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ADHD and Dyslexia –

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ADHD and Dyslexia – They Often Is My ADHD Support

Helping or Hurting?
Walk Together Meet The Teacher: How
to Build Relationships
October 8, 2022
This Back-to-School
Season
As many of you know, it is not unusual for people with ADHD to struggle with
Supporting vs. Enabling
reading skill development. with Brendan Mahan
from ADHD Essentials
In fact, of people who are diagnosed with ADHD, 30-40% will struggle with Podcast

dyslexia. While many children seem to pick up reading with little effort, most of Training Teachers to
Help Kids with ADHD
these children need more guidance and practice to become confident readers. with Dana Kay from
Soaring Child
And some children need a highly structured approach to help them learn the
Another School Year
sounds associated with letters and letter groups and then translate those into Begins – Are you Ready
to Help your Student
reading words and sentences. with ADHD Succeed??

My daughter Carly is a Special Educator for elementary-aged students. She is Partnering with Your
Child’s Doctor: ADHD &
also a Wilson Certified Dyslexia Practitioner and Orton Gillingham certified. As Behavioral Concerns

she works supporting struggling readers, one of her challenges is


finding engaging and grade-appropriate books while still at the student’s Nonverbal
Communication – A
decodable skill level. Fun Introduction or
Reminder for 4 to 8-
year-olds
This summer, I met two co-authors who have written such books.
Understanding &
Utilizing Your Child’s
Elspeth Rae and Rowena Rae are sisters and coauthors of a book series with a Evaluations
twist to help all learning readers, especially those who need a structured literacy
Does My Child Need
approach. Here they answer a few questions about their Meg and Greg series of Diagnostics?

books, each with four short chapter stories for learning readers aged 6 to 10
years old. The stories feature Meg and Greg, besties who live on the same street
and have adventures together in their neighborhood, at summer camp, and TAGS

while visiting each other’s families. The adventures often include animals and 504 services
sometimes other friends. adhd

adhd children

adhd coaching
What is the twist with your books?
ADHD parent
coaching
We wanted to write stories for children learning to read at an older-than-typical
adhd student
age, so the stories needed to capture their interest but be at a beginner reading
learning
level to meet the learner’s emergent skills. Our solution was to write stories with
advice for kids
shared reading so that a buddy reads part of the story and the learner reads facing challenges
the other part. Each part of the story—the buddy’s and the learner’s—is at a CHADD 2016
different reading level. The buddy reader’s text is at a higher level and boosts children with ADHD
the pace of the story, while the text for the learner is highly controlled and
communication
decodable.
Emily Montaglione

emotional
regulation
Why did you team up to write these stories? Executive Function

Elspeth: The idea to write these books came from my experience as a literacy facing challenges

teacher working with children ages 7, 8, 9, and even ten years old who were help with school

learning how to read. Many of these children struggled to learn to read because homework

of dyslexia, a language-based learning disability. I couldn’t give them age- how ADHD coaching

appropriate books because the reading level was too advanced. The alternative can help my child

was to use books written and illustrated for 5- or 6-year-old beginning readers how to face
challenges
but imagine the frustration and humiliation for a child of average or above-
IDEA kids
average intelligence when I gave them a book for a child three or four years
learning tips for
younger than them. Even so-called phonics readers often included words that
school
were beyond their reading level.
multisensory
approach
Initially, with frustration and then with growing excitement, I decided I could only
OD
meet my students’ needs by writing stories myself, but I didn’t know where to
start. This is where Rowena came in. She was already in the publishing industry oppositional
behavior
as an editor and writer of nonfiction children’s books. So I brought the
parenting child with
knowledge of how to teach reading and spelling to children with dyslexia, and
ADHD
she brought her knowledge of writing, editing, and book publishing. Together, we
parenting skills
started writing the Meg and Greg stories with language and design features
plan ahead for tests
specifically for older-than-typical beginning readers. 
 plan for tests

planning school
Will children with ADHD benefit from these stories similarly to children with year
dyslexia?
positivity

Yes! Both ADHD and dyslexia make learning to read more difficult, in different preparing for tests

ways. ADHD isn’t a learning disability in the way dyslexia is, so it doesn’t affect a Response to
Intervention
child’s ability to learn a skill like reading or writing. But a child with ADHD may
school performance
struggle with reading because they have difficulty concentrating and get easily
distracted. A child with ADHD can often read words that stump a child with school support

dyslexia, but they’re more likely to skip over words or even miss a whole line of Section 504

text. And as Cindy mentioned, there’s also a fairly high co-occurrence of ADHD Speed and
Intelligence
and dyslexia (up to 40% of people with ADHD also have dyslexia), so these
students with adhd
children may struggle with both the focus and the language aspects. The way
students with OD
our books are set up with a highly readable font, large line spacing, and other
features will help all children learn to read, regardless of their situation. study methods

teachers

teen driving

What features do these stories have that help a child who is learning to read? test advice

time management
We already mentioned the shared reading and highly controlled text for the
trigger tutoring
child learning to read. As well as these, each story has short chapters, so the
learner can feel successful even when reading a few pages at a time and can
gain confidence in reading a chapter book. The pages for learners have comic-
WORKSHOPS FOR
style illustrations to engage them and add more interest to the stories. We even
PARENTS
chose the size of the book carefully so that it looks like the graphic novels and
Calm and
chapter books other children may be reading at ages 7–10.
Connected:
With each story, we introduce a new letter-sound combination or spelling Parenting the Child
pattern so that, over time, the learner is building on the range of words they can You Have©
read and spell. So, for example, in the first book, A Duck in a Sock, four stories Workshop
introduce the following spellings one at a time: ck (duck, sock), sh (shop, fish),
Learning, Motivation,
th (them, sloth), and ch (ranch, chest).
and Behavior:
Impact on Kids

How many books are there, and is it important to read them in order? with ADHD and
Executive Function
We have three books out right now, and the fourth will be published in February Challenges©
2023. Over the next few years, we’ll be adding four more books to the series. For Workshop
a child who is in the early stages of learning to read and needs a highly
Managing
structured approach, the books and the four stories within each book should be
read in order. For a child who is already comfortable with some letter-sound Homework, Parent

combinations but needs extra practice with others, it would be fine to read out Edition: Tips, Tools,
and Strategies for
of order because each storyline is stand-alone.
Helping Kids©
I am happy to report that Carly is now using these books with her students. She Workshop
said, “My students are absolutely loving the Meg and Greg books! Some of my
most impacted students have been excited about them and reading quickly

through each book. They find them both accessible and funny. One student
PROFESSIONAL
asked me regularly when I’ll have book four for him to read! I’ve recommended
TRAININGS
them to other parents and have heard positives from them as well.”
Professional ADHD
Parent Coach

Here are the four books out currently: Training Course

Meg and Greg: A Duck in a Sock (ck, sh, ch, th)

STUDENT WORKSHOPS
Meg and Greg: Frank and the Skunk (nk, ng, tch, dge)
Managing
Meg and Greg: The Bake Sale (a-e, i-e, o-e, u-e)
Homework: Student
Meg and Greg: Scarlet and the Ring (ar, or, er, air) Edition: Tips, Tools,
and Strategies©
Workshop
You may purchase them at the links above. They are also available online and
directly from their publisher, Orca Book Publishers, which offers a discount for
educators.

They also have a dedicated website with more information about the books,
www.orcatworead.com. On that site is a mailing list signup if you’d like to hear
about when new books are out.

Bio:

Elspeth and Rowena are sisters who believe in a world where all children learn
to read with confidence and have the chance to discover the pleasure of being
lost in a good book. Elspeth is a teacher certified in using the Orton Gillingham
approach to teach literacy skills to all children, especially those with language-
based learning difficulties. She lives with her family in Vancouver, B.C. Rowena
works as a freelance editor and writing coach with West Coast Editorial
Associates and writes nonfiction books for children. She lives with her family in
Victoria, B.C. You can get in touch with Elspeth and Rowena at
tworeadbooks@gmail.com.

 ADHD, ADHD Therapy, ADHD Treatment, diagnosis and treatment for ADHD, Executive Function, Help
With School
 Is My ADHD Support Helping or Hurting?

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