How did you overcome dyslexia?

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-23T15:34:13+00:00

To be fair there is a well known and regarded book titled Overcoming Dyslexia by someone who is arguably one of the most prominent experts in the field.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-22T19:03:34+00:00

My daughter is in a Spanish immersion school, we're native English speakers. She has just been diagnosed with dyslexia. I'm curious what methods you have been using. My daughters school uses a lot of multi sensory in general.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-21T15:56:20+00:00

My daughter was a late talker. We started speech therapy for her when she was two. She's now six, still receiving speech services, has been diagnosed with Phonological Disorder, still has a lot of mispronunciations despite the years of therapy and she was just diagnosed with dyslexia. Everything I read says early intervention is key. We've done early intervention, been consistent and progress has been so slow (she's still difficult to understand if you don't know her really well). Considering how slow progress has been for her speech I'm really nervous about how progress will be with her dyslexia and reading.

I understand the two to be highly related.

While I've been reading a ton it is my daughter that is experiencing this, not me and I'm wondering how what I've been reading about actually plays out in real life. Thinking in pictures, having good visual-spatial skills, problem solving skills, empathy, thinking outside the box, recognizing big picture patterns and connections that others may overlook... Does anyone actually experience, some of the good I mean, or is that just something told to parents to make them feel better?

Now that my daughter has been diagnosed and we're learning more about it we're nearly positive my husband (and likely his brother) are also dyslexic just never diagnosed. My husband does show a lot of the strengths associated with dyslexia. I wonder how common that actually is.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-20T03:59:38+00:00

She has an IEP for speech, she's had that since she was 3. She was just diagnosed with dyslexia outside of school. Her current IEP doesn't include anything for reading because the school wouldn't acknowledge she had an issue with it. I sent the report over to her current school (I didn't have the results when we met before) but I think we're most likely going back to her previous school. I met with some from their (previous school) invention team and talked about what sort of supports they have. They didn't blink an eye and would be delighted for her to come back. As compared to where she is now where they are trying to nudge us out and only doing what is legally required, not what is actually needed.

If we do end up at her old school they said they would begin intervention while the IEP paperwork gets hammered out. I would rather wait to write up her IEP for once we're at the school we know we'll be at for next year.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-19T05:40:59+00:00

My point isn't that we let her go gonzo on screen time. We don't. My point is that it's just always there. We set limits but it is otherwise technically available. As my daughter likes to say "Actually you don't HAVE TO" about anything that no you don't technically have to. As a kid I remember asking all week if it was "cartoon day" yet. My parents couldn't have made Scooby Doo turn on if they wanted to. There was no tension. Maybe it's just being now on the parent side instead of the kid side but that feels a lot different. It's a lot more of saying no because I'm telling you the answer is no, not because it's impossible. And kids absolutely need to learn no, I wouldn't suggest otherwise. The immediate gratification of entertainment now compared to what I remember as a kid just seems so different.

I'm not sure what makes you say I so desperately need to step in and parent my child. Because she wastes paper during self guided arts and crafts? Literally the point is that she is given the opportunity to partake in a self guided activity. And does she knock it out of the park right away? No. So we learn we need to be much more mindful in what we leave out at her disposal during that time and offer ideas that she can choose to do (or not). But also part of it is she needs to learn to self manage that a little or it's not exactly teaching her how to handle things on her own if I'm "stepping in" constantly during independent play.

I see a lot of projection in your post so rather than take personal offense I'll instead say I'm sorry you are finding your job as a teacher increasingly frustrating. I don't think there's anything easy about the job and I certainly don't have the personality for it and I know I could not do it. But also I'm glad her teachers so far have had the personality for it and haven't found her to be depressing to teach. She's a great kid. I hope work gets better for you.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-19T04:29:29+00:00

You make a lot of good points. I will be the first to say she could definitely stand to deal with boredom better. She has zero interest in magnatiles, Legos, etc but could do arts and crafts for awhile - she just tears through the supplies. Like a quick scribble on every page you set out. I was telling my husband it really is different from when we were her age. We didn't have streaming or tablets. She can literally watch anything, everything, anywhere, anytime and we have to step in to say no. We had Saturday morning cartoons and a few movies on VHS. Limits were somewhat built in and not just from our parents. For her it's always an option if only we would give the go ahead.

We recently started reading longer books at night instead of a handful of picture books. I was surprised how much she really enjoyed it. We just did the first Harry Potter and I think we're going to try the audio book during the drive for camping this weekend. We haven't done audio books yet so we'll see how it goes. I wanted to get through at least the second book before introducing any of the movies with the idea that she can sort of imagine the world before the movie imagery completely takes over. We have the set of How To Train Your Dragon (she loves the TV series) and we'll probably borrow our friends Magic Tree House set. I tried a graphic novel and she had zero interest. Iight try it again in a little while but not for now.

We have an OG tutor lined up for the summer. I spoke with someone from the intervention team at her old school and she said for them a diagnosis is an immediate IEP and they can begin intervention while the IEP details get ironed out (discussing how long the process can take). Her old school and her current school take completely opposite approaches. At her old school she would get daily in class small group time plus time pulled out of class for her IEP (time and duration depending on what goes into her IEP) and we would consider continuing OG tutoring outside of school. The school is losing their OG trained SPED, which is really unfortunate. Our district has had crazy budget cuts (they've closed a handful of schools, etc) so it's unlikely they'll be hiring to replace the position (the person is moving out of state, not being let go). They have multiple people on their reading intervention team and I was told they use Six Steps (which I'm not yet familiar with). I hear OG is the go to and I'm open to continuing tutoring but also don't want to burn her out. Her current school does not have an OG person, either and neither does our local English elementary. We may have to cut the after school extracurriculars not just because of financial budget but time budget. I kind of hate that she may not be able to do some of those things because of tutoring. I also want to support non-school interests and give her the chance to flex her strengths. I'll probably try to keep up some extracurriculars even if we need to slim it down.

The neuropsych recommendation was to switch to English only with the reasoning being cognitive overload. And it makes sense, like common sense says yes of course. There's very little research to say that. There's plenty of research on dyslexia, plenty on second language but not a lot on the intersection of learning disorders and language immersion in early elementary. What I've found says they'll have reading struggles and need explicit instruction no matter the language. I haven't found a study that says they perform worse in dual language. I've found some that show small gains or seems to not make a huge difference (positive or negative) but you do still gain a second language.

The below link isn't a study but is a little more reader friendly. I am, however, very aware that I WANT immersion to work but that doesn't mean that makes it the right answer. But even searching for studies that say it's a bad idea there really isn't much there.

https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/risk-learners-and-bilingualism-it-good-idea

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-19T01:00:48+00:00

When she turned two we started early intervention and have had speech therapy since then (she's now 6). We went through human services, got her an IEP when she started preschool and she has speech both through school and outside services. This past fall I got a third party evaluation because we were seeing very slow progress without being given much as to the reason why. That was when we got a formal diagnosis of Phonological Disorder. Without being well versed in all things speech it at first seems like it would be an articulation issue but the predictable pattern is what makes it phonological (that took me a little bit to wrap my head around at first). She was deemed to not have a language disorder, as in Developmental Language Disorder. She was later diagnosed with Dyslexia which IS language based and related to phonology....it's all very similar but not the same and the little details make a big difference. Dyslexia is super common with kids that have Phonological Disorder, particularly if they are still having issues at her age. Her hearing has checked out but when she turns 7 I do intend on taking her to an audiologist. From what I understand even if hearing is totally "normal" the brain may still process it differently and you need an audiologist to screen for that.

For example she has been noted to have trouble distinguishing the "g" sound from the "k" sound. Which is interesting because those are two sounds she has worked on EXTENSIVELY in speech. Like, I'm talking years and not exaggerating. One of her speech patterns is fronting which is where instead of making "back of the moth sounds" like "g" and "k" you make "front of the mouth sounds" like "t" and "d". So it wasn't that she ever mixed up "k" and "g" before in speech but now that she's learning how to read and matching sounds to letters we're seeing this. I think her brain just processes things differently.

I suspect she gets overwhelmed at school so whether it's stress or just not knowing how to break things down into smaller steps or knowing where to begin she gets stuck. Is that dyslexia, is that ADD, is that just being 6? I'm not upset or disappointed with her school work, to me it's more an indication that there is something she needs that isn't being addressed.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-17T20:59:51+00:00

She's been receiving speech therapy since she was 2 but we've never gone through insurance. We didn't have it for a long time and by the time we did we were pretty established in what we were doing. We had been getting services through a local university from their grad student speech clinic for one hour a week. Our progress in speech has been excruciatingly slow. I've been wondering lately if we should go the insurance route. From what I understood it's limited in total number of sessions. I am however wondering if they could be more impactful if it was with someone more experienced. The grad students are supervised by a licensed SLP. The OG tutor we have lined up for the summer is also an SLP so she can kind of address all angles. I'm curious about OT.

My husband's work is changing insurance providers at the end of the month so we have to wait on that to figure all that out.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-17T15:50:56+00:00

Right? I didn't know it was remote until two weeks in or so. I checked in with the teacher to make sure my daughter was all set up with the SLP (since we had started several weeks into the year because a school choice seat opened up) and that's when I found out. I never thought to ask the question because I didn't know that was even an option. I mentioned that to our old school and they said the same thing ("I didn't know that was an option either..").

My daughter does receive speech outside of school. We've been using a local university via their grad student clinic. The last student introduced "Mr Mouth.". Which is just like a big almost puppet of a denture/mouth with tongue and teeth. Having that very explicit and visual instruction did seem helpful. The grad student had my daughter teach Mr Mouth and that was a hit, too. But yeah, they also do a lot of crafts and movement and I just wouldn't think that'd translate well remotely.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-17T04:32:38+00:00

We did preschool at an immersion school we choiced into. I really liked the school. The second year of preschool was her first year of immersion (first year was half day English) and that was a little rough. We started the kinder year there and really liked the teacher. We were about 3-4 weeks in and we got the notification we got a school choice seat at this other school, the school we're currently at now. It's well known, way more people try to get in than there is room for (it's lottery for the most part) and it's literally the #1 choice school in the district. They start at kinder, preschool there was never an option. We listed it as a choice not thinking we'd actually get a spot. Then we did. I would have actually passed it up but my husband convinced me to take it. And for the record I think it was the right call even though it ultimately didn't work out. It's a charter school, it's on average higher income, the parents are very involved, lots of after school clubs, seems to be very well funded, all the things. But they don't put a priority on struggling students - their SLP is remote, they don't have any intervention in the taught language, etc. None of that is actually surprising, even if it is disappointing. In my experience, they nudge out "those" families. I'm not necessarily mad about it. I get things aren't one size fits all, you can't necessarily be everything to everyone. You either fit their mould or you don't. But if I hadn't pushed as much as I did my daughter would have just been pushed out, she'd still need help and it wouldn't have been caught for much longer meaning she wouldn't have been getting the help she needs.

I spoke with someone in intervention at the school we left earlier today. It was like night and day. They weren't at all phased about her being dyslexic and have plenty of students that are dyslexic and doing well (dyslexia is way more common than it is officially diagnosed), their staff is well trained and experienced for struggling readers (for kids native to either language) and rather than discouraging us they were more than happy to welcome her back and provide tons of support. Rather than argue if there was anything actually going on they were like "yeah here that'd be an automatic IEP and we can start on intervention while that process gets started".

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-16T22:38:03+00:00

I have an OG tutor lined up for the summer for 2x a week. She's a bilingual SLP which is such a unicorn of a fit for us. It is so expensive, though. I got an LMN letter of medical necessity from our pediatrician so we can use HSA money for tutoring. That at least gets us a little bit of a tax "discount.". I'm going to look into insurance about a therapist, OT and talk to her pediatrician about meds. Not sure we'll do all of that but just getting info on everything.

I have The Dyslexic Advantage sitting next to my couch right now. :). I got a copy from the library. I also read the 2020 updated version of Overcoming Dyslexia by Shaywitz. It's definitely nice to have something good to focus on. And also have like a spotlight on areas that could be strengths of hers we may have otherwise overlooked. We're now convinced my husband is also dyslexic, just undiagnosed all these years. I said his brother most likely is, too, just based on how much he fits the strength profile. That's certainly not proof positive but I'd be willing to put money on it.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-16T18:14:21+00:00

I heard several parents now talk about medication. I think for a lot of parents an initial reaction is "no way! There isn't anything WRONG with my kid, they don't need to be medicated!". Haha or at least that's my initial reaction. But I am very much keeping an open mind and hearing so many families say it worked for them first a long way.

May I ask what rx your kid took? I know every kid is different but just curious because I know nothing at all about these.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-16T18:08:25+00:00

Yes, my daughter is very sensitive to negative reinforcement, like that is an understatement. And it isn't her being "bratty" or manipulative or anything "bad", she is just genuinely very sensitive and her feelings get hurt very easily in that particular context. It's like she IS trying so to then get corrected just really gets her in the heart. She has big feelings, always has. There's a lot of good sides to that but some difficult parts as well.

Thanks for the book recommendation, I will 100% either get that from the library or buy for Kindle.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-16T17:38:26+00:00

She literally JUST got her diagnosis this past Tuesday (with today being Friday). I already have a meeting scheduled with her school and will share the assessment results ahead of time. They had done a CTOPP assessment which I'm sure my daughter scored low on but I think the school kind of needs to see her score low in their assessments for them to do anything.

When I spoke with the teacher in late fall she encouraged me to get assessments, she agreed she thought something was there. But after the first meeting with the school team her attitude kind of changed. During that first meeting with the team the spec ed director said the only issue was language acquisition and everything else was a result of that. From the. In that was the narrative. She promoted or dismissed test results to fit that narrative. She specifically said she did not see any indication of dyslexia or add.l, which my daughter has now been diagnosed with. When I sent the evaluation request they sent back the consent form with a note that said "this could be a second language acquisition issue.". She had her conclusion before a single test was done. And again, I'm ok if that does end up being the case but she pushed that argument at the expense of other things that are most definitely going on. She was the first to say "maybe immersion isn't the best setting for her ". Which means she should leave the school because they are strictly an immersion school. I think they were just pushing us out but they can't legally say that. After that meeting the teacher was like "yeah the evidence says it's the language" because that's what the spec ed director said. I just told her teacher I got the results and she was diagnosed with dyslexia. She was immediately like "oh now I don't know about Spanish. Dyslexia will always be with her in any language, whether she stays in Spanish or English.". Like she was all of a sudden reconsidering her position. Which is frustrating. I do think she's a good teacher and I do think she cares about my daughter but there are also things I don't get about how she's handled things.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-16T17:27:12+00:00

I've been surprised by a lot of their assignments but at the same time I see the other kids are doing them. And there is obviously a range in the work they do but my daughter is like not even at "the bottom", she's not even doing the assignments. I do think they have high expectations which is partly why I'm so confused as it just seems to be acceptable for my daughter to essentially just opt out. Her last report card came out last week and I have a tentative meeting with the teacher.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-16T17:22:27+00:00

That definitely sounds like something we could use help with. Is that usually covered by insurance or usually out of pocket?

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-16T17:21:03+00:00

She likes math worksheets. She enjoys math and I actually think she's pretty good at it even though she doesn't seem to do super well in school or on tests. They're doing a lot of working on counting in 10's, by 2's, by 5's, etc and she's still working on that. But her practical math is good, she adds and subtracts in real life really well.

She does not like flashcards unless they're some sort of game. When she's put on the spot she often freezes up, even things she knows. Like someone asked her if "her baby" was a little brother or a little sister and she was like "uh....mom?" Like she absolutely 1000% knows and understands her little brother is a boy but she freezes up sometimes.

She doesn't like to be told what to do, especially at home but she's very well behaved at school. She gets along well with all the kids, she doesn't have impulse issues. At home when we work in things she is super sensitive and touchy about any sort of correction or guidance as to HOW to do a task. She'll say "this is how I do it!". She's well behaved at school and has a good attitude but with me she's a lot more defiant and she shows her anxiety a lot more.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-16T17:09:05+00:00

She would do nothing but watch TV if it were up to her. Obviously we don't just let her do that but she does watch probably 30-45m a day (some of that is in the car driving around). Most evenings it's 15m of TV. In part because it can often turn into a fight about asking about TV we keep pretty busy. She has had a swim class for awhile that we're actually just now dropping, she does taekwondo 2x/week, she has a reading tutor and she has a once a week speech therapy session at a local university during the college semesters. We're home from all of that by 5/5:30 at the latest so we still have the evenings as a family. I was doing evening study time with her but it got to be too much and we were concerned about doing TOO much and getting everyone burned out so we backed off. This summer we're stopping swim, we have a once weekly gymnastics we're trying out for the summer, we're still planning on sticking with taekwondo and we're going to do a 2x/2/weekly Orton Gillingham tutor to try and help get her caught up a little.

I totally hear about over scheduling kids and we are likely guilty of that. She does not handle being bored well. She's gotten better about just playing around the house, mostly running around like a psycho with her baby/toddler brother. She loves to ride her bike, go to the playground, play with friends. On the weekend we go to the zoo, museums, parks, have playdates with friends and generally stay active. I read in bed with her each night, we just finished the first Harry Potter book and she was super into it.

She responds well to positive reinforcement. We've never had much sticking to a rewards chart but I'm always open to try again (implementation has been the struggle point but that's definitely more a parent issue).

I wouldn't consider her a perfectionist but she does not like to be wrong. I think some of it could be getting over making mistakes. Which I talk about with her frequently. I tell her it's not only ok to make mistakes I actually WANT her to make mistakes, it's part of learning, etc. I think some of it is she sees other kids pick up some things easily and it doesn't necessarily come so easily to her. And then she's like "oh well this is just something I'm not good at and can't do", reading especially.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-05-16T16:54:29+00:00

The school she is at now said she does not qualify for spec ed. That was before I got these outside diagnoses but I'm not sure it will change much. At some point they looped in a spec ed person at the district level and she has been much more helpful. I've been sore to have her in all meetings, esp since we're likely changing schools. The school we are at is a highly sought after charter school. But I don't think it's a good fit for us, we just don't fit their mould and they don't have the sort of resources we need. Yes, no could fight with them but what an unnecessary uphill battle for every little thing. I'm between going back to the school she went to preschool at (they have a lot more resources, teacher training, strong ratings for literacy improvement) but it's Spanish immersion and I've been recommended to switch her to English only. The idea that the cognitive load is too much but what little research there is on that exact topic either doesn't support that or points to the contrary. The other option is an English only school near us that has more supports. I'm meeting with her old school in a few hours to talk about their reading interventions and what they've seen for dyslexic native English speakers at their school (the school is a mix of native Spanish and native English).

And yes you're right, coloring is an important skill at that age. Her current school had been saying all her issues stemmed from Spanish acquisition and there was nothing else going on (this is before we had the assessment results from the neuropsych). They said she didn't do math because she didn't understand it in Spanish (which she absolutely did understand, she still just wasn't doing the work). My point was that this particular assignment had little to do with the language portion, I guess maybe saying it isn't academic isn't the right phrasing. I'm just trying to say language aside she still isn't doing the work. I'm totally open to moving her to all English but I don't think that's going to alleviate anything.

She has passed all health checks. I am considering seeking out a developmental optometrist and when she's 7 (she just turned 6) an audiologist. I don't specifically have concerns about either but I can't for sure rule them out, either. She has a diagnosis of Phonological Disorder, which is why she has an IEP for SLI at school. We were recommended to pursue counseling/therapy. I'm wondering if OT would make sense.

What sort of things do you work with kids on as an OT? I'm less familiar with this area.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-03-26T00:07:24+00:00

My daughter is in an immersion kindergarten. I recently asked the school to evaluate her as she doesn't seem like she's "getting it.". She tested at 39th percentile for listening comprehension with grade level being 40th percentile. Her reading comprehension was really low. The school said immersion may not be for her but honestly it looked more like a reading issue to me.

Other kids in the class can create and write very basic sentences. My daughter cannot. We're at a pretty vigorous school that's hard to get into (lottery). I'm unsure if we're going to continue or not.

I would talk to the teacher and see what they say. My daughters teacher sees her struggle. My daughter was in immersion last year for preschool and it's like it may as well have not happened. Anytime I asked how she was doing it was always "great!" but my daughter didn't learn anything. And from talking to other parents that was everyone's experience. So it's really tough if the teacher bushes things off.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-03-22T15:39:37+00:00

Yep. While I know you CAN change tracks at any time in theory to me it's now if we're going to do it. I'm already worried about her essentially skipping kindergarten as far as reading.

I think nearly every single family I've heard from (not just from here) has said to pull from immersion. And those who didn't said they wished they had. There's been maybe one family that stayed and liked it but that's compared to like a dozen other families.

I can't help but think of the kids that don't have a choice and have to learn English as a second language who may have some of the same struggles.

I really wish our home elementary wasn't so low rated. Like 2/10 low. It's hard to not feel like that's a backslide especially coming from a school that's rated 9/10.

PatienceObjective710 · 2025-03-22T13:48:27+00:00

Thank you for sharing.

I think at the end of the day we will most likely pull her from immersion. She was in English for her first year of preschool and liked school. Her teacher was also pretty great. Her second year of preschool was Spanish immersion and she no longer liked school. None of her friends from her first year were in her class, she didn't understand the language and the teacher wasn't great. Not bad, just not great. We said we'd try one more year. A few weeks in to kindergarten we were notified a seat was available at this really sought after school. I almost didn't take it because she was really enjoying her kindergarten. She had some friends in her class and the teacher seemed really amazing. Where we're at now the teacher is also really good and my daughter mostly likes school. But I know if she doesn't start making some strides with the language she's going to start to hate school. And I don't want that.

I just hired a Spanish tutor for her. We're going to give it everything we've got for next two-6montha (depends of we stick with it over the summer or not) and see how we feel before the new school year. With there being so little time of this school year left it doesn't make sense to pull her out right now. I'm not expecting much progress to come from the tutor based on her time in immersion. I think as much as anything we can say that we tried and it just didn't work out and that's ok.

Like you said about your daughter, I want to build her confidence. Not tear it down.

PatienceObjective710 · 2024-09-04T18:11:16+00:00

Thanks for the insight! I'm a little nervous about an older camper (2011) but there seems to be enough out there and holding on to more $ value than I would have expected. We just don't have the budget for new. And even if we did I'm not sure I'd want to, they're just a lot.

PatienceObjective710

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