Reading Like a Dyslexic Reader | Dyslexia Help | Stowell Learning Center

Reading like a dyslexic reader is something most people never experience — until they find themselves somewhere unfamiliar, surrounded by a language they cannot decode.

I recently took a trip to Paris. I don’t speak French and I don’t read French, but when French is all there is to read and you want to know where you are, what’s on the menu, and what you’re looking at, you have to try to read French.

I am completely mystified by the spelling of many French sounds, but what I found was that while I could never have read anything out loud in French, if I knew the context, I could recognize enough words or word parts that looked like something I knew (English or Spanish) that I could kind of figure it out.

Reading Like a Dyslexic: What It Actually Feels Like

I realized that I was reading like a dyslexic reader.

(For a clinical definition, the International Dyslexia Association provides a widely accepted framework for understanding the condition.)

Often students with dyslexia have very good comprehension, so while they can’t read accurately or fluently while reading aloud, they may be able to read silently by looking for words and word parts they understand and connect-the-dots through their own knowledge of the context and their strong deductive reasoning.

Several things about this experience made me empathize with our dyslexic students.

First, it is so tempting just to ignore print because it’s too hard to make sense of.

Second, it takes much more energy and attention to try to make sense of the written word than it does when reading comes naturally for you.

And third, if I could read silently and had enough time, I could often get the gist of what I was reading.

Dyslexic students are often misunderstood by parents and teachers and even themselves because they can get just enough to look like they read better than they really do. This makes their performance very inconsistent and their avoidance of reading related tasks look like laziness or lack of motivation.

We’ll explore the real issues underlying dyslexia in another post, but here’s the important thing to understand about dyslexia: It doesn’t have to be permanent. By addressing the underlying auditory and visual processing challenges that cause reading to be confusing, the roadblocks to learning to read and spell can be dramatically changed or completely eliminated.

What This Means for Your Child

If your child is reading like I read in Paris, guessing at words, using context clues to fill in gaps, working twice as hard to get half as far, they are not lazy. They are not unmotivated. They are doing exactly what a capable brain does when the underlying tools for reading aren’t working the way they should.

The good news is that those tools can be built.

By identifying and strengthening the specific auditory and visual processing skills that make reading confusing, the roadblocks to accurate, fluent reading can be dramatically reduced or completely eliminated. This is not a matter of trying harder. It is a matter of building the right skills, systematically, with the right approach.

If you recognize your child in this description, the next step is a conversation with one of our learning specialists. We will listen to what you are seeing, ask the right questions, and tell you honestly whether we think we can help.

Learn more: Understanding Dyslexia: Signs, Testing, and Correction

If you would like to understand more about what dyslexia actually is and how it shows up differently in every child, the most important thing to know is this: dyslexia is not about intelligence and it is not permanent. The underlying processing skills that make reading so difficult can be identified, targeted, and built. Children who struggle to read because of dyslexia can become accurate, fluent readers. That outcome is not reserved for mild cases. It is available to any child whose specific skill gaps are identified and addressed with the right approach.

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