Empowering Dyslexic Learners: Proven Methods for Rapid Reading and Writing Growth with Russel Van Brocklen

Tim Newman [00:00:10]:
Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence, the podcast that helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results. Communication, storytelling, public speaking, and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I'm Tim Newman, a recovering college professor turned communication coach and I'm thrilled to guide you on your journey to becoming a powerful communicator. Today's guest is Russel Van Brocklen. Dyslexia touches as many as 15 to 20% of all learners, yet most families still hear let's wait and see. Russell flips that script as the dyslexia professor. He translates structured literacy methods proven most effective for struggling readers into bite sized actions parents can use tonight. Russell, welcome to the show.

Tim Newman [00:00:54]:
I think this is going to be one of the most informative conversations I've had in a long, long time.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:01:01]:
Thanks for having me.

Tim Newman [00:01:04]:
You know, you deal with dyslexia and it's a. As the stat says, it's a common issue. But we always just kind of brush it under the table, push it off to the side. Don't worry about it. They'll figure it out. You know. And I've got some family members who are dyslexic and we're getting better at it. But if you look back to where we started, you know, when we were younger, I mean, heck, you said you went through college reading, writing at a first grade level before learning to even read fluently when you went to law school, right?

Russel Van Brocklen [00:01:39]:
So. So everybody knows my background. I was never. I was supposed to be a bureaucrat in the state government in New York state. I was not supposed to be doing this. This is last thing I was supposed to do. So what happened to me is I just went to college when I wasn't supposed to. I was in AP English.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:01:56]:
I'm sorry. Sorry. AP American History. AP European History in high school. I really, really did well in history. I, I just remembered everything the teacher said. I couldn't take notes. So I get near the end of college and I want to know how laws are made.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:02:11]:
Not some idea I wanted to know. So I signed up for the New York State Assembly Internship Committee. Internship got accepted and I show up and I said I have a first grade reading and writing level now as a actual college professor, what are the chances of somebody do passing your class with a first grade reading and writing level?

Tim Newman [00:02:33]:
000.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:02:35]:
So they said this, this is not going to work. Right. So then they went, they, they went up to the speaker's place and they said we, we have to make this work. They got a committee together. Remember this is the New York State legislature, okay? Not some private company. This is the heart of the state government. And they put me, and they said, okay, we're going to pull you out of the legislative office building, we're going to send you to the program and council's office in the Capitol. I'm, you know, I'm completely segregated.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:03:04]:
They're concerned. And I said thank you. Because they didn't know what to do with an undergrad intern. They've been dealing with grad students for 30 years, which was a real internship. They had three administrative assistants who could take my slop and turn it into things I could turn it. Okay, fine. For the academic portion, I had to do a major research paper. All right, as a professor, what do you think of this accommodation for somebody who can't write a multi hour long grilling session with hours long Q and A.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:03:34]:
The whole thing took like over three hours instead of a big research paper.

Tim Newman [00:03:39]:
Well, it, it's, it's workable, but if you can't read, I mean, how are you still, how are you going to still do the research?

Russel Van Brocklen [00:03:48]:
Right.

Tim Newman [00:03:49]:
How are you going to be able to take that information and condense it and understand it and put it back at a high level that they're looking for?

Russel Van Brocklen [00:03:57]:
That's because I'm doing it for years in college. There are ways that I found to spike my reading level temporarily and painfully. But if I, but, but as accommodation for somebody who can't write, you are sitting down, listening to an hours long presentation and then you're grilling the student for a couple of hours. Complete hard question. Does, does that sound like a fair trade off? Because none of the other students wanted to deal with it.

Tim Newman [00:04:24]:
Yeah, yeah, I could do with that. I mean, it would require, heck, it would require me, who's got adhd, to actually pay attention.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:04:33]:
Right, but so that's, so the professor said, yeah, we can do that. At the end, they recommended 15 credits of a minus. Okay, okay. So now this goes back to the political science department at the State University of New York at Buffalo. These are accommodations created by, at the heart of the state government. This is our flagship state university. They've looked at the accommodations and says, we don't like these accommodations. So here's your 15 credits of F.

Tim Newman [00:05:05]:
Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:05:06]:
No, think about that.

Tim Newman [00:05:07]:
Yeah. And I can already see my wheels working. Of course that's what they did because they're this State University of Buffalo. Nobody's going to tell me what to do.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:05:19]:
Right, right. That's how it works. The speaker of the assembly and the whole group can't come up. Yeah. So at that point, I said, I'm tired of the discrimination. So I went to. I went to my other professors. I said, where do I force myself to learn to read and write in grad school so I can teach other dyslexics? And they jokingly said, law school.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:05:41]:
All right? So I went. And they were joking. I actually went to law school to audit. I walk in, and it's the. And I literally. Now I just had to teach myself to read, like now. And I did. So then I walk into my second day of contracts.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:05:59]:
Professor Warner, who's a dyslexic professor, called on me. And what they do with the Socratic method is that they will ask kids, like, you know, when you start a semester, nobody knows anything. They would ask questions like it's the end of the end of the year, and they couldn't answer. They keep asking questions to embarrass the kid, to get them to adapt as quickly as possible.

Tim Newman [00:06:19]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:06:19]:
Well, that didn't happen to me. What I found out later is when you're dyslexic and you go into grad school, you own the place from day one. Day one, or soon thereafter. So he called on me. I answered. Everything slowed down and organized. He keeps calling on me and answering. Well, finally, he starts really pushing.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:06:39]:
I push back. I'm yelling at him. He's yelling at me. I'm leaning forward, shouting as loud as I can. He's leaning forward, shouting at me. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. He finally had to say, raised his hands. Russell, in the interest of time, I have to stop.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:06:56]:
I got to move on to the next case. You couldn't be any more correct. All right, my awesome. My classmates who graduate, they've been lawyers for decades. They still can't do that. So I learned to read within a month. I learned to write within a couple of years. Then I approached the New York State Senate.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:07:13]:
I said, I want you to fund my research. And they gave me an impossible thing to go through. I did it. And then what they did is we went to. I want to be very clear on this, because we're talking about high school kids here for who are dyslexic. We only took the very smartest and the most motivated, with excellent family support, going on to college.

Tim Newman [00:07:35]:
Okay?

Russel Van Brocklen [00:07:35]:
College bound. And we had their best teacher, Susan Ford. Why? Because I wanted to see what we could do with the ideal. Right. We took them from middle school writing in 180 sessions. Middle school writing to average of entering graduate students in that time period, they all went onto college. They all graduated GPAs of 2.5 to 3.6. No accommodations, cost to New York State taxpayers of under $900.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:08:05]:
People ask me, how was that possible? I said, because I have eyes. And I used the obvious. This is the top book on dyslexia. Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz, second edition. Turning it to page 78, figure 23. That's dyslexia. So do you see how the back part of the dyslexic brain has almost no neural activity?

Tim Newman [00:08:28]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:08:30]:
Now, in yours. I'm sorry, in the brains of a typical student is going massive right now. The front part of my brain is two and a half times more active.

Tim Newman [00:08:39]:
Yes. Okay, see that?

Russel Van Brocklen [00:08:41]:
Right. That deals with articulation followed by word analysis. I use the graduate records exam and analytical writing. Analytical articulation. Analytical. To me, same thing. All right, now that is what made it work there. But then we had to do things with normal kids and it that wouldn't work.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:09:10]:
Okay. I presented those results in New York City in 2006. What do we do to get normal kids ready for college? I'm going to give you an example of a kid, my most successful case for this age group. I want everybody to know I never saw this before. I will never see this again. This is a one off, super motivated kid. Okay? Her name is Casey. Met Casey when she was in fifth grade.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:09:37]:
At the end. She was at the end of fifth grade. She turned 11. Over the summertime, she was really interested in Theodore Roosevelt. So I. So remember I said about the speciality, until the kid is at grade level, you have to use their speciality, the area of extreme interest and ability. Right. He was interested in this guy, Theodore Roosevelt.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:10:01]:
So I assigned her the Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. This is the book.

Tim Newman [00:10:06]:
Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:10:06]:
Pulitzer. Wow. What grade level would you call something like this?

Tim Newman [00:10:12]:
I'd say 12th grade or above, honestly.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:10:15]:
Okay. College professors say first year college.

Tim Newman [00:10:18]:
Okay. Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:10:19]:
High school teachers will say 10th to 12th grade.

Tim Newman [00:10:22]:
All right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:10:23]:
I'm going to call it 10th grade to be conservative.

Tim Newman [00:10:25]:
All right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:10:27]:
Casey said she wanted to read to learn reading. I said, I do writing first, reading second. Because if you can write it, you can read it. She says, no, I wanted to do reading. I said, okay. I modified the approach. I said, there's no way you're doing this. Well, you haven't met Casey.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:10:44]:
So I started with Casey and during that time I said, yeah, do this. 20 minutes, 30 minutes a night. You know, not all the time she is in her room two to three hours a night doing this.

Tim Newman [00:10:55]:
Wow.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:10:56]:
I literally had to go to her principal to say teachers can't give her homework because he said he knew instantaneously got what we were doing. He said, okay, you're solving this. We want her fine for middle school. He made the order. All right. Six months later, she's in a silent reading class. Kids come over, get her book. They can't get past the first paragraph.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:11:24]:
She's finishing up that book. She can read the entire thing. She knows every definition of every word. There's she eight grade levels in six months. Her parents could afford to hire me for 50 for an hour a month. So I was working with her 15 minutes a week.

Tim Newman [00:11:41]:
Wow.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:11:42]:
This is not typical.

Tim Newman [00:11:43]:
It's. No, no.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:11:44]:
But when I say a 10 year slash 11 year old girl jumped 8 grade levels in 6 months, some people say it's not possible. They can. Now here's what you need to understand. I had to focus on her speciality. But just for the heck of it, I talked to her mom and I said, she's the most motivated kid I ever met. What happens if I give her something she hates? Here's the most popular book that I use. Walt Disney, the Triumph of the American Imagination. But thousand pages because people want to know what the Disney magic is.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:12:17]:
It's two universal themes. Casey said, I hate this book. And after we worked on it for a while because her mom was kind of laughing because she's like, yeah, she really doesn't like that book. I said, okay, Casey, how much did your motivation drop here? She said, half. I hate it. I said, okay, you're done. She took it and threw it in the garbage and she ripped it off. Key point for parents, you know how like when you're teaching college, especially the first two years, they're going over all these subjects the same thing in high school.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:12:54]:
Dyslexics and ADD and adhd kids just want to specialize.

Tim Newman [00:12:59]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:13:00]:
Doctoral stuff.

Tim Newman [00:13:01]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:13:02]:
But we have to do this general. So the most motivated kid in the world. We're down 50%. Typical kids are down 75, 80%. Next thing that I found, this is for me talking to your peers who are severely dyslexic. What I found is we have to focus. We can't ask them this question. A general to the specific because that's how you generally teach big picture than details.

Tim Newman [00:13:29]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:13:30]:
Well, if you ask them this question, what effect did Martin Luther King's famous I have a dream speech have on the American Civil rights movements in the 1960s. Your kids would just take that and run with it. It they don't need to ask you a question. They just go and write the paper. Right? Dyslexics. It's like grabbing fog. There's nothing to grab onto. We need to learn from the specific to the general.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:13:58]:
So I want you to imagine we asked this question, what personally compelled Martin Luther K. To want to give his name of speech? We look up in his biography. We find the answer. That answer gives us a question which we answer, which gives us a question which we answer. Right. That forces us to. That forces us to organize our thoughts by using writing as a measurable output. Okay, so again, forces us to organize our thoughts by using writing as a measurable output.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:14:30]:
Now, if you ask a dyslectic or an ADD or adhd. You said you're ADD or adhd. Adhd. Okay. So am I. I'm going to ask you a question. First of all, what's your speciality? What's your area of extreme interest and ability? It could be anything.

Tim Newman [00:14:47]:
Oh, wow.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:14:48]:
This is the first thing that comes to your mind.

Tim Newman [00:14:50]:
It's creative stuff.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:14:52]:
Creativity.

Tim Newman [00:14:53]:
Creativity, yeah.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:14:54]:
Okay, so when you're thinking about creativity, do you have ideas? Or now or in the past where you have ideas flying around your head at light speed?

Tim Newman [00:15:02]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:15:03]:
Key question. But with little to no organization.

Tim Newman [00:15:05]:
Yes, all the time.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:15:07]:
So what the solution is, is we have to force your brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output. Okay. Does that make sense? So now I'm going to ask you a question to see if you're, if you're really dyslexic. So you're thinking about writing about creativity. Fingers, keyboard. Fingers, keyboard. The ideas in your head that you want to write about. You take your fingers, you put them on the keyboard.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:15:34]:
Does the idea fly out of your head, leaving you with an empty brain? Sound familiar?

Tim Newman [00:15:38]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:15:39]:
Okay. You're probably dyslectic. Okay.

Tim Newman [00:15:44]:
Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:15:45]:
Do you find that it's kind of weird that I knew that about you?

Tim Newman [00:15:50]:
It's creepy. So it's creepy.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:15:54]:
I, I, the kids are like, how did you know? And one of the parents, I just went over the questions ahead of time because their son was really serious. I'm just going to call him John. Not his name. Just protect his identity. They said, well, John, we have hidden cameras in the ceiling. He's like, where? Where Parents almost fell out of their scenes laughing. And I said, john, I know this because I went through this when I was your age. Really? He said, yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:16:25]:
Okay, let me ask you this question. Were you ever in elementary school, threatened to be held back because you couldn't pass some tests?

Tim Newman [00:16:34]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:16:35]:
Okay, so when that happened. Let me guess, it was probably around third grade, fourth grade.

Tim Newman [00:16:45]:
It was second grade, actually.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:16:46]:
Okay, so second grade. So what they told you was, if you can't do this academic task, we're going to hold you back. You're going to miss your friends. This is what's going to happen. You're going to miss your friends. They're going to move on. You're going to be put with strangers. And this gave you a huge amount of mental distress.

Tim Newman [00:17:08]:
Yeah.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:17:09]:
And then it got so bad. You were literally like somebody almost put a proverbial gun to your head. You were going crazy trying to figure out a solution. You put so much pressure on yourself that it was actually probably clinically dangerous. And then the idea came to you and you passed.

Tim Newman [00:17:30]:
Yeah.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:17:31]:
Sound familiar?

Tim Newman [00:17:31]:
Yep. Absolutely.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:17:32]:
And that happened so many times that by the time you reached high school, this was just like second nature.

Tim Newman [00:17:39]:
Yeah. And. And, you know, I don't really talk about this really at all. I'm not going to say talk about. I don't talk about it at all. You know, when I barely. Barely graduated high school.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:17:50]:
Okay.

Tim Newman [00:17:51]:
And understand I was a college professor and all these other things. Barely graduated high school. When I started my doctoral program is when I was the first time that I ever truly reached out for help because there was so much reading that I had to do. I couldn't do it because I was never taught how to read, let's just put it that way. And I was married at the time, and my wife is a high school teacher. I said, look, I need help. I can't do this. And she taught me how to quickly read for comprehension, which got me through.

Tim Newman [00:18:28]:
And it was after I graduated and got my doctorate that I went and got tested for adhd. So I didn't start taking any type of medication or get any type of therapy, air fringers quote therapy, until I was mid-30s.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:18:41]:
Okay.

Tim Newman [00:18:42]:
Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:18:43]:
But this is what I. This is really important because we're talking about high school, college kids.

Tim Newman [00:18:48]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:18:49]:
Remember when I asked you about ideas flying around your head at light speed but with little to no organization? Yep. Do you found it kind of weird that I knew exactly. I knew that about you.

Tim Newman [00:18:57]:
Absolutely. It's creepy.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:18:59]:
Did you find it was even more creepy when I said fingers, keyboard, the idea flies in your head. Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:19:05]:
And truth be told, okay. My keyboard is sitting on my desk. What I did when you Started. Fingers, keyboard. I put my hands under. Under the desk. I didn't even want to come close.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:19:17]:
To the keyboard because the idea that. I knew that the idea flew out of your head. Let's admit. That's really creepy, right? It is now. And even more creepy. I told you. Third, fourth grade. It was actually second.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:19:30]:
I told you exactly what happened. That this was that when we're talking about this level of stress that you put under when, I mean, this was clinically dangerous. Looking back, can you see how if. If this was today and people knew what you were putting yourself under to pass that test, they might have literally thrown you into the mental emergency room?

Tim Newman [00:19:55]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:19:56]:
Okay. Do you find that it's really weird that I. That I could tell you exactly that?

Tim Newman [00:20:02]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:20:03]:
Okay. I need parents to understand what's happening here, okay. Because when I work with the kids that are, you know, these are very highly motivated, very highly intelligent kids. All right? When I say back the answer yes to the first two questions, then I'll ask that third one. It's what I call their secret. They don't want you to know.

Tim Newman [00:20:28]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:20:29]:
I have literally had kids tell their parents, get out some using foul language. All right? And then I tell them that. And I'd go into even more detail. And a lot of times they start to cry because they desperately don't want their parents to know what they put them through. They literally will say to themselves something to the effect of, if I don't pass this, my parents won't love me anymore, my friends will hate me, they'll leave me. And that stress, that extraordinary amount of irreparable stress then. Then triggers an epiphany and the solution presents itself. Basically, that happened in your case.

Tim Newman [00:21:17]:
I. I don't. I was much older when that happened, I think.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:21:22]:
No, I'm talking about back when you were in second grade.

Tim Newman [00:21:25]:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:21:26]:
Remember what I said you had. You had to pass the test. I had to pass the test.

Tim Newman [00:21:29]:
Right, right, right, right, right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:21:30]:
And because of that extraordinary pressure, the epiphany came and you passed. And that happened so many times.

Tim Newman [00:21:38]:
It became normal over and over again. Right. And I attribute it to just figuring it out.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:21:43]:
Right. But that's not what happened.

Tim Newman [00:21:46]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:21:46]:
What was happening is, because I've studied this for 20 years, what has happened is when you were doing this, you were essentially doing doctoral level work when you were seven years old, eight years.

Tim Newman [00:22:01]:
Old, I knew I was smart.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:22:02]:
Here's what I mean by doctoral level. You had to pass that test. Right. Nobody could help you, the solution presented itself, you passed, you created knowledge that allowed you to make a significant gain and it worked. To me, that's grad level work.

Tim Newman [00:22:19]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:22:19]:
Does that make sense?

Tim Newman [00:22:20]:
Yeah, I'd agree with that. Absolutely.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:22:21]:
Okay. Yeah. When you were 7 or 8. So then by the time you finished college and then you walked into your grad, your PhD program, how long did it take you until you generally had the idea that was the crux of your dissertation? The thing that just the idea that made it a real contribution. How long did that take for you to develop?

Tim Newman [00:22:49]:
Not long.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:22:53]:
Professors generally tell me the first day or soon thereafter.

Tim Newman [00:22:56]:
Yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah. And you. And here's. It was about how academic success, that's what it was about too.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:23:08]:
But once you had that idea, did you notice everybody treated you completely differently?

Tim Newman [00:23:13]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:23:14]:
Now you were the star of the show because your idea was really worth something. Now you just had to go through all the other PhD stuff, develop it, write it up.

Tim Newman [00:23:25]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:23:25]:
Which is for the gen Ed people, the easy spot part. They can't come up with the idea generally as well as we can coming up with that. So, so for me, I didn't have all that time. I did mine in less than two weeks. I got the professor to write out excellent A wouldn't less than 2. Why? I didn't have the time.

Tim Newman [00:23:46]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:23:47]:
I was involved in the university wide business plan competition. I got 15,000 and then I used that to test a bunch of kids and then I got funding from the state. Okay. So I, I had less than 14 days to meet the professor to get his approval.

Tim Newman [00:24:02]:
Wow.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:24:04]:
Okay. Yeah, yeah. So, but, but, but here's what I want everybody to understand. So when you. So in general, did you ever have a professor that taught from, taught you from the specific to the general ever in your education?

Tim Newman [00:24:23]:
No, no, because that, that would have stood out to me.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:24:26]:
But so now is generally people like us, your peers who made it, you know, they said when they had the people that taught from the specific to general, they learned so much more. So that's what I'm doing during the intervention period. And the other thing is the front part of the brain, I flip that for most kids I do word analysis followed by articulation. But how does this work? So for most kids, what I need you to understand is I use a book called the Craft of Research. And this is what everybody should understand. The craft of research tells you how, how to find context, get everybody on the same page, come up with a problem statement, then come up with a solution to that problem where you try to come up with something original. And when we talk pre show, you said the kids should know how to do that in high school before they come to college.

Tim Newman [00:25:19]:
Yes, they should.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:25:19]:
Tell me why you strongly feel that way.

Tim Newman [00:25:22]:
Because to be able to graduate high school and come into college and be successful, number one, you have to know how to think. You need to know how to take information, process it, and then be able to communicate that. And if you can't do that, because theoretically the pace at the college level is so much quicker, and we're depending on you to do some work on your own to be able to understand those concepts and be able to apply them.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:25:52]:
Okay, so let me, as I was told in general, the difference between high school and a real college, where you actually teach like a college.

Tim Newman [00:26:00]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:26:01]:
Is they will do twice the work they will do in one semester of college what they do for a year in high school. And you're only meeting for 45 sessions, so you're meeting like half the time, Right? Okay.

Tim Newman [00:26:13]:
Correct.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:26:13]:
So what I do is for context. I show you how to write. I show you how to write. I find a quote, and we answer who, what, when, were, how, why. This is what I do with the elementary school kids. Okay, so can you see how I get me a quote and I discuss who, what, when, where, how, why. I'm kind of giving you a version of context. Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:26:35]:
What's the effect on that? Taught Reed, taught Reed's mother how to do this over a little under six months, 15 minutes a night for seven nights out of the week, or an hour and a half a week roughly. He went. He. He jumped not two to two and a half points for the. For half the school year, like he was supposed to. He jumped 20 points. He went from the 11th percentile to 65th percentile in reading, 4th percentile to the 64th in writing, in class. Doing fine.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:27:06]:
Now, once he can do that, we need. My next step is we do body paragraphs. I call it senior year of high school. We'll see what you call this. What I do for the body paragraphs is we want. I want to give them enough to pass the state assessment. So in New York state is the state Regents Exam.

Tim Newman [00:27:25]:
Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:27:25]:
We use two quotes per paragraph for each quote. I try to tell them, look at for that piece, something from the beginning of the story, one for the end. Get a lot of quotes for that universe. Give me universal theme. They find the two quotes, what's the best one? And then what I do is I add a Warrant. Which is a. Which is from the craft of research from the University of Chicago. What it basically means, it takes the facts and it connects the facts to the topic sentence.

Tim Newman [00:27:54]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:27:55]:
In an analytical, conversational way. And I use two of those plus a few other steps. Would that be enough, in your opinion, to get the kids to pass their high school final English tests for. I mean, just passing should be okay. Now, once we do that, now we have to come to a solution. Right. So when I'm doing the solution, you may or may or not like this. And if we discussed this before at any time, or am I giving this to you brand new?

Tim Newman [00:28:26]:
You're giving it to me brand new.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:28:29]:
Okay, so here we go. So when I'm doing that, there has been a big change in the hiring market. Now. Now companies want you to be able to go in and play with the 200 version of the artificial intelligence when you start now, when you're out of college, that's their demand. So I'm using that here. And what we do is when we're using the PhD version, we're coming up with a solution. But I'm going to use. I typically do this for English class because that's the biggest weakness of a dyslexic.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:29:00]:
Okay.

Tim Newman [00:29:01]:
Yeah, that's Makes sense.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:29:03]:
Okay, so I want you to think back to high school. What's a book that everybody reads that you still kind of remember?

Tim Newman [00:29:10]:
Oh, yeah. Oh, boy. The. The. The Iliad.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:29:20]:
The Iliad. Okay.

Tim Newman [00:29:21]:
Yeah. That's one that we. We were supposed to read. We were supposed to read that.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:29:26]:
Yeah. Homer, right?

Tim Newman [00:29:27]:
Yeah.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:29:27]:
So. So what do you think the chances of a student writing something completely original on the Iliad?

Tim Newman [00:29:36]:
Almost none.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:29:37]:
Okay. I show people how to do that every time.

Tim Newman [00:29:41]:
Wow.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:29:42]:
And I'm not talking about high school. I'm talking about grad school.

Tim Newman [00:29:45]:
Wow.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:29:46]:
Now this is why. How is that possible?

Tim Newman [00:29:50]:
How is it possible? Yeah.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:29:51]:
Just because I want you to imagine. Imagine you're taking your science kid and you know how freshmen. Calculus based physics, you're using those graphical calculators.

Tim Newman [00:30:02]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:30:03]:
You're not doing the math anymore on your own. Your own, but you know how to do it or you can't do it. Right. So would it surprise you that when I took calculus based physics, people asked, well, the rich kids can use the graphical calculators. Can we bring in our notes? And the professor said, you know what? Bring in your notebook. I'll give you eight hours instead of three. All right? It's not going to make one iota of a difference because in engineering, in science, if you can't apply what you've learned, it doesn't matter.

Tim Newman [00:30:33]:
Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:30:34]:
Okay. So what I do is I'm now using the craft of research and the artificial intelligence. The pro version. Yes. It's $200 a month because it takes five to 30 minutes to do anything. Okay. And I, and we do, we go through at least five or six drafts.

Tim Newman [00:30:55]:
Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:30:55]:
And you're now guiding this thing and it's doing the grunt work because you already know how to do the grunt work. And at the end, you're left with an essay that is truly original. That's what I show people. Okay. And you can go and remember what we mentioned. You should know have these skills before you go to college.

Tim Newman [00:31:16]:
Yes, absolutely.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:31:18]:
Would it surprise you that no private school in New York City does this?

Tim Newman [00:31:27]:
No, it would not surprise me based on one students event.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:31:35]:
Right. But when you think these are the most competitive private schools on the planet and they're not doing this craft of research thing and you expect kids to come in from high school, how do you explain this big disconnect?

Tim Newman [00:31:56]:
Well, I. What? Well, there's there's two, two ways. I, number, number one, I, I don't think that I, I think we've gotten away from, from truly teaching because of all the automation that we have. Right. And it's, there's no push to actually make it happen. Because like you said, whether it's AI or whether it's Google, I mean you could Google anything and we'll just do that. So we don't necessarily have to push them to do it. And it's not, there's so much pushback from pushing them to do it.

Tim Newman [00:32:33]:
It's not worth the time and the effort. We're just accept it and let it move on.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:32:39]:
Okay, so just from a practical standpoint, why don't you imagine you're back work. You said you worked at Georgia Tech.

Tim Newman [00:32:47]:
Georgia State University.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:32:48]:
Georgia State. Okay, so you're Georgia State. Let's say you're going back there. A kid comes in freshman year, you know, your freshman class, and they write a paper and you're like, I actually learned a little something. Nothing groundbreaking, but you actually learned something that was reasonably substantive on some little small area. And you started and the papers kept going like that. Does that kid now have your attention?

Tim Newman [00:33:14]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:33:15]:
Okay. Now as we all know, going into high school, going into college, the admissions office rules. But going into graduate school, would you agree with me that for most kids, a college four year degree is not the optimum anymore. A PhD is a bit too specific. Yeah. It's usually the master's.

Tim Newman [00:33:33]:
Master's degree, right? Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:33:35]:
How important is Very. Having a professor picking up that phone, calling the department chair of where the kid wants to go and saying, I really recommend this kid. I'm not writing a recommendation letter. I'm telling you, you ought to take this kid.

Tim Newman [00:33:54]:
That's gold. That's gold.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:33:57]:
Okay. Does that override pretty much everything else?

Tim Newman [00:34:01]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:34:02]:
Okay, So a kid to get that level of commitment from you as a professor is to come in and to learn something. Almost every paper to go through that actual process?

Tim Newman [00:34:13]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:34:14]:
Okay. How often in your career as a professor, teaching undergraduates, how many undergrads could do that?

Tim Newman [00:34:23]:
Oh, wow. Over 25 years. Less than. Less than 100.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:34:27]:
Less than 100. Now, the ones that could do it, did they ever come and ask you for a recommendation?

Tim Newman [00:34:34]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:34:35]:
What happened when you recommended them? Did they get in?

Tim Newman [00:34:39]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:34:40]:
Okay. What everybody needs to understand, I remember I had a professor. His name was Professor Barnett. He was the chair of the Communications department, SUNY center at Buffalo. He called up at a top university, said, this is my. My student. I'm recommending them, you know, fund them. Get.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:34:59]:
I'm telling you, this is. They said, okay, okay, we. I'll take care of it. Because the admissions committee didn't like it. For some reason, he. And he got upset and got on the phone, he said, this is what my recommendation is worth. They knew him very well. That's how important this is to everybody out there.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:35:18]:
This. This is what you need to do in high school so you can do this in college right now. Even if the kid went through the process, but you didn't really learn something new every time, but you could see they went through that process. Does that still kind of count?

Tim Newman [00:35:35]:
That counts almost as much because, you know, because you can see that they're working. You see that they're applying things, and you see them improving. Because even if they don't learn something, every paper, every assignment, you still see that improvement and that desire to get better.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:35:53]:
Okay, so what I'm just trying to tell people is they're not going to teach this to you in high school. They're not going to teach you this at an elite private school. I know because I've done my own work. What I'm telling you is I show parents that it's not like you need some expensive tutor. Parents can teach this to their kids. Even if you haven't gone through this, I've taught parents with high school diplomas to teach their kids this. It just takes a bit longer, and that's fine. All right, so what I'm just trying to say is this is something that I've been doing for the past 20 years.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:36:27]:
It's not that hard to do once you sit down and work on it.

Tim Newman [00:36:30]:
So how does it work? Because again, number one, I'm blown away having this conversation to begin with. How does it work? Because to me, and maybe this is the first time I'm hearing. And because it makes so much sense to me to start with the specific, because to me, that's just what. Is just what makes sense when you're dealing with a little kid. Right. Start with something specific that they like. Why would you start with something that they don't like? And you see where I'm going with that, right?

Russel Van Brocklen [00:37:04]:
Yeah, I see exactly where you go. And why is it I've been trying. Just so everybody knows, we met on podmatch.com, which is the biggest matching service. There's 4,800 guests approximately. I was number one last month. I'm the number one this month doing this very niche area. All right, I'm trying, like, this month I'm doing, like, literally 50 podcasts. I'm trying to get the word out because it's just so impossible to get.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:37:30]:
Get into the public school. So. So for parents, if you want to know how to do this simplest thing, just go to dyslexia classes dot com. That's dyslexia classes with an S, plural dot com. Dyslexia classes dot com. There's a little button there that says download free guide. Click on it, you get a report that says, three reasons your child's having trouble at school due to dyslexia. Just fill that out.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:37:53]:
Most important thing, just click on the. The calendar. Set up a time for me to speak with your child for about 30 minutes, no cost. And I show you what their speciality is. You get their book in their audiobook. I can't teach this. That's the one thing I have to do myself.

Tim Newman [00:38:10]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:38:10]:
All right. But make sure you do that. And you know, it's no charge. We show you how to do this. But the main thing I just wanted to go back to on. Remember those three questions that I asked you and you answered yes to them Again, yes. That level of understanding. There is no other researcher out there that can ask you those questions and really understand why, because they haven't been through this.

Tim Newman [00:38:35]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:38:36]:
I can tell you when I was that age, I picked up a box of crayons and I learned to read by going through the colors. The system was completely unstable.

Tim Newman [00:38:49]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:38:49]:
Okay. But I. I had a concussion. And I'm trying to explain to a medical doctor who's on. Who's a faculty member, teaches residents, and in four years, she still can't even figure out how I. How I read the letter A. All right? So, yeah. So the fact that I could answer those questions, you know, ask you those, and nobody, I'm sure, has ever asked you anything like that before and just know what it means.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:39:20]:
That's my level of understanding of what your kid's going through. Because I've been through this myself. And just so everybody knows what my. Really, my base reading and writing level is this. New York State government paid their top psychologist, Dr. Kalichka. She was a. 20 hours with her.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:39:38]:
The smartest woman I ever met in 20 hours with her. And she wrote up a report. This has come from data that she happened to have a few years beforehand. Because I need a neuropsych to take my grad entrance exams. First grade reading and writing level, that jumps up to grad level and back down again because I'm going from a dysfunctional area to a functional area.

Tim Newman [00:39:57]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:39:58]:
Here's the five pages explaining it.

Tim Newman [00:40:05]:
So let me ask you another question. Have you ever worked with somebody and this hasn't worked? Because it.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:40:15]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you exactly where I was an unqualified failure, okay? It was a very wealthy family in New York City where their parents were in the service business working at the absolute highest level of service with the most complicated things on the world.

Tim Newman [00:40:36]:
Okay?

Russel Van Brocklen [00:40:37]:
And the kid only cared about Rocky. He's in seventh grade, and he would only write about Rocky. I couldn't get him to do anything. Parents had no control over him. And I don't work with that.

Tim Newman [00:40:52]:
Okay? But to me, that's not the system not working. To me, that's other outside things. But I mean, if you're. If. If they file the system. If. If.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:41:04]:
If the kid. Yeah. I have to have a kid.

Tim Newman [00:41:06]:
You understand what I'm saying?

Russel Van Brocklen [00:41:07]:
Who halfway wants to care about doing this, and the parents have to give a reasonable try of doing it. That.

Tim Newman [00:41:12]:
That, to me, I think is. Is. Is the real, real key in this. You've got to want it, right? I mean, yeah.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:41:18]:
If you don't want it, you got to want it. Yeah. For people. Now, what. What I recommended that they do with their son, they could afford this is they have these places Like Windward in New York City. I would just go and hire them. And they will do an amazing job with your child. Absolutely amazing.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:41:38]:
Or if you're not near New York City, you could send them to the go school gow.org they celebrate their 100th anniversary next year. They will do a brilliant job with your child. Okay. It's $86,000 a year retail. If you get the 26,000 year scholarship, it's 60,000. Okay. And you're going to want to do four or five years. Oh my goodness.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:42:04]:
But they will do a brilliant job.

Tim Newman [00:42:07]:
They better.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:42:08]:
Okay. I'm kind of the person if you want to solve the problem, you want to do it at home and you don't want to use house money. Okay. Because we've been able to really drive the price. People ask me, can you work with everybody? I work with lower middle class families all the time. The biggest increase I get by far and away are upper, I'm sorry, lower middle class families. Then it's upper middle class. And then for the super rich, it's either they're extraordinarily successful or ple.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:42:45]:
I can't touch it because they know they got a $20 million trust fund and they're not going to do anything.

Tim Newman [00:42:50]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:42:51]:
And the middle class kids, I'm, I'm iffy. It's basically if the parents have to want it, the kids have to want it. The lower middle class kids, why I think it's so successful, because they know if they don't put in the effort, they want to do better than where their parents are.

Tim Newman [00:43:08]:
Right, right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:43:09]:
And they're willing to put in the effort. And the upper middle class kids know, well, I don't have a trust fund, but I have the educational opportunity.

Tim Newman [00:43:16]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:43:16]:
All right. And then for the middle class kids, I typically, a lot of them like to go on for a two year community college head and hands job. So I just show them how to do basic body paragraphs and it gets them through. And then the wealthy kids, either they're brilliant or they're just really tough because again, they don't have to do any, they don't have to do any work. Right. So because they have these huge trust funds that if you and I had that, we would be retired on the beach.

Tim Newman [00:43:46]:
Right, right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:43:47]:
But then we would still do things, so. Yes, exactly.

Tim Newman [00:43:49]:
That's, that, that, that, that's the other thing. And, and I think that ultimately come, ultimately it comes down to anybody that's going to be successful. They've, you've got to Want it. It's. This isn't something that is just going to happen. Things aren't just going to be handed to you. And so what do we need to do to move this initiative forward so that maybe we change the way that, number one, we look at and deal with people with dyslexia in the public school system?

Russel Van Brocklen [00:44:29]:
It's so much easier than that because, remember, this took me. It takes me a while to train parents because this isn't their profession. Right, okay. But with teachers I work with. Evelyn Whitebay, New York State had a dyslexia task force in 2024. She was one of the three or four teachers on it.

Tim Newman [00:44:47]:
Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:44:47]:
The state got. The state education department literally chased her down and put pressure on her to come on because she was 3-4x more successful than the typical teacher. So we present. We show teachers how to take this for. For first through fifth grade reading and writing. We can go in and show them how to give the teachers what they need to solve this in three hours. And we do that online. And here's the key thing.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:45:17]:
The teachers will look through this and they'll say, we don't like something with this. And we say, great. Change this to meet your teaching style and who you're working with. So literally, in the past, I would have two teachers in the same building teaching essentially very similar students, doing it in completely different ways, and they still got the results. Why? Because teachers already know what to do. I'm just putting it in a bit of a different order. So we're using the front part of the brain so it actually works.

Tim Newman [00:45:47]:
Works.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:45:48]:
And they. I taught the entire state of New Jersey, the New Jersey association of Learning Consultants, in October of 2022. They had all these people they could go to for writing assistance. They came to me, and this was too fast. I did the whole thing in two hours. Yeah, I was a bit insane.

Tim Newman [00:46:09]:
Wow.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:46:09]:
So we want three. Okay.

Tim Newman [00:46:12]:
Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:46:13]:
We can do this online.

Tim Newman [00:46:14]:
Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:46:15]:
Okay. Now try getting this into public schools. It's proven to be a bit complicated.

Tim Newman [00:46:25]:
Well, there's reasons for that. I don't know of any good reasons, but it's complicated, right?

Russel Van Brocklen [00:46:33]:
Yes.

Tim Newman [00:46:34]:
Yeah.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:46:36]:
So what I try to do when I'm dealing with school districts is what I do is I said, listen, I'm the researcher. You don't want to hear from me. You'll hear part of my story. You want to talk to Evelyn because she's your peer. And she did this, and she just told me it was something like five months, and she got a kid to go up by like sixth grade levels. Okay. That's Evelyn, that's amazing. Well, I mean, I want you to imagine she's like the Michael Jordan of special ed teachers.

Tim Newman [00:47:07]:
Okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:47:08]:
All right. That's why she was on the state test task force.

Tim Newman [00:47:12]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:47:13]:
So, and just, you know, what happened with New York State when they did this? We, I didn't get any real reason why it wasn't passed. The conjecture, and that's all the conjecture was is there was never a budget bill, but this was going to be quite expensive. And the teachers unions were kind of fighting back because they're saying you already put a lot of stuff on this and then this is going to take a lot longer to learn. All right. So I don't know what's coming up about it, but it makes all the sense in the world to get this done by the end of fifth grade because then you may not get the kid out of special ed, but you're going to probably, if you did this, what they recommended, really reduce this. So you might be saving 10, 5, 10, 15 grand a year per kid for the rest of the year. Year time there in school. You're spending a lot more for a special ed kid, right?

Tim Newman [00:48:09]:
Oh, absolutely. With, with, with, with everything that they've got to do and all, all services. Yeah. And, and I, and I, I get it costs money and somebody's got to pay for it. But again, like, like, like you say.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:48:24]:
Evelyn, me and said we have what you spent just doing the task force. I know there's three 600 plus school districts in each state. Oh, we could go and train the 600 school districts for that. No problem.

Tim Newman [00:48:38]:
Easy. And, and, and, and again, my, my, my point being, you know, aren't we supposed to be doing what's best in teaching the kids so, so they can be successful? And you know, and, and if, I know, I know I shouldn't probably be thinking that way. But you know, doing it like you said before fifth grade so that they, they have it and they, they can then use it and it, it's only going to get better. They're only going to get better at it the more that they do it.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:49:06]:
Right. But, but here's the problem. I'm going to go back to the, you know, to the brains.

Tim Newman [00:49:14]:
Okay, okay, okay.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:49:15]:
I'm going to say 80 plus percent of the students are like the back part of the non impaired brain.

Tim Newman [00:49:21]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:49:21]:
They have all this massive neuroactivity. Okay. It's not like the school system is trying to make things difficult for neurodiverse students. It's just the fact that they do things for a reason. Because if you're a Gen Ed kid and if you're smart and if you plan well and you work really hard, you're going to do very well. Generally not in every class, but overall you're going to do very well. Right? Okay. If you don't plan well, if you don't work hard, well, it's a different story.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:49:54]:
It's all within your control. But as you can see, when you're looking at the brains, we're completely different. Yes, we have the massive activity in the front part of the brain which, as we discussed, articulation, word analysis. I'm really oversimplifying complex neuroscience to the point of breaking things so you can draw this out.

Tim Newman [00:50:21]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:50:22]:
Dyslexics do good in grad school because that's the part, the front part of our brain where we have two and a half times the neural activity. As we discussed with you, you came up with your idea relatively quickly and you're treated like the rock star because you had the idea that's publishable.

Tim Newman [00:50:40]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:50:41]:
That allowed you to become an associate professor.

Tim Newman [00:50:43]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:50:44]:
Okay. That these original ideas are the currency of the realm in academia. Okay. So we're just different. And that's the issue. What the other thing is, Dr. Orton was the Einstein, he was the Disney. He was everything to my field.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:51:11]:
And they find it. I know this because I'm a reviewer for the big International Dyslexia Association Conference for several years. They are now refining his stuff. So it is a small fraction of a vein on a leaf. I'm offering a completely original idea.

Tim Newman [00:51:29]:
Right.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:51:30]:
But based on what came out, I hate to say this, this book came out 22 years ago. That's my field. Dr. Collins book that I based this on came out 28 years ago in 97. Okay. That's my field. So what I'm trying to say, it's a new idea. And of course, anytime you have a new idea, it's not the easiest thing to get in school systems.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:51:55]:
That's what Evelyn's working so hard on. And that's why we're going directly to the parents now now, so they could just take care of it, just, just solve it and move on. Once your kids in grade level, yeah, you can put them back in and they can take. Reed is taking all of his classes and he's doing just fine.

Tim Newman [00:52:17]:
That's awesome. I, you, you know, I, I, I, I wish we had this when I was growing up. And it, you Know, for me. For me sitting here still thinking about how you knew all that stuff about me. Still creepy. But if you. If you just do this for your students, do this for your kids, it's. Everything's going to be better for them.

Tim Newman [00:52:51]:
Their school experience. Their school experience is going to be better. Their mental health is going to be better. They're going to. They're. They're going to, you know, be, Be. Be smarter. I mean, they're going to be.

Tim Newman [00:53:05]:
They're going to be able to think better. You know what I'm saying?

Russel Van Brocklen [00:53:09]:
I wasn't trying to creep you out.

Tim Newman [00:53:11]:
No, I know. I know.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:53:12]:
But. But, but here's why I do that. Because I want you to imagine kids like you.

Tim Newman [00:53:20]:
Yeah.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:53:20]:
The ones who. And let's be very honest, when you. You made it to associate professor at good schools, good colleges, can you see how very few entering PhD students could ever reach that height?

Tim Newman [00:53:35]:
Yes.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:53:36]:
Okay. So what I'm trying to say is, when we. When I have these kids in high school and I ask those questions, especially for the third one, your kids don't want you to know the hell they put themselves through. They desperately don't. As I said. I know. I call it your secret. All right? And.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:53:58]:
But once I go and why do I discuss it with them? Because these kids are so skeptical. That's why I went through what I went through with you, with you today, because I want you to know in your bones, I know what I'm talking about. So when I ask you about that, then I say, here's how, based on what you said, this is how we're going to overcome things. Your speciality, specific to the general word analysis followed by articulation, which we really didn't have time to jump into today. Do you see how I got your attention? That this does, you know. You know?

Tim Newman [00:54:32]:
Absolutely.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:54:33]:
That's why I do that, because these kids are so skeptical. They are the hardest audience out there. And they're like, how did you know me? I know, it was kind of funny, apparently. It's kind of funny when I said, yeah, we have these hidden cameras, you know, but for me to really know you at such a deep level and what you went through and how to develop it from that, and then some of the kids would go out to these other, you know, let's just say people who know their names are in this field and ask them, and they have no idea about anything. Like I just asked you. Not. No idea. And it's not because I'm some genius, and it's not because I'm some world renowned researcher on this.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:55:17]:
It's because I went through this, done it, and after I presented this in New York City, I didn't go and spend the next 20 years trying to figure out how to explain things to PhDs. I spent the next 20 years figuring out how to. How can I explain this to teachers, parents and make this so simple that I can have literally 8th grade AP English students teach it successfully?

Tim Newman [00:55:42]:
That's awesome.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:55:42]:
I had to make it that simple.

Tim Newman [00:55:47]:
And you did. And it's working. And I knew when we started this conversation it was going to be one of the best we've ever had. And it lived up to that. Russell, I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you're doing, how much you've taught me on this subject. And so where can people connect with you to get more information and if they need to pass this information on to somebody that they know? Because I think my guess is we all know somebody who could use this resource.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:56:22]:
The easiest thing to do is just go to dyslexia classes, plural. It's with an S. Dyslexia classes dot com. It's a button there that says download free guide. We ask you three questions, you get a free guide. The three reasons your trouble. Your child's having trouble at school due to dyslexia. But then the most important thing, actually go ahead and fill out a time to speak with me and set that up so that I can speak to you and your child and I can find out your speciality.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:56:54]:
And I asked the questions that I went over with you today, and that's because your child is going to be the hardest person on the planet to convince. And once we go through those questions, they know on their bones. I know what I'm talking about. I get them like nobody else does. And then I can show parents how to go through this at an affordable rate. We work with families on a yearly basis and yes, we do give discounts, but like colleges give discounts, scholarships, it's based on financial need when they come in. Why? Because I don't want people to go through the hell that I went through. I want this solved.

Tim Newman [00:57:34]:
Russell, again, thank you so much for spending some time with us. If there's anything I can do to help you pushing this initiative forward, please don't hesitate to let me know. Anything I can do, I'll be happy to help.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:57:47]:
Okay. Thanks for having me.

Tim Newman [00:57:48]:
All right, buddy, take care and we'll talk to you soon. Be sure to visit. Speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com to get your free ebook, Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and How to Overcome Them. You can also register for the Formula for Public Speaking course. Always remember, your voice has the power to change the world. We'll talk to you next time.

Russel Van Brocklen [00:58:07]:
Take care. Sam.