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National Board Certified Teacher & Reading Specialist

Kelly Sutherland, NBCT, Ed.S

You've read the books. Tried the strategies. Wondered at midnight if you're the problem. I want you to know — you're not, and I'm not saying that from outside the storm.I'm a National Board Certified Teacher and Reading Specialist with 25 years in the classroom — currently teaching, not a former teacher watching from a distance. I also have ADHD myself, and I'm a bonus mom to a son with dyslexia. I'm not observing this from the outside. I'm in it with you.Here, you'll find research-backed strategies for ADHD and dyslexia families — built for real households, not Pinterest ones. If you're ready to stop guessing and start building a plan, you're in the right place.

PostsLinks
A young girl in a striped sweater reads a large open book at a wooden kitchen table, lit by a warm hanging lamp in the evening.
Featured Post

Before your child uses AI, teach this one skill

Vol. 9 October 18, 2026 Hi Reader, Two Sundays ago we talked about why schools are pulling back on screens. Last Sunday we talked about why text-to-speech is a tool and not a shortcut. This week is the skill underneath both of those conversations: what your child does in the few seconds before they accept an answer from an AI tool. ADHD & DYSLEXIA AWARENESS MONTH: FAMILY CONNECTION Some children have ADHD. Some have dyslexia. Many have both, and from the outside the two can look a lot alike....

7 days ago • 2 min read
A mother in a rust-colored sweater reads a picture book with her young daughter at a wooden table, with windows and green plants behind them.

Wednesday Community News #3 · October 21, 2026 Hi Reader, IN THE COMMUNITY THIS WEEK Here is one of the most common things parents tell me: "They can read every word. So why don't they understand it?" I wrote a post in the free community about it, and I would love to hear what you see at home. Does your child read a sentence smoothly and then shrug when you ask what it meant? Come tell me. JOIN THE CONVERSATION Not in the community yet? It's free: join here Short on time? Here's the quick...

3 days ago • 1 min read
A mother and her daughter sit at a kitchen table. The daughter wears headphones and looks at a tablet.

Vol. 8 October 11, 2026 Hi Reader, Dyslexia Awareness Month is when I get asked some version of this question the most: "Should my child be using text-to-speech? Or is that just letting them avoid the hard work?" I've answered this one in classrooms, in IEP meetings, and in parent conversations for over 25 years. Here's my honest answer. ADHD & DYSLEXIA AWARENESS MONTH: FAMILY CONNECTION Dyslexia isn't about seeing letters backwards. It's about how the brain processes the sounds that letters...

14 days ago • 3 min read
A young girl reading a book at a wooden table with a tablet beside her.

Vol. 7 October 4, 2026 Hi Reader, October is ADHD Awareness Month, which means your feed is about to fill up with infographics, statistics, and advice that mostly describes the problem without giving you anything to do with it. This month I want to do something different. Every Sunday in October I'm adding a short section just for awareness month. One thing worth knowing. One thing you can actually try. No overwhelm, just a starting point. ADHD & DYSLEXIA AWARENESS MONTH: FAMILY CONNECTION...

21 days ago • 3 min read
A parent and child reading together at a kitchen table — supporting a child with dyslexia at home

Vol. 6 September 27, 2026 Hi Reader, I've been thinking about you a lot lately. Not in a generic "my audience" kind of way. In the specific way that happens when I'm in the middle of a parent meeting and I think — this is exactly what the people reading my emails are dealing with on a Tuesday night. I worked with a family recently where both the parent and the child were navigating learning differences. And what struck me wasn't how complicated their situation was. It was how much they...

28 days ago • 4 min read

Hi Reader, Progress reports are landing this week, and for some of you, a number just dropped from where it was last spring. Your stomach probably dropped right along with it. Here's what I want you to know before the spiral starts: a grade drop is almost never your child regressing. Most of the time, the measuring stick itself changed. A new teacher's grading scale. A jump in what's expected at this point in the year. For a lot of families, it's the elementary-to-middle-school jump in...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Child with ADHD deeply focused on a book that interests them at a kitchen table, illustrating that ADHD attention responds to interest rather than being simply deficient

Vol. 5 September 20, 2026 Hi Reader, You've said it. Maybe not out loud, but you've thought it: he can focus for two hours on that game, so why can't he focus on his homework for ten minutes? It feels like a contradiction. It isn't one. WORTH YOUR TIME THIS WEEK ON THE CHANNEL ADHD and Reading: Why It's Not a Focus Problem He can focus two hours on a video game and lose it in two minutes on a worksheet. That's not a discipline problem. ADHD attention runs on interest, urgency, and novelty,...

about 1 month ago • 3 min read

Hi Reader, You've built the reading routine more than once this year. It worked for a while. Then one hard Tuesday happened, and it quietly disappeared, the same way it always does. That's not a you problem. It's a planning problem. Most reading routines are built for the best-case version of the week, and real weeks aren't the best case. Here's what actually holds up: three versions, decided in advance. A full plan for the good days. A five-minute bare-minimum version for the hard ones. And...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Kelly Sutherland's home studio with purple accent chair and framed motivational sign reading 'Dreams Don't Work Unless You Do'

Vol. 4 September 13, 2026 Hi Reader, It's 4:15. Backpack's on the counter. "Let's get homework done before dinner — fifteen minutes, that's it." At 4:20 they're still finding a pencil. At 4:35 they suddenly remember something urgent about the dog. By 4:50 you've asked four times and your voice has gone up twice. By 5:30, homework is done — but so is the evening. Here's what's easy to miss: that routine was working fine on the days it didn't need to. A routine that only survives the easy...

about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Mother and daughter sitting by the front door with backpacks and shoes staged and ready to grab

Vol. 3 September 6, 2026 Hi Reader, Everything labeled. Everything filed. A place for everything. And you still can't find anything — or your child still walks right past it. That's not a you problem. ADHD researcher Dr. Russell Barkley calls this the point of performance: a system isn't useful where the planning happened (the kitchen table on a calm Sunday) — it's useful where the behavior actually needs to happen (the garage door at 7:15 on a rushed Tuesday). Recent Articles THIS WEEK ON...

about 2 months ago • 3 min read