My Brilliant Brain
Use fictional examples. Leave out diagnoses, medical information, names, passwords and contact details.
Learning goal: Recognize advanced thinking separately from the effort of reading print.
Your ideas and your reading speed are different things. A person can reason deeply and still need help accessing words. Choose strengths you notice, not strengths someone says you must have.
- Choose a real or made-up learning situation. Leave out names, diagnoses and private details.
- Explore the three activities. Choose supports that fit you; skip any that do not.
- Write, type, draw, point, sign, use AAC or ask someone to scribe your own ideas.
- Choose one next step and an adult who can help make it possible.
Grades 3–5 support: Use the prompts and examples, or explain your ideas in your own way. Ask for words, a scribe or one direction at a time.
Find your thinking strengths
Choose a strength and describe a real or fictional moment when it helped.
My strength
Evidence of my thinking
My Brilliant Brain
Keep the challenge; change the access
A class is comparing two inventions using a long article. What makes the thinking interesting? What would help you access the article?
Example, not an answer to copy: I want to compare trade-offs. I could listen to the article while following its headings.
Thinking challenge I want
Reading access I could request
Optional deeper thinking · Grades 6–8
Compare two sources that disagree. Explain how accessible reading changes the route to evidence without changing the reasoning goal.
My Brilliant Brain
Build a strengths-and-support message
Finish a message you could share with an adult. Both parts matter.
I think deeply about…
To access the reading, I could use…
My next step
What will I try, and who can support it? Write, draw, dictate, sign or use AAC.
My Brilliant Brain
Accessibility & alternative responses
Provide short sections, explained vocabulary and optional read-aloud/text-to-speech. Colored overlays and special fonts are personal preferences, not universal dyslexia interventions.
Teacher facilitation
Offer audio and supported decoding alongside the same rich questions. Notice reasoning without using fluency as a proxy for ability. These activities supplement, never replace, evidence-based reading instruction.
Family-use suggestion
Invite the learner to choose what to share. Try one support together, ask what helped, and change the plan with their permission. Do not turn this sheet into a test or require private information.
Specialist formats
These printouts are not Braille. Embossed Braille and specialist tactile materials need qualified, technically validated production. The accessible digital version supplies structured text, not a specialist-format substitute.