Yesterday there was a great article written by Melinda Beck, "Dyslexia Workarounds: Creativity Without a Lot of Reading". (April 2, New York Times.) Many people have dyslexia up to one in five. Of course there are various degrees of dyslexia. It seems the people with higher mental capacity have the option of working around this disability. Dyslexia just means the person has trouble with reading. It really has nothing to do with intelligence. Some people listen to their books on audio. Some students memorize everything.
Dyslexia runs in families. My husband has it as well as my oldest son. My son never understood phonics. For a few grades he did quite well in spelling. He just remembered the order of letters his teacher felt were important. He did not understand the sound letters make or how the blends work. He finally read in fourth grade. His fifth grade teacher said his writing was not very good. When I explained he learned to read last year, the teacher was shocked. While in college, he never missed a class, attended every study session, and read as little as possible. He became a very good writer but still would rather watch a show than read a book.
As Melinda states in her article, Dyslexia can't be cured, but programs that help children learn sequential sound-letter relationships can help. I have a special program to help dyslexic students to read and would love to help students over the summer. In fact Henry Winkler, the guy who played Fonzie on "Happy Days" has written a book about a fourth grader who has dyslexia.
Remember as an adult, there are no more timed reading tests.
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