Brian Meersma is passionate about learning and sharing what he learns with others. Meersma, a junior at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, is challenged with dyslexia, a condition that causes difficulties in recognizing printed words.
Challenged, but not stymied. “Most people read with their eyes. Blind people read with their fingers, and I read with my eyes and ears. As long as we all get the meaning, how we do it isn’t so important,” says Meersma.
Sitting in the dining room of his family’s Princeton Junction home, Meersma demonstrates several assistive technology computer programs that help him read with greater comprehension and speed. Explaining how the software works comes easy to Meersma. He has had lots of practice. He has participated in several how-to workshops over the past few years, and writes an ongoing blog about product news and trends that gets up to 1,000 hits per day.
Last fall Meersma was given the Outstanding Student of the Year award by the New Jersey International Dyslexia Association at a fundraising dinner. “It was such an honor to receive an award from such a great organization as NJIDA. I was humbled by the recognition,” Meersma says.
He also gave a presentation at the Princeton Public Library before about 50 students, parents, and educators. Some products and solutions that Meersma covered include:
Bookshare.org: An online library of more than 165,000 books, available for free to students with reading disabilities. Users can take notes on screen, add bookmarks, and look up words. Bookshare can be accessed on computers, tablets, phones, MP3 players, other devices, and various assistive technology programs.
Kurzweil: A program that displays and vocalizes text while highlighting the words as they are being vocalized. The product is named after its initial developer, Ray Kurzweil, author of “How to Create a Mind,” “The Age of Spiritual Machines,” and several other books exploring human-technology interaction.
Prizmo: A smartphone app that can scan a news article or content from any printed source that can then be read with text-to-speech technology.
Learning Ally: The Roszel Road-based nonprofit (formerly Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic) that produces audio books that can be used alone or in combination with printed text.
Google search by reading level: An advanced search that allows users to choose among three levels: basic, intermediate, or advanced.
Meersma discovered he was dyslexic in the third grade, and as a result was introduced to assistive technology. He started using AlphaSmart, a keyboarding device with a spell check function. “I remember that I could write a story and my teacher could understand it,” Meersma says. In the fourth grade, Meersma enrolled at the Princeton Friends School, where he started using Kurzweil. In sixth grade he switched to the WW-P school district, where he continues to use assistive technology, including the Bookshare website.
“I use it for text books and novels,” says Meersma. “You can download as many books as you need. You can highlight text and take notes. They have their own text-to-speech software or you can use Kurzweil.”
Meersma has been invited to join the National Advisory Board of Bookshare and is the only high school student to serve in this capacity. The rest of the board includes one college student and several professionals in the fields of education, technology, and public policy. Members of the advisory board can make suggestions on how to improve and enhance Bookshare’s services.
Meersma said his first visit to a board meeting was inspiring. As a new member, he listened and learned. “That was pretty cool,” he said.
In addition to public presentations and participation in the Bookshare Advisory Board, Meersma organized and ran a reading club last summer for kids between nine and eleven years old with reading disabilities and social challenges. He recalls that it wasn’t always easy, but it was fun and gratifying. He remembers one boy in particular who said, “Oh Brian, you’re my hero.”
Using Bookshare, Meersma helped the kids find reading material on topics they chose. A popular topic was dragons and another was trains. Meersma expects to form a new group this summer. Meersma has met many elected officials and leaders in the field of assistive technology over the past several years.
One who stands out is Tom Harkin, the Iowa senator who was a key player in drafting the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Thanks to funding from the U.S. Department of Education, schools and qualified students can get Bookshare memberships for free. Currently every public school district in Iowa is a member of Bookshare, compared with about 25 percent in New Jersey.
Meersma is also active in Decoding Dyslexia — NJ, a grassroots group of students and parents working to raise dyslexia awareness in public schools through teacher training, screening tests, remediation programs, and assistive technologies.
Meersma and the group met with New Jersey congressmen to request their participation in the Congressional Dyslexia Caucus. As a result of the meeting, eight New Jersey representatives signed on.
In addition to sharing his knowledge about assistive technologies, Meersma is passionate about the environment and is a member of Friends of West Windsor Open Space.
“One time when driving by a new development, I thought of all the trees that once stood there. I had just learned about deforestation and was concerned about the environmental impact of destroying so many trees. I realized that we only have one home, and that is the earth, so we better take good care of it.” Meersma said.
When Meersma was in the sixth grade, he met with Whole Foods and made an agreement with them to pass out reusable shopping bags for free. He prepared a fact sheet that was placed in each bag listing the disadvantages of using plastic. For instance, it takes 12 million barrels of oil to supply America with plastic bags each year; plastic bags break down into tiny bits polluting the soil, rivers, lakes and oceans; and plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to decompose. He also gave out bags at Rider University basketball events, and gave them to car companies who put them in the new cars with a note asking the buyer to use the bag when he shopped.
In Meersma’s free time, he loves playing basketball with his teammates on the South varsity team and also enjoys taking bike rides. And, of course, he enjoys reading for pleasure. One recent book on his list: Steve Jobs’ biography, which he says was available on Bookshare the same day it hit the bookshelves.
Meersma attributes much of his success to Brian Freidlander, assistive technology consultant and professor at the College of St. Elizabeth in Morristown. Freidlander helped him take full advantage of the assistive technology software.
But he gives most credit to his family: his mother, Kathy Stratton, a psychologist in the counseling department at Westminster Choir College; his father, Steven Meersma, an executive at TRC in New York City; his sister, who is studying environmental science at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst; and two extended family members who are blind and share technology tips with him.
“My parents are the best advocates that I could ever imagine,” Meersma said. “They’re there for me every step of the way. My parents never made me feel bad about struggling to read. They would read to me all the time and made me see that the important thing about reading was getting meaning from the words on the page.”
His parents say he always loved to learn and is lucky to be living in a time when assistive technology is exploding.
“Technology and Bookshare opened so many doors for him,” his father said. “It’s wonderful that he’s able to set an example for others.” And, based on responses to an article young Meersma posted on Bookshare.org, he is definitely setting an example.
One that particularly touched Meersma and his family came from a mother of a nine-year-old boy facing the challenges of dyslexia. She wrote:
“Brian, you have no idea how much your post will bless my family,” the mother wrote. “I have been searching for EVERYTHING you mentioned in this article. You have just helped us in so many ways. I now have a place to start and to see what will help him. With tear-filled eyes I THANK YOU for your bravery and your willingness to inform and serve others. Outstanding work. We are so grateful. I look forward to being a follower of your blog.”
Meersma will be honored next week at the NJ Council for Exceptional Children’s annual meeting, and next month at the National Council for Exceptional Children’s annual convention. However, “what really drives Brian is the desire to let people with disabilities in the area of reading, writing or communicating know about resources that are available to lessen their struggles, not the recognition,” says his mother.
Meersma said he is often asked if he feels uncomfortable using reading aids in the classroom. “It is not difficult being the only one in the classroom using assistive technology. What was hard was not knowing the lessons and not being able to keep up with the other students,” he said. What’s difficult, says Meersma, is being the only one who doesn’t get it.
Brian Meersma’s assistive technology blog is located at bdmtech.blogspot.com. For more information visit Bookshare at www.bookshare.org.
#b#What’s The WW-P District’s Role?#/b#
WW-P student Brian Meersma has found a way to deal with his dyslexia on his own. But some parents may be wondering what the school district’s approach is regarding children such as Brian. The question has a complicated answer.
The district’s official answer comes in the form of a four-paragraph statement (see below) that the district requested be printed in its entirety. But not everyone has agreed with the District’s approach over the years. In 2008 a group of parents whose children have various special needs, including dyslexia, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR). They alleged that the district had failed to provide sufficient staffing to enable special needs children to take required World Language courses, as well as various Honors and Advanced Placement classes.
The district denied the allegations, but it followed OCR’s recommendation to enter into a corrective action plan rather than engage in costly litigation. As part of the plan, the district hired outside expert Michele Kamens to conduct a review of the Special Education Department.(WW-P News, September 21, 2012).
Kamens presented her findings to the Board of Education, and a copy of her report, as well as several other documents relating to the Special Services Program Review, is available on the district website at www.west-windsor-plainsboro.k12.nj.us. The district has begun implementing the recommendations set forth in the report.
Some highlights:
Expanding its behavior disabilities program by implementing a class at Community Middle School, and expanding a program at Town Center School for students on the autism spectrum. Students are instructed utilizing the core curriculum content standards with Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) employed as defined by the student Individualized Education Plan (IEP).
Hosting ongoing meetings between child study team members as well as Special Education teachers and administrators to implement vertical and horizontal articulation.
Increasing communications to parents, along with sharing information with the established Parent Advisory Committee, which meets four times a year. Also, a Special Education Parent Teacher Student Association has held meetings on a variety of topics.
Reviewing its Intervention and Referral Services protocol, which includes a desire to move to a procedure called Response to Intervention.
Using a computerized program for reading, “Read 180,” for struggling readers in middle school.
Implementing after-school tutoring sessions at three of the K-5 level schools to assist struggling learners.
In addition, the district has also employed a teacher resource specialist for Special Education to assist students with social skills instruction as well as to provide behavioral support to students on the autism spectrum.
Explored expanded curriculum offerings for the high school level, as well as continued individualized instruction for each of the Special Education students PK -12.
And initiated a search for a Special Education Project Manager to assist in a variety of areas regarding compilation of code compliance data as well as importing assessment data into the district database.
The District Statement. Gerri Hutner, director of communications for the WW-P District, provided the following statement:
“Dyslexia is a clinical diagnosis for which the Special Education codes do not mandate any specific accommodations.
“In the case of a student with a disability, such as dyslexia that affects his or her reading ability, a WW-P IEP team, which consists of Child Study Team professionals, the parents, and the student once he or she turns 18, generally will collaborate to determine what accommodations are appropriate.
“The range of available supports includes extra time on assignments and tests, study guides, pre- and post-lesson review, in-class support from a paraprofessional or special education teacher, assistive technology and whatever other accommodations may be deemed necessary. The evaluation process to determine appropriate supports generally includes standardized testing through formal evaluation, classroom observations of the student’s functional capabilities, and input from the parents and the student.
“It is very important to remember that student needs are different and Child Study Teams collaborate with classroom teachers to implement the agreed-upon accommodations.”
