Did your dyslexic kid ever catch up with peers?
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Anonymous
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My 3rd grader loves grade level and above grade level books when we read to her (or when listening to audio books) and thinks the stuff that she can read is super boring (Notebook of Doom, Magic Treehouse, etc.). She’s jealous of her friends who are tearing through Percy Jackson and Harry Potter (even though she’s listened to the audio books for both).
Her dyslexia is relatively mild. Is there any chance that she’ll eventually read the same stuff as her peers at a reasonable pace? Anyone have those types of success stories? She’s in tutoring f 3 hours/week and is making some progress but her reading is still very slow and riddled with skipped words. |
Anonymous
| My dyslexic high school so. reads on grade level, but never caught up to the peers who were reading Harry Potter in third grade. |
Anonymous
| I have a 7th grader with mild dyslexia and orthographic processing disorder (combined with being in 1st/2nd grade during virtual schooling) who is now reading at grade level-ish. She still reads slower than most of her peers, but she's reading a lot of the same books as her friends |
Anonymous
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My dyslexic kid just graduated college with a degree in engineering. Not reading "War & Peace" or "Harry Potter" or anything like that.... But the last few years has been reading a lot about physics and other dreadful things like fluid mechanics, circuits, and thermal engineering. And graduated with a B+ average.
Oh, and a class last year called History of the Presidency (US history elective) that was "a lot of reading & writing but interesting material." DC was diagnosed in 2nd grade at age 7 (Now 22) and was in Orton-Gillingham tutoring for 5 years (year round) 2-3 hours a week. It's a marathon, not a sprint. You'll get there. Have faith... and hugs. |
Anonymous
| My DS is a junior and scores high on standardized tests in reading/writing. He’s in AP English. He can read the class material. He listens to audiobooks all the time. But, it’s not comfortable for him to read for pleasure. While he is technically able to read the books he likes, he would never choose to do it. Listening works better for him |
Anonymous
No, he never caught but he has a rather severe form. He did use audio books to ear read books at his cognitive level and that worked great. In 3rd grade we would read to her or listen to books for 30 minutes each day. To get him hooked, I would put in a book while we were in the car for twenty minutes or more. |
Anonymous
| Let her know that listening to audio books is reading them. It uses the brain in similar ways. It helps increase her language, vocabulary and background knowledge. She will also progress with increasingly complex plot structures and character developments. This will help her keep up with her peers. |
Anonymous
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It really depends on the severity of the dyslexia and how early kids get intensive, evidence-based intervention.
Our DC had relatively mild dyslexia and was below grade-level in some reading skills in 3rd grade. After several years at a school serving kids with dyslexia, our now 8th grade DC “eye-reads” novels that are several hundred pages long for fun. I don’t think DC will ever read as quickly as neurotypical kids, but they read more deeply and remember more since they are going more slowly. Also as others have said, keep up with the audiobooks! |
Anonymous
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My wife had some dyslexia - I don't think severe, but needed treatment as a child. She now reads at least an hour a day, and gets through a book or two a week, from light reads to 1000 page classics. She can't tear through a book as fast as I can, but she tends to remember more.
Just one data point, but often persistence and regular reading will go far. |
Anonymous
| Thanks for sharing this, OP. My kid is one of the Harry Potter in second grade kids. We realized somewhat belatedly in upper elementary that she had been unintentionally making some of her friends feel bad because she was always talking about the books she had read. And occasionally if a friend was reading a book like Harry Potter in 5th grade, DD would mention how long ago she read the book. I think DD was so excited and proud of herself that she didn’t understand the impact of her words. DD struggles in various other ways, including with social cues and sports, and has ADHD, so we have worked with her to understand that this is like when kids are much more talented athletes and she has to work very hard to just be average, and usually she can’t even get to the point of average. All of this is to say, I’m sorry there are kids like my kid and parents like me out there who are not realizing the impact of strong reading on other kids. For one friend in particular, I really wish the mom had said something to me sometime along the way because we could have worked on this earlier. But I get why she didn’t want to say anything — she may not have felt like I’d really understand. |
Anonymous
| yes! Mine has severe dyslexia that the public school didn't remediate so we put them in private school for two years where they got 45 min/day 1:1 remediation 3-4 days a week. Yes, it was expensive but they are doing great in a STEM focused public high school. Sure they have a C in AP English but they have a C in AP English! In third grade, for reference, they were reading on a first grade level and their handwriting looked identical to their sibling's who was in K at the time. |
Anonymous
In fairness, I read the books after earning my doctoral degree. 
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Anonymous
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Yes, DC has mild dyslexia, did intensive remediation, and now reads for pleasure the same books as peers. But it took a bit longer - maybe in 4th grade? And we don’t offer any other entertainment other than reading in our house.
The biggest difference I saw was that DC preferred graphic novels for a lot longer than my other kids. But now DC very happily picks up a regular novel (midddle school) to read. DC still a slow reader, however. I don’t think that will change. The issues we see are with writing and spelling. |
Anonymous
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It depends on who you consider peers! My kid didn’t catch up in elementary or middle school. But he took AP English Lit, which by definition is more advanced than most American high schoolers. He is now in college, which is something over half of Americans never achieve. He reads for his classes, and keeps up with his peers and gets decent grades.
He listens to audiobooks when he reads for pleasure. Reading with his eyes is still work, and so not fun. I’m dyslexic too and by the time I was in 5th grade I read for pleasure. But I’m old, and when I was a kid we didn’t even have TV. There was nothing for me to do after school and on weekends but read. So I read. For good or for ill, this generation has a different experience. |
Anonymous
| I think it also depends on what you mean by "catch up." A family friend in his 80s has dyslexia and so was very unlikely to have gotten the support he needed, but he's a college professor STILL teaching about sustainable farming methods into his 80s! I think it has to do with choosing the right path for you and succeeding in it. |