“Your Brain Is Different — and Wonderful!” Talking to Kids About Dyslexia

1 Comment: “Your Brain Is Different — and Wonderful!” Talking to Kids About Dyslexia

1. My youngest was in middle of 2nd grade when she was diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia (like dyslexia, but it affects writing). Technically, she was diagnosed with a learning disorder in reading and writing because the school did the testing, and our school district didn’t recognize dyslexia as a learning disorder. (Yeah, I don’t understand it either.) She was reading at an early kindergarten reading level at the time. Anyway, she had to go to resource for reading and writing help. We sat her down and explained that her brain needed to learn to read differently than other people’s. That it didn’t mean that she wasn’t smart (her IQ scores were high normal), so she had to go to a special class (just for reading and writing) where they could teach her to read they brain needed to learn.

   She’d not been diagnosed with ADHD yet. That was 4th grade. Her observable symptoms were pretty subtle, but here older sister and I were already diagnosed and we didn’t want the ADHE to interfere with her progress. Interestingly enough the ADHD meds were what led to a huge improvement in her writing speed and neatness.

   In the middle of 5th grade, she left resource and rejoined the regular class for literacy. She was annoyed that she was still half a year behind in her reading level. I reminded her that three years ago she’d been 2 1/2 years behind. That means that in 3 years, she’d improved 5 years in reading levels while everyone else only improved 3. Which meant that she’d actually done more than all of them in 3 years, so she should give herself a break. I had no doubt that she’d catch up with them and maybe even pass them.