Sarah Entine has produced a remarkable and memorable film about the unique pressures that generational learning disabilities have on a family. Unlike similar films, Read Me Differently never becomes preachy, maudlin or self-pitying. She offers no false hope, instant cures or simple answers. Rather, she allows us to hear from three remarkably dynamic women discussing the shame, confusion, fear and bewilderment that often accompany undiagnosed learning problems. This is a film to be viewed… and viewed again. It will undoubtedly stir the emotions of the viewer and will serve as a launch pad for discussion, understanding, empathy… and self-discovery.

Read Me Differently is a remarkable film. We found ourselves both tearing up and smiling as we watched this amazing young woman begin to discover who she is as a learner and then began to educate her family. In this process she not only educated her family about HER learning style, but helped family members begin to think more about how they learn and communicate. It was truly inspirational. As a viewer, you learn about the impact of learning disabilities on an individual, but more importantly you learn about the impact of these “hidden disabilities” on relationships. As therapists we talk about how hard it can be for families to communicate, especially when various members of the family have different ways of communicating and processing, but the film does a beautiful job of showing what it is like in reality.Please see it!

Read Me Differently is a very powerful, informative documentary. The influence of learning differences in family relationships across generations is poignantly captured as is the capacity of the human spirit to become resilient in the face of adversity. I hope that this documentary will be viewed not only by children and adults with learning struggles, but by their families as well as professionals who work with these individuals. In addition, the documentary will prove very informative for those who do not have learning differences so that they might better appreciate the struggles faced by those who do.

Sarah Entine’s Read Me Differently is a personal and poignant quest to piece together and understand the mystery of being different, and the pain of miscommunications and missed connections magnified by attentional, processing, and learning differences. This film is a brave, honest, illuminating, and compassionate attempt to bring awareness and inquiry to long-term and deeply frustrating family patterns. In the process, it offers family members and the viewer a degree of affirmation, understanding, and healing. Almost any family will see a bit of itself in this film.

This film should be viewed and discussed in every psychiatric child or adult training program, as well as by those physicians and allied professionals who assess and treat patients with developmental disorders. The content is spontaneous, witty, insightful, and heartwarming, and accurately depicts the consequences to family dynamics when developmental disorders are among the family attributes. Four stars out of four!

It is not easy to expose your personal struggles with learning disabilities for all to see and experience. Sarah Entine bravely does this in her film Read Me Differently. It could not have been easy for her to do. Her only purpose in making this documentary is to help others to better understand themselves and their family. Thank you, Sarah.

Read Me Differently, is a soul-searching look at family relationships. It re-emphasizes that it is never “one child” who has a disability, that the every family member is affected in some way, and how the disability impacts those relationships. (When the film was screened at the IDA conference) Sarah and Dr. Drake Duane asked the audience: “Who is the best target audience and how can they be reached?” The answers were: teacher training, educator in-services, social worker training, information for SLP’s, psychologists, pediatricians, on and on. This film is a remarkable tool for a conference session, for an awareness event, a support group, …just everyone that I can think of. It is unbelievably well done, and I simply cannot recommend it enough.

The University of Iowa’s Council on Disability Awareness invited Sarah Entine to screen her film, Read Me Differently. The event brought together individuals with hidden disabilities and opened a door to self-disclosures. Several students and community members conveyed that they felt courage and less isolation after the viewing. Raves over the film are still heard several months later. This film is highly recommended to be viewed at colleges and universities across the nation.

The great thing about Read Me Differently is that it puts stories of dyslexia and attention deficit disorder in a familiar family context. Every viewer can identify with someone, perhaps with everyone, in the film. Students watching Read Me Differently will quickly realize that there is nothing coldly clinical or weirdly alien about these conditions; they are part of the array of challenges that human beings face in our quest to communicate with each other. Nowhere is this quest more intense or more poignant than within our families, so the family story told in this film makes the information about dyslexia and ADHD wholly accessible and emotionally engaging.