11/17/2014
Ever wonder if you or child has Dyslexia? Check out this Myth vs. Fact from Susan Barton herself! We can offer interventions for your struggling reader. We tutor using the Barton Reading & Spelling System!
Myth vs. Fact
Unfortunately, most children with dyslexia are never identified – in part, due to persistent myths about dyslexia, including:
MYTH:
He can’t have dyslexia because he can read.
FACT:
All children with dyslexia can read—up to a point. But auditory processing problems prevent them from hearing all the individual sounds in a word. So they don’t read by sounding out.
Instead, they use alternative strategies: context clues (pictures and a predictable or familiar story), the shapes of words, and guessing based on the first letter or two.
But their memories can hold only a limited number of words. So these strategies will fail them by third or fourth grade. Without the right type of help, they can not progress any further—no matter how smart they are and how hard they try.
Such reading failure is preventable – if they are taught to read differently – using the Barton Reading & Spelling System. It teaches children and adults with dyslexia to read and spell at the mid-ninth grade level.
That’s considered adult reading level in our society. A ninth-grade-level reader can pass the GED, and go to college.
MYTH:
Dyslexia means you see things backwards.
FACT:
If it were that simple, we could solve the problem by having dyslexic children hold their books in front of a mirror.
Research has proven that people with dyslexia do NOT see things backwards.
MYTH:
Dyslexia is rare.
FACT:
According to the latest dyslexia research from the National Institutes of Health, dyslexia affects 20 percent of Americans (and about the same percentage of people in other countries.)
That’s one out of every five children.
Dyslexia can range from mild to severe.
Dyslexia can come by itself or with Attention Deficit Disorder.
In fact, if you know someone with ADD/ADHD who also has difficulty with spelling, writing, or memorizing multiplication tables, that person may also have dyslexia.
MYTH:
He can read okay. He just can’t spell.
That’s not dyslexia, is it?
FACT:
A child with severe dyslexia will struggle with reading from the very first day.
But intelligent children with mild-to-moderate dyslexia can fool you during the first few years in school. They can read. You just don’t know HOW they are reading. But their unusual reading strategies will force them into a brick wall by third to fourth grade.
Their awful spelling, however, is obvious very early. If they spend hours each night working on a spelling list, they may be able to pass the test. But they won’t be able to spell those very same words when they’re writing sentences or compositions.
Poor spelling is highly related to poor reading, and poor spelling shows up first. But it may take until third to fourth grade for the reading struggles to become equally obvious.
Reading and spelling are closely related skills.
MYTH:
She can’t have dyslexia. The school tested her, and she didn’t qualify for special education.
FACT:
Schools test only for “Learning Disabilities,” not for dyslexia.
Only the most severely dyslexic children meet the criteria for a Learning Disability, or LD, and get help through the Special Education system.
According to NIH research, 80 percent of children with a Learning Disability actually have dyslexia. Dyslexia is by far the most common learning disability.
But only one in ten children with dyslexia qualifies for special education services.
Dyslexic children who do NOT qualify just “fall through the cracks.” They’re in the regular classroom, struggling far more than they should, and they’re at extremely high risk for dropping out of school later.
MYTH:
There’s no such thing as dyslexia. That just a fancy term which means a child can’t read.
FACT:
In the 1960’s, that was true.
But thanks to over 25 years of research by the National Institutes of Child Health and Development (NICHD), a branch of the National Institutes of Health, we now have a research-based definition of dyslexia.
Click here to read that definition
MYTH:
It can’t be dyslexia. I had my child tested outside of the school system. They said it was: (pick one)
Auditory Discrimination Problem
Auditory Processing Disorder
Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD)
Orthographic Deficit
Difficulty remembering spelling patterns
Dysgraphia
Dysnomia
Dysphonetic Deficit
Phonemic Awareness Deficit
Reading Disability (RD)
Reading Fluency Problem
Short-term or Long-term Memory Deficit
Specific Language Disability (SLD)
Visual Processing Disorder
Visual-Motor Integration Disorder
Visual Memory Deficit
Visual Tracking Problem
Visual Convergence Problem
Vocabulary on Demand Problem
Word Retrieval Deficit
Written Language Disorder
FACT:
What dyslexia is called depends upon the type of specialist who did the testing, and their knowledge of dyslexia.
Dyslexia affects many different areas, but some testers only check one area. They find one weakness and come to the wrong conclusion. They don’t realize that weakness may be part of a bigger problem: dyslexia.
It’s like the fable of the blind men who approach an elephant from various directions. The one who discovers the trunk describes the animal very differently than the one who finds the tail, than the one who finds the leg, the tusk, etc.
None of them “see” that what they found is just one part of a bigger thing, an elephant.
