How do people afford dyslexia?

[Anonymous]

I think about this daily. My DC needs a SN school for dyslexia. We’ve been doing intensive 4x a week tutoring for over a year. In order to afford the SN school we are borrowing from my parents and our other kids have to sacrifice as well (they can do less activities, etc). Our entire family life is changing so that we can ensure our dyslexic child gets the right support. It is exhausting, it is so expensive, and yet I don’t see another way. Because poster above was right: the vast majority in prison have learning disabilities. I cannot let that happen to my child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much does it cost to get certified as a OG tutor? If I was starting in early elementary or had more than 1 kid that needed help, I’d at least do the math to figure out if there was a positive ROI there.

Only like $1000, last I heard, but that was before inflation. If you’re starting in early elementary, it’s probably worth it, but only if your kid is willing to work with you. Some kids are very resistant to working with a parent.

[Anonymous]

I think it's hard for people to pick up that a kid is dyslexic because there's an assumption it's something that it's not. DH likely has it and grew up with a mom who was a teacher and never noticed it. He felt stupid all through attending very well-respected schools because he could never really keep up. He has it mildly enough that he could figure out strategies that made it seem like he was getting it - reading one thing and making an interesting point about it so it was clear he did the work, even though he never made it through reading it all, etc.

No one noticed it in our kid either, and we were regularly told he would likely catch up, until suddenly one day it was like an emergency and we were made to feel terrible parents for not addressing it earlier (although we had been asking about it!). There was always an assumption we just weren't really interested in teaching him or didn't have the capacity or something (?). If we got that as middle-class white people with advanced degrees, I can't even imagine the judgment a low-income POC would likely get.

I don't understand why schools can't just use approaches that would help everyone. We're moving in that direction but aren't there yet. Now we are told our kid needs to go through several rounds of targeted intervention to see if he's "just behind" before the school will consider an IEP. Also told that "you might actually get better services without the IEP," which is ludicrous and offensive. We finally found a great outside tutor (after wasting time on a bad one for six months), but it's a lot for an elementary kid to go to school all day and then go to a tutor, especially when school is extra hard for a kid with dyslexia. The cost of tutoring makes me think maybe we should just spend the money on a dyslexia school. It's infuriating that all kids can't get good educations, regardless of disability and income.

[Anonymous]

Louis Morton is a great example https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/12/19/milloy-goodbye-strivers-survivors-of-dc/

The answer is that most poor dyslexic kids don't ever become competent readers. And by the way, most parents don't even find out their kids are dyslexic, because even if their kid is in pull-out for reading, the teachers don't call it dyslexia. Poor kids who read less well than other kids just believe they are stupid.

I second the other parents who say they wish all schools would teach reading in a way that explicitly teaches the mechanics of reading. I also wish the schools would do more on parts of speech... my 6th grader with dyslexia has great trouble with figuring out words' meaning from context, and part of that is the ignorance of parts of speech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Low-income kids don't suffer quite as much as middle-class kids, though. Almost all low-income kids have Medicaid which provides PT, OT, speech therapy, etc. Are those services provided the best available? No, but it is something.

What really hurts the low-income kids is not having support at home. I used to work in a VA school system with a large population of low-income families. The kids who thrived the most were those who had supportive parents to also go over therapies with the kids at home and do extra work.

It's pathetic that not all kids are eligible for Medicaid in the US. Private insurance that so many middle-class moms and dads have through their jobs either covers no extra services or very few sessions, like under 10.

what does any of that have to do with dyslexia, which was the topic at hand?

[Anonymous]

The VA Acceleration Grant Governor Youngkin approved last year was a huge help financially for our family. We were able to pay for severa months of OG tutoring. I wish there was another grant.

[Anonymous]

We have been asking our child's teachers for years and we have been assured it "is just his ADHD inattention." We finally challenged it because he is in his last year of elementary school and his progress at a minimum. So we paid the big bucks for private testing only to find out it is his ADHD PLUS dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. The school just looked at us and said, "Huh?" My heart breaks for anyone who cannot pay for private evals and has to depend on the public school system. It is unfair for so many kids and their families.

[Anonymous]

I think about this all the time, too. I remember reading somewhere on this forum about an advocacy organization... I want to file it under my 5th career, when the load of overseeing some of this special ed stuff is done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think about this all the time, too. I remember reading somewhere on this forum about an advocacy organization... I want to file it under my 5th career, when the load of overseeing some of this special ed stuff is done.

Decoding Dyslexia, The Reading League, or Int'l Dyslexia Association:

VA: https://www.decodingdyslexiavirginia.org, https://va.thereadingleague.org, https://va.dyslexiaida.org

MD: https://www.decodingdyslexiamd.org, https://md.thereadingleague.org, https://md.dyslexiaida.org

DC: https://www.decodingdyslexiadc.org, https://dc.thereadingleague.org, https://dc.dyslexiaida.org

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Imagine a place where -
All children were screened for dyslexia?
All reading instruction was "OG" (or another approach that supported students with dyslexia)

All children would benefit from this approach - not just students with Dyslexia. The costs to train teachers would offset the down stream costs.

But no - the money goes to those who can lobby the strongest. [I am looking at you Reading Recovery].
It is criminal as they knew that the approach they were using was not supporting children.

This. One million percent.

- Former Reading Specialist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine a place where -
All children were screened for dyslexia?
All reading instruction was "OG" (or another approach that supported students with dyslexia)

All children would benefit from this approach - not just students with Dyslexia. The costs to train teachers would offset the down stream costs.

But no - the money goes to those who can lobby the strongest. [I am looking at you Reading Recovery].
It is criminal as they knew that the approach they were using was not supporting children.

This. One million percent.

- Former Reading Specialist

It's not viable in a public school where class sizes approach 30. OG relies on 1 on 1 or extremely small group instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine a place where -
All children were screened for dyslexia?
All reading instruction was "OG" (or another approach that supported students with dyslexia)

All children would benefit from this approach - not just students with Dyslexia. The costs to train teachers would offset the down stream costs.

But no - the money goes to those who can lobby the strongest. [I am looking at you Reading Recovery].
It is criminal as they knew that the approach they were using was not supporting children.

This. One million percent.

- Former Reading Specialist

It's not viable in a public school where class sizes approach 30. OG relies on 1 on 1 or extremely small group instruction.

So if teaching kids to read isn’t a viable option, then what is the point of school systems. Truly, it seems like the bare minimum that should be accomplished in schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine a place where -
All children were screened for dyslexia?
All reading instruction was "OG" (or another approach that supported students with dyslexia)

All children would benefit from this approach - not just students with Dyslexia. The costs to train teachers would offset the down stream costs.

But no - the money goes to those who can lobby the strongest. [I am looking at you Reading Recovery].
It is criminal as they knew that the approach they were using was not supporting children.

This. One million percent.

- Former Reading Specialist

It's not viable in a public school where class sizes approach 30. OG relies on 1 on 1 or extremely small group instruction.

So if teaching kids to read isn’t a viable option, then what is the point of school systems. Truly, it seems like the bare minimum that should be accomplished in schools.

I'm a teacher. All schools need to screen for dyslexia and provide 1:1 and or 1:small group support to ensure all kids learn to read. The federal government needs to stop spending money on less important priorities and pony up to recruit, train and hire reading specialists trained to help students with dyslexia. It's my opinion that the entire education system needs to change in radical ways. I hope the teacher shortage avalanche ends up doing some good as the country has to wrestle with education as a whole.

To the person who suggested that people who get trained to help students with dyslexia sometimes take a pro-bono kid. This is my plan. I wouldn't do it for free, but I plan on saving one spot for one kid at a reduced rate. I had a wonderful trauma therapist who saw me for years at a reduced rate because my family could not afford her rate. I want to help someone like she helped me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 5th grader was just diagnosed with dyslexia. We just paid $5k for the testing and just set up a reading tutoring program 4x a week that will add up to $12k for the school year. Her public school can help with supports but can’t offer any kind of OG tutoring, I imagine that’s the norm.

Luckily we can swing this, but how do low income people afford this?

Pretty sure the public school is required to provide supports

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 5th grader was just diagnosed with dyslexia. We just paid $5k for the testing and just set up a reading tutoring program 4x a week that will add up to $12k for the school year. Her public school can help with supports but can’t offer any kind of OG tutoring, I imagine that’s the norm.

Luckily we can swing this, but how do low income people afford this?

Pretty sure the public school is required to provide supports

I love the delusion in these types of comments 😂😂