Meeting the Needs of Our Dyslexic Students

Blog Post by PTAC Member, Hollie Woodard

I love words. In my home where most people decorate with family photos and tschotskes from Home Goods, I decorate with words. Words like:

Today is a brand new day
Aspire for more
Take chances
Be amazing

I choose words that inspire me to be grateful, motivated, and encouraged to live my best life. With an innate love and appreciation of language, it’s no surprise that I’m an English teacher and have dedicated my life to teach others to appreciate words as much as I do. Either spoken, written, or read, my life is enriched and made better by words.  

Unfortunately, my son doesn’t have the same beautiful relationship with words. He is a diagnosed dyslexic, and his relationship with words has been traumatic and the source of the greatest pain of his young teenage life. As the most common learning disability, dyslexia robs one in five students (yes...read that again...one in five) from having a healthy relationship with language. They know, probably more than the four in five non dyslexics, that, yes, words have power.

The Federal Government amplified this sentiment when they recently passed the bipartisan prison reform bill, The First Step Act. This Act includes funding for dyslexia remediation, as one report showed that 48% of inmates in a Texas federal prison were dyslexic. Furthermore, addiction treatment facilities have adopted the term Dual Diagnosis referring to dyslexic addicts and included dyslexia remediation as part of their treatment practices when a report showed that 40% of those in active treatment facilities were dyslexic.

In addition to criminal behavior and addiction, dyslexics are vulnerable to suicide. At nine years old, I was told by my son’s doctor that he was high risk for suicide, and she further articulated that dyslexics whose needs are not met in school are three times more likely than their nondisabled peers to engage in high risk behavior like suicide, addiction, and violent crimes.

Since dyslexic students do not have access to the language that drives learning, school no longer serves as a safe place for self discovery, but, instead, it becomes a place of inadequacy, humiliation, and frustration. Constant exposure to these emotional traumas are equitable to abuse and impact children in the same way. However, research shows that if their needs are met, these negative experiences are eradicated and their risk factors return to normal.

Although the dangers of dyslexia are horrific, dyslexia is an educational anomaly that is either misunderstood or completely ignored by teachers and educational decision makers.  When my son was diagnosed, I was a tenured teacher in a high achieving district with a Master’s Degree in Education. Sadly, not once during my undergraduate, graduate, or induction program did I take a class on dyslexia or even participate in a discussion about this common learning disability which is much like a doctor going through med school without learning anything about the common cold.

Motivated by my son’s disability, I began conducting independent research and learned that dyslexia is actually less of a learning disability and more of a learning allergy.  Like the mother of a child with an egg allergy in search of an eggless cake recipe, teachers and educational decision makers can find programs that teach dyslexics to read. It’s not that dyslexics can’t read, they just can’t read the way most schools choose to teach reading. It’s been known since the 1930’s that dyslexics can learn to read from a multi-sensory direct explicit instruction approach based on the research of Dr. Orton and Dr. Gillingham. In fact, research has proven that all students can learn to read from this type of instruction which makes one wonder why this approach isn’t being used in every school.

The most tragic irony is that most teachers go into education to make the world a better place. Every single teacher and educational decision maker I know would demand change if they understood how directly connected dyslexia is to the ills of our society.   

So, with all the power of my words I say to my colleagues:

Today is a brand new day... to learn as much as you can about the most common learning disability, dyslexia.

Aspire for more... for our most vulnerable students.

Take chances… by advocating for change within your school and community.

In doing so, you will... be amazing.