Who do you tell about your kid's dyslexia diagnosis?

[Anonymous]

I'm struggling with my kid's dyslexia diagnosis. It just feels like the tutoring is a huge, expensive slog, and that school is going to be disheartening and stressful. I'm not worried about the eventual outcomes for my kid--she's smart, kind and easy going, and I'm confident that she'll be fine--but the next 10 years of school are going to be REALLY challenging. So much of my identity as a kid came from doing well in school, and it's hard for me to watch her go from someone who saw herself as a "smart kid," in K, 1st and 2nd, to someone who sees herself as "dumb" in 3rd. She says things like, "I'm a good kid because I don't get in trouble, but I'm the only good kid who isn't good at school--the rest of the good kids are smart at school and I'll never be smart at school because I'm bad at reading." I feed her tons of info about how dyslexic people are smart, about how she's excellent at math, and about how she's a good reader--her issue is that she's just a very SLOW reader. We're doing a ton of expensive tutoring and I just feel....a little defeated. I know there are much bigger problems out there, but I'm wondering if others can relate and what has helped.

For the record, with my kid, I'm trying to be the right mix of reassuring, positive and real. She tends to dismiss all of my reassurance as "well, you're my mom, so you have to tell me I'm smart."

Ugh.

[Anonymous]

You’re doing everything right. My only advice is to get her an IEP or 504 plan with extra time for assignments and tests (both!), get it to say double time or even triple time, and then have that IEP or 504 set and maintained through her senior year in high school. Another great thing to add to it is “testing limited to 2 hours per day.” Then send that all to College Board and ACT her freshman or sophomore year and let her have years to handle those tests.

These are all things I paid $50k to learn from our lawyer, and just barely got done in time for our kid his junior year. I wish I had known.

Just get her lots of accommodations, scaffolding, and supports. She is fantastic and so are you!

[Anonymous]

Everything you're doing and everything PP said sound spot on.

I'd also say to read in "support" people like coaches, babysitters, even friends. This will help them give directions in a way she can process faster. DS had a friend here the other day and DS told him to look in the "cabinet to the left of the sink." Kid stood there stumped. I chimed in "the cabinet over the coffee maker" and the kid found the drinking glasses right away. Perhaps she's better with oral instructions and not a written list of things to do.

Good luck! You're on the right path!

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry you’re both going through this. It’s really tough and many of us including myself can relate. They know they can “take it out on mom” of course because no matter what we’ll
always be there. I found sometimes just acknowledging what they say rather than “correcting” or trying to “fix it” works well. When she says (like my daughter does) “you have to say that bc you’re my mom”, I just say something like, “I’m your mom and love you very much”. I used to say “yes I’m your mom but that doesn’t mean I don’t mean what I say”, and so on and so on. We also use a coach who works with Dyslexic students, and they work on things like “building confidence.” Like you described, my daughter constantly compares herself to others and puts herself down. I see a difference and the benefits of the coaching sessions. It takes a little time but things are also calmer between us with having information, suggestions, - coming from someone else and not mom. She’ll give her “worksheets” to fill in or track as well. It’s been good for all of us. I hope that’s helpful. You’re not alone. We understand.

[Anonymous]

It was a huge relief for my DC to find out that he had dyslexia. It was 2nd grade and you could see his whole body relax.

He, also, would not listen to his mom. However, he had a few teachers in ES that praised him at the right time and then he started gaining confidence in his abilities. It was in science and math where he excels and where he got his confidence.

I firmly believe we have to support their strengths as well as remediate their weaknesses. It is in their strengths that they will find their path forward.

If you haven’t read Sally Shaywitz’s book, “Overcoming Dyslexia”, I highly recommend it. She is a leading dyslexia researcher at Yale. I also recommend wrightslaw.com to learn about IEPs, 504s and navigating schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was a huge relief for my DC to find out that he had dyslexia. It was 2nd grade and you could see his whole body relax.

He, also, would not listen to his mom. However, he had a few teachers in ES that praised him at the right time and then he started gaining confidence in his abilities. It was in science and math where he excels and where he got his confidence.

I firmly believe we have to support their strengths as well as remediate their weaknesses. It is in their strengths that they will find their path forward.

If you haven’t read Sally Shaywitz’s book, “Overcoming Dyslexia”, I highly recommend it. She is a leading dyslexia researcher at Yale. I also recommend wrightslaw.com to learn about IEPs, 504s and navigating schools.

Also, prepare for a marathon and not a sprint. Slow progress adds up over time.

We were very open about his dyslexia. DC was very open about it too. Audio books at his cognitive level were essential to his keeping up with language, vocabulary, increasing character and plot complexities, and background knowledge. He also has dysgraphia and being able to dictate answers until his keyboarding skills developed was essential too.

[Anonymous]

You’re doing all the right things. She’s going to be okay. Keep focusing on the positives and don’t harp if she’s feeling down, just be a listening here and teach her to feel her feelings and then move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You’re doing everything right. My only advice is to get her an IEP or 504 plan with extra time for assignments and tests (both!), get it to say double time or even triple time, and then have that IEP or 504 set and maintained through her senior year in high school. Another great thing to add to it is “testing limited to 2 hours per day.” Then send that all to College Board and ACT her freshman or sophomore year and let her have years to handle those tests.

These are all things I paid $50k to learn from our lawyer, and just barely got done in time for our kid his junior year. I wish I had known.

Just get her lots of accommodations, scaffolding, and supports. She is fantastic and so are you!

Extra time on assignments is devastating for most kids, especially dyslexia. I agree about extra time for testing, but triple time and a 2 hour limit is not needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re doing everything right. My only advice is to get her an IEP or 504 plan with extra time for assignments and tests (both!), get it to say double time or even triple time, and then have that IEP or 504 set and maintained through her senior year in high school. Another great thing to add to it is “testing limited to 2 hours per day.” Then send that all to College Board and ACT her freshman or sophomore year and let her have years to handle those tests.

These are all things I paid $50k to learn from our lawyer, and just barely got done in time for our kid his junior year. I wish I had known.

Just get her lots of accommodations, scaffolding, and supports. She is fantastic and so are you!

Extra time on assignments is devastating for most kids, especially dyslexia. I agree about extra time for testing, but triple time and a 2 hour limit is not needed.

how is extra time on tests devastating for most kids?

[Anonymous]

I’m dyslexic and my kid is dyslexic. I’d encourage you to start de-emphasizing smartness. Don’t try to convince her. Of course she is smart - as am I, and my kid. Well above average IQs, etc. And yet school SUCKED, and constantly being told I was smart made it suck more, because then I felt I should be doing better, I had to succeed in conventionally academic ways. But even worse, it kept alive the voice in the back of my head that said that the only people who were valued were smart people. You had to be smart to be successful and worthy. And clearly people were gaslighting me that I was smart when my grades said otherwise.

It is super hard for people who liked school, who did well in school, to get their head around de-emphasizing school achievement. My mom, still to this day, will say “I loved school. It was my safe space. I hope (grandchild) feels that way too soon.” It is a lovely wish, but it invalidates our experience of school as terribly stressful, embarrassing, and gaslight-ey.

Try instead saying things like “I know school is hard for you. It’s a bummer. But everyone has stuff that is hard for them and stuff that comes easily. You are awesome at (x), and not everyone can say that. You will get better and better at reading and school over time. I believe in you.” Leave “smart” out of it.

One lovely gift of dyslexia (over the long haul) is the ability to see how f’d up our implicit values can be. Little children drink in the message that what is most important is school success, not other things like grit, kindness, friendship, love. You can be the funniest, kindest, most generous person in the world, but if you aren’t smart we show kids we believe you are not worth a whole lot. Most kids with classic dyslexia (above average intelligence, below average phonological and orthographic skills) grow up knowing this is f’d up, because they spent a childhood teetering between smart/not smart. It isn’t a fun experience, but it makes for gritty and empathetic people, and that is valuable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re doing everything right. My only advice is to get her an IEP or 504 plan with extra time for assignments and tests (both!), get it to say double time or even triple time, and then have that IEP or 504 set and maintained through her senior year in high school. Another great thing to add to it is “testing limited to 2 hours per day.” Then send that all to College Board and ACT her freshman or sophomore year and let her have years to handle those tests.

These are all things I paid $50k to learn from our lawyer, and just barely got done in time for our kid his junior year. I wish I had known.

Just get her lots of accommodations, scaffolding, and supports. She is fantastic and so are you!

Extra time on assignments is devastating for most kids, especially dyslexia. I agree about extra time for testing, but triple time and a 2 hour limit is not needed.

how is extra time on tests devastating for most kids?

I said I agreed with the PP that extra time on tests is a good idea, although triple time is extreme. A student who is taking three times as long to complete a test due to dyslexia, is likely better served with read aloud and scribing.

Extra time on assignments is almost always a disaster. Assignments just build up. Today's assignments get moved on till tomorrow, and then you have twice the work tomorrow for a kid who doesn't have the stamina or processing speed to do one day's work in one day, and then the next day it's three times the work. You end up with assignments to prepare for assessments being done after the assessment, and a logjam at the end of the semester, with a pile of work that is impossible to complete. The reality is that your kid needs to select a course load that they can keep up with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm struggling with my kid's dyslexia diagnosis. It just feels like the tutoring is a huge, expensive slog, and that school is going to be disheartening and stressful. I'm not worried about the eventual outcomes for my kid--she's smart, kind and easy going, and I'm confident that she'll be fine--but the next 10 years of school are going to be REALLY challenging. So much of my identity as a kid came from doing well in school, and it's hard for me to watch her go from someone who saw herself as a "smart kid," in K, 1st and 2nd, to someone who sees herself as "dumb" in 3rd. She says things like, "I'm a good kid because I don't get in trouble, but I'm the only good kid who isn't good at school--the rest of the good kids are smart at school and I'll never be smart at school because I'm bad at reading." I feed her tons of info about how dyslexic people are smart, about how she's excellent at math, and about how she's a good reader--her issue is that she's just a very SLOW reader. We're doing a ton of expensive tutoring and I just feel....a little defeated. I know there are much bigger problems out there, but I'm wondering if others can relate and what has helped.

For the record, with my kid, I'm trying to be the right mix of reassuring, positive and real. She tends to dismiss all of my reassurance as "well, you're my mom, so you have to tell me I'm smart."

Ugh.

I would really push back on the idea that there are good and bad kids at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re doing everything right. My only advice is to get her an IEP or 504 plan with extra time for assignments and tests (both!), get it to say double time or even triple time, and then have that IEP or 504 set and maintained through her senior year in high school. Another great thing to add to it is “testing limited to 2 hours per day.” Then send that all to College Board and ACT her freshman or sophomore year and let her have years to handle those tests.

These are all things I paid $50k to learn from our lawyer, and just barely got done in time for our kid his junior year. I wish I had known.

Just get her lots of accommodations, scaffolding, and supports. She is fantastic and so are you!

Extra time on assignments is devastating for most kids, especially dyslexia. I agree about extra time for testing, but triple time and a 2 hour limit is not needed.

how is extra time on tests devastating for most kids?

I said I agreed with the PP that extra time on tests is a good idea, although triple time is extreme. A student who is taking three times as long to complete a test due to dyslexia, is likely better served with read aloud and scribing.

Extra time on assignments is almost always a disaster. Assignments just build up. Today's assignments get moved on till tomorrow, and then you have twice the work tomorrow for a kid who doesn't have the stamina or processing speed to do one day's work in one day, and then the next day it's three times the work. You end up with assignments to prepare for assessments being done after the assessment, and a logjam at the end of the semester, with a pile of work that is impossible to complete. The reality is that your kid needs to select a course load that they can keep up with.

You can also push for a “volume reduction” accommodation, where they give your kid less volume of homework but they still learn the same concepts. That’s a very common processing speed accommodation.