Today's guest blog is written by Lisa Dolan, Literacy Coach in the Hudson City School District (Hudson, NY).

I've been teaching the arts of reading, writing, listening, and speaking to elementary students for three decades.  Until my son, Michael, suffered a pediatric stroke on his seventh birthday in 2007, I had no idea how fully my life would become consumed with the foundations of literacy.  I didn't know what it truly meant to live a literate life.

My son's stroke--ischemic and left brain--attacked his language center.  The rewiring necessary to facilitate much of his recovery would be long, tedious, emotional work.  That work would require all of those around him--my husband and I, his sisters, teachers, therapists, and friends--to understand and utilize the miraculous powers of language.

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