Esmie Lawrence:
Welcome. This episode is sponsored by my co-author course. I’m looking for 10 to 16 writers for the book, Step Into Your Power. You write your story, or I will interview you and turn your interview into your story. Use your story, only 4,000 words, to inspire others. Speak on stages, do workshops, or become an authority. Contact Esmie today at EsmieLawrence.com.
Esmie Lawrence:
Now, my guest has been an educator for 20 years and a classroom teacher for 10 years. She equipped heroic teachers with an effective literacy program for remediating dyslexia, so they can close the achievement gap, stop the school to prison pipeline, and prepare students for success in school and in life. She’s here today to share with us how to help dyslexic students win.
Esmie Lawrence:
Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Dr. Marianne Citron. Dr. Marianne Cintron, thank you so much for joining us on Sprinting to Success podcast.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Hey, it’s great to be here. Thank you.
Esmie Lawrence:
I’m so excited. Tell me a little about yourself as a child.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Okay. Well, I was one of seven children.
Esmie Lawrence:
Wow.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Which we had to fend for our parents’ attention. I spent a lot of time sharing the chores and relieving my mom of that, as we would all take turns cooking, and cleaning, and folding clothes.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
My father was very supportive, but lost his eyesight when he was about 65. He always instilled in us compassion for people with disabilities, because he had a disability. He was diabetic, and gradually, his eyesight was going away. But he always had a lot of faith for the future, and a lot of vision for painting the house when he was blind, or he used to talk about one day there’s going to be a LASIK surgery to help people who can’t see. He never thought we’d be living… Well, he said we’d be living in the day to see that. Too bad it didn’t happen when he was alive.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
My mom lived to be 85 years old. She passed away with cancer. She was very involved with helping the needy. She was involved with missions. She was always sending money and gifts. She taught me a lot in my home how to knit and crochet. So she taught me all the domestic skills.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
None of my siblings really wanted to go to college, but I was pretty motivated to go to college, I think because a lot of my peers in high school wanted to go to college.
Esmie Lawrence:
Right. Let’s go back to your childhood. What kind of struggles did you have? Obviously, having a really good family, your mom, your dad who likes to help others. What struggles did you have there when you were young?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Well, I was always very talkative, so I think I got a lot of Cs and Bs in reading and writing, just talking a lot. But I had a pretty successful childhood. I was very friendly and outgoing and I got along with the girls and the guys. When I was in high school, I was a cheerleader.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
One of the struggles I did have was losing a two-year-old sister, who got run over by a car. And losing my brother who took his life with drugs.
Esmie Lawrence:
Wow.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
So I don’t know how that impacted my brain in high school, from memory and stuff. But we had those crises and I saw my parents have to work together and get through those crises as a couple. Then I saw how it affected the siblings, the other siblings.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Anyway, but I had some peers who were very supported and people motivated to go to college. I just kind of, I think, clung to the vision that they had too.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
We were pretty broke as kids. Because my dad was sick a lot with his diabetes, my mom had to go to work. She actually worked in the convent.
Esmie Lawrence:
Wow.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Where the priest… We were raised Catholic, so I went to Catholic school for 12 years. She worked a lot in the rectory. Did the ironing and the cleaning, and worked really hard to bring some income in for the family. Then she ended up working at Lockheed, and had a really good job at Lockheed before she retired.
Esmie Lawrence:
Lockheed is a hospital or?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Lockheed is aerospace.
Esmie Lawrence:
Okay.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
There’s General Dynamics and Lockheed. They would build parts of airplanes, I guess. Yeah.
Esmie Lawrence:
Okay. Okay, I see.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Parts of airplanes.
Esmie Lawrence:
She worked hard for the family.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
She sure did. Yeah.
Esmie Lawrence:
Yeah. She and your dad, even though your dad was blind.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
My dad was a… He was a jack of all trades. He started as a Fuller Brush man, and then he became a salesman, and then he was a realtor, and then he was an insurance broker. He just tried everything that worked together to be successful. He used to take us on his open houses and show us the beautiful homes, having the dream that one day we would live in a beautiful home.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
He would get involved politically, and he would get us involved with the politics that were his interest. Whenever there were drives for the blind, he would have us pass out the little white candy canes, red and white candy canes to help families who had people losing their eyesight. He was pretty involved in the community.
Esmie Lawrence:
Right. He has a good heart.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
He did.
Esmie Lawrence:
Both your mom and dad. I love that. What were some of the struggles that you had as an adult? Now as a young adult.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Okay. Well, I wanted to get married pretty young. I think my biggest struggle was not meeting Mr. Right until I was in my 30s.
Esmie Lawrence:
Why did you want to get married when you were young?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Well, because my mom was teaching me all these homemaker skills. I was ready to cook and just be a wife. I just always thought the wife was a nice role. I pursued education because that wasn’t happening and I never dreamed that… When I got my bachelor’s in 1979, I never dreamed I’d go on to get two master’s and two credentials and then a doctorate.
Esmie Lawrence:
Woo-hoo. I love that.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
I’ve been 30 years. I never imagined all that.
Esmie Lawrence:
Right. So you found your man when you were 30 years old, is that correct?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
That’s right.
Esmie Lawrence:
Right. And married for 30 years.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
That’s right.
Esmie Lawrence:
That is awesome. I love that.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Isn’t that funny? Yeah.
Esmie Lawrence:
I love that. Now, I know you’re an advocate for teachers teaching students that has dyslexia. Explain, what is dyslexia? What is it?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Okay. Dyslexia is a neurological difference. Dyslexia have difficulty putting sounds together. They don’t recognize what we call phonemic awareness. What letters belong to what sounds.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
How I like to describe it is imagine a person with dyslexia is reading from the right side of the brain when the language center is in the left side of the brain. The right side of the brain will send over the wrong words to the left side of the brain. So when they read, instead of seeing… They read “farm,” but the brain will send “from,” or they see “girl” and the brain will send “grille.” It’s just the right side of the brain is sending over the wrong message.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
And then also, the central part of the brain, the corpus callosum serves like a lazy referee. When messages are sent for reading, crossing the brain, it’s the auditory processing is very slow as well.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
People who have dyslexia, you can see it in their reading. Usually they leave the room, or they dodge reading, or they have the head held down when they’re asked, “Who can read?” They don’t want to read, they don’t enjoy reading. When they read, you’ll see their peers try to help them with the words. They really struggle with sounding those words out. Even teachers will jump in and help the kids with the reading.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
When they write, they often will forget capitalization. They don’t put punctuation in. They’ll misplace letters, and they’ll omit letters and syllables. Their writing looks like alien writing, if you would. Usually, teachers have to ask them to read to them. What did you write?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
We were taught if we have students do that, go ahead and write what they meant to write, and you’ll recognize they may have a beginning sound right, but the rest of the letters are wrong. So they really need a specific type of reading structure. I’ll tell you a little bit more about that later.
Esmie Lawrence:
Right. So then what passion drove you to start working with teachers to educate students with dyslexia? Because you were an educator.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Well, when I became a mom and my kids were… I was an at-home mom, and my kids were in first and third grade. I started sitting in my daughter’s first grade class and I was a room mom. I would see her teacher teach her how to read. It was phenomenal because phonics was a new language to me almost. Even though I was taught in elementary school, it had been quite a while, plus 30 years. I just thought her teacher was a hero.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
But my daughter had to stay after school a couple days a week for maybe half a year and get practice with phonics. My daughter’s a nurse now. She didn’t have dyslexia, but she struggled with phonics.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Then I remembered my son from first to second grade, he had to go to summer school because his teacher was concerned that he wasn’t going to be successful in second grade. I was thinking, “Wow, my kids have a secure, stable home, and they’re not dyslexic, because I can work with them at home. What about those kids who don’t have those parents at home to help them?”
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
That was the first passion in my heart to go back to school and get a credential and a master’s. I worked in a couple of school board districts. Then I realized I was starting to have a passion for the kids who struggled with reading. It wasn’t just to help kids in general, but reading specifically.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
So I went back to school and I got a credential in special ed and a special ed master’s. That’s when I learned from my professor to join two organizations. One was the Association of Ed Therapists, and one was the International Dyslexia Association of which I’m now a board member in the tri-county branch. That’s where I first started learning about dyslexia.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Then fast forward, I started learning about Orton-Gillingham who created a multisensory reading program. I learned about the value of music to retrain the brain when you’re teaching kids phonics. That was my passion.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
I was seeing success with students using music with a phonics-based reading program. I was seeing progress of one to three years gains in only six weeks.
Esmie Lawrence:
Wow.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
It was amazing.
Esmie Lawrence:
Now, why is that?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Okay. When you are teaching phonics, when you send music in the left ear, it’s going to cross to the right side of the brain and give that right angular gyrus something it likes to do. Remember I was talking about how it would take over the reading?
Esmie Lawrence:
Right.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Well, now it’s not. Now it’s enjoying the music. So I would just play classical music. When you put the spelling exercises in the right, it crosses over to the left side of the brain and starts developing that left angular gyrus like Pilates. It starts developing it as a language center.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
When students see the letters “ED,” they know, is it a past tense or is it a part of a word like “fed”? When they see the letter doubled before they add ING, “running,” they’re going to learn the rule.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
When you teach a phonics-based reading program, you’re teaching… Okay, this is the Orton-Gillingham model. It has to be hands-on, kinesthetic. It has to be auditory, has to be visual. We call that multisensory. But it also has to be structured, sequential, and cumulative. It’s got to be systematic. So it’s got to be the right combination of components for a reading program.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
I developed a reading program that follows that model. It’s called Step by Step Reading. I also developed a music app. The music app is called Dunking Dyslexia. It has music played in the left ear and spelling exercises in the right ear. With my reading program, it’s nine steps, and the app is used at the very last step. When the kids are taking their spelling tests, they’re going to be spelling words that they’ve already sounded out, seen in a workbook, read in a phonics reader, and now they’re writing what they’ve been learning. When you teach with a multisensory program, you’re working with the students’ strengths as well as addressing the weaknesses.
Esmie Lawrence:
Right. What’s the correlation between students who don’t learn to read by grade three or grade four in relation to going to jail? Is there a correlation?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
There is, yes. 65.9% of students fail to reach grade level reading by fourth grade. They’re the kids who are at risk of dropping out of high school and going to prison.
Esmie Lawrence:
Wow.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
There’s a state back east that looks at the illiteracy rate of third graders to determine how many prisons to build.
Esmie Lawrence:
That’s sad.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Yeah. What’s really ridiculous is in California, general ed students are bringing in $13,000 per student. Special ed students are bringing in twice that, so 26,000 per year. Prisons are bringing in $42,000 per inmate per year. What the statistics are saying is that 85% of people in prison have dyslexia.
Esmie Lawrence:
Wow. That is sad.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
If we can address it young, we’re going to build their self-esteem, we’re going to teach them to read. There’s another statistic about in this special ed environment, there’s a category called SLD, specific learning disability. It’s the kids with ADHD, kids with other other issues going on. But 85% of those children in special ed have dyslexia.
Esmie Lawrence:
Wow.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Imagine the saving of that child’s self-esteem if we could address that in the special ed and have them exit special ed. Leave that room for the kids who really need it. Imagine the tax dollar savings we would be having if we could exit these kids from special ed and keep them out of prison.
Esmie Lawrence:
Definitely. I mean, the money that the government will save when you invest the money into the young children in grades one, two, three. And so then that way, they feel better about themselves.
Esmie Lawrence:
When you look at kids who are dyslexic, what kind of… When they can’t read or they’re slow at reading or writing, how does it make them feel? What do you see? How do they express that?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Well, I always ask the families when I speak to Rotaries, and Kiwanis, and Chambers, “What does reading success look like?” I would say, “How many grandparents and parents have children who like to go to the library, they like to read, they like to tell you what they’re reading and share their books with friends?” Well, reading success is that, but it’s also achieving As and Bs in reading.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
When I ask people how many ever got a C- in a class that was really difficult, and they were just so glad that they got the C- and then I’m done with it. Let me just pass it. Well, if you’re getting a C- in something you need to continue with, a C- is going to mean you’re going to be struggling as you pursue and get along.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Proficiency is a C- or above. Imagine just barely getting by in reading. Our nation is below proficiency. There’s an association called the NAEP, National Association of Educational Progress. People knowledge-based like to hear that. They want to know that… They look at the reading scores of fourth graders and eighth graders to see how we’re doing.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
In spite of a mandate that was signed by our governor in California, Governor Brown in 2015, schools were supposed to assess for dyslexia and provide intervention by the 2017-18 school year. Well, that hasn’t been done, so our grades are dropping. Eighth graders have dropped 3%. Fourth graders have dropped 1% since 2017. Even though those are small percentages, we’re already hovering at a basic level. California is one of the lowest states in the nation. Los Angeles County is one of the lowest counties in the state, hovering below basic, which is the D level.
Esmie Lawrence:
Why are they not addressing this?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Well, there’s four things that I can pinpoint. That teachers just aren’t being trained to work with dyslexic children. There’s not enough budget to address, have staff developments or professional developments. The teachers don’t know how to recognize dyslexia. When they do, they don’t know what to do to help the kids.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
As a result, that’s why the kids are having that low self-esteem. They’re acting out, they have bad behavior, and they’re dropping out of high school, going to prisons.
Esmie Lawrence:
Wow. Pipeline to prison, when it could be easily solved.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
That’s right. And it doesn’t have to be that way. If people will think of a literacy program, we need to provide an affordable and an accelerated reading program. Can I share what I’ve developed.
Esmie Lawrence:
Yes, please. Yes.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Well, I talked about the reading program is nine steps. I can train a teacher in one day, and they can be working with dyslexic children the next week. All we have to do is get things in place.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
My trainings, I’m looking for 10 teachers at a time, so I can train 10 and get them out. When I worked for sponsorship, I’m looking for people that want to train sponsors, sponsor teachers in their community. I want to help teachers in the public, in the private, and in the charter schools.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
What I’m hearing now is college programs are just starting to be developed. They’re very expensive and they’re about a three year program. Those are fine if teachers want to invest in those kind of programs. They’ll get special certifications and keep tallies of all the students you’re spending hours with.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Well, I’ve been there and I’ve done that. When I was a member of the Association of Ed Therapists, I did that, I got that certification. I tallied the hours and hour, hundreds of hours spent with students. But I’m saying there’s a fast way to train teachers and they can be working with students the next week. It’s using the music with an Orton-Gillingham based reading program.
Esmie Lawrence:
Wow. I love the fact that you developed that, because I mean, it’s actually a lot cheaper for teachers to actually go through your program.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
That’s right.
Esmie Lawrence:
Then you can work with some dyslexic students the next day.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
That’s right.
Esmie Lawrence:
Your program is a… It’s a nonprofit-
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Correct.
Esmie Lawrence:
… right?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
That’s right.
Esmie Lawrence:
Then how can people, if they want to work with you, what will they do? What should they do?
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Okay, so they can go to my website. It’s www.dyslexia-solutions.com. I’ll spell dyslexia. D-Y-S-L-E-X-I-A. Hyphen solutions, with an S at the end, dot com. They can click on “email me.” They can let me know. If they want more information, if they want a phone call, I can do a Zoom call with them and I can do a training. I’ll travel across the nation to do trainings.
Esmie Lawrence:
Right. Hear that, teachers out there. If you work dyslexic students, please get in touch with Dr. Marianne Cintron, because she is awesome.
Esmie Lawrence:
Dr. Marianne Cintron, tell me about your book.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Okay, so my book was published last year, or 2018. We’re already in the new year. It’s called A Message of Hope, How Music Enhances Reading for Dyslexic Children. What it is is 17 case studies of students I’ve worked with, with music and without music.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Two of the highlights in my book, I talk about an eighth grader in a low-income, at-risk district, who is being raised by her grandfather. Her mom was in prison. When we met him, he said all the after [inaudible 00:22:19], because he liked the idea of using music. After two weeks, he started noticing already that her self-esteem was improving, she was feeling better about going to school, and she was getting along with her siblings.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Well, after six weeks when I showed him her results, she was a high intelligent person, highly intelligent and she had made three years’ gains in reading vocabulary, reading fluency, and comprehension. He started weeping.
Esmie Lawrence:
Wow.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
He said, “This is amazing. This is a miracle.” He said, “Our home used to be a battlefield, and now she gets along with us. She enjoys going to school, she’s doing her homework. Detentions have dropped off.” He said, “Are you a doctor?” That was one of the impressions that spoke to me to get my doctorate.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Then another situation that I write about is I worked in middle school. After I got my doctorate, I actually worked for four and a half years back in the classroom. I was teaching a lot of math. I was supposed to teach a little bit of reading, but I was given a lot of math to teach. I was teaching special ed math for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. One of my seventh graders, he wanted to use music in his left ear. I said, “That would be great.” And he used music. When he wasn’t using music, he really struggle. When he did use music, it just helped him. He said he was dyslexic and he was ADHD. He took Ritalin-
Esmie Lawrence:
Double whammy.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
Yeah, he was an adopted boy. He said, “When I take the Ritalin, it calms me down. But the music helps me learn.” So we had the music written into his IEP, which is his individual education plan. He had music all through high school to help him graduate successfully.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
My book talks about stories like that. And then I also have application of the scientific background behind the science. Let me share with you a little bit about Dr. Sperry. Dr. Roger Sperry did the Split Brain Theory in the 1960s. He was a neuroscientist. He severed the central part of the brain called the corpus callosum, so it was inactive. Then he worked at the left and the right sides of the brain independently with these seizure patients. It was called the Split Brain Theory. He won a Nobel Prize 20 years later for his findings in the 1960s.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
He challenged teachers when he has conferences. If educators would listen to this knowledge about the left and right hemisphere and what… Not including the corpus callosum. He probably didn’t know what that meant in the classroom, because we certainly can’t sever a brain of a student, but we can put music in the left ear and spelling exercises in the right ear. And we’re working with the individual parts of the brain, and we’re bypassing the corpus callosum. There’s something called a dichotic method of learning, which is very popular. But what we’re specifically doing with language is enhancing lateralization. We’re enhancing the lateralization of the brain, and it’s based on a man who won a Nobel Prize for his findings.
Esmie Lawrence:
Wow.
Dr. Marianne Cintron:
It’s definitely research-based.
Esmie Lawrence: 20 years later, a Nobel Prize.
Dr. Marianne Cintron: Isn’t that amazing? Yeah.
Esmie Lawrence: That is amazing. But I’m really glad that we actually had this research, so students who are struggling and if… Tell me, I’m interested. Parents. What can parents do? I mean, how are they going to know that their kids are struggling? Because sometimes, some parents are working so hard they don’t even know that their kids are struggling in school.
Dr. Marianne Cintron: Well, because I was a classroom teacher for 10 years… I’ve been in education 20, but I was in the classroom for 10. I know that there are students who take a lot of the teacher’s time to get successful to get that C. If a parent knows that their child is struggling with reading, taking an exorbitant amount of time to understand. The red flags are when the kids are young, if they’re not rhyming by the time they’re four years old, they have trouble with rhymes, that’s a red flag. If students don’t know how to drop off syllables and say the rest of the word, or drop off a letter and say the rest of the word, those are phonological awareness activities that we do that dyslexic kids really struggle with, but that’s how we retrain the brain.
Dr. Marianne Cintron: Parents can actually come together and talk to their principals. This is happening in a private school recently because a parent of a dyslexic child called me. In the private school, they’re paying tuition, so the school boards don’t really want parents paying more. But if parents wanted to pay to sponsor a teacher, it costs… Well, they would have to call me to see what that costs. I won’t put the cost on this webcast, but they can call me. Can come together, through a teacher who can work with their kids after school.
Dr. Marianne Cintron: And then also because what I do when I speak to Rotaries and Kiwanis, I fundraise. I’m looking for business owners that want their businesses to be sponsors and partners to help these teachers be trained.
Esmie Lawrence: Right. Dr. Marianne Cintron, what would you like to say to our audience today?
Dr. Marianne Cintron: Well, I want to thank them for listening and thank them for listening all the way through. I want to thank you too, Esmie, for letting me speak.
Dr. Marianne Cintron: I would just say, be advocates for your kids. The schools need your help. They need your help and I need your help. If you know places, Kiwanis, Chamber of Commerces that would allow me an opportunity to speak and present, that’s a way I can get my message out. But also, you can go to your school principals, your special ed directors, let them know you heard this podcast, and that you would like them to listen to what is being said. I’ve spoken to directors of special ed schools, and they’re very interested to come and having me come and speak to the teachers to see if those teachers want to be on board to be trained for helping dyslexic children.
Dr. Marianne Cintron: The challenge that I know schools have is there’s so many new pilots, and teachers want to wait until this new introduction of curriculum sees it through one to two to three years. And maybe they’re tired of seeing another curriculum. But this is a training that is easy to learn and they’ll be… The thing is, someone who’s trained in this, could work with up to 120 to 140 students a day.
Esmie Lawrence: Wow.
Dr. Marianne Cintron: Because I started working with third graders, fourth graders, and fifth graders. Suddenly, I’m teaching middle school, and then I was co-teaching high school. What I learned to help kids with dyslexia, that transferred into all those students over those years. So they’re training a teacher, but they’re training many kids that can multiply to be thousands over a lifetime. So I just appreciate their advocacy for their own child, that they’re going to help other children too.
Dr. Marianne Cintron: Get on my website, email me, ask for more information. That would be the best thing.
Esmie Lawrence: Ladies and gentlemen, you heard Dr. Marianne Cintron. She talks about helping students with dyslexia. If you’re a teacher and you want to help students with dyslexia, please contact her, support her, because she’s doing amazing work.
Esmie Lawrence: On that note, I want to say thank you for listening to Sprinting to Success podcast. Dr. Marianne Cintron, thank you. That was amazing.
