About the Project
To know this story is to know how it feels to be isolated and invisible. Read Me Differently reveals the dramatic struggle between three generations of learning disabled women who yearn to feel heard, seen and connected. Told through the interweaving of interviews and archival and current photographs and video footage, Read Me Differently traces the roots of learning disabilities in one family, revealing how relationship difficulties and damage could have been prevented had these women understood how their learning disabilities impacted their ability to communicate and comprehend one another.
This personal story displays how a lack of thorough understanding can inadvertently cause painful relationships. Since learning disabilities often remain hidden, this film will help to illuminate and illustrate the invisible and yet insidious challenges that many families face. Such challenges can heap more suffering upon people already burdened by a learning disability that is no fault of their own.Read Me Differently's "About" page category's include:
Why Documentary?
While several text based resources address relationship challenges created by having a learning disability, few visual illustrations, such as documentaries, demonstrate the powerful dynamics of how parent/child relationships are affected. Books, newsletters and websites are helpful; yet, the audio-visual format of a documentary allows learning disabled and non-learning disabled people equal opportunity to fully and easily experience relevant information.
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About the Family
The Grandmother
Born in 1917 in Memphis Tennessee Sylvia is the eldest child, and only daughter, of a prominent businessman. Coming from an affluent family, Sylvia enjoyed the attention and activities of her time. As a student, however, she struggled. Now, an 88 year old great-grandmother, Sylvia reflects on a life of remarkable community service and embarrassing personal disorganization. With dramatic insight, Sylvia talks about her school experience, her life experiences, and how processing information gets in the way of a healthy give-and-take relationship with her daughter.
The Mother
Jean, born in 1942, on the cusp of the baby boom generation, was raised in Memphis Tennessee, where the values of assimilation, beauty, and proper protocol influenced all aspects of her life. As a student in elementary school Jean stuttered, yet with time she outgrew this behavior. For Jean, growing up with a mother who for unexplained reasons was disorganized and a tangential speaker exacerbated an already strained relationship. Because of her mother’s unidentified learning disabilities, Jean has struggled to feel heard, seen and connected.
The Daughter
Born in 1972 and raised in Cambridge Massachusetts, Sarah grew up in single parent home with her older sister Jennifer. In the first grade, Sarah was identified as having a learning disability. Yet despite early identification, she did not fully understand the scope of her learning disability until she was 31 years old. While going to school was one obstacle, Sarah’s learning disability dramatically interfered with her relationship with her mother and in understanding herself.
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How Read Me Differently can be used:
- Parents can use Read Me Differently to help facilitate discussion on how having a shared learning disability influences family relationships
- Counselors, both school-based and private practice, can use Read Me Differently to promote awareness and healing
- Universities can use Read Me Differently in psychology, social work, education, special education, counseling, and guidance curriculum
- Learning disability conferences can use Read Me Differently as a tool to promote understanding
- Libraries can use Read Me Differently as a public resource
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Credits and Crew
Read Me Differently's Credits and Crew Members include:
- Sarah Entine, producer/director
- Fawn Yacker, director of photography
- Jennifer Chinlund, editor
- Lori Hope, project consultant
- Deb Talan, music
Producer/Director: Sarah Entine
After earning her Master’s degree in Social Work from Simmons College in Boston, Sarah Entine settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to completing her professional education, Ms. Entine obtained a training certificate in mediation and conflict resolution. Though identified with a learning disability in 1978, she was unaware of how her learning difference influenced her life outside of the classroom. But in 2001, after re-connecting with her elementary school tutor, she discovered how her dyslexia impacted her relationship with her mother and grandmother. Since then, Ms. Entine has become passionate about the subject of learning disabilities and how they can complicate relationships. While making this film, Ms. Entine has attended numerous conferences on learning disabilities and has done extensive research on the topic. She has also taken courses in documentary filmmaking from the Film Arts Foundation and Bay Area Video Coalition.
Director of Photography: Fawn Yacker
Fawn Yacker is a Producer/Director and a Director of Photography for film and video. Her cinematography credits include “Deadly Deception” (Academy Award best short documentary, 1991); “In The Shadow Of The Stars,” contributing cinematographer (Academy Award best feature length documentary, 1991); “Chuck Solomon: Coming Of Age”…among the best documentaries dealing with AIDS.” Kevin Thomas LA Times; “Confessions Of A Pretty Lady,” a one hour documentary about actress/performer Sandra Bernhard produced for the BBC’s Arena program.
Ms. Yacker’s directorial debut in the dramatic narrative form, was as one of the twelve participants in the ninth cycle of the American Film Institute Directing Workshop for Women. She completed, “Bedtime Story”; a thirty minute film about making choices based on love rather than fear. Ms. Yacker’s directing credits also include “Can You See Me Flying,” a documentary about dancer/choreographer Terry Sendgraff, screened on PBS as well as the Learning Channel’s Independent Series, (winner of the 1991 Bronze Apple at the American Educational Film and Video Festival.) “A Leap Across the Bar Lines” directed for the Women’s Philharmonic (winner of the Bronze Apple, 1993). She has also directed award winning dramatic and comedic programs for corporate education and training.
“That’s A Family,” co-directed and co-produced with Academy Award recipient Debra Chasnoff (“Deadly Deception”), was honored with a screening at the White House and awarded the 2000 Master Cine Golden Eagle. Ms. Yacker was also the director of photography on this educational/documentary film which is part one of a three part series on diversity for elementary school distribution and television broadcast.
Ms. Yacker is presently developing, “American Kids,” a half hour dramatic series for children aged eight to thirteen. “American Kids” uses “structured reality,” or “composed documentary,” to authentically portray a broad range of cultural and socio economic lifestyles while developing character and laying the groundwork for compassion.
Editor: Jennifer Chinlund
Jennifer Chinlund has edited many PBS productions in her 20-year career. Some of her recent credits include: Self-Made Man (POV 2005); Discovering Dominga (POV 2003); Secrets of Silicon Valley (Independent Lens 2002); Coming to Light: Edward Curtis and
the North American Indian (ITVS and American Masters); Baby It's You (POV 1998) and the Emmy Award-winning, Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter (POV 1995).
Project Consultant: Lori Hope
Lori Hope has produced more than twenty social and environmental documentaries for television. Her most recent work was produced in association with KQED, and was featured on the Oprah show. Ms. Hope’s honors include a CINE Golden Eagle, a National Society of Professional Journalist/Sigma Delta Chi Ward, and two regional Emmy Awards. Currently, Ms. Hope is managing Editor at Bay Area Business Woman News. Her first book, Help Me Live: 20 Things People with Cancer Want You to Know, was published in 2005.
Music: Deb Talan
Deb Talan was classically trained in clarinet and piano, began writing music when she was only ten years old.
By the time she graduated from high school, she had written numerous pop songs and composed a score for a local production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
Her senior year in college, Ms. Talan picked up a guitar and has been toting it around ever since.
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Advisory Board
Read Me Differently's Advisory Board Members include:
- Helen Cohen, documentary filmmaker
- Geralyn Dreyfous, executive producer, Born Into Brothels
- Edward Hallowell, M.D., bestselling author/founder of The Hallowell Center
- Mark Lipman, documentary filmmaker/freelance editor
- Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D., professor/educational therapist
Helen Cohen
Helen Cohen is an award-winning filmmaker and working artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Formerly the co-director of Women's Educational Media (WEM), Ms. Cohen co-created WEM's acclaimed Respect for All Project, a program that produces cutting edge films, curriculum guides and training resources to help prevent prejudice among young people.
Ms. Cohen's producing credits include: IT’S ELEMENTARY a groundbreaking film for parents and educators that aired on over 100 public television stations nationally; THAT’S A FAMILY!, the inspiring, award-winning film for elementary school kids about family diversity that screened to a packed room of educators and child advocates at the White House in 2000; and LET’S GET REAL, a powerful documentary about young teens' experiences with name-calling and bullying that has been endorsed by the National Education Association, Teaching Tolerance, and many others.
Through her new venture, Open Studio Productions, Cohen continues to make independent and commissioned films, as well as consult with other filmmakers, artists, foundations, and educational institutions. She is an avid painter and the parent of a school-age daughter.
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Geralyn Dreyfous
Geralyn Dreyfous is the Executive Producer of the Academy Award winning documentary, BORN INTO BROTHELS.
Ms. Dreyfous is also the producer of a documentary of the child sex slave trade narrated by Tim Robbins called THE DAY MY GOD DIED, which was broadcast on PBS and is distributed by Tapesty.
In addition to her accomplishments as a filmmaker, Ms. Dreyfous has an impressive career in the world of philanthropic endeavors, having raised funds for and aided numerous prestigious organizations.
In 1998 the Institute for Civil Society, a private foundation, hired Ms. Dreyfous to help spin DoubleTake Magazine out of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. DoubleTake Magazine has won every coveted literary and photographic award, including the General Excellence Award. In 2001 she launched a DoubleTake Summer Institute for teachers, activists and emerging documentarians. The Institute was held at Hampshire College and led by Ken Burns and Robert Coles.
Currently, Ms. Dreyfous serves as the Executive and Artistic Director of the Salt Lake City Film Center; an organization she co-founded with Nicole Guillemet in 2002.
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Edward Hallowell, M.D.
Edward Hallowell, M.D. is a child and adult psychiatrist and the founder of The Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health in Sudbury, MA.
He is the co-author of the national best sellers, Driven to Distraction (Pantheon, 1994) and Answers to Distraction (Pantheon, 1995), both of which discuss attention deficit disorder in children and in adults. In January of 2005, Dr. Hallowell and co-author Dr. John Ratey released their much-awaited new book on ADD, Delivered from Distraction. This book provides a complete and important review of the current state of knowledge about ADD and provides information about how to lead a joyful life with ADD and take advantage of the many wonderful aspects of the ADD mind.
As one of the leading psychiatric experts in the country, Dr. Hallowell has appeared on many national television and radio broadcasts, including "60 Minutes", "The Jane Pauley Show", “20/20”, “The Today Show”, “Dateline”, “Oprah”, “Good Morning America”, “NPR” and “The View.” He is also often interviewed and quoted in publications such as US News and World Report, USA Weekend, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times and many other magazines and newspapers.
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Mark Lipman
Mark Lipman is an accomplished documentary filmmaker.
With over twenty years of experience, Mr. Lipman’s films have been broadcast nationally on public television and won numerous awards. He has worked as a freelance editor at WGBH and has been an active member of New Day Films since 1981.
Recently, Mr. Lipman completed an MFA in filmmaking at the Massachusetts College of Art in conjunction with the completion of his most current film, FATHER’S DAY.
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Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D.,
Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D., is an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California San Francisco, Department of Pediatrics, a teacher, and a learning disabilities specialist.
Dr White has a private practice, assessing and remediating language based learning problems and consulting with independent schools. In addition she serves on the Board of the Slingerland Institute and is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Dyslexia Association (IDA).
Additionally, Dr. White has more than thirty years experience in public schools as classroom teacher and program consultant in special education curriculum with San Francisco Unified School District, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, Curriculum Commission, State Board of Education, and CA Department of Education.