 2324,
we'll open a second campus,
which is about an hour outside
of town that is going to service
that side is kind of more western
Pennsylvania, down toward Ohio
and West Virginia, corner of
Pennsylvania. And that is that
it is growing small. There's
probably 30 to 35 children
there. But if I remember.
correctly, we only had we
started in 2016 with two grades
with third and fourth grade.
Those were the first two that was
the first year. So we've
expanded and gradually built it.
up over the years to second and
through eighth grade. So
Cheri Dotterer: yeah, probably
about 400 total. Amazing. I've
learned a lot about dyslexia
campus, is there anything else
that you'd like to share?
Russ Loyd: I'm fascinated by all
that you're up to, and your
passion for dysgraphia. And
helping people understand. So
I'd say to you as well, thank
you for your passion and for
sharing.
Cheri Dotterer: Thank you. Thank
you. Thank you so much.
Remember, this podcast releases
the second and fourth Tuesdays of
every month. If you want to look
at the website, you can either.
go to cheri dotterer.com, page
down the page a little way ways
and you will see information
about the podcast. Or you can go.
right directly to the podcast
page. And that is the writing.
glitch.com. If you happen to go
over to the writing glitch.com,
you are also going to see
something called the Pocket
Cast. I have released a second
episode where I am taking what I
used to do here at the end of
the podcast. And I've shifted it.
over there. So interventions are
going to be over there from now.
on. So, if you want to
learn about those podcasts, make
sure, you subscribe to both
podcast, they are not going to
be sharing the same thing. Here.
We're going to share interviews.
over there, we're going to share
interventions. So make sure you.
subscribe to both podcasts, the
writing glitch and the writing
glitch Pocket Cast. And yeah,
we'll see you on the next.
episode. And remember, you were
put here for such a time as this.
post-production is with Sam C
Productions. He is a performer.
arts major in Florida, and he is
doing an amazing job. If you
I appreciate the way the
podcast sounds, you need to let
we know by writing a review and
let Hey, let your podcast app
know that we're doing a job and
a service for you. With that, I
want to say thank you again to
Russ Lloyd for being here and
sharing the dyslexia campus.com
and dyslexia campus.org with you
today thanks Jerry