Succeeding with LD: 20 True Stories About Real People with LD by Jill Lauren, M.A. Book report written by Stephanie Stancil

Summary Succeeding with LD is a collection of success stories from 26 individuals who do not let their learning disabilities debilitate their ability to succeed in life. This book contains life stories written to inspire and empower students with LD, parents who have students with LD, and teachers of students with LD.

Personal Reaction The honesty of the people throughout the stories in this book helped me better understand the thoughts and feelings that students with LD struggle with on a daily basis. It is not easy, and these students often get stuck in the midst of academic frustration with the feeling that they will never be able to get out.

Personal Reaction What makes you feel like you are successful? The students and adults in this book persevered through their difficulties because they focused on their strengths and used their strengths as a resource to make themselves successful. Students with LD CAN succeed! For an awesome example of this resilience, meet Paul Orfalea…

Meet Paul Orfalea Paul had difficulties with every subject in school. Later in his life, he was diagnosed with dyslexia. He used his strength of understanding his customers and their needs to build his world renowned business. He is the founder and chairperson of Kinko’s, Inc. (Lauren, 1997, pp ) This is a picture of Paul (top far right) with his coworkers in front of his first store in college.

Reaction to the Book There are too many stories and accounts of educators giving up on students with LD because they say these students are just lazy or that they don’t try hard enough. Students with LD simply learn differently. This doesn’t mean that they can’t learn or are incapable! I was also amazed at the fact that none of the adults or students in this book made excuses because of their LD. They understood their LD and used that information to help them obtain success.

So What Can I (We) Do? Use students’ strengths and interests to help strengthen their weaknesses. This may actually increase their resilient self-efficacy. The students may be more likely to sustain effort on a task even if there are minor setbacks (Ormrod, 2003). Teachers need to realize that LD can affect every aspect of a child’s life. The failures that a student may encounter can have long-lasting effects on his/her self-worth, social life, and emotional well- being (Lerner, 2003).

So What Can I (We) Do? A common characteristic of students with LD is that they often have a poor self-concept and low motivation for academic tasks (Ormrod, 2003). To encourage students and build their self-esteem we can: –Help students discover their strengths. Don’t let them get stuck focusing solely on their disability. –Help students believe in themselves by believing in them!

References Lauren, J. (1997). Succeeding with LD: 20 True Stories About Real People with LD. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing. Lerner, J. (2003). Learning Disabilities: Theories, Diagnosis, and Teaching Strategies. 9 th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Ormrod, J. E. (2003). Educational Psychology: Developing Learners. 4 th ed. Upper Saddle River: New Jersey: Prentice Hall.