LD Expert Podcast with Jill Stowell
PART 1: Finally, an Answer: Dyslexia -
Hope and Clarity for Parents Who Have Tried Everything
Jill Stowell
Jill Stowell: "Some teachers said it was ADHD. Others said he was lazy. By fifth grade, my son hated school and told me, ‘I don’t think I can make it to sixth grade.’
This parent went on to say, “When I read about dyslexia, I thought—’This is my son! And my husband, my mother, my grandfather, and me.’ This finally makes sense.”
Welcome to the LD Expert Podcast, your place for answers and solutions for dyslexia, learning, and attention challenges.
I’m your host, Jill Stowell, founder and executive director of Stowell Learning Centers and author of “Take the Stone Out of the Shoe, A Must-Have Guide to Understanding, Supporting, and Correcting Dyslexia, Learning, and Attention Challenges.”
October is Dyslexia Awareness Month so I’m going to do a two-part episode on dyslexia for you.
Today is part 1 and we’re going to talk about what it feels like to live with dyslexia, what’s really going on underneath, and what you can do as a parent or teacher to help.
In Part 2, we’re going to look honestly at what schools can and can’t do for dyslexia — and more importantly, what kids really need in order to become confident, independent readers.
Let’s jump into part 1.
Dyslexia isn’t just about mixing up letters—it’s the daily experience of trying to get through school when your brain processes information differently.
It’s like Joe, who didn’t learn to read until he was 12. All through school, people thought he was dumb—and he thought he was dumb. He said that he used to hide behind a rock on the way to school just to avoid the teasing and shame of not being able to read.
And then Joe went on to become a millionaire at age 21 because he could see patterns in numbers and the stock market in ways his classmates never could.
It’s the 3rd grader who can’t read the assignments and whose spelling is horrendous, but who has great ideas in discussions and, in fact, has so many creative ideas that he just has to share right now, that he’s in trouble most of the time for disrupting the class.
It’s the lead in the school musical—captivating on stage—who’s barely hanging on in class because reading is so slow and inaccurate for her that she can’t keep up with assignments.
And then there’s Alex. Everyone assumed he was Ivy League-bound—in fact, he was, Ivy League-bound—and headed for medical school. He was brilliant in math and science. But what no one saw was how he bartered his way through high school—doing math assignments for classmates in exchange for them doing his English homework—because reading and writing were so laborious for him.
For dyslexic students, school can feel like a daily reminder of failure, even though they are every bit as bright, capable, and talented as their peers. Or maybe even more so.
So what’s really going on?
The root of dyslexia isn’t laziness or lack of intelligence. These are smart, creative learners. The challenge lies in the underlying processing skills that reading and writing depend on. When those skills aren’t working efficiently, kids compensate by guessing, memorizing, using their comprehension and reasoning abilities—but it’s exhausting and unreliable.
I want to take a look at three key aspects of dyslexia: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic.
So we’ll start with Auditory Processing
Thinking about the sounds in words is deeper than phonics. Before a child can benefit from phonics instruction, the brain’s auditory system has to be able to discriminate and process sounds accurately. That means being able to think about the number, order, and identity of sounds in a word.
If the brain can’t make sense of those sounds, then even the best phonics program with the best teacher will still be confusing. Imagine trying to read the word tops—but your brain hears it as tobs, or toss, or stop, or tubs. Without a stable auditory foundation, words are … slippery… and constantly changing, and reading never feels solid.
Reading is a highly auditory activity, but, of course, visual processing is also critical.
Some dyslexic students experience what we call disorientation. Often, this is tied to a very strong 3-dimensional, visual-spatial thinking style. That gift allows them to see the world in creative and innovative ways, but on the page, which is 2-dimensional and sequential, it means their brain may perceive print from all different vantage points—making it nearly impossible to get a consistent image of words to store and remember.
Dr. Teri Lawton’s research points to a neurotiming issue that, in layman’s terms, can confuse the eye about where to look in the word. Sometimes the word is perceived from left to right, sometimes from right to left, or sometimes from the ends inward. Two students I tested in the same week told me the same thing. They said: “I have to read really fast or the words all blur together into a line.”
That kind of visual disorientation makes reading extremely confusing and uncomfortable—so of course kids that experience that are going to resist it.
The third key aspect of dyslexia relates to Kinesthetic and Writing Challenges
Dyslexia and dysgraphia often go hand in hand. Not always, but often. Writing the alphabet is typically difficult and at any age, they may have to sing ABC song in order to write it.
A written product of a dyslexic or dysgraphic learner often shows reversals and inversions - so letters or words that are written backwards or upside down. You’ll see letters floating above or below the line, ragged or missing margins, inconsistent spacing between words, and spelling that is so filled with omissions and substitutions that it’s hard to decipher.
Dyslexic students often cope by writing with words they can spell, so their written expression doesn’t nearly match their oral expression and their creative, insightful thinking.
Most dyslexic students experience some challenges in all three areas but in varying degrees. One or two aspects of dyslexia may be much more pronounced - so one student might be able to read quite well by sight, but have a terrible time sounding out any word they don’t recognize. Some students are dependent on sounding out every single word, but they can’t visually see or hold onto the word as a whole.
Having a dyslexic student as a parent or teacher can be very confusing. These kids are good at compensating and masking. They can fool you into thinking they really can do it when they’re just dying inside, or they can find other things to do to draw attention away from the struggles - and those things aren’t always positive.
The first thing you need to do as a parent or teacher is believe in your child. They are smart. They are capable. Their struggles do not define them and in spite of what it may look like, they are most likely working much harder than their peers.
Here are three important steps for parents:
- Recognize the signs. If reading, spelling, or writing seem unusually hard, especially if others in the family have experienced the same kinds of challenges, don’t dismiss it as laziness. Trust your instincts and look deeper.
- Talk openly with your child about dyslexia. When they understand why certain tasks are hard, they begin to advocate for themselves and work with you and their teachers to find accommodations to support them in the classroom.
- Seek real solutions. Accommodations like extra time or audiobooks can make learning more accessible, and that’s a good thing. But lasting change comes from strengthening those underlying auditory, visual, and kinesthetic skills so reading and writing can become easier and more automatic.
In part two of this podcast, we are going to explore what schools are providing for dyslexic students and what remediating the underlying neurodevelopmental and processing skills looks like for a dyslexic student at our centers.
At Stowell Learning Centers, we help children and adults break free from the constant struggles associated with dyslexia and other learning challenges.
Despite what you may have been told, your child doesn’t have to “just live with it.” And every day doesn’t have to feel like a battle—for them or for you.
If this episode gave you hope or insight, please like, subscribe, or send it to another parent or educator who needs to know: real change is possible.
Let’s change the narrative together.
Show Notes:
