Much to be thankful for . . .
Letters like this make all of our hard work worthwhile.
Dear Susan,
Today as I sat at the table with my family to celebrate Thanksgiving, I realized how much things have changed over the last year.
Just a year ago, my daughter cried about school and hid in the chicken coop to try to avoid going. She often returned from school with blisters on her fingers (from gripping the pencil too hard due to her dysgraphia), and she was soooo frustrated by reading assignments and spelling tests.
Needless to say, it was a very hard time for our family.
Fast forward a year. We are now homeschooling using the Barton System, and she is happy.
She draws her chickens and writes poems about them. Her poems don’t always rhyme, but not all poems need to rhyme. 🙂
She feels successful in her reading assignments and in her ability to spell the words in the lessons. There are no more tears and no more blisters. She is happy and making progress!
I deeply appreciate the program you put together. To me, it is way more than a reading program, and I thank you for creating it.
Tell the teachers
I received the following email from a Dyslexia Specialist who is also a Certified Barton tutor.
I am giving an inservice on dyslexia today, so I had to cancel one of my student’s tutoring sessions.
When the child asked me what I was going to be doing, I explained. My student asked if he could give a message to the teachers. I said, “Sure.”
His response was so poignant that I asked a few others this week if they had anything they wanted to say as well. I was surprised just how many had something they wanted to get off their chests!
Below is a sampling of just a few.
JEFFREY, first grade:
If you are going to teach me the way I can’t learn, then I will not learn, and I will be mad and frustrated!If you teach me the way I can learn, then I will try and try, and try, and try and try so hard, and I will never give up!
ANGELA, second grade:
I would like to tell teachers that struggling is hard.If you don’t know how to teach me, then find someone who does.
And while they are teaching me, be nice to me! I am trying so hard and I need my teacher to understand that.
DAVID, second grade:
Give me more time to finish my work. I can’t work as fast as the other kids.Even better would be if you gave me less work. I would still learn, and then I would have time to play.
LISA, ninth grade:
My teacher told the class that I have dyslexia so they would understand why I don’t want anybody else correcting my papers. Do you know what she told them? She said that I had trouble mixing up my Bs and Ds!Is that really all she thinks dyslexia is? Don’t teachers want to know any more than that?
Dyslexia is inherited
Many people are still not aware that dyslexia is inherited. It strongly runs in family trees.
That lack of awareness causes this:
After 3 years of trying to figure out my daughter’s learning challenges, I am now convinced that she is dyslexic.
I am sick to my stomach that although I knew my husband is dyslexic, I never made the connection. I did not know it is an inherited condition.
My very bright daughter will be entering 6th grade soon, reading 3 years below her grade level.
And it causes this:
I am dyslexic my father was dyslexic my older son is dyslexic. could my 9 yr old son be dyslexic.
we have been trying to get an IEP sence frist grade (he in 3rd now) we where told unless he has failing grades for 2 consexative years no IEP.
i cant help him with his school work.
im afraid thay are pushing him through school and he will end up an out of control teen — like me.
Parents, if you know dyslexia runs in your family tree, and your second or third grader has terrible spelling when writing sentences and stories, and is a slow inaccurate reader who cannot easily sound out unknown words, take action now.
I just found your website today. I am the mom of a second grader and I think he may be dyslexic because my son’s father, aunt, and grandmother are all dyslexic.
I questioned his kindergarten and first grade teachers about dyslexia. Each teacher assured me he was age appropriate in his learning.
But towards the middle of first grade, he scored below the average on the DIBELS test and qualified for reading intervention. I signed him up for it, thinking it would help.
I also worked with him all summer in an attempt to get him up to the same level as his classmates.
Despite that, his second grade teacher expressed concern about his reading, writing, and spelling on his progress report.
So I took him to a center for an assessment. He scored low on phonemic awareness and fluency, but very high on comprehension. He puzzled the assessor because even though he did not read the passage very accurately, he was able to answer the comprehension questions. He also scored high in listening comprehension.
Yet reading, spelling, and writing are so exhausting to my child that it is painful to watch. He wants to read, he is motivated to read, but he isn’t reading the words. He does seem to know some sight words but he mostly scans the page looking for clues and guesses at reading.
I am very interested in learning how to teach my child. My background is not in teaching, but I am more than willing to work hard, and I am very motivated.
I can’t believe I said that
This is why Dyslexia Awareness Month is so important. Please share what you know about dyslexia with other parents — to prevent this:
I am just beginning to realize my son has dyslexia.
It saddens me that I have spent so many years trying to beat information into my son, fighting with him about why he did not understand, frustrated when he did not get it.
Year after year he would tell me, “Mom, I promise I’ll try harder,” yet his grades would still be D’s and F’s and me, of course, letting him know my disappointment.
I feel so very bad about some of the things I have said to him. I even fought with him about why it so hard for him to tie his shoes. “It’s so simple. Why don’t you get it?”
I want to warn other parents so they will understand what I did not. So they will avoid pushing their child to do things they just can’t do, to stop listening to others who claim your child is just being lazy, or who advise “If you take away his favorite sport, I bet he’ll change.”
What hurts me most is that I could see he was such a bright child, very athletic, very creative. Yet every evening, homework turned into fights with me saying things like, “Your brother gets it. Why can’t you?” His self-esteem was already at a low, and all I was doing was making it worse.
It took a huge fight between me and my son late last year, that had us both crying, when I asked him, “Tell me what it is that is so hard for you in class,” and he answered, “I can’t read the big words. I just can’t, and I feel stupid compared to the rest of the kids.” That started me doing an internet search for reading problems, which lead me to dyslexia, which led me to your website. He has almost every classic warning sign of dyslexia. It was as if you had a camera in our house.
I am now going to be the strongest advocate for my child. He is a caring, loving, wonderful soul who wears his heart on his sleeve. He does not deserve the emotional pain that my ignorance caused him.
Amazing what putting a name to a condition can do
People have told me over and over again that the day they discovered they had dyslexia was the best day in their life — as this woman shares:
Thank you for your on-line video. I watched it because I suspect my 5 year old has dyslexia. Now I’m convinced. But just as important, I found out that I have mild dyslexia.
I cried when I watched your video because you were talking about my life. I related with everything you said. I was actually a B high school student only because my A+ in Art brought up the rest of my grades.
I was on the 7 year plan in college and avoided classes that required written reports. I still can’t believe you knew that. I had to take an upper-level developmental biology class that had all essay exams. The professor would give me partial credit because he knew I could sit and talk about the material, but I could not seem to get it down in written words.
M mother still teases me that I was in my 20’s before I knew my left from right. I knew the days of the week, but struggled with the months.
I still remember her trying to teach me to spell, telling me to look it up in the dictionary, but me not having a clue as to the first, second, or third letter.
My writing was in run-on sentences (still is, sorry). I knew the teacher wanted periods, then a capital, so I would go back over my work and if a sentence looked too long, I would take out a word and put in a period.
Because of your video, when I make word substitutions when reading to my girls, I will no longer cringe when I realize my mistake.
My dirty little secret in life is, of course, that I can’t spell. My husband can’t either. We have worried about the day our kids will find out our “secret.” Well, it is not going to be a dirty little secret any more.
I am not embarrassed to send you this awfully written note. I am not going to rewrite it 3 times, then wait 24 hours, and read it again before I send it — as I usually do. I can stop beating myself up thinking I’m stupid. I’m just mildly dyslexic. Too bad I had to be 42 before I figured that out.
Even though you don’t know me, I am so relieved that there is someone in the world who understands me, and I don’t have to feel crazy or retarded because I can’t spell, write, or read out loud.
I have to look at my whole life differently now. I have lots of new questions, like: is dyslexia why, after 30 years of keyboard use, I still have to look at the keys?
Thank you for giving me the answer to my question of what’s wrong with me. My head’s a little higher today. I think you healed 40 years of emotional scars in the few minutes it took to describe an adult with mild dyslexia. Amazing what putting a name to a condition can do.
Wants a second opinion
Children with dyslexia will often NOT qualify for special education services when tested in first or second (or even third) grade. Yet as the following parent shared, the classic warning signs will already be there, and that’s exactly when a child should start getting the right type of tutoring.
I am looking for someone who can give me a second opinion on test results of an evaluation done with my 7 year old son, who will be starting 2nd grade in 2 weeks.
First grade was a hard year for him – lots of tantrums and self-esteem problems. We could not figure out where all his anger was coming from until last December, when he started to fall behind in reading. In February it dawned on me that he might have dyslexia. I felt we needed an evaluation so we could start helping him effectively right away and not lose valuable years of reading training.
We had him privately evaluated by an educational psychologist to check for a learning disability because the public school said he was not doing poorly enough for them to do it.
The examiner found a “severe discrepancy” between reading achievement (23 %ile) and IQ (75 %ile), but he did not find a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes, which is why we did not receive a diagnosis of a learning disability.
He did test quite low in auditory processing (19 %ile). He actually scored even lower (at the 1 %ile) in the word discrimination subtest, but the examiner thought that might have been a fluke – because he scored so high in thinking and reasoning (91 %ile) and in the visual-spatial stuff (91 %ile).
The examiner felt my son was a very bright boy and that he would catch up in reading as he matured. He claimed his tantrums were just a cry for attention.
Despite that, my husband and I are still concerned. I really would like someone else to look at his scores for a second opinion because I have read several books and researched dyslexia online – and I see lots of the warning signs in my son.
Is it possible that he still could have dyslexia, but is not far enough behind in school yet to get a diagnosis?
I would really like his teacher to realize he is not being lazy or not paying attention.
I also want to be able to give my son a reason for his difficulties so he’ll know he’s not dumb. We have told him how smart he is, of course, but when he sees how well other kids are reading, he gets frustrated and feels stupid.
Emotional Disorder or Dyslexia?
Parents often don’t believe me when I tell them that most school psychologists have had no training in dyslexia. But I get emails like this every day:
From a school psychologist in New York:
I would LOVE to attend your Screening for Dyslexia conference.
Our number one question during RTI meetings is if there is a possibility a child might have dyslexia. This topic is vague to me even after years of reading and doing independent research.
Yet as the “expert” at these meetings, I struggle with remediation techniques that may work after I screen a student and determine deficits.
Or from this school psychologist in Colorado:
I am a school psychologist in Colorado. I agree to your notion that we have no specialty in diagnosing dyslexia, however the prevalence of parents’ requests seems to grow and grow. Unfortunately, when parents cannot afford outside assistance, we are the only ones that are left.
I have been to several workshops, symposiums, etc, yet do not feel completely educated on the subject. Do you recommend any books or specific journals on the topic? How about books that may target age groups lower than 8 years old in looking at dyslexia?
That lack of knowledge causes this:
My son just finished second grade and is dyslexic. I am sure of it. His father is dyslexic, and his father’s father is dyslexic. He has almost every single warning sign listed on your website and in many of the books that I have read.
Yet when he qualified for special education services in May, they classified him as having an “Emotional Disorder” — even though his reading scores were really, really low. The school considers “average” anything from the 16th percentile to the 85th percentile, and his reading score was exactly at the 16th percentile.
The school psychologist told me that my son’s anxiety and depression were “off the charts” and that he CAN read — but his anxiety gets in the way and he becomes “too stressed out” to read.
When I tried to explain that he was most likely anxious and depressed because he CANNOT read, the psychologist just flippantly said, “So it’s one of those which came first things — the chicken or the egg.”
They never looked at his spelling (which is horrible, with all of the classic dyslexic spelling mistakes) or asked him to write anything (he HATES to write, even a few sentences).
His IEP only lists services for emotional issues (meet with the counselor once a week). What do I do? Just let him flounder?
He won’t be able to read the board or any of the books used in third grade. Do I just let him founder with no accommodations? That seems so cruel.
He already hates himself for being “stupid and different” — his words, not mine.
Bright Solutions for Dyslexia 