Many parents and educators raise concerns about dyslexia, and some are pushing for state laws for students with dyslexia in schools.
But why do so many children have dyslexia? What is it exactly? What causes it?
Prevalence
LD Online states that a staggering 5 to 15 percent of Americans—14.5 to 43.5 million children and adults—have dyslexia, a learning disability that makes it difficult to read, write, and spell, no matter how hard the person tries or how intelligent he or she is.
The British Dyslexia Association claims the number of individuals with dyslexia in the UK; they call a lifelong condition, is around 10 percent.
The Dyslexia International Association states…perhaps as many as 15–20% of the population as a whole—have some of the symptoms of dyslexia, including slow or inaccurate reading, poor spelling, poor writing, or mixing up similar words.
That’s a lot of people who struggle to read, but why?
What is Dyslexia?
The International Dyslexia Association says they need to create a new definition. We now know that dyslexia is real; we know what it is and what to do about it. Is there a new mission for the definition or is it time for it to simply fade away?
Not so fast.
. . . a neurologically based learning disability manifested as severe difficulties in reading, spelling, and writing words and sometimes in arithmetic. Dyslexia is characterized by impairment in the ability to process sounds, that is, to make connections between written letters and their sounds; written work is often characterized by reversal errors.** (There’s more. See the link).
**It’s important to note that letter reversals are common when children learn to write.
The APA’s Reading Disability definition is shorter but difficult to distinguish from dyslexia.
. . . difficulty understanding the associations between letters and sounds. It is associated with neurological damage or impairment, typically in language processing and the brain’s visual reasoning areas.
University of Virginia Cognitive Psychologist Daniel Willingham lumps reading disabilities and dyslexia together from less problematic to more serious.
The severity of the problem runs on a continuum, so in that way it’s more like high blood pressure or obesity. And like those problems, the fact that there’s not an obvious cut-point at which you can say “you have the disease, but you don’t” doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take it seriously.
. . . there is at the moment no evidence to suggest that difficulty in learning to read words accurately and fluently is associated with anything having gone wrong in brain development. That is, dyslexia cannot be justifiably considered to be a “neurodevelopmental disorder” (much less a “neurological disorder”).
We must disentangle the two notions, as they are fully compatible: On the one hand, dyslexia is “biological” in the sense that it is brain structure and function that determines reading skill, including the highest and lowest levels of skill and all those in between. On the other hand, the low reading performance in dyslexia is not a symptom of some brain disorder, or even of disrupted neural development, but just the outcome of normal developmental trajectories that happen to be less efficient in acquiring and expressing written language skills, in the context of rampant, ubiquitous individual differences.
Some reading scholars don’t believe dyslexia is real. Richard Allington, professor emeritus at the University of Tennessee, came under fire in 2019, when Education Week reported that he is “reasonably sure” that dyslexia doesn’t exist. Allington expressed dissatisfaction for groups trying to create dyslexia state mandates.
Professors also signed a letter of concern about a PBS Newshour segment about dyslexia where they stated:
It suggests erroneously that there is scientific certainty about dyslexia and how it should be addressed instructionally. In fact, the research evidence is equivocal and there is much room for debate about whether dyslexia is an identifiable condition, whether it can be reliably diagnosed, and whether there are instructional approaches that are uniquely effective in ameliorating it.
Dyslexia for the Rich and Reading Disabilities for the Poor?
British Educational Psychologist and Scholar Julian “Joe” Elliot couldn’t find any patterns with students said to have dyslexia. Their reading problems were different. He determined that anyone could have reading problems, arguing. . . there is essentially no difference between a person who struggles to read and write and a person with dyslexia – and no difference in how you should teach them.
Elliot worried that poor children didn’t get the dyslexia diagnosis or the help they needed to learn to read. Reading difficulties are real. I’ve seen thousands of kids with reading difficulties. You know what? Very few of the ones I saw in the inner cities, in the council estates, get diagnosed with dyslexia.
Elliot defends his position in The Reading Quarterly; It’s Time to Be Scientific About Dyslexia.
History
The idea of a brain dysfunction connected to reading isn’t new. German neurologist Adolph Kussmaul saw it as a neurological impairment called word blindness in 1878. The term dyslexia appeared in 1887. It’s Greek for difficulty with words. Other terms included congenital word blindness and visual processing deficiencies.
In 1925, American neurologist Dr. Samuel T. Orton saw dyslexia as a problem with the dominance of one side of the brain. He and educator psychologist Anna Gillingham came up with the Orton-Gillingham approach popular today, although there’s no research to support O-G.
Yale neuroscientist and pediatrician Sally Shaywitz used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to image children and adults’ brains as they tried to read. But there’s skepticism surrounding brain studies. Many believe fMRIs don’t tell much about dyslexia. Unfortunately, brain scans can’t be used yet to “prove” that a child has dyslexia.
What Causes Reading Problems?
So why do children have severe reading problems often combined with serious writing issues (dysgraphia)?
The following issues have been called causation factors, but they’re also disputed, leaving a gap in understanding exactly where dyslexia comes from.
- Premature birth. Children born prematurely might have reading and language difficulties. They might work slower than their peers developmentally.
- Problematic pregnancy. Exposure to nicotine, drugs, alcohol, or infection may cause reading problems.
- Genetics. Evidence shows that some children might inherit reading and language disabilities, or maybe not.
- Intellectual and developmental disabilities. Children born with serious disabilities may have language and reading problems.
- Lead exposure. Children with high levels of lead in their blood might have to overcome learning difficulties.
- Language deprivation. Children who face a void of language stimulation when they’re young may have reading difficulties.
It’s important to continue to raise questions about reading problems and to seek school programs that help children learn to read.
But we should also be asking why so many children present such problems when they show up to school.
No matter what causes reading problems in children or what the label, schools, and teachers must continue to provide students with the individual help they need. There is no one perfect reading program for all children. Schools need to provide rich reading environments and extra phonics for students who need it.
Note
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An excellent review, Nancy! Thank you.
I’ve been telling people for years that “dyslexia” means “difficulty reading” (and spelling). In my experience (40+ years as para, teacher, and retiree volunteer), there are as many different “forms” of dyslexia as there are struggling readers — every child is different! Parents define it based on their children’s struggles and I’ve witnessed arguments of the “That’s dyslexia,” “No, THAT’s dyslexia” type between parents and teachers. The arguments about reading programs are even worse. There is no one perfect program that works for every single student. There is no panacea.
You are absolutely right that we need to bypass worrying about the label and find out what works for each individual child. If a parent wants to call their child’s struggles dyslexia, so be it, but we still need to figure out what works for the child.
Agree! Thanks, Stu.
I am a parent of a dyslexic child and also a teacher. The reason that children who are being raised by poor families usually are not diagnosed with dyslexia is because the school does the diagnosing. School professionals are not qualified or trained to diagnose anything, much less dyslexia. It takes a clinical psychologist, usually a PhD level, to be able to diagnose dyslexia. Not even a pediatrician can diagnose it. For that reason, it is usually the wealthier families who go to see a private clinical psych to get the diagnosis. Therefore leaving children that do not have the financial resources, left to schools and pediatricians who are not qualified and therefore do not diagnose as dyslexia. The difference is not because dyslexia is not real, but because there are not resources for poor children and school staff are not trained to diagnose or do they know the right treatment. Most families have to pay for their own treatment by certified person that works with dyslexic children.
Are you a public school teacher? Are you saying that poor public schools don’t have enough psychologists to evaluate students for reading difficulties?
I’m saying the definitions of dyslexia are not clear. I say that as a long-time LD resource teacher who worked with many students with reading disabilities. Dyslexia used to be rare, but now it is a term used often. Why? What causes dyslexia?
The thought also occurred to me, Carrie, that children with reading problems used to be placed more in resource classes for assistance. Now they’re in general classrooms. Could that be significant?
I meant to thank you for commenting.
I AM going to say that schools and districts often don’t diagnose students for whatever reason. In my experience, you have to have an extreme disability to get help. Probably because “there are not resources for [any] children and school staff are not trained to diagnose or do they know the right treatment.” Our district wouldn’t even look at our 2E dysgraphic kid. We paid privately and then they rejected the diagnosis and refused to test her because she was reading above grade level. (She has a writing disability.) They were unconcerned.
Our school was relatively affluent and I discovered that all of the parents with dyslexic kids had them privately going to our area Neuhaus Center for a year in second or third grade. They paid a lot of money, the child did a lot of hard work, and by the end of the year, the child could read. We had a similar situation with writing. We did private therapy for a while and then moved ours into a private school in the fourth grade with lots of tutoring, keyboarding practice and home support. The schools aren’t giving dyslexic kids early intervention. The parents (and their money) are.
That experience turned me into a public high school teacher in an 85% free lunch school. The kids weren’t diagnosed because their parents couldn’t go pay for it. The kids didn’t get early intervention because the parents couldn’t pay for it. And now the kids can’t read. I don’t have time to teach phonics in my 9th grade classroom. And, frankly, no 15 year old wants to be learning to read in a classroom with 30-35 other kids watching.
My daughter is back in public school this year. Same district. They don’t read in science or history. They don’t even have a textbook. The don’t read novels in English or in Reading (and they are both required classes!). Part of this is state testing and passages, passages, passages. But part of this is because many of the kids. can’t. read. Teachers have to find other ways to get the information to them.
Putting my child back in public school allowed us to move our family out of a one bedroom apartment. We’ll probably be moving back into one when she hits high school.
I appreciate your reply, and I’m sorry you’re experiencing so many difficulties with your school and school district; I wonder why so many can’t read, which is the question posed in the post.
I understand schools might not diagnose and that’s concerning, but why are so many children presenting writing and reading problems in the first place?
We can debate how children learn how to read, but if dyslexia is a disorder, why do so many present this problem?
Thanks for taking the time to share your situation.
Why do so many children have difficulty reading?
Could it be that we are rushing their development? Kindergarten children are expected to know information that used to be taught in first grade. Here in Florida, kindergarten children are tested early in the year (on computers!) to measure how good their pre-K experience was. The legislature doubled down on that in the last session.
More testing for younger and younger children. Half will “fail” because that’s the way the test is designed. No one in authority is asking “is this developmentally appropriate?”
So, when that Title I or English-language learner or just-a-little-slower-in-verbal-development child can’t pass the big standardized language exam at the end of third grade, they get retained. Because we know that works, right?
I feel for the parent who could not get help for her child. Large doses of intervention early seem to help some children — as a Nation, we should be support that, rather than force parents to find and fund remedies.
I am absolutely in this camp, Stephen. You’re preaching to the choir with me. I have written repeatedly about the harm of pushing children to learn to read too soon. By the time they get to first grade, with all that testing, as you say, they’re burned out! Why would any child see reading as a pleasurable activity? NCLB had a hand in this, and there has been little pushback.
But does this create reading disabilities or dyslexia? Children definitely still struggle to read. It would make a good study, to look at the connection between the early push to read and reading difficulties later.
And thank you for commenting.
Carrie, you are on target. Thank you for pushing through the nonsense.
When parents claim that PUBLIC school professionals, I am assuming that’s who Carrie is referring to, are not trained to deal with learning disabilities and reading disabilities, it is damaging to public schooling. IDEA is for parents and students with reading disabilities, and the question should be, why isn’t it working.
These sweeping generalities to blame teachers and public schools still do not get to the question posed here.
RtI mandates really affected how children are identified for any type of service. Unfortunately, it was too frequently used just to reduce costs by delaying evaluation. I believe parents have the right to demand a case study. Unfortunately, that was still defined by the district. I remember being told never to say a student needed a type of intervention because then the district was obligated to provide it.
Yes. Absolutely! RtI was not supposed to do that or so they led everyone to believe. But it did and for the reasons you said. I would add that the reauthorization of the All Handicapped Children Act, to IDEA, really reframed the conversation. Suddenly, it had to be general classrooms for all and special ed. even resource classes were made to sound substandard. Parents were duped into thinking their children would get individual attention in general ed. classes that turned out to be overcrowded. Universities reduced their areas of specialty for teachers too. Now teachers are blamed for not having the necessary coursework.
Yes! My certification was changed to make me “qualified” to teach a wide variety of students beyond my original certification with no additional coursework required. It allowed districts to dump their special education students into fewer categories/classes and claim they were providing services. It’s a little bit like TFA saying they are providing “qualified” teachers although at least we were more likely to be able to access information to help us work with our students with our special education backgrounds.
That “qualified teacher” BS was a trap! It meant just the opposite. The really qualified teachers were made to defend their qualifications, while the TFA types strutted into classrooms with 5 weeks of whatever training and then on to leadership positions. Yes. Truly where the problems started.
In education graduate school, one of my instructors claimed that putting translucent colored film over written text helped alleviate dyslexia. I always thought I might be somewhat dyslexic and never found the plastic colored films much help.
Excellent review of what we know about this possible diagnosis.
I remember. Here’s what happened I guess.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4999357/
Thanks, Thomas. I understand. I have some LD issues that I learned about in college.
Reading is one way to process information. We don’t know why, but significant numbers of people really struggle with reading. Reading is not learning, but a way to activate learning. Due to technology we have numerous ways to activate learning in audio, kinesthetic, and visual formats. Many of the students I have encountered who struggle with reading are profoundly intuitive. They understand concepts and make significant inferences that often lead to meaningful conclusions. I have worked with students who have significant processing struggles, yet when participating in conversation their intuition is comparable, and sometimes, superior to students who are exceptional readers. Perhaps educators should use a variety of modalities beyond reading to get students motivated and confident about content. There are a plethora of success stories about individuals with dyslexia who are often motivated by stimulating intellectual activity that doesn’t come from reading. We should broaden our communication practices to enhance intellectual potential and opportunity rather than simply use reading as a tool to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Yes! My experience too. For example, bright students with serious reading and spelling problems I found, are often excellent speakers. If they hear the information and process it that way they can discuss it like experts. It is so important to show students how to adapt and not only work to remediate their reading and writing problems but to compensate in other ways.
Thank you, Paul.
Paul, What a thoughtful explanation. Makes a lot of sense to me.
My oldest son (of three) was “diagnosed” as dyslexic in first grade. We read to all 4 of our children, a lot, but the oldest had a real problem reading and writing. He was bright, was very dexterous, and very inquisitive, He could not read the letter “T”. So I quit trying to help and left it up to the school. (*They put him on him Ridlin.)
Yet about age 6 he could take apart old broken watches, out them together again, and they worked!.
My second son had the same problem,reading, but he worked it out himself, and was never diagnosed. His skill is the ability to understand concepts, rather than through reading., That skill is what, today, he credits his very successful life long career.
My youngest also had trouble reading and writing. Yet he could create amazing concepts and ideas. They didn’t all work out, but he was inventive.
Your explanation makes so much sense. Your last line sums it up perfectly, based on my personal experience.
How do we, as parents and friends of fundamentally sound teaching methods, break through all the bureaucratic noise and Educate the Educators?
Thank you so much for your comments and wisdom.
Thanks for sharing, Jean. Very interesting.
Is there a related word for arranging digits, so that the issue is math, not reading?
I know a student with that issue who was helped by turning lined paper sideways so that the columns for numbers was visible.
Great question and solution!
The math disability is called dyscalculia.
https://www.additudemag.com/what-is-dyscalculia-overview-and-symptom-breakdown/#:~:text=Dyscalculia%20is%20a%20math%20learning,%E2%80%9D%20or%20%E2%80%9Cmath%20dyslexia.%E2%80%9D
“Teach to a student’s strengths and remediate weaknesses” was the mantra I was taught in the 70s. That applies to everyone. Reading just happens to be a gateway tool to so much of what we want to accomplish academically as well as being a critical skill for broadening opportunities in wider society. I have heard incredible stories of how people with severe reading problems have managed to compensate for that weakness. Charles Schwab comes to mind as does a neurosurgeon who has done pioneering work on spinal tumors whose name escapes me at the moment. If only we could instill that belief in oneself in everyone whether their name is up in lights or not! It seems to me that the only reason for labeling of any kind is to make access to opportunities and/or services that are dependent on that label easier to obtain.
Thank you! Great point, as always! That mantra is what I learned, too, at a time when resource rooms with teachers who had backgrounds to teach LD were a part of the picture.
For students who struggle with word level reading skills and spelling, effective interventions typically include a focus on developing phonological awareness skills. Explicit and systematic phonics along with spelling instruction are also key. Fluency work can begin at the letter/sound level and move on through connected text. For students with slower naming speed (rapid automatized naming), helping students to identify chunks in words (e.g., spelling patterns in rimes, like “ime” and morphemes) is helpful.
Measures of phonological processing like the CTOPP-2 provide useful information about naming speed (which manifests in reading fluency) and phonological/phonemic awareness.
These intervention pieces listed above are supported in reading research studies.
Of course there are differences in opinion about how much and how explicit and systematic phonics should be- as there has always been. However, students with lower phonological processing scores haven’t done well in lower phonics and/or less explicit and systematic approaches.
I would hope that around 30 minutes per day would be devoted to intensive interventions for these students who struggle with word level skills.
The rest of the day would be spent in the gen ed classroom with digital access to reading materials, as needed.
The goal for all students is to develop a love for reading and to become highly literate.
I’m curious about this comment. Wondering about your expertise, and are you a reading teacher?
“Psychology” today is a pseudo science and I tend not to give it much credibility anymore. ADD/ADHD….we have a pill for that. Dyslexia……we have a “program” to sell you for that. My child is unable to complete a project from beginning to end…..send them here for some “grit” training. We live in a free market society and someone is always trying to make $$$$$ from someone else’s misery. Sorry, but I don’t buy anything that the pseudo-science , snake oil folks are trying to sell.
Pseudo-science is set up to look for evidence that supports its claims and it makes a lot of $$$$ along the way.
Some good points here. Thank you. I definitely see where you’re coming from. I wouldn’t, however, throw out the psych profession. I will say that reading problems are real. But they’re also different, and phonics isn’t always the right solution.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Practically anything you want or need can be turned into a profit making scheme that over promises and under performs. That doesn’t mean there aren’t valid ideas, strategies, or tools embedded in those products, some of which have had fairly wide applications even before someone saw the profit potential in commercialization. Medication may or may not be used to treat ADHD/ADD; even finding the right meds and doses is a complicated process that should only be available through a trained medical specialist. Any doctor who only uses meds as the be-all and end-all of treatment shouldn’t be allowed within ten feet of a child or an adult, for that matter.
Also good advice. It used to trouble me as a teacher when my students were on meds. pertaining to their disabilities, and only a few doctors included me in how they were affecting the student in the classroom. Half the time the student would leave the pills at home.
And then there is the other side…I had a student who had difficulty remembering to take his meds before school in the morning. Fortunately, he was old enough to recognize that they were crucial for him after we described his behavior to him when he didn’t take them. He crawled under a table in a dark corner and pulled a chair in, so he could concentrate on reading. He didn’t remember it the next day, but he never missed his meds again.
Yes. Of course. I didn’t mean to sound all negative about medication. I had students who were helped by it, and they were usually monitored carefully.
I didn’t mean to imply that you were anti-medication. As with any intervention, it is how it is used that is important. Medication is NOT a panacea but may be part of a child’s support. It’s the temptation to believe in a particular intervention as a “cure” that is dangerous. I know you understand that. We seem to have been “schooled” under similar circumstances.
Absolutely. On the same page. Thank you. I always appreciate your insight. Thank you!
On the poverty issue: I taught 5th grade in a poor area of my city. Many of the students had other languages spoken at home. They went through 4th grade at the elementary schools and then transitioned to us, so we only knew what was in their file. I would get students who couldn’t read or spell two-letter words. Most of my students were between first-third grade levels. When I found someone who was standing out as having learning issues (reversing letters, having trouble understanding what was being said in conversation, etc.) I would refer them to Student Study Team and make a case for testing them. Sometimes they ended up being tested and receiving special ed services. Other times I got, “Well, it could be a second language thing.” I tried to fight for the child, but they really wanted to wait and see. Almost 100% of the time, the child was qualified for special ed by the next grade. This was only because our teachers were watching out and fighting for their students. I imagine in a large, crowded school in a big city, a lot of kids would fall through the cracks. We couldn’t believe how many had reached 5th grade without being referred or tested!
Thank you for sharing, Beth. What you describe is important. I think there have been some breakdowns when it comes to this today. While it has never been perfect, I think we used to do it better.
I’m in the Richard a
Allington camp on this one. While there may be glitches a reader has I would never want to label a child as dyslexic until everything has been done to make sure that best instruction is happening.
Today, I believe in standards based learning and learning targets and testing children even before they start their school career, reading is seen as a chore.
If a child doesn’t see reading as the joy and possibility behind it, why even would someone want to become a reader?
How much of our current situation is due to lack of joy in the learning process.
I see it in the instruction of my youngest. It has been drill, skill and kill for him in school. It makes me so sad.
My husband and I are different readers. He reads consumer reports, financial papers etc. I can’t even begin to understand what he understands. It would be hard for me to get to his level of understanding but….I could find other avenues to help me gather the background and vocabulary needed to understand like him.
But he also can’t understand a lot of what I read. Maybe we have glitches….but labeling either of us as dyslexic, I think, is extremely dangerous. Instead let both of us understand who we are as readers. What we can do and what we would need to do if we ever had to understand something we aren’t used to reading.
I fear more children are being diagnosed due to skill and drill…standards based learning and programs being mandated from the top. Also the developmentally inappropriate practice of forcing children to be reading before they are ready.
The problem in many situations isn’t the child but the setting.
Thank you for bringing up high-stakes standards, Stef, which now permeate our schools and put pressure on our youngest learners. While some students really do have a disability that makes reading difficult, it is troubling that dyslexia seems to have increased since NCLB. While some will say it is due to better assessment and identification, it is a concern that children are not experiencing the joy reading can bring, especially when they are young. We must ask why K is the new first grade.
I meant to say I do not support standards based learning at all. And I don’t believe that standardized tests at any age let alone kindies or even younger are accurate at all in telling us about what a reader can do.
I should have emphasized motivation more as if there is no motivation to become a reader why even try?
Thank you again. I agree. Motivation is often left out of the equation.
The most important thing I’ve read in your article and these comments is the fact that no two people learn exactly the same way. When I was teaching, both in first, second, or sixth grade classrooms and in programs for children with reading difficulties, the standard seemed to be “If they have trouble with phonics, give them more phonics.” For some children that will NEVER work. There are many other ways to improve reading.
To begin with, children have to want to read. Listening to great children’s stories, nursery rhymes, and anything else they’re interested in is a good place to start. And, as others here have said, don’t force them to start reading in Kindergarten!
A book I recommend to adults who have reading difficulties or to parents of children who are struggling, is The Gift of Dyslexia: Why Some People Can’t Read and How They Can Learn, by Ronald D. Davis. ( I hope it is available in audio format.). Be sure you’re reading the latest copyright date. Davis wrote it a long time ago, but he keeps up on new information and updates it often. This book, too, doesn’t have THE answer to reading difficulties, but I believe it explains why some people have them.