S2-E150 - The Champion’s Literacy Loop: Identity → Micro-Wins → Mastery with Russell Van Brocklen - Champion Mindset Collective

Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Then asked to do the impossible several times.
Few weeks later I learned to read.
A few years later I learned to write.
This is the book in my field. It's called Overcoming Dyslexia
by Sally Shawez. This is dyslexia.
I believe that dyslexia is not areading and writing issue.
It's a lack of organisation, thefront part of the brain.
Kind of like with a cold. It's not a stuffy nose, it's not

(00:26):
a cough, it's something in your chest.
I hear this all the time with myprocessed.
The parents and teachers say my kids won't do it.
Well, yes, if you step outside their speciality, you're right,
they won't do it. But once you're in that
speciality, they will. And your kid usually like I
don't wanna do it. And they talk to me and they ask

(00:46):
the tough questions. I gave them a few questions and
they're like, ohh. Then I ask, is this how you
would like to overcome your reading and writing issue?
Generally the answer is yes. Then I work with the parents, as
they said, reads. Mom solved it in six months.
These were high school juniors and seniors, very motivated
kids, very intelligent, writing like they were in middle school.
At the end of that, they were writing like they were graduate
students. This electrics were born for a I

(01:08):
there's ways of doing it with a I, there's there's other ways
I've worked with students to come up with their doctoral
dissertations, really begin to think like an advanced academic.
We're talking past the craft of research here.
So what you have to understand is when you're looking at
identity, you have to focus on the kids speciality, their area
of extreme interest and ability.Well, they won't do the work.

(01:30):
Welcome back to the Champion Monthly Collective podcast.
I'm glad that you're here listening or watching this
episode. Would love for you to share this
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And if you haven't already done so, please subscribe to this
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listen to this, the more we can get this out.
And this, this episode has been sponsored by a Wig Flows agency

(01:54):
where we can help you with getting out of your repetitive
tasks and actually giving you back time so that you can do
meaningful things in your business.
If you're interested in that, goto the show notes, click on the
link, send me an e-mail. When a team believes I'm a kid
who can't read, every worksheet proves them right.
But flipped that story and now show them that they are

(02:17):
specialist, not a struggler. But everything changes.
My guest today is Russell Van Brocklin, the dyslexia
professor, New York State Senatefunded dyslexia researcher who
turns daily reading battles intorepetitive wins.
His inaugural programme did something unusual.
It put the word analysis first with this one class per day over

(02:41):
the school year. Writing move from middle school
level to the GRE analytical rising 4.0 to 5.0 range in about
5 months. State costs under $900 per
student, and every participant later graduated college without
accommodation. Today, we'll map his champion's

(03:02):
literacy loop, how identity micro wins and how
counterintuitive. Focus on word analysis rebuilds
confidence fast. Expect practical steps that
parents and coaches can try tonight.
Let's welcome Russell Van Brocklin to the Champion
Mountain Collective podcast. Thanks for having me.
That's the privilege to have youhere.

(03:22):
Thank you, Russell, for joining us.
Russell, before we kick into some deep questions into this
topic, I'd love for you to shareyour journey in life and how
you've got to where you are today and what you're doing
today and obviously what you're passionate about this.
So we'd love to hear that story from you, from your perspective
as to the journey that you took.Well, I entered college with a

(03:47):
first grade reading and writing ability and where it really hit
the fan was in the late 90s. I wanted to know how government
works, not some idea I wanted toknow.
So I applied for the New York State Assembly Internship
programme and what happens is you work like 30 hours a week as
a staff member and then they give you like 10 plus hours a

(04:10):
week of academic work. So I showed them my
neuropsychological evaluation and says, hey, I have a first
grade reading and writing level and they said this isn't going
to work. So they got a committee together
and they said what we're going to do is we're going to put you
in the majority leaders programme and council's office
because there's three administrative assistants who
could help me. So I had the best internship

(04:32):
because they did not know what to do with an undergraduate.
They taught treat me like a graduate student.
So for the academic portion, I had to do a lot of research and
a very standard accommodation for me back then was to give an
oral presentation. And the professor there made it
so onerous on me that he offeredit to any of his other students.

(04:55):
You given oral report instead ofwriting the paper?
They all said no, but I was so used to it, it wasn't an issue.
So at the end they recommended 15 credits of a minus.
Well, then it goes up to my political science department at
the State University of New YorkCentre of Buffalo.
They looked at this and said we don't like these accommodations.
So here's your 15 credits of F Never happened before.

(05:18):
Never happened since 27 years ago.
It's still there. Ohh.
Okay you know what that does to a GP?
A shattered me. So after college I just said no
more I'm going to solve this nonsense.
So I asked my professors where do I go where I'm forced to
learn to read and write? They said okay jokingly, law

(05:39):
school. So I entered law school.
It's my second day of contracts.I went to see Professor Warner,
who's the dyslectic law professor, and he called on me.
And what they try to do is run you over.
You don't know the answer, whichnobody on the second day of law
school generally does. And if you don't know the
answer, they keep asking you questions to embarrass you.

(06:00):
It's called this acratic method.Well, what I found later on,
what happened to me is what happened to countless dyslexics
and generations before me and sense me.
We go into grad school, we own the place day one.
So he started asking me questions.
Things slowed down and organisedfor the first time in my life.
I leaned over, I started shouting at him.

(06:22):
He leaned over, he started shouting at me.
Typically how it happens, intense discussions and law
school for 15 minutes. There was an eternity.
I knew where he was going. I couldn't beat him.
He knew where I was going. He couldn't beat me.
I'm this is my second day of class.
He was a professor for three decades.
At the end, he said, Russell, you couldn't be anymore correct.

(06:44):
And the interest of time. I have to move on my classmates
after passing the bar, so they still couldn't do that.
Few weeks later I learned to read.
Few years later I learned to write.
Then I went on to back to Buffalo.
I said, okay, what I need to do is I want the New York State
government to fund my research project.
So what I did is just so everybody knows, this is the

(07:06):
book in my field, it's called Overcoming dyslexia.
Visalia Shawaz This is dyslexia to see how the back part of your
brain has all this neural activity and mine has next to
nothing. Well, do you see how the front
part of my brain is 2 1/2 times more active than yours?

(07:27):
Okay, So what I did is I said let's use the front part of the
brain. According to Yale, that's
articulation followed by word analysis.
And my first programme I did very little word analysis, so I
used the graduate records exam, analytical writing, assessment,
analytical articulation. There's the connection.

(07:48):
One class period day for the school year.
These were high school juniors and seniors, Very motivated
kids, very intelligent, writing like they were in middle school.
At the end of that, they were writing like they were graduate
students. Average of every graduate
students all went on to college,all graduated, No
accommodations. GP is at 2.5 to 3.6 so that's

(08:12):
what that's how I got started. Well, well Jenny, I mean like
they would have just been like like you said you were shattered
when when they gave you, you know, ifs ohh.
Yeah. And then another student that
was like me who really tried hard, I said, well, here's the
process. And privately I could get
students through that in about four to five months.

(08:35):
And then they would score and the average range of entering
graduate students. And I say, okay, now you can go
do the internship. You're done or go and do
anything. And like one student I worked
with, he, he flunked out of college.
His father is distraught. He's he's afraid it's going to
be failure to launch. So he was going to go back.

(08:56):
Yes, it was a local Community College, but it was still
college. And halfway through the
programme, he says I don't need you anymore.
All right? I was like, okay, his father
still agreed to pay me what he what he agreed to, even though I
just had to have to work. He got two ways.
Then he went back to a real college and it wasn't straight
as he had a three-point 3GP A. His father was thrilled.

(09:22):
All right. And I did that in 2 1/2 months.
So I I read. Yeah.
So that's that was a good beginning for my research.
So how, how did you get into what you do today?
Like, I mean, obviously you wentthrough this yourself, but what
were the steps to go to to actually getting into what
you're doing today to help people?

(09:43):
Well, we've got me into today iswhen I presented this New York
City. I thought I was done.
I thought I did something amazing.
I was wrong. The teachers came back and they
said, what about normal kids? Will this work?
I said no way, they can't put upwith it.
So then I had to take eight years off and figure out how do

(10:04):
we get technical students to do this?
And I'm going back to the science again.
See that over at different part of the brain.
Okay, that's the secret. What I finally figured out is
that instead of articulation followed by word analysis, I did
word analysis followed by articulation.
Now how effective is that? Give me an example if Kimberly

(10:27):
gave me full permission to tell her story.
I met Kimberley on December 27thof 2024.
Her son read she home schooled him and she was just getting
him. Just got him tested in Ohio.
He scored a 190 which was mid 2nd grade level.
If he was in public school in special Ed, he would expect for

(10:48):
the rest of the school year to increase to 2.8 points to a
192.8. Grade level was 211.
She worked with him 1/2 an hour a day, three days a week
generally and he didn't increaseby, you know, 2.8 points.
He increased by 20 points, little bit over 3 standard
deviations, one in 2000. Okay, so at that point he's at

(11:13):
grade level. She did this, so now Reed wanted
to go, his friend said. We want you in public school to
be with us socially. So instead of going into public
school in special education, he's mainstreamed.
He's doing just fine and he's really happy his mom solved but
private schools couldn't do in that time period.

(11:34):
Let's talk a little bit about identity and learning.
So Russell and in an earlier episode of with Julie Murphy, we
talked about how childhood moneystories can shape adult
decisions. You make similar connection to
the identity and learning. Can you tell us a little bit
about that please? Sure.
So what you have to understand is when you're looking at

(11:56):
identity, these kids, what I've learned from senior dyslexic
professors is we are academic specialists, not generalists.
We don't want to play around in some huge area.
We want something very specific.So to give you an example, did
you ever watch Fast and Furious the original movie?
I watched the first one. Yeah, Now Paul Walker, remember

(12:18):
the scene where they bring in the junk car and Paul Walker
sitting down with us a D kid AD and dyslexia, the treatments
very similar. And he says you're amazing at
this when you could see what it could look like.
How come you're not at MIT? He said I can do this really
good. I can't do the other stuff.
So as I learned with Reed, you have to focus on the kids

(12:42):
speciality, their area of extreme interest and ability, or
they won't do the work. Not OHH, not forever, but for
that intervention period until they're at grade level.
Okay, and for Reed, that was X-Men.
He really liked Logan from the comic book Xmen.

(13:03):
I actually had his mom go and get graphic novels because the
comics were too simplistic and that's what we worked on.
Okay. And that kept him
extraordinarily engaged. I hear this all the time with my
processed. The parents and teachers say my
kids won't do it as well. Yes, if you step outside their

(13:24):
speciality, you're right, they won't do it.
But once you're in that speciality, they will.
And how do you figure that out? I want you to imagine Saturday
morning, they could do whatever they want all day.
Ask them. That's their speciality.
And if you focus on that, they will put in a tremendous amount
of work. Once they're at grade level, you

(13:47):
can put them back into school. And then it was a perfect no.
I get this. Like Reed said, I don't like
writing and math class. And he really didn't.
So I worked with his mom, she worked with a teacher and they
they were able to solve it relatively simply.
But sometimes at that point you have to say you now have to do

(14:07):
this work. Then the kids complain a little
bit and they go and do the work because now they can.
What what you see, that's absolutely true, because when
you focus on the strengths and what they're actually good at,
then there any their genius zone, right, and they're able to
then focus a lot a bit. They give you another example

(14:29):
like how how powerful this is. That original programme I came
up with, I was told it was goingto take years.
I had to get Professor James Collins, a senior writing
professor, Sunny Centre of Buffalo.
He had a million half dollar grant from the US Education
Department to work with similar age kids that I was looking at.
Still, it's going to take years to get his approval.

(14:50):
How long do you think it took me?
Under 2 weeks. From the two weeks.
Wow. The graduate students were
shocked. He said 8 plus excellent and I
said well I don't have time because there's a university

(15:11):
wide competition. I had to get it in within, you
know, couple weeks after that I just didn't have the time
without his approval. It was going nowhere.
I got 15 grand and that funded that.
That got the first several students through the programme
before I could get the funding from the state Senate.
It took me like 4 years to get their funding.

(15:32):
It was not easy. They ran me through the
gauntlet, all right, And that, that's just an example.
I just didn't have the time. So I, I did it in the allocated
time and the, the, the graduate students were like, how could
you do this so fast? I said, well there's an
advantage to being dyslexic, butyou can read and write a light

(15:52):
years better than I can. And then they realised that what
I had was far more valuable. But going through K through
college, what they had was far more valuable.
Yeah. Why is the identity such a
powerful driver and these literacy literacy outcomes?

(16:13):
You have to understand the fundamental nature of the
dyslexic brain. When you ask a dyslexic student
just here's the other, here's the next step of the model.
We don't teach them from the general to the specific to
grabbing fog. If you ask you to select it,

(16:35):
what personally, if you ask it to Selectric.
What effect did Martin Luther King's famous.
I have a dream speech have on the 1960s civil rights movement.
It's like grabbing fog. We can't do it.
But if you ask us what personally compelled Martin
Luther King, you want to give his famous speech and you can go
to his biography, find the answer, write it out, which will

(16:56):
then lead to another question. You answer that and it keeps
going because if you ask it to selectric in your speciality, do
you have ideas flying around your head at lightspeed?
Key question. But with little to no
organisation they're going to say yes.
So then what you say is we have to force your brain to organise
itself by using writing as a measurable output.

(17:20):
Ohh. That's the secret.
Yeah. Yeah, agree.
So in this day and age with a I,how does that factor into?
Look ohh, dyslexics were born for a I.
Alright let me give you an example.
When Chachi PT came out with itsPro subscription last December

(17:43):
for 200 bucks a month, I just bought it that day.
All right, now here's why I tell.
To give you an example, when I'mteaching students, when I was
presenting in New York City thatoriginal time, besides the
teachers coming after me, the professors came after me.
They said we don't care that some of your students scored in

(18:04):
the 70th percentile and grad students, we don't care.
We want the craft of research aslike the craft of what the craft
of research came out in 95 by the University of Chicago
because their PhD students didn't know how to write.
So it's broken into three parts.Context get everybody on the
same page, problem statement, solution that is completely

(18:25):
original. I dropped context to 4th and 5th
grade, problem to middle and high school, and solution to
high school and college. All right, and let me show you
how powerful this is. Last year I had a student who
detested a I. He couldn't stand it, but his

(18:46):
boss loved it. The idea was with all his new
employees, he wanted to see if anybody could add value to the
company. Any good ideas?
He said. So let's, let's see we can come
up with he contacts me. He's he's in panic.
I hate a I don't know what to do, I said.
I trained you in the craft of research.
Pick your model, talk to it, type it, figure out context.

(19:09):
Few days later he comes back. I said go do problem.
So he comes back a few days later.
I hate this. I'm like welcome to the grown up
world. Said go do solution.
I taught you how to do this. Write up his idea in five
paragraphs. Got managers going through can't
use this, Can't use this comes to his excellent idea We can use

(19:31):
this. Within a week, he's training his
peers on how to do a I. He said I don't know.
This is what I found work I justtalked to and I figured out what
works because he knew the craft of research and then he
practised for four years in college.
That's how powerful it is. If you can do the craft of
research, you prompt engineer your brain.
I don't care what new model comes out, it's exactly how

(19:54):
you're supposed to teach. You learn to to think in grad
school. Well, I teach you to elementary,
middle school kids. Now, when we had this chat prior
to this interview, you, you talked about The Craft of
Research, which is a book. Can you give us a little bit of
a summary of what what the Craftof Research is?

(20:14):
Ohh, it's, it's incredibly advanced.
What it does is it tells you forany research project.
So let me give you an example how this would fly in high
school. Tell me a book in high school
that everybody reads, everybody knows about the you're familiar
with. Ohh gosh, I don't know.
Romeo and Juliet. Ohh yeah, yeah.

(20:37):
Yeah, what do you think the chances are?
Could you write something completely original on Romeo and
Juliet? My students do They not only
write something original, they write something original at the
Graduate School level every timethey write a paper.
Okay, So what is the craft of research?

(20:58):
It came out in the mid 90s because they're graduate
students at the University of Chicago.
They didn't know how to do something original.
They didn't know how to communicate the writing and
their thousand page dissertations.
So they came out with a book. It's now in its 5th edition.
It's dropped to super advanced high school kids.
I can tell you that no private school, New York City private
schools even touch it. It's too evolved.

(21:21):
So what I've done is I've I've dropped it for context, the 4th
and 5th graders, I have them write body paragraphs with
quotes answering the basic questions of who, what, when,
where, how, why. This is so important because
teachers, you can now assign essays again and chat and
ChatGPT simply can't write it. There's process that shows them

(21:43):
how to find their quote. No quote, nobody paragraphs
okay, and there's a process on how to get there and teachers,
you can decide no a I a little aI moderate a lot them do the
whole darn thing. If a teacher decides how much a
I to use, I think that's ethical.
They can disagree with amongst themselves with they're the ones

(22:05):
that make the decision. So now you can assign homework
again but that's the most basic essay.
What I did after that instead of1 quote I had them assigned to
and we teach them how to spread that out after they practise for
a while. SO1 quotes at the beginning,
ones at the end were the same universal thing we even have

(22:27):
them add. Are you familiar with warrants
and body paragraphs? Okay, we even do 2 warrants, 2
quotes. Okay, we incorporated.
This is for the problem level. I incorporated what was needed
to do well on the New York StateRegents exam.

(22:47):
That's our exam for high school kids, plus the critical parts
that level with the craft of research and the skills that
they already know. I just have them add another
quote and most when you start off, they're very close to the
body paragraphs at the middle school level as you spread that
quote apart. For example, with Hermione in
the book 3, when Ron broke his leg, she started to really care

(23:10):
about him and then they kissed in book 7.
You spread it across that much. Now you are looking at something
that is at the advanced high school level, and it's a very
minimum change to get something so much more powerful.
The whole point of my research is how to make the most power we

(23:30):
can get with something that is exceedingly simple.
Making it simple as as the key, right?
Because otherwise otherwise people like like you said,
people just won't. They might not get it.
Well, exactly. And my primary business is, yes,
I've been training special Ed teachers in New York City for
the past 10 years, but primarilyI trained parents to teach their

(23:53):
kids. Why?
Because parents, let me tell you, this is by far the most
popular book when I teach students privately.
Walt Disney's biography, All 1000 pages of it.
Why? Because, and I will assign that
book to a 10 year old child reading at the 2nd grade level.

(24:14):
I've done it over a dozen times.Why have you been to Disneyland
or Disney World? Ohh heaven one day.
OK when you go in people say when you walk into Main Street
USA people say you feel the Disney magic.
Disney magic is 2 universal themes and the kids are
desperate to find out what it is.

(24:35):
And by the time they find out what the second universal thing
is, they can read at the advanced high school level and
people say, well, they won't do the work they do.
And I am on that one book, sometimes for two to three
years. Wow, yeah.
One book schools want you to do 5 or 10 a year.

(24:58):
Yeah, yeah. Now let's let's talk a little
bit about the literacy loop. So you describe it as identity
microphones mastery. Can we break that down a bit so
that when parents speak, what does that actually?
Mean I want you to best way I like to try to describe this is

(25:19):
I want you to think about a movie review.
Do you go to the movies that often?
You know, like when you meet, when you read review and it's
from like the people from the best universities, like Harvard,
Princeton, Yale stuff. And then they tell you exactly
what happens in the movie. This happens and this happens.
So you know what's going on. It's like, why should the movie
sound familiar? What you really.

(25:42):
So let's pick a movie. Pick one that you know really
well that some movie everybody knows well the best movies ever
made. Go shake redemptions.
Fantastic movie, one movie 1 Universal theme that keeps
coming up with that when it's triumphed.
Ohh yeah. Okay, So what we would do is
then we would talk at a most basic level, how do the actors,

(26:05):
the director and the screenwriter, how do they do
with the with the universal theme to try it.
And you discuss that so you can review the movie without telling
them what happened. OK, so how do we apply this?
This is how we basically teach reading.
So what we do is with The Shawshank Redemption, all right?

(26:26):
And the first thing we do is we do a hero, a universal theme in
the optimum billing. Okay, now what we have to keep
doing, and I got to keep going back to this science, the front
part of the brain is 2 1/2 timesoveractive.
And that's word analysis followed by articulation.
I'm saying Sally Shaw, which waswrong.

(26:46):
Doctor Schwartz, it's word analysis followed by
articulation. So let's do word analysis.
So with Shawshank Redemption, who is our hero?
Morgan Friedman is the older, wiser black gentleman and the
other guy was the accountant. I am trying to make his name.
I can't be with his name. Okay, so let's just call him the
accountant, okay? He's our hero.

(27:08):
What did he want to do in one sentence?
What did he want to do? He wanted to prove his
innocence. Okay, so with that we need to
find two types of words. An action word, which in this
case is once it brings the hero in the general direction they
want to go. The second one is the most
important one is innocence. Okay, So what we would do is we

(27:33):
have to decide which way do we want to go?
Do we want to go with wants or innocence?
Sometimes the action word is is more important is is is better.
Most of the time it's not. So we're going to go with with
the innocence. Okay, so basically what I'm
going to do now, I'm just going to ChatGPT.
I'm going to put in in a sense and give me 5 synonyms.

(28:02):
You saw the hours and definitions.
Okay, so I just went and it gaveme 5 of them.
I'm just going to give you here.Here's just a few occurrence,
and it means events of happening, especially those that
take place unexpectedly or without planning event, notable

(28:27):
happenings, whether ordinary or significant, that take time.
Okay, So what we're looking to do is to find a word that best
represents what's in your head. That is much more specific
because innocence is so broad, that's how it typically happens.
So just for the heck of it, justto save time, I'm going to pick

(28:51):
occurrence. Events are happening, especially
those that take place unexpectedly or without
planning. Okay, do you see how that's much
more specific? That is our new universal thing.
So the first one was our base universal thing.
Now we have our final one. So now we have the accountant, a
current who is the optimum villain that can prevent the

(29:13):
hero from accomplishing the hero's goal.
Is it a person or a concept thatis going to prevent him from
doing that? A big one that comes out is
corruption from the captain. I'm don't think the warden.
So we got corruption. So do you see how I'm pushing
you? And you're you're in a grown

(29:34):
adult who's educated. Struggling to come up.
Yeah, yes. And I am just going to come back
to the neuro research. Your brain does real great in
the back. But now we're playing in the
front part. Now we're playing in my sandbox.

(29:56):
So these deselect the kids are really good at this.
All right, So what we do is I'llhave you put that into a
sentence, the accounting. Does that just prove that I'm
not dyslexic? Well, let me, let me, let's see
if you're dyslexic. I'm going to ask you 2 questions
and we'll get back to this firstquestion and what's your

(30:17):
speciality? What do you love to do?
I love podcast thing and I love working with technology.
Yeah. Do you have ideas flying around
your head at lights? When you think about posting?
Do you have ideas flying around your head lightspeed but with
little to no organisation? Is that you or no?
Right. Okay, you're not that that just

(30:37):
not whips it out right there. So what I just, what I'm just
showing you is when you start doing this with your dyslexic
child, they start off really slow.
This takes forever. But as they practise it, they
get better than, than than you are right now because this is
what our brain is designed to dokind of shocks parents.

(30:58):
So what we do is now we take those 3 words, we can say the
accountant. So what we can say is the
accountant wants to overcome this occurrence, but the
Warden's corruption is preventing him.
Okay, And then we go because reason 1.

(31:21):
Okay, why? Why is this happening?
Because the warden wants to keepthe accountant in gaol so he can
manage his money. How do we reduce that to a
universal thing? We come up with a one word
universal fame, and then we can find a quote from the script.
Okay, that quote. We then answer who, what, when,

(31:43):
where, how, why, and we turn that into a body paragraph.
There's a process for that. Then for the advanced stuff, we
come up with two quotes, preferably one at the beginning
of the movie, 1 at the end. And then we have a seven step
process and that process is not at the elementary school level,
that's at the advanced high school level.

(32:04):
Now do you see how before the because hero, universal theme
villain, that is very much word analysis after because that's
articulation. See that?
Okay, let's go back to the science again over a different
part of the brain Word analysis followed by articulation.

(32:25):
Why do I keep going back to the science?
Because I'm telling you things that are completely outside the
mainstream of dyslexia, which iscreated by Doctor Orton, who
passed away in 1948, and we've learned a few things since the
50s. Let's talk a little bit about
the counter intuitive move like the the word analysis first.

(32:48):
Can you tell us about that please?
Well, as we just discussed, the word analysis first is to help
focus the dyslexic brain and getthings out on paper.
Also, do you see how I had you? We we would pick a more evolved
word we type. What I would have the dyslectic

(33:10):
do is when they're coming up with their base universal fame,
like what is that the most important would have them type
out that word. Go to Merriam Webster's online
dictionary, pick out a definition, type it out on a
laptop. No iPad, no iPhone, no copy and
paste on the laptop. Here's my question for you.

(33:31):
This is going to be how we solvereading.
How many times do you have to type out a word or a definition
until you know it? Maybe 2, two or three times
maybe. Two or three times the
dyslectic, it might be five, 10/15/20, who knows?
It's some number. We keep having the dyslectic do

(33:52):
that. When it comes time to come up
with the post universal thing, they type out the word, they
type out the definition. Over a course for a couple of
weeks, the older students will get and develop a vocabulary of
a dozen or so advanced words. Over three to six months, 100 to
200 words for hundreds of words.It's just how much time they
spend doing it you have. You've developed an advanced

(34:13):
vocabulary of hundreds of evolved words.
Your ability to reach skyrockets.
That's the key thing. And then again, I hear this all
the time. My deselected kid won't do the
work. I give this to a 10 year old two
years later, and that's what it takes for that.
Two years later, she know. She's reading this entire book.

(34:36):
She's finding the second universal fame that her mom
can't find. We asked the mom who has a
master's degree, what's the second universal thing?
And then as 12 year old girls inthis situation will go mom, it's
right there. Mom goes ohh can I miss it?
I saw that so many times. I said in this situation, you're

(34:58):
12 year old daughter can comprehend better than you can.
And she spent two years to figure out what's the Disney
magic. Why is that so important?
Because if she decides to internfor Disney, she can then say,
well, if, if, if Walt were to try to figure out what to do
with this issue we're having, here are some ideas.

(35:21):
Because she knows the universal things, one of those ideas might
be worth a half a million 5,000,000 bucks.
Who do you think's going to keeptheir job and get the good
internship after a while? Yeah.
So was that was that a question for?

(35:42):
Me, I'm just saying, that's how powerful this is.
Yeah, it is. It is powerful and like it's
just mind blowing. Yes, that's what's possible when
you look at the problem and froma from a different perspective
in different way. I'd like to talk a little bit
about the Zach's case. The state recorded exceed

(36:05):
standards and then MIT grad requirement.
What made that shift possible for Zach?
Zach was in high school, and hismom just couldn't get him on the
phone to talk to me. So I just said, you, you really
gotta push. And he's tried everything.
So, you know, mom's A paralegal.She's a single mom.

(36:26):
She gets him on the phone. He's like, yeah, what?
Well, I, I said, okay, Zach, I went through what you're going
through and I asked him some of the questions I asked you.
How did you know this? We, he, he was really hostile at
the beginning, which happens quite frankly, quite a lot.
And that was one of my longer conversations.
We ended up talking for a coupleof hours and they said, okay,

(36:48):
I'll do the work. Complete transformation.
We picked out what he liked and in a matter of less than a year
for him, he was he. I got the results back.
He was reading above grade leveland he said at that point he's
finished. He went on completed his
education. I think he went to a Community

(37:09):
College and now he has a, what Icall a head and hands job that
pays him better than a lot of his friends who went to college
and he's loving it. So that is just a an example
where I just got to get on the phone with the kids, ask them a

(37:30):
couple of questions and they areso sceptical.
Do you think moms and dads who have been who spent endless
thousands or 10s of thousands ofdollars on things that haven't
worked or sceptical tried the kids?
They are the toughest audience Iever face.
But once they found I'm like them, I even had one student who
said, yeah, show me your neuropsych.

(37:52):
So I said, great, I sent it over.
Who did this? State University of New York
Distinguished Professor in psychology at the bequest of the
state. The state paid for it.
Ohh okay, and we ended up doing a really that student did not
did Nelson Mandela. That biography's over 1000
pages. Would you walk us through step

(38:13):
by step of your 3015 to 30 minute routine?
For parents, typically what you're going to start off with
is the kids are writing. As one special Ed teacher told
me when I was teaching her how to do this in New York City, my
kids writing essentially randomly placed misspelt words.

(38:36):
I don't even know where to begin.
So I'm going to show you how we do that really quick.
I want you to imagine I'm just going to use an example.
Her name is Sarah. Her favourite thing to do in the
world is swimming, so now we gotto get her to write a basic
sentence. Okay, So what we're going to do
is I'm stealing this from my mentor, Professor James Collins.

(38:57):
He had three default writing strategies.
This is book strategies for sterling writers, copying
visualisation and narrative. So we're going to kind of follow
that. So we're at a computer, a
laptop. You're going to type out hero
plus sign. What are we talking about?
And she's going to copy it. It's the default writing
strategy of copying. We're going to switch here over

(39:18):
Sarah, Sarah plus sign, what we talking about?
We're going to switch what are we talking about for swimming.
Sarah plus sign swimming. So now the plus sign is
representing the default rating strategy of visualisation.
It means we probably need AdWords subtract words and move
words around. We need to add a word.
Okay, so we've got Sarah plus sign swimming.

(39:40):
I'm going to ask you a very specific few questions.
They're very simple, very easy. And when I do this, New York
City, the teachers, 90% of them get it wrong.
So do you think I'm gonna be able to fool you?
Yeah. Okay, just remember, these are
exceedingly simple questions. The answers are exceedingly

(40:01):
simple. Just answer them exactly what I
ask. We are Sarah plus science
swimming. We need to replace the plus sign
with the word. Here's my question.
To Sarah Lake or dislike swimming.
He just likes them slick swimming.
Okay, so go ahead and tell me what the sentence is.
It's a three word sentence. You just said it.

(40:23):
Serious science. Don't forget the plus sign.
We're replacing it that with that word.
Just tell me what the three wordsentence is.
You already did it. Sarah just like swimming.
Well, it's your favourite thing in the world.
She does it all the time. Ohh so she loves that she loves

(40:43):
swimming. Okay, so you love swimming, but
that's not what I asked. As an educated person, you
automatically added the S and then gave me a better word
automatically. Sarah's dyslectic.
All right, And I'm going to comeback to just again, how
important this is. I'm asking you a back of the

(41:06):
brain question. Do you see the neural activity
there about nothing. Yours is going crazy.
So how do we shift this to the front part of the brain so she
can actually do this? How do we not take forever to do
this? Because Morton Gillingham would
have used all these senses and it takes you forever to learn
and it's just complicated as well, but it works.

(41:26):
Here's what we do. I would ask Sarah, do you like
or dislike swimming? See would say like because
that's what I asked her. So then she would replace the
plus sign Sarah like swimming. How do we get her to add DNS
because she doesn't know how to add the S So actually Sarah,
this is so important. Really listen.

(41:47):
Read what you wrote out loud. Does it sound generally correct?
So you read Sarah like swimming?It doesn't sound correct.
I would tell her fix it. Sarah likes swimming.
See how he did that? That is a form of word analysis
then, because, Sarah, why do youlike swimming?

(42:09):
Because it's fun. All right, now what do we have a
bunch of misspelt words? How do we fix that?
We tell Sarah before you put theperiod down, you can ask any
question. Like for example, she can ask
did I spell fund correctly? And if not, you say no.
Now she only has to retype fund.But what happens?

(42:31):
He dropped, the kids almost always dropped the period, their
period droppers. Now what I tell them is now you
have to because you dropped the period and you have a major, and
I mean major grammatical mistakeor if there's a spelling
mistake, you got to retype the entire sentence.
You can say you made a silly mistake or silly error to help
them not feel so angry with themselves.
They get frustrated. So then she says I'm not going

(42:54):
to make that mistake and she retypes it and she makes it
again. Somewhere between typically 3
and 13 times she has to retype until she gets it right.
As she is retyping, keep making the same mistake over and over
again. Starts to focus more and more
until around 9 to 13 times seemsfocusing so much that sometimes

(43:16):
you see sweat coming down their forehead at that point of that
extreme intensity. I'm not making that mistake.
That's where the magic happens. That's where the spelling
correct. We do that until the spelling is
correct for what she likes and dislikes. 20 of those 10 likes,
10 dislikes. Then because reason one make

(43:37):
sure everything's perfect for all 20 of them, then reason 1
and reason 2. Then reason 1 and reason 2 and
reason 3. For 1/5 grader, this could take
several weeks. For a second grader it takes
several months. But what did I just show you?
We just took a kid for reading and writing at the kindergarten
level to the end of second or beginning third grade.

(44:00):
Here's another key thing. It's one of the most important
things I'm going to tell you. If you can write it, you can
read it. So the kid can write a word and
it's spelled correctly, they canread the word.
And how does the mastering one clean sentence or an audible one

(44:21):
like audible when shifted the teens ID identity long term?
Well, what I just showed you just brought their writing level
up to end a second beginning 3rdgrade.
Now you may say, So what? Remember the other process that
I showed you? Universal hero.
Universal theme Villain. What does the hero want to do?

(44:43):
That's one sentence. The student can now write one
sentence. So now they can do that level
and they practise that for threeto six months.
Then, as I showed you, because reason one, come up with a
universal theme. Find a quote, then you answer
who, what, when, where, how, why.
Now the kid can do 3 body paragraphs asked the teacher.

(45:07):
Do with thesis statement the conclusion see to be minus
level. Now the Gen.
Ed teacher can start doing theirjob.
Go back. This is real key.
Go back to that first reason. Come up with two universal
themes. Crane the student to find them.
When, at the beginning, when at the end there's a seven step

(45:27):
process, we do another five steps.
It writes itself. Now they're doing body
paragraphs at the advanced high school level.
That'll also work in college. Teacher shows them thesis
statements. Conclusion.
Everything's fine. They pass their high school
state assessment. It's literally that simple and

(45:49):
we haven't even touched the solution which is light years
more advanced. Yeah.
So you use, you use phrases likeforever, confidence.
How do you define? How do you define it?
Well, when, for example, let's say we're doing Shakespeare and

(46:14):
I, we got students to that advanced level in middle school
for the solution. It is very heavy A I because
it's kind of like doing really advanced math where you're using
graphical calculators. Okay, I, I, I take the simple
stuff and I, I leave it over to the A I and I show them how to
come up with something truly original.

(46:34):
So then they go and they write apaper in Romeo and Juliet and
they turn it into a teacher who would say, I've been teaching
Romeo and Juliet for 23 years. I've had two original papers.
This is the third, and it's far better than any of the other
ones and those written by Advanced Placement English
students. You are now having a dyslexic

(46:56):
outpacing Advanced English kids.Advanced Placement English kids
by miles and the teacher says did a I write this?
No, I have them keep their notes.
I have them go and look up things in a research library and
they're using 3 by 5 cards and that's all.
And it's there to show that theyused a I to kind of doing some

(47:20):
grunt work kind of as an editor.But just like anything, you'd
get into college writing assistance centre and you get
something that's truly original at the graduate level and it
shocks the teacher and they say I can do this every time.
That makes them forever confident.

(47:40):
A question around the I what, what?
How do you see a I in the schoolsystem going forward?
What I do is I crane teachers and I say here's the entire
thing. I kind of walked you through the
process, through the problem andonce they get their kids to pass
the near the high school readingand writing exam in English,

(48:03):
they don't. They generally say I've done
their job. We're we're done.
I just showed you the basic process and how we get there.
In that process the teacher decides how much a I is used and
a lot of them hate the damn thing and they say none so
student doesn't get to use it. Or they might say something and
then they can show me your work.You can't show me your work.

(48:23):
Just put a big red F and you're done.
Go back and redo it. If another teacher, they say, I
disagree that this is should be allowed.
Those are two teachers discussing in amongst themselves
their peers. And I say you make the decision,
not the administration, not the parents, you if one of your
peers disagrees with you, you can talk it out amongst them.

(48:47):
They said, you know what, we cando that.
All right, So I give them the process so they can go and send
their kids home and do essays again.
And yes, Janet, kids do do this.They go through it far faster
than the dyslexic. The dyslectic just goes a heck
of a lot deeper. And so like there was a lot of

(49:11):
resistance in in schools at the moment, like teachers, even here
in New Zealand, schools haven't really embraced AI.
What you what are your thoughts on that and how could actually
schools start to you know, without going fully I for
everything in school, but being able to use it to help

(49:33):
dyslexics? Well, let me just tell you what
the CEO of Anthropic said. He said in five years, half the
college graduates won't be able to get jobs because a I is going
to replace them and, and I get it like I have.
I used to employ college kids, now I don't.
My employees have master's degrees or above or I simply

(49:57):
won't work with them because they can learn so much faster.
So let's say example, I need a deep research report done.
I just I just have the artificial intelligence to it
like I'm writing a book and I need to figure out here's the
top. It's about Kimberley's story,
your hopes or dreams or aspirations or failures with
what she did with Reed and I go here are three categories that

(50:17):
could be an Amazon Kindle where the top five ones.
What do they have in common? Took a I hour and 15 minutes,
which is forever for it to give me a 23,000 were report.
I would have taken a college kid2-3 years, two weeks to do.
I can get it done so much quicker.
So what I'm telling them if theydon't go through all the steps,

(50:40):
I just basically went through the problem.
We go through the solution. If you can't do that, you're
going to have literate unemployed people.
Because what Stanford just foundin the last two weeks is its
finding that about 13% of the kids are getting less jobs were
college graduates for the the reason they said above.

(51:00):
But mid career in advanced people are doing so much better
because like the ghost writer I hired for the book is I'm
dyslexic. Instead of answering your
questions, I had the I write a book and then she ripped it
apart and gave me something completely new.
You need humans to do that, but they're very skilled humans with

(51:21):
decades of experience. So what I'm saying is, I can
show you where you can control this.
Each teacher can decide maybe I want no way I and it can work
and you can send things home again.
And then if they know how to do this, like I told you with my
former student, if they know thecraft of research, they're

(51:41):
employable. I showed them how to prompt
engineer their brain. You can follow that or imagine
where these kids are going to beout of high school or out of
College in five years. You're going to have agents
doing everything. I spent 200 bucks a month.
I get 400 agent tasks and right now it's next to worthless.
Here's how I've decided to make it better.

(52:03):
I'll have the agent go out and do something and then I'll have,
and usually it ends up with it writing an e-mail to a potential
client. Then I'll have 05 pro say, what
do you think about this? And then I'll think for 10
minutes, say this is what I don't like about and I say,
okay, now fix it. That's another 10 minutes.
Then I sent it out. Okay, that's how I make, I mean,

(52:28):
it's just going to get better. So if you don't do this, kids
aren't going to be able to get jobs.
Exactly. I mean, I did the same, like I
write based on transcripts of meetings or, you know, I, I
write emails or discovery documents for my business and,

(52:49):
and, and, and I, and it's, it's made it so much simple, simpler
because previously you would be writing a discovery or scope
document that would take you weeks to write it.
Now you can write it. Write it in hours, you know, or
even minutes. So what I tell people is with a

(53:11):
I are you? Do you?
Are you using ChatGPT? Are you GT5?
Yeah. Okay, are you the $20.00 a month
person or $200 a month person? Okay, when, and this is where I
tell, and this is a very hard thing to say to people, but when
you're ready, it's worth the 200bucks a month because that pro

(53:35):
model is so much better than thinking.
Okay, it is so much better when you get unlimited uses of it.
But I tell people it takes 10 minutes for it to do anything.
You say hi, it's 10 minutes and I use two of them at the same
time while I'm doing something else.

(53:56):
And the work that I get out of it is so much better.
It's something when the test outfor a month when you think
you're ready. But what I try to tell my
students is, are you worth the 200 bucks a month?
If not, how do we get you there?Because as dyslexics, they'll go

(54:16):
in and they'll pay the 200 out of their own pocket, get
approval from the company because it could be dealing with
sensitive information. And then they're just, you
wouldn't believe how productive they are.
All right. And what I tell them is you need
to become valuable enough so youcan get a human administrative
assistant because then they can take your work and do a final

(54:38):
check and put it. But that bro, I can't tell you
how much superior it is than anything you used to working
with. But you have to know how to play
with it. Yeah, currently I'm using
Perplexity because I've got through through the zoom.
I've got a free pro account through Zoom of being a Zoom
customer. So I'm using Perplexity and CHPT

(55:05):
and kind of parallel. Yeah.
And yeah, and they're just goingto get better.
So. So what I'm just saying is for
dyslexics is learn the craft of research and then you will be
fined. Like like my like my former
student said he didn't like the darn thing but the boss required
it. Why?

(55:25):
Even if you're the best English major, he's not going to allow
you to spend hours and hours to get to an initial draught that I
could get you to in 10 minutes. Did just not gonna allow that
anymore. What?
What is happening now is across the world we had the baby boom
generation after World War 2. They're now retiring okay, the

(55:46):
the the generation that are coming out or the zoomers, they
are smaller than mine. I'm an exer.
I'm between two massive generations.
That's a that's even smaller than me.
So just in America, I'm not saying good, bad or indifferent.
Trump decided to do this terror stuff.
Companies said we don't know what's going on.

(56:07):
They hate uncertainty. Pencils down.
The baby boomers are retiring. They're not hiring anybody new
and they want to know what they can do with a I.
For example, Salesforce is goingto hire 3000 of 3500 new college
graduates, which they typically do.
They hired no one because their Staffs are 30 to 40% more
effective with a I. Okay, so you're either going to

(56:31):
be on the right side of this or not.
I just found the craft of research is the way to be on the
right side of it. Yeah, that's a good.
I did a bit of a research on that after our last chat and
some great stuff in there. I'll be definitely be reading
that. Well, yeah, but for most people,
they just can't pick up and use it.
I combined it with this. Remember, I'm teaching context

(56:55):
2, 9 and 10 year olds. Reed is now in 6th grade.
We're doing the really advanced body paragraphs now.
We're just starting that process.
I told his mother, Kimberly, once he's done with this, he's
going to be doing advanced high school stuff.
Okay, that's I've made it usableand it took me and it has

(57:19):
literally taken me decades to figure that part out.
Ohh, I'll tell you what you, what you've done, what you're,
what you're doing is amazing because there's a lot of
children out there that are and who are struggling.
I mean, I've got a, I've got a daughter who's got discrete,
yeah, but she's very creative and and so on.

(57:40):
Hmm. I don't think she's dyslexic at
all but. Yeah, well, just let dysgraphia
is basically dyslectic. It basically means a writing
problem. Dyslexia means reading, just
like just graphia means writing.Yeah, so she's got the writing
challenge. So Russell, you've shit.
What you've shared is powerful. What I love is that most of your

(58:03):
work fits perfectly with with the Senate judges with this
podcast, and not because it's about literacy or it's about
identity. You know, at the moment the team
sees themselves as capable as a specialist, someone who can
succeed and everything will change for them.

(58:24):
So thank you for joining us today.
Before we before we end this episode, I've got 6 quick fire
questions. And before we kick into that,
I'd like to see something that you'd like to share with this
with the audience in terms of something that you'd like to
give away or something like you.Yeah, yeah.

(58:47):
So basically if you go to my website, dyslexiaclasses.com,
that's with an S dyslexia classes.com, there's a right on
the main page. It says download free report.
Just click on that answer a few questions, you'll get the
document, the three reasons yourchild's having trouble in school
due to dyslexia and essentially how to get past it.

(59:07):
And then you set up a free 30 minute appointment with me and I
talked to you and you're just electric child.
We discussed what we discussed this during this episode today
and your kid usually like, I don't want to do it.
Then they talk to me and they ask the tough questions.
I gave them a few questions and they're like, ohh.
Then I ask, is this how you would like to overcome your
reading and writing issue? And they say generally the

(59:29):
answer is yes. Then I work with the parents, as
they said reads. Mom solved it in six months.
Now she's going way past grade level and she's thrilled with
that. All right.
We work with families on a year by year basis and we price it so
parents can afford it and so youcan start seeing instant
results. So if you'd like to do that,

(59:50):
it's the best way. How often do you work?
How often do you work with the children or people?
With these people. Primarily what we've, what we've
done is we've moved. You know, what I just found is
everybody has recorded their lessons and it's online.
Okay and then what we do in addition to what nobody's doing

(01:00:11):
is we set up a weekly webinar soparents can type in their
questions, ask questions. Do you Honestly, we had a number
of parents who never even bothered.
They found out what we way we presented, they understand it
clear enough. But you have a question were
there every week and were there to answer your questions in
addition to what's online and very few people are doing the

(01:00:34):
combination anymore. But we found we want to make
sure that parents have the support that they need, not once
a month, every week. Every week.
And that's so important because you want to do that early, not,
not, not have to wait a month tobe able to do that, right?
Yeah, it's it's ridiculous. And to be honest with you,
parents asked the same questionsover and over again.

(01:00:56):
That's what I've noticed. And sometimes they ask, what
have you ever had a question that you couldn't answer?
I said if the kids most reasonably motivated and you
know, they're typically, you know, 100 plus IQ and they want
to go, I've virtually never found something I couldn't
answer. If you're dealing with a very

(01:01:17):
exotic case, sometimes I get stumped, but it's in in my
career it's been less than 20 questions.
Ohh. All right, all right, let's kick
into some some of these questions.
Quick fire questions you can answer with a single word or a
single short sentence. First question is how do you
define success and has that definition evolved for you

(01:01:40):
overtime? The ability to be able to read
and write functionally in the workplace.
And has it changed? Absolutely, because I've gotten
a lot better added overtime. Yeah, he's the greatest
inspiration. And why?
Walt Disney, He did a quote in 63 saying it's fun to do the

(01:02:01):
impossible. I've been asked to do the
impossible several times. What's something that you
believe that others might disagree with?
I believe that dyslexia is not areading and writing issue, it's
a lack of organisation, the front part of the brain.
Kind of like with a cold. It's not a stuffy nose, it's not

(01:02:22):
a cough, it's something in your chest, so I believe it going
right to the source. Yeah, if you could go back and
give your younger self one pieceof advice, what would that be?
I would go back and I would havedone the assembly internship
earlier and then I would have just remained focused much

(01:02:43):
longer and much harder when I started the process because I
got tired over the years and it took longer than it should have.
What is 1 message that you'd like to share with the world?
That dyslexia is an incredible strength, but just realise if
you really want to accomplish that strength, it's a graduate

(01:03:06):
programme. And last question is what does
it mean to you to to be a champion and to have a champion
mindset? It means what a lot of people
don't think it means you're going to fail all the time, that
you learn much more from your failures than from your success

(01:03:28):
and to just brush it off and getback up.
And the reason why I push 5 pro so often is I would work with it
saying this is what I'm thinking, what do you think?
And I'll come up with something and then that'll trigger my
epiphanies where I can then go and say, okay, let's go down
this route. And it just saves me so much

(01:03:51):
tedious work when I try to do isto put people in the position to
have those epiphanies. So it's like people coming up
with their doctoral dissertation.
Ohh, I go for a walk. Well, that's real great.
So just go for a walk. And then you expect the the
solution to the world to come toyou.
Now, what are somethings you cando personally to put yourself to
have those epiphanies? There's ways of doing it with a

(01:04:14):
I. There's there's other ways that
we designed for really evil. I've worked with students to
come up with their doctoral dissertations, and there are
ways. There's a specific course I have
on that that shows you how to take the idea and move it down
and move it up to really begin to think like an advanced
academic. We're talking past the craft of

(01:04:35):
research here. Yeah.
Awesome. That's great.
Thank you Russell for your time today and sharing your
expertise. We'll put that link to your free
guide in the show notes. And also how can people contact
you because the website the bestplace or is it?
Yeah, that's the best way. Just go to dyslexiaclasses.com,

(01:04:58):
Dyslexia classes.com, download free report, fill out the few
questions and set up the appointment and we'll meet
online. US well, thank you so much and
remember the champion mindset has built one RIP at a time and
11 micro one at a time, whether it's in business, relationships
or literacy. It starts with flipping the

(01:05:21):
story you tell yourself. Until next time, keep learning,
keep growing and keep building your confidence and cultivating
a champion mindset. I just want to lastly say you
are loved. You're worthy, Champion your
life, champion your greatness and have an amazing day.

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S2-E150 - The Champion’s Literacy Loop: Identity → Micro-Wins → Mastery with Russell Van Brocklen

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S2-E150 - The Champion’s Literacy Loop: Identity → Micro-Wins → Mastery with Russell Van Brocklen