Hi – My name is Liz Dunoon
Hi – My name is Liz Dunoon, and I want to welcome you to my hub website Dyslexia Daily.
It was about 11 years ago that I discovered that my eldest child was struggling to learn at school and so began my journey to understand why and how to help him. Now supporting as many people as I can who find school difficult has become my passion.
Since then, I’ve worked with dyslexia experts, written articles and books, been on TV and radio, created and sourced literacy programs, presented at conferences and advised politicians on how to improve our education system to make it more inclusive.
My goal has ALWAYS been to help those who learn differently to read and spell, to regain their self-confidence and achieve their true potential in life.
Here is a quick video talking about how I went from a parent and teacher to what we do now:
My Story
So I told you before that I have a passion to help people with dyslexia. This began when I discovered that all three of my children had dyslexia, yet were all very different.
But… there is much more to it than that.
What drives me is the belief that knowledge is power and empowered people can bring about positive change in their lives, whether that is to learn to read or a teen or adult seeking a fresh start after leaving jail so they never have to return…. And what about those who need to learn English quickly so they can put food on their table and afford the cost of living.…… That’s what my work means to me. It’s the ability to affect change on many levels.
The Teacher 
As a school teacher, I loved teaching, I loved my students and I especially loved teaching literacy. I was also trained in health and physical education and was a sport’s nut.
What I didn’t love, was all the rules, restrictions and politics that came with working in a school.
I taught in both the state and the private system and even worked as a child welfare worker in a women’s refuge for a year. I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly over the years, but what always shone for me was the children.
Regardless of creed, colour or religion, I adored them all, especially the ones who challenged me. Our children are our future. All they want is the opportunity to learn, to fit in, to do well at school and have the chance to succeed in what they are good at. Schools today create too many barriers, which is why I left. It makes me smile now to think I am teaching more children and supporting more families than ever before and I love it.
My Family 
I met my husband when I was 26. What stood out for me was his amazing brain. He couldn’t spell, he still can’t, but he’s just so clever because he thinks in ways that are completely outside the box. I always tell him you are the mathematical, big picture thinker and I am the English brain.
He was running a cafe and it was doing well. Three children later, we have established that there is definitely a genetic link for our children’s literacy difficulties….. but all our kids have amazing brains. This meant that if we encouraged our children to use their strengths to overcome their weaknesses they would succeed in life and that is just what has happened.
And that is the secret of success for every person who has ever experienced a learning difficulty. It really is that simple, and that’s WHY I’m so passionate about helping YOU. I would like to share a short video with you about our journey.
My Grand Plan
Can one person change the world? This is a question that came up in conversation with my kids on the way to school one rainy morning. They thought “Maybe not”, but I rose to the challenge. “I’m going to prove to you that it is possible…”. And that is what I have been attempting to do ever since. For me helping one person is amazing, but if I can help thousands…Well that is my dream and it is well on the way to being realised. This website provides the platform to do just that.
Over the past years, we’ve had a lot of exciting things happen.
And I’m, not finished yet.
There’s much more to come.
Your Story…
So, now you know who I am…
I guess my next question is who are you?
Why are you here?
Are you here to support someone? Perhaps a child or a student or even an adult?
Maybe you are here because it is time to take action and help yourself?
Please post YOUR story down below:
I am a special needs teacher in a main stream school. It is very different from when I worked at the special schools. So many of the students I work with now have hidden disabilities. One of my main jobs is to educate teachers about these disabilities so that they have a better understanding. Lots of teachers are very quick to judge a student as lazy or naughty when there is so much more going on. I am always looking for new strategies and resources and I can’t wait to explore your page more??
Hi Victoria,
Thanks for telling me your story. The students in your school will benefit enormously from your knowledge. Please use Dyslexia Daily and all the resources to assist you in your work. Kind regards Liz
I am a mother of three amazing, challenging boys. Our youngest boy Max is 8 years old and since starting school has struggled with all aspects except being able to play in the playground. Max was diagnosed last year with dyslexia. We are constantly looking for ways we can better help him understand just how amazing and intelligent he is. I believe although my older boys gave not been diagnosed I believe they also struggle with reading and writing. Looking forward to seeing how your program will help them.
Hi Cindy, Your story sounds a lot like mine. Thanks for telling me about your boys. Let me know how they go. Kind regards, Liz
Hello! My little girl has just turned 5 and i am as sure as i know my own name that she is dyslexic. She struggles so much with reading and although she loves to write often she writes backwards, even her name. I am going to read your site now to see if there are ways to help her that i dont know of (I am a special needs nanny by trade so am not a total newbie to it, but it’s very different when it’s your own child!) She is miles behind the rest of her class and just starting to become aware of it 🙁 Fingers crossed we can get her to where she wants to be and keep her happy and smiley and confident while we do it 😀
Adie
HI Adie, Yes – confidence is the key. With your support and knowledge she is sure to be OK. Yes please use all the resources to help her. You are so fortunate that you are aware of her learning needs earlier rather than later. Kind regards, Liz
Hello Liz.
My name’s Juliet, have two kids four and eight. I have leave all my life in Italy. But I am a Nigerian. I do know my mistake was not speaking English with my kids right from birth . My eight years girl she very good at school in all materials else English . Maybe with your help she can learn more about English.
Juliet
Hello,
My husband is dyslexic and I have been teaching him to spell and read. He has come a long way. He currently reads and spells at a grade 6 level. He is only 33 and he was overlooked at school. He still confuses left and right, skips words when reading or adds words that aren’t there and the whole poster you created matches him perfectly. More often, it is motivating him to learn more in his own time that I struggle with. Do you have any tips for dyslexic adults?
Hi Cat, I still spell words everyday for my husband. So glad my poster helped you to make sense of it all. My best tip for dyslexic adults is to use their strengths to overcome weaknesses. I think you will find a blog post too on this topic. Also consider Touch Type Read Spell – you will find it in the shop under Learning Programs – it’s perfect for adults to get them processing words quickly and spelling using kinaesthetic memory. He will improve in no time at all.
Kind regards Liz
What is touch type read spell ? Is it book ?
Hi
I am Karen a Year 1 class teacher in an infant school. I have worked in Reception for 13 years prior to this year. I feel that this year I have a number of children who are showing indicators of dyslexia and would like strategies of how to continue to support these children and their families in school.
Currently these chd have multi sensory phonic lesson and are taken out daily in a small group to have further reinforcement, have a daily read and differentiated work but I dont know if this is enough! Its hard when you have a class of 30 and no TA! Looking forward to helpful tips and advice.
Hi Karen, I taught Grade 1 for a number of years and loved it. It’s the year where learning differences really become apparent in the students in your class. Multi-sensory phonics are a good start for those that are struggling. You should also check out Nessy – Young children seem to love it – You will find it in the shop and Nessy offer free trials so you can check it out. Another great tip is to get parents on board early. You can send home a copy of my free ebook – Helping your child learn to read from home. OR get parents in and have a talk to them about fun ways to practise reading with their children, without making it stressful. There are lots of strategies in that free ebook you can suggest. I will keep writing more for you in my newsletters and articles. Keep up your great work. Kind regards Liz
Hi ,I’m am a 52 year old lady , and when I was in school I always struggled with English ,and was put into a remedial class for reading and writing., I always was made to feel stupid , by the teacher and pupils . I always felt picked on from my teacher when we were having reading lessons . I always was the one who would have to stand up to read allowed .I would always get may words jumbled,and would wish the ground would open up and swallow me .
My parents were always told I was lazy.
Things just got worse when I went up to secondary school .
But after having two beautiful girls I decided to go back to English lessons.I was in my early 30s .And this is when I was told I suffer from dyslexia.
For the first time in my entire life I was happy to find this awful burden lifting but even now this has left my confidence shattered
I just don’t want to see another child end up with no self-esteem like me . I’m so happy that this is now getting picked up earlier these days . And I thank God for spell check , lol
Kind regards to you and people like you.
Thanks Fiona Ewan
Hi Fiona, Thanks so much for telling me your story. It is one I have heard many times from other adults too. I’m sorry school was such a tough time for you. Keep in mind that you will also have talents that others don’t have. Have you seen my blog post – ‘7 Things you won’t know about dyslexia’. It will change your mind about how clever you really are. More and more super successful people are coming forward now to speak about dyslexia. Time to believe in yourself Fiona – I have no doubt you have much to offer. In the meantime I will keep working hard to help children with dyslexia get the support they need earlier. Kind regards Liz
Hi Fiona and Liz,
I too had a nightmarish time in school.
I was a child of a teacher at the same school I went to as well, so I knew personally the teachers that were teaching me.
I was teased mercilessly from other students who couldn’t work out, why or how I could be a teachers child and not be “intelligent!”
It was the toughest time ever, I wanted to run away.
My mother who could see that there was something wrong, took me to a Psychologist and he said that I will never amount to anything, that I am as thick as two bricks put together.
I not only had problems with reading, and writing, I also had problems with maths.
Over the years I had self-educated by reading the encyclopedia from A-Z and then read the science editions as well.
I am now running my own business and after the grand children and have enrolled into a course for life coaching. Even now I have been told that the choices I make are wrong. I say wrong for who? I have traveled, lived overseas, completed my Year 10 equivalent and have a hobby or researching my family tree.
I didn’t do all of this to prove people wrong, I did this because I wanted to for myself.
I am a dedicated student of life.
Thanks
Lisa V. x
Hello,
I am a Leaning and Support Teacher and I have also just finished my Master’s Degree in Special Education.
I have a general academic interest in Dyslexia.
HI Rhonda, Thanks for your comment. Please make sure you are listed on the Dyslexia Daily Directory as someone who can support individuals affected by dyslexia. Kind regards Liz
I am a teaching assistant in a three form entry Catholic primary school. I have always had an interest in dyslexia. It all began for me when my eldest child had difficulties in school, i spoke and argued numerous times with his teachers that he had a problem but they told me he’s lazy. He was diagnosed as Dyslexic when he joined the R.A.F 12 months ago. a number of T.A’s were asked to specialise in an area so I volunteered to do Dyslexia. I completed a course on assessing and supporting the children at our school. I currently work with children that have dyslexic traits supporting them with reading using the toe by toe programme. I am thoroughly enjoying it and always looking for new ways to support them.
Hi Jacqui, What an amazing journey your son has had. You are the second mum to tell me their son’s were diagnosed by the military, which I find fascinating. Good on you for becoming qualified so you can help others. I too am a big fan of Toe-by-Toe. Kind regards Liz Dunoon
Hi Jacqui. My daughter has recently been diagnosed with Dyslexia and I’m currently battling with her school to get her the support she needs. I’ve started looking into ways I can help her at home and Toe by toe is something I’ve read about. Have you found this program to be helpful? Thanks Kate.
Hi, I am a mother to two beautiful girls. My youngest daughter Ruby (now 10) has struggled at school and was referred to the dyslexic team in our area 2 years ago. She’s receiving lots of support at school since being referred and has improved greatly in all aspects of her school work. She has such a thirst for knowledge and is wise beyond her years, I’d like to do all I can to help her on her learning journey!
Hi Victoria, Ruby is a fortunate girl to receive such great support. Wishing her all the best on her journey and you too. I hope my resources continue to support you. Kind regards Liz Dunoon
My 12 year old has just been diagnosed with dyslexia. We live in France, where teachers are not trained on indicators that might mean a child has dyslexia or other SENs (special educational needs), nor do most of them have any idea how to help these kids. My daughter was born in China, came to me in London at 15 months, then we moved to France when she was almost 3 and has been in full-time state school here in France, 35 hours a week, since she turned 3. Now I’m trying to get my head around all those years where I was home schooling her in English and maths, about an hour a day, including through most of the holidays, from age 6 until she went to secondary school at age 11, the two years of speech therapy, age 5 – 7 (it’s big business here and half the class goes, including French kids), all those years of teachers commenting that she was frequently tired, her needing extra help with French at school… nobody until now thinking assessment was a good idea (even though I asked for it the first time round at speech therapy where I was told she was too young to be assessed, BUT they didn’t say when it would be the right age!) Because everyone here is ill equipped to deal with dyslexics and don’t really know about it they all thought that she’d ‘catch up’ and that it was because she is bi-lingual. Now I find that she’s a few years behind in French (less so in English I’m pretty sure, though will get that assessed in the UK later in the year) and it makes me despair that nobody at school questioned it. She was told to get an eye test, then, after that gave the all clear, one teacher told her off in front of the class and said ‘Well you must need glasses if you can’t read the board!’ NOW I know why she has had these problems. So many things are falling into place, why she’s struggling with self esteem when she’s gorgeous, intelligent, has real spirit, and why she doesn’t like school, which really pains me – she’s been having to work so hard just to keep up…
Hi Pippa, I am not at all familiar with the French school system so thank you for your story. It certainly seems like it is all starting to fall into place. Bilingual children do often experience a lag as they are learning the structure of two languages at once, but it sounds like there was much more going on. Finally a diagnosis and hopefully a plan of action for you to follow to support her.
Wishing you both all the best. Make sure you tell her how gorgeous and intelligent she is every day, because that is what she will remember as she matures into a fine young woman. Kind regards, Liz Dunoon.
Hi there,
I am a primary school teacher, and I also have a masters in education. But more importantly I am.mum to four fab kids aged 9,7,4,1. My eldest boy was diagnosed with dyslexia last year and it has knocked me sideways. Navigating the education system as a parent is completely different to that as a teacher. My son is brilliant at so many things, art and sport, he is a lovely sociable boy and I am finding protecting that and harnessing his self esteem more and more difficult. The main problem I am having is the ignorance of teachers, and their forcing my child to fit into their model of teaching. I.am always in search of knowledge ans so.have come here for more. I hope I can then adequately advocate for my son better.
I hear you Lesleyann, As a primary school teacher you know the system, yet you wonder how in some parts of the world it can be so flawed when it comes to supporting children with dyslexia. In saying that, there are also some amazing schools and teachers out there, we just need more of them. I hope my work continues to support you on your journey with your children. Kind regards, Liz Dunoon
Hi, I’m a mum with children who have dyslexia and I work as an sso in a school. Some of the children I work with have been diagnosed with dyslexia.
Hi Helen, lovely to hear from you and looking forward to supporting you with my work. Kind regards, Liz Dunoon.
Last year in March 2015 I knew something was happening with my 6 year old son. He hated school. Every day he would ask if it was a school day (he still has trouble working that out sometimes) and cried if I told him it was. Every night or every morning there would be tears, he would get angry, he was just a real little turd at times (not the kid I knew).
He did not want to read any of his readers, when asked to he would just ‘shutdown’ or ‘go blank’ and I would always end up reading to him (he loves listening to stories).
He could not write his name and when school projects came home his name was spelt noxaJ. When asked to write ‘DOG’ on the shower screen he would write – right to left G-O-D, end result ‘DOG’.
Meltdowns over school spelling tests – explanation in his own words was, “I get too many words in my brain, they (the words) all break apart, and the letters fall out of my ears”.
His maths was the same, I would say 13 and he would try to write 30 and vice versa.
And lots of other little things. In the end, anything he deemed hard, got a shutdown response from him.
I also have a 10 year old son, this is where I knew my youngest was a little different.
There is no dyslexia that I know of in our families, but this is what I suspected.
June 2015 my son is 6 ½ – Educational Physiologist says Dyslexic Tendencies – apparently he is too young to label.
School helps as much as they can, but the system is not set up right. The teachers/schools don’t know how to apply or have the knowledge to provide for the recommendations given. It is all surface stuff.
So I had to take matters into my own hands. Found Sally at BYST, did the first Term and got my son involved.
Enter stage left – the new improved and happier son. Willing to give things a go, some more than others. Not as many meltdowns.
It is hard work and he knows we have to work harder, but at least now he wants to give it a go. I don’t get the shutdown or blank looks much anymore.
We are in the process of putting in place an NEP at school – still not sure if this is the right thing to do.
My son will be assessed again at SPELD January 2017 when he is 8 years old as I am worried about the other dys’s that may also effect him.
Hi Karina, Well you certainly have your hands full, but it sounds like you are making some great progress with your son.It certainly was hard on you all for a while there and I really feel for you both. I am a fan of the NEP as it makes the school more accountable to your son and his learning outcomes. An NEP also represents a legal document, which offers your son added protection long term. If he decides he wants to stay at school long term, you also have a precedent set for accomodations for the future which is always good to have in place. Wishing you all the best on your continuing journey. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz,
I have two children ( Natasha 14 & Cameron 12). They have always struggled at school. My Daughter was born 14 weeks prematurely. She is so negative about school at the moment and dreads going back after the school holidays. She really loves reading books now, but has become so negative about subjects she used to love. Her main struggle is spelling & writing.
My Son loves school but is really struggling. He was at his lowest point at the age of 11 when he was really depressed & suicidal because of his struggle to learn like his peers.
I have tears streaming down my face as I am writing this. We have tried multifocals & coloured glasses & spent thousands of dollars on tutors for both of them.
I am keen to get both my children involved in your program & also let their school know about it to help others.
Thank you so much
Jenny
Hi Jenny, It really is tough when your children struggle at school and become sad and disillusioned. I hate the thought of you crying. I hope my reply will give you the strength to keep up the good fight on their behalf. I will endeavour to be here to support you on your journey so please let me know how things are going. If you haven’t read my book yet, please do. It will help you to help them. Most libraries carry a copy you can borrow and read. The most Important thing I can tell you right now is that your love and support of your children is worth more to them than anything else they can come against in life. Once school is over your children will be free to be themselves and pursue their own dreams and goals. Then they can shine. Kind regards, Liz Dunoon.
Thank you Liz, I have ordered the book and look forward to reading it. ?
Hi, I am an Educational Psychologist and former primary school teacher. I am asked a lot by parents and schools about dyslexia and want to be able to support parents and educators to maximize the potential of kids who are having learning difficulties. Thank you for your passionate approach and generosity of knowledge and resources.
Hi Carolyn, So glad I can help you in your important work. It is a rare combination, a teacher and an educational psychologist, but such a valuable one for children with dyslexia. Please make sure you are listed on the Dyslexia Daily Service Provider Directory as no doubt your skills and knowledge will be highly sort after. Thank you for the important work that you do to support families with dyslexia. Kind regards Liz Dunoon.
For about five years now my son has extreme tiredness when reading. The school gave extra help with a one to one reading teacher for 2 years. She wasn’t sure at the time if he was exhausted by the reading or had hayfever. He doesn’t find spelling easy (in fact he finds it harder than reading) but is fabulous at maths. He is now 10 and I’m getting called in to see the teacher again about his concentration levels & messing about. He has a yellow overlay plastic card – which really seems to help. He says the letters wobble slightly and he used to say he saw them back to front or in squares of blocks of letters. Opticians says he could be ‘borderline dyslexic’. He has a girl cousin on my husbands side who is dyslexic. My husband has always struggled to spell (even though he is a Paramedic now and has to spell really long illnesses!) So we are at the beginning where we don’t know much about it but I don’t think it’s extreme as he can read but finds it tiring and really doesn’t like spelling. I look forward to all I can learn from you. I must admit I felt very tearful today about him messing about and he seems to get blamed for things he hasn’t done too! I know all kids misbehave at times but he has been in tears over a few incidents lately. We go to church and always teach him to tell the truth but I really don’t want him ‘labelled’ and trouble maker!! I just want him happy at school. Admittedly his diet is a bit strange – he wont eat pasta, rice, fish, most fruit/veg (only carrots/broccoli/ apples/banana. We have two teenage girls who eat anything! He seemed to start when he choked on parsnip as a baby. Anyway now I am waffling. Thankyou Sam X
Hi Sam, Overt tiredness when reading is definitely a sign that something is going on. It’s great that he can read, but it will be hard for him in class if it drains his mental energy. I think the best place for you to start would be for you to read or listen to my book. Visual processing does seem to be an issue based on how young describe him and I cover that in detail in my book and what you can do about it too. The messing about could be a by-factor of him struggling with his school work. The best way to find this out is to ask him what it is that triggers the misbehaviour. He will know. Concentration will waiver when his brain is getting tired. Spelling is challenging for about 50% of people in varying degrees, but really challenging when you have learning difficulties. Kind regards Liz
Thanks for dyslexia daily – I am a teacher and parent of three children 12, 9 and 6. I am Scottish originally however I have lived in Botswana since 1998. I met my husband in Botswana when the I was volunteering as an art therapist in a special school. MY middle child Kwame has been diagnosed with dyslexia and ADD since he was about 7 but the school he attends is unable to give him any assistance. As we live in a rural area I have no alternative except for him to continue at that school. MOst teachers have labeled him as lazy, naughty or babied him ! No one had taught him to read ! I have helped him after school as much as I can but as most of his school work is not done in class and he has homework our time for reading is limited. He followed the DORE program for a year which helped him in a lot of ways however he is till reading at a std 2 level although he is std 4 . Kwame is the smartest of all three of my kids but he’s doing the worst in school unbelievable. THis experience has really taught me to question what we are really doing in mainstream education ! I am now at a stand i am looking at finding an online program for Kwame as his motivation to learn to read is at an all time low and his report card is full of F,s and try harders – I have tried workshopping teachers in the school but it just doesn’t translate into change ! So frustrating any advise you could offer me would be highly appreciated looking forward to exploring ur site more Louise Mosime
Hi Louise, It is really difficult when you are limited by the lack of educational options where you live, but this is the reality for many families. Based on what you tell me an online program would be the best option for Kwame to improve. Take a look at the options on the shop and speak with Kwame about the one that he thinks would be the best for him. I say this because as a smart child he will know how he likes to learn and it is important he enjoys the format so he will want to do the program. It is one step at a time for children who find school difficult. You may need to do a deal with his teacher re his homework so he has time each night to spend 15-20 mins on the program of his choice. Let me know how you go as I can suggest others if you need me to. I hope to add more to the shop as time progresses. Re the reading some programs have this built in like The Ten Minute Tutor, but you can also get audio books to keep him reading. Kind regards Liz
I have a 9 year old Son Sean with dyslexia who has only been diagnosed since last September after much discussion. Any way in which I can help my son would be appreciated. School has been fantastic since his diagnoses. Having said that we do struggle sometimes when doing homework which can be very frustrating. So any advise you can offer would be brilliant or any little ideas we can pick up from dyslexia daily would be a bonus. Kind regards. Mairead Haugh.
Hi Mairead, It is great to hear that your school has stepped up to support your son. Re the homework, There are two things you can try. Ask the school how long his homework should be taking each night and make sure he only does homework for this amount of time each night. Secondly modify the homework. I used to this for my oldest son. Speak to his teacher about modifications that could be arranged. Using highlighters on text rather than having to write words out constantly. Using speech to text audio rather than writing all the time. Using text to speech software is also a good option to speed his reading up and give him access to the information faster so he can understand the concepts and get the work done. Be creative. I hope this helps. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz. So glad i found your site my son who is 12 has just been diag with dyslexia. I have had 7 very frustrating years with him being years behind with reading, spelling etc. He has had learning support for 7 years at school plus private tutoring but none of this helped.Not one teacher recommended him getting tested for dyslexia. It was a friend who mentioned it. He has really struggled with literacy. Is ok with maths. Very artistic. We live in qld. I have ordered your book. i am meeting with learning support teacher. He is in high school now. I have a question. Does larger font, double line spacing, coloured paper help. Julie
Hi Julie, Larger font, double line spacing and coloured paper can help if your son has visual processing issues. My book will explain that in detail for you and you will soon know. I always order the larger print version of NAPLAN for my kids as they all prefer it. I hope your meeting with the school goes well. Hopefully my book will arrive before then and you will be well informed and ready. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz. I have not received your book. I put credit card details in with my name and email. I could not get the shipping address to come up. So have not been able to put my address in. How can i notify u of my address. You have my email but i dont have yours. Julie
As a child I struggled with reading and writting but had no support as I excelled in other subjects like maths, art and pe. After school I have add practical phyisical job. I then returned to college as a mature student where I was picked up as having dislexia. I had twice weekly one to one support where we did basic sounds of letters. I then went to university to study nursing. Though university I got to see a educational pyshcoligist and diagnosis with dyslexia. I got support throughtout my studies. Once I was a nurse I managed ok with my writting work. However, I have just been employed to do a nurse job which is office based and involves a lot of report writting. I am starting to panic my dyslexia my become a problem. If I tell my employer are they under any laws to help and support me.
Hi Kelly, Well done on navigating the education system and achieving your goals. There will be laws to support you if dyslexia is recognised as a disability and it may be worth exploring this avenue as sometimes funding applies for software, workplace modifications etc. However there are some thing you can do in the meantime. Get some software organised yourself. Speech to text and text to speech software can be carried on a flash drive and used on any computer you are working on. Increase font sizes and change styles to suit you better. Start doing ‘Touch Type Read Spell’ (It is in our shop). It is an excellent program developed in the UK for getting individuals typing fast, with accuracy and has inbuilt reading and spelling applications to improve these areas as well. 10-15 minutes per day will see you powering in no time. Kind regards Liz
My son seems to have difficulty with reading, he really struggles, he is seven years old. He was diagnosis with ADHD and has been on Ritalin since he was five. I have been in emotional turmoil. i have been told so many things and I am trying to educate myself on what to do. I have never had him tested for Dyslexia but from what i have read about it my gut feeling is he is dyslexic. He is the youngest of my four children. Being a single mother and working a full time job it has been difficult to find local resources for him, all my other kids excelled in school and i guess it seemed like they made it really easy for me to be a single parent, until i had my youngest and it takes so much energy i am fearful i will fail him.Thank you for this site and the resources you offer, i will try my best and any and all suggestions are always welcomed.
Hi Kristina, As a single mum you need to be congratulated. You are on to your son’s difficulties early so you are definitely not failing him. It does take a lot of energy though, I can vouch for that. If you can get a copy of my book and either read it or listen to it (it may be in your local library) that will get you started on the right way to tackle his difficulties. Once you have some knowledge you will develop a plan of action. Let me know if I can help further. Kind regards Liz
Hi im Sarah i have 3 girls Leigha 9.,Melissa 7 and Phoebe 5. They are all bright. Leigha has dislexia which as a parenet ive know since being in year 2 so 6 or 7. At school nothing can be done till she was in year 3. Nothing was picked up until half way through the school year. Where they gave her tests and was told yes shes dislexic shes now in year 4 and only just about 6 weeks ago got pink paper and books,shes a year behind in school doesnt do phonics., as it doesent help her. And about 8 weeks ago i find out through private test she has irlens syndrome and needs glasses. And only by having this test has the school given her the paper she needs and the other tools required. It been a long hard road of frustration and upset. So im hoping this is going to help her catch up as am worried for her she only has 2 years left at junior school before secondry .
Hi Sarah,
By general educational standards Year 3 is late to be getting support from your school, so that is a challenge in itself. However you sound like you are on to it now. Glad to hear she will now get help with her visual processing as this can be so frustrating for children. If she is not a child who responds to phonics instruction (and some don’t), I would like to suggest Touch Type Read Spell to you. It is in the shop. It will get her moving in the right direction quickly if she enjoys it and most children do. With this program you can change all the visual components – background colour font style etc to suit her. Kind regards Liz
I am a parent and wife of two people in my life who have dyslexia. My husband never had all this information we do now about dyslexia in 1980’s. Now my son was diagnosed at 7 years old in First Grade. We are working through many things at school, home and church to help him. He loves music, drums, guitars, keyboards, sports. I am the one who has to help him with most of his homework and try to get his Dad to and I check it after they are done.
HI Kris, Sounds to me like you are on to it. It is great that your husband helps your son with his homework. Great role modelling from you both as supportive parents. Music and sport are two areas that children with dyslexia often excel. Keep up the great work. Kind regards Liz
I have a ten year old son in grade four. He is smart, funny and silly….but he can also be impulsive, angry and argumentative. He was diagnosed with ODD in grade one and struggled since school started with reading, spelling and printing. We worked with him and waited to see how his academic progress would be as the work got harder. There was a disconnect from what we felt he was capable of and what he was producing. I requested an ed psyche at the beginning of the year and the diagnosis was a reading, spelling and math disability- the psychiatrist told me “basically dyslexia” when I asked how to explain this so we could understand. I was scared that he was not academically capable and I was seeing things that weren’t there. We were relieved that we were right, he was a bright kid who just had some struggles. Cole gets a reader now, but does the regular tests. We also scribe for him at times as I still want him practicing writing skills. Sometimes I forget that he has such struggles and have to remember to be positive and praise his successes. It’s hard when others think that you are happy with “mediocrity” when your child is a 60’s kid. He’s trying and hasn’t given up. We are also looking into talking with the pediatrician because he came up high at risk for ADD/ADHD, he had in grade one as well. We try to focus on the good parts as he can be really hard on himself and think he’s stupid. Cole is starting to recognize that this is something that isn’t going to be cured, but rather managed and he can have a happy and successful future. I’m trying to educate myself on how to best help him and be his advocate. Thanks for having this site available to learn more.
HI Wanda, Your son sounds a lot like one of mine. Smart kids can come up with some amazing management strategies to get through school and most of these strategies can be applied in tertiary education and the workforce too. When school is tough every day, you can imagine it is hard not to be frustrated when you’re a bright kid who likes to move to learn, It must make sitting still at school hard at the best of times. Don’t forget to show Cole some of the successful dyslexic resources that are available on this website. They will help him to remain positive when the going gets tough. Great to hear you have got some accommodations for him too. I would recommend introducing typing instead of writing too, as it will speed up his writing up and help with spelling. Kind regards Liz
I am a Special Education teacher. I teach students with multiple disabilities. I am always researching ways to help my students and myself, as their teacher and advocate! I want to share with their parents as well.
Hi Christie, Great to hear from you. You sound like you do a wonderful job. Please use my site as much as you need to and share my resources with your colleagues and parents too. Kind regards Liz
Hi liz as above with many of the story’s I was treated the same in school, then by accident I went to college with a friend who wanted to start college, college asked me if I wanted to start I was terrified as I left school with very poor grades. I was in my late 30’s, I did join college and it was a level 1 class, yet after doing a small entry exam I found I was entry level 3 which was below level 1, I started the course carried and struggled, I then was diagnosed by the college with dyslexia, I recieved a private tutor from college and came on in leaps and bounds with my work, going up from entry level 3 to level 1/2 then GCSE’S A levels and final a degree in Nursing it took me 7 years and over 50 courses college asked if I would tell my story and could they take photos and they are around the college I am now a staff nurse and still pinch myself,I do struggle still and hate writing on paper, ecen writing this text as the computer with dyslexia program helps with spelling ect, but my ward let me write my SBAR of patients how I understand, I am so glad I went with my friend and was diagnosed or I would not have been were I am now.
What an amazing story Shirley. Thanks you for writing to tell me about it. What program do you use to write on the computer? Colleges and Universities do a much better job, than our schools, in assisting those with dyslexia. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but hopefully this is starting to change. Imagine the savings the governments could make if they addressed learning difficulties earlier in a person’s life rather than having to deal with all the social-psychological issues that arise from a life of educational struggle. I think you should tell your story to the politicians and seek more changes to our schooling system. Congratulations on negotiating the educational system. I bet you are an amazing nurse.
I am dyslexic. My son is dyslexic. I homeschooled till 7th grade then put him in public school. He begged me this year to go back to homeschooling. The teachers were horrible. I am building next years curriculum. My husband has ALS so these last years with our son is important for all of us. I received info on Onenote and are using it to improve homeschooling. I will help my son in anyway. I belong to a great homeschooling coop where I can help others you struggle with the same areas. I found out that all the lawsuits against the school here is special ed ones. My breaking point with the school is when they told my son he could not have lunch because he writes his notes to slow. So she made him stand to write notes. He has dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia. He was entitled to a notetaker. He is really smart so they labeled him as lazy. We homeschool all through high school and will exceed. I read coffee with Einstein and it said his teacher said he would not amount to anything. This is Einstein. Really. We still do the same 250 years later. I would love to know more about Nessy but can’t afford it at this time. My husband is disabled and dying. I try to accomplish what I can with the little resources I have. So thankful Dyslexia Daily is free. I can take what I learn to the homeschooling high school coop and help others. It will be a great outreach.
Hi Sherry, I am so sorry to hear of your husbands diagnosis. I have a close family friend who was also affected so I know a bit about it. I can imagine your frustration with your son’s school. I am disappointed they were not more supportive. Are there any other options for schools for him? I am so glad you have the free resources on my site to help you and the other families that home school too. Can I ask you to do the 3 day free trial of Nessy with your son and let me know how he finds it. Get back to me afterwards and tell me what he thought. I will wait to hear back from you. Kind regards Liz
Hi, I am a mother of four beautiful children. My third children is 8 years old and in second grade. She has struggled since preschool. I had her tested this school year. She has not meet any benchmarks at school. She has been working so hard and I knew something was not right. The school and psychologist told us she had a classic case of dyslexia. We also found out she needed glasses and has a lazy left eye.
I have been looking for information to understand and ways to help her. Her issue is with reading. She has always had a hard time with sight words and reading passages. As she gets older she is having a harder time keeping up. At home I don’t know how to help her. It seems like any book is difficult for her. She has trouble with her vowel teams and r control words. Her memory on the rules of the English language is short term. We can study words all week and she still does not do well on the spelling test. At school the test are not consistent. I am just looking on ways to help her and understand what she is going through. I feel at a lost because I recently obtained my teaching degree and feel Like I should understand and have resources. I live in Delaware and just don’t know where to go. Any help would be appreciated.
Hi there, Thanks you for telling me your story. Please read or listen to my book. You will have instant knowledge and a plan to follow afterwards. I too was a teacher and at a loss when my child was struggling. Please know, it is not you, it is the system and the way in which you were trained. Can I also suggest that you start on ‘The Ten Minute Tutor’ and see if your daughter likes it. It would definitely be a good program for her. I guess the biggest issue is that it is not in US English, but rather UK English. I am in the process of addressing this and completing a new version. If it is not right there is a 30 day money back guarantee just let us know. We will refund in full. I also have a free ebook ‘Teaching your child to read from home’. Make sure you check that out too. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz
I’m so glad I found you! I’m a secondary English teacher in Geelong and our principal has allocated funds for a team of 4 teachers to work intensively with about 40 students per term, on literacy support.
We’ve targeted students who are 12-18 months ‘behind’ where they should be according to data, but we’re keen to expand the program to include students who have more serious learning delays.
I’m looking for anything that will help! I’m looking forward to exploring your work and seriously, well done!
Hi Dee, Lovely to hear from you and great to hear of your funding. My husband went to school in Geelong and I know it quite well. My suggestion for you is to consider ‘Touch Type Read Spell’ to improve your students literacy skill rapidly. Not only does it do that, they will be touch tying like champions and processing info much faster across all subjects by the end. I know of one Australian secondary teacher, who even uses it get her student’s brains ready for learning, so they do it at the beginning of every English lesson. I guarantee you will be amazed by the results. This is a program that is used extensively in the UK, but is hardly known here…yet! I plan to change that. Schools can do a trial, so I suggest that is where you start. Let me know if I can assist you further. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz, I am a high teacher and the mother of two children. My daughter was profiled as dyslexic mid way through last year. It took me 4 years of persistence to get my daughter the assistance she needed. The school kept saying she was just a late bloomer but I knew something was wrong. The most upsetting thing was the damage that was done to her self-esteem while the system stuck its head in the sand. Dyslexia effects far more than just literacy. I completed an MSL course in January 2015 in order to learn how to assist my daughter as the school clearly wasn’t going to do it. It is a long tough road but has made me a better teacher.
Hi Siobhan, Good on you for doing the MSL course. It will make you a better teacher, that’s for sure. Your daughter is fortunate to have you. You’re right self esteem is the biggest issue. Make sure you show her some of the videos and resources on my website to make her understand how special she is and how much potential she has. Kind regards Liz
Hi Victoria
I was diagnosed as dyslexic when I was younger.
I am a mum of 2 children, my younger one has ADHD, and some other issues, so I thought the posters could be useful to have. I also sometimes work with children, so I thought the posters could be a useful tool for me to have.
Corinne
Hi Corrine, I am so glad my posters have been helpful for you. Good on you for helping your child and other children too. There are lots more free resources on my site too. Please make use of those too. Kind regards Liz
Thank you for sharing your story and your journey. I felt very emotional watching your videos and hearing a similar story to my own. My son has dyslexia, as does his father. We started off working very hard to keep up with the class but it resulted in tantrums and anxiety about school. My son is in year 5 now and an average reader. He really enjoys books and learning more, but his spelling and writing are poor. He exhibits symptoms of ADHD when he is lost in class. I am now a teacher aide at a school and really want to help children to enjoy reading, and develop their writing techniques. Thank you for the posters. I will use them at home and introduce them to the school too.
Hi stacey, Your son does sound a lot like mine. It is a real achievement that he is an average reader now. Now you can use your life experience to help others, which is wonderful too. So glad my posters can help in your work. There will be more free resources coming soon. Kind regards Liz
I am a single mother of two girls, and my eldest was diagnosed quite late (when she was 11.5yrs) with dyslexia. We struggled for many years seeing speech pathologists, psychologists, having tutoring etc so to finally put a name to it was a relief in some ways. She has a working memory in the 3rd percentile which can leave everyone extremely frustrated and desperate. She does however have a processing speed of information she needs to draw on from her long term memory in the 79th percentile which is quite impressive given the difficulties she faces. So the challenge for us is to get new information to her long term memory as quickly as possible. She is now in Year 8, turning 14 in a couple of months and currently has a reading age of 8-9 years. She tries and tries, with minimal result. We still have a lot of work to do. The most impressive thing about this young lady is how much she excels at all things manual/hands on!! She is truly amazing 🙂 She inspires me every day!!
What a great story Shannon. Thank you for telling it to me. Your daughter has an amazing profile with her working memory and her long term memory skills. It is wonderful to hear how you have narrowed down her needs to ensure she gets the right instruction. Sounds to me like she has great potential in life and will do something really interesting with her hands on skills. My best suggestion for you is to try Touch Type Read Spell as this will improve her reading levels rapidly. It will also help spelling patterns to stay in her long term memory with all the repetition that is offered. Make sure you get her onto audio books to keep her vocabulary age appropriate while she is in reading catch up phase. Best of luck and let me know how she is going. Kind regards Liz
Hi
My name is Sarah. I work as Student Support at South Essex College. Many of the students I support have dyslexia and I would like to know some further tools to help me to help my students. I have learnt, over a period of years, that with Dyslexia comes a lot of other difficulties other than spelling and the best way to overcome these barriers is to talk to the student and give them a Taylor made support profile and work in a way that suits them as an individual.
I look forward to hearing your suggestions and giving feedback on what has worked for my students. Many thanks, Sarah
Hi Sarah, That is a great practice to respond to individual learning needs. I am sure this way you get great results for your students. I will let you know of lots of strategies and resources overtime to assist in your work and please make use of all the free resources on offer too. Kind regards Liz
I’m a parent of a ten year old son with dyslexia. He now attends a private school for students with dyslexia. I was hoping to find good printables to share information with other parents on the school’s bulletin board.
Thank you
Hi Laura, You are so fortunate to have access to a specialist school for your son with dyslexia. Not many countries offer this. There are lots of free printable and posters and more coming soon. Please share them, because that is what they are for. Look our for Dyslexia Daily News as it has a great free eBook to explain dyslexia to children and adults for that matter.
Kind regards Liz
I think that writing this post is going to be very cathartic!!
My gorgeous son Ben is 12, 13 on 3 June.
He suffered with glue ear from 1 to 5 with perforations in one and often both ears from September to April most years. Despite this he did not need gromits and his hearing was only very slightly affected for a short while. We did not, of course, realise then the impact that that the glue ear had on his learning and auditory processing abilities.
Ben suffered with terrible separation anxiety when he was at nursery. That said he did enjoy it once he got over me leaving him there. His carers loved him, he got on well with all the children but he only every really made one friend. All in all a very positive experience for us all.
From the day he started at primary school things changed. Ben was very much the same little boy but it soon became clear that he could not focus on what his teachers were saying, he fiddling constantly, fell asleep regularly during class despite sleeping very well at night, found it very difficult to articulate at school what he could articulate well at home and found it virtually impossible to put what he could articulate on paper. His teachers formed the opinion that he as a lazy, disobedient child. They formed the opinion that we were bad parents who did not discipline him and allowed him to stay up until late at night. Sadly many of Ben’s teachers have formed these opinions over the years.
We paid for him to go to so many different additional classes and tutor groups – Kumon which he absolutely hated, Explore Learning which he absolutely loved but just wasn’t progressing, a specialist dyslexia tutor who he hates.
I always knew there was something not quite right. Ben was a bright and articulate child at home. He could create the most complex lego models in half the time other children did but he could differentiate between the plus, minus, multiply and divide symbols. We would go over and over his maths and he would look at me with a blank expression which told me he just didn’t get it. This was extremely upsetting and frustrating for Ben and extremely stressful and frustrating for me. Ben’s dad is dyslexic and my father believes he may be too. I asked the school if he could be dyslexic and they said he was more likely to be ADHD. I was shocked. I could understand them thinking he may be ADD because he finds it very difficult to focus but my quiet boy is anything but hyperactive. They refused to consider that he may be dyslexic and initially said that they couldn’t assess him until he was 7 anyway. So we waited for 2 years during which time his teachers branded him “naughty” even though I was never once called to the school for bad behaviour but was constantly called to the school because he had only written two words in a whole morning. Ben’s self-esteem was terribly damaged during this time.
Fortunately in year 2 Ben was placed with a lovely teacher, Miss ‘S’, who immediately saw that Ben had a huge amount of potential but had very little ability to get it onto paper. Miss S worked brilliantly with Ben and he developed so much in the time he was with her. We were very lucky that he was able to stay with Miss S for 2 years because the school had a split year class system where the older children from the lower year merged with the younger children from the upper year. While Ben was with Miss S she did some dyslexia tests with him. While she could not diagnose dyslexia she agreed with my view that it was highly likely that he was dyslexic. Miss S made a case for Ben to attend a special dyslexia programme but the SENCO who had been Ben’s form tutor in reception and the deputy head who had been Ben’s teacher in year 1 were firmly of the opinion that Ben was naughty and ADHD and they refused to allow him to attend the programme.
On Miss S’s private advice I contacted Surrey LEA for advice. I took Ben to the GP and he ruled out ADHD but he said further tests would be needed for ADD. He recommended that I ask the LEA to have Ben assessed by and Educational Psychologist. I paid to have Ben privately assessed for dyslexia by the Dyslexia Association and sure enough his inate intelligence was significantly above average but his application was literally at the bottom of the chart. His dyslexia was diagnosed as moderate but he displays around 7 of the 12 symptoms. And, of course with such a huge gap between his potential and achievement the impact was scored as severe.
Sadly the school still refused to accept that Ben was dyslexic even with the report in front of them. They insisted that he was ADHD and wanted me to pursue that route so that he could be statemented as that would provide them with the funds they needed to support Ben. I refused to pursue a label which I did not agree with solely so that they could gain additional funds. After months of perseverance Ben was eventually given double the number of dyslexia classes I had originally asked for.
When Ben left secondary school most of his SAT results he did not have a SAT result above 2 which was so sad given the amount of work I had done with him and the amount of extra curricular classes he had attended. I dread to think though where he would have been without that support.
We selected and were lucky enough to get a lovely boys secondary school. It has a massive focus on sport and Ben is quite athletic. He is a fairly good rugby player. He is an excellent climber. He has run cross country for the school. The school has a very paternalistic, caring and supportive approach and an excellent special needs programme all of which I thought would be great for Ben.
Year 7 was brilliant. Ben thrived in his new school. He made great new friends. His teachers love him. Although behind where he should be, he progressed well in all his classes.
Year 8 has been very different. Ben has been streamed into the lowest set. He is with the other children with special needs but also with the naughty boys. Every one of his teachers has said what a lovely boy Ben is but how very frustrating he is to teach. They have all mentioned what a difficult class Ben is in and how easily distracted Ben is by the bad behaviour of other boys. Every one of his teachers has talked about how well Ben articulates his answers when questioned verbally but how very little he gets onto paper. He attends three different SEN programmes – literacy and numeracy classes before school twice a week, Toe by Toe before school four days a week and a Social Games programme which is aimed at helping to build self esteem and social confidence. They have had him assessed properly by an Educational Psychologist so that we can find ways to help Ben through his GCSEs. Note the focus on enablers not on labels this time.
Ben has been bullied terribly since his first day in Year 8. His bag has been stolen 3 times and found hidden behind bins or dumped in muddy puddles several times. His PE kit has been stolen and found dumped in muddy puddles several more times. He has been punched and kicked, kicked hard between the legs, pinned against walls by his throat and had his head banged on the floor. The school have been amazing and have taken action each and every time. I feel as though I am constantly on the phone to them because (especially in the first term) something happened every day. The main bully seems to have backed off now so things are better. There is another bully who is picking on Ben but also other boys so Ben does not feel so singled out. The school are addressing the issues as they arise but the bullying continues.
Despite the bullying Ben is very happy at school. He has said he would be happier if it was just him and the teachers and no other boys though!! I committed the cardinal parental sin of blubbing at his parent’s evening last week when his form tutor told Ben how proud he was to have him in his class, how Ben had shown dignity and behaved like a gentleman though out the bullying and how academic ability could never replace strength of character. Fortunately noone saw my tears but it will take a while for me to live that one down with my dear boy!!
So now we are choosing Ben’s GCSE options. How fast has that come around. Fortunately they start the GCSE programme in Year 9 because they recognise that boys need longer but Ben left his options evening and cried himself to sleep because he is worried about his future.
I have told him that he is a bright boy. I have read him extracts from the Dyslexic Advantage. I have told him I am sure that he will surprise us all and end up extremely successful. No matter how much I believe those things though it is very difficult to help my boy believe them though.
We await the Educational Psychologist’s report. I am bribing Ben with iPad time, TV time and pocket money for reading and doing his homework independently. He is happily complying and we are seeing progress. Slow progress but progress nonetheless.
So…that’s our story. Thank you for reading it. I am sorry it took so long but I was right it was cathartic. Where are those tissues!?
Hi Karen, Wow! That sure is some journey you are both on together. Thanks for telling your story to me. I am sure that lots of the other readers will be able to relate to different aspects of it too. There are so many elements to it. The bullying really makes my blood boil, so glad that is reducing. Perhaps Ben should take up marital arts??? – not that I’m condoning physical violence. For someone so young he has dealt with so much already in his short life. A couple of thing I can offer straight up. The free dyslexia posters on the homepage of DyslexiaDaily have one that highlight strengths as well as good career options. I know many other parents have used it for this purpose before. There are also videos and blogs I have on the site that highlight successful dyslexics which can really help too. I wrote one on ‘dyslexics strengths’ too. I will repost that one again soon. Check if in his Sen classes he is using Touch Type Read Spell. This is a great program for teens and gets fast results. Tell Ben I think he is a legend. With all his life experience, ups and downs, no doubt he will become an amazing adults and well done to you too. I still cry at school events particularly the celebrations of achievements, so don’t worry about that one…and yes my kids are horrified too.
Hi Liz,
I really enjoyed hearing your story. I certainly shed a tear or two! My husband is dyslexic, but extremely bright and has great creative ideas, and is very practical. We have 3 children, all grown. My middle son has dyslexia and did not cope well in the school system. He is now 23yrs old. He had considerable help through Speld in NZ and also through the education system. But, like your son the school system did not work for him. At intermediate level we tried a computer interactive class, but this involved new learning in a different way and was also not successful. SPELD would have been his best support through his schooling. It did help him considerably, but then he lost He also went to a private school for 2 years in the hope of assisting him better. I also saw his confidence drop over the years. By the age of 16 he desperately wanted to leave school. We allowed him to go to Polytech doing a cooking course for 1 year. He worked several years in restaurants but it was always part-time work. It has taken several years for him to settle. He now is doing much better having completed a NZ level 4 Horticulture course. He works full time in a Wholesale plant-nursery. He loves it. He has finally found his feet. He did go through some periods of depression, but not enough to require assistance.
I am so passionate now about this topic. I am an Occupational Therapist and now have specialized in assisting children with disabilities. it was great to hear your message. I am sure I will be in touch again. Thanks
Hi Rosy, I’m so glad your son has found something that he enjoys doing. Gardens are healing places I find. Wholesale nurseries are good businesses too if you supply something that the retailers want. I have two close friends that run wholesale nurseries and they are always using their creative skills to find ways to improve their plants and businesses. No doubt your son will learn a lot and also make a good contribution. Your work sounds great too. I hear from a lot of Occupational Therapists particularly in response to classroom modifications and tools for dysgraphia. Keep up the great work you are doing. Kind regards Liz
Hi!
I’m a college English teacher with a very rusty background in special education and a master’s in reading. Until a year ago I hadn’t thought about specializing in teaching students with learning differences in quite some time. Along came Richard. He is a 75 year old, amazing man who had never been able to read. He was successful as an entrepreneur with his sweet wife to help him navigate all the paperwork. I agreed to teach him to read and it has changed both our lives. He never even knew he was dyslexic. Now I’m beginning a private practice as a dyslexia therapist and learning all that I can about how brilliant these gifted people are. And, I’m starting a much needed adult literacy program in our county. I look forward to learning more from your site. Thanks!
Hi Karen, How wonderful. I would love to hear more about Richard. Such a wonderful accomplishment. Please consider Touch Type Read Spell for your adult literacy program. It is wonderful as a tool for adults. Keep up the great work Karen. Kind regards Liz
My story-
In 1974 I moved to the farm and started school in a great rural school where I was friends with a great brown haired blue-eyed boy. Just so happens it took 30 more years to marry said boy! He was dad to 3 children. I was mom to 2.
His youngest is a boy who is just like dad- dyslexia, dysgraphia and processing disorder. Super smart- just learns differently. For 8 years I led the chase to determine what was going on. Finally when the boy was in 7th grade we had him tested. Had to drive 2.5 hours each way 3x to get him tested and the results. Lady was fantastic!
He has an IEP and we’ve struggled with the school system to recognize his IEP accommodations, that extra time is not to have limits on it (such as we didn’t think he was paying attention so he does not get it); that dysgraphia makes it impossible for him to copy correctly from the board into a planner or google calendar. That dysgraphia, dyslexia and processing disorder in his case make watching a video and taking notes epic fail same with open/book open note tests; same with standard test reviews where you fill in information. He is bright. He gets frustrated after spring break every year as he’s worked so hard, he’s worn out. He forgets about assignments if not in his computer- and sometimes he forgets to check his computer. He does not at 15 like to be different. We are making slow progress in getting him to advocate for himself.
The schools have told us he’ll out grow it- bet not as his dad is 51 and guess what? still has the same need for accommodations, but at 51 knows he needs them, knows to advocate for them. They are NOT lazy! They are NOT dumb! They just do NOT learn the same way. A list of 10 steps or 10 directions is not a good way to communicate with them.
My husband’s ex-wife is not supportive of the learning environment the 15 year old needs. She believes it’s his job to remember to do his homework without prods. He gets a lot of 0’s on her week and he knows it, his IEP teacher knows it. We’ve tried to get him to set phone alarm at 4:15p daily to go check his computer. He tends to keep his phone off so not helpful. Yes, he needs to grow in responsibility, but he will need assistance! We have a monthly calendar at home with each family member using a different ink color for commitments. We have a dry erase board where I put initials and daily commitments. Visuals work well. Let’s just say over the 12 years I’ve been married to my husband, I’ve learned a lot! I’ve pushed a lot! I don’t give up! I love my blended family! I believe in my husband and son and don’t believe their different learning style is an obstacle. It’s an opportunity! My husband thinks outside the box. He has hydroponic barley that we feed our livestock; we have grass fed Lowline cattle; free range chickens; boer goats/ sheep/have raised broilers/turkeys. All livestock is raised as close to organic as we can be without being organic. Love them and joined the site to learn more! I feel alone at times as teachers nod their head and say sure. We tell the teachers, don’t expect less from him, don’t make it easier for him, but give him more time- let him test orally- let him show you how he learns best!
We’ve talked to one university as in 2 years he’ll be a freshman in college. Yes, he can go to college. My husband did- he taped his lectures and listened to them. His classes were mostly hands on. He is a great role model for his son!
Thanks
Wow Kathy, Your husband sure is a great role model. Look at all he has achieved on your farm. It makes me want to visit you to see it all. You really don’t give up do you? That’s the spirit! I love to read about the steps you have taken over the years for your son. Your 15 year old will remember all the support and belief you have in him as he grows up into a successful man. Keep up your great work. Kind regards Liz
Hi, I’m a preschool teacher and a mum to two sons aged 7 & 11.
My 11 year old son has struggled from the start of his education but with support has got through. This changed in year6 of primary school where pressure to meet targets became more intense. He would come out of school pale and exhausted and very grumpy. He started to tell me little things like in group work time the other children would tell him to hurry up and he would have to stay in during lunchtime to re write his comprehension work his left handed and his writing can be unreadable at times. He can read and on the surface sounds fine but I noticed he was skipping longer words. He is very disorganised and forgets everything so I used to run over a checklist before he left the house for school coming out of school at the end of the day he was always making trips back in sometimes a couple of times for various pieces of clothing, water bottles etc..I noticed his anxiety towards school becoming worse and he also suffered bullying and I think his traits of Autism contributed to this but we didn’t have a diagnosis at the time.Six months into year6 things came to head and he became a school refuser. Over the summer break he seemed to repair and was looking forward to starting our local all boys school. Two weeks into the new school year things started to breakdown. He was forgetting things worse than ever and was a ball of frustration with any homework set. He was not sleeping and anxious. I sent an email to his form tutor who insisted he was fine during the school day and they had given him a pass to go into the SEN room when he needed too. I spoke to him about this and he said he was not comfortable in the room as boys misbehaved and where loud. My son has always been well behaved and quiet and this is what I think has contributed to him being left and I was told at parent meetings he is doing ok but there is something! Three weeks into secondary school I found my son curled up in the garage near to a breakdown. It was devastating to watch. I had no support from the school and so I made the decision to have him privately assessed the consultant confirmed Dyslexia and possible ASD diagnosis the report is currently being reviewed by CAHMS. If the approriate support or the right school cannot be found I will home school him. I’m a single working mum and this will be difficult for me but I will find a way as I cannot watch my son suffer anymore in a system that I trusted my son too and I feel has let him down.My 7 year old son is thriving in the system and is doing very well. Thank you for taking the time to read my story.
Hi Kylie, You are right. It is time to take some action to protect your son while he recovers from his stress and anxiety over school. I hope an appropriate school can be found for him. Seeing your son in that state cannot have been easy. If you end up homeschooling there is an amazing home school network out there. For now keep you head up. I know this is a hard time for your family. Let me know how things go. Kind regards Liz
Hi. I struggled with dyslexia for many
years but in my country I was just seen as simply daft. I could not read for many years anyways now in UK I went to study nursing and I was diagnosed very happy to know something was not right. I want to teach Nigerian parents about dyslexia.
Hi Chi,
I’m so glad you have finally been diagnosed. How difficult school must have been for you. There are some great dyslexia courses you can do in the UK. Kenya has a Dyslexia Association that I have had contact with too. Kind regards Liz
Hello, I’m a primary teacher (now tutoring privately) and have one little girl student, who appears to have some dyslexic tendencies. Her parents are very frustrated with her ‘school’, as they don’t seem to be ‘taking on board’ what her needs might be, or giving the right support. They attend parents’ evening and her teacher simply says ‘she’s doing fine’, ‘she’s a lovely girl’, etc. but don’t actually have anything specific to say about her attainment or progress. I want to do my best for her, so that she can reach her full potential, without her feeling pressured. I’m trained in Sounds-Write and intend to use this phonics programme to help teach reading, writing and spelling. I just want to know if there’s anything I might do to alleviate any possible stress/pressure. At the school I taught at for 25 years, the staff were ‘trained’ in being dyslexia-friendly, but I feel that I need to do more.
PS The young lady I’m teaching doesn’t appear stressed. In fact she’s quite the opposite and fairly ‘laid-back’. She has a wonderful sense of humour and is fantastically imaginative (which I love!).
Thank you, in advance.
Hi Alice,
I think starting with explicit phonics is a great way to go. I have looked at ‘Sounds Write’ before and it is great. On my website you will find free ebooks which go into detail about how to support students during the school years. You will definitely get some ideas from here to support your imaginative, fun-loving student. Kind regards Liz
I struggled through school with writing and reading, I struggled in life with messy writing and telling the time. I worked hard to improve my writing and reading but it sometimes still us hard, and at nearly forty still get stressed when looking at the clock. Now my nephew is thought to be dyslexic and want to make his life easier.
Hi Caroline, Do you know about Barbara Arrowsmith Young? She has a great strategy for reading clocks. Google her. One of the best things you can do to support your nephew is to become his confidant. People with learning difficulties often think they are the only one. They can feel very alone. Use my website to give your resources and be there for him. If you need any specific advice let me know. Kind regards Liz
Hello Liz
Well Im not sure where to start.. Um I work in a school with students from different backgrounds and I have great connections with them Im what you would call me a (student support officer) SSO but Im an Aboriginal Community Education Officer my role deals with students who need support in all areas.
I have worked in a classroom for special needs children and have thouroghly enjoyed every minute.
For me its just to have an understanding of What is Dyslexia How can I help and What trainning do I need if any.
Hi Evelyn, I would love to provide some resources to indigenous communities around Australia. Please start with my book Helping Children With Dyslexia as this is a great place to start. There is also a Learning Difficulties Conference coming up in Sydney in August. There will be some great speakers and you would learn a huge amount for your work. http://www.learningdifferenceconvention.com I will be there and also speaking. You can learn more about training there. Kind regards Liz
Both my oldest brother & my 12 year old daughter have dyslexia. I figured out that my daughter had it when she started kindergarten & she couldn’t rhyme. She had wrote things backwards but we just worked on it & she had gotten over most of it by the time she started school. She is still a slow reader & writes very poorly but with a little time she does get better. She has an IEP at school which allows her to have longer to finish work & she doesn’t copy notes off the board the teachers print off copies for her. I am very hopeful that by the time she is out of school she will be able to do anything she wants. the only issue we have is with the other kids who treat her different because she doesn’t read as fast as them. I tell her they are not your real friends if the way you learn bothers them. she has been with most of them since kindergarten & it was fine until the hit the middle school, now it is uncool. So we have some self esteem issues to work on now but her teachers are wonderful & just love having her in class. They say she is the hardest worker they have because she doesn’t give up she keeps at it until she gets it. Most of the other kids just give up & move on. I would like information to help her teachers understand her more. Her elementary teachers were lost. I basically told them how to teach her, it is not in their training to deal with dyslexia, our school system doesn’t even acknowledge it as a learning disability. I had to fight for 3 years to get her IEP, it wasn’t until her 3rd grade teacher who is a close friend filed paperwork for it that we got it. Until then I basically taught her everything over when she got home from school everyday.
Hi Regina, I have written quite a few blog posts about how teachers can better support students in the classroom. Look on my site under ‘Dyslexia and School’ and you should find them. You can download them too. Also make copies of the free posters and take those into school too. My book has many strategies. Try to find it in your local library. Most libraries have a copy. People with dyslexia often read slower it’s true, but they also read more accurately and for more detail. My husband reads all our bank contracts etc. because he doesn’t miss anything, whereas I do, because I read too fast. Tell you daughter this and give her the words to combat the negativity she gets from her peers. Knowledge is power. Full credit to her for her determination. She will go far. Kind regards Liz
I am a mom of three and have noticed my second son has some difficulty learning. I was initially worried about his delayed speech, but discovered he struggles in class. He will soon be 6 but fall behind all other children in his class. He is possibly the oldest in his class as he has not been able to pass his nursery class. Unfortunately, there are no specialists here to give a diagnosis on both the delayed speech and learning difficulty. So, I have taken to the internet to find answers and ways to help him cope.
Hi Jane, It is really challenging when you cannot access a support network in your local school and community. My son was also 6 when I discovered he was falling behind his classmates and was not making any real progress. One of the first tools I created for him was using the classroom lowercase and uppercase alphabet letters cut out in thick rough sandpaper and stuck onto colourful poster paper. Then I stuck up the 26 posters with sticky wall dots. I also used a permanent marker to draw a dot and arrow as to the way the letter had to be written. Every day my son would walk along use his finger to trace the letter and say its name and sound. All the kids who visited the house loved this tactile tool. It was on the wall for years until it became too tatty. If I had my time over again and knew what I know now I would have put my 6 year old son through Fastforword. It will work on both his delayed speech and his learning difficulties. Please get his hearing and eyesight checked too, just to make sure there aren’t any sight or hearing issues for him. Let me know how you are going so I can offer you some more advice and if you have a chance please see if you can get a copy of my book and have a read or listen . This will start you on the right track from day one. Kind regards Liz
Hi I’m Lisa I’m here because my son who will be 15 in June has been diagnosed with dyslexia plus dyspraxia plus asperger syndrome and short term memory issues…I am a senior nursery officer and I knew from my son being young he had these conditions but trying to get professionals to see my point of view took many years. He has suffered in high school so much so that I made the decision to remove him and have him homeschooled. He struggles alot with his dyslexia and I joined hoping to get tips on how I can assist his tutor with his homeschooling as he gets anxious when writing letters and doing tests etc. Thank you in advance for any advice given.
Hi Lisa, I know my program The Ten Minute Tutor says it is for 7-14 year olds, but there are many 15-18 year olds using it too. It will not only help with the gaps in your son’s learning, but also with his self-confidence. I know enough now to know, that when parents remove their children from school, things have been seriously bad for a long time. I hope your son is starting to get his self-esteem back. The other program I would use in tandem with mine is Touch Type Read Spell. It will increase your son’s processing rates, improve his spelling and assist him with his writing, because he will be able to type. Muscle memory is a great way to help with remembering how to spell trickier words and will help to increase his short term memory skills. Please use the resources on the site to rebuild your son’s self-confidence there is a video under the topic General Interest that will show him he is very good company and had a great future to look forward to. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz,
My 10 year old daughter has been suffering for the last 2 years from what I believe is Dyslexia. Unfortunately, due to overwhelming costs here in NYC an initial assessment I was told would be a few thousand dollars of which I don’t have. Tutoring costs are also beyond my budget. My daughter is in the 5th grade with a 3rd grade reading level and because she has an IEP, the school will pass her to the 6th grade with the accommodations listed on her IEP. I am here because I am desperate to get her some type of help before she enters middle school. I have not seen any improvement in her grades even though she is in a class with two teachers. The teachers say they have not seen any improvement from the beginning of the year. Its frustrating to hear this and not see what steps they have taken to try and help my daughter. I am hoping by being here, I will get some insight and learn how to help my daughter the way you did with your with your son. I relate so much with your story, I appreciate you taking the time to share this program. I look forward to what I can learn to help my daughter. Thanks.
Hi Marilyn, Your daughter is the perfect candidate for The Ten Minute Tutor or in fact any of the programs on offer on Dyslexia daily. It is best to be specific about her needs and see how she prefers to learn as this will help you to choose the best one for her. Her teachers should be able to help you here and also your daughter will have some insight too. All the programs are much more cost effective than a tutor. I thought our diagnostic assessments were expensive in Australia but yours are even more so. I also want to you to read my book, you can get it from your library as they usually carry a copy. It will give you many strategies to deal with your daughters school. You will soon know what questions to ask and what your expectations should be. Your daughter is also protected by laws too. Check with your local Dyslexia Association. Please consider a dyslexia specialist school you may qualify for a diagnostic assessment through them and maybe even schooling if your daughter qualifies. I know there are some good ones in NYC and surrounds. You can check this in the Dyslexia daily Directory. Kind regards Liz
Thanks, I spoke to my husbamd we are going to try the program for 30 days and see hownit goes. I also recieved the free gift E-book for helping my daughter at home. I will check on the site dictory fora dyslexia specialst school and association I had no idea they had that. Thanks again fornyour time and great information! Thanks a million -Marilyn
That’s a pleasure Marilyn. I look forward to hearing how your daughter is going.
Like you I am a teacher and mum to 3 beautiful articulate dyslexic children. My husband was diagnosed in the Uk as dyslexic along with his 2 sisters.( they seem far more accepting and advanced in their diagnosis and assistance). Understanding that it’s genetic sent me on a mission to help my children who were all struggling with reading/ writing. I undertook trading as an Ireland screener and discovered that in fact I was also dyslexic. I then trained in the Orton Gillingham method and looked at the Davis program. So glad that you have put it all together in one place….. Am presenting at the school I work at and will be recommending your book/ 10 minute tutor. Thank you for all the work you’ve put into this.
Hi Christine, Your school is lucky to have your experience, knowledge and expertise. You’re right they are so much further ahead in the UK when it comes to getting a diagnosis for dyslexia and support in place than in many other countries. There also does not seem to be such a negative stigma attached to having dyslexia either. Thanks for telling others about my website and resources. Feel free to keep me up to date with your work and your research. I am always wanting to know more. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz,
First of all I’d like to say thank you for all you do!!! Well my story has many roads and directions. I am a certified special education teacher in Texas and much like yourself have grown frustrated with the school system both private and public so I have left the traditional teaching field and now am a private in home tutor, however I am in the process of hopefully opening my own education center for our exceptional students out in the his world (Alternative School) and parent resource center for home schooled students In my teaching and tutoring experiences as well as my own struggles due to being dyslexic, I have found a great need for this service in my area of San Antonio, TX. As I said my story has many roads, not only did your site peak my interest as an educator it also hit close to home being that I myself am dyslexic, however ironically I wasn’t identified until I was a freshman in college, my history professor is the one whom discovered it and had me tested. I always knew there was something different about how I learned but never had a name for it. I still to this day remember my mom reading my textbooks and other materials to me in highschool otherwise I struggled significantly with my school work. So this is me in a nutshell.
Hi Christina,
It’s a pleasure. I love my work. You are the perfect person to open a resource centre and school. What an amazing goal. How often I hear of people being diagnosed with dyslexia in college. Seems quite silly really, considering the fundamentals of reading is taught in elementary schools, that your diagnosis took so long. All they while you spend years wondering why you don’t learn like the other kids at school. Your mom sounds like a champion. No doubt she is one of the reasons you move forward so positively, determined to make a difference for others. Good luck with your venture. I would love to come and visit your centre once you are up and running. Please make use of all the free resources on my site. Kind regards Liz
Thank you for your book. I am a year 2 core teacher. I have 2 students in my class with dyslexia. I am always looking for new ideas to keep them engaged and interested.
Thanks Nicky
HI Nicky,
I’m so glad you like my book. That is great feedback for me. Please use all the free resources on my site to support your students. They are fortunate to have you as their teacher. Kind regards Liz.
Hi. My name is Tammy. I’ve taught kindergarten for 15 years. My 10 year old son has struggled all through school. He has a lot of dyslexic traits, but school system said he doesn’t. Being a mom and teacher, I’m looking for more information that could possibly help him.
Hi Tammy,
If you believe there is more to your son’s learning difficulties then it may be a good idea to seek out an educational psychologist for a more thorough diagnosis. It is usually the case that a mother’s intuition is correct. Don’t hesitate to contact your local Dyslexia Association and ask for some more localised advice. Kind regards Liz
Hi I’m a preschool and after school club manager and mum of two beautiful daughters. My youngest daughter is left handed and shows signs of dyslexia in her writing, also short term remembering things, understanding first second and last when putting things away but forgetting items in middle. Which we find ways of dealing with this, and only giving one instruction and visual items. I’m looking forward to reading all the information, thank you x
Hi Sally, I have been doing some research on memory at the moment. It is certainly an area in which there are lots of studies being conducted. I will post some more articles on this in the future. Kind regards Liz
Hi
First of all I’d like to say thank you for all you do.Like you I m a teacher.I want to help my Students and other children who lives around me. Here in Pakistan, English is spoken as a second language.I want to be your friend and I’m looking forward of reading all the information.People around me really need my help. thank you .
Hi Tazyeen, It is lovely to hear from you from Pakistan. Your students are so fortunate to have a knowledgable teacher to support them. Please use my resources to help your students. Kind regards Liz
Hi, im a mother who son has dyslexia along with lots of aother learning problems. I picked up when my son started school there was someting wrong,i spoke to his teacher who said kids are like that when they first start school.if we think he has dyslexia they wont test him to hes at age of 7.So i worked with my son & teacher aids until age 7,then i said to school again about it,as it runs in my family,including myself,coz i had no help at school,i didnt wont my son to struggle aswell.The school turned around told me my son was fine,i was being over protective mother,but as a mum you know your kids better than anyone.So i looked up signs to fined out my son had 9 out of 10,i also spoke to my friend who is a teacher & has knowen my son since he was born,she agreed with me,2 long years it took me to prove to the school my son has dyslexia,by this time it was my sons last year at primary school.He is now at a new school & they are doing everything give my son the help he needs.The most important thing to me as a mum is my son gets help & the fact all his teachers tell me that he never gives up on trying,his writting is now read able,yes he still struggles at reading & spelling but he keeps trying if he cant,sometimes he gets very frustrated if he cant work things out.We dont get much help here as parents on how you can help more,in the last year they have found out my son as alot of learning problems,we get help for only some of them coz they really cant do much with the rest.It use to upset me that my son struggles but he has showen me that you just keep on going.He has said to me when i get older im going to be rich,i have showen him all the farmous people who have dyslexia & where they are now,that is my sons goal.I will do what ever i can help him.I was very shocked when i googled it up & seen how high the number of kids in new zealand have it,sad thing is alot of those children wont get the help they need as our goverment dosent pay for a child get tested here,i was very lucky i manged pay $400 for 2 hour test to say yes my son has got dyslexia,because we got it done ,the school gets extra funds from the goverment so my son can have a teacher aid working with him.Thank you for sharing your story Liz
Hi Anne-Marie, You are a fighter and so is your son. You should be proud that you listened to your intuition and with all of your efforts to support him. My son tells me he is going to be rich too and I have no doubt he will be. Determined is his second name. 30-50% of all entrepreneurs according to quite a few studies are dyslexic. Our children understand what it means to work hard. I would recommend The Ten Minute Tutor or Touch Type Read Spell to help your son improve rapidly and to help him to identify gaps in his learning and catch up at school. You’re right our schools and governments have much to answer for. Things are improving but it is too slow for some. I will keep working and trying hard to change this. Tell your son I said hello and tell him to never give up and he will succeed in the long run. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz, and everyone,
I really enjoyed reading everyone’s stories and the interviews on this site, which featured the determined, clever and creative dyslexic individuals who, despite their learning hurdles, are so amazing and successful in their lives!
I am very pleased to be part of the Dyslexia Daily community. I am a writer and I am a part-time Literacy Intervention and English as a Second Language teacher with years of experience across Secondary and Primary sectors. I love teaching Literacy, exploring my creative side and have begun writing my own junior novels and non-fiction texts.
Two years ago, I started writing draft stories in the quest to help reluctant readers who need or have missed out on intervention programs at school, for whatever reason. (By the way, I am a parent of a seventeen year old, who is a very reluctant mathematician and I know how important it is to access effective help for our daughter. As parents, we try to keep her positive about her numeracy learning. It is key to her self-esteem and engagement.)
So now, I am forging ahead and am completing my graphic novels- but to put plainly in kids’ speak, ‘cool chapter books’ which reluctant readers would be happy to read in front of their peers at school. I know how some kids pretend to ‘read the cool books’ as nobody wants to be different.
By writing high interest/easier to read junior novels, I hope to engage reluctant readers in the 5-10 age bracket. My e-books will be easier for dyslexic children to read. The components of the novels are researched with a ‘dyslexia lens’ and with audio support children can opt to be the ‘boss of their own reading.’ I plan for self-assessment to be part of their reading process as a way of self-monitoring and taking responsibility for their own reading success. I love the look on children’s faces when they surprise themselves by reading fluently and in a phrased manner or, when they can infer a character’s motivations from what they have read!
Later this year, the first set of novels will be trialed for effectiveness (using robust before and after data.) From there, I hope to gain professional feedback from the researcher, students, tutors, caregivers, and from Dyslexia experts. I will tweak the books to align with the feedback. Then, I will self-publish the first set.
I am currently taking part in storyboard exercises with two fantastic young illustrators, who have researched dyslexic friendly colour palettes/backgrounds, ‘Dyslexie’ font and supportive book layouts. (I just love it that creative part of my work!)
My aim is to produce beautiful, engaging, creative and value for money e-books and to provide easy access to all families (in different tablet formats.) I write under the name of ‘The Reading Mountain,’ but my website is currently under development. I can’t wait to share my work and to help children be independent and engaged readers! Stay tuned!
Have a lovely week and best regards
Susan Spelic
Melbourne
(The Reading Mountain)
Hi Susan, Thank you for telling me about your writing and your books. They sounds wonderful. I am hoping you will consider me to write a review/testimonial for you. I am a huge fan of Barrington Stoke and sell many of their books in my shop. Your’s sound just as good, if not better. It would be great to sell yours too and promote an Australian writer. Stay in touch. Kind regards Liz
Hi again Liz,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I would be delighted and honoured to have your opinion on my books as I need expert advice and guidance in order to make a real difference to children with special needs in reading. I believe I’m on the right track but any feedback from you would be wonderful and much appreciated as I know you must be very busy doing your good work.
I’m excited about moving ahead. Like you, I plan to provide some free resources as part of enabling better access for all to supportive reading resources. I will definitely contact you when I have ‘ready to go’ drafts complete with illustrations. I’m ‘LinkedIn’ with you and would be happy to help you in any way also.
Kind Regards,
Susan
Hi,
I am Nurbieta from Malaysia. I am working as Occupational therapist. As an OT, we deal with students who have difficulty in their learning. I hope to know the best strategies to help them in terms of assessment or intervention. An extra sharing knowledge is important to enhance my skills in helping them.
Kind regards
Nurbieta
Hi Nurbieta, Lovely to hear from you OT’s are very important in the the LD space. Please use all the resources on the site to help with your work. Kind regards Liz
Hi there, My names kelly and i am here as I am struggling with the recent diagnoses of Dyslexia. I am 34, mum of 4 and always ‘just done ok’ at all study i have ever done and it is only a few weeks ago that a university lecturer asked if i was dyslexic. I took it as a silly mistake but researched and some things really stood out to me. So i took the step to contact my university dyslexia support and they tested me and forwarded me to an educational psychologist. And the rest is history, I was told a week ago i am dyslexic and it is in many areas in my life and learning but hopefully now i will get the support to get me through my final year at university with less of a struggle and being alone.
Wow Kelly, after all this time, you finally have some answers for your learning ups and downs over the years. You must have worked really hard to get through school and now university. You use the word ‘struggle’ to come to terms with your dyslexia, but you are already coming to terms with it and very well too, by the sounds of it. Make sure you use the strengths that will have been identified in your diagnostic report to develop ways to help you to learn even more effectively. That is the key to thriving and doing really well in spite of your dyslexia. There are too many incredibly successful dyslexics out there to think otherwise. Best wishes Liz
Hi liz & everyone,
Yes i have found my way here as i want to help some1 and that some1 is my daughter néamh who is 7yrs old. Who is the most loveable adoreable child. Myself and néamh have a special bound, i can’t really explain it, but its like shes always had an esp link to myself. Néamh is the eldest of my 3 living daughters, her half sister being born & dying on the same day as néamh only 4yrs apart. It as u can imagine was a day filled with happiness & saddness and still is. But from an early age i have always felt that there was something wrong ( not the right word but i hope u understand what i mean) and yes i have blamed myself and if honest still do. Néamh seen speech & language therapist age 3, due to lack of attention/behavior however after 2 session’s was discharged ,with the hope that under the guidance of her playgroup & subsequent nursery school teacher that there would be no further problems however this wasnt the case, although nothing to really suggest any major issue until p1. Thats when things really started to show, not lining up, wondering and limited social skills again i took personally and blamed myself that i had done something wrong as a mother, neamh was 11months old when her 1st sibling was born, i had to return to work early in order to be able to get maternity pay. So felt i hadnt given engh attention etc. Neamh is now stage 4/5 of the code of practice and about to have a staturatory assessment with the view of a statement for educational needs, she is coming to the end of primary 3. Neamh has been diagnosed with dyslexia and More than likely with ASD with possible adhd treats. Its following a meeting with school i have discovered her sibling 11mnths younger id at stage 2 of the code. Also their baby sibling is displaying signs that neamh did prior to her being born & also some that are copied as they are inseparable. It was 4 months following the birth of my youngest that my father suddenly died & a week later i was diagnosed with rrms. But hind sight ive had for over 10yrs, and all the stress at home isnt helping along with my husband in complete denial & wont accept myself or nesmhs condition. Btw i am 36yrs and am from belfast northern Ireland. With an over 18yr experience in healthcare, 14yrs of which in a&e. But like yourself liz i believe knowledge is power & i would & will do anything within my power to help my daughters they are my world. Im 36 and scared of what the future holds for me, but to have my 7yr be so negative about herself and struggle so much is unbearable, i know that its not like she has cancer god forgive me. That their is families going through alot worse
HI Maire, You certainly do have a lot going on. So sorry to hear about your rrms diagnosis. You are also an incredibly brave and switched on woman so I have no doubt you will handle the future positively because that is how you write. My oldest son did not learn to read until he was in Grade 3, was late to speak and struggled in so many ways, yet now he is an inspiration. He is competing Year 12 this year and attended his formal last night in a full tuxedo. A very proud moment for me. With your knowledge and support Neamh will be OK. I am not sure if you have read my book as yet, but please do, as it will help you to help her. Knowledge and an action plan will help you to remain confident and that is what you need right now to stay well. All that is in my book. It is easy to read as I wrote it a bit like this, as I speak, to make it enjoyable for worried parents. Let me know how you are going. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz!
This is Yashna from Bangladesh. Basically, I am student in Computer Science who will be graduating by the end of this year. My journey with dyslexia started back in January, 2015. I was looking for a part time job. I always wanted to be teacher seeing my mother who’ve been a teacher for 12 years.Then I came across Zehra Ispahani who was working with Dyslexic kids and needed someone to assist her. Initially, I was very confused with the kind of teaching it requires because it is indeed very different from the typical meaning of ‘teaching’. Since it requires patience, sensitivity, warmth, dedication, empathy, strategy and love towards the kids and the work itself. After assisting and being trained by her for 1 year which still is continued, now I myself is a teacher at her institution- North Star Learning. I love helping kids and looking forward to pursue my career in this field. I feel I need to learn and know more. I want to expand my knowledge because not all the kids are same as in being Dyslexic. They are so different and each one has different capacity and ability to adapt. I am here to help my students, myself and hopefully my kids when I have them. 🙂
Looking forward to learn and know more from you.
Thank you!
Hi Yashna, Lovely to hear from you. I love the way you describe all the attributes needed by teachers to support children with dyslexia. That is a good recipe for a dedicated and caring teacher. Make sure you put North Star Learning on the Learning Difficulties Directory as I am unaware of many support services being available for dyslexics in Bangladesh. This will help families to find you. Best wishes with your teacher training and your work helping others. Kind regards Liz
My very long story started when my son Alfie was 7 now 11. He attended our local school and everything was fine until he was 7 when his teacher asked me if I had a few minutes to spare. She proceeded to tell me Alfie’s behaviour was awful he never pays attention in class, when set work he always find something else to do, he is always wondering around the class room or has his head on the desk as he never has had enough sleep and can’t get on with his school day. I had never once been told of any behaviour issues and was shocked as at his last parents evening only a month before I told them I thought he was dyslexic ( as I am) and ask what they thought for them not to mention a thing and said is was doing well. Which shocked me as I had concerns in lots of areas.
My husband and I was so shocked we called a meeting for the first things to be asked if anything was happening at home? My husband did explain in case they were unaware our daughter is also in Alfie class and they have no concern with her.
After a very long meeting no member of staff agreed with the fact he was struggling with his work and they even said it was just behaviour problems only and we needed to address this.
We were not at all happy with this and had him screened to find out he was E ( servely) dyslexic with possible irlens and poor processing skills. We arranged meetings ever other week at school. Went to an irlens tester and came out with glasses ( that process it self was just amazing nothing short of a miricle)
School was still not helpful or supportive and only continued punishing the bad behaviour.
My son changed from a happy social caring and talented tennis player into a mess. He didn’t want to get out of bed, get dressed I dragged him to school on a daily bases leaving him upset and not wanting to stay. For him to repeatedly saying he was stupid couldn’t do anything and he was a baby. He stopped playing tennis as he just sat on the court and we couldn’t get him to do anything and didn’t want to play out with friends. He just wanted to be with me. Then one afternoon I picked him up from school and he told me he wanted to stab himself.
At that point after28 weeks of meetings from coming to arrangements that things would happen and be put in place in school to turning up at the nx meeting for non to have been put into place we as a family could not take it any more.
We moved school for Alfie. We researched visited and took all his needs in to consideration and found a very small private school near use. Within 4 months we had our happy boy back. He bounced into school each day. He connected well with his teacher and the head was very supportive. A year down the line and the headship changed and he had a new teacher and everything started to go wrong again everything became about his behaviour and not about the level of support. Again lots of meetings that just didn’t get anywhere. Then after one meeting I was told by the new head and his teacher “we have lost all positivity for Alfie”.
No parent should hear things like this from people who are suppose to support and care for your child.
They told use they couldn’t provide any senco support for Alfie and that no one in school had any training any more in special needs. They asked us to pay for a ed phys report ( which an appointment had already been booked by ourselves to help us better understand his strengths and weaknesses) which would cost us £400 I had been given an ed phys by a local private dyslexis school costing £200.
The worst problem was when they told us and kept reassuring us his work was fine and this awful uncontrolled behaviour was not connected he apprantly was just a very unhappy child!!!!!!!
We handed written notice and said that we was going to take a term to look for the best school to support our child.
Unfortunately we didn’t have that oppertunity as less than a week later I was called to pick my child up due to him tripping another child on the football field and injuring him. When I turned up all his bags were packed and placed waiting these contend everything he had in school. When I was in the heads office he said” we are going to have to ask you to remove Alfie from the school”
That was October 2014 and that was that.
No letter no contact after nothing.
A week later we saw the ed phys to be told Alfie is sevely dyslexic with no working memory processing and audio processing delays dyscalculi dysgraphia irlens
‘ yet his work wasn’t an issues’ how any teacher could not see this is beyond me.
We started to applie for a EHCP which we knew would be rejected as we didn’t have any other supporting info. In this time I stayed at home with Alfie as there was no local school places. On many different occasions I spoke to many people at the LEA and got no help with our situation. It wasn’t until the EHCP got rejected that the inclusion officer and map team got in touch due to us not educating our son.
He stayed at home 7 months until this was all sorted. They reported the school for discrimination and safe guiding. In Feb 2015 Alfie was taken into hospital and diagnosed with type 1 diabetes yet another massive life changing shock to the system.
Eventually We got put in contact with a small group called IPT I like to call them my saving grace.hour by hour Alfie built up his time with them and in the process his confidence self esteem and joy of education. It was hard to watch the progress as it showed had bad things became for him. Then Alfie and his Ta started school the same way and hour at a time until March this year Alfie’s transition from IPT to school was complete and he is supported so well in school without a TA.
His reading age has gone from age 8 to 11yrs 6 months and reading comprehension from age 7 to 12yrs 4 months. School importantly can see dyslexia does just not effect a child in the walls of a school but at all times. He has worked his little butt off. He has the most amazing group of friends and he is loving life again. He also has the most proud parents.
It has been on ( and I’m sure more challenges to come) a hard emotional journey that no child should ever go through but I’m so proud to say thankfully due to the support of family Alfie is doing really well and feels safe and supported. Next step transition to senior school which he is looking forward to.
Now I enter into the journey again as I have always seen signs in my youngest and now the time to get her diagnosed. Let’s hope I have learnt enough over the years to make this easy.
Sorry so long I tried to condense as much as I could. There is so much I have left out.
HI Emma, Alfie is a hero in my eyes. What an amazing boy to have endured so much and yet he is still smiling and now doing well. That is down to you Emma and your husband. You never gave up on him and now you have your beautiful boy back and he is looking forward positively to the future. Your story proves that children are so resilient when a loving family who believe in them is part of the recipe. You can never underestimate the power of a family’s love. I wish you well with your second child. It will be much easier this time, I can guarantee that. You have already learnt so much. The only thing I can tell you, is that every child is different and as a result their needs are too. Thank you for telling us your amazing story. Kind regards Liz
I am dyslexic. I was tested when I was in the 3rd grade. School has been always hard for me. I still struggle with it. My oldest son was tested in the 4th grade. He is now in his second year of college and doing amazing. He has over come this disability. My youngest was tested in the 3rd grade as well. She is now going into the 8th grade. She is still struggling with her school work. She has an IP plan in place for this fall. I don’t want her to feel discouraged about school. It’s a never ending battle cause of the teachers.I hope this coming fall the school year will be better than last. Things were pretty bad for my daughter.
Hi Summerlyn, Keep you eye on your daughter Year 7 and 8 can be difficult years for girls and having dyslexia can really exacerbate that. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. I always use email to keep the teachers up to date. One of my strategies at the beginning of the school year is to send an email to every teacher that will teach my children. Just one A4 page stating; ‘learning weaknesses’, ‘learning strengths’ and ‘how my child likes to learn’. This gets the teachers on board from day one and makes for a more settled start to the school year. I hope it goes well for her. Kind regards Liz
Hi, my name is Sara and my son is called Harvey. In year 1 at school I could tell that Harvey wasn’t going to learn the same way that everyone else did. He was totally engrossed in hands on play and was totally zoned out when it came to reading or writing. I spoke to his teacher who said he was just immature and it would be a couple of years until they investigated it. I wasn’t happy with that, Harvey has always been a bright, bouncy, intelligent child, very observant, caring and positive. He may as well not really been at school. I persisted with my requests to have some kind of investigation into Harvey, we have a strong family back ground on my side of the family with dyslexia. As I was the chair of the parents and friends at the school I did have the ear of the senior team and eventually in year 2 they started to say that there was something causing a block with Harvey. His teacher was head of English and spoke to the parents at the beginning of each year about how important it was to read etc. I had always read to my children at bed time and Harvey enjoyed listening for a while but was generally to busy doing something else to sit for a complete story. His teacher felt that the best way to help Harvey was to make him read every day with the teaching assistant, who Harvey didn’t like as she was mean to him and called him stupid! This unfortunately destroyed Harvey’s interest in reading and he would often run away if I got a book out to read with him. We battled over his reading books to the point that I thought it was doing more harm than good and we stopped. Year 3 was a turning point. Harvey’s teacher was SENCO and his TA was doing her teaching degree, she tried lots of techniques on Harvey. We had reports and education psychologists see him, he prospered in year 3 and had lots of different interventions, unfortunately the teacher left for maternity leave and progress halted. Year 4 was an awful year. His teacher was impatient and I was at the door every week trying to push the assessments along so that Harvey could finally be confirmed as dyslexic. I was very worried about him going to middle school in year 5, I thought he’d have to start from scratch and we would be back to the beginning. Thankfully, I was wrong, he had a wonderful teacher who I’d spoken to before he started and she was amazing with him, he had another wonderful year and was officially confirmed as being dyslexic with a broad range of other issues. (none of the other issues are major, lack of concentration, very low confidence, poor memory, good use of vocabulary but poor phonics, all sorts of fine motor skills issues and coordination). Year 6 came and the dreaded SATs were around the corner! I spoke to his SENCO and they were worried about putting Harvey forward for his SATs as they thought it might knock his confidence, gained in year 5. After discussion I asked if he could be put forward for his Maths with a reader and have separate (none SATs) assessments for everything other that reading in his English. They went for that and Harvey had intensive training in maths on the run up to the tests. Much to everyone’s amazement Harvey achieved a level 4a in his maths, he received a 5c in his science assessment but a 2b in his English. Everyone started to think differently about him now, thinking that he was capable of much more than we all thought. Harvey has continued to do ok in his maths and science but there is such a block with his reading that it is hindering everything that he tries to learn. I’ve had regular meeting with his teacher and I’m also a school governor so I have lots of opportunities to ensure that he’s not being left behind. He seems fatigued with interventions and additional lessons, he has been doing rapid reading and is making progress but it’s very slow. I encourage him to try and read general things on the tv or signposts, he tries but is very slow and looses confidence before he makes progress. His school have tried some newer things like a laptop to write with as his writing is so slow, he has a coloured overlay which he reads with sometimes but it doesn’t make enough of a difference to encourage him to read a book. We are now at a point that Harvey needs to start making big progress. He’s 12 and things are going to get serious as far as GCSE’s are concerned. They are talking about him doing a BTech instead of GCSE’s but I don’t want him to be undervalued. He’s a lovely boy, who can chat to anyone, loves cars and bikes, wishes he was better at sport but tries with cricked and basketball, lover riding his bike and walking with the family. He’s getting more negative as he gets older and I can understand why, we’re looking for the magic key, we can’t seem to find it!
Hi Sara, Thanks for telling us about Harvey. You have been there every step of the way. Well done for for your constant advocacy of his education. It really does seem like reading is a major issue for Harvey and I know other children where this has been the case too. Around the age of 12-14 years you may like to consider utilising technology to help with his reading. Two tools to consider are text to speech software and a live scribe pen. If reading is his main issue give him a bridge of support to overcome this, so he can maintain his confidence and keep up with the content at school. Have you tried Touch Type Read Spell as a way to teach him to read? It may be worth considering. You will find it in the Dyslexia Daily Shop. Kind regards Liz
My daughter is 12 years old she is dyslexic and dyscalculia. She has started high school and has a modified program for her which she is still struggling with yet socially she has makes friends very quickly and has this beautiful nature about her. She’s frustrated and gets exhausted very quickly and often comes home and is tired
We will go through words and reading and maths and the next day she hasn’t remembered it. To get her to write things down has always been a struggle.
Hi Stephanie,
Your daughter’s ability to make friends and her beautiful personality will help her to go far. In life it is not what you know, but who you know that makes life easier. Back to her learning difficulties, her mental exhaustion is an indication that her brain is working extremely hard everyday to process information. There are ways to make this easier for her. Taking photos, recording audios rather than note taking which can be slow as laborious. There is an ebook on Dyslexia Daily which is all about how to make children’s life easier at school. Take a look at that. It will give you lots of ideas.
Kind regards Liz
I am Twyla, a elementary school reading specialist.
To learn that I am not alone in this struggle to get students to read.
I am here to support the dyslexic students I work with on a daily basis at the elementary level.
Lovely to hear from you Twyla. Keep up the great work. Kind regards Liz
I’m a mother to 4 beautiful kids, 17,15,13 & 9 and I work as a Teacher’s aide.
My 9 yr old son is ADHD & Dyslexic but since been diagnosed almost 2 years ago he is now coming along well.
He does still get very frustrated at not being able to write as well as his friends. But he does understand he has some difficulties spelling and the reasons behind it.
Helping struggling kids is one of my big passions and seeing any tiny successes with these kids is a major achievement for them and makes me want to help them even more.
Hi Maria, It is great to hear that your son is doing well. Keep up the great work. You have great insight after advocating for your son and now you can help others too. Kind regards Liz
Hi. So this is my story. My husband is 40 years old and has severe dyslexia. That’s what they call it. We call it Illiterate. He cant read or write on his own. Everything is a picture to him. I recognizes what some words look like and remembers it as an image not a word. So he knows what my name looks like but he cant spell it. He can copy written words down but he doesn’t know the letters. He doesn’t let it affect his life. He has been employed permanently since he was 14. Hasn’t been out of work for more than 2 weeks in his life. My eldest daughter is 6. While she is too young to be diagnosed as dyslexic she has all the signs. She knows the alphabet because it is a song. She can recognize some letters because they are in her name but she doesn’t know what the letter is – just the fact its in her name and the sound it makes. She remembers how to write a handful of letters but cant tell you what those letters are. So my story is about my family. Helping them, supporting them and doing the best I can for them. My husband has gone back to school so many times and seen so many specialists – the last being 5 years ago. It is too late for him – too hard. but together we are going to do everything in our power to ensure it is not too hard for our daughter. We will do what we need to do to find the key to unlock whatever it is that will make reading and writing and spelling click in her little brain. I am excited to try your material with her. Thank you!
Hi Sheri, Thank you for your story about your family. Can I suggest that your husband tries Touch Type Read Spell you will find it in the Dyslexia Daily shop. Let him have a look at some of the adult testimonials there. To get your daughter started, I just wrote a recent post on helping children to learn the alphabet in response to another mum that was having trouble with her son. Please start there. Kind regards Liz
My story is just beginning. Mom to a 7 year old who hasn’t been diagnosed as dyslexic yet, but has so many markers. I’m already getting a run around about testing, but that’s ok…. I ready to fight for my child. I’m looking for resources and researching daily. Any advice is more than welcome!!
Good on you Angie. Please access all the resources to help you to advocate for your daughter. Kind regards Liz
I work as an Early Intervention Consultant and so work with families to receive help available to their children. I would like to learn more to help families who’s children are having difficulties with reading and writing whether diagnosed with Dyslexia or not.
Hi Karen, You will sure learn more on that topic here. Great to have you on board. Kind regards Liz
I homeschool my children and saw my oldest son, who is now 27, struggle in the public school system. I knew he was dyslexic when he was in preschool because I am the oldest of 6 kids and saw my son was writing letters incorrectly. His memory skills are amazing and it wasn’t until he was a junior in high school that he was diagnosed. I had been working with him through his whole education so that he learned his way. Verbal tests and not written tests, he still does this today and his job works with him. I have 3 other children, my 19 year old daughter finished high school shortly before her 16th birthday because of homeschooling. I now homeschool my 12 year old daughter and 7 year old son. My 12 year old is a talented self made artist. My 7 year old was born tongue tied and didn’t start speaking until he was 4. A dentist fixed his tongue, another dentist removed 6 of his top teeth that had rotted because he didn’t have enough saliva in his mouth. I was told he needed a speech therapist but I began working with him and his speech is normal but we now see him struggling with visually learning his alphabet. Writing his letters isn’t a problem but he isn’t able to read, yet. I’m hoping this program is a break through so my 7 year old son can stop being frustrated and start learning to read, write and make visual recognition of what signs say.
Hi Christy, You sound like an amazing mum. Learning as you go to help all your children succeed. Great job. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz, My name is Beth and I am dyslexic. I was very lucky that I had two parents who realized I had a problem when I was 3. I didn’t talk until I was 3. I have trouble with spelling, hearing sounds, and small motor skills. I had a wonderful special ed teacher in elementary school who worked with me on ways that I could be successful. My mother also worked with me at home on my small motor skills. Having me play piano, sew and do cross stitching (I hate doing all of these things now but those skills helped me with other small motor skills, such as typing). I am now a teacher my self with a BS in Elementary Education and a Masters in Administration and Supervision. I am currently working on a second masters in Technology in Education. Over all of my years in school I have learned many strategies to help me. One of the things that I am concerned about is that in school today there seems to be a one size fits all even for special ed students. Instead of teaching them strategies to combat what ever problem they have, I am told to just give them less work. In other words if most students in the class have 20 spelling words, give the special ed students 10. I have a big problem with this, because as you know (especially with Dyslexia) special ed does not mean stupid. In many cases they have IQ’s above average. I would love to have some stategies to pass on to my students.
Beth your are an inspiration. I agree with you totally. It is about finding ways to help and support each individual child. There should never be a one size fits all model applied in education. Please use all the resources you can find on Dyslexia Daily to help with you work. I will keep adding more as time goes by. Kind regards Liz
I’m a 4th grade teacher in a small private school. I’ve sent my first student for testing this year.
I know next year I will have 2 dyslexic students, out of 15 students.
I’m searching for strategies, etc.
Thanks
That is great Lou. The students will benefit from your research which is wonderful. Kind regards Liz
Hi. I am a mother of a dyslexic nine year old boy. Two year ago he had a teacher that absolutely destroyed him to the point he said “he didn’t want to live anymore”. Last year he had a teacher who was researching how to teach dyslexic children and my son thrived in this class. Yes he will never be an academic but he was making progress and was enjoying school. This year he is cross grouping and so has three different teachers who have no training in this area at all. His behaviour has become very disruptive and he now hates going to school again feeling like all the teachers are picking on him which makes for a very unhappy boy. He can actually read and spell at a national standards level he just has no comprehension of what he has read. He struggles the most with writing, punctuation, etc and the very basics of maths. He cannot comprehend the times tables at all. I am willing to try anything to make his life easier and less destressing for him as I don’t want him to get to the stage of two years ago where he said “he doesn’t want to live anymore”.
HI Derryn, How frustrating to see your son thrive with one teacher and to have this change again a year later. This is a common story. Why is teacher training so hotch potch? We need to have all teachers trained in dyslexia and learning difficulties. Your son’s poor behaviour is a direct reflection of his learning difficulties. Try a timestable grid for his timetables for now. There is a free download on Dyslexia Daily under Free Math Worksheets. Try The Ten Minute Tutor for a month to see if the Read-along tutorials help him with his comprehension. You have a 30 day trial period to see if it is suitable as you get a full 30 Day money back guarantee. The use of song lyrics and assisted reading can really assist with comprehension. You will also find multi-sensory tutorials to assist with punctuation and grammar. Kind regards Liz Dunoon.
I am a Children’s Librarian for a public library system. I just want to learn how to help when kids and their parents come to me asking for book suggestions.
Hi Tammy, My sister is a teacher who has also worked as a librarian. Her recommendations include graphic novels, cartoons, a series of books called ‘Learning By Colour’, audio books, large font books and more. Libraries are a great resource for individuals with learning difficulties. Some even run after school homework clubs to assist students. Kind regards Liz
My husband has trouble reading and writing. My children (especially the oldest) are struggling through school and failing subjects due to their spelling and bad writing skills (you struggle to read them as it is messy). However if you ask them the questions 9/10 times they get the answer right. During parent/teacher meetings i was told that due to their ages there is no more help available to them. I refused to accept that answer and this year has seen us start homeschooling.
I am hopeful that i can get them back on track and get their reading and writing levels to a point that they will be able to get into the career that they want and not be limited.
Hi Penelope, Your husband and all of your children are perfect candidates for Touch Type Read Spell. You will find it in the Dyslexia Daily Shop. Good on you for becoming a homeschooler. Kind regards Liz
I was recently advised that my 9 year son is dsylexic. He struggled constantly throughout the school year with me helping him everyday on top of receiving 4 additional hours being tutored each week so I knew something was wrong. He just finished 3rd grade and he has been promoted on to the 4th grade. I’m not too familiar with dsylexia so I’m just reading as much information as possible to try to figure out how I can help and assist my son on my end. It helps to know that he’s not alone and I’m really enjoying reading all the information especially the positive post. Thank you!!
Hi Kisie that is a pleasure. Please get hold of my book, as that will really help too. Kind regards Liz
I attended a small country school in North Queensland, where it was ok for the boys from the cane farms to wield power tools in art class, and class sizes were fifteen to twenty children. When I was thirteen my parents divorced and my mum, my sister and I moved to Mackay’s sunny beaches.
I have always been an avid reader of books from all genres, but I especially enjoy sci-fi and fantasy. As a child and teenager, if I could have combined reading from horseback while galloping along Mackay’s beaches, or while mustering cattle in the Queensland outback I would have. (Of course, I would have not enjoyed the thrill of adventure if I’d had my head in a book).
From my perch up a tree, I would devour Black Beauty, and Tolkien’s, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. I could never get enough of Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree, The Wishing Chair, and Naughty Amelia Jane. They made me imagine that the grotto in the rainforest might be the home of some fairies, or a gateway to another realm. Or that my toys might come alive when I left the room. (I’m pretty sure that my toy monkey was alive).
However, reading has not always been easy. I have dyslexia, as does my mum and sister. I remember having trouble reading and Mum helping me. For ages I put a ruler over the writing above and below where I was reading, and I would follow my mum’s finger along as I read out loud. (This ended up being my finger I followed as I wanted to read more). I also remember spending hours practicing and practicing writing and spelling words, constantly getting my b’s, d’s and p’s mixed up. (I still do sometimes). I eventually got there, and then my head was always in a book. I was known as ‘The Bookworm’ of the family.
Still, I always thought I was dumb and stupid; constantly misunderstanding instructions, especially when it came to story writing at school. I would come at the story from a totally different angle. I would also end up embarrassed as everyone read out their stories, and I would realise that I didn’t do what was expected. Let’s just say I had a very active imagination. I was very shy and quiet and spent a lot of time making up characters that would talk to each other and go on adventures.
Personally, I thought I was nuts. So I never mentioned it. I now realise that that is what writer’s do.
The last five years have been an amazing journey of personal growth and a growing realisation that I am a writer; a teller of stories. I had often written stories down, and occasionally entered them in local writing competitions, but never went further than that. Now that I am, I am having a such fun writing many stories that have been floating around in my head and pinning them down on paper, as well as writing many new stories.
I am also excited to be able to use my author platform as a way to get into schools and conduct writing workshops. I share my journey with dyslexia and what I am doing now. The feedback that I have received has been that this has encouraged those children who are struggling, not to give up and to keep trying-that they are not dumb or stupid-but they think and learn differently. This has been amazing.
I also blog about writing, share some of my stories, share hints and tips for encouraging reluctant readers over on my website.
Liz, you are doing an amazing job. You are reaching and changing the lives of so many people. Yay!
Hi Megan, What a gorgeous story. I can so relate to it as the books you read as a child were my favourites too. I adored Enid Blyton. I still do. I have quite a few of her books. What a childhood you had. You certainly gave me a beautiful picture from your writing. Keep up your inspiring work and send me through your blog address. I would love to have a look. Kind regards Liz
I’m a mother of 2 girl’s age 3 and 15 months when I started school I was told that I had glue ear had that fixed and then when I was in year 6 I was told I had dyslexia my mum and I went and got me some help I had glasses that were very yellow that I had for reading about 3 years it was a lot of help and so was my mum as well and still is but now that I have children I’m always think about how hard it was for me at school and don’t wont that for my children and wont to be ready to help them out and to understand what I can do to help them and do more for me as well as I know I can do better when I did TAFE I would not read out in class at all is was jut to hard to see the other people look at me i don’t want what had happen to my children at all
HI Jasmin, Dyslexia is like hair and eye colour. It may be inherited but may not too. I think the statistic is Dyslexia is about 67% likely to be inherited in the last study I read. Even so, sounds like you are on the ball, watching over your girls and ready for anything. Understanding why a child may struggle is an important key in advocating for your children. You will certainly have that, if and when required. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz
I’m at the start of this journey with my 8-year old son, Gideon. As I read your book ‘Helping Children with Dyslexia’ I am constantly oscillating between anger and devastation! A teacher myself, I thought I would be able to help my son, but like you, we ended up in tears and tantrums. At least now I know why nothing I’ve done over the last two years has helped. Your book has given me the insight I needed and now I find I am able to remain calm and compassionate when we read every day. There is a long road ahead for us. I’ll check in again in about six months and hopefully I’ll be able to report some progress.
HI Hendriehet, If only we had the right training at university and college, we could be so much further along in understanding our children from day one. I am so glad my book has helped you. Yes please let me know how things are going. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz
Both my children are dyslexic. My daughter is now age 11 & Son age 9. My husband and most of his family are all dyslexic too which makes it quite normal in our household. We discovered our daughter was dyslexic age 7. She went from being a lovely child at preschool to an absolute terror at school, acting out in rage and tantrums as she couldn’t understand why she didn’t progress at school like all the other kids did, it was extremely hard on her and the rest of the family. Luckily we acted on it then and put both her and her brother (5 at the time, and very obvious from the start of school he too was dyslexic) through a programme consisting of sound therapy & movement exercises. It was amazing. We stuck with the programme for 18months. Our daughters anger and anxiety disappeared and my sons fear of water and fear of swings went also. They began to slowly learn better at school even though the teaching stayed the same.
4 years later things are still going ok, however due to the education system being still the same (and not that supportive) I realise I need to keep boosting their learning at home. Your programme sounds like just the thing we need to give them both a lift again. I am looking forward to showing them.
Hi Leanne, Well done on being so switched on to the needs of your children. Can’t wait to hear how they go using The Ten Minute Tutor. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz,
I have became a member of this site as I am a Special Needs Education Assistant in a main stream school.My school Principal had sent this link through to all of the staff. As I am working with a young student in year 3 that has Dyslexia I would value all resourses that would give me more knowledge and understanding of helping this student in the most educational way of teaching.
I am always looking for different strategies and I decided that your site would provide me with this
Gemma .
Regards
Hi Gemma, Welcome to Dyslexia Daily. What a great Principal you have. I look forward to helping you with your students. Kind regards Liz
HI Liz
My daughter (aged 9) is dyslexic and struggles with practically all areas of the school curriculum. For the first 2.5 years of school she would end up with stomach pain on a daily basis and would refuse to eat as she felt so sick – after trips to hospital and various tests we now realise this was related to anxiety about how she was struggling to learn. The turning point for her was her diagnosis which we got just as she turned 8 – the stomach pains have since disappeared.
I also have two sons – my 7 year old attends learning support although its not clear he’s dyslexic. My younger son is just about to start pre-school.
I am hoping that the information here will help me support my daughter and sons as they navigate school and the wider world – I am particularly interested in the strategies for dealing with the psychological issues that come along with a learning difference.
Thanks Suzanne
Thanks Suzanne, Your story will help me to create some more pertinent resources for Dyslexia Daily. Anxiety is such a big issue for children today and especially those with learning difficulties. I am so glad your daughter’s diagnosis assisted her to recover and move forward. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz,
I am a Speech Pathologist but have had a few years away from my profession to concentrate on my “mummy duties” :). I have a son who does struggle with spelling and I am interested in further study in dyslexia, both for my own children and eventually for helping others in the area of literacy.
Thank you for sharing what you have learned.
Kind Regards, Louise Williams.
Hi Louise, My ongoing research indicates that about 50% of English speakers struggle with spelling to some degree. For those with dyslexia it can be debilitating as they have an inability to decode words based on the sound symbol code and for many there is also an inability to remember how words look when they are spelt correctly. As a speech pathologist, your son has a great resource in you to help him. Kind regards Liz
My son has irlen sydrome and is now ok with tinted glasses. Im a teacher and was interest in the approach when i have parent who arent bothered by their childs difficulties.
This can be a real issue Mel, when a teacher can see a learning issue and parents are in denial or reluctant to address any learning difficulties a child may be having. I think having a range of coloured acetates in the classroom are a great way to assist students. Children can choose a colour and use an overlay if they find it helps. Kind regards Liz
I’ve been teaching for 37 years in various states of Australia in both independent and public schools. I’ve also had a variety of positions over the years, including principal of small rural schools. Students with special learning needs have always been a priority for me, and I have always tried to keep up with the latest research about how children think, and how children learn. I’m now teaching Year 4s in a large independent school, where children from all walks of life and academic ability are welcomed. Through a friend who is not employed in education, about 4 years ago, I became active in a local advocacy group for dyslexia. I have learned so much from being associated with this group, and now advocate within my own school for better professional development for teachers about children with Dyslexic Type Learning Needs. I have written and conducted seminars for teachers in my own school, and try to wade through the incredible amount of information and misinformation about dyslexia and strategies for DTLN that are in print and found on the Internet. I found the “Outside the Square” set of DVDs invaluable, and follow the work of Neil MacKay (UK) Maryanne Wolf (USA) Bartek Rajkowski (Adelaide SA – “The Reading Doctor”) and Bill Hansberry (also Adelaide SA: 3Ds – dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia) with great interest. Neil’s mantra of ‘get it right for dyslexia – get it right for all” has certainly proved true in my classroom. Some of the accommodations for students with DTLN seemed so obvious once I had implemented them, I felt embarrassed I hadn’t been doing them all along. I’m also helping parents with a child with DTLN on their journey, as many do not know what to do to help their child, and like teachers, can become confused with the myriad of often conflicting strategies one finds from all sorts of sources.
Wow James. That is so impressive. What a great teacher you are. I wish I could clone you. Seriously you are an inspiration and it is wonderful for me to hear of your efforts to support your students with learning difficulties. You have mentioned some great resources for parents to consider too. Thanks James. Kind regards Liz
I have a 6 year old with Williams Syndrome. She knew her letters and basic letter sounds going into Kindergarten but did not progress on learning to blend or rhyme over the K year. She has a large speech delay that I think is contributing to her problems, there are many basic sounds she has trouble making, like the /d/ sound. I just learned about the LIPS program from Lindamood-Bell and I think it will help her! Suddenly I wanted to learn about dyslexia… I saw a link to your work. Thank you for putting it together.
Hi Christina, I have heard great things about the Linda Mood Bell Lips program. I really hope it helps your daughter. Kind regards Liz
I work with gifted and talented children and teenagers and want to help my students with dyslexia to tap into and optimise their enormous potential before the school system erodes their self efficacy. From my observations, it seems that they have some “21st Century skills and abilities” in abundance and are not being recognised let alone nurtured or celebrated for it! How backward is a society that squanders natural resources?
Hi Christine, I couldn’t agree more. I have just attended a business meeting in Boise, Idaho, America with a range of high level business entrepreneurs. Quite a few approached me with their personal stories of dyslexia. It is all about getting through school with your self-esteem intact. Keep up your great work. Kind regards Liz
Hi Liz
I’m the mother of two boys, one 81/2 yrs old and dyslexic and the other nearly 6 years old and probably dyslexic!
Where to start? My 8 year old was assessed in March 2015 after 18 months of tears and tantrums over reading. Our school ( private with only 18 in a class a teacher and teaching assistant) were quick to highlight problems but not forthcoming with any solutions. The more I read about dyslexia the more I realised he was a classic case but everyone else including my husband felt I was trying to over diagnose him. Well unfortunately I was proven right. I was on the case, have got him help at a local dyslexia centre and got him started on the Nessy programme the day after the educational assessment. Even at the assessment he was deemed to be an average reader ( testament to the amount of time and effort we had put into the reading over the previous two years!) Now he has caught up to be an average speller and has always understood maths although the times tables and telling the time remain difficult. The problem is that he is incredibly able and I can’t help feeling that although “average” is keeping his school happy, I know his abilities far exceed this. The real problem is that verbally he is very strong but finds writing so difficult he is “minimalist” to say the least. He is also obviously dyspraxic to make it doubly difficult for him.
I have gone wrong in the last 12 months. He thinks he is “stupid” and “dumb ” because of the extra handwriting and Nessy that we ask him to do. We also had to help quite a lot with the tables and telling the time which still isn’t secure. Typically he finds the “to the hour” side of the clock most difficult. I know his handwriting is never going to be great, but he refuses to try to touch type properly. I bought him the Dragon Naturally Speaking to try to get around this with his English homework but he just ends up shouting at it because it doesn’t understand him. He bursts into tears of frustration at the drop of a hat and I don’t know how to help him as I feel exactly the same ( and he knows it!). He is demanding of my time and attention constantly wanting me to sit with him or entertain him.
My youngest son has now been at school for nearly 2 years and is the youngest in his year. We were told at the beginning of the school year that he was behind with his phonics and received remediation for 6 months. This immediately rang alarm bells for me so I got him on the Nessy programme too just in case! He has progressed well and is well ahead of where his big brother was at a similar age. However, he still gets his letters in the wrong order in words, writes all his numbers and many letters backwards. Most worryingly the teacher states that he stuggles to follow what is happening in the class at carpet time. I am hoping that this is all due to his young age but cannot help fretting that this might be dyslexic son number 2! Just last week his teacher came out to tell me how poorly he had done in his maths end of year assessment ( aged 5 years!). Again it feels like I am being given a problem list with no suggestions to how to resolve them.
I get the message from the book that I need to boost self esteem. But how do you do that when he can see on a daily basis that all those around him are reading and writing easily. I’ve now given up on doing English homework – I can’t face the arguments anymore. The psychological effects for him and me are overwhelming and I don’t know how to move forward. His schoolteachers tell me he is mostly willing to try but that is not the child I see at home. I don’t know how to motivate him. Your advice would be most welcome.
Hi – my story… I was advised when I was younger that I was `mildly` dyslexic, but I carried on as normal as there wasn’t any support available back then and I have managed to do well in life by creating my own ways of dealing with my dyslexia. My husband went through school being labelled `lazy` and it really effected his confidence into adulthood. Now my son`s teacher has advised that she believes he is showing signs of being dyslexic ( he is 6yrs). He is managing to hold his own in most subjects but is really struggling with spelling, handwriting and creative writing. I am here to look for ways to support his learning and to help school engage with me and other parents. Our school are really good at supporting and dealing with SEND children with specific problems and EHCP/Statements.. but not so good with the other bits.. my worst fear is that he rebels and starts to resent school and reading.. Any tips would be great. Thanks x
Hi Liz, I am a very lucky mammy of two beautiful, intelligent, artistic and creative young girls. My oldest daughter was diagnosed as dyslexic and with ADHD at a young age. My younger daughter was diagnosed three years ago. Thankfully techniques my now twenty one year old and I had developed over many years to use in the past now helps my younger daughter. However I don’t feel that these techniques help my younger daughter as they did her sister in the past. I feel that both of my girls have different levels of dyslexia. They also have very different levels of comprehension, with very different needs when getting them to concentrate. while my older daughter was happy to work mostly using reading aids like audio books and software, my younger daughter really wants to read books like her twin brother. I recently bought a story book written specifically for dyslexic readers. I have sought help from you so I can help my younger daughter to fulfill her reading potential so she can read all the lovely books she buys from her pocket money. I have resigned to (happily) to type out her books on coloured paper, with adequate line spacing for her needs and attach pictures I google from google images to make the stories fun for her. I have limited resources, so cost wise I find the help I need for my children can be inaccessible at times. So I found the free resources I could avail from you over the past months extremely helpful for both my girls. as I often have to send edited emails and provide help with filling out forms for my oldest daughter as she is still reluctant to do these things for herself as she has very little tolerance when it comes to her dyslexia.
Hi Liz, I am a Primary Teacher in NSW and since finishing my Masters Degree in Teaching Primary, I suspected my boy was dyslexic. When he started Kindy, I spoke daily with his teacher and discussed my concerns about my child being dyslexic. My battle with the school still continues. My boy is not 8 1/2 years old and he is now in Year 3. I had 2 Speech Pathologists that suggested the school to have my child assessed by the school counsellor but I wasn’t successful, the reason was “Your son is not a low performer, he is performing well at school, he has only a processing problem.” My arguments with them were constantly and I have done numerous research on dyslexia and speaking with Special Educators, Speech Pathologists and Psychologists as well. Last week, my son had his assessment, mind you it was done by a private Specialist Dyslexic and Speech Pathologist, and the results confirmed my suspicion I had (99.9% my son was dyslexic!), my son is Dyslexic! Finally I got what I wanted and now the battle will re-start with the school so I have all the necessary supporting documentation to show them and I will fight for my son to get the support he needs. I want to become dyslexic trainer teacher in the future therefore I can help my students with learning difficulties. This is my goal and hopefully it will be fulfilled soon enough. 1 in 10 kids with learning difficulties in Public Schools are failing! This is astonishing and I don’t want kids experience failure! I don’t want my son to experience failure either. I have done and still doing everything I can to support my child, understand him and provide him with appropriate support. I am hoping one day I will be able to that for him.
Thanks
Rossana
Hi Liz, what a breath of fresh air you are! I am quite new to this, like a couple of months. My son is 16 and I have failed him his whole life. He has an older brother and younger sister who who are not dyslexic but I am, my brother is (neither of us diagnosed) but my sisters 21yr old has been diagnosed. My sister is not dyslexic. My mistake, I basically put my trust in the school system. My son hit rock bottom this year (yr 11) which kicked me into high gear. I have had him tested for Irlen syndrome which he has a mild case of and is dyslexic. No report as yet on the dyslexia. Your book is now my bible. I am starting to take notes and keep records. I have contacted the school asking for support and I am waiting to hear back from his teachers to speak to each one of them (this terrifies me, but my need to right my wrongs and help my son, pushes me onward). He believes he his dumb, stupid and worthless. He said the only reason he hasn’t harmed himself is because he knows how upset we all would be if he did so. I could relate to these thoughts so we talked through it for a long time, we still do. All he wants to do is graduate, he is dead set against being a high school drop out, even though I have discussed wth him about many ‘high school drop outs’. He says “they still knew stuff’. You ask my son about any fish in the sea, anything about fishing, 4wds or any Rugby personality and you will see he knows ‘stuff’ as welll. Put him in a class room and he can only copy 2 words at a time from a whitboard before looking up again,writes so slow the teacher accuses him of not trying, misspells everything and when you talk to him mixes up his words. Everyone who reads this is probably thinking, why on earth have you not been on to this way earlier? I ask myself that same question every day. I am now, my son will graduate year 12, he may need to repeat year 11 so he can do Tech studies but he will get there. The road looks long and hard but with your support, everybody’s support my son’s future looks bright.
For that I thank you
Judy
I am a teacher with a passion for supporting children with special needs, particularly twice exceptional children. My child is a gifted dyslexic, as am I and my husband. I have a great interest in twice exceptional children. The research I have read suggests that dyslexics are some of the most often to fall into the twice exceptional group, along with ADHD and Autistics. This is why I am here, to find out more about supporting dyslexics.
Hi I am a mum of 3 beautiful girls , my oldest daughter struggled with reading and spelling and has been diagnosed with dyslexia. I have had a very difficult time gaining support through her school , but through a lot of hard work and hours of practice I now have a 10 year that loves to read, she still has trouble with spelling and letter reversals. My frustration as a parent is the lack of knowledge that people seem to have regarding dyslexia and that yes it does affect their reading, but it also affects so much more . I am so grateful I have stumbled across your blog . Thank you thank you thank you.
I’m an early years teacher in Perth W.A. Recently, my son has been struggling with his writing and spelling and we’re now starting on a journey to see if the cause may be dysgraphia. He has been struggling for a while but his teacher has only recently mentioned her concerns (just before reports, very frustrating). I knew he was a reluctant writer but had not realised just how much his writing/spelling were suffering. Your blog looks fantastic.
Hi
My name is Lenore and I’m from Brisbane. My 9 year old son has been struggling at school for many years. We have only just got him diagnosed with severe dyslexia.
It’s wonderful to have a diagnosis, but now I’m looking for ways to help him through the rest of his school life. I have downloaded some e-books, but is there anything else you would recommend? He’s currently happy at school – even though some of the other children are teasing him – but this could start to change once he hits the higher grades and high school.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Hi Liz
I have an 11 year old daughter who has always struggled with spelling and reading and up until this year no one ever mentioned that she might have dyslexia. She is going to high school next year and really worried that she is going to be picked on because she is not a good speller / reader. However she writes amazing stories and is a wonderful artist. She is also the most amazing natural athlete I have ever come across. As she was growing up we found it quite frustrating that she would grasp the concept of spelling and then would forget it in the blink of an eye. I think as parents, we work really hard with our children and spend 6 out of 7 nights doing homework with them (even going to the trouble of making folders of their own that they keep at home and work through on top of their required “school” homework). We also still read TO THEM every night. I am hoping that you can provide me with some strategies to help ease the anxiety and stress that my daughter is putting herself through and the embarrassment that she is enduring with her peers. Many thanks 🙂
I am working in a primary School in the administration. As our school is a small one we have been able to accept children with learning disabilities , but more and more feel the need to educate our teachers to handle or help these children.Recently I enrolled in a course for dyslexia and therefore as my awareness is growing about all the problems faced by children with learning disabilities, I am looking around through the internet to further my knowledge and I came across you. Hope to learn a lot from you.
I am a SEND teaching assistant and have been asked to oversee the pupils with dyslexia and dyscalculia. My only experience, personally with these areas are my niece, who is severely dyslexic, and my younger daughter who has many dyslexic tendencies, and a few dyscalculia ones!
I have over the years, being trained from Early Years to Key Stage Two, taught interventions for these pupils, mainly Fresh Start and Success@Arithmetic, but the school would like to be considered Dyslexia friendly. I had already put visual timetables, task boards and pictorial aids in the classrooms but from September they are being put into all classrooms and all the children in Year 5, we’re a middle school, will be given visual timetables for their planners ( so as not to differentiate those who are dyslexic).
Having briefly looked at the resources available on this website I have more ideas as to how to support not only our dyslexics but also our lower ability pupils!
All I need is the backing of SENDco and I will be putting these resources to good use.
Hi Liz
I am the Student Support Coordinator at a Secondary College. I am always looking at ways to assist the students who have learning difficulties. I am looking for resources and strategies that I can share with colleagues and teachers to enable us to assist these students in their learning. I have had a quick look at Dyslexia Daily and I think your website is going to be very helpful.
Well done, your story is amazing.
Cheers Barb
Hi Liz
I received a link to the webinar that is coming up and have gone from there.
I have 4 beautiful boys 12 10 8 and 4. My 8 year old is the one who really struggles at school. He is in year 2 and seems to be slipping further and further behind it has really only been this year that we have really noticed the struggle he is facing on a daily basis. I had his eyes tested and found he has a tracking problem but there is still something more there as his brothers have the same problem but they picked up when they got glasses where as he hasnt. He hasnt been tested yet but everything I have read is him all over. Dyslexia runs through the family and his teacher this year has been fantastic with him. I have had numerous amounts of meetings with her to work out plans for him. Im constantly researching ways to help him as well. Im doing all I can for him and his school is only small so they havent got alot of funding to help him out so its a struggle for us all.
He loves playing sport and loves doing hands on things like building and gardening
Hi Liz, thank you so much for your webinar – it has given me hope! I am a single mum with two children. A 12 year old daughter who is in first year high school and is really struggling. She was diagnosed with a working memory problem after me “fighting” for an assessment for years since Prep in primary school (it wasn’t until NAPLAN backed me up that anyone would listen). I have tried a few tutors and Cogmed the former was variable and the later only worked on the program but didn’t transfer to her life. She has some anxiety/avoidance and this year has been bullied at school by a girl who has severe mental health issues. She has always gotten on well socially which kept her liking school, but this year has been a huge battle to try and adjust to High School, managing her learning difficulties which are now quite pronounced, and deal with the bullying. I also have a 10 year old son who has recently also been assessment for his learning difficulties, he struggles with his spelling, reading and writing (mainly spelling) and some other more spatial areas (3D rotation?) – I’m yet to hear his results from the Assessor. I’m very hopeful your program will make a difference for my children. My 10 year old is OK but I don’t want to see him go through what my 12 year old is doing through, so helping them both is definitely an extra bonus. Also my 12 year old hates learning, hates reading – her motivation is very low – so I’m really hoping she engages in your program. You have such beautiful passion and commitment – I’m so looking forward to seeing if any of this helps my children. Both my children are very talented at sports, my 12 year is a fairly elite dancer and my son loves and is great at soccer, football. Hoping and praying we can do this and it works for them. Thanks for your dedication, I admire you!
Hi Liz,
I have been reading and watching your story and have been nodding along with everything you have said. My son is now in year 7 and struggling. I have just this week decided it is time to act again to help him and low and behold I got an email from you. I took it as a sign and have signed up for the month trial.
My son has struggled since prep. He has been in literacy support, done toe to toe, LLI and any other help that I could get him. We even did a optical/phonic 8 week course through our optometrist. ( I cant remember what its called) Over the years, there has been crying, yelling, giving up, running away at homework time and anger management problems. The anger has gone but he is quick to give up.
My sons first report home this year he has failed all subjects except sport. He is in an extra english class but still he is not improving. We did an english skillswork sheet together last week and he could not pronounce most of the big words, made up his own and lost all comprehension. I sat back and just quietly asked him, How are you managing at school? His answer was, I ask the kids in my class all the time! I am so worried about his future and I feel that I am failing him.
So, I am signed up, excited to start and hoping my son will enjoy a different method of help, after all being able to do short lessons on a computer, sounds alot less daunting than half an hour infront of a dreaded book. Thank you.
After three daughters who seemed to take only the first 2 or 3 terms to “get” reading in Prep and were successfully enjoying reading by the end of Prep, my fourth daughter Amelie was a surprise. I expected that she would follow her sisters’ footsteps in her love for reading because she was always “writing” her own stories (albeit scribble with pictures). Amelie would always watch as her older sister (20 months her senior) read her Readers and would often blurt out the correct word when she was still trying to sound out the correct word. However, I later discovered that Amelie was predicting the words by the pictures and the context rather than actually reading the letters (which I know is still part of reading). It was disturbing to find that by half way through Year One, Amelie was still not really progressing and had actually diminished her interest in reading at all because trying to read her Readers was so painfully slow and disheartening. We had her hearing checked and it was fine and then because my younger sister had dyslexia, we had her eyes checked by a behavioural optometrist who told us that there was nothing such as dyslexia. So with that information we didn’t really make any progress forward and due to other more pressing family matters, we let it alone. Then when Amelie was showing very low scores on her tests at school in Year 4 compared to her peers and I was worried that she would start noticing that she was much lower academically than her peers, I decided to get her assessed. We had always noticed that Amelie couldn’t cope with more than one or two tasks without starting the first and then forgetting the second or getting distracted before she even completed the first, so we suspected that her auditory processing was low. Her test results were amazing because I was prepared to be told that she was just very low academically. It turned out that her visuospatial skills were high average 84th percentile and her information processing speed was in the superior range at the 98th percentile however her immediate memory capacity was average 42nd percentile and her verbal intellectual skills were low 19th percentile. Her academic skills were either at or below age-expectation in particular her spelling and phonological knowledge were very low. We were delighted because we saw this as a step forward to know how to help her. She just needed to know that she learned differently to some of her friends and her teacher at school was more than happy to assist her in doing that. We still have a long way to go but at least Amelie is enjoying reading again.
Dear Liz Dunoon
I have paid homage to you that your web is so resourceful. Dear 7 years ago in my family i have observed that my nephew Redowan Alom who had dyslexic from class 7 to class x. I was working to progress educational level. After giving him a special care he got A Grade in his S.S.C Examination 2015 and now he is H.S.C second Year Student. But once upon a time he failed 6 subject instead of 10 subject and he was bad at English. Now he is gradually developed. During this time i met another student under English Medium School (Mastermind School, Dhanmondi, Dhaka). She was at class 4. She didn’t love studying. But now she is at class 6 with conditional. Because she is in severe Dyslexic. And my college there is one students who has severe dyslexic.
By these three students and others i am fond of loving to do something in this field. Now i have a little knowledge about this and i would like to expand my activities around my educational institutions . No big deal just my simple story about working for dyslexia.
Thanking you.
Hi Liz,
I have 3 very strong boys who always try their best at what ever they do. My youngest has always struggled with his speech and understanding people when they speak to him. When he started school we started to get a lot of ear infections and throat infections.I mentioned to the teacher that i think he has a hearing Problem. They just told me he needs to attend school more. Hmmm not too sure about that. I wasn’t happy with them at all. He was also bullied in primary school and made him feel real down and just unwanted. I kept thinking he was ignoring me as he would never hear me when i spoke to him so i requested an Auditory Processing test to be done. It came back that he had APD and so when i took it to the school they said they would work with us BUT nothing happened.
We ended up moving and even at the new school they never gave him much assistance. Had specialists from the Education Dept come in BUT its like i was hitting my head on the brick wall. My son had a real hard time when he was hit with a chronic ear infection and then he got tonsilitis and was off school for over 3 weeks. Got work from the school BUT he was so crook we left the writing material and just read and i would read to him to.
When he entered high school him and his 2 mates were bullied and Josh (my son) just walked out of school and rang me. He was in tears and shaking when i got to him. We seen the principle and things went back to normal until he was bullied again about his height and his learning from a child who was in the same class as him. He really struggles to understand things and i need to speak slow to him and repeat things at times. He use to be really good with his maths and English in Primary school BUT now he can’t even tell me what half of 500 is. I cry at times as i have no idea where i went wrong or what went wrong. I myself have an auto immune disease and i get brain fog at times and can’t help him with things. Im glad my partner has a great brain. lol Joshua is under the care of a Psycologist for his anxiety but im not sure Josh is understanding what he is trying to say to him. Josh really struggles and im so worried about him. He hides in his room on his x box and reads some books about his games and he very rarely wants to do things or go out with us.
I have your book on Dyslexia and have been reading it and even took it to our appointment with the Psycologist from the Education Dept here in Tasmania BUT she reckons he doesn’t have Dyslexia. Just his lack of attendance at school is the problem. Also said he never had an APD. Yet i had the report from the specialist at Can Do for Kids in Adelaide. Im so lost with this and really struggle to work our how i am going to get him to start learning again. 🙁
Hi Liz,
I am very gratefull for all your info and have read your book, it was a great support in a confusing time. My eldest son (now 11), started school with much excitement and loved all the activity and the othe children to play with. But he soon struggled and we were often given extra things to practice at home, which rarely eventuated. Getting him to even start his homework would be a bout of tears or an outburst of temper. I always felt overwelmed, we at times managed some of the homework. At each year passing I wondered if he should repeat the year?, we had eye tests , hearing tests, behavioural eye therapy, Auditory processing was a little bit of a problem with recommendations of learning martial arts, gymnastics, music.(all of which was a bit hard, as we lived out of town). It was in his 2nd to 3rd year that I started to wonder “There is something we are missing, as he did not misbehave, and generally wanted to do well” He was never happy, always grumpy and looked dark under the eyes.At the same time his teacher showed me some of his copying from the board-it started off ok, but as he got tired it went like this” hty atr yhn tpljh” formed in words and sentences, but not making any sense. I went into the Easter Holidays thinking, there is something else, I finually googled “Dyslexia” I did a self test- ticking 3/4 of the boxes . After the Holidays, I went to the Guidance officer who just so happened to be trained in Dyslexia assessing!! It was all a process, and it took a lot of time, but just knowing the problem, has meant we can do something about it , and go forward. I appreciate the school and teachers doing their best under the circumstances. Now in grade 6 , he has tutoring 2 nights/ week and this has really helped.( Home work has always been a problem, now that he is having small successes he is able to tackle homework in a constructive way,routinely) He also has irlen lenses. He has had a transition day for High school and is looking forward to some of the hands on subjects! ( this is great, as in grade 2 he asked me, I don’t have to go to Uni, do I ?!)
We look forward to encouraging him to develope his gifts and talents as he enters High School.
Hi Liz,
My fourth son, 16yr old son Sam has dyslexia and we have had a battle for teachers to understand how he learns differently from others. Two years ago in Yr 9, I took him out of mainstream school as he had a reading age of 8 years old, constantly getting migraines, missing days each week and really struggling. Sam attended Distance School of Education as well as attending a private tutor on a weekly basis for two years and went to a reading age of 12 years but socially he was missing his mates. He had no migraines in those two years so just goes to show how anxious he was when going to school. Now in Year 11, he has returned to his previous school, socially a great benefit but still finding it hard for teachers to fully understand how to teach in different ways. The school wants him to use Dragon Speaking Naturally but Sam is not willing to sit outside a classroom for the program to assist him. I have meetings arranged to discuss how the school can help Sam more forward as they have left him to his own devices as passing prevocational subjects will substantial assistance from me at home. Sam is very interested in IT so I want to encourage him to follow what he loves!
Hi I have a girl of six and a half who has had SLT at school and teacher aid she struggles with reading and writing and maths and is below average.She writes letters backwards and sometimes confuses letters when looking at them.She confuses left and write and the letters in her name look different every time. Has problems retaining information and has a few other characteristics of deslexia.I am trying to find strategies and tools to help her as resources at school arent helping.Currently on waiting list to get a cognitive assesment done.Will your 10 min reading program benefit her if she hasnt been diagnosed with Deslexia. She may also have an auditory processing disorder and because the symptoms are so similar it is hard to know what road to go down.
Would thank you for your feedback.
Hi there! My name is Karen Larson and I am a certified Speech-Language Pathologist who has been working in the public school setting for the past 37 years. 12 years ago my daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia and my life has never been the same. This diagnosis answered so many questions not only about her but also her father who believes he has dyslexia as well. As my experience with dyslexia continued, I grew in my understanding that it is certainly more that a reading and spelling problem. This neurological difference impacts many areas on ones life as well as the support system that is involved. When I speak with parents/families/teachers of those with dyslexia, I try and help them understand the strengths this person has. When I provide direct services we not only address the academic issues but talk about the brain differences as well. I am so excited to help others understand this difference and give them hope that living with dyslexia can be a positive thing and help them learn skills to manage through life.
I was excited to discover this site so I can continue to grow and make connections with others that have had dyslexia enter their life in some way.
Thanks for this site and the help you have a available.
Hi Liz
I am Debbie and I am here having read your book Helping children with Dyslexia and now receiving our son’s official diagnosis. I loved listening, watching and reading your Ten Minute tutor and I would like to have my son take a look at the programme to see the fun that he can begin to have with it all.
Although new to this world I am so grateful that you have spent so much of your time researching and putting together such a programme for families like us.
Look forward to this adventure. Thank you
Hello Liz. I am a speech-language pathologist in the public school setting. Given the recent change in CA legislation on dyslexia I am doing all I can to educate myself. I have much to learn. I look forward to all you have to share. Thank you.
Hi Liz,
My 11 year old daughter is dyslexic. When she was at preschool and infant school she struggled to learn nursery rhymes and wrote letters and words backwards ( mirror writing ). She would use either hand to write but I encouraged her to use her right hand, I now realise that was the wrong thing to do. I would try to help her to learn rhymes, sounds of letters, names of letters and words etc but sometimes I would get frustrated that she was getting things wrong and sometimes I would get cross. (I feel awful about that) I feel that it is somehow my fault that she is dyslexic, maybe I pushed her too much or I made her confused. Anyway at the time I didn’t realise she had dyslexia but in year 3 the teacher asked me if I thought she might be. Her school could not get her assessed as there are a number of other children with special needs that were ahead of my daughter on the list and I was told she may not get assessed until year 6. So my husband and I paid to have her assessed privately. We showed the school the assessment and they said that they couldn’t give her a statement as they have so many children with special needs and they can’t afford to action this one. But they said they would give us some things to do at home with our daughter and she could do some spelling sessions with a teacher. Some of my daughters teachers have been helpful and some haven’t. My daughter concentrates so hard at school to just about keep up with her peers that when she gets home she is tired and usually has a headache. She has had her eyes tested and wears special coloured lens in her glasses. She would love to devour books like her friends do but she usually starts a book and then gives up after a few chapters, I don’t know whether that is because it is too hard or that the text is too heavy going or if she just gets too tired to bother. Her current teacher at school,has a dyslexic son and she has trained in teaching dyslexics so I am hopeful that my daughter will have a good year at school. I have been promised that my daughter will be tested after Christmas to see if she will be allowed extra time in the SAT’s and a reader if necessary, I am pleased about that. I would like to help my daughter as much as I can at home and I think ‘dyslexia daily’ will give me ideas and strategies to do that. Many thanks for creating this site.
Hi, what a welcome relief to have stumbled upon your work. I’m a former drama/English high school teacher from the uk but now living in Australia, in Perth. No longer teaching,but raising 2 beautiful children. My eldest daughter has always struggled, first with speech, then with literacy problems since starting school. Luckily we were blessed when Em started pre primary, to have a speech therapist who was also a dyslexic specialist. She diagnosed Em and we will forever be grateful for that even though we had to wait a few years to get a formal diagnosis. Year 1 was fine as my daughter had a wonderful supportive teacher but all they changed in year 2. I had never realised before how detrimental to a child’s well being having an incompetent teacher could be. This awful person changed my beautiful daughters personality and every day was a constant struggle. Despite this we got through and we’re fortunate to have a beautiful talented soul, teach Emily in year 3. It was also the time we got our formal diagnosis and were able to find a private dyslexic specialist tutor to help support Em out of school. This year 3 teacher was the first teacher I had come across who generally had an interest in wanting to find ways to support Em and improve her learning experiences. Being a young teacher I asked how much training she had during her degree on learning difficulties and dyslexia, she shocked me when she said she had had none. Now Em is in year 4 and doing well at school. She understands her limitations and despite her difficulties always does her best and will not allow anything to hold her back. Yes she struggles with maths and money and telling time. Yes her spelling and writing is poor and of course reading is difficult, but she loves learning. I’m so impressed that despite what happened in year 2, she has bounced back. My main concern is not for my daughter, as we are fortunate enough to be in a good financial position to ensure she will always have the best support. My biggest concern is for those children who are not so lucky. I’m slowly being introduced to the education system here in Perth but to be honest I’m shocked as to the lack of support and understanding the system offers students with dyslexia and learning difficulties. Even during my teachers training which was predominantly drama education based i was educated on special educational needs and strategies to help teach students with such needs. In the U.K. There is a huge bank of free resources and training provided to teachers, students and parents. I’m amazed that teachers here, both young and old are not trained on the subject and the fact that all research and support is at a cost and not provided by the government. I think the service you provide is wonderful and very much needed and hope one day it is provided to all
Hi Liz, My daughter was tested at the end of the school year last year for dyslexia and her results determined she was at very high risk. She is 6 years old and we decided to hold her back in Kindergarten this year. I recognized very early on she was struggling. I am simply so frustrated with the way things have to be handled here. Over the summer I took her to her pediatrician discussed this with him, he referred her to a therapist and her Very good (non government) insurance will not pay for dyslexia testing or any type of therapy or treatment doneE for educational purposes. The insurance company says the school is in charge of taking care of all of that. Well, that would be ok if they would do anything to help her. They knew before school was even out for summer break that she would need help this year. Schools started back here August 1st and they still have not done the 1st thing to help her. That is why I came to tou, Please help me, I have no idea what to do to help her learn her alphabet.
Hi, I am a mother to 2 beautiful girls, aged 6 and 9. It was only last year that we discovered our 9 year old is dyslexic. It was more of a relief than anything else because we knew we could help her through it, as my hubby is also dyslexic. Well she was doing well, and I have tried so hard to find books for her to read which she would be interested in, to which we found Harry Potter, we have encouraged her to read the books first before we watch the movie, as an incentive. We have told her, that being dyslexic is her superpower, as she thinks differently and outside the box. She wants to become a mechanical engineer and build soldier robots, in order to stop soldiers from being hurt in war (her Dad was a soldier), but the thing we have noticed is that she is not improving in her reading, and sometimes she just gives up. I would love to see her succeed and want to give her every opportunity to do so, but I do not understand how to help. So this is my story.
I am a primary school teacher looking for resources and strategies to better educate students with learning difficulties.
Hi Liz,
My daughter is 9 years old and is struggling in school. I decided to have her tested at school but we’ve waited 2 weeks and still no testing. We decided to take her to Sylvan Learning and they did test her and she has dyslexia and some learning issues. Ms. Kay was very good with Shayla she told me that Shayla has forgotten what she has learned in pre-Kenedy til 2nd grade. She also has test anxiety. She can verbally take a test but fails it on papr. This is our story…WE just want Shayla to soar with her schooling…
My youngest, now 21, was siahnpses aa highriak Dyacalculea and mid risk Dyalexia at age 14. From there on the school was anazing, mosst of the time, some teachers really didnt underatand why the different colour paper was so important, why she needed things written in her diary as reminders and one on one class help. They wouldnt let her do computer science either. one teacher recognised her learning style and she graduated senior head of her pre vocational math class. This year she started Web Programming diploma at college…. We taught her set your mind to it and you can achieve anything!!
Sorry about yhe typing. This is on my phone.
Hi, Liz! First of all, I want to thank you for all you do. I am a special education teacher in New Jersey. I registered to view your webinar to get fresh ideas on how to help my students with dyslexia (and other learning disabilities). My heart just bleeds for my students who I know are very capable, but are failing in school because of reading difficulties. Thank you for your ideas and practical tips on how to further reach my students and empower in their academic journey.
Hi Im mother to 5 & one of my children Ruby 10 is dyslexic although never been formally diagnosed she has had non diagnostic test which basically suggest she is.
Im currently home educating her,since she started in the education system we have struggled.the first school I pulled her from just crushed her self esteem & took all her confidence away,they didn’t care for dyslexia.
I had her home for a few months then found a new school,lovely & did all they could but without any kind of statement they hit a brick wall,they tried their best but hands were tied.i ended up piling her out May this year,she is due to start senior school next year but I’m so worried for her.
Her spelling is awful & I don’t know how to help,like what would be a good way for her to start ?
My name is Myava. My two grandchildren live with me. Ken who is 14 and Lei who is 12. Both children struggled early in school. Treated for ADHD . Ken repeated 2nd grade which put him and his sister in the same grade. He barely made it through 2nd grade the second time. They had some family difficultys and we thought they just needed time to catch up. We decided to home school thinking they would catch up at their own pace. We home schooled for three years and they did not seem to be progressing. And was struggling for social contact. We put them in a local Christian school in 2015 which put them in 6th grade. They both were failing miserably. It seemed they were not even going to pass 6th grade. I was heartbroken for them and didn’t understand why they could not learn. We started ADHD mess back and my granddaughter begging me not to. The principle there mentioned a place I could get them tested for dyslexia. I had never thought of that. Alabama had no dyslexia screening and I didn’t know much about it. I was able to get Lei tested pretty soon and she tested severe level dyslexia. It took another 5 months to get Ken tested and he also tested severe level dyslexia. I’m told there is a 50% chance siblings will be dyslexic. There is no intervention programs close to us. The teachers are doing oral testing. We have a math tutor. But still they struggle with reading in seventh grade is very important. Note taking, history and science are very hard because so much reading and comprehension . They work very hard , and try not to feel different but my heart breaks for them watching them struggle daily.
Our story started when we adopted our two youngest children. They came into our home at the ages of 5 months and 20 months old. Landon our son could only grunt when he wanted something. I had actually taken a sign language class in college. We taught him a few basic words to help him communicate with us at this early age and he picked up really quickly. Once he started kindergarten I felt like he could have a possible learning disability due to biological parents having learning disabilities but did not know the areas. However we made it through kindergarten with a lot of tears and devoted and lengthy study times. Then we go into 1st grade and struggle really bad with reading and math. We pay for a private evaluation to have him tested for dyslexia. We found out in March yes he has dyslexia. However we could not get our dyscalculia diagnosis until school was out. The school wanted to hold him back. I then find a doctor in Birmingham, Alabama that diagnosed him with the dsyscaculia. I contacted the assistant superintendent and we were able to have a meeting and they decided to let him go into 2nd grade. I was afraid of the emotional trauma he might have if we held him back. We are now thriving. We having been doing Mind Play since the beginning of last summer and I attended a 3 day seminar to help him with his math. He has improved from c&d’s in 1st grade to a&b’s in 2nd grade. I know that he will never be cured but learning more about how to teach him differently has been life changing. I cry happy tears now when I see his grades and I know he will continue to do well because my husband and I are committed to do what ever we can to help him not to struggle with school work. We have a great relationship with our school and they are helping us help our child succeed. Sorry for the long post but we are so proud of the progress he has made in a short time. Luckily right now we are not see any signs that his sister is struggling with dyslexia or dyscalculia.
I am a homeschooling parent of two. I knew before I even had kids that I was going to homeschool. I didn’t know how at the time, but I figured I’d figure it out given I’d read a LOT of books about it, spoken to a LOT of homeschool parents and done a fare bit of general research. I figured out how I wanted my homeschool to be and I knew what the objectives were going to be and how to find what I needed to make it happen. Unfortunately, I also struggled, and still do, with how I was schooled and how that influenced the reality of what ended up happening in our home as opposed to what I wanted it to look like.
I had the mentality of, finish what you start, finish what I want you to finish, pay attention, etc. This did NOT work out well at all and ended in tears and discipline to the point that by November of the first year of homeschooling I quit. I did nothing because I didn’t know what to do to provoke my kids to do what they were told. Long story short, I found a system that the kids and I liked for the most part, but I had poisoned them to a certain extent against reading by then because of the stress of what had happened prior. So, I decided I’d try to make it as simple as possible, read everything to them and let them absorb the knowledge that way.
My son had no issues with listening to me read, he finally reached a point where he was reading each night before bed and even during the day unprovoked. My daughter, however, has never reached that point. She doesn’t like listening to me talk or read and she doesn’t like reading either. I could not figure out what the deal was. I’ve cried more tears, prayed more prayers and asked for more help than I ever thought I would. Every year, I repeat, repeat, repeat the SAME curriculum with her. My daughter falls asleep while I’m talking or reading. She tunes out while I’m teaching so she doesn’t know how to answer questions. She spends so much time trying to figure words out she has no clue what she just read. She never remembers how words are spelled. She never recognizes words I’ve gone over with her repeatedly. I couldn’t take it. I honestly thought she was just going to have to quit school, get married one day and have babies. I was so frustrated.
Finally this year we switched homeschool boards and the principal of the board suggested she get tested for learning disabilities, so we did and turns out she has 3 out of the 8 forms of dyslexia. I didn’t even know there was that many. And, turns out one of the three is hereditary. Then I started to explain to my mother-in-law and husband what I was learning about my daughter’s diagnoses and turns out that explains what I’ve noticed about both of them for years and couldn’t understand. I’ve been so frustrated with trying to communicate with both of them too and couldn’t figure out why it was so frustrating. Now I know and can see why and what. But, the frustration hasn’t gone away. Because now I need to figure out how to teach my child and deal with my husband and mother-in-law so that I feel heard and understood.
I have my child in a reading program that’s supposed to “rewire” her brain and help her learn how to work around her struggles to achieve success. But, I still have to teach her what she needs to know from the schooling program I have her in. It’s a LOT of work as I have to learn how to teach completely differently than I have been teaching for years and years and years. It’s brutal. I’m dieing. I try to explain things only to have the effected family members either tune me out or fall asleep. I’m so frustrated. I’m beyond my limits. I have to study and make notes at length so that I can discuss rather than lecture. I can’t talk for very long. I have to explain every sentence I read before moving on and reminding of what was discussed during the previous sentence. I’m willing to do the work but I’m not confident it’s working. She’s not falling asleep as often. And, she’s engaging in the conversation with me. But, her recollection is still NOT good. And, it’s overwhelming to try to figure out how to communicate with my husband and mother-in-law too. I feel surrounded by road blocks to communication. I’m struggling to cope. All I can do is hope and pray this reading program my daughter is doing helps to the point that she can be more independent in her learning and that I can understand how to teach her so that I can also communicate with the others in my family with the same issues. I’ve already seen improvements in her reading since we started the program she’s in. But, it’s about how I teach her that frustrates me. I have so much learning to do. I’ve been looking for a support group to help me know how to teach without reading. I’ve found a few helpful things. But, I really need a support group.
Hey!
I am a dyslexia teacher in the great state of TEXAS in USA. This is my 3rd year to teach and identify dyslexia students. I am always trying to grow and learn as much as I can. Thank you for having this website. It seems very informational.
Brandy
Hi Liz
I am a mum of 5 dyslexics, 30, 26, 24, 16 and 15. I believe I am dyslexic also and was an early school leaver as a result.
I found a trade I loved and was successful.
My children knew they we’re different, thinking they we’re stupid, from age seven.
Inclusion, was just a word, with no school, equipped to provide it, for my first three children.
It was me or nothing. We spent at least 2 hours each evening redoing all the work, reading, writing, history etc. each evening. It became our lives, work, school, then our evenings spent at the kitchen table doing school work. I introduced them to learning games for the PC, I believe this was a great and more fun way to learn math, typing and spelling . My children although tied, wanted to learn, the fear of being called stupid by classmates terrified them and made me very sad. It was a long struggle, but it worked, the first two are very successful, the third less so but happy with what has been achieved .
When my 16yr old started struggling age 7, It was time for action. With a diagnosis of SLD, speech and language deficiency, motor skills, reading, memory, writing he had hit the jackpot of ,dyslexia plus.
I closed my business and chose to educate myself in order to help him.
I completed an SNA course, certificate course in Dyslexia and Synthetic Phonics. I have taken CPU courses each year to keep updated.
He was the biggest challenge of all, by now we did have remedial help in schools and speech and language programmes.
His tutors we’re amazing!! All describing him as” the hardest nut to crack”.
Thanks to their love of teaching his schooling was structured to meet his needs. It was successful he has passed his first state exam , with honours.
Students and some parents still lack knowledge of learning differently, as a result name calling and bullying occures, is very upsetting.
Last but not least! my 15yr old . A good student bright and capable ,self motivated and took pride in all his work. He has just given up!! Tired all the time, won’t go to school.
This is why I contacted your site. I don’t know what’s this will lead. I just know l will use any help available, work as hard as possible to turn this around.
Regards
Nuala
Hi i am a mum of two a girl 6 and a boy 9 our son is dyslexic, at the age of 5 he went to school and from day one he struggled, he stayed at school for 3 years and then we took him out and today we homeschool both our children.
Our son has a lot of trouble with wanting to read or write as he was teased at school, the ongoing effect that this still has on him is rather distressing, he’s been out of school for a year now. Deep down he just wants to pick up a pen or pick up a book to read and often talks about how neat that would be. Unfortunately once he picks up the book to read and then realises that it isn’t any better his level of stress takes over and he turns into a very angry upset young man….. this just breaks my heart.
All the positive and encouraging things i say seem to make no difference. We have tried lots of different programs for him, and have got other people to help, this works for a while and then he just stops…..
Just having some of the things i have read on your site have seemed to helped a bit to get him to work on some of the words he needs to know by sight. I look forward to learning more from your site.
Regards
Toni
Hi Liz, and community. I’m a specialist dyslexia teacher and have just returned to Aus from London where I spent 7 years working in a school for kids with dyslexia and dyspraxia (and other SpLDs). I fell in love with the school on day one. I felt I just understood the kids and was fascinated by the way their minds worked, and the clever, out of the box ways they looked at the world. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was probably motivated to become as obsessed as I am about learning differences because I am the sister of an older brother who struggled through school, dropped out at 14, and the resulting low self esteem and emotional issues school caused him had immeasurable impacts on our family life, particularly for him. He is one of the children who ended up in all kinds of trouble!! I’m happy to say he is now a very successful entreprenuer, but I guess my mission is to save as many children and families from the same struggles! I too hope to train as many teachers as possible to identify dyslexia and use strategies to help our dyslexic kids. I see my nephew sliding into the same slippery hole, and I so I’m going to do all I can to prevent this happening to anybody else!! It’s so avoidable and they have so much to offer. I’m very inspired by what you’ve achieved so far! Feel like I live and breathe dyslexia but still have a long way to go before I can say I’ve written books and created programs (I have started on a program!). I look forward to meeting you at the LDC in Sydney, where we’re both presenting. Sarah
Hi Liz,
My story mmm, Well I’m a mother of six children 4 girls and 2 boys. My youngest boy who is Ten was diagnosed with slight dyslexia when he was in grade 2 or 3. A teacher at his school had a meeting with me to try and say he had ADHD and needed medication, so i decided to start researching to find out what was happening to my beautiful happy son. I soon read lots of different things and went back to the school and told them he may be dyslexic. With no support i decided to get him checked out and bingo he had dyslexia. Well from that moment my life and family has turned upside down. The school he went to was catholic in a small town that had reading recovery, and other resources, but this just didn’t help him as his short term memory could not transfer all the information overload to his long term memory. My son is in grade five now and i had to make a huge decision with my husband to pull him out of the catholic school and move him to the public school because of his emotional state from being bullied from another child who has ADHD as well as being tormented from the principal and the teacher who was tutoring him at the school. My son is a lot happier at the new school, but still I’m seeing that Teachers at his school are not teaching him the way he learns. At this point of time i have a very angry ten year old that lashes out at me, my husband and other siblings. So as a mother i have been doing lots and lots of research into learning tools that can help my son learn the way his magnificent brain needs to be stimulated for learning. I have seen your web video and am really inspired by your story. I have been researching the Orton Gillingham way as well as other learning resources for dyslexia. I really loved your program and all the other ideas and information iv seen and read. Hopefully i can start to use some of the resources to try with my Son.
Hi I am a mother of a smart, beautiful daughter with dyslexia. My son, although not learning disabled, has significant issues spelling. My daughter’s 8 year old son was recently diagnosed with dyslexia. I had reading problems as a child, and one brother did as well. I became a teacher with several degrees and am currently a Reading specialist who has training in Lindamood-Bell, Wilson, Orton-Gillingham and Sonday Reading. I currently work in a school for children with dyslexia.
Hi
I am a teacher with a student with dyslexia (newly diagnosed) and am looking for ways to help him learn in year 6
I am a 10th year elementary school teacher in my first year of teaching 1st grade. I know what an important year this is for children learning to read. I was a natural reader, so I don’t understand when they struggle why they don’t just “get it.” I’m looking for ways to help my readers who are struggling to become readers. I believe that I have two this year that need extra help that I’m not sure how to give.
Hi,
My name is Nicky and both my daughter (11) and myself have Dyslexia. My daughter doesn’t like to read at all (will actively avoid reading books).
It was incredibly hard when trying to help DD to read – decoding words which sometimes I had to “re-think” myself to explain how to say a word. My daughter also needed speech therapy and we paid for a private tutor who specialised with Dyslexia when she was in Junior School to help her which increased her confidence no end.
DD started in Year 7 in September, her school have recently evaluated her and have suggested Lexia for help at home 20 minutes three times a week – we’ve not started to use it yet.
Regards
Nicky
Hi Liz,
I have an 11yo boy who has struggled all through school and a recent assessment dianosis of dyslexia revealing him at a yr1 level was very difficult to hear, it clearly shows to me that our schools/teachers dont have the knowledge or training needed for our challenged children’s needs.
I have been researching for a tutor or program to help and recently spoke with a very well established tutor company who admitted they didn’t understand dyslexia and didn’t know that they could really make any difference with their program but forwarded your details to me which I am so grateful for and look forward to the webinar tomorrow to learn more.
Regards Nicole
I am a mother of 3 beautiful, wonderful children all of which are very different. My oldest son was always very busy and eager to learn new things and he did so very quickly. My second daughter who is now 10yrs old struggled greatly. of course being in public schools they just kept telling me she needs to read more from 1st grade through 4th.the summer after her 3rd grade year I put her in a summer reading program, I thought this really helped to bridge the gap because 4th grade started out much better but, at the end of 4th grade her anxiety was terrible she never wanted to go to school her stomach hurt all the time and she would come home crying most days and homework well that was a complete nightmare. So I started researching once again to see what I could do to help her. I literally spent 2 weeks straight reading, watching webinars and researching everything that had to do with reading difficulties & I discovered what I had suspected for a couple of years, that she was dyslexic. So next up was finding someone who could accurately diagnose her. I had her tested the end of her 4th grade year 5/2016. I knew I had to get her a tutor or dyslexia program right away because her anxiety was getting the best of her & me. Plus my husband did not understand, he didn’t do the research I had. So we found a program that actually came highly recommended but at $12,000 up front. OUCH……………. we did it though, we felt we had no choice she needed this program because she was going into 5th grade and I also had a very busy 1 1/2 yr old at the time there was no way I could learn the Barton system & teach her. Oh how I wish I would have found your program 1st. Well the program helped for sure but did not help as much as I was lead to believe. I was told I can do in 6-8 months what most programs take years to do. Plus we were guaranteed 3 reading levels. Because of my daughters age and anxiety we thought this was our best option. We figured out a way to pay for the program and she finished the program last Nov 2016. Finally… got her end of program test done Feb 2017 and she was only on a end of 4th beginning of 5th grade reading level according to the test she was given by this program. ( which is NOT what I was guaranteed) When we first tested my daughter was on a 3rd grade reading level so she should have been on a 6th grade level when finished. Honestly, I don’t even believe the end test results I heard the lady giving my daughter hints during the test. But I also pulled my daughter out of public schools Jan 2017 and we are working through the Reading Horizons Elevate Program which she started in Jan 2017 they test in the beginning to see what she knows and her Lexile score was a 540L so according to them she did NOT make much progress so for $12,000 uhhhh I feel like I wasted a ton of money. I watched your webinar this afternoon and boy do I wish I would have found your program first. But, unfortunately I did not and I cannot afford to spend any more money at this time.But I just wanted to say I think the program looks great & seems to me like it would be very helpful to my daughter and I believe it will help many other children learn to spell & read. So for those looking into this program, take it from someone whose spent the big bucks on a Dyslexia Program…… this program might just be what you are looking for. Don’t spend the big bucks try this first.
So I was just looking for more ways to help my daughter and this is why I am here, I honestly did not know this was a dyslexia program I was intrigued by an email I got so I wanted to learn more and see if I could find other ways to help my daughter with her reading, spelling & grammar. At this point she is still a reluctant reader and has no self confidence and I want to try everything I can to help build her up in every way possible.
The Reading Horizons Program is very boring for her. But I’ve already spent the money for it so we have to try to work through it.
I’m a single mother of a beautiful smart 11 year girl. When my daughter was in pre-k, I had a since that she was struggling. The teachers told, “It’s common for kids her age to lack focusing skills and to not spell good.” However it gotten worse with time. Every year I’d ask for help for her. Told the schools something isn’t right. She shouldn’t be having this much trouble. Second grade teacher helped me fight to test her. She’s not servely dyslexic, but it’s enough to cause her problems. She gotten bullied in school and the schools didn’t keep to the 504 plan. So I pulled her out.
I homeschool her now. It’s been a struggle because her self esteem was very low and no confidence. She hated reading and we’ll spelling isn’t good. Now, she likes to read. She’s not great at it, but she will find books she likes to read.
I struggled myself in school with reading and spelling. But was never tested. So I think it’s safe to say she gets it from me. I’ll do whatever I need to do to help her.
Hi, we have two beautiful girls, one who has just turned 13 and another who is just turning 10. We are incredibly proud of both our girls and the awesome people they are turning out to be. Just before our youngest started school I started to notice a few things that stood out to me. Once she had started school it became aparant that all subjects did not come easy to her. It was really hard to get any form of acknowledgement or guidance from her teachers apart from the usual help under achieving children get because of the way they are measured from the school system. Two years ago we decided to get her tested which was such a relief for her and us. Being told why this was happening was a huge weight off her shoulders and ours. The school was informed, we have had two great teachers who have done small things within the class and acknowledged her as an individual since then. We have gone through a one on one tutor through Danc Davis for a year but noticed her tiredness and over all attitude changing for the worse due to a five day week at school, dancing once a week then tutoring on a Saturday. She was feeling overwhelmed with all the extra curricular help so we stopped her tutoring. She went back to being the energetic happy girl of before. This year she is in year 5 and in a open learning classroom with a teacher who is not overly knowledgable on Dyslexia. I’m feeling stressed and sad for my baby as the years get harder and she can still not read or spell well at all. Hence the reach out to you and what you are offering. Cheers, Angie.
Hi there…..well where do l start….life for me was pretty good….Catholic upbringing. My Mum did most of everything especially raising the three of us girls. My eldest sister died at the age of 8. Mum never talks about as she blames herself. My sister died in a car/ bicycle accident…the car hit her. So l dont remember much l was very young. Anyway…l guess life went on and Mum looked after us well while Dad as a self employed carpenter put in the long hours. Us girls went to a Catholic school and eventually high school other than me being bullied all through school lower and high school l was determined to finish. My sister was excellent at school l was average. English l loved to certain extent. Eventually l finished school moved to another town and have been hear for 27yrs…..anyway eventually met my husband Allan got married and had to beautiful boys Matthew 10 now and Noah 5 now. In 2012 Matthew was doing kindy and l noticed one night Allan was struggling to read to Matthew. I asked him about it and he became very sensitive about. Then l found out he struggled reading and writing.l always wondered why l never saw Allan read now l know why dyslexia runs in his family. Allan is very intelligent and very hands on. It has caused alot of distress for me so 1 1/2 yrs ago l took action because my husband wouldn’t.
Saw a professional Dyslexia consultant and Matthew has visual dyslexia . Though he has his glasses it hasn’t done much to improve him. He really hates schoolwork and really hates homework. I’m now at my wits end and wish to take the next step to better my boys lives……
Hello, my name is Fiona and I am a mother of four children, two girls, 15 and 12 and two boys, 10 and 8. I work as a special needs teacher assistant in a small country school. The older three children have cruised through primary school and have always been happy to go to school. My youngest son has always had a strong attitude and has actively disliked school since pre-primary. After several frustrating years of poor behaviour and no academic progress, we had him tested and the results are he has dyslexia. My main concern is to first remove as much stress as possible from him so he can feel comfortable for his school day, then we can focus on his reading and spelling and writing. We have a wonderfully supportive school and although we are in the country, we are reasonably close to Perth. I am looking for ways to support my son and his teacher as we find the best solution for him to be able to reach his full potential. Thank you! Kind regards, Fiona McKechnie.
Hi, my name is Marie and I have recently discovered that my son Alfie (7) has dyslexia. I had my suspicions that something was not right and it’s taken a while but we were recently very lucky to have secured a place for Alfie to be assessed at school. I had the results last week and am now keen to help Alfie in any way that I can. The school are being great and have offered me some resources so that I am able to help Alfie at home too. I attended your webinar this evening and found your methods very interesting. I am going to buy the posters for the consonant sounds etc. I have also recently acquired a spelling practice sheet from a friend that is a teacher and Alfie seems to enjoy spellings a little more with this and it goes more into depth on the actual word i.e. The length, syllables and any small words that may be contained within them.
Hello Liz,
I am mother to 14 year old who is dyslexic. After 4 years of schooling I had her tested, even with report in hand I could not get her school to help in any way. Changed schools and she improved immensely. Now she is actually a fairly good reader but struggles in many was still.
This year she started at her third school. I know when she is doing it tough as she doesn’t want to go to school. I’ve been that mum who has dragged a suffering child to school. Then cried all the way to work. Fortunately she is now able to talk with me about things, but she has too much time off still.
I found you when a friend pointed you out on Facebook, I’m so glad she did.
I’m hoping that dyslexiadaily can become one of my informative helpers that help me support her to become the best she can be.
Hi, I am a qualified ex-primary school teacher in England who struggled with the ‘one size fits all’ educational approach. I left (with a heavy heart) and became a Specialist Study Skills Tutor in Further and Higher education. The students I support predominately have Dyslexia. In order to understand further, and so that I can tailor sessions to their individual needs, I am training to become a Dyslexia Tutor and Assessor. It’s a lot of work but very interesting. I know for certain that my students have already benefited from me undergoing the course and I look forward to completing my studies in 2018 and becoming a fully fledged Dyslexia tutor and assessor.
Hi Liz,
I have 3 girls who are 11, 8 and 4. My 8 year old daughter has struggled from prep, luckily she attends a great school who were onto it from the very beginning. She is now in grade 3 and we have just recently received the official diagnosis of dyslexia. Her issues are auditory processing, working memory and lacks confidence in her reading and comprehension. I’m very keen to explore your program and give her the confidence to reach her greatest potential. She has so many amazing qualities. I feel so guilty for not doing more to date. My eldest daughter was also diagnosed with Aspergers when she was 9, so dealing with her struggles and now my 8 year olds dyslexia is overwhelming to say the least 🙁 so I was very excited to discover your website, thank you!!!!
Hello Liz,
I am the parent of a bright, and outgoing 10 year old boy who lives with the challenges that dyslexia presents daily. Not only does it impact his reading, (which through many hours of work he is pretty much reading at grade level) but in his math and number work Is impacted. He is also left handed which adds to the deficit he faces in a public education system that despite having access to resource teachers still does not fully accommodate or help him deal with his challenges. .
We started homeschooling but thought the public school system would offer more support. We have decided that he will return to homeschooling after this year in the system.
I am a former school teacher (high school trained, but have taught across primary, secondary and tertiary) and now a training subject matter expert in the Australian Defence Force. We do not have any policy on the management of uniform members with Dyslexia which is ironic considering disclosure of dyslexia is not a requirement during the recruitment phase. I have just finished a post-graduate diploma in Adult Language, Literacy and Numeracy, including a lengthy paper on how we can cover gaps in policy. Up to this point, my recommendations have been largely ignored so I am doing my best improve my understanding of Dyslexia and how I can help those with it succeed in their chosen careers.
Hi. I am a mother to 4children. My 10 year old son has dyslexia and maybe other disabilities. I suspected he had this for many years but never knew where to get help and support.people didn’t listen to my concerns. He has now started to get a little support in school but now I want to get as much information as I can so that I can support my son more.
Hi Liz, I am a primary school teacher and have students in my class with a dyslexia diagnosis, and several more with similar learning difficulties but no diagnosis. My students with dyslexia attend dyslexia class once a week to learn coping strategies and support their self esteem, however the rest of the time they are my responsibility. I am looking for ways of understanding their learning needs to help them as much as I can. They are all lovely children, but one in particular is angry and frustrated at his inability to read, and I worry for his future. It has been moving to read the previous stories on here, to remind me that these children all (mostly) have parents who want them to be able to get on in life, and as a mother I completely understand this sentiment. Anything you can share which will help me to support my students will be gratefully received.
My son is 12. He was diagnosed with dyslexia when we lived in France, and had to attend a special class once a week. When he came back to NZ three and a half yrs ago, did not realise that it would be so difficult to get him help. My parents finally paid the outrageous costs in January this year, and now his current school, seem to be recognising his difficulties, and his new dean is helping him with his anger mgt issues, which his dyslexia seems to create. He is bullied a lot, and with his dyslexia makes him seem different to other kids. I look forward to going through your website and seeing what I to can do to help him, especially as he now has to choose his options this year. He is incredibly bright, great at maths, and has a great long term memory, short term is like someone with dementia!! We have also discovered his older step sister is also incredibly dyslexic too, but is currently studying politics at a top uni in London. He has a passion for languages, so am going to do my best to help him
hi liz
i firstly live in a small town called Raetihi in the north Island of New Zealand so dont have alot of resources here.
i have 5 children all with Dyslexia (none of them officially diagnosed) their ages range from 30yrs to 8yrs. the 3 older boys going through school and all now working with no help as i never knew what dyslexia was until 1 of my sons went to UCOL and they tested him. they told me the signs to look for and sent info to me. they all have different signs and i used to get told ‘thats just a boy thing’.
my 2nd to youngest boy has heaps of signs and try to explain to teaches etc that if you give him a pen and paper he dont know what to do with it but you give him a hammer and nail he will build you a village and still didn’t get help from his educators other than them saying hes naughty.
the 4 boys all have hands on jobs 1 in forestry 1 is an engineer fitter/welder and the 2 youngest boys are farmers.
i now have my 8 yr old girl whom wants to become a vet so really need to get help to understand how i can help her. i have done an online test that asks question for me to answer and i got 20 out of 30 questions to say she has signs of dyslexia. she was a late walker crawler and talker she still wont tie her laces, has problems remembering the blend sounds and alot of words she knows in 1 sentence she forgets in the 2nd sentence.
l been on to her teachers about this and they are going to look into it. but is there anything else i can do to help her/them more
thank you
Kim Horne
raetihi
new Zealand
I am a mother of 8 in Belfast, North of Ireland. Our 12 year old was 3 months prem,and became ill with a virus and ended up on the most intensive life support in the world(airlifted to England by helicopter,and she survived and they said it was against the odds that she did so.) In school at the age of 10,they refused to test for dyslexia,gave her extra help,but it wasn’t enough,and she was made to feel stupid.They wanted her to work harder,toughen up, but I think she proved she was tough enough in the first place by living! Her creativity and joy was literally being crushed out of her. We are now home educating her and her youngest brother,and have had great improvement,both in joy,creativity,and in her reading. But I want to see if there is anything else we can do to support her! I am designing her personalised ‘curriculum’,so would like to see what Dyslexia Daily is all about. Thank you.
I have a 10 year old daughter with dyslexia. She uses every avoidance tactic possible. She is certainly smart but clearly struggles with literacy. Every week she gets 10/10 for spelling. Then 80% of her spelling in sentences is completely wrong. I have spent $1000’s with a literacy Dr but once the course was over she reverted to old habbits. It also had me in tears & feeling stupid as I tried to help her, not always very well.
I am also very dyslexic so my heart sinks at the prospect of reading books to help her. I have a few but never read more than a chapter or two. Have you considered an audio book? Or DVD that we could work through with our children a chapter a day. As you are aware dyslexia is genetic. There must be many other parents that want to help their children but struggle to read themselves. It might even help the parent too. – I can only hope
I work as a Classroom Assistant in a Primary 3 class in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I am employed to work supervise a young child who is diabetic. She does not require any help with her education which enables me to work with other children in the class. There is a young child who has been diagnosed with dyslexia and another child who is being assessed at the moment and the initially conclusion is that this child maybe severely dyslexic. I want to help these children achieve their full potential. I have been with them since primary 1 and I will be moving to primary 4 with them next year. Any advice and strategies that I could try would be greatly appreciated.
Kia ora. Hi Liz
My name is Clare Wilkinson. I am a new Resource Teacher of Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) this year and have been a primary teacher for the last 15 years. I live and work in the beautiful far north of New Zealand.
I first became interested in learning about dyslexia when a boy arrived in my class 2 years ago at the age of 9 unable to read. There were others in the class that were well below in Literacy aswell. So I started reading everything I could and working with them as a group. Now they have a new teacher and I’m working with her as a specialist and advisor. That boy is now 11 and there are 5 children in the class with dyslexic tendencies and many more in the schools I visit. Phonics is not working alone for these children and I want to explore other strategies to help them. I also help them with technical assistance and we are using Read and Write for google with great success. It is also helping me with my own daughter who struggles with writing and maths.
This year I am doing the NZ SPELD Certificate and next year I’ll be starting a post graduate diploma in Specialist education. Learning about dyslexia and other SLDs has become my passion. As every child is different it has become my aim to find out their interests and strengths and find them tools to assist their learning.
Your website has been very helpful and stocks a lot of excellent resources, which I can now access all in one place. I’m also keen to trial the Ten Minute tutor with a group of students. I like the way your programme has a multi-sensory approach, as this is what often is lacking in phonics programmes.
Nga mihi nui, kind regards
Clare
I was blessed with 4 beautiful boys. My eldest son who was born 9 weeks premie is now 16 and in year 10. All of his milestone were delayed and I was constantly told that this was normal. As time went on he’s delays progressively got worse. It wasn’t until he went to preschool that it was recommend that I had him checked. He was diagnosed with a development delay/intellectual disability. He’s whole schooling has been a battle, I have worked tirelessly to help him which has been difficult at times with 3 younger siblings. As time went on it became apparent that all of my boys had learning difficulties to varying degrees. Having one with learning difficulties was a challenge, learning that they all had difficulties has been heartbreaking. I have always blamed myself, that I have failed them, that I’m not a good enough parent. I know that I struggled with school, but in recent years I have been studying at uni. In my last subject I was failed twice by one teacher. I was feeling good about showing they boys that with hard work and determination you can succeed in life. But with my failures I have hit rock bottom myself. After all the work I have put into helping my boys, it is so hard to watch them struggle. My younger two boys have only just been diagnosed with Dyslexia, ones now in year 6 they other in year 4. I will do anything it takes to help my boys succeed in life, but not knowing how too has been a constant struggle as noting really works. My speech therapist has been the only real help, trying different strategies with them, as conventional learning is not affective.
My son is five years old and in reception class at school, at his parents evening they have said that he is behind the expected level he should be. When trying to read or blend his words he tends to add letters i.e. ‘at’ he would say ‘cat’ or change the letters i.e. for ‘tap’ he would say ‘tam’ even though he did not say the letter m, he does know his letters, however he does get the d and b mixed up, he also cannot relay a story back to them, he tends to start off ok but then go on to talk about something else. The teacher says that he is easily distracted and that he is not consistent with his work. The teacher also mentioned to me at the beginning of term that he was one of the better ones at his letter formation, but apparently not so now. I did ask the teacher if it was just his reading and writing he was struggling with and she did say that he was better at maths and that he is very creative. My husband was diagnosed with mild dyslexia a few years ago and he always struggled with reading and spelling, therefore after the meeting with his teacher I looked into dyslexia and a lot of the things I have read about this, my son has, but unfortunately the school say he is too young to be diagnosed with this (I think they have to be 8 or 9 before the school will send him for assessment), hence why I was interested in your webinar and why I have booked this course for him. My son does not like reading or writing and I want him to gain his confidence back to be able to enjoy doing this and not as a chore, my son loves working on computers and ipads’ and that is why I thought this course would be ideal for him to do. Is he too young to be assessed now? Should I wait until he has started Year 1 (6), your advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
Hi Liz. I am excited to have found you here! I have a 12 year old dyslexic daughter. She has been at a Steiner school her whole primary school life which has been good in that she has been held and loved for who she is and her strengths nurtured but not so good in that we really didn’t know she was dyslexic until last year. At that time it was like she woke up and started thinking she was stupid. Luckily her friends don’t think so and they just help her out! And there are also 2 other dyslexic kids in her class so she is not alone. She is so creative and brilliant in other ways!! I’m looking forward to trying out your tricks with her. My daughter can read but she is slow and it’s hard for her. So in class she gets overwhelmed. It would be amazing for her to be able to join in normal class activities!! Thankyou so much for the hope!
Hi Liz…thank you for your quick response.
Our daughter who is 25 years old has come to the conclusion that she may be dyslexic ..we have not had time to look at it in depth as we live in different states now..however she would like to start formal studies this year and has reservations if she will manage .I will send your info on to her and she can decide what to do next.
My friend who is a primary school teacher sent me your link.
Thank you once again Nora
Afternoon Liz,
I’m a mother of 4 children from 14 to 7 years old, we live in country Victoria. lm here to see what I can do to help my third child who struggles with everything to do with school, at the end of last year we found out that he has irlens so he now has coloured glasses and I guess we were hoping that, that was going to be the answer but although they have helped to some
degree I still feel that there is more, he is in grade 4 with the possibility of repeatin next year if things don’t improve for him, I’m really lost with everything and what I should be doing next
Thank you
Hi Liz
I am a teacher and I teach in Bega NSW .I watched your webinar with two friends. We follow a systematic synthetic approach to teaching but some children are still slipping through the cracks so we really appreciated your offer to allow our school to be included in your program. Thank you for the quick response to the charts. We are looking forward to working with you next term and helping our children. Thank you once again
Yvonne
Hi Liz,
I am a Support teacher and have worked with many children with Autism and learning difficulties. I was looking for a new method to use with children who are struggling with their reading and writing besides the phonics method that are using all schools. I am also a proud mum of an 8 years old boy. My son was diagnosed at the age of 2 with Autism and later on with ADHD. When I started teaching him his phonics, he learned them very quickly and did well initially in blending one syllable words. He also learned many sight words since we started the reading process. However, he hasn’t move forward on his reading for a long time with the current programs we are using. I was looking for a different method that could help him with his reading and spelling and we are so glad we have found your method. We can’t wait to see all the positive results my son is going to achieve!!
Hi. I’m a single mom with 3 boys! My middle son, which is a twin, has always struggled with phonics & reading & has just recently been diagnosed with dyslexia, along with ADHD. I’m here to learn all I can to help him. He is such an awesome little boy, never complains, but has until now struggled in silence.
Hi all I’m Narelle a mum of 3 boys. I’m dyslexic. My poor mum has been through nightmares with me and schools. OT was back in the early 80’s when 60 minutes did a story on dyslexia and coloured glasses. mum found someone in Perth who was working with the glasses. I got my first pink glasses in year 4 it helped so much mum could not believe it I could ride a bike and tire my shoes finally. But only had them for year so my struggles continued and still does… My boys have a mild dyslexia so I call it. my middle boy is going to get tested for some coloured glasses next week.
Hi, I’m Jenny and a mother to 4 great children. I have 2 girls and 2 boys. My oldest son, now 9 years old, was tested for dyslexia mid way through second grade. His first and second grade year at school were extremely trying. Tears from him and me and my son was so discouraged. I’m so thankful for the teacher that did come forward and wanted to help figure out what was going on with my son. He was tested in second grade and is dyslexic. He is getting what they call interventions at school, which has helped tremendously. Although, at the end of third grade I could see him falling backwards. He also failed his star testing. I’m afraid for his fourth grade year and want to help him as much as I can. My son is such an awesome kid and I want to see him succeed in school. Im looking forward to seeing your webinar and learning as much as I can so I can further help my child.
Hi! My name’s Sandra, a mother of two girls (aged 10 and 8) and one little boy (aged 5). I’m an English teacher for 20 years and I’m also a Special Needs teacher for almost 10. I’ve always worked with students struggling with learning difficulties, both because of dyslexia or dysorthography, but this time the problem is with my middle daughter. I really believe that she has some reading and writing difficulties and as in her school (she is going to attend the third grade in September) there are no experts concerning special education, I have to do all the work on my own. The case is that sometimes the work I’m doing with her at home is not continued at school, and she suffers a lot when she is asked to read out loud, to spell words or to write, because she misspells too many words. Despite her huge imagination and creativity to create amazing stories, she rarely wants to write them down, because she knows she will fail in many words. I really want to help her with this terrible burden, but without demanding too much from her, avoiding frustration and demotivation concerning both reading and writing. So I want to learn the right strategies to work with her every day, without getting her to give up fighting for overcoming her problem.
i am a mum of 3 and my eldest daughter is yr 5, she has been struggling with school for the past 4 yrs but is falling so far behind i just dont know what to do. she is reading at a yr 3 level and some spelling and maths at ayr 2-3 level. im so stuck i just dont know what to do anymore.Now my 6 yr old yr 1 son is showing the same signs and i want to fix it fast….my middle daughter is excelling in all levels so im happy about that….please help i dont know what else to do
Hi Liz,
i am a mother of a 7year old daughter.
My daughter started prep last year half way through the year i had noticed she was not coping with school i say something to the class teacher but say she’s doing fine. I was really concerned as i spoke to my husband we bo5h decided to move her to another school. Wow a school that never meet her till tjis year found theres a leaning issue in the first few wèeks starting grade 1. Parent teacher interviews came around principal was in on the meeting. After seeing her mid year report showing prep level on most subjects . Now she is getting assessment done in the next few weeks. We have found things to help at home at school they say she is struggling with school as she has dyslexia. Extra help at home and class. As she is a child who loves to learn to see her struggle broke my heart. My daughter has had a tough child hood being hospitalized for her cronic asthma. As she also suffers from anxiety as well. Both parents are goving her alot of support . As she is our only child has made it easier to gove full attention to her.
It 1st started with speech therapy when she was 3.. Then in kindergarten she failed the dyslexia test and then agin in 1st grade… then she failed 1st grade bc of her reading. ALL while the school was suppose to be helping her. Talking about a loss in self confidence. I kept in contact with the teacher her 1st grade yr and all she would say was, “she will get it dont worry”. I was sooo MAD that I cried for days for my little girl. Then we moved to a district that had a program. She is learning but it is a slow process. I am hoping this helps me help her.
Hi Liz,
Great to hear your story and know of your passion. I also have a passion to help needy students. Having had my own set of school based challenges growing up, I have great sympathy and empathy for the strugglers in the system – which I like to compare to a gigantic sausage machine which pours in new and creative brains at one end, and tries to mould them all into the same size and shape by the time they come out the other end.
I am the coordinator of the special needs program at our school and due to retire the end of this year. After that I hope to become an assessor/consultant/educator of teachers and encourager of students and parents on a part time basis. It will be good to escape the strictures of the school system and launch out on my own. I can hardly wait, and in the meantime I am learning as much as I can about dyslexia and other disabilities. My other passion – to be forever learning!!
Thanks for the great work you do.
Hi Liz
Great to hear your story. I am a mother of four . My son is a twin and has been diagnosed with dyslexia last year. He is ow in grade 7 and struggles to cope at school. Looking for ways for him to improve and help him to cope with the basics at school.
Hi, I’m a mum of two beautiful kids 5 & 7 years. I had been digonised with dyslexia when I was 12 after years of struggling at school espeacially at reading. I hated reading out loud in class this continued into high school for me. As my schooling went I struggled all the time trying to deal with my dyslexia by “tring harder and longer then the other kids”. My teachers always reported my effort was very high just with little change. I know how it feels to feel like an idiot, a slow leaner- I strive to always better myself in all aspects of my life. Recently I have noticed that mr 7 is staring to get frustrated with reading making up words that aren’t in the text or saying he just can’t do it and calling himself stupid! Which he is not as he has showen time and time again within all other aspects of life. So I am here to try and help him and I understand that I may have passed on the gene which I have always been aware of and have been watching for the signs – now that I’m starting to get the little signs im wanting to get a plan and run with it as I don’t want him to struggle like I did. I want him to exceed me. To be able to help him get his self confidence back with reading and retelling stories like the confidence he has in sport and other areas I want him to have in reading. So I’m here to learn how I can to help him continuously or as long as he feels he needs. Thanks everyone else for sharing your stories its nice to know that for once I’m not the only person in the world facing dyslexia – it can feel like a very lonely world/place. ?
Hey! I am the parent of a gifted 13 year old girl with stealth dyslexia.
Our school has no experience of gifted children or gifted children with dyslexia even called “2E” (Twice exeptional).
My daughter has epilepsy, dyspraxia, sensory processing disorder and ADHD. At the age of 12, she can barely read or write. Her school has been teaching her by having her stamp words, and count using dots. She gets frustrated trying to master these basic skills but is eager to learn. Finally, they have said that there is nothing more that can be done, that she can’t be taught and/or will never learn/progress. Both she and I are very frustrated. Please help!
Hi Liz
I am an Adult Dyslexic and after leaving school I tried further education with varying results after many years of running a buisness I was diagnosed with Deppresion and anxiety, I decided to go back to college last year as people told me education had changed since I was at school and college over 20 years before, but i found I was up against the same system as before the irony was my course was a qualification in additional Educational needs assistance. I passes the course and have just taken up my first post in a high school. The reason I took the course was to make sure that children with Dyslexia never have to suffer the way I did at school, if I can improve the school lofe of one Dyslexic child then I would see this as a victory.
My son is entering into his second year at secondary school. He is 12 years old and has ‘dyslexic traits’. I was devastated when this news was broken to us when he was 8 years old. I felt totally helpless – all of a sudden I couldn’t fix it for him. I’m looking forward to reviewing your resources and hope that they will help my son. He often refers to himself as being ‘dumb’ and not very bright and his latest school report suggests he may be trying to go under the radar at school. I desperately want to help him improve his self confidence and realise that he is intelligent and we need to find the right areas to focus on. Although he lacks confidence in the educational sense, he is exceptionally confident in a social sense, holding conversations with adults and kids alike, and a very popular young man. I’m feeling positive that I’ve stumbled across your work and hope I will find things to help my son.
I am a primary teacher with two dyslexic sons. I love helping out students with learning needs and seeing them shine when they make progress. I was truly lucky to have amazing support with my sons through their schooling and I am always conscious of their s when I teach. This information will assist my students and other teachers. Thanks so much
I am a mum to a 10 and 8 year old both can read but struggle with spelling have had eldest tested but they said border line but they don’t seem to be helping or putting things in place to support them
Liz,
Thank you for doing what you are doing! Your story is so inspiring, it makes me so happy to see people helping with dyslexia support and research. You are an amazing woman.
My name is Madelyn I am a 23 year old student obtaining my teacher certification as well as my Masters of Art Education, and I am also dyslexic. My mom was an amazing advocate when I was young doing whatever she humanly could to get me the help I needed. I was placed in resource classes in 2nd grade and I am still get assistance from the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR).
All my life I wasn’t quite sure where I fit in and struggled with identity issues. Since I didn’t appear to have any learning disabilities I didn’t fit in with the children in resource, but then I still stuck out like a sore thumb in the general education classroom since I couldn’t read. Throughout middle school and high school I longed to fit in, so I stopped caring and tried not to achieve so I would be at the same level as the other children in the resource room. I will never forget in 8th grade the teacher insisted that I read a page from our reading out loud, he knew that I had a reading disability, but still forced me to. I tried my hardest to read the passage, it was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. All of the other students just staring at me trying to hold back their laughter. I ran out of the class in tears. After that I tried to spend all of my time in the resource room and avoid the general education classroom as much as possible.
It wasn’t until the second half of my undergraduate career that I finally realized my self worth wasn’t determined by my reading level. About the same time I knew I wanted to become an art teacher. My undergraduate was in Studio Art, art was always how I could express myself without someone correcting all of my spelling. I wanted to help children like myself realize their self worth isn’t based on their learning ability. My senior year of undergrad I became president of the Student Art Association, that year the club went from having no budget and only 5 members to have more money then we could spend and over 100 people on our emailing list. We curated a show at a large non-profit gallery, which I was given the chance to be an intern at. Later that summer I was offered a full time position, but turned it down since I knew I still wanted to go back to school to become a teacher.
After hearing and reading your story, I know I did the right thing. Thank you for all you have done for dyslexia promotion and developing your 10 minute exercises, I hope they reach the children who “want” to better their reading skills.
Thank you,
From a student who will not let her disability define her.
I am the mother of a ten year old daughter who struggles to read, spell, and write her numbers correctly. She loves to learn but has a hard time. I have tried to help her the best I can, but I don’t like seeing her behind her classmates because of a disability she can not help. I am hoping that this program is an answer to our prayers. I am willing to do whatever I need to do. My resources are limited as I have a husband who is sick and not working and I am working a graveyard shift each night. But I will do what I can and always will. My daughter is the sweetest child I know and wants to be a vet and I want her to be whatever she wants. My biggest fear is her being bullied because of her lack of skills in reading. She has already had a child at the start of school kinda bully her about it.
Hi, My son has a a IEP for 3 yrs now and has been to several outside tutoring outlets, teachers,classes, program’s . My son is still 4 to 5 levels behind in reading and struggling with math as well. All the insist that he very smart and can do the work with help but I still think something is being missed. He is in 5th grade and struggles to spell simple words and can’t carry words over to the next page. I am really frustrated that with all these things in place and yet my son still is struggling. I have asked in the past if it’s possible that my son is dyslexic and they said no that the characteristics he was exhibiting would be out grown. I fear I was right all along.
Hi my name is Anne. I have a beautiful 11 year old daughter who has not been diagnosed with dyslexia but she does struggle with reading and spelling and math as well. She is to the point she HATES school which makes me sad.
It breaks my heart to see her struggle. I saw your video and thought I would check it out to see if it can help her. I’m will do do whatever I can to help her.
Hello, I am a first-year ESE teacher and I do not know that much about dyslexia. I am hoping, through this website and other resources, to gain a deeper understanding of learning disability so that I can help my students that are struggling with even the basics of phonemic awareness in second grade.
Any suggestions and strategies are most welcome.
Thank you,
Jacqueline
Hi, my name is Katrina and I am a mother of three. I am currently in my third year at University studying to become a primary school teacher. I am tutoring a friends daughter who is ten years old and is diagnosed dyslexic. I struggled at school and left feeling a failer and when I had my children I did not want them to go through what I went through at school so I taught my older two children to read. While teaching my children I realised I wanted to become a teacher. It wasn’t until my youngest daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy and an intellectual disability that I realised that I needed to do what I needed to do for me in order to be a carer for my daughter. While studying it has opened my eye’s up to why I did not do well in school, which was to do with how they taught me. My biggest passion in teaching is that every child learns differently and I need to know how to teach all children with or without learning difficulties.
Hi My Name is Gwendalyn. I have a 9 year daughter in year 4 and she has been struggling with her spelling. Also I think she might be having some difficulty reading and understanding instructions to do activities. I am currently studying and I seem to not have enough time to help my child improving her spelling and reading skills. Not only I do not have the time but I am not equipped to provide that help. So when I came across Dyslexia Daily on Facebook ad I was excited just reading through couple of the free materials. I have registered for the webinar and I feel that information here will help me assist my daughter.
Hi Liz, I am a parent to 3 children, 14 yr old and twins boy/girl 8years old. My 8yr old boy twin had struggled with all English elements, reading is very low level. Here in the UK our education authorities do not recognise dyslexia so will never be assessed unless I pay. Sadly I cannot afford a £900 assessment. However, I’m so worried about all the other symptoms and behaviours that occur as a result. He knows he is different but he really struggles and refuses to accept. He has very low self esteem too. Where do I turn to next?
I’m just a mom trying my best to support my daughter with her education. I have struggled getting information or even techniques to help her. She showed signs as early as kindergarten. With all of my asking non of the teachers had anything they could suggest for me to try at home. I even struggled to get an individual education plan (IEP) for her and the school system kept pushing her through to the next grade level. Now she’s in 6th grade and struggling to keep up. So I decided to see what I can do to find a better way to help her learn and have fun with it.
I’m a second yr homeschool Mom to my 8 yr old daughter. She has struggled since day 1 in public school. She doesn’t fit in their learning box and the first suggestion was to medicate her. She is a day dreamer and not hyper active. Very passive and quite so for them to suggest medication we started praying for different options. Homeschool has been a blessing and a mess some days. I believe my daughter is dyslexic and I’m here to see how I can learn more into helping her learn the way her mind needs to learn. We’ve really done good with math and hands on learning but not so good with spelling and sounds. I’m here to try and figure out how to help her be a better reader and to enjoy it. Thank you for what you do and God bless you and your family!
Hi Liz, thank you for sharing your story.
I am a single parent with three children. My youngest son is almost 6…n I’m beginning to question if he is dyslexia. The school thinks that he is not up to the standards that a 5 yr old supposed to be at. I a a presch teacher n my son has been with me right through untill he goes to school…from my opinion…he was doing really well..his development n his interlectual was all ok before he starts schooling.
Now I would like to find out more about dyslexia…to see if my son is got it …if he is then I will be able to help and support him. And also this would help me at my work to identify any children in my care
Who has the same problem so he / she would have the best help and support we can give.
Thank you Liz for sharing your experiences and your knowledge in supporting people with dyslexia.
Losi
Dear Liz,
My story, I am a mother of 4. I have home schooled 3 of my 4 children all up to last year when we moved to a new area and they wanted to go back to school. That was a nightmare for 2 of my children and so I brought them back home. I have a daughter who is 14 years old. She is so brilliant in everything she does except when it comes to academics. Academically she is in 2nd grade because of she is a non reader. I have been able to get her reading level up to a 2nd grade level. This is discouraging for her and me. I have tried everything! Hooked on Phonics, Great Leaps Reading and Math, Kumon, Tutors and much more!
We have paid Brain Balance 250.00 for an assessment only to find out that their program is 17,000.00. We could not afford them. We also found a dyslexic School it was 17,000.00 a year. We could not afford that. We had Carlie enrolled with Kumon reading and math spent over 1000.00 with no progression. It has been frustrating as a parent to see your child make no progression in academics and see her self esteem falter to nothing.
When she was enrolled in school, I asked them to give her a reading test or a Dyslexia test. They gave her an academic IQ test. She scored 60. I contested the test they gave her an non-academic IQ test and she scored 78. The women who tested her said Carlie’s IQ would have been much higher if it had not been timed. Carlie has test anxiety.
The dyslexia test is 3000.00. We cant afford that. Insurance will not pay for one. So I am hopeful that your program can help her. I currently home school her and hope to be able to get her to attend school again. I would be grateful for any additional information you could provide.
Sincerely,
41 years living with dyslexia.
Lots of issues, school phobic at 6, other problems relating to the dislexia, but now a scout leader, 25 years who works with diagnosed and undiagnosed dislexic youth. Lots more to the story, but not up to writing it all today.
Hi Liz, my youngest has been attending speech therapy for two and a half years and although he has improved, he is not at the level he should be. School has suggested picking speech therapy up again in 2 grade and we’ve been attending since. I’ve been working with him for two years but i began to be suspicious about his abilities when we came back from holidays. I’ve asked him to write me a short recount of our holidays and he couldn’t. He is 10 years old, and i realised that he was very behind. There were a few letters that he was writting back to front, and i guess this is what made alarm bells ring. Although we weren’t constant readers, when we did read continuesly he was able to read fluently but if we stopped for a week, then he would struggled. I brought this up to the speech therapist and his school teacher and we had concluded that he should be assessed. I was disappointed that the school hasn’t picked it up, it was only when i brought it to their attention, and even then they didn’t think he was dyslexic. He is now very far behind in his schooling, and although he has been attending tutoring for the last couple of months of this year, i don’t think it has helped that much. I am trying to inform myself of what dyslexia is truly about. How exactly does it affect people with dyslexia, whether is more than reading and writting and so forth. how can i help him to improve at school. I am somewhat relieved to have found out what the problem is, this way I can provide the help that he needs.
Regards
Marcela
Hi Liz, I am a Mum of three children and a teacher.
Firstly I specialise in Learning and Behaviour in NZ and have just completed my postgraduate diploma in this area. Teachers refer students from 5 – 14 years to our service when learning is not progressing or when lack of engagement is evident or when a student’s behaviour is interfering with their learning. I then work alongside the teacher to adapt their teaching approach and environment to improve the learning of that particular student but hopefully improve the learning of other students in the class at the same time. So often traits of a different learning approach come through, so I am interested in learning more strategies that are fun and engaging for all students.
Secondly my own son was ‘officially’ diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia when he was 13. To get support in high school, we needed documentation to access a reader/writer and we wanted him to have extra time for assessments/exams, as he takes longer to process and express information. None of his teachers ever identified dyslexia – one school gave him an online programme which was sequential and supported him to learn about words/sentences etc. He was 10. Other than that, he was given no extra support. His strengths are basketball and technology and he loves listening to music and has a wicked sense of humour. Now being in high school, we are paying for outside tutoring. So I’m sure hearing what you have put together is going to help me in both my personal and professional journey.
Hi Liz, I’m a mam of two boys (10 and 12) and have started to look into why my two dislike School so much and why they struggle so much learning, despite all the interventions they have had.
My 12yr old has always struggled with spelling, reading and writing and has very little self confidence in these areas. My 10yr old struggles immensely with maths, especiall around retention of methods and rules. He also struggles with reading too.
Mainstream primary school have provided many interventions for them both but they never seem to improve. The eldest is now in secondary school and dreads the lessons he has daily and the youngest is in his last year of primary and again dreads the school week.
I don’t have good ways of learning and personally struggled through school as a child and I have limited myself in numerous jobs because of the fear of learning and retaining information. My husband also struggles with literacy so I can see why our boys have these difficulties too. We haven’t yet had them tested for dyslexia but it is on our agenda once we can save the money to do it.
Both our boys love football and playing outside but I want them to have a positive approach to school and not dread going every day. Louise
Hello Liz
My granddaughter has been dating a young man who admits he has a disability and that his disability is that he can’t read or write very well. It seems a serious relationship so I thought I would see if there was a way of helping this young man. His disability (as he calls it) has made it hard for him to apply for an apprenticeship which he would love. He has always managed to find employment but not the one he would really like for his future. He is extremely good with his hands and can handle hammer, nails, welding plus all sorts of things. I thought I would see if there is a way that I may be able to find help for him. Many thanks
Hi Liz
Iv just joined “Dyslexia Daily” after reading your book “Helping children with dyslexia”, my son Mathew is 8 years old & since starting school I began to notice him struggling with his school Work , reading,writing,spelling & also numeracy.After several meetings with head teacher,teacher & also an educational phycologist (this was due to speech & language supporting me for learning support).I have felt that school dismiss my concerns re Mathew fallling behind his peers and thinking iam an over anxious parent & saying some children just take longer to learn.However we have been attending a yearly appointment with a consultant for auditory processing, he felt Mathew was too young to be tested until our last appointment he recommended that Mathew now be tested, he also asked if dyslexia had ever been mentioned? I watched your webinar a few weeks ago & iv just finished your book which I have found to be so informative,I recognised that most of what you spoke about related to Mathew we are awaiting our appointment date which should be next couple of weeks.I can’t praise you enough what your book has gave me hope and positivity for Mathews future , I know Mathew hasn’t been officially diagnosed yet , but with someone like you giving your knowledge & support to others the future is looking bright.I will be in touch after our assessment date and have a look at your Home tutor program .
Kind Regards
Catherine
Hi Liz,
I am a mother of 4, my eldest had no issues with learning, but my 2 older sons (born 2005, 2006) both have learning issue, i learnt over a 2 years that both of them have dyslexia, the older is also ADHD, the younger who is the one with numerous issues started our investigation and learning in 2015 hi first psych ed did use the word dyslexia but instead Language disorder, with recommendations for further assessments, which of course we had done over time due to the expense, he now has verified diagnosis with ASD (2017) Dyslexia (2017) dysgraphia (2016) language disorder (2015) and low muscle tone (2016). I have had to educate myself on what all these things are and what it means in terms of my children and have had to advocate for them with the education system. My youngest child (born 2012) is now at school and we are monitoring his development closely. My 2006 born is NDIS funded and he has numerous issues and is verified with ASD, the funding is helping to have him get help. but my 2005 born is still waiting for a ASD Diagnostic appointment. This year we have sent help in that his home teacher at school is in fact dyslexic themselves and has already told us our boy will be ok under his watch as he know the triggers and how to approach issue tin the class that may arise, the weight lifting off of me was incredible at that moment only 2 weeks ago. The last 7 years of his education have been a fight but when we found out he operated differently it explained a whole lot and made a change in how he dealt with issue also now he knows why he doesn’t operate the same as the other kids.
Regards
Rebekah
Hi Liz
My journey started a year ago when I had concerns about my daughter who was 7 yrs old. She was slow at learning to read,she mirror imaged words and she wrote her letters and numbers backwards. At first the school said she was doing well until I pointed out that she still wrote the J backwards in her name. She is know 8 and in primary 4 and final after a 12 month discussion with the school hearing test and eye tests and visual stress test and coloured glasses which have improved her reading abilities the school are having the specialist support teacher test her next week.
All though the school recognized she had difficulties it has taken the head teacher to be in her class and not be able to read her story or my daughter being able to read it for her to final put her forward for testing. My daughter has very good comprehension and gets very frustrated as she knows she is struggling.
Hi Helen. I am looking for some help for my six year old daughter who is struggling at school. I’m convinced she is dyslexic – I have been since she was preschool age. her school have unofficially agreed as the dyslexic teacher did some assessments with her and said she displays behaviours etc of a typically dyslexic child but they won’t formally diagnose until the end of this year 1 and no extra help is available wihbthis teacher at school until next year if the need is deemed due to finding cuts. They referred us to a specialist optometrist in london and they diagnosed her with visual tracking issues and she has prism glasses now which have helped a lot. She has managed to get the hang of some basic reading now but she is still way behind the other kids in her class. She is also struggling with numbers and recognition of these out of sequence. And we also think she is dyspraxic. The spld teacher at school brought this up with us and she now does a special group fine motor skills class at school once a week and we are also on a wait list to see the community paediatrician at the children’s centre bht That’s a four month wait. I have tried finding a local dyslexic teacher to help but there aren’t many and the few I found are full and won’t add her to their waiting list. I tried buying some books and resources from amazon but they are aimed to high and not at her level. I need some basic help to help with letter confusion. We have been trying the Nessie apps on the iPad. Her dad and aunt are both dyslexic by my husband was never diagnosed at school. Sounds like yours. I spotted it when we were dating. He can’t soell but is very intelligent. I think my daughter is clever but it’s not coming through in her school work. Also her handwriting is bad despite us trying to help her. we are just worried that she is falling behind in terms of reading, writing and numbers. I just need some ways to help her.
Ignore the first few lines of that. Wasn’t meant to be there. Sorry
I am a teacher in NSW teaching a 3/4 class and I have two, possibly three students who are dyslexic. They have very high needs and I feel compelled to help them in the best possible way I can. Beautiful, intelligent kids who can’t read or spell. Any advice I can pass on is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Hi Liz,
I’m a speech pathology student in my second year at university and also a learning support teacher in the NSW school system. I have been searching for ways to help a student of mine in year 6 with Dyslexia markers. I also have a range of children struggling to grasp reading, writing and spelling. Your knowledge is fabulous and has helped me a lot already. Thank you Kerry
Hi there im shannan im on here looking for some help for my daughter she is 16 and has struggled with her spelling and reading all her schooling life .she is a hands on learner but when it comes to spelling and reading has been a struggle and now she is yr12 at high school it is getting worse.please if u can help me would b great.
Hi. I am currently the Learning Support Teacher for a small school in Western Queensland. It is due to our location that at times we have to travel at least 1000km to physically see a specialist. One of our students has just been diagnosed with dyslexia and I am trying to find out as much information as I can to help support him
Hi I have been dyslexic all my life and I still need help and I have depression to and it is hard to do day today things in my life I have to kids one a 12yrs old boy who has his problems to and I have a little girl who is 2yrs old and I do want her to go though what I have been going through with my son so I need help for myself and my kids
Hi,
My name is Caroline. I’m a primary teacher and have an 8yr old son in Yr2 who is displaying some hints that he may have dyslexia. These include letter flipping, reading words in reverse eg saw for was, lack of fluency when reading, can only follow 1 instruction, not noticing ends of words, struggling with phonetics, anxiety over school/homework to name a few. He is bright and so although he isn’t behind, he isn’t flourishing. In fact in Yr 1 he remain on level 14 the entire year. I work really hard with him on his reading and I wonder if this is keeping his head above water. I also did speech therapy with him at 4.5yrs because he had issues with p/b, x/s, w/r sounds. Although undiagnosed, I am certain I have dyslexia which is fueling my concern.
I recently took him to a behavioural optometrist and they did detailed visual perception tests on him revealing that he had convergence issues and astigmatism. They noticed he was below his normal age with letter flipping but told me this was his eyesight issues not a learning problem. I am not convinced as he continues to show signs with glasses and post eye therapy.
Should I trust this assessment or should I seek further guidance? For me there seems to be too many warning signals and I just have this feeling as his mum that something isn’t right.
I’ve joined the website to gain some more wisdom in this area mainly for my son, but also for future children I may teach who struggle in this way.
Appreciate your help.
My son has autism and has received early intervention services since he was 3 years old. His speech has improved tremendously since receiving speech therapy from the age of 3. He has trouble initiating conversations with his peers and maintaining a conversation.Currently he is in kindergarten in a CCK program which means it is the same kindergarten curriculum but at a slower pace and with a smaller class size. He has struggled most of this year and needs to repeat kindergarten. He has an IEP and was recently diagnosed as being developmentally delayed. He just started receiving OT services due to trouble with writing his letters, holding a pencil, using scissors and getting dressed.He has difficulty with sight words and can only identify 5 of 26 letters. He practices his letter sounds but needs constant reinforcement.Within last 2 months, he has successfully learned how to write his first name.I am having trouble with him repeating kindergarten since he has an IEP. I have my bachelor’s degree in elementary education and early childhood education and I want to help him with the knowledge I learned.We live in NC. Can the district retain him even with an IEP?
My husband is Dyslexic and my 8 year old son was diagnosed in 1st grade with Dyslexia, he’s now in 3rd and struggling allot. The school system he is in, is refusing to accept his diagnosis and is simply labeling him as a “behavioral issue”. He was put into a Therapeutic Program without our consent because the school “felt” they knew best. He is only reading on a 1st grade level and we are fighting with an advocate to get him the educational support he needs to succeed. The school keeps saying that he is where he needs to be, yet there has been zero progress in his education. He is frustrated, feels stupid and simply refuses to do the work he is given because the teacher does not understand his disability. He tells us that he does not understand what she’s teaching him. We have tried to reason with the school, but they refuse to listen. This has taken such an emotional toll on all of us and it hurts me to see this wonderful boy suffer as he does. My son plays on an elite travel hockey team and recently earned his brown belt in Taekwondo, so much for having a behavioral issue huh? Even his Neuropsych reports claim “No highlighted emotional or behavioral issues”, yet again the school refuses to accept these findings.
Hi Liz, I’m a mother of 3 gorgeous children all different and talented in different ways but two are struggling with learning difficulties. I’ve tried so many things to try and help them Behaviour Optometrist, Kinesiology but nothing really seems to be doing what I had hoped! I’ve found your site and am wondering if this could? Retaining information, processing, focus, concentration and lack of confidence with schooling are words that spring to mind that I need help with. My youngest aged 11 thinks he’s dumb because all the kids in the class are cleverer than him! It breaks my heart listening to him and I’d love for his confidence to be able to turn around so he can prove to himself that he can do anything he sets his mind to! Do you think your program could help us?
I have a neighbour with a little boy who is autistic and most likely dyslexic as he has difficulty with writing and reading. He makes unusual “errors” when reading and I puzzle over why he does this and what his mind is thinking when he does. I want to better understand the underlying factors at play here so I can help him develop his reading skills and also gain confidence in learning. I certainly want to understand how best to manage his learning when I am involved, as I don’t want to inadvertently put up what he may perceive as barriers and make his challenges in life more difficult.
Hi my daughter is really battling at school and the teacher has picked up that she is such a chatterbox in order to hide the fact that she is battling with the work. She would rather get into trouble for not doing the work than be embarrassed because she does not know how. I am really trying to find ways to help her overcome this in a fun way because as soon as she thinks we are “learning” she shuts down.
Hi. I’m also a teacher and mother to 4 amazing children. All of whom are dyslexic which is fairly exhausting! I’m lucky that they are all bright intelligent children but all struggle in the classroom and are at the lower end of the accademic scale! If they measured problem solving and social skills they would be at the top!!
Obviously they are all very different but they do have reading, spelling and memory issues. They are all allowed extra time in exams. Some are allowed readers and some to type also.
If there is a way to help make their lives easier in the classroom it would benefit everyone! Outside the classroom they all excel!
I look forward to some of your tips. If anything helps it would be great. The children are fairly reluctant to try new things as everything always seems difficult to them. I’m a persevering mother but donfeel weak at times. I have moments of trying to blast each one as my worry changes between each child!!
Hi Liz,
As a qualified teacher I am also passionate about supporting children with learning difficulties and particularly dyslexia. I work now as a private tutor, Irlen Diagnosician and provider of a APD program.
I became disenchanted with the school system many years ago and left to operate a Kumon Centre and saw great results but still there were gaps. Research led me to Irlen and then JIAS (Johansen Indivdiual Auditory Sound) program and onto RMI (Rhythmic Movement Therapy) all in the hope of helping the kids that I work with. I have researched extensively and used many different strategies and techniques in the hope that I can assist with different learning challenges. I am finding your posts and the information shared beneficial and worthwhile in my endeavour to keep abreast of successful interventions and my need to keep learning and growing as an educator.
Mother of five. My youngest daughter is struggling at school. My girls is really smart. I know that with the right attitude and support she will “get” it at school and soar. I’ve been looking for tools like the sight words, multiplication and counting sheets for ages, so thanks for the free resources, I know they will help us. I understand the negative comment that was shot down on fb though- I’ve been scrolling past this post for weeks now, convinced you were going to spend half an hour telling me nothing and hinting at solutions without ever getting there and then asking for money. Don’t get me wrong, I would happily pay for solutions, I just didn’t relish the thought of the half hour waste of time getting there. Today I read through the info, I’ve booked the webinar and I’ll hear what you have to say because I need to help my daughter while she still loves school and wants to learn. Thank you.
Hi Liz.
I am a primary school teacher and I have a few students that struggle with reading writing and math. I am not sure what to do for them and would like to help them.
I also think I might be dyslexic because I struggle with reading and writing and have always have struggled since I can remember.
Hi
I am Sruthy. My daughter is 11 years old. She is actually very smart but when it comes to spellings she is very weak. She still write ‘b’ for ‘d’ most of the times. Once her principal had told me that she has a small degree of Dyslexia . I was not sure then , but now since this spelling issue is effecting her progress. I want to do some thing about it. Hope you can help me.
Hello Liz,
my name is Bonnie and my son is in grade 1 and is struggling with sight words and spelling and writing in school. My dad has Dyslexia and i think maybe my son does too. I’m just starting to find out more so I can help him with his confidence and improve in school.
Thank you for being a great first step to helping me find out more, so I can help him at home!
Hi Liz,
I am a Mum of an almost 7year old boy who is seriously struggling with learning all aspects of literacy. He is a year behind his peers on his reading level, he has trouble processing information, sometimes you will speak to him and he will just look at you blankly. When he writes he sometimes writes letters backwards or letters in the wrong order. He says the wrong sound for letters a lot. He was diagnosed at 2.5yrs with speech delay so we always figured there would be more to come but we are not 100% sure what is in store.
I am also studying and just started working as an Education Support worker so this will help me with work even if it is not the correct path for my son. Like you, I just want to help kids learn and be the best they can!
Hi Liz,
I’m a Mum of a 10yr old girl who has mild dyslexia and a 7yr old boy who has speech problems and is also likely to have dyslexia. He is 6 mths to a 1 yr behind. Reading recovery has helped him to catch up after a head injury last year. But he still doesn’t know his alphabet but knows most of the sounds of letters. Am thinking now his “processing problems” are likely to be dyslexia. Hoping to get him assessed by a Educational Psychologist.
Hoping to learn more so I can help my kids to succeed and not to feel so frustrated.
Thank you,
Anita
Hi
My daughter is 8 years old and had speech therapy for a few years. She tends to spell phonetically when writing but can spell out loud correctly. She has a preliminary diagnosis of ADHD and has some visual processing difficulties. Nobody seems to think that she is dyslexic but i have a feeling she might be. Look forward to reading lots of useful info.
Thanks
L
Hi
My son is 10 years old and has always struggled with his spelling and reading to a certain point. He is going in to year 6 and I want him to have the best opportunity he can ready for his SAT’s. I know that spelling is a big part of it and I want to take the pressure off him by helping him with them so he can focus more on his writing and improve that too. I also work in his school and have many children who struggle with reading and spelling so I think I can transfer some knowledge to help them too. Win, win I hope.
Thanks
M
Hi my daughter is 12 I have battled with schools for yours to get her help, I had her tested for dyslexia when she was 6, I told the school she was on and they didn’t help her, when she was going into year 3 she couldn’t write, she could read as I had been teaching her at home, but she would get hysterical when I tried to get her to write anything say that she was no good at writing and the teacher had told her this as well. Last year I had her privately test for dyslexia and they found she had Irlen syndrome as well, I took the report to the high school she started and they didn’t put anything into place for her, I phoned the education, who got in touch with the school, at the end of the year they still hadn’t put everything into place, I have list faith in the school system, I have bought a lot of stuff and doing a lot of work with her at home, basically I’m doing the teachers job
hi my name is sue,i have 4kids , 1 boy and 3 girls with a rare genetic disease,glycogen storage disease 3a. due to it being a muscular dystrophy with added low blood sugars high ketones,huge anxieties,heart issues,mood issues,,they don’t function 100% the eldest has troubles remembering one day too next,shes 11 and we struggle with grade 5 work,we homeschool due to mainstream school and dist ed not recognizing girls issues
Thankyou cant wait to start learning how to help them all.
oh im a dog trainer,and full time carer for my 4 children
My story
I was actually on my practical when I discovered I may dyslexia as my mentor teacher noticed I mixing my vowels letters in reverse order in my spelling. So I became interested on what’s Dyslexia and how to implement stragies to overcome this struggle. At the time I felt embrassed and stupid.
I work with children under fives and I have noticed some children writing their letters or their name backwards. They are generally about 4 and half years old.
This is the biggest problem of my life. I really love to read and spell the biggest challenge na is to spell please if you can help me i we be glad
Hi, my name is Louise, I live in Tasmania, and I have two children, my son is 13 years old, and my daughter is 9 years old. My daughter has recently been diagnosed with a ‘learning difficulty’. I have known for well over a year that she has struggled with her reading, so she has a wonderful private tutor for 1 hour a week outside of school (at our own expense). Her progress is slow, and a few weeks into term 1 we went on a waiting list to be formally assessed by the school psychologist….. There was such a long wait……The assessment report was finally delivered only a few weeks ago, late July. In addition, my son’s occupational therapist, who has met my daughter several times over the years, recommended speech therapy. We have since had one visit to a speech therapist (to avoid another prolong wait period we go privately), who is in the process of the assessment phase, and soon we will have an idea of how, or if speech therapy will be beneficial for my daughter.
The teacher and psychologist prefer not use the term ‘dyslexia’, and at the end of the meeting I had to ask the question. ‘Does my daughter have dyslexia?’ The long and the short of it all is, yes, my daughter does have a learning difficulty that greatly impedes her learning. My daughter is intelligent, well spoken, organised, kind and understanding. My daughter is very patient with her brother, who has high functioning autism. My son is a gifted reader, and he finds it difficult to understand my daughter’s challenges…. But he is getting better, and along with my husband and I, he is on her cheering squad.
Something sad happened today… my daughter had to participate in a maths relay, and the peers that she was partnered up with told her not participate with them, as she isn’t good at maths. My daughter was hurt and upset, and when she told her teacher the comments said to her, the teacher confirmed the comments to be truthful, stating that maths isn’t her strong point. I understand that honesty is important; however, my daughter’s confidence was completely squashed…
Remedy: Lots of confidence boosting and encouragement given at home…and some homework…repetition of words and spelling for 10 minutes…. And cuddles!
Hello, I’m excited about exploring your website. My name is Linda and I am a Certified Academic Language Therapist/ Dyslexia Therapist. My dyslexia training and teaching started 18 years ago at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children where after four years of intense training I was able to be certified as a dyslexia therapist and then later a qualified instructor. But, my personal experience begin much earlier with my 3 children and my husband. I had no idea why my children seemed to struggle with reading beginning in 1st grade. It was 30 years ago and there was not as much research or awareness of dyslexia. A few years later after many tears and frustrating evenings and then research and training, I realized that they were dyslexic without even having to test them. By that time, after 20 years of teaching kindergarten, I became a dyslexia teacher in our public school district. I did have my two older children tested by a coworker and my youngest child was tested and put into a dyslexia program in the public school. he was also identified as gifted and was in that special program as well. My husband had always struggled with writing and spelling. He also had to really work hard in college with all the required reading. He graduated with a Bachelors degree in music and a masters degree in Educational Administration. In his career he spent 37 years at a local 2 year college working his way up to the position of Vice President of Student Services. As a retired educator he is now a Director of the Museum of the Gulf Coast, that is visited by people from all over the world, even Australia. It has been a journey that led me to a life of inspiration from my family and all the dyslexic students I have taught over the years. They all have stories of successes and failures. My three children are all college graduates and successful in their varied fields. I feel like their dyslexia gave them the gift of creativity and positive persistence to reach their goals. I continue to research looking for even more ways to become a better teacher for my students. After retiring from 38 years in public school, I now teach dyslexic students as well as other struggling students at a catholic school and provide consulting services for a public school district. I am so excited to see your website and keep up with current research, curriculum and of course stories of from inspirational families.
I am a mum to 3 gorgeous children boy girl twins aged 7 and my older son who is 12, my oldest started school and has gone through school(In year 7 now) without any dramas, it wasn’t until our twins started school that I started to see that something was drastically different. Instead of taking 15 minutes homework was taking hours, the teachers were also noticing that in different ways both twins were struggling, my boy to get anything on paper, letter formation, letter reversals, reading not happening i.e. at 7 still on very low levels, but with maths he has got it, his teacher is at a loss of how she can help him and I’ve been to appointments and assessments which so far have been no help at all apart from costing everytime for no results. They go into grade 3 next year and I just want to be able to make it easier for them.
Am the wife of a wonderful man with pretty severe dyslexia. Also a Special Education teacher working in an LLD/LBLD classroom
Hi Liz, Thanks for your videos on Youtube. I have found them very instructive and useful. I am a teacher in Cambridgeshire, England, who works with children (aged 7-11) who have been permanently excluded or have difficulty accessing mainstream education. I find that a lot of the children I teach have significant literacy issues, which have contributed in different ways to the problems they have had in mainstream classrooms. I am currently working with a 10 year old boy, who has terrible anxiety about school, and it seems that his frustration about not being able to read and write lie at the heart of the matter. I have found your videos on teaching children with dyslexia excellent. It seems that there is a dearth of resources for supporting the teaching of literacy to older children, who are clearly intelligent and find it difficult to engage with phonics etc, which they see as “babyish”. Most of the children I work with have not been formerly diagnosed as dyslexic, and it seems there is a strange reluctance among education psychologists and the schools I work with to go down that route. Any advice would be welcome. Thanks Martin
Hello Liz,
I have a son 14 and a daughter who is 10
1/2 years old. I was a city girl
Who met and married a man on a sheep station. My son did 5 years of school
Of the air and my daughter did 1 year (reception). My daughter was showing signs of not retaining information, I kept
telling the school
Something wasn’t right and they would always come back saying she will eventually get there. I decided to take matters into my own hands and found a child psychologist. He was hesitant to say she had dyslexia due to her age but said she showed all the signs.
We finished that year, my husband and I decided for the children and I to move into the closest town so the children could go to a face to face school. My daughter was getting a little help with an SSO a couple of times a week, bit that was taken away from her in September of last year, as the school had her reassessed through the education department. I was told dyslexia isn’t recognised as a learning disorder and finding was completely cut for my daughter. She has not been given any extra help. I was told in a parent teacher interview that my daughter needed to consentrate harder and put her hand up more often if she didn’t understand how to do a task.
I have taken my daughter to Another psychologist two months ago, her findings showed dyscalculia and dyslexia. With this information I then gave a copy to the school and still, I am being told there is no funding for your child.
My daughter is very quick witted and funny, with personality plus. I don’t want my daughter to lose her confidence and self esteem, due to the ridiculous education system.
I’m sure my darling daughter inherited this from me as I struggled through school and was completely overlooked and feel through the cracks. I don’t want this to happen to my child. Feeling very overwhelmed and let down by the education system.
Cheers
Michelle
Hi Liz, I have recently signed my 7 year old daughter up to your 10 minute tutor program as she has been struggling at school. He main areas are with flipping words like was/ saw, she doesn’t do this all the time though and can read fluently but some times in a text she will find a word that she just cant seem to get, even though it repeats its self through out he whole story. You can see that she knows she read the word wrong and really struggles to get the right out when reading out loud. I just recently purchased a easy to read analog clock (that has marked out the minutes so it has numbers around the outside of the clock face that go up to 30) so she can lean how to tell the time, she read nearly all the number above 11 backwards eg; 12 as 21 and 13 as 31 etc. she has trouble remembering her sight words and also is using capital letter and lowercase letter through out all of her writing. When reading books you don’t notice her struggle as much but when it comes to flash cards etc. for spelling, that’s when she gets stumped.
I find it had to remain positive and calm when its time to do reading at night after school as she gets so frustrated and distracted all t he time so i become frustrated also. after school homework is a very stressful time in our house. I feel as though i am putting all this extra stress on her that she must get better at her spelling, reading , writing as though it is the be all and end all if that makes sense. I want her learning to be a positive one and not negative at all.
She also has very tricky friendship groups at the moment that can be very intense and she gets overwhelmed so easily and is struggling to manage emotions as well and at times will lash out at her friends or come home in tears. So much stress for a 7 year old, i am currently reading one of your books “Helping children with dyslexia” i find it very helpful, i have not got her tested yet but will be looking into it though
Hi Liz
I am a mum of a 10 year old boy who struggles at school. He has recently been diagnosed with mild dyslexia and hyperactivity. He struggles with reading, writing, spelling, maths and maintaining focus/concentration. His Dad also struggled at school and had a similar diagnosis. Thankfully we have great support at school with special classes. I continue to support him as best I can outside of school to keep repeating the same learning. My worries are the lack of communication from school back home. I am not a teacher and I need to be told what to focus on with him outside of school and progress he is or isn’t making. Can I even keep this up as he rises through the grades! It was sad and disappointing to see a backwards progression in his reports from semester 1 to 2 this year, despite being clear to the teacher from the start I was open, available and ready to support in anyway.
Hi Liz
My husband 72 has dyslexia never really got the phonics at school due to bad ears and teachers lack of interest he can make out words but cannot remember what he read 2 lines previous can you help please as we are pensioners in rural WA we cant afford to pay for the course but you still may be able to help us
Thanks
Hello!!
My name is Melody. I am a mom of 6 amazing children. Gabby-17, David-11, Josh-10, Faith-6, Alannah- 4, and my Johnny- 3.
I homeschool my 11 y.o., David. He had a lot of issues with reading and writing. He was receiving all A’s and B’s in school and after my final IEP meeting with our public school, I decided to try to teach him myself. He was going in 4th grade on a maybe 1st grade level. It continued to get worse..with anxiety… i had him tested at a childrens hospital in 5th grade… He was diagnosed with dyslexia. It has been very challenging trying to work with him. He looks at things quite differently. We have, slowly, been finding things that really work, for him. He is in 6th grade and just finished his 5th grade review, and is doing better. His writing skills are pretty rough. We are working on it. He’s a brilliant kid, just learns differently.
I have looked into putting him in a private school that specializes with children with dyslexia, but they are so very expensive, and we are unsble to afford it. As the tutors are too, for dyslexia. I purchased “all about reading and spelling” which uses orton gillingham approach, and has helped a good bit. We will be purchasing dylexia games for his birthday.
Anyway, that’s my story. David, so far, is our only child with this. I believe my dad was dyslexic, but he was never diagnosed. Any advice or tools to help, would be greatly appreciated!!
Im a retired primary school teacher and I have a small tutoring company ( 14 students 4-18 years old ) Some who have been labelled dyslexic .
Im passionate about helping my students literacy skills develop !
I also worked for The Dyslexic Association of Victoria as a tutor for two years a few years ago
Im finding Im turning students away as I dont have sufficient time . I tutor English from pre school to Year 12 and Primary / Early Secondary School Mathematics
Im very keen to continually update my teaching skills particularly in the acquisition of good Literacy Skills and am very keen to learn from your program
Im a fit , active , vibrant 70 year old mother, grand mother and partner who intends working for as long as I can ! Warm regards Christine Lindfield
Hi Liz
I am a relief teacher aide and a tutor. I’ve worked with primary school kids for about 10 years and yes, for some kids, the struggle is real. I think that if we can get in early and provide as much help as we can, we can stop these kids being left behind. I’ve always tried to make tutoring fun and so jumping on the trampoline and singing the alphabet or reading flash cards, or diving to get numbers off the bottom of the pool is what we do. I would love to learn more and to be able to help kids more.
I live rural in SW Qld so am looking at Skype as a way to be able to connect with kids too. Building self esteem and self confidence is so important. Literacy and Numeracy is doable. If I can help even one kid it makes what I do worthwhile.
Hi my name is kelleigh. I have a 12 year old son who is not able to read. He has been pulled out of class since k. I tried so many times to find out why he was having such a hard time learning. Each time i would ask about test. The school district would tell me some thing about him just not getting it. Then later told me it was because of his behavior. I even asked if he might be dyslexic. I was told no. Then last week the teacher let it slip she saw lots of signs to prove he was dyslexic and they just bought a test to determine. Now they are back to no we dont think so but we will test because you demanded that we do. He is in the 6th grade. I need help to teach him and i do not have alot of money so your offering to let me be able to help my son is a life saver. Thank you.
Hi Liz. My name is Vicki Martin. I have a now 13 yr old adopted son that has been diagnosed with ADHD @ age 6, Social & General Anxiety with Selective Mutism at about 8, Identified by the public school system at age 12 with Dyslexia in writing, spelling, math & reading. Recently he was additionally diagnosed as high functioning Autistic.
Payton has struggled learning academically all of his life. It also took him longer to reach developmental milestones in many areas. The difficult part was learning 1 diagnosis at a time over several years & not knowing what diagnosis might be affecting what.
Currently, we do not have a clinical diagnosis for Payton’s Dyslexia. He has been evaluated about every 3 years at school since Kindegarden. By 6th Grade, the school Psychologist identified the Dyslexia I had suspected since 3rd grade. I was told by the Special Ed teachers from 3-5 grade that they didn’t believe he had Dyslexia?
I did purchase “The Ten Minute Tutor” program in December 2018 & he is currently using it online.
Vicki Martin
Hi Liz
My name is Ruby and I am Mum to Sunny, an 11 year old boy. Sunny started school at age 5 and the nightmare began!! He was not learning anything and began to go backwards in skills he had previously mastered, for example toileting, small jobs around the house. Our once loving, happy, healthy boy became so unhappy, he would cry and cling to me every morning, begging not to go to school. We received lots of support from the school, professional help, nothing seemed to change in Sunny, he was getting worse. We then had a diagnosis of severe anxiety, this just didnt sit right with me. The situation with Sunny was having a terrible affect on myself, my partner and his older sister. I decided to withdraw Sunny from school and teach him myself. This is our 5th year of homeschooling, it has taken 4 years to restore his self esteem and confidence, and for him to realize that he can learn and enjoy learning. We watched your webinar just the other night and both shed tears of happiness, Sunny has started your program and loves it. He calls you his new teacher!!! Thank you so much!!!
Hi Liz,
I grew up with English as my second language in U.S. English has been my least favorite subject because I was afraid to speak and read out loud. I now have three children with ages of 9, 7, and 3. I often read to my first child and she was able to pick up reading quite early at age 4. I didn’t have enough time with my second child and also the third. In addition, we moved from U.S., to Japan, and now Taiwan. I tried my best in speaking English to them but they often reply in Mandarin. By accident, the children fellowship at my church decided to open up weekend camp for children to sign up for various classes. And I was invited to teach basic English. As I was searching online for teaching methods on phonics, I came across to your website. To be honest, I don’t remember if I had learned phonics at school. I also don’t want to just teach out of textbook. I want to be sure that I am teaching them properly and efficiently. I thank you for sharing your story and teaching method so that all can benefit.
My name is Nancy Ruhland. I am an elementary special education teacher. I am here because I switched from being a high school special education teacher to an elementary special education teacher and I am taking part in various webinars, doing research, and taking a class to better understand the reading process and what ways I can effectively teach and help my students learn with the most/quickest success.
I am a mother to four daughters three of which are Super gifted my baby was just diagnosed with dyslexia dysgraphia and add and I am struggling with how to help her she is in a special education program right now but Kindergarten with very little progress they don’t seem to be helping her a whole lot but they just want to keep passing her due to special education rules which is not okay with me because I want her to be able to learn and Thrive but I really don’t know how to help her
Hi my name is Myra and I have an 8 year old daughter who has been struggling in school since preschool. Other kids were on the right track while she was still left behind. I tried all kinds of things to try to help her learn. Nothing worked. She even failed kindergarten. She is in second grade now and just recently given an IEP. We thought she would grow out of writing her B’s and D’s backwards. Also so many other letters. Lydia was writing most of all her numbers backwards. Her teacher knew something was wrong when she wrote her entire name backwards on the top of a worksheet. The team got together and evaluated Lydia to find out she has dyslexia. Which has caused her to struggle throughout each school year. I really want my child to learn how to read spell. I just need some help to get me going in the right direction to help my child
I am a mother of two children the older one who is 11 has depression and anxiety. My younger one who is 6 and a half who has and Intellectual disability, hypothyroidism, processing disorder, cant spell out words but can recognize letters, has trouble blending them in a sentence, social needs space occasionally, doesn’t like loud noises, and cant read many sentences cant sit still has lots of melt downs as well and lots more. I myself am a qualified early educator for 5 and under but find it difficult to help my own child where getting help through the school is crazy long process. I want her to be able to start reading books etc without me having to prompt her or give her hints all the time.I really need some good quality advice.
HI, I have two girls aged 10 and 12. My youngest has been our focus for many years with regard to learning difficulties and neuro diversity and after a long, long, long battle with the schooling system and social services she was diagnosed with autism, dyslexia and speech and language difficulties. Our massive modifications to our daily life have bought about a more settled environment and now my youngest Daughter is educated within a BASE in a mainstream primary setting. Sadly because of the years she missed being forced to learn in a set mainstream delivery she has fallen behind academically by nearly 3-4 years. She is making progression now as the curriculum is being stripped back and re-taught but it is slow and she is anxious of where she will be put in the system when she progresses on to high school (we have a lot of work on our hands to make sure she is appropriately placed). A more recent discovery, and one that really went under the radar I believe because of the severity of the learning difficulties my youngest, is that my eldest daughter has also been struggling. This became much more pronounced as she began high school and her ability to keep up, keep organised, interact and feel happy in her environment, nose-dived immeasurably. She had become very low, almost depressed and her anxiety was through the roof. I had noticed dyslexic tendencies in her work at primary school and insisted that the school tested for it, they assured me it was nothing to worry about and the speech and language therapist resident in the school refused to believe she was at all dyslexic. The school eventually yielded, after constant badgering from myself, and the report came back saying she was indeed dyslexic and showed definite signs of auditory processing disorder. At this point I thought we’d hit the jackpot and that at least we knew what we were dealing with. However, as I mentioned previously, the problems persisted and got much, much worse in her first year of secondary school. We returned to social services and she was admitted to the umbrella group for assessment. We now currently have a working diagnosis of ADD with possible Asperger, as well as the dyslexia and auditory processing disorder and she is being medicated.
I apologise hugely for the length of this post but I wanted to outline for any reader that might look at this that it is only persistence and constant evaluation that will get you the help you need and it would appear that this sight and your 10 minute tutor webinars would be invaluable is a learning tool. My only gripe is that it is so very expensive. I would be very happy to pay a more manageable monthly fee of say £15-20 but the outlay as it stands is sadly far too much for me to manage. If you at any point revise the monthly payments I’m very much in.
Thank you and keep up the amazing work.
Angie
HI , I am the mum of a smart 10yr old boy.
He has been struggling with spelling and writing from the get go.
He reads perfectly though. I”m hoping that this will help my son to spell and write confidently.
My son is almost 10 yrs old. We have been struggling with Reading and Spelling for that last couple of years. He has been tested for extra help at school but always tests above the needed level. He still gets some assistance with those subjects but its very little. I’ve tried my best to come up with things for us to do at home to help. We have been referred to Scottish Rite but we are still waiting for an appointment 6 months later. I’m just trying to find anything that will help him as I don’t want to see him struggle. I am going to watch the webinar today so we will see after that.
Hello! I am a stay at home mom of 4 boys! My boys are 11, 9, 3 and 18 months! I’ve worked in child care and local schools for 10+ years and decided to stay home when we had our last son! We just recently switched our 2 oldest boys to a new district which has been hard for all of us! We loved our old school and especially the teachers and staff! The only reason we switched them is because I was driving almost 80 miles a day getting them to and from school! Our oldest is our go getter, straight A student and everything comes easy and natural to him! UnfortunatelyI can’t say that for our 9 year old! He is in fourth grade so he is a young one in his class! He has always excelled in math but Reading is a completely different story! We’ve tried all sorts of interventions at his old school which seemed to be helping but this new school seems to be dragging their feet! With all these recent changes he has now been diagnosed with anxiety! I’m a very involved parent so this has not been easy for me!
I want to be able to help my son in any way I can! I want to show these teachers that he is capable and just needs a little extra help! Mostly, I want to give my son the strength and confidence In school that he deserves!
Hello my name is Leticia and I have a 7 year old son who struggles with reading. The school will be testing him for dyslexia but as a parent i want to get as many resources to help me help my child in any way i can. I see him struggle to read and hesitates and I really want him to be more confident in his school work.
I am a teaching assistant in a school in a deprived area. Due to a very tight budget we are unable to purchase most resources that help children to read, therefore, I look for any free tools or information that I can use during my intervention work. Your system follows a similar path to another programme I found called TVP (trainertext visual phonics). I particularly like the way you use different colours to show each part of the written word; it is simple yet effective. Thank you for some very interesting information during your webinar.
I am a special needs teacher and also a private tutor. I am finding that a lot of my mainstream pupils are struggling with number and word recognition. I am hoping that these resources will benefit both of my roles.
Hi I am mother of 2, my younger daughter has no problems, my older, son, was born with XYY syndrome which gave him learning difficulties with reading, writing and talking, he is almost 9 years old and struggling a lot at school, my teacher gave me this website to find some interesting helping advices regarding his dyslexia diagnosis last september. I hope I will learn a lot from you as I am very desperate to help him. Thank you
Hello. My name is Katherine. I am a mum of three boys and a Specialist Teacher and Assessor of Dyslexia. I live in Suffolk, in the UK.
In my previous life, before kids, I worked in Public Relations. When my youngest started pre-school I was really sad and needed to fill the void! I wanted to go into teaching but, having been a teaching assistant when pregnant, knew that whole class teaching wasn’t for me. However, I had loved the one-to-one sessions with the kids and decided that this was the way to go for me. However, because I did not have a teaching degree (I do have a BA degree) it was really hard for me to access any specialist teaching training. I again got a job as a TA in order to access a dyslexia training course. Over the next six years I self-funded and trained to be a specialist teacher and then assessor of dyslexia. It was quite a journey for me being a mum, working and studying in a whole new field of work. During this time, I discovered that I am very likely dyslexic. I say very likely because although not diagnosed, I can almost write my profile of strengths weaknesses associated with dyslexia having administered diagnostic testing countless times! My experiences, both positive and negative, help me with supporting my dyslexic students.
I now teach in a school working with 7-18 year olds and provide diagnostic assessments privately. I love my job – both elements to it. My assessments provide me great insight into how people with dyslexia are cognitively responding to sounds and language and my teaching really informs the intervention strategies I make in my reports.
I have to be honest in saying that I feel that, often, support for dyslexia in schools is not at the level it should be – for many reasons. I actually feel uncomfortable charging for tutoring and assessments and feel, for a lot of people, there is not adequate access to specialist help.
I really value your website and snippets of support popping into my mailbox – thank you!
I have a daughter in first grade and she is have trouble putting all the read fundamental pieces together. Her teacher told me about this program, and we are going to give it a try.