That seems silly.
Of course some people struggle to read and to learn.
But then some people struggle to sing a note, throw a ball, lift a weight properly, run a mile, draw a tree, drive a car, do mental maths ...We all have weaknesses and strengths.
However, when the skill is a vital one for engaging in commercial and social intercourse, the weakness requires attention and support. What that support constitutes can only be individually oriented - what one person learns from, another may not. But that is true of all of us at different times of our life, or even at different times of day.
I've garnered some feedback from parents and clients on what dyslexia means to them and it is interesting to review some of the key features identified. Most focus on the decoding of text but others also focus on decoding the world around them.
As a label, the term dyslexia means a disorder involving a difficulty in reading or interpreting words or other symbols. That's all. A difficulty in reading and interpreting. How we view the world or how we learn about something (dates, people's names, theories, plots in stories) is not the subject of dyslexia, which just describes an inability to read. If a person learns or describes a situation differently from another, that is what we call a cognitive issue. Philosophers have been dealing with such issues for centuries and have generally recognised that how you see an event can differ from how I see it: although the event objectively happened - our interpretation or recollection of it can differ.
Accordingly, how we learn things may have a unique twist. Within the remit of attempting to learn is the attempt to decode words and symbols - the struggle that dyslexics face. For some this creates a lack of confidence in learning anything or a series of coping strategies to learn about other aspects of life, and so the dyslexia becomes holistically impeding. Others claim that the 'handicap' in decoding words encourages other skills and intelligences to come to the fore (recall Gardner's multiple intelligence theory) which then compensate for the relative weakness in reading and spelling.
The symptoms of poor reading or cognition can be broad from mild to strong. But as a tutor working on a one-to-one basis, I am keen to get to the root causes of people's weaknesses and to encourage an improvement in their reading/writing/spelling/comprehension skills. I do not believe that any symptom cannot be improved upon.
One person reads capably when a coloured film is placed over the text, another when the line they are reading is singled out, another when they use their finger or pen to follow the words. There are similarities in the struggle, but are they sufficiently different because they demand different interventions? Some with dyslexic symptoms see their abilities improve when they engage in robust physical activity or actions requiring the use of increasingly fine motor skills, which then help train the eye muscles to work better. Others learn how to circumnavigate the difficulty with personally evolved coping strategies. Others fare better when they read out loud and then engage aural as well as visual skills... Many strategies may evolve to cope and to improve.
But then again, that's what 'normal readers' do when reading.
'Normal' readers (i.e., those showing no apparent difficulty in reading - and I would emphasise the word apparent there) have to train their eyes to follow the text, have to decipher the codes - the words and their associated meanings, and train themselves to focus on what is front of them. Some are better than others: I can read most passages swiftly and pull out the salient points and associations...until I read Kant, then I struggle, and Hegel, well, I weep. For others, their limit may be literarily lower of course. Our inability to decode may be relative across literature: one person struggles with Dickens while another struggles with a children's book. And again, such weaknesses are relative across subjects: someone else who struggles to read a literary passage and retain its meaning may easily understand and replicate a passage of music better than I, or to recall a speech better than I ever could without copious note taking.
As a relative or absolute weakness in the ability to proceed confidently, we should be keen to help. Most difficulties can be surmounted to some extent or less - I can learn to swim faster, but I may not make the British team. We all have limits and some people's limits are different from others; what I am also concerned about is when the term is used a label that implicitly means not just a relative weakness but an inability to improve.
As a label dyslexia can be very powerful psychologically if it implies an absolute inability.
We all have limits and some people's limits are different from others. But when a label is cast into the learning pot, troublesome consequences may ensure, most notably the belief that there can be no improvement, that the label implies a comparison with others and thereby creates stress. All may result in a lack of motivation to improve.
The Brain is Plastic
Firstly, the brain is plastic. Neuroscientists are realising that our understanding of the brain as a fixed hardware is outdated - the brain shows immense plasticity and when exercised in tasks it 'grows' in the appropriate areas. That means that someone who is cognitively weak in an area can improve. They are not condemned to a life of relative or absolute inability. Cerebral nerves do regenerate and new indirect pathways can be formed where there has been damage even.
This implies that a relative weakness can be improved upon and not be allowed to remain at a low level. The overriding condition, I would add, is that there needs to be a motivation to improve. Now that is an awkward one: if there's no motivation to improve on reading and writing skills, why should the child exercise that area of his or her cognition? If I see no reason to play golf, I have no incentive to pop outside to hit a few balls. Some may see the analogy as frivolous but it's not: a child may see reading as frivolous and a chore or something they "just don't get." Their dyslexia reflects not a cognitive issue dependent on the right neurone firing as it were but a complete lack of a desire to improve or exercise their mind in that direction.
In my practice, I have often found this to be the major cause in students' relative inability in this area: they tell me - 'oh, I can just write it on the computer and it'll correct it for me' (i.e., no desire to improve as the machine will do it); 'I'm just not interested in why which is spelled w-h-i-c-h and witch is spelled w-i-t-c-h. How does it relate to my goals and life?' Or 'I find this completely boring. Why do I need to read a book when I can watch the DVD.'
Where there is no will to learn, there cannot be any improvement. We may cajole and insist on how important the skill is for their future development, job prospects and being a member of an advanced civilisation, but until the need hits home why exercise the faculty? One of my old pupils expressed his frustration in a recent employment test that left him feeling a 'prat': it was the first time his dyslexia had hit him. He's at university so he's no academic right off but it was an interesting comment - until that day (last week), he'd not really been bothered by it. So why work on it...is the implied thought.
The lack of motivation is not to be underestimated.
As adults, we don't rush into things we're not interested in. Why would we? The key for our younger members of society is to dig deeper and find out why they may not be interested.
While the reasons can be legion, think of the distractions that young people grow up with today.
How does reading relate to the child? It's a chore, it's boring. I hear that a lot. I translate the word boring to difficult and try to find out why it is difficult.
Oh, I'm dyslexic. How often do you practice? Not often. Well, there you go. If you practised more, do you think you'd improve. I guess so.
Now how we should practise is another issue.
But again, I've been to many people's houses when I used to do home visits to help young people struggling to read/write/spell and the environment is instructive. You walk in and are confronted with a wide screen tv, a games console next to it...no books, a tv in the kid's bedroom you hear, no books...mum and dad come home from work and invest several hours an evening in passive screen time. And little Rob's 'dyslexic' and gets extra help at school... Not surprised. Is he really suffering from a cognitive distortion here, or merely has not environmental support at home? Think about it - what's the first thing your kids see when they come home and then consider that people generally are keen on the path of least resistance. Reading is a skill that requires effort, patience, perseverance, and continued effort. If we remove the environmental impediments of easy tv, Sky subscription, a DVD collection at hand, games consoles and electronic doodads all around, and then replace them with books of all levels and subjects, we may create a more fertile environment for our children's reading abilities to thrive.
If you poison the spring, you'll poison the body.
The Role of Stress
Secondly, comparing children's performance is greatly injurious to their confidence, and if self-confidence collapses or is harmed, the resulting stress impairs cognitive function. Psychologists have known this for decades and continue to find the same results when they test people under stressful conditions.
A serious source of comparing is school targets and parental comparisons. Which came first does not matter. Both are destructive.
School can be emotionally painful on many levels for pupils and then they are expected to be performing in tasks not of their choosing or liking - a stressful environment at school is not conducive to learning at all. It need not be like that but for many it is - a subtle comparison with other pupils is made or, usually, an explicit comparison that 'you child is not doing as well as he/she should...'
Schools often insist on meeting certain targets...why? Because they are funded and must be accountable to either the government or to parents. Targets are not inevitable and do keep our schools somewhat accountable, but they are rarely related to the individual. I've met many students who 'don't like reading or writing,' who, when asked a series of questions, refer back to the pain of early years education - of having to read or having to write. The early pain holds them back later: too much, too soon has long lasting consequences for many who are turned off literacy. If they come to reading of their own accord, much of the stress can be avoided. If no comparisons are made, then the stress can be avoided too - does it matter that Johnny read quicker than Lizzie? Do we make such comparison when a pupil learns musical scales or draws a portrait? No. Imagine if we did. 'Now, Mrs Jones, you're William is not keeping up in portrait class. He's scoring a D and this will seriously impede his academic future...' If we wait for William's enthusiasm to spark, there may be no stopping the lad when he starts, but if we try to force it, we are creating problems.
But, you say, they need to be able to read and write, and as a champion of the civilised peaceful order of modern society I wholeheartedly agree. But when do they need to gain this skill? Does it matter if Sarah reads at six while David becomes fluent at ten? (Or that Eliza passes grade five piano at fourteen, but Edward passed it when he was eight?) What's the rush?
When a child is motivated, he or she will improve. Their brain is exercised just as a muscle is exercised. (We know that London taxi drivers learning The Knowledge experience an increase in the size of their hippocampus.) When motivation is lacking, we have a problem deeper than the shallowness of dyslexic symptoms.
STRESS CAUSES THE CEREBRAL PARTS OF THE BRAIN TO SHUT DOWN.
Loud enough?
When we're stressed (and not trained to deal with it), our cognitive functions are impaired. This is, in my opinion, another great part of the issue surrounding dyslexic symptoms: a fear of not attaining some reading level according to some scheme...a pressure to get things right...a pressure of peers or siblings or parental desires...I see much damage done by 'times table' knock outs that primary school children do - they have to stand up in front of their peers, and if they get one wrong, they sit back down, humiliated. Guess what? Most of these kids suffer from maths stress later on that some call dyscalculia.
Stress in turn demotivates. We then take the path of least resistance and avoid the pain involved. Not surprising really. Listen to any adult as to why they don't exercise, improve language or art skills, business acumen, and you get an insight into why many children don't see a need to learn X or to practise it regularly. We then force them for their own good...we tell them...yet we avoid doing the things that we find a chore. Kids smell hypocrisy quite quickly.
Many parents with dyslexic symptoms I have spoken to express their sheer fear of reading and cast in the term dyslexia to explain their inability, an inability that often went unnoticed and therefore caused more pain and stress in their youth.
Fear creates stress.
Take the stress away and funnily enough, we think better. We calm our cerebral cortex down so it stops listening to the primordial response of flight/fight/freeze ... and allows us to learn. When we are relaxed or having fun, we learn quicker.
When we are trying to perform against others - unless we are trained to do so like a performer or athlete - stress is inevitable and a decline in mental functioning is thus inevitable. Then out comes the label and the poor child or adult is saddled with the assumption that they can never improve.
An adult teacher or parent complains that a child is poor at mental math - I quickly throw in: ok, ten seconds, what is six times seven, divide your answer by two and take three and a quarter. It's instructive to see the reaction. Their brain goes into panic mode. Panic closes the free learning required to solve the problem. Panic is primordial and does not need the luxury of higher level of thinking.
Is all dyslexia related to stress? After removing the distractions of the paths of least resistance and the lack of motivation to improve (an ideal situation perhaps), personally, I think much of it is. We can never know how someone else's mind actually works internally - what pathways they create to read or calculate or remember facts or learn new ideas. But we can certainly see the effects of stress on children's performance: Moira and I see it when children are playing the piano and have 'to perform' for mum/dad/sibling...if they're not ready and not trained in performing, the stress is palpable. The performance is stiff and they often give up piano.
No big deal, you may say...piano's a luxury. Hmm, but children will similarly give up reading, numeracy, history, art...if there's stress involved.
Where there is a struggle, there is a struggle: and that, when appropriate and harnessed to a motivation to succeed or to improve, needs our attention (and relevant professional intervention) whatever the subject or skill.
If your child isn't reading as much - ask, according to what scale, or what social comparisons are being made...but also look carefully at what is attracting your child's attention: tv, games console, iPhone, iPad...
Read to them instead of worrying that they're not doing their three pages a night. (A bit like asking us to fill in a tax return nightly...stressful! Unless you're an accountant trained and motivated and passionate about it...)
Don't compare. Don't let others compare. Don't use any labels. See a relative weakness as an opportunity to work harder and learn more. Every weakness is an opportunity.
It can take several years to master a skill. Does it matter if some children take longer? If you think so, why do you think so? On what grounds and standards are we measuring performance?
There are some excellent resources for helping dyslexic symptoms which I have used in my practice, but really the best we can do is be patient, encourage a reading culture around us by pulling the plug on all screen time stuff, leave books about, be patient even more, don't compare, and oh, and keep the kids off sugar!
Let's finish with Einstein: "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
Resources I use that have been incredibly helpful with pupils of all ages:
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