As teachers and parents we probably spend far too much time time debating whether a child is dyslexic than we actually should. Of course we do not want to mislabel a child but equally we should not waste valuable time while we debate.
If a child is struggling to read or write we should just get on and provide support and interventions. In truth dyslexic interventions work for all children. The only difference is that most dyslexic children can not learn to read and write properly without them where as typical children can.
Sadly there are many children who are 'mildly' dyslexic or have dyslexic 'tendencies' who are never given access to these valuable resources and approaches. They struggle to read and write throughout school and often never really show their true potential. They puzzle their teachers because they may have excellent verbal skills and general knowledge or they are good at problem solving and are very observant but their writing is terrible.
For this reason I prefer to take a much more pragmatic approach and use dyslexia as an umbrella term. There are a whole range of learning difficulties that happily sit under this umbrella, typically these children have working memory difficulties (please see my previous articles for advice on identifying and supporting working memory difficulties). In addition they will have a combination of the following difficulties - visual perceptional difficulties, visual memory difficulties, auditory discrimination difficulties, auditory processing difficulties, motor skill and coordination difficulties, attention difficulties. Any of these children may benefit from a different approach to learning to read and write.
It is important to me that every child experiences success at school and for this to happen we have to accept that children learn differently. Many children (and adults) learn by doing rather than listening or looking at something. We also have to remember that letters and numbers are in essence abstract and we have to train our brain to process them. This is where multi-sensory approaches which involve hands on activities and interacting with words are so effective.
Children who struggle to read and write typically lack the underlying skills necessary to read and write effectively. This could be due to dyslexia or a related difficulty. However it is not always necessary understand why these skills are missing or under developed but rather focus on how we can help.
In education we tend to take the approach that these skills develop naturally with age and we set our goals and curriculum based on the age of the child rather than evaluating their underlying skills. Parents also take the schools lead in where their child should be in their literacy skills and then puzzle when their child struggles to do a seemingly 'simple' reading or writing task.
We would never try to bake a cake without all the ingredients and if one was missing we would substitute it with something similar honey instead of sugar for example. But if we left out the eggs it would be a disaster! And yet in school we often try to teach reading and writing when not all the necessary skills are in place or fully developed. We should take more notice of where children are developmentally rather their age when teaching literacy skills. We give many children and parents an unnecessary sense of failure because they do not follow a conventional timetable. In my 16 years of experience as a specialist teacher, I have not met a child who was not able to learn to read, it just took a different approach and more time. Unfortunately many schools are unwilling to allow the child the extra time they need to develop these skills properly. A bettter understanding of dyslexia and the reading and writing process may help to change this.
There are many excellent resources and approaches that both parents and teachers can use to help support those who are struggling. It is important that we try to strengthen the weaker skills while using the stronger skills to compensate. Some of the best resources are featured on the Teacher page - Dyslexia where I list my top ten dyslexia resources. Also see the Parent page - Dyslexia where I suggest some activities and approaches to use at home. I will discuss some of these resources and approaches further in future articles.
If you feel your child if having more difficulty with reading or writing than you expected don't hesitate to ask your child's school for advice or seek professional help. Don't wait for your child to feel like they are 'failing' or start avoiding difficult tasks before you take action. The earlier you intervene the sooner difficulties can be overcome and your child can begin to experience some success. It is likely to be a long road of hard work but there is light at the end of the tunnel for dyslexic learners.
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