Failing First Grade: The Emotional Side of Dyslexia
Did you know that 35% of dyslexic children don’t graduate from high school? 70% of the people in prison cannot read? It is speculated that the majority of inmates are dyslexic. Learning to read is essential to the well-being of students, not only being successful contributing adults but in their emotional well-being. Not being able to read hurts children’s self-esteem leading to depression or worse. These facts alone should have the educational system advocating for the well-being of dyslexic students, but instead, this invisible disability goes undetected. How can parents and teachers support their dyslexic children to avoid a path to failure?
Many teachers and parents believe that their children are just lazy. They may have been advanced in their development since birth but cannot perform in the classroom. They might be able to relay their answer verbally but fail on a test. The conclusion is that they are just lazy. According to the author of The Myth of Laziness, by calling them lazy, you are “condemning them as a human being.” “The desire to be productive is universal,” says Dr. Levine, “but that drive can often be frustrated by dysfunctions that obstruct output or productivity.”
In reality, dyslexic children are working much harder than their peers. They are generally more tired at the end of the day because everything requires more cognitive energy, tasks take longer, and nothing comes easily. More errors are likely to be made, forcing them to go back and correct their mistake, thus taking longer on assignments. One solution is to lighten their academic load. Instead of 20 spelling words, have them learn ten keywords. Let them read a little bit shorter books instead of the longer books their peers are reading. Although this sounds like reasonable accommodations, our youngest son wanted nothing to do with a lighter load. He didn't want to be different from his friends since they would notice.
Dyslexic children feel like they stick out in class. Their reading is labored, so having them read out loud without preparing ahead of time is torture to the student. Our son's 4th-grade class gave peer spelling tests. Each student would ask the other to spell from a list. Not only was it challenging for our son to read the words he wasn't familiar with, but his spelling was also so bad that the other student thought he was dumb.
Most people with dyslexia have a higher than average IQ. And dyslexia is more common in gifted children. But if you were to ask a dyslexic student that question, they would say they are dumb. They feel that way since they don't excel in school like their peers. It is frustrating to a student who is bright and capable of getting low grades on tests. Our son would hide his grades from his high-achieving friends. They would get A's, and he would be lucky to get a C with a lot of hard work.
To give them hope, we suggest you use examples of highly successful people who struggled in school. Listen to Stephen Spielberg’s story about his difficulties with academics and the teasing that accompanied it. Other successful dyslexics are Steve Jobs, Magic Johnson, John Lennon, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci and more.
Henry Winkler, an actor in Happy Days, started a series of children’s books, The World's Greatest Underachiever. He captures his struggles with dyslexia as a fun way for children to understand their struggles. In his newest book, Fake Snakes and Weird Wizards, Winkler uses the dyslexic font, which helps dyslexic and non-dyslexic readers to read more easily.
In CJ Corki’s first book in the Can You Find, Did You Know series, we used the dyslexic font to help young readers and to bring dyslexia awareness to parents and teachers. The Marshmallow Mystery is a delicious mystery about missing marshmallows and a group of garden friends tasked with solving the puzzle. If you would like to know more about dyslexia or our new book, join the discussion on October 28, Failing First Grade: Smart Children Struggling with Learning Differences.
