End goal for dyslexia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dyslexia, I have a daughter now 24 . It's a journey of navigating the demands of school and as a parent advocating for the child to be seen for his / her strengths vs difficulties.

To have the difficult conversations r/t ACT/SAT's and long term career planning.

We opted not to go the 4 year college route, decided to focus adulthood on strengths and not continue to focus on what was difficult.

Did chemistry, math , at community college, then went to the beauty industry .

Reading for pleasure will always be a challenge , but, working in a creative field = a happy contented adult who makes more money than me, a masters graduate .

Thank you for sharing. Our kid is incredibly creative so we are trying to open our minds to other career options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The end goal is to be a financially independent adult, OP.

This means going to college, since the income gap between non-college educated adults and college-educated adults keeps widening.

This means having solid reading comprehension skills as well as solid writing skills! College admissions get more competitive every year. You can't just walk into your state U anymore. UMD and UVA both require top GPAs and if you submit a standardized test score, they need to be high.

I cannot overstate the importance of working on this! You need to persuade/bribe/crush your middle schooler's opposition to additional tutoring because she does not realize she's sabotaging herself for life. Explain it and say it's non-negotiable.

I'm not an expert on dyslexia. But my son with several learning disabilities, ADHD and HFA needed to work specifically on reading comprehension and a skill called inferencing (understanding unwritten information from context clues). He had a writing tutor that worked on all aspects of written organization and reading comprehension, but mostly on inferencing, for most of middle school, and then he had ACT test prep in high school, as well as occasional tutoring for some of his AP course work. We have spent a small fortune on this, and it's been worth it: he would never have made all the progress he has without one-on-one tutoring.

Please tell your child that families who can afford it pay for tutors to increase their kids' changes of getting into a good college, even if they have good grades to begin with and no learning disability. In my corner of Bethesda, most students will have a tutor for something at some point, whether they're in private or public!

OP: this poster is a bit dramatic. Yes find a writing tutor but dyslexia will not ultimately get ‘fixed’ to match a neurotypical child’s brain. And that is what is known as genetic diversity. My dyslexic brother in law is CRUSHING it in insurance- surpassing your surgeons in terms of net worth. He says his social skills - developed while grinding his way through high school and one year of a trade were the keys to his ultimate success. There is even a book that lists the numerous dyslexic entrepreneurs called I think, ‘The Gift of Dyslexia’

PP you all replied to.

I never mentioned "good" vs, what not "good" colleges? like someone else who replied to my post.
And I never intimated that dyslexia can be "fixed", PP.

The reason I am so forthright - and perhaps you're all reacting to that - is that my son with severe ADHD/HFA/dyscalculia (same as dyslexia but for math)/low processing speed, is a senior in high school and in the nightmare of college applications. I just want to warn all of you parents of bright neurodivergent kids out there, who think your kids do have the skills to make it in college, that college admissions are brutal. You think any kid with solid grades, decent test scores and a few activities can get to college? Not the colleges that you went to. I'm not being "dramatic" for fun, PP. It's just a bit of a let-down, when your kid has survived so many obstacles, is finally functional enough and has the vision to seek higher education, and then you realize they actually needed to be hyper-functional and have a 4.0 gpa, several AP courses, and several achievements in extra-curriculars, to get to what you thought was a mediocre institution. Perhaps you're seeing your kid struggle now, and you're like "yeah, any college will be fine". I guarantee you that you'll get a little bit more ambitious when your kid grows in confidence and ability. Parents of typical high schoolers are realizing this too. But I think for parents for kids with special needs, it's particularly bitter. It's not like college admissions officers give students a pass if they write about overcoming their disabilities. So gird up for further toil and trouble down the road, is what I mean.

In terms of understanding what college is all about, and wanting to go, I wouldn't worry too much about that from a middle schooler. My own neurotypical middle schooler went through a similar phase. Unlike my intellectual senior with LDs, who wants college to learn more, she wants to go to college to "make more money". Ouch. But I guess, that's also a valid reason?

I am the PP that responded to your post with the reference to “good” colleges. I am sorry to hear about your child’s experience in the college application process.

My child is significantly younger (sixth grader). My child also experienced ASD/ anxiety with dyslexia and dysgraphia. I think my attempted point is consistent with what you wrote.

I am sure many of us here attended highly ranked schools and were in the rat race for college admissions (which as you describe even worse now). Even though my child is probably more intelligent than me in a lot of ways, I know already his options for college will be much more limited (assuming we get to the point we reach that point). I was only trying to say that at least for me, the goal for my child will be finding a fit (which could be in the end a community college, it is hard to know at this point and maybe things will improve).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not convinced that being able to spell correctly is a critical skill. My experience has been that dyslexic adults in the professional workforce can use technology to compensate in most situations. Similarly, unless handwriting is actively interfering with other skills (such as higher level math classes), I'm unconvinced that focusing on remediating handwriting is worth the investment. On the other hand, reading comprehension and the ability to write effectively are much more important.

Respectfully, I suspect you're seeing successful compensation because you are dealing with those who "made it" to the professional workforce. They likely reached some level of proficiency in spelling to get there. A lot of dyslexics remain poor spellers and don't make it to/through college or trade school.

Spelling affects grammar (there/their/they're) and usage even if you know grammar in spoken language. Grammar can also be "too much" for someone who can't spell, so they never learn it.

I didn't even get into the amount of judgment that happens to those who can't spell. I've watched it, and it's heartbreaking.

Agree with the other poster who mentioned spelling being a sign of poor orthographic mapping.

Is that remediated in OG?

Yes, because orthographic mapping requires understanding the grapheme/phoneme correspondences, which are learned in OG.

See https://www.parkerphonics.com/post/sight-words-orthographic-mapping-and-self-teaching
"Orthographic Mapping: a process which involves making explicit the connections between the graphemes in a written word and the phonemes in its pronunciation. Orthographic Mapping automatically creates sight words."

Also https://www.parkerphonics.com/post/the-essential-linnea-ehri

Note, which should become evident if you read the links, the "sight words" referenced in the definition are not the Dolch/Fry lists you memorize. It means words you can read automatically (as an efficient reader) because you did do the work of decoding and encoding at some point.

"If these grapheme-phoneme connections can be made, consciously and explicitly, by a reader just a few times, the word will automatically become a sight word for her – a word that will never need to be decoded, analogized, or predicted again." (Dyslexics might take more than just a few times to do this, but that's what the OG is working on.)

I could write more, but it's said better on the blog anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not convinced that being able to spell correctly is a critical skill. My experience has been that dyslexic adults in the professional workforce can use technology to compensate in most situations. Similarly, unless handwriting is actively interfering with other skills (such as higher level math classes), I'm unconvinced that focusing on remediating handwriting is worth the investment. On the other hand, reading comprehension and the ability to write effectively are much more important.

Respectfully, I suspect you're seeing successful compensation because you are dealing with those who "made it" to the professional workforce. They likely reached some level of proficiency in spelling to get there. A lot of dyslexics remain poor spellers and don't make it to/through college or trade school.

Spelling affects grammar (there/their/they're) and usage even if you know grammar in spoken language. Grammar can also be "too much" for someone who can't spell, so they never learn it.

I didn't even get into the amount of judgment that happens to those who can't spell. I've watched it, and it's heartbreaking.

Agree with the other poster who mentioned spelling being a sign of poor orthographic mapping.

Is that remediated in OG?

Yes, because orthographic mapping requires understanding the grapheme/phoneme correspondences, which are learned in OG.

See https://www.parkerphonics.com/post/sight-words-orthographic-mapping-and-self-teaching
"Orthographic Mapping: a process which involves making explicit the connections between the graphemes in a written word and the phonemes in its pronunciation. Orthographic Mapping automatically creates sight words."

Also https://www.parkerphonics.com/post/the-essential-linnea-ehri

Note, which should become evident if you read the links, the "sight words" referenced in the definition are not the Dolch/Fry lists you memorize. It means words you can read automatically (as an efficient reader) because you did do the work of decoding and encoding at some point.

"If these grapheme-phoneme connections can be made, consciously and explicitly, by a reader just a few times, the word will automatically become a sight word for her – a word that will never need to be decoded, analogized, or predicted again." (Dyslexics might take more than just a few times to do this, but that's what the OG is working on.)

I could write more, but it's said better on the blog anyway.

Thank you. This is very helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would spend the next 6 years with a writing tutor to help you child learn to formulate a good paper.

In college, mostly, my kids needed help with papers. They were excellent at projects and presentations which I joke is because they had an accommodation to do tests orally.

My kids feel that typing helps spelling since the computer spell checks. Voice to text also was very helpful.

I remember middle school just being the tipping point where they could not take any more OG.

YES, 100% YES!!!

Wilson is extremely boring and repetitive. It is best used on the younger kids. At this point, let the kid spread their wings finding some good books and focus on the big picture. Many private schools use spelling lists (20 words a week) and I found those better at this age than an explicit learning program like Wilson, if he is really, really lost with spelling. They will go much faster because of his exposure to Wilson.. Think of it as you built the foundations, it's time to start using all that. Even if your school does not offer it (FCPS never did), you can still download a program, maybe along with some grammar fundamentals, which are also not taught in public school, to help with the mechanics. But spend most of your time encouraging this kid to write.

Computers are great because he can develop a writing plan and transform it into an essay in-place, without a "neat copy" post editing. Get an accommodation for a spellchecker and make sure he understands how to use it. Again, he did the hard work, give him a high-five, it's time to soar.