“No, I don’t read, I’m dyslexic.”
“Read? I can’t, I’m dyslexic.”
“I’m dyslexic so I don’t read.”
After working with school age children in various capacities for four years I have lost count of the number of children who have given me a variation of the above to explain their complete disinterest in books, reading and education. When Peter Hitchens recently repeated his understanding of dyslexia, namely that there is not clear evidence it exists, he obviously does not need my support, but I wish to lend it nevertheless. As one who derives deep and abiding pleasure from reading, it breaks my heart that so many children are denied its joys, thanks in part to the application of a label that, like Hitchens, I find fraught with uncertainty.
Note here, Hitchens does not suggest that certain children struggle to read, but that their struggle is more related to teaching methods rather than faulty neurology. I would like to add two additional explanations, one following from the other. First, the labelling of a child as dyslexic ensures that they consciously or unconsciously stop attempting to learn to read. Just as when I heard my ballet teacher tell Mum I had an, “elephantine gait” I rather gave up trying to dance. Secondly, a conscious or unconscious reading habit is then not formed. Why dance if you can’t dance? Why read if you can’t read?
The current thinking is such that once the dyslexic diagnosis has been made, the correct reading materials and support can be given (books in large fonts and a range of coloured films applied to text to apparently make the text stop jumping around). A bit like learning to dance in calipers, reading becomes a laborious chore not a pleasure.
“But why do some children find learning to read hard – there must be something wrong with them?” asks my husband peering over a copy of our son’s Phoenix comic. “Because learning to read is hard,” I explain slowly, “Goodness me have you forgotten how hard it was to get the boys to read… the boredom of Peter and Jane and Janet and John that Mum got down from the attic, and those awful Biff and Chip books that school provided?” My husband gave a visible shudder of memory. If you think those books are dull, just wait until you see the dyslexic offering. And I’ve never understood the vogue for teaching reading via graphic novels – the fonts really are too complicated and jumbled to get a handle on.
It is very unusual however that any dyslexic child is fully unable to read – a certain level of literacy is gained from the captions on TikTok and Insta, and most primaries do a good job of the whole phonic business. Full-illiteracy, dyslexic or not, is mercifully rare. What I think is interpreted to mean dyslexia today is an inability of a child to easily and enjoyably read long swathes of text. There is something intimidating about those great chunks of words, in a way that Victorian copies of the Times look impenetrable to me. And this is the second point that is relevant to the dyslexia issue: in addition to the application of synthetic phonics, what is required to really make the reader read with ease is, drum roll: persistent and regular reading of good books, initially out loud and then silently. It is this habit that is just as important as the initial teaching of ‘cat’, ‘mat’, ‘sat’ etc. Daily reading out loud in class and at home. Every day. Good books that have great plots that eventually the child will want to read on his or her own. And for the teachers and parents this relentless commitment to reading can appear to be a fruitless endeavour because the child is dyslexic and therefore can’t read. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that.
While I cannot claim to have turned any dyslexics into enthusiastic readers, I have got them reading more than they realised they could. I always pretend I’ve forgotten the coloured filter and initially use a ruler to help break up the block of text, then my finger, then their finger, then just out loud and then in their heads. The simple act of my saying to them “You are a terrific reader” always spurs them on to do more reading. I am always delighted with their surprise when they realise they can actually read fluently. My second tip is to read good books to them, classics with nice characters and a plot that rattles along well: The Animals of Farthing Wood is reliably good for younger teenage girls and boys, and Charlie Higson’s peerless Enemy series for teenage boys and abridged classics like Heidi and The Secret Garden for girls.
And on that note, I am going to curl up with a good book…
Joanna Gray is a writer and confidence mentor.
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A picture’s worth a thousand words – but labels add value (financially) as well. You can even buy a “dyslexic dictionary” from a well known online trading firm!
I read Peter’s article and cheered.
Thank you for your observations here.
But you have to remember that getting your child labelled puts you and them on the path to lifelong benefits.
No benefits for a child who’s dyslexic.
Same goes for any number of labels in life later fulfilled through agency of prophecy.
Baron Munchausen would be intrigued.
My son is dyslexic. He can read just fine, it’s writing he dislikes with a passion but boy can he ride his bike.
Same with my (now adult) son.
My adult allegedly-dyslexic son is now a primary school teacher in Spain and happy and successful in that career. He wasn’t ‘diagnosed’ with dyslexia until he was in his last year of school and by then had developed coping mechanisms. He read books on a variety of subjects and still does. His spelling was ‘wobbly’ which was how we described it and he took that in his stride. He’s very understanding of children who struggle with reading and agrees that dyslexia is over-diagnosed.
Joanna Grey talks about ‘good books’. The ones I was subjected to at school were boring and with the exception of Day of the triffids’ it was like trying to read tea-leaves. However as a child I was given comics and taken to the library each week. This nurtured my love of reading which I have until this day.
So called ‘experts’ in reading trot out the same old boring works of shakespeare, charles dickens etc. Does it really matter what kids read so long as it contains the written word and has a story line that is exciting to them?
I am teaching English to a 16 year old girl – it is her second language and we are reading the treehouse stories which I also find exciting – the authors have a very vivid imagination.
To my mind it doesn’t matter what a kid reads as long as they read. Without being able to read in whatever language you have you will be a lost soul in this world. JK Rowling has done a wonderful service to encourage literacy.
Part of the problem with schools teaching these books is that it’s never about the stories and characters and enjoyment. Jane Eyre was my all-time favourite book as a child … until we did it at school. I’ve never been able to read it the same way since, and I’m 40 now. I’m so glad we never covered any Dickens, because the same thing would have happened: I probably wouldn’t laugh and cry and recognise myself and others and be unable to stop turning the pages, and that would be a tragedy.
You are correct. I can’t abide Jane Austen, Dickens and Burns (I’m Scottish and was quite put off his poetry, some of which is just doggerel). We studied these and other ‘good’ writers at school and I disliked a lot of them. I read a lot of books regularly but of my own choice.
Yes, we did Shakespeare to death when I was at school, weeks and weeks hyper-analysing the same play over and over again. Totally put me off! There’s a lot of snobbery about books amongst teachers and academics, like you say best ignored!
Moonfleet by J. Meade Faulkner takes a lot of beating and I’m certain would help any potential dyslexic enormously!
I learned to read by sitting on my mother’s lap as she read Beatrix Potter and Winnie the Pooh to me, her finger following the text. By the time I went to school at the age of four, I had basic reading skills. I have no recollection of any effort being required to acquire them. This may have been a mixed blessing, as I tended to assume that all learning should come with similar ease. When it came to calculus, I floundered, and never mastered it.
As for dyslexia, I suspect the truth is that it does afflict a tiny proportion of the population, who are greatly outnumbered by those who lay claim to it in order to avail themselves of the many benefits it can bring.
This was exactly my experience. I only have one memory of asking my parents what a word was (it was ‘giant’), presumably because I learned all that before the age of remembering. Here in the Netherlands children aren’t expected to learn to read till the age of seven or eight, which I think is both sad for the lost years of exploring new worlds and unfortunate for the children who learn more slowly and get left behind.
Just william and then Biggles.
Beautifully non pc (these days) Famous Five and Secret Seven books were my favourite as a child coming late to reading – I could literally ‘see’ the locations in my imagination as I read, and that joy has never left me. Sometimes I watch a film, and find it disappointing, as it’s based on a book I’ve already imagined in my head through reading…
A non argument. Anyone who tells anyone else being dyslexic means you can’t read is a retard.
Having dyslexia means you perceive, process and handle information differently
It exists because you can accurately predict the issues that will arise as a pupil progresses in their learning. The basis of scientific theory verification.
(Hence climate change is a crock, because it makes so many false predictions).
My son was memorising his reading because he couldn’t read a word aged six.
We got him tested. Got him the correct learning approach. He read history at university.
The Adventure series by Willard Price could be a good option to get children reading. They’ve got adventures, world travel, wild animals, young people being trusted and given responsibility, independence from adult supervision… They may possibly be more interesting to boys, but I was a girl in the ’80s and ’90s and I loved them.
Saying that a child has dyslexia rather than is dyslexic is a start: it is easier to stop having something than being which is a useful way to think of the issue.
I suspect it is very much to do with teaching methods and finding the engaging and interesting books makes all the difference. My son loved the Griffin Pirate stories by Shelia K McCullagh (now much sort after and very expensive on Abebooks).
Also McCullagh’s Puddle Lane Ladybird books.
I agree. My eldest (adult) son is very bright, but has dyslexic tendencies (it runs in his father’s family who showed the same tendencies).
I recognised it when he was about 6 but never said anything and didn’t try to get him labelled as “special needs.” Instead, I supported him and encouraged his entrepreneurial activities. He now has a very decent, well paid job managing a team of around 80.
If you label a child, they accept the label. I labelled my son as “clever, ambitious, adaptable, entrepreneurial” …. and that’s exactly what he became.
Well done him. I have a son who has done well too – see my other comment.
The parents of one of my son’s friends spent much time and effort getting the boy diagnosed as dyslexic so that he could go to a prestigious private school with a special unit for dyslexics. Everything he does in life is seen through the lens of dyslexia. If he does well it’s despite his dyslexia, if he doesn’t it’s because of his dyslexia. He’s now working in the family business but he’s just not very bright really…
Some children/adults just aren’t as interested in academics and reading. It’s not what they’re made to do. They may well go on to do amazing practical things, if schools don’t insist on treating them all as robots who should be doing the same things at the same time and to the same standard, so that half the class begin to think if themselves as stupid.
As a home educating parent I have heard countless tales of children refusing to read at the “required” age before getting the hang of it and becoming an avid reader at 11, 12, or even older. Because they weren’t at school they weren’t given the idea that they were incapable or behind everyone else (not that I’m saying their parents didn’t worry about them!) and could therefore pick it up when they were ready.
As with all these syndromes and disorders I’m sure there are a small number of children who genuinely struggle, but a lot of it is caused by the narrow and fixed expectations of schooling and what children “should” be able to do by a certain age. When I was a child those children might have been labelled as naughty or disruptive or even stupid, but often their talents just lie in other places!
Exactly – Pink Floyd had it right about formal education, it’s a machine
Unfortunately Hitchens is wrong on this topic although he has consistently made much of it. He is confusing hard science with human science, and excuses with reasons. He takes his skepticism too far . Yes there is much to critique about current over diagnosis using it as an excuse, but leaving open the suggestion that we are all equal and the same in the way we learn is nuts. Try harder Peter.
A person who has learned to read has developed a long attention span that can then be used in any other task.
Look at the last report of the American Inspector General Afghan Reconstruction to see what problems the Americans had training Afghan men and women most of whom were largely illiterate.
Dyslexics have rome fnu!
Although this has gotten better over time, there are certain combinations of letters I can only tell apart with a lot of difficulty and sometimes, I’ll spend years spelling something how I read it despite that’s wrong. Recent English examples would be ultimately which I always read as ultimatively and minuscule where it was miniscule. A former example which caused me to get ridiculed quite bit (which is why I’ll never forget it) was the Turkish military title müsalem which I read as müsliam¹.
I’ve always been an avid reader.
If children aren’t labelled as dyslectic when they have this kind of problem, they’ll end up being labelled as stupid or imbeciles which is not an improvement.
¹ Even more horrible: Müteßellim. I’ve only decoded that into an actual word instead of an unparseable sequence of graphemes known to me about 15 years ago and I’m not certain that it’s spelled correctly.
I think one of the problems is that people leave it too late to teach children to read. By the time they arrive in primary school, the sort of books that they could use to learn to read, are boring to them.
Parents need to read with their children, and basically teach them to read, from about the age of 3. Mr Men books, or Dr Seuss, are exciting for them at that age.
Read with them before bed. Run your finger along the line as you read, so they get the idea that you are reading the squiggles on the page, not the pictures. Pick a common word like “the” or “and”, and let them read that one word every time you hit it on the page. So when you hit the word, keep your finger pointing to it, and look at them expectantly, waiting for them to say the word.
It’s a great game, and before you know it, they start to understand how reading works. Then start with phonics, showing them how longer words are broken down by the sounds the letters make.
Too many journalists blame lack of reading on schools. In reality, parents need to pick this up.
The last word on this should go to Tywin Lannister.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAZqBdVAMzw