For our 31st episode, Tracy invited Katelyn Mabry to join her. Katelyn is the author of the children’s book Hi, It’s Me! I have ADHD which is based on her personal history with ADHD. In her book she shares the feelings, emotions and experiences as a child dealing with the challenges of ADHD and offers them insights, tips empowerment and the message that ADHD does not define them. Katelyn has a master’s degree in reading and is a certified early childhood/special education teacher. She also has four children and is now a private coach for kids who learn differently. Katelyn’s goal is to instill the love of reading, learning and growing in her students. Tracy talks about her 17 year old son who is very bright but came to her in December and said he couldn’t read. She saw him reading all the time so this didn’t make sense to her. That’s when she remembered that there was a reading specialist in her ADHD for Smart Ass Women Facebook group named Katelyn Mabry. Tracy called Kately and she told her that Markus can read, he just can’t focus on what he’s reading when he’s not interested which means that he can’t retain what he reads. Tracy hired Katelyn to work with Markus and has been so pleased at how much more confidence her son has around reading in subjects that he is not interested in. She asked Katelyn to share some of the strategies she has used for her son around reading retention. Katelyn talks about metacognition and how she uses it to help kids retain what they are reading. Learn about the three different types of inner voices in metacognition: reciting, conversational and interactive and which one helps retention the most by helping the reader connect to the characters. Kaitlyn then teaches us about the distracted voice and the way she helps students identify when the distracted voice shows up. Learn why visualization is so important in reading retention. Katelyn shares a fantastic quote which analogizes reading to driving a car. Learn what it means to activate background knowledge to aid in reading retention. What does it mean to give the reading purpose and why it’s so important that the reader to intentionally connect the reading to the reader’s worldview. Katelyn mentions her book Hi, It’s Me! I Have ADHD. She is working on the second edition which will be released in October. If listeners would like to learn more about her book or connect with her they can subscribe to her email list at . Katelyn recommends the book by Chris Tovani Tracy mentioned the book by Barbara Oakley