Failing First Grade: Dyslexia Isn’t Something You Outgrow

Teachers often say your child will outgrow some of their issues with reading, writing, or arithmetic.  School administrators will require testing every five years to validate the need for accommodations.  In reality, students learn to compensate for their dyslexia, but they never outgrow it.  I call it the invisible disability.  It may seem that your child is performing well in school at the beginning of the year resulting in the "need" for accommodations being overlooked.  Maybe extra time on tests is seen as unnecessary or considered an advantage for that student.  If your child has issues in first grade, they will continue through college and into adulthood.

As a first-grader, a dyslexic student might have the accommodation of not being required to read out loud unless they have a chance to prepare for it.  They would need to practice reading the passage to see if there are any unknown words.  In college, the same accommodation should be allowed to continue.  Our youngest son attended a liberal arts university.  His freshman English teacher required each student to read a passage randomly.  When she called on him, he said he would pass on reading.  After class, the teacher pulled him aside to ask why.  He explained he is not comfortable reading random passages since he would be concerned he would sound like a first-grader.  He went on to explain that he has dyslexia.  She asked for his accommodations paperwork which he did not have the first week of school.  The college required him to get retested since it was more than five years since the last assessment showed the learning difference.  Our son had the accommodation not to read aloud since first grade, but the perception was that he should have grown out of it by college.  Would you expect a blind person to read from a typical book or someone in a wheelchair to be able to walk?  Why is dyslexia not looked at in the same way?

Reading aloud is difficult in first grade and continues through college for a person with dyslexia.

Being exempt from learning another language has been our boys' accommodation since they were first assessed with dyslexia in first grade as well.  When we switched to a private elementary school, the curriculum included French.  Since it was "conversational" at this point, they muddled through it.  We moved to a different city in middle school, and the curriculum not only had French but also required Latin.  At this point, it was mandatory to read and write in foreign languages.  No matter how hard I pressed as a concerned parent, they stood by their language obligations until I pulled them into the public school for high school.  At this point, the discussion centered around college preparation.  According to the counselors, the boys would need two years of a language to be considered for any college.  It was evident that college admissions would not take our paperwork about a known disability. Fortunately, the high school offered sign language as an option.  Even though counselors said many colleges would not accept sign language instead of Spanish, French, Latin, or other languages, they did.  But once our boys were accepted into college, there still was a language requirement.  Again they did not accept the documented learning disability.  Either take a language or a crazy hard alternative meant to "punish" those opting out of a language.   

Having extra time is an accommodation necessary for people with dyslexia to do well on tests.  It is a proven fact that people without dyslexia do not do any better when given extra time.  To a dyslexic student, it evens the playing field.  Our son has been offered extra time for exams in first grade through high school.  However, when he requested extra time on the ACT, we jumped through hoops to get the accommodation.  Even though he met the requirements, he was denied.  He muddled through to get a respectable score to qualify him for college and the NCAA constraints for playing soccer.  His next barrier was graduate school and taking the GMAT.  His preferred college required a minimum test score with no extra time allowed and no waiver for his disability.  This time, studying for the test decreased the score instead of increasing it.  Admissions saw the GMAT score as an absolute measure for success in getting an MBA.  He was denied admissions for the full-time program but accepted into the part-time program.  He graduated with a 3.98 GPA, proving that the GMAT should not have been the barrier for entrance, especially when extra time on the test was again denied.

Having a note taker is a needed accommodation for a dyslexic student.  Our son required this assistance in grade school and high school, but it didn't stop there.  When he went to college, the learning disability department put the burden back on the student for arranging any accommodations.  The responsibility entailed talking to the teacher after the first class to ask for a notetaker, extra time on tests, etc.  The teacher would then ask my son to find a notetaker to meet that part of the requirements.  The process was an embarrassing event since other students were around and they didn't understand dyslexia.  He, in turn, didn't ask for the accommodations.   It wasn’t until his junior year that he finally got things sorted out, which caused his grades to suffer.

Cursive is difficult for a dyslexic person to read.

Baby boomers make fun of millennials for not knowing how to read cursive.  However, our boys were taught cursive in third grade, but they cannot read it.  The loopier it is, the more difficult.  The reading challenge also applies to the font type.  The San Serif family of fonts, for example, are more brutal to read.  In 2011, a new font was developed to help people with dyslexia called Open Dyslexic.  American Abelardo Gonzalez created the font and provided it for free, making it widely available as an accommodation.  Our oldest son uses it in his browser default.  The letters are "weighted" to anchor them so they won't bounce all over the page.  We used the dyslexic font in our book, The Marshmallow Mystery, to help dyslexic children and bring awareness about dyslexia.

Being dyslexic isn't something children outgrow.  It may be identified in first grade but will continue through college and beyond.

“…dyslexia is a lifelong condition and has a significant impact on a person's day-to-day life; it meets the criteria of a disability and is covered by The Equality Act 2010.”

Although it is a misunderstood disability, the basic accommodations of being exempt from reading aloud, languages, extra time on tests, a notetaker, and the Open Dyslexic font, will be necessary for lifelong learning.  Remember, dyslexia runs in families.  If a family member has dyslexia, subsequent generations are at risk.  To find out more, go to our dyslexia resource page.