How Dyslexia Education Changed a Young Boy's Entire School Experience

by Anna Sosa, originally posted on Learning Ally Parent Chat, shared with permission I just have to share, because this community understands! About 3 months ago we had a meeting at school because my dyslexic, dysgraphic, very distractible 3rd grader was showing "a bad attitude, lack of motivation, and no interest in learning." He has never excelled in academics, but the one thing his teachers always said was that he is kind, has no behavior problems, and is always excited to learn new things. Thanks to this group and many great suggestions from Susan Barton, I brought in a list of accommodations including audiobooks, ability to show what he knows orally, scribes, voice-to-text, etc. I also did the complete presentation on what dyslexia is, and how we have to make information accessible to him and give him a way to show what he knows in something other than a written format.

I guess the teacher had not heard it before. She embraced it!

Fast forward 3 months to today's parent-teacher conference and the teacher was positively beaming about how things are going. He works diligently now, and has done multiple book reports (he ear-reads the books and then presents them to the class orally).  He has completed a major research project on WWI (thanks Learning Ally for audiobooks he could use) including a 15 minute oral presentation to the class and a 5-page voice-to-text report that he wrote. He is writing a book (using voice-to-text) that he is very excited about, and independently went through the process of starting a school club called the Comic Book Club. They meet once a week to draw their own comics. The teacher now describes him as motivated to learn and excited to be at school. She has taught for many years and this is the first time she has ever been asked to provide these types of accommodations for a dyslexic child. Too bad she is retiring at the end of the year and other children won't benefit from what she has learned. A happy day!   Learning Ally is a national non-profit serving children and adults who have print disabilities. Join us on our Learning Ally Parent Chat, and also find more information about becoming a Learning Ally member at LearningAlly.org.