Livia McCoy on teaching kids with
Language learning disorders

Although difficulties using written language are not limited to students with diagnoses like dysgraphia and dyslexia, students with severe language learning disabilities present a challenge to teachers, parents, and the students themselves.

One of the teachers who is up to the challenge is Livia McCoy. Livia packed insights from her 25 years of teaching students with language learning disorders — plus a wealth of common sense — into her book When Learning Is Painful: How to Help Struggling Students—A Resource for Parents and Teachers.

The New Community School in Richmond, VA, where Livia teaches science, is a private, college preparatory school for students with dyslexia. The program features daily instruction in reading, writing, spelling.

I talked to Livia about some topics she raises in her book. Here is our conversation, with my questions in teal and Livia's responses in black type.

You say that everyone is a bit quirky when it comes to learning. Why do teachers or parents need to recognize their own learning quirks to work with students, especially those with learning disorders?

Everyone has things they do well, some they do not so well, and other things they cannot do at all. If the things they do not do well affect them in school, then they become major problems. If it is something silly, like you can't read a map well, then it's not a problem.

Teachers should be empathetic when their students have learning differences that make them do poorly in school.

Is empathy enough? If I'm really sorry you struggle to learn from my lectures, does that help you learn better from lectures?

No, I do not think empathy is enough. It is our responsibility as teachers to teach in ways that match more of our students' best learning styles. Very few people are just auditory learners. So if you are lecturing, you are only reaching about 20% of your students. That is not acceptable in my book.

Just adding visuals and color to a lecture by using Powerpoint can help reach a whole lot more. There is a lot of talk about how there is no such thing as learning styles. But it is common sense that we all learn differently.

Many learning tasks are hard. I can understand how to make difficult learning tasks more meaningful, but is it really possible to make them enjoyable?

Absolutely! People need to experience success. If a teacher can make something that was once difficult easier to do so that a student experiences success, then that task is enjoyable. Now they can do something they could not do before.

So you're saying a learning experience doesn't have to be fun to be enjoyable?

I guess I am saying that! It is the success after the struggle that makes it enjoyable.

My most meaningful teaching experiences occur when a student is having a hard time with a concept and then they finally get it. There is this look they get on their face that means, "Ah ha! I got it!" They enjoy that even if they didn't enjoy getting to that point.

One of the lines I highlighted as I read was "check old learning for accuracy." Could you give an example of what you mean by that and why you say it is important?

Almost everyone will tell you that the seasons are caused by how close you are to the sun. If that were true, everyone would have the same seasons at the same time. When teaching about the seasons, this misconception has to be cleared up or the student will not understand why the seasons change.

What we have found is that you need to uncover the misconceptions first, or else you can go through several days of instruction and think students understand the concept. Then when asked later they will still give you the same explanation they gave you before. Or their new explanation will be a mix of the wrong information and the right.

Or what if the inaccuracy was at the start of a longer mathematics calculation or in their understanding of how to do a certain type of calculation? Everything after that is incorrect.