Lessons in dyslexia

The term ‘dyslexia’ has always been emotive, and it remains so. Julian Elliott and Elena Grigorenko’s book The Dyslexia Debate (2014) has done nothing to dispel the controversy. In a recent paper, ‘Why Children Fail To Read’, Sir Jim Rose, an apologist for dyslexia, said, ‘Dyslexia continues to come under fire as a myth. At its unkindest, this myth portrays dyslexia as an expensive invention to ease the pain of largely, but not only, middle-class parents who cannot bear to have their child thought of as incapable of learning to read for reasons of low intelligence, idleness, or both.’ Rose emphasises that both environmental and genetic factors influence reading ability and finishes by saying, ‘Dyslexia is not yet well enough understood as an extreme reading disorder for which we have precise solutions,’ which isn’t a particularly reassuring conclusion. Whatever the cause, early identification of pupils who are struggling to learn to read and write remains an obvious ambition.

Dyslexia falls under the umbrella term of Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD). A helpful and up-to-date overview of SpLD, including dyslexia, is provided by the British Dyslexia Association. Put briefly, children with a dyslexic profile experience difficulties with reading, spelling and writing. Characteristics include impaired phonological (the sounds that make up language) awareness, slow information processing, issues with working and long-term memory, and sometimes other learning difficulties.

So how does an understandably anxious parent help? If you suspect your child has dyslexia, the first port of call is your child’s class teacher. A collaborative relationship with school is fundamental: ask whether they agree that there is a problem. If they do, ask what support your child is receiving in school and how best you can help with homework. The last thing a child who struggles with words and numbers wants is to come home exhausted and frustrated to find that mummy has morphed into a teacher, Mrs McGhastly, who launches into an overenthusiastic rigmarole of practising sounds, times tables and so on.