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Dyslexia is the most common learning disability, affecting tens of millions of people in the United States. But getting help for children who have it in public school can be a nightmare.

"They wouldn't acknowledge that he had a problem," says Christine Beattie about her son Neil. "They wouldn't say the word 'dyslexia.' "

Other parents, she says, in the Upper Arlington, Ohio, schools were having the same problem. The district in a suburb of Columbus wasn't identifying their children's dyslexia or giving them appropriate help.

So, in 2011, the parents pooled their resources and hired a lawyer.

"I was not surprised there was a group of students with dyslexia who were not getting the kind of instruction that they really needed," says Kerry Agins, an Ohio special education attorney who represented the Upper Arlington parents. She says the issue of public schools failing to address the needs of students with dyslexia is widespread, in Ohio and across the country.

Agins advised the parents to file a group complaint against the district.

Parents typically fight special education cases alone, seeking remedies one by one. But a group complaint, Agins told them, could force the school system to make broader change.

Nineteen people signed the complaint, including parents, students and graduates of the Upper Arlington public schools.

In August 2011, the Ohio Department of Education found the Upper Arlington Schools in violation of the law when it came to promptly and properly identifying students with learning disabilities and finding them eligible for special education services.

"We felt vindicated," Christine Beattie recalls. "Like, we aren't crazy. We know what we're talking about."

In its decision, the state ordered the Upper Arlington Schools to train teachers and staff on how to identify and evaluate students with learning disabilities.

But the parents said this was more than a special ed problem. They say it was a problem with the way kids were being taught to read.
How kids learn to read
The Upper Arlington Schools were using what's referred to as a "whole language" approach to reading instruction. It's an approach that became popular in the 1980s and continues to guide reading instruction in many public schools today.

Whole language holds that learning to read is a natural process. Children don't need much direct instruction. Instead, surround them with books, and they will become readers.

But decades of research shows that reading is not a natural skill. Unlike speaking, which humans learn automatically by being surrounded with speech, we have to be taught to read.

People with dyslexia have an especially hard time learning to read because their brains are wired in a way that makes understanding the relationship between sounds and letters difficult.

Research shows that they learn to read better when they are explicitly taught the ways that sounds and letters correspond. And research shows that even students without dyslexia learn better this way.

Upper Arlington had to retrain its teachers, who had, for the most part, learned whole language-based methods in their teacher-preparation programs.

Now, students in Upper Arlington are taught to read using a phonics-based approach that explicitly and systematically teaches them how letters represent sounds to form words on the page.

"O Octopus ah!" the kids yell in a first- and second-grade classroom at Barrington Elementary School in Upper Arlington.

Their teacher, Ashley Stechschulte, is holding up a series of cards with words on them, and the children repeat after her as she sounds out the first letter sound.

Then they move to more complex letter-sound combinations. They discuss the word "sock." Stechshulte asks what the letter combination "ck" is called.

"A digraph," answers a student. A digraph is one sound created when two letters appear together.

Stechshulte then asks the class to consider the difference between the digraph "ck" and the digraph "wh," as in the word "whistle."

"Who can tell me what's the big difference between these two digraphs?" Stechshulte asks.

A little hand shoots up. It's a boy named Jacob.

"The 'ck' can only go at the end (of a word) and the 'wh' can only go at the beginning," says Jacob.

The teacher was using "Fundations," a program based on the Wilson Reading System, a structured, phonics-based approach. Fundations is typically used with children who are struggling to learn to read but it can also be used for whole class instruction.

For students in Upper Arlington who show signs of dyslexia on a screening test, there is more intensive, one-on-one tutoring available.

Brett Tingley, one of the Upper Arlington parents who signed the group complaint, says if all kids get effective reading instruction, fewer children should need special ed services.

"I have started to call it not dyslexia but 'dysteachia,'" Tingley says. "It's the teachers who are not giving the right kind of instruction."
Emily Hanford is senior education correspondent for APM Reports.

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Rethinking How Students With Dyslexia Are Taught To Read

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Dyslexia is the most common learning disability, affecting tens of millions of people in the United States. But getting help for children who have it in public school can be a nightmare. "They wouldn't acknowledge that he had a problem," says Christine Beattie about her son Neil. "They wouldn't say the word 'dyslexia.'

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"It's frustrating that you can't read the simplest word in the world."

Thomas Lester grabs a book and opens to a random page. He points to a word: galloping.

"Goll-. G-. Gaa-. Gaa-. G-. " He keeps trying. It is as if the rest of the word is in him somewhere, but he can't sound it out.

"I don't ... I quit." He tosses the book and it skids along the table.

Despite stumbling over the simplest words, Thomas - a fourth-grader - is a bright kid. In fact, that's an often-misunderstood part of dyslexia: It's not about lacking comprehension, having a low IQ or being deprived of a good education.

It's about having a really hard time reading.

Dyslexia is the most common learning disability in the United States. It touches the lives of millions of people, including me and Thomas. Just like Thomas, I spent much of my childhood sitting in a little chair across from a reading tutor.

Today, Thomas is working with his tutor in an office building in northwest Washington, D.C. The suite they're in is an oasis of white couches and overstuffed pillows. In the waiting area, a kid is curled up sucking her thumb, and a mom reads a magazine quietly.

In the back of the suite - a Lindamood Bell Reading Center - Thomas fidgets with everything in arm's reach.

"All right, I am going to give you some air-writing words," the tutor says to Thomas, speaking rapidly as if daring Thomas to keep pace. She spells the first one out loud: "C-O-R-T."

With his index finger, Thomas writes the letters sloppily in the air.

Then his tutor asks a question: What sound do the two middle letters make? "Eer? Aar?"

Thomas squints at whatever visual memory he can retain from the letters he has just scribbled in the air. Then, with a burst of enthusiasm, he stumbles on the answer: "Or!"

"Good job!" his tutor replies, with what seems like genuine excitement, before moving on to her next question about the letters.

I also have a question for Thomas: What's it like to have dyslexia?

Thomas stops his fidgeting. "It's hard," he pauses. "Like, really hard."

Thomas, 9, has trouble reading, but he likes books. Just give him the audio version, he says, and he'll "listen to the book on Audible like 10,000 times."

"His comprehension is that of a 13-year-old," says Geva Lester, Thomas' mom. "He can understand Harry Potter, but he can't read it."

Before they started coming to this Lindamood Bell Reading Center, Lester says, she'd watch with alarmed confusion as her son struggled with the most basic text: "See Spot run."

She remembers trying to read with him. "On one page he would figure out the word: 'There.' And on the second page, he would see it and he would have no idea what it said."

Sitting there with Thomas and his mom, I remember doing that myself - and in some ways, I still do.

For more information and help, check out:

As a child, my dyslexia was a closely guarded secret. In kindergarten, I'd leave class to work in a tiny closet, with a space heater and a reading specialist. Walking there, down the locker-lined hallways, I'd avoid eye contact, hoping nobody would notice me.

In middle school, I struggled to read even picture books. In class, I'd pretend. Then, at home, I'd listen to my books on cassette tapes - at double speed. And during the summer, I'd go to Lindamood Bell, just like Thomas. (The reading centers, which offer tutoring and reading programs around the world, also provide financial support for NPR.)

Over the years, I survived by memorizing words. It started with boxes and boxes of index cards. I'd practice each night, looking at a word and saying its sound as quickly as I could. I memorized hundreds and hundreds - maybe a few thousand - words this way.

I've never been able to sound out unfamiliar words. And I still can't.

When I come across a word I don't know, I freeze. It's often a last name or a street name that never made it onto those index cards. It takes a great deal of focus for me to clump the letters into groups, link those groups with sounds and, finally, string those sounds together.

Since dyslexia is not something you outgrow, I have learned to work with it, and work around it. It's always there, but it is rarely the focus of my thoughts. That was true through college and graduate school, but when I became an education reporter, it changed.

As I returned to elementary school classrooms and interviewed parents and teachers, dyslexia kept popping up in places I didn't expect. I saw teachers who were mystified by their students' struggles and parents whose stamina and empathy were tested.

Dyslexia is so widespread that it forces schools and parents to take action. And yet, it is deeply misunderstood. Even basic questions don't have easy answers.

Exactly how many people around the world have dyslexia? Well, it's complicated. Estimates vary greatly, partly because it depends on what country or language you are talking about (English speakers may be more likely to have it than, say, Italian speakers) and partly because many people who have dyslexia never get a formal diagnosis. However, most estimates in the United States put it at somewhere between 5 and 17 percent of the population.

Many people think that dyslexia is seeing letters in the wrong order, or getting b and d mixed up. Not true. Researchers, experts and people with dyslexia dismiss these as common misconceptions.

So, if dyslexia isn't any of those things people think it is, then what is it?

"It's basically like looking at a foreign word," says Jonathan Gohrband. He's a videographer in Chicago and, at 31, he says dyslexia is still part of his daily life.

When reading, Gohrband says, his eyes often lurch to a stop in front of a word that looks utterly unfamiliar. His best solution, he says, is to turn to his girlfriend, asking a now familiar question: "What's this word?" And as she answers, he almost always has the same response: "Of course that's what it is!"

Here's the thing: There's nothing wrong with Jonathan Gohrband's vocabulary. Or 9-year-old Thomas Lester's vocabulary. They know what "galloping" means. And they can use the word in spoken English 20 different ways. They just can't read the word.

That's why dyslexia used to be called "word blindness." People with dyslexia don't naturally process the written word. They don't easily break it into smaller units that can be turned into sounds and stitched together.

This makes reading a laborious - even exhausting - process. Writing, too. Gohrband remembers when his former boss pulled him aside after she'd received emails littered with spelling mistakes.

" 'Hey, I know it's the weekend, but don't email when you're drunk,' " he recalls her saying. He was, of course, perfectly sober - just dyslexic. Now, he can spend hours scouring emails he's drafted, looking for typos. "It's very time-consuming and very exhausting."

Consuming. Exhausting. There's an emotional dimension, too. Gohrband recalls that when he was a child he would fantasize about not "being broken." He would avoid telling people about it: "If they know that you're dyslexic, they'll think you're dumb."

Yet, he says, there came a turning point when the shame faded. For him, it was when he found videography. There he discovered a "language" that came easily, and suddenly his talents were visible to others.

"I felt so much more confident," he says.

And with time, Gohrband says, he has found benefits hidden inside his struggles. He thinks that being pushed outside his comfort zone by dyslexia has made him more creative and less judgmental.

I've felt that myself, and as I've talked with many others, I heard one thing again and again: When things don't come easy, you learn to try new things and work hard at them.

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Millions Have Dyslexia, Few Understand It

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"It's frustrating that you can't read the simplest word in the world." Thomas Lester grabs a book and opens to a random page. He points to a word: galloping. "Goll-. G-. Gaa-. Gaa-. G-. " He keeps trying. It is as if the rest ­­of the word is in him somewhere, but he can't sound it out.

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"Today I'm 50 years old and when I heard your story on the radio I did the unexpected, I cried."

That's Scott Walker of Portland, Ore., writing to us about our series last week on dyslexia. "I know that must sound ridiculous but, after 50 years of fighting my fight there was someone else that really understood."

Walker says he felt a sense of belonging as he listened to Gabrielle Emanuel's piece on All Things Considered.

And he wasn't alone. On Twitter, on Facebook and in our email inboxes here at NPR Ed, comments like that poured in.

"Stumbling on every sentence people would label me as 'not so sharp,' " wrote Al Guillermo in a Facebook message. He expressed his ongoing struggle to read the simplest of texts and the panic that comes from public speaking. "I have worked so hard at trying to read or to spell correctly. Something people find easy to do in the third grade, I have never mastered."

Jo Roberts, a retired learning disability teacher from Iowa, remembered her efforts to teach students with dyslexia: "In a very small rural school, I taught fifth and sixth grade boys sight words with rustic dice and a game we called CHALLENGE," she said. "They were allowed to challenge each other and confiscate misread words by reading the correct word. ... Obviously, I did not have supervision and was not required to teach to the test - but it worked."

Junia Howell, a faculty member at Rice University, shared her experience from her viewpoint in higher education: "I am severely dyslexic. In high school, I had a second grade reading level but thanks to my accommodations and tutors, I managed to graduate valedictorian of my school. Since then I have completed my bachelor's, master's and am a few months from finishing my PhD in sociology. Given the severity of my case, throughout my journey I have been a continual ambassador explaining dyslexia and correcting misconceptions."

We even received some international responses. Lindy from Switzerland wrote to tell us about a teaching experience she had with one of her talented piano students, who had dyslexia. "We worked on all sorts of things, made up some games, etc., but not much helped until her school got a reading specialist."

Mike Wolfe from Seattle shared his lifelong struggle with reading. He says he wasn't diagnosed with dyslexia until he was 32. "That diagnosis helps me laugh at the little twisted things [dyslexia] does to the English language." For example, he wrote " 'globe' became 'glob.' "

Sometimes he can laugh about dyslexia, and "some days it messes with everything I try to read," Wolfe wrote. "But more often my little strategies and coping skills get me through it."

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Unlocking Dyslexia: Personal Stories Of Frustration - And Success

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"Today I'm 50 years old and when I heard your story on the radio I did the unexpected, I cried." That's Scott Walker of Portland, Ore., writing to us about our series last week on dyslexia. "I know that must sound ridiculous but, after 50 years of fighting my fight there was someone else that really understood."

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Megan Lordos, a middle school teacher, says she was not allowed to use the word "dyslexia."

She's not alone. Parents and teachers across the country have raised concerns about some schools hesitating, or completely refusing, to say the word.

As the most common learning disability in the U.S., dyslexia affects somewhere between 5 and 17 percent of the population. That means millions of school children around the country struggle with it.

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), schools are required to provide special services to help these students - things like reading tutors and books on tape. But those special services can be expensive, and many schools don't have the resources to provide these accommodations.

That has led some parents and advocates to worry that some schools are making a careful calculation: If they don't acknowledge the issue - or don't use the word "dyslexia" - then they are not obligated to provide services.

Last year, when Lordos was teaching English at a public school in Arlington, Va., she recalls a parent-teacher meeting in the conference room. Things started smoothly.

Lordos says two parents had come in to talk with teachers and administrators about their son - Lordos' student, an eighth-grader - who was struggling to read.

Partway through the meeting, Lordos says she suggested that the student might have orthographic dyslexia. Two of Lordos' own children have dyslexia and, she says, she noticed her student had similar challenges to the ones she'd seen at home.

"When I mentioned that in the meeting, I was stopped." Lordos remembers being interrupted. "They said: 'Oh no no. We don't say that.' "

It wasn't until after the meeting adjourned and the parents left that Lordos understood why. She says the woman chairing the meeting came over and apologized, explaining why they were not supposed to use the word.

" 'We're not allowed to say it because we don't have the capabilities to support that particular learning difference,' " Lordos recalls the school administrator saying.

Long after Megan Lordos left the conference room, that moment and that explanation lingered with her.

"I think: Wow. We are one of the leading school districts in the country. And so, we are doing a lot very well. And it's just sad that we're doing something really not so well."

Several parents in the district recounted similar experiences.

However, Brenda Wilks, an assistant superintendent of the Arlington Public Schools, says educators and administrators there use the term dyslexia, but they have to use it carefully. That's because educators cannot officially diagnose dyslexia.

She says this approach can lead to "unfortunate misunderstandings." To help the situation, the district launched a Dyslexia Task Force last year. Its website now has a page explaining dyslexia, the district has expanded literacy screening, and it has hosted training sessions to inform teachers about the disability.

"Many years ago it wasn't a word that was widely used," says Kelly Krug, who is co-chairing the task force. "And in the past few years, it's really become a focus."

Both Megan Lordos and the other parents say things are beginning to get better. But this issue is not limited to Arlington, and the U.S. Department of Education is paying attention.

"When we received the first letter, we thought it was perhaps an anomaly," says Ruth Ryder, acting director of the department's Office of Special Education Programs.

"But then as we started receiving more and more letters. It became clear it was an issue that we needed to address."

Late last year, the Department of Education wrote a public letter clarifying that there is nothing legally preventing schools from saying the word.

Ryder says they heard from school administrators about what might be going on: "What we were told was that, when they used the term 'dyslexia,' then families thought that it meant they would get a specific kind of instructional program."

IDEA requires schools to help students who have dyslexia - just like any other disability - but the exact help they receive is decided locally. Some kids may get a trained reading specialist, others could get one-on-one tutoring, and still others might receive adaptive technology.

Hal Malchow, of the International Dyslexia Association, says there's another factor at play: money. He says those special services are all things the school district could have to fund.

And since there are so many American school children who have dyslexia, that price tag adds up - and school budgets are tight.

"Schools engage in strategies to lower their special education expenses," says Malchow. "And dyslexia is by far the largest group within the special education category."

But, he says: not addressing reading problems could cost a lot more in the long run.

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Dyslexia: The Learning Disability That Must Not Be Named

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Megan Lordos, a middle school teacher, says she was not allowed to use the word "dyslexia." She's not alone. Parents and teachers across the country have raised concerns about some schools hesitating, or completely refusing, to say the word. As the most common learning disability in the U.S., dyslexia affects somewhere between 5 and 17 percent of the population.

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Our ancient ancestors were able to speak long before they were able to read or write. That history is etched in our brains.

The human brain naturally picks up spoken language. Not so for reading.

"You can think of the reading brain as moonlighting," says Guinevere Eden, director of Georgetown University's Center for the Study of Learning. "Your brain will essentially take other brain areas - that were designed to do something else - and use [them] toward reading."

Learning to read requires co-opting parts of the brain and training them to recognize letters, clump those letters together into small units, relate those units to sounds and, eventually, blend those sounds together into a word.

For millions of people with dyslexia - the most common learning disability in the U.S. - that process doesn't come easily.

In the basement of a medical building in Washington, D.C., Eden and her team of researchers are using brain scans to figure out exactly what makes dyslexic brains different. They also want to know what can be done to rewire the brain, coaxing it to do what it wasn't "designed" to do.

Surrounded by computers in the control room on a Saturday morning, Eden is focused on 8-year-old Tiffany Hilton.

"They are taking pictures of my brain, so they can see how big or small it is," Tiffany explains. She has dyslexia and is participating in Eden's research.

With a sheepish little smile, Tiffany adds: "My brain is big!"

Eden ushers Tiffany into the next room, where a technician helps her lie flat on her back inside a big cylindrical fMRI machine.

And, just like Tiffany said, they are taking pictures of her brain. But they aren't interested in the size. Instead, the researchers want to watch as Tiffany performs a series of short tasks - things like quickly deciding whether a word has a tall letter in it.

From the windowless control room, Eden monitors several computers with images displaying which parts of Tiffany's brain are most active during the tasks. For this study, Eden is particularly focused on two areas on the left side of the brain that are key for reading.

The first is in the left temporoparietal cortex. It is traditionally used to process spoken language. When learning to read, we start using it to sound out words.

"Then after you've done that a few times," Eden explains, "you begin to say, 'Well, hang on, I've done this one before.' And it seems that your visual system recognizes it by sight."

That's when things move over to a second area of the brain involved in reading: the occipitotemporal cortex, which is part of the visual processing center. It's at the base of the brain, behind our ears.

A person who never learned to read uses this part of the brain to recognize objects - like a toaster or a chair. But, as we become fluent readers, we train this brain area to recognize letters and words visually. These words are called sight words: any word that you can see and instantly know without thinking about the letters and sounds.

This requires retraining the brain. When recognizing a chair, the brain naturally sees it from many different angles - left, right, up, down - and, regardless of the perspective, the brain knows it is a chair.

But that doesn't work for letters. Look at a lowercase 'b' from the backside of the page, and it looks like a lowercase 'd.' They are the same basic shape and, yet, two totally different letters. But, as it does with a chair, the brain wants to recognize them as the same object.

Everyone - not just people with dyslexia - has to teach the brain not to conflate 'b' and 'd'.

So, what is happening in a dyslexic brain?

"Both areas are under-activated in dyslexia," says Eden.

Looking at images of those two brain areas - the one involved in sounding out words and the one involved in visually recognizing words - scientists see that they don't light up quite as much as they do for a typical reader.

This under-activation in dyslexia is not associated with low intelligence or poor education, but it does mean that people with dyslexia have difficulty sounding out words.

Knowing this, Eden decided to try something: She asked people with dyslexia to participate in a six-week research intervention. Five days a week, for six hours a day, the subjects work in a classroom with a tutor. They do reading exercises as well as letter and number manipulations.

This is how Tiffany spent her summer. In a small school off a busy street in Northern Virginia, she'd sit at a low table across from her tutor. Around them were piles of flash cards and laminated sheets.

"Take a picture of the word MEAL," Tiffany's tutor said one afternoon as they neared the end of that day's six-hour session.

The tutor was holding up a flash card with the word M-E-A-L printed on it, waiting for Tiffany to take a mental picture of the bold letters. Covering the card, the tutor gave Tiffany a puzzle: "If I erase the 'A' in that word, what word would we see?"

"Erase the 'A'? Can I see it again?" Tiffany said, contorting her face in concentration.

Then, she ventured a guess: "It would be MEAL? No! It would be MAAL."

With a little bit of help, she figured it out: "It would be MEL! "

This type of manipulation is very hard for people with dyslexia. But over the course of the six weeks, the research subjects practice - a lot. And the researchers can tell.

Eden and her team take brain scans of all the research participants before and after the intervention. Studying the images, they find that at the end of the six weeks, the brain areas typically associated with reading, in the left hemisphere, have indeed become more active.

But something else happens, too. " Other areas became more active," Eden explains with subtle excitement. "And they're not areas you think of as being involved in reading: They were in the right hemisphere."

New areas of the brain start lighting up and helping out with the reading process. Eden says this is similar to what scientists see in stroke victims, where other parts of the brain start compensating.

Eden has already done a study like this in adults. Now, she's studying Tiffany and 47 other kids over the course of five years.

If her earlier findings hold up, she says, the would suggest that children with dyslexia should get intensive reading tutoring. Those lessons, she says hopefully, can change how the brain reads.

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How Science Is Rewiring The Dyslexic Brain

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Our ancient ancestors were able to speak long before they were able to read or write. That history is etched in our brains. The human brain naturally picks up spoken language. Not so for reading. "You can think of the reading brain as moonlighting," says Guinevere Eden, director of Georgetown University's Center for the Study of Learning.

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Part 3 of our series " Unlocking Dyslexia."

A mother who spent years coaching and encouraging her dyslexic son recalls his childhood with one pervasive feeling: "It was really scary."

One father told me his home life was ruined. Trying to do homework with his struggling daughter, he says, felt like "a nightmare every night." Optimism and determination would inevitably descend into tears and anxiety. The culprit: dyslexia.

Yet another mom - whose son and daughter both have dyslexia - suggests changing the definition of dyslexia: "It's no longer a reading problem. It's a life crisis."

As the most common learning disability, dyslexia affects somewhere between 5 and 17 percent of the U.S. population. Its reach extends far beyond the classroom, causing stress, tension and confusion for families with a dyslexic child.

But experts and parents say there are three key things that can help.
1. The sooner you intervene, the better
When Megan Lordos' daughter was a toddler, there were hints.

Canela Jayne loved books, but hated letters. Halfway through reading a story, Lordos would often try to sneak in a quick lesson about which letter makes which sound. But Canela Jayne would have none of it. She'd jump off her mom's lap, effectively ending story time.

There were other hints, too: Canela Jayne hated wearing shirts with words on them. She didn't want to be that close to letters. Rhyming felt like an impossible task for her. And as she entered and progressed in school, she sat in frustration while her classmates sped ahead with their reading.

When Lordos worried, friends assured her that each child matures at a different pace.

But soon, her daughter began to dread going to school. "There were days when she could not get on the bus," says Lordos.

Sitting at the kitchen table in their Virginia home, Lordos recalls how Canela Jayne would refuse to get out of bed, then refuse to get dressed and, eventually, she'd refuse to get out of the car at school.

Lordos remembers looking at her daughter and seeing "this look of fear in her huge eyes." Then, she says, Canela Jayne would plead: "Mommy, I can't do this. I can't do this. Don't make me do this."

Canela Jayne's school didn't seem worried. Lordos says they kept telling her: "Well, let's wait six more months, and we'll see what happens."

When Canela Jayne was eventually diagnosed with dyslexia, it felt to Lordos like valuable time had slipped away. Experts worry that this happens a lot. The research suggests early and intensive reading help is most effective. And many say starting specific reading programs at a young age has been successful.

2. Find something else your child is really good at

With lime green walls and craft projects on every visible surface, Canela Jayne Lordos' bedroom is an artistic 10-year-old's dream.

As light spills in from the backyard, she picks up a little wax figurine she made. This one is a monkey, one of dozens of intricate animals she sculpted using only the red wax that wraps the cheese her parents buy at the grocery store.

"I take one half to make the body," she says, explaining the process carefully. Then, she turns to another favorite activity - embroidery. Here, her explanation is about her motivation: She likes embroidery because it lets her write with pictures - a mode far easier for Canela Jayne than writing with letters.

Besides her bedroom, she tells me, her other favorite room is the kitchen. She loves standing on her stool at the counter, cooking. Scones. Biscotti. Banana bread. She is even willing to read the recipe, if that's necessary.

Although Canela Jayne now spends much of her summer days with tutors at reading centers, her mother has carved out time each year for her daughter to trade books for a spatula and cooking camp. Canela Jayne looks forward to it all year.

For other kids, it's sports, computers, music - anything that takes skill and builds confidence and pride.

Experts say that children with dyslexia are at a higher risk for depression. And having another passion - where there's a more direct link between effort and success - is helpful.
3. Make a financial plan
Schools are supposed to help children with dyslexia, but many don't have the resources to do so. That means parents who can afford it often bear the cost of outside testing, specialized tutors, reading centers and, of course, private schools.

Some families estimate that they spend upwards of tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands - of dollars helping their kids learn to read before high school graduation.

Lordos and her husband say they were faced with what felt like an impossibly hard trade-off: college tuition or reading tutors. Eventually, they decided to "invest in the child that we have now."

"You know," she adds, "college won't be an option if they continue to hate school and reject everything that has to do with reading."

After more than 400 hours of intensive tutoring, Canela Jayne is doing much better. She no longer complains about going to school in the mornings. And, while she's still in the process of learning to read, she's making strides.

The biggest change, Lordos says, it's that her daughter is "much, much happier."

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Raising A Child With Dyslexia: 3 Things Parents Can Do

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Part 3 of our series " Unlocking Dyslexia." A mother who spent years coaching and encouraging her dyslexic son recalls his childhood with one pervasive feeling: "It was really scary." One father told me his home life was ruined. Trying to do homework with his struggling daughter, he says, felt like "a nightmare every night."

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Millions Have Dyslexia, Few Understand It

In Millions Have Dyslexia, Few Understand It t he reporter, who was a student at Lindamood-Bell as a child, visits our Washington, DC Learning Center to interview our staff and students.

How Science Is Rewiring The Dyslexic Brain

The second part of NPR' s Unlocking Dyslexia series features Guinevere Eden, director of Georgetown University's Center for the Study of Learning. She explains what is happening in the brain of someone with dyslexia when they read and how the brain can be "rewired" with intensive intervention.

How Parents Can Help Kids With Dyslexia Succeed In School

Families who have had success at Lindamood-Bell describe the value of early intervention and more.

Dyslexia: The Learning Disability That Must Not Be Named

Parents and advocates are concerned that schools aren't acknowledging a diagnosis of dyslexia-and aren't giving students the help they need.

'B' And 'D' Learning Process Debunks Dyslexia Jumbled-Letters Myth

Many believe dyslexia is about jumbled letters, but experts say that's not quite right. This story explores what's happening in the brain that causes those backward letters.

At Lindamood-Bell, we believe that all individuals can be taught to read to their potential-including those who have a diagnosis of dyslexia.

Over the course of nearly three decades, Lindamood-Bell has worked with thousands of individuals. Sitting with a child or an adult who struggles to read a word provides unique insight into the learning process. Our success with students is due to our unique approach, including our research-validated, sensory-cognitive instruction.

Learn more about our approach and results with students diagnosed with dyslexia here.

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NPR Series Unlocking Dyslexia features Lindamood-Bell - Lindamood-Bell

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Millions Have Dyslexia, Few Understand It In Millions Have Dyslexia, Few Understand It the reporter, who was a student at Lindamood-Bell as a child, visits our Washington, DC Learning Center to interview our staff and students. CLICK HERE for the NPR story. How Science Is Rewiring The Dyslexic Brain The second part of NPR's Unlocking Dyslexia...

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By The Understood Team

Dyslexia is a learning disability in reading. People with dyslexia have trouble reading at a good pace and without mistakes. They may also have a hard time with reading comprehension, spelling, and writing. But these challenges aren't a problem with intelligence.

Snapshot: What dyslexia is

Dyslexia is a common condition that makes it hard to work with language. Some experts believe that between 5 and 10 percent of people have it. Others say as many as 17 percent of people show signs of reading challenges.

People with dyslexia don't outgrow it. But there are teaching approaches and strategies that can help them improve their reading skills and manage the challenges. People of any age can be tested for dyslexia, although the tests are different for adults than for kids.

People with dyslexia typically have trouble reading fluently. They often read slowly and make mistakes. That can impact how well they comprehend what they read. But when other people read to them, they often have no problem understanding the text.

Dyslexia can create difficulty with other skills, too. These include:

Reading comprehension

Spelling

Writing

Math

It's important to know that while dyslexia impacts learning, it's not a problem of intelligence. People with dyslexia are just as smart as their peers. There are countless stories about people thriving with dyslexia, including actors, entrepreneurs, and elected officials.

Dyslexia signs and symptoms

Dyslexia impacts people in different ways. So, symptoms might not look the same from one person to another.

A key sign of dyslexia is trouble decoding words. This is the ability to match letters to sounds. Kids can also struggle with a more basic skill called phonemic awareness. This is the ability to recognize the sounds in words. Trouble with phonemic awareness can show up as early as preschool.

In some people, dyslexia isn't picked up until later on, when they have trouble with more complex skills. These can include grammar, reading comprehension, reading fluency, sentence structure, and more in-depth writing.

Some of the signs of dyslexia have to do with emotions and behavior. People with dyslexia might avoid reading, both out loud and to themselves. They may even get anxious or frustrated when reading. This can happen even after they've mastered the basics of reading.

Dyslexia doesn't just affect learning. It can also impact everyday skills and activities. These include social interaction, memory, and dealing with stress.

Possible causes of dyslexia

Researchers haven't yet pinpointed exactly what causes dyslexia. But they do know that genes and brain differences play a role. Here are some of the possible causes of dyslexia:

Genes and heredity: Dyslexia often runs in families. About 40 percent of siblings of people with dyslexia also struggle with reading. As many as 49 percent of parents of kids with dyslexia have it, too. Scientists have also found genes linked to problems with reading and processing language.

Brain anatomy and activity: Brain imaging studies have shown brain differences between people with and without dyslexia. These differences happen in areas of the brain involved with key reading skills. Those skills are knowing how sounds are represented in words, and recognizing what written words look like.

But the brain can change. Studies show that brain activity in people with dyslexia changes after they get proper instruction or tutoring. And scientists are learning more all the time.

How dyslexia is diagnosed

Having a diagnosis (schools call it an identification) can lead to supports and services at school, and accommodations at college and work.

There are a few types of professionals who can assess people for dyslexia. These include school psychologists, clinical psychologists, and neuropsychologists. An evaluator will give a series of tests for dyslexia. They'll test in other areas as well to see exactly where any weaknesses and strengths lie.

School evaluations are free. But private ones can be very expensive. In some cases, there are ways to get them for free or at a low cost. Local universities often have programs in psychology that have clinics where students do their training.

Teaching hospitals may have research projects where people can get evaluations for free. Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA) has local chapters in every state. They may be able to help with finding free or low-cost options.

Tell us what interests you

About the author

About the author

The Understood Team is made up of passionate writers and editors. Many of them have kids who learn and think differently.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Guinevere Eden, PhD is a professor at Georgetown University and director of its Center for the Study of Learning.

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Dyslexia is a learning disability in reading. People with dyslexia have trouble reading at a good pace and without mistakes. They may also have a hard time with reading comprehension, spelling, and writing. But these challenges aren't a problem with intelligence. Snapshot: What dyslexia is Dyslexia is a common condition that makes it hard to work with language.

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What is dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability. Dyslexia refers to a cluster of symptoms, that results in people having difficulties with specific language skills, particularly reading. Students with dyslexia often experience difficulties with both oral and written other language skills, such as writing, and pronouncing words and writing. Dyslexia affects individuals throughout their lives; however, its impact can change at different stages in a person's life. It is referred to as a learning disability because dyslexia can make it very difficult for a student to succeed without phonics-based reading instruction that is unavailable in most public schools.. In its more severe forms, a student with dyslexia may qualify for special education with specially designed instruction, and as appropriate, accommodations.
What causes dyslexia?
The exact causes of dyslexia are still not completely clear, but anatomical and brain imagery studies show differences in the way the brain of a person with dyslexia develops and functions. Moreover, most people with dyslexia have been found to have difficulty with identifying the separate speech sounds within a word and/or learning how letters represent those sounds, a key factor in their reading difficulties. Dyslexia is not due to either lack of intelligence or desire to learn; with appropriate teaching methods, individuals with dyslexia can learn successfully.
What are the effects of dyslexia?
The impact that dyslexia has is different for each person and depends on the severity of the condition and the effectiveness of instruction or remediation. The core difficulty is with reading words and this is related to difficulty with processing and manipulating sounds. Some individuals with dyslexia manage to learn early reading and spelling tasks, especially with excellent instruction, but later experience their most challenging problems when more complex language skills are required, such as grammar, understanding textbook material, and writing essays.

People with dyslexia can also have problems with spoken language, even after they have been exposed to good language models in their homes and good language instruction in school. They may find it difficult to express themselves clearly, or to fully comprehend what others mean when they speak. Such language problems are often difficult to recognize, but they can lead to major problems in school, in the workplace, and in relating to other people. The effects of dyslexia can reach well beyond the classroom.

Dyslexia can also affect a person's self-image. Students with dyslexia often end up feeling less intelligent and less capable than they actually are. After experiencing a great deal of stress due to academic problems, a student may become discouraged about continuing in school.
Are there other learning disabilities besides dyslexia?
Dyslexia is one type of learning disability. Other learning disabilities besides Dyslexia include the following:

Dyscalculia - a mathematical disability in which a person has unusual difficulty solving arithmetic problems and grasping math concepts.

Dysgraphia - a condition of impaired letter writing by hand-disabled handwriting. Impaired handwriting can interfere with learning to spell words in writing and speed of writing text. Children with dysgraphia may have only impaired handwriting, only impaired spelling (without reading problems), or both impaired handwriting and impaired spelling.

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorders (ADHD) can and do impact learning but they are not learning disabilities. An individual can have more than one learning or behavioral disability. In various studies as many as 50% of those diagnosed with a learning or reading disability have also been diagnosed with ADHD. Although disabilities may co-occur, one is not the cause of the other.

How common are language-based learning disabilities? 15-20% of the population has a language-based learning disability. Of the students with specific learning disabilities receiving special education services, 70-80% have deficits in reading. Dyslexia is the most common cause of reading, writing and spelling difficulties. Dyslexia affects males and females nearly equally as well as, people from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds nearly equally.

Can individuals who have dyslexia learn to read? Yes. If children who have dyslexia receive effective phonological awareness and phonics training in Kindergarten and 1st grade, they will have significantly fewer problems in learning to read at grade level than do children who are not identified or helped until 3rd grade. 74% of the children who are poor readers in 3rd grade remain poor readers in the 9th grade, many because they do not receive appropriate Structured Literacy instruction with the needed intensity or duration. Often they can't read well as adults either. It is never too late for individuals with dyslexia to learn to read, process, and express information more efficiently. Research shows that programs utilizing Structured Literacy instructional techniques can help children and adults learn to read.
How do people "get" dyslexia?
The causes for dyslexia are neurobiological and genetic. Individuals inherit the genetic links for dyslexia. Chances are that one of the child's parents, grandparents, aunts, or uncles has dyslexia. Dyslexia is not a disease. With proper diagnosis, appropriate instruction, hard work, and support from family, teachers, friends, and others, individuals who have dyslexia can succeed in school and later as working adults.

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Frequently Asked Questions - International Dyslexia Association

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Most dyslexics will exhibit about 10 of the following traits and behaviors. These characteristics can vary from day-to-day or minute-to-minute. The most consistent thing about dyslexics is their inconsistency.

General:

Appears bright, highly intelligent, and articulate but unable to read, write, or spell at grade level.

Labelled lazy, dumb, careless, immature, "not trying hard enough," or "behavior problem."

Isn't "behind enough" or "bad enough" to be helped in the school setting.

High in IQ, yet may not test well academically; tests well orally, but not written.

Feels dumb; has poor self-esteem; hides or covers up weaknesses with ingenious compensatory strategies; easily frustrated and emotional about school reading or testing.

Talented in art, drama, music, sports, mechanics, story-telling, sales, business, designing, building, or engineering.

Seems to "Zone out" or daydream often; gets lost easily or loses track of time.

Difficulty sustaining attention; seems "hyper" or "daydreamer."

Learns best through hands-on experience, demonstrations, experimentation, observation, and visual aids.

Vision, Reading, and Spelling:

Complains of dizziness, headaches or stomach aches while reading.

Confused by letters, numbers, words, sequences, or verbal explanations.

Reading or writing shows repetitions, additions, transpositions, omissions, substitutions, and reversals in letters, numbers and/or words.

Complains of feeling or seeing non-existent movement while reading, writing, or copying.

Seems to have difficulty with vision, yet eye exams don't reveal a problem.

Extremely keen sighted and observant, or lacks depth perception and peripheral vision.

Reads and rereads with little comprehension.

Spells phonetically and inconsistently.

Hearing and Speech:

Has extended hearing; hears things not said or apparent to others; easily distracted by sounds.

Difficulty putting thoughts into words; speaks in halting phrases; leaves sentences incomplete; stutters under stress; mispronounces long words, or transposes phrases, words, and syllables when speaking.

Writing and Motor Skills:

Trouble with writing or copying; pencil grip is unusual; handwriting varies or is illegible.

Clumsy, uncoordinated, poor at ball or team sports; difficulties with fine and/or gross motor skills and tasks; prone to motion-sickness.

Can be ambidextrous, and often confuses left/right, over/under.

Math and Time Management:

Has difficulty telling time, managing time, learning sequenced information or tasks, or being on time.

Computing math shows dependence on finger counting and other tricks; knows answers, but can't do it on paper.

Can count, but has difficulty counting objects and dealing with money.

Can do arithmetic, but fails word problems; cannot grasp algebra or higher math.

Memory and Cognition:

Excellent long-term memory for experiences, locations, and faces.

Poor memory for sequences, facts and information that has not been experienced.

Thinks primarily with images and feeling, not sounds or words (little internal dialogue).

Behavior, Health, Development, and Personality:

Extremely disorderly or compulsively orderly.

Can be class clown, trouble-maker, or too quiet.

Had unusually early or late developmental stages (talking, crawling, walking, tying shoes).

Prone to ear infections; sensitive to foods, additives, and chemical products.

Can be an extra deep or light sleeper; bedwetting beyond appropriate age.

Unusually high or low tolerance for pain.

Strong sense of justice; emotionally sensitive; strives for perfection.

Mistakes and symptoms increase dramatically with confusion, time pressure, emotional stress, or poor health.

Davis, Ronald Dell. (1992) 37 Common Characteristics of Dyslexia. Retrieved August 19, 2019 from Davis Dyslexia Association International. Dyslexia the Gift website: http://www.dyslexia.com/?p=254.

Related Articles

Looking for a solution? Start here.

The Gift of Dyslexia explains why dyslexia happens and what you can do about it.

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Most dyslexics will exhibit about 10 of the following traits and behaviors. These characteristics can vary from day-to-day or minute-to-minute. The most consistent thing about dyslexics is their inconsistency. Appears bright, highly intelligent, and articulate but unable to read, write, or spell at grade level.

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Affects reading and related language-based processing skills.

Dyslexia is characterized by deficits in accurate and fluent word recognition.

Individuals with dyslexia struggle with word recognition, decoding, and spelling.

Reading comprehension is sometimes impaired due to very poor word reading skills.

Individuals with dyslexia often have deficits in phonemic and phonological awareness, which refer to the ability to hear, identify and manipulate the sound structure of a spoken word, including its phonemes, syllables, onsets and rhymes.

Individuals with dyslexia may also have impaired orthographic processing, which interferes with connecting letters and letter combinations with sounds accurately and fluently.
Dyslexia can impact:

Word recognition

Spelling

Pronouncing written words

Associating letters with the sounds they make

Understanding syllables

Identifying rhymes

Hearing and identifying a spoken word

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Dyslexia is characterized by deficits in accurate and fluent word recognition. Individuals with dyslexia struggle with word recognition, decoding, and spelling. Reading comprehension is sometimes impaired due to very poor word reading skills.

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Peter works so hard at reading, but it just never gets easier. He knows he's smart, so why can't he read like the other kids? Peter has a problem called dyslexia.

Dyslexia (say: dis-LEK-see-uh) is a learning problem some kids have. Dyslexia makes it tough to read and spell. The problem is inside the brain, but it doesn't mean the person is dumb. Plenty of smart and talented people struggle with dyslexia.

But dyslexia doesn't have to keep a kid down. With some help and a lot of hard work, a kid who has dyslexia can learn to read and spell.

How Does Reading Happen?

To understand dyslexia, it helps to understand reading. Reading is a real workout for your brain. You need to do the following steps - and all at once:

1. Understand the way speech sounds make up words.

2. Focus on printed marks (letters and words).

3. Connect speech sounds to letters.

4. Blend letter sounds smoothly into words.

5. Control eye movements across the page.

6. Build images and ideas.

7. Compare new ideas with what is already known.

8. Store the ideas in memory.

Phew! Kids who have dyslexia struggle with the beginning steps, so that makes doing the rest of the steps even harder. It's no surprise, then, that trying to read and dealing with dyslexia makes a kid's brain really tired really fast.

How Kids Become Readers

Most kids start learning to read by learning how speech sounds make up words. Then they connect those sounds to alphabet letters. For example, they learn that the letter "b" makes a "buh" sound.

Then kids learn to blend those sounds into words. They learn that "b" and "at" makes "bat." Eventually, most kids don't have to sound words out and can instantly recognize words they've seen many times before.

But it's tougher for kids who have dyslexia. They may struggle to remember simple words they have seen many times and to sound out longer words. Why is it so hard?

Dyslexia means that a person's brain has trouble processing letters and sounds. That makes it tough to break words into separate speech sounds, like b-a-t for bat. When it's hard to do that, it's really hard to connect speech sounds to different letters, like "buh" for b, and blend them into new words.

So a kid who has dyslexia will read slowly and might make a lot of mistakes. Sometimes he or she will mix up letters in a word, such as reading the word "was" as "saw." Words may blend together wrong.

What's It Like to Have Dyslexia?

Even before kindergarten, a kid who has dyslexia usually has trouble with letters and sounds. Later, a teacher might say that the kid is smart, but doesn't seem to be getting the hang of reading. Other times, it's a parent who notices the kid is struggling. The best thing to do is to go to a specialist who can help figure out what's wrong.

A specialist in learning disabilities knows a lot about learning problems that kids have and what to do about them. During a visit with a specialist, a kid might take some tests. But the idea isn't to get a good grade; it's to spot problems. Discovering a learning disability is the first step toward getting help that will make it easier for the kid to learn.

Making Reading Easier

Most kids with dyslexia can learn to read with the right kind of teaching. They might learn new ways for remembering sounds. For example, "p" and "b" are called brother sounds because they're both "lip poppers." You have to press your lips together to make the sound.

Thinking about the way the mouth needs to move to make sounds can help kids read more easily. Learning specialists know lots of special activities like this to teach reading to kids who have dyslexia.

Kids with dyslexia also might use flash cards or tape classroom lessons and homework assignments instead of taking notes about them. They may need parents and tutors to help them stay caught up.

Extra time for tests is really important, so kids with dyslexia have enough time to finish and show their teacher how much they have learned. Computers help a lot, too. You can get programs that "read" books out loud from the computer or even download recorded books to an iPod!

How Do Kids With Dyslexia Feel?

Kids who have dyslexia might get frustrated, angry, or sad because reading and spelling are so hard. They may not like being in a different reading group than their friends or having to see a special reading tutor.

But getting this help is so important and will help them go on to do great things in life. Some of the most creative and successful people have dyslexia, but it didn't stop them from chasing their dreams!

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Peter works so hard at reading, but it just never gets easier. He knows he's smart, so why can't he read like the other kids? Peter has a problem called dyslexia. Dyslexia (say: dis-LEK-see-uh) is a learning problem some kids have. Dyslexia makes it tough to read and spell.

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Developmental dyslexia and how it relates to brain function are complicated topics that researchers have been studying since dyslexia was first described over a hundred years ago.

W. Pringle Morgan (cited in Shaywitz, 1996), a doctor in Sussex, England, described the puzzling case of a boy in the British Medical Journal: "Percy ... aged 14 ... has always been a bright and intelligent boy, quick at games, and in no way inferior to others of his age. His great difficulty has been - and is now - his inability to read" (p. 98).

Almost every teacher in the United States has at least one student who could fit the same description written so many years ago. This situation leads many school personnel to wonder why their articulate, clearly bright student has so many problems with what appears to be a simple task - reading a text that everyone else seems to easily comprehend.

Having information about the likely explanation for and potential cause of the student's difficulties often relieves teachers' fears and uncertainties about how to teach the student and how to think about providing instruction that is relevant and effective. Current research on dyslexia and the brain provide the most up-to-date information available about the problems faced by over 2.8 million school-aged children.

When talking with teachers about their students who struggle with reading, we have encountered similar types of questions from teachers. They often wonder, What is dyslexia? What does brain research tell us about reading problems and what does this information mean for classroom instruction?

The purpose of this article is to explain the answers to these questions and provide foundational knowledge that will lead to a firmer understanding of the underlying characteristics of students with dyslexia. A greater understanding of the current brain research and how it relates to students with dyslexia is important in education and will help teachers understand and evaluate possible instructional interventions to help their students succeed in the classroom.

What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is an often-misunderstood, confusing term for reading problems. The word dyslexia is made up of two different parts: dys meaning not or difficult, and lexia meaning words, reading, or language. So quite literally, dyslexia means difficulty with words (Catts & Kamhi, 2005).

Despite the many confusions and misunderstandings, the term dyslexia is commonly used by medical personnel, researchers, and clinicians. One of the most common misunderstandings about this condition is that dyslexia is a problem of letter or word reversals ( b/ d, was/ saw) or of letters, words, or sentences "dancing around" on the page (Rayner, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky, & Seidenberg, 2001).

In fact, writing and reading letters and words backwards are common in the early stages of learning to read and write among average and dyslexic children alike, and the presence of reversals may or may not indicate an underlying reading problem. See Table 1 for explanations of this and other common misunderstandings.

One of the most complete definitions of dyslexia comes from over 20 years of research:

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003, p. 2)

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability in reading that often affects spelling as well. In fact, reading disability is the most widely known and most carefully studied of the learning disabilities, affecting 80% of all those designated as learning disabled. Because of this, we will use the terms dyslexia and reading disabilities (RD) interchangeably in this article to describe the students of interest.

It is neurobiological in origin, meaning that the problem is located physically in the brain. Dyslexia is not caused by poverty, developmental delay, speech or hearing impairments, or learning a second language, although those conditions may put a child more at risk for developing a reading disability (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).

Children with dyslexia will often show two obvious difficulties when asked to read text at their grade level. First, they will not be able to read as many of the words in a text by sight as average readers. There will be many words on which they stumble, guess at, or attempt to "sound out." This is the problem with "fluent word recognition" identified in the previous definition.

Second, they will often show decoding difficulties, meaning that their attempts to identify words they do not know will produce many errors. They will not be very accurate in using letter-sound relationships in combination with context to identify unknown words.

These problems in word recognition are due to an underlying deficit in the sound component of language that makes it very difficult for readers to connect letters and sounds in order to decode. People with dyslexia often have trouble comprehending what they read because of the great difficulty they experience in accessing the printed words.

What areas of the brain relate to language and reading?

The human brain is a complex organ that has many different functions. It controls the body and receives, analyzes, and stores information.

The brain can be divided down the middle lengthwise into a right and a left hemisphere. Most of the areas responsible for speech, language processing, and reading are in the left hemisphere, and for this reason we will focus all of our descriptions and figures on the left side of the brain. Within each hemisphere, we find the following four brain lobes (see Figure 1).

The frontal lobe is the largest and responsible for controlling speech, reasoning, planning, regulating emotions, and consciousness.
In the 19th century, Paul Broca was exploring areas of the brain used for language and noticed a particular part of the brain that was impaired in a man whose speech became limited after a stroke. This area received more and more attention, and today we know that Broca's area, located here in the frontal lobe, is important for the organization, production, and manipulation of language and speech (Joseph, Noble, & Eden, 2001). Areas of the frontal lobe are also important for silent reading proficiency (Shaywitz et al., 2002).

The parietal lobe is located farther back in the brain and controls sensory perceptions as well as linking spoken and written language to memory to give it meaning so we can understand what we hear and read.

The occipital lobe, found at the back of the head, is where the primary visual cortex is located. Among other types of visual perception, the visual cortex is important in the identification of letters.

The temporal lobe is located in the lower part of the brain, parallel with the ears, and is involved in verbal memory.
Wernicke's area, long known to be important in understanding language (Joseph et al., 2001), is located here. This region, identified by Carl Wernicke at about the same time and using the same methods as Broca, is critical in language processing and reading.

In addition, converging evidence suggests that two other systems, which process language within and between lobes, are important for reading (see Figure 2).

The first is the left parietotemporal system (Area A in Figure 2) that appears to be involved in word analysis - the conscious, effortful decoding of words (Shaywitz et al., 2002). This region is critical in the process of mapping letters and written words onto their sound correspondences - letter sounds and spoken words (Heim & Keil, 2004). This area is also important for comprehending written and spoken language (Joseph et al., 2001).

The second system that is important for reading is the left occipitotemporal area (Area B in Figure 2). This system seems to be involved in automatic, rapid access to whole words and is a critical area for skilled, fluent reading (Shaywitz et al., 2002, 2004).

What does brain imaging research tell us about dyslexia?

Structural brain differences

Studies of structural differences in the brains of people of all ages show differences between people with and without reading disabilities.

The brain is chiefly made up of two types of material: gray matter and white matter. Gray matter is what we see when we look at a brain and is mostly composed of nerve cells. Its primary function is processing information.

White matter is found within the deeper parts of the brain, and is composed of connective fibers covered in myelin, the coating designed to facilitate communication between nerves. White matter is primarily responsible for information transfer around the brain.

Booth and Burman (2001) found that people with dyslexia have less gray matter in the left parietotemporal area (Area A in Figure 2) than nondyslexic individuals. Having less gray matter in this region of the brain could lead to problems processing the sound structure of language (phonological awareness).

Many people with dyslexia also have less white matter in this same area than average readers, which is important because more white matter is correlated with increased reading skill (Deutsch, Dougherty, Bammer, Siok, Gabrieli, & Wandell, 2005). Having less white matter could lessen the ability or efficiency of the regions of the brain to communicate with one another.

Other structural analyses of the brains of people with and without RD have found differences in hemispherical asymmetry. Specifically, most brains of right-handed, nondyslexic people are asymmetrical with the left hemisphere being larger than the same area on the right.

In contrast, Heim and Keil (2004) found that right-handed people with dyslexia show a pattern of symmetry (right equals left) or asymmetry in the other direction (right larger than left). The exact cause of these size differences is the subject of ongoing research, but they seem to be implicated in the reading and spelling problems of people with dyslexia.

Functional brain differences

We lack space here for a detailed explanation of imaging techniques. For excellent descriptions of several techniques, readers are directed to Papanicolaou, Pugh, Simos, and Mencl (2004) and Richards (2001).

One commonly used method for imaging brain function is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a noninvasive, relatively new method that measures physiological signs of neural activation using a strong magnet to pinpoint blood flow. This technique is called "functional" because participants perform tasks while in (or under) the magnet, allowing measurement of the functioning brain rather than the activity of the brain at rest.

Several studies using functional imaging techniques that compared the brain activation patterns of readers with and without dyslexia show potentially important patterns of differences. We might expect that readers with RD would show underactivation in areas where they are weaker and overactivation in other areas in order to compensate, and that is exactly what many researchers have found (e.g., Shaywitz et al., 1998).

This type of functional imaging research has just begun to be used with children. This is in part because of the challenges involved in imaging children, including the absolute need for the participant's head to remain motionless during the scanning.

We will present the largest, best-specified study as an example of these new findings with children. Shaywitz et al. (2002) studied 144 righthanded children with and without RD on a variety of in- and out-of-magnet tasks. They compared brain activation between the two groups of children on tasks designed to tap several component processes of reading:

identifying the names or sounds of letters

sounding out nonsense words

sounding out and comparing meanings of real words

The nonimpaired readers had more activation in all of the areas known to be important for reading than the children with dyslexia.

Shaywitz et al. (2002) also found that the children who were good decoders had more activation in the areas important for reading in the left hemisphere and less in the right hemisphere than the children with RD.

They suggested that for children with RD, disruption in the rear reading systems in the left hemisphere that are critical for skilled, fluent reading (Area B in Figure 2) leads the children to try and compensate by using other, less efficient systems (Area A in Figure 2 and systems in the right hemisphere).

This finding could explain the common experience in school that even as children with dyslexia develop into accurate readers, their reading in grade-level text is often still slow and labored without any fluency (e.g., Torgesen, Rashotte, & Alexander, 2001).

In summary, the brain of a person with dyslexia has a different distribution of metabolic activation than the brain of a person without reading problems when accomplishing the same language task. There is a failure of the left hemisphere rear brain systems to function properly during reading.

Furthermore, many people with dyslexia often show greater activation in the lower frontal areas of the brain. This leads to the conclusion that neural systems in frontal regions may compensate for the disruption in the posterior area (Shaywitz et al., 2003). This information often leads educators to wonder whether brain imaging can be used as a diagnostic tool to identify children with reading disabilities in school.

Can we screen everyone who has reading difficulties?

Not yet. It is an appealing vision of putting a child we are concerned about in an fMRI machine to quickly and accurately identify his or her problem, but research has not taken us that far.

There are several reasons why a clinical or school-based use of imaging techniques to identify children with dyslexia is not currently feasible. One is the enormous cost of fMRI machines, the computers, and the software needed to run them. Another part of the cost is the staff that is needed to run and interpret the results.

Also, in order for this technology to be used for diagnosis, it needs to be accurate for individuals. Currently, results are reliable and reported for groups of participants, but not necessarily for individuals within each group (Richards, 2001; Shaywitz et al., 2002).

The number of children who would be identified as being average when they really have a problem (false negatives) or as having a problem when they are average (false positives) would need to be significantly lower for imaging techniques to be used for diagnosis of individual children.

Can dyslexia be cured?

In a word, no. Dyslexia is a lifelong condition that affects people into old age. However, that does not mean that instruction cannot remediate some of the difficulties people with dyslexia have with written language. A large body of evidence shows what types of instruction struggling readers need to be successful (e.g., National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000; Snow et al., 1998; Torgesen, 2000).

Now researchers can also "look" inside the brains of children before and after an intensive intervention and see for the first time the effects of the intervention on the brain activity of children with RD. The following are two such studies.

Aylward et al. (2003) imaged 10 children with dyslexia and 11 average readers before and after a 28-hour intervention that only the students with dyslexia received. They compared the two groups of students on out-of-magnet reading tests as well as the level of activation during tasks of identifying letter sounds.

They found that while the control children showed no differences between the two imagings, the students who received the treatment showed a significant increase in activation in the areas important for reading and language during the phonological task. Before the intervention, the children with RD showed significant underactivation in these areas as compared to the control children, and after the treatment their profiles were very similar.

These results must be viewed with caution because of several limitations. One limitation is the lack of specificity about the intervention that was provided, another is the small sample size, and the last is the lack of an experimental control group (i.e., a group of children with RD who did not receive the treatment). Without an experimental control group, we cannot be certain that the intervention caused the changes found in the brain activation because of so many other possible explanations.

Shaywitz et al. (2004) addressed these limitations in their investigation of brain activation changes before and after an intervention. They studied 78 second and third graders with reading disabilities who were randomly assigned to three groups:

the experimental intervention

school-based remedial programs

control

A summary of the instructional intervention is provided in Table 2 and a full and detailed description of the intervention and out-of-magnet reading assessments can be found in Blachman et al. (2004).

Before the intervention, all groups looked similar in their brain activity, but immediately after the intervention the experimental and control groups had increased activation in the left hemispheric regions important for reading.

One year after intervention, the experimental group showed increased activity in the occipito-temporal region important for automatic, fluent reading (Area B in Figure 2), while at both time points the level of compensatory activation in the right hemisphere decreased.

Shaywitz et al. (2002) concluded, "These findings indicate that ... the use of an evidence-based phonologic reading intervention facilitates the development of those fast-paced neural systems that underlie skilled reading" (p. 931).

Important considerations to keep in mind about the brain research

While research advances have allowed us to look more closely within the brain for the first time and revealed important information about how and where we think during reading, there are important considerations that must be remembered.

One is that with the exception of the research by B.E. Shaywitz, S. Shaywitz, and their colleagues, the sample sizes in each study are very small. The evidence from these small studies is converging into results that are reliable, but the results may change as more and more participants are included in the research base. This is especially true with children where both the number of studies and the sample sizes are quite small.

Second, we must consider the type of task being used in the magnet. Because of the requirement that the person's head not move during the imaging, researchers are not able to study people actually reading aloud. Instead, they give tasks that require the person to read silently and then make a decision that he or she indicates with a push button (e.g., Do the letters t and v rhyme? Do leat and jete rhyme?).

Because the researchers have worked carefully on these tasks and have specified the particular process that is being measured, we can trust their conclusions about what the activation levels mean; however, the tasks are quite removed from natural classroom reading and should not be interpreted as if they were the same. The area of brain research is developing rapidly; technological advances are being made that will address these issues as time goes on.

Recommendations for teachers

What does all of this information mean for school personnel and their students? Once teachers understand the underlying processes and causes of reading disabilities, they can use this information as they work with students and their families. The following are specific recommendations based on the neurological research:

Adequate assessment of language processing is important in determining why students struggle to learn to read.
Dyslexia, or reading disability, is a disorder of the language processing systems in the brain. Specific information about exactly what sorts of weaknesses are present is needed in order to determine the appropriate instruction to meet each student's needs.

Imaging research confirms that simple tasks can more reliably be interpreted as "red flags" suggesting that a young child may be at risk for dyslexia.

It is vital to begin using screening and progress monitoring procedures early on to measure children's understanding of sounds in speech, letter sounds in words, and fluent word recognition. Using such assessment in an ongoing way throughout a child's school career can help teachers know what skills to teach and whether a child is developing these skills.

Explicit, intense, systematic instruction in the sound structure of language (phonemic awareness) and in how sounds relate to letters (phonics) is needed for readers with dyslexia.

Imaging research confirmed that instruction in the alphabetic principle caused distinct differences in brain activation patterns in the students with RD (Shaywitz et al., 2004). Keep in mind that the intervention was explicit, intense, long term, and specifically focused on phonological processing, phonics, and fluency.

The roles of motivation and fear of failing are important when discussing reading problems.

Students do not struggle simply because they are not trying hard enough. They may have a brain difference that requires them to be taught in a more intense fashion than their peers. Without intense intervention, low motivation may develop as students try to avoid a difficult and painful task.

School personnel can use their knowledge of the neurological characteristics and basis of dyslexia to help their students understand their strengths and weaknesses around reading and language.

Understanding a possible reason why they find something difficult that no one else seems to struggle with may help relieve some of the mystery and negative feelings that many people with a disability feel. Sharing our knowledge of brain research may demystify dyslexia and help students and their parents realize that language processing is only one of many talents that they have and that they are not "stupid," they simply process language differently than their peers.

Recommendations for parents

The identification of a child with dyslexia is a difficult time for parents and teachers. We suggest that teachers can help parents learn more about their child's difficulty in the following ways:

Teachers can share information about the student's specific areas of weakness and strength and help parents realize the underlying causes of their child's difficulty.
This conversation can also include information about how to help their child use areas of strength to support areas of weakness.

It is critical to help parents get clear about what dyslexia is and is not.

Sharing the common misconceptions and the correct information found in Table 1 with parents may help clear up any confusion that may exist.

Early intervention with intense, explicit instruction is critical for helping students avoid the lifelong consequences of poor reading.

Engaging parents early in the process of identifying what programs and services are best for their child will ensure greater levels of success and cooperation between home and school.

There are many organizations devoted to supporting individuals with RD and their families.

Accessing the knowledge, support, and advocacy of these organizations is critical for many families. A list of several large organizations to share with parents can be found in Table 3.

Finally, teachers can often best help families by simply listening to the parents and their concerns for their children.

Understanding a disability label and what that means for the future of their child is a very emotional process for parents and many times teachers can help by providing a sympathetic ear as well as information.

Imaging research has demonstrated that the brains of people with dyslexia show different, less efficient, patterns of processing (including under and over activation) during tasks involving sounds in speech and letter sounds in words. Understanding this has the potential to increase the confidence teachers feel when designing and carrying out instruction for their students with dyslexia.

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Dyslexia and the Brain: What Does Current Research Tell Us?

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The identification of a child with dyslexia is a difficult process, but there are ways that parents and teachers can learn more about the reading difficulty and support the child's learning.

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Learn about the common signs of dyslexia, how parents can support their child and celebrate their strengths, the role of assistive technology, how the latest brain research can help kids with dyslexia, and more.

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What it's REALLY like to read with dyslexia: Simulator reveals how letters and words appear to people with the condition

Web code makes words appear as they do to someone with dyslexia

It keeps the first and last letter in each word fixed and jumbles the centre

Developer had the idea after a friend told him letters swap out of place

It might look like a virus has taken over your computer and started jumbling up the words.

But this web code has been designed to make the words on a page look the way they would appear to you if you were dyslexic.

Swedish web developer Victor Widell came up with the idea after his dyslexic friend told him letters seemed to swap in and out of place when she looked at the words.

Scroll down for simulation

He then posted it on Git Hub, a website developers use to share code, with an example of text written about the condition.

The code keeps the first and last letter in each word the same, but jumbles up the letters in the middle to make it appear as if the letters are swapping in and out of place.

The simulation is similar to a block of text that went viral a few years ago, but goes one step further as it keeps scrambling the text.

Typoglycemia is the name given to a fake discovery that went viral about how it can be easy to read words with jumbled letters as long as the first and last letters are in the correct place.

Some dyslexic readers commenting on Widell's blog said the simulation mirrored their experiences, while others said it was not difficult enough.

Dyslexia occurs in at least one in 10 people, affecting more than 700 million children and adults worldwide, according to Dyslexia International.

The effect isn't the same for everyone.

Dyslexia has a number of different definitions and descriptions, but is generally defined as a learning difficulty that affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling.

It is associated with difficulties in reading, writing, spelling and organization, which affects not only academic success but also self-esteem and social-emotional development.

Some people have more 'extreme' dyslexia, and some have less, as commenters noted on Widdell's blog and in a Reddit post.

One reader on Reddit said 'I have dyslexia and although this is accurate, this is a more extreme case!'

This is not the first time something has been created to resemble the experience of reading with dyslexia.

Last year, Daniel Britton, a 25-year-old designer from Hartley in Kent, created the 'Dyslexia' font to convey the emotion behind having the condition to those who find it difficult to understand.

According to Britton, while it isn't based on hard science the typeface provides a similar level of frustration than that which a dyslexic person experiences when reading everyday typography.

Using Helvetica as a base, the Dyslexia font removes around 40 per cent of the typeface's lines.

The aim is to make the average reader take their time when attempting to decipher the letters in the words and sentences.

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This is what it's like to read with dyslexia

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Web code makes words appear as they do to someone with dyslexia It keeps the first and last letter in each word fixed and jumbles the centre Developer had the idea after a friend told him letters swap out of place It might look like a virus has taken over your computer and started jumbling up the words.

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Huge Congratulations to California and Governor Jerry Brown for signing A.B. 1369 into law October 8.

The law requires California Superintendent to develop program guidelines for students with dyslexia to improve dyslexia identification, strategies for remediation, and educational services for students. Educational services are defined as being evidence-based, multi sensory, direct, explicit, structured, and sequential. The Superintendent must comply by the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year. The guidelines are developed to assist regular and special education teachers as well as parents and pupils.

Thanks to all the members of Dyslexic Advantage for completing the Dyslexia at School Survey.

Here are some of the preliminary results shared with Governor Brown:
https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/California-vs-Texas.pptx
Thanks to all of your who took and shared the survey. Your voices are being heard! If you haven't taken the survey yourself - it's not too late! Take it HERE. When the survey is closed we will be sending all respondents copies of the results. We would like more state information to help laws like A.B.1369 get passed.

"the survey results about not saying dyslexia and teachers not being prepared to teach were essential in setting the stage with the Governor's office, but the one about the emotional and psychological impact on the students drove home the implications for the Governor..."

"Dyslexic Advantage has played an important role in both CA and the READ Act success."

We are thankful too for all the parents and volunteers who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make this law happen. Thanks too for all the other groups like Decoding Dyslexia California.

Press Release: New California Dyslexia Law Signed By Governor Jerry Brown

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Huge Congratulations to California and Governor Jerry Brown for signing A.B. 1369 into law October 8. The law requires California Superintendent to develop program guidelines for students with dyslexia to improve dyslexia identification, strategies for remediation, and educational services for students. Educational services are defined as being evidence-based, multi sensory, direct, explicit, structured, and sequential.

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Dyslexia Guidelines Work Group - Announcements & Current Issues (CA Dept of Education)

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Information about the Dyslexia Guidelines Work Group members, archived meetings, current law, and related documents and organizations.