How It Started Part 2

We left our heroes in the summer after 2nd grade with a diagnosis of anxiety and a specific learning disability in reading.

I spent a lot of time that summer trying to figure out what to do. On the one hand, I felt so much better just knowing that I wasn't crazy and that something really was wrong, but I still didn't know where to start.

At this point, we still were not calling this dyslexia. It was 2015. There was no dyslexia law and there were most definitely no people in the school district who were saying the word dyslexia. There, in fact, was a complete moratorium on the word. Teachers were not allowed to even say it. Some people would even go so far as to say it doesn't exist.

I'm going to take a little sidebar here to say something. A dyslexia diagnosis doesn't matter. If your child has a reading disability then, they have dyslexia. I mean, it's not quite as simple as that, but the truth is that any child who is struggling with reading (actually, any child learning to read at all) needs evidence-based, direct, systematic instruction in the 5 big ideas of reading. Starting with phonemic awareness and phonics instruction (read: hearing the different sounds in words and moving to recognizing the letters that go with those sounds and being able to put those things together.), and working on fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension as you go. Again, this is a complete simplification of how reading needs to be taught, but instruction that is based on science on the 5 big ideas of reading will help every child learn to read. The point is that we shouldn't have to have our child diagnosed with dyslexia. Dyslexia IS a Specific Learning Disability in reading and that's what the school will recognize. Rant over for now.

Mostly what I did that summer, was think about how I was going to get more help for our son when he went back to school. We worked on all the things that we had always been working on, we did a lot of reading together and he would try to sound out words and we read a LOT of Bob Books and Boris books (See the previous post about Branches Books). Part of the problem was that he would look at the first letter of a word and guess. Or he would say a word that corresponded with the picture on a page, but would not look at the word. And, due to the anxiety he had about reading, he would rock back and forth - which of course made it very difficult to look at the words on the page.

What I didn't know at the time, was that he was using all the strategies that they were teaching him at school! THAT is how they were trying to teach reading - Look at the first letter and guess. Look at the picture. I'm getting angry right now just thinking about this. And because I was trying to use the strategies that we used at the Reading Clinic - sound out the letters, look at the word, that word is ------ let's go back and read that sentence again - he was getting mixed messages that were very confusing for him.

I'm going to take another sidebar right now to say - do NOT beat yourself up (she says as she beats herself up). All you can do is work with the hand you are dealt...meaning that I wish I had pushed harder, or just found tutoring sooner than I did, but I kept trusting that the school knew what they were doing. It doesn't do me any good to think about what I should have done that first time I discovered that he needed help in the first grade. I thought that his teachers would help him. I thought that bringing my concerns to the teacher would help him. At the time, I didn't realize that I was going to have to fight to get him the instruction that he needed, and that ultimately, I was going to have to seek help outside the school. So, if you were late picking up on the problem, just move forward. Remember that you did figure out the problem and that you are doing the best that you can to get the help that you need. And if you are just starting out on this journey right now...you are so lucky, because the Science of Reading movement is happening. This isn't a pendulum swing in education. This is education finally catching up with 40 years of research that has been screaming about how reading should be taught.

So, fast forward to 3rd grade. At the beginning of the year we have curriculum night and here are the things that I got from that:

Don't worry about the data for their reading because they haven't been taught anything yet. Note, that I have worked quite closely with people who were involved in the development of DIBELS and I also understand easyCBM - this is not how it works! These measures are an assessment of risk. If your child does poorly at the beginning of the year based on the benchmark score, that means that they weren't taught the things they should know at the BEGINNING of the year and that they are at risk for reading FAILURE. UGH. and,
Use this handy bookmark to help your child with reading at home! 🚩RED FLAG! The bookmark literally said to have your child look at the picture to figure out the word, look at "context clues," and to look at the first letter and guess. These are NOT things that your child should be doing to learn to read.

I'm going to leave this here because the next part is long and a little horrible.

Read the next installment: Finally Getting Some Help