It is something that every teacher will have seen.
There are many children who struggle with reading, while being evidently bright and hard working.
Stranger still, everything seems OK at first. But then they start to fall behind and eventually hit a plateau at around the age of 6 or 7. As the text gets more complicated they start to guess wildly and they become steadily more confused.
In the end their reading will go into reverse as their confidence implodes. They can feel the worry of their teacher and parents, but don’t know what to do.
Sometimes this leads to a diagnosis of dyslexia, which is quite wrong.
Dyslexia suggests there is some underlying problem that cannot be overcome.
But these children have no real reason not to be able to read. They are just approaching it in the wrong way.
Let me explain the process.
A very visual child will find the alphabet easy to memorise. Then the first words they are show they will memorise as well. Everyone praises their progress and as far as they know, they are reading. The early reader books feed into this by using a very limited vocabulary that repeats a lot.
So their parents and teacher believe all is well.
But this approach implodes on them as the text gets more complicated. Some children will be able to switch to decoding words phonetically, because they also have a strong natural auditory ability. They can see how the sounds within the speech relate to the text.
Others cannot make the switch without careful instruction. Their auditory perception just isn’t up to hearing the phonic structure of the words.
And these children are heading for failure
You will see them guessing wildly, just using the context and the first letter of the word.
They are frustrated and puzzled by their situation and don’t know the way out of it. They can sense the frustration of their teacher and parents, but have actually been doing their best.
One in five children reach the age of 11 unable to read properly and these children make up a large proportion of that group. It is a disaster for their academic career and working life.
And what a tragedy. We routinely watch them become confident readers in just a few weeks. They only need to be guided back onto the right path.
The label dyslexic carries a great risk that everyone will just relax into acceptance of the situation as inevitable. That leaves the child to deal with a much harder path through life.
