Churchill School & Center: Helping Students Understand Their Learning Disabilities

Personalized, passionate, evidence-based instruction isn’t the only way ALDS schools reshape students’ educational trajectories.

Talking to kids about their learning differences is a powerful tool in their toolbox, too.

Here’s why: Parents, caregivers, and teachers have meetings, and students are asked to sit through appointments and assessments. And yet sometimes, they are excluded from the very conversations that would help explain why school feels hard for them. Parents may worry that a diagnosis will further upset them or erode their confidence.

In fact, ask any ALDS school educator and they will argue the opposite: When students understand why they struggle in school—and that others struggle in exactly the same way—an emotional shift occurs, and they regain a sense of confidence, self-acceptance, optimism, and belonging. 

So, imagine the impact when ALDS schools make words like “dyslexia,” “ADHD,” “dyscalculia,”  and “dysgraphia” part of everyday classroom discussions. Imagine the impact when students not only understand how their brains work and the tools they need to succeed, but feel empowered to advocate for themselves and embrace their whole selves—learning differences and all—just as they are.

Churchill School & Center’s annual, student-led Demystification Conference, to which parents are invited, is just one example of how ALDS schools intentionally generate dialogue around LDs—and indeed, hand kids the microphone. 

Read more about Churchill’s approach in their blog post.

As we mark Dyslexia Awareness Month, we honor the nearly 100 ALDS member schools across North America that are committed to this work each and every day, not simply in October.

For more on this topic, check out:

• The Carroll School’s blog posts on Identity Work and Talking to Kids About Their Learning Differences.

• Lab School of Washington’s Speaker Series video on “Sharing the Diagnosis.”