My husband wasn't diagnosed as a child, but it's very evident to me that he has some kind of reading disability that the chaotic NYC public schools of the 70's didn't identify. He told me he was functionally illiterate till he was 17 and became interested in science fiction. He is much, much better today than when I met him, but I'm not sure he reads passively, at least under stress, even though he reads a lot. So, I agree with pp's that it may be a lifelong process. Good luck!

I am dyslexic, and from my reading you'd never know it - English Lit major, obsessive, fast reader. Many of the other deficits remain though, including spelling and arithmetic. My DC is dyslexic, too, and with huge support is reading at grade level. His reading specialist says that while DC is making great progress this isn't going to be "over" any time during elementary school.

OP, is she getting 1-1 intervention or a small group pull-out? What kind of program is she using? Three years is typical for 1-1, three to four times per week, with a skilled practitioner and an excellent program. Some kids will take much longer.

My sister never overcame her dyslexia. But she did learn to cope with it. She's a physician now.

I have a dear friend who has serious problems with dyslexia. She reads virtually nothing, but listens to anything and everything she can get her hands on - books, magazines, etc. She has a phd in physics and is brilliant. But she hates to read printed material. So, she hasn't overcome it by your definition, but her life is successful by any measure, and not hampered in any way.

She will always be dyslexic. That's not going to stop.

It sounds like your daughter is doing well -- one grade behind is not horrible.

Our daughter is dyslexic and she's in 4th grade too. She's about a year behind what the standard is, but there's a wide range of skill level in reading. I think if you have concerns you should talk with her teacher and her special ed teacher. She has an IEP, right?

It depends - some times never, but each person adapts and creates strategies. I went to grad school with a couple of very smart people who had to use audio programs to read their books to them to study, but otherwise excelled.

It depends on the child. My DC scored in the 1st through 5th percentiles and now scores in the 25th for some things (decoding but not rate)- which means he in the low average range. His main asset in reading is his comprehension and backgound knowledge. He will never read fluently, but he can read a sports column. He is in 10th grade. He had a daily pullout in school from 2nd grade through 6th and took the special ed reading class in 7th and 8th. We also had him go to a tutor 2-3 times a week from 2nd through 7th grade. We read to him at night and he listened to audio books. We still read to him at night and he still listens to audio books. He completed Wilson in 6th grade and learned LANGUAGE! in 7th and REWARDS in 8th. Along the way we did some Read Naturally, but only after he had reached a point where he wasn't memorizing the text. He has all of his assessments read to him (including the SOLs and has the PSAT next week). He has audio text books and text to speech software for PDFs and word documents. We can scan any handout into a PDF.

For those of you with kids with dyslexia, do they overcome it at some point? How long does the tutoring take to make them truly functional readers?

I was first taught that this was about a three year process, but we are well past that now. Is it possible that school tutoring services are not aggressive enough? She is doing three hours a week of pullout in fourth grade. She started in K. She is still a year behind her class in reading.