A love to learn

It's hard to teach a child to love to learn, especially if that child has a learning disability. My son and I have had a difficult time with education because he is dyslexic. I can't just give him a textbook to read and test him afterward. The words on the page are going to distort right in front of his eyes and create a lot of confusion. He begins to get headaches and then the emotional overload begins. At that point, it is no longer possible to teach him anything.

After years of researching what I can do to help him, I did learn a few simple techniques to help the overall process of learning. I try to provide a more visual educational experience for him, like providing videos, computer games and programs, maps, etc. We save the reading practice JUST for reading and not for other subjects that can be learned in another way. Some people would say I'm just being soft on him and hurting him in the long run because he's not getting enough practice reading, but I don't agree.

I am nearing the end of a book called Overcoming Dyslexia that made me feel better about this decision. While the author, Sally Shaywitz, M.D., says that reading practice is essential, she also says that carefully and thoroughly going over assignments by reading them to him and providing a multi-sensory education (like using videos or hands-on experiments) help drive information home.

What she said was most helpful was having him read out loud and to give him books that are a little under his skill level so he can feel good about having accomplished the task.


She introduces the book with the history of dyslexia — the earliest documented cases were in the late 1800s. Then she discusses the work she has been doing more a couple of decades now. She had taken scans of the brains of non-dyslexic and dyslexic people as they were reading to see the differences.

It turns out that non-dyslexic people begin the reading process early in life with decoding and sounding out (that takes part in the front part of the brain). The more practice they get, the more they build up a memory bank of words that they pull from the back of the left side of the brain.

Dyslexic people continue to struggle with the decoding and sounding out of words even later in life and never properly collect a memory bank of words. That is why they they struggle over words that seem to simple to average people: it's like they've never encountered them before.

Dr. Shaywitz did many studies and created a congressional report to help create better programs that can be used in schools to help struggling readers. She offers lots of advice, tips, tools and programs that will help. She gave me lots of ideas that I will incorporate in my son's studies.

However, there were a couple of things I didn't like. First of all, she's a doctor at Yale and the language of the book is really up there. It can be hard to make it through certain sections without having to read them again and look up some of the technical terms. She states that her intended audience is parents and K-12 teachers, but the language is geared more toward scholars and not regular people.

Secondly, she kept insisting that parents not try to teach their children on their own. As a homeschooler, it upset me. However, I am trying to keep in mind that she is talking about special education and not simply regular education. That is a subject that requires someone who has studied the topic in depth and really knows how to help learning disabled children.

In the end, I was able to take much of her advice and use it with my son with some amazing results. He has been practicing reading out loud every day and the improvement in his reading and spelling is pretty dramatic.

I can't list everything here, because the book is packed with a lot of information. However, I will give you some tips I gained along with the practicing reading out loud.

• Make sure your child knows how to separate words into syllables as well as phonemes. Phonemes are the sounds that letters and letter combinations make. For example, the word cat has three phonemes: /k/ /a/ /t/. Letter combinations like -ow- create only one phoneme because you only hear one sound. Dr. Shaywitz suggested a game in which you have your child use concrete objects such as pennies or blocks to indicate the sounds they hear (the phonemes) in a word. For example, for the word zoo, a child would push one penny up for the sound /z/ and another for the /oo/ sound.

• Despite all the naysayers who suggest I pamper my child too much, the good doctor says I do need to read to my child. She gave one case study where the child would sit with a teacher before going home and she would go over all of his assignments, reading them to him and discussing what he needs to do. That is so he doesn't get frustrated and lose hope. Building self-esteem is extremely important.

Also, along the same lines of reading to him, I need to just read for pleasure. Allow him to follow along with me as I run my finger along the bottom of the text I am reading. This helps him in a couple of ways. First, he sees the word and hears how it is supposed to be pronounced, and if I make a mistake he gets to see me correct myself and knows that it is not the end of the world.

• Dr. Shaywitz says that reading the same passage or paragraph over and over again (at least four times) in a short period of time helps children build up that memory bank of words they need to be able to read more efficiently. She suggest planning poetry recitals or plays where the child will need to practice reading the lines over and over to memorize it for the recital. The good thing I like about this plan is that it is something all students would do (even the average ones) so it won't make the dyslexic student feel targeted for special help.

One thing to keep in mind while choosing poems or a play is to select something with those high-frequency words. High-frequency words are words that show up in our language most often. Dr. Shaywitz has a list of them in her book. That way the children get practice in words they will see most often as they are reading other materials.

On top of providing a lot of scientifically proven reading techniques, Dr. Shaywitz also provides lots of websites, word lists, book lists and other resources that are useful. Some techniques and products are meant for a school system (which makes them a little inaccessible for us parents) but there are some intended for parents to use.

She does include information on what parents can do to help and how to make sure your reading-disabled child is getting a good curriculum. All in all, it's a very helpful book.