The “Dirty D-word:” Dyslexia

By Rabbi Yehuda Adelist M.S. Ed SpEd
Director, Torah For Children

The parents of Moshe Z* were frantic when their son entered 1st grade and couldn’t read past the first posuk of Chumash. At first, they came to the realization that Moshe was neglected in the previous reading year. The teacher must have never challenged him to read or just didn’t know how to reach out to Moshe. The school helped Moshe’s parents find good tutors to teach him reading. That didn’t produce much results, so they turned to get him evaluated by a reading specialist.

After 30 minutes of frustration going through the exercises that normally takes 5 minutes to complete, the specialist told them something they did not anticipate. “Moshe has severe delays of sounds and symbols in the written language. He appears to have DYSLEXIA. There is no proven cure, but with the right treatment, Moshe can learn how to read to some level, although he will likely never read as quickly and easily as boys his age.”

Later that night, Moshe’s parents concluded that this specialist was wrong and quick to judge. How could Moshe who was actually very intelligent, be dyslexic? DYSLEXIA is some sort of handicap. Moshe is a normal child!

Then came the breakthrough when an ad appeared for the Road to Read Multisensory program. For a fee of about $12,000, the program promised results within a few short months. After a quick evaluation, the instructor deemed Moshe a candidate for the program. “There’s nothing wrong with your son. He just doesn’t focus on the letters properly, but we can fix that easily. Within a short few months we can have him reading like everyone else.”

$12,000 was a lot of money, but Moshe’s parents didn’t want Moshe to remain someone who looks ‘dyslexic’. At least now there was hope.

A year later, Moshe could now read like everyone else. At least that was what Moshe’s parents thought. When Moshe was tested on the school wide reading assessment, Moshe fumbled through the page, reading very few words correctly and barely making it through the 5 minute test. Moshe’s 4th grade teacher also thought something was off when Moshe would always shy of reading out loud for the class. Upon prompting Moshe to read the Mishna to him privately, Moshe couldn’t finish the page.

One night when Moshe was in 5th grade, his parents wondered if maybe the specialist was right all along. The next morning, the specialist answered the phone. “Is there still hope for Moshe?” “Yes”, the specialist answered, “but before you do anything, I suggest you learn the basics of dyslexia.

After 3 years of much hard work and step by step reading therapy, Moshe could finally read, albeit slower than his peers, but at least he could read. However, the first 5 years of failure and frustration were a part of Moshe’s history that could never be fully erased.

Why are so many parents of children with dyslexia resistant to accept that diagnosis?

1. People think of dyslexia as a problem of reversal of letters which does not always come out in children with reading difficulties.

2. People prefer the D for denial. Dyslexia sounds like a blemish and carries a label that people are afraid of.

3. Dyslexia has no known independently proven cure (only treatments) and is known to be a lifelong condition. Acceptance of the D word means to come to terms with the possibility of being faced with a lifelong challenge.

What really is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is an impairment in the area of the brain that processes sounds and symbols.

Dyslexia can be diagnosed by a professional when the child has had normal reading instruction (even without the best teacher) but still can’t produce basic sounds and words at 95% accuracy with normal speed.

Dyslexia encompasses almost all reading difficulties. Most normal developing children can process sounds and symbols in a spilt second and learn to read relatively quickly. Students with reading difficulties aka dyslexia take a lot of mental effort and literally 10 times the amount of time to process sounds and symbols translating into 1000s of seconds when reading a full size adult page. This makes the whole process very difficult.

The reversal of letters is the symptom and not the cause, of this severe delay in processing multiple sounds with symbols simultaneously. Usually children with dyslexia only reach that point after making some progress.

There is no known proven cure for dyslexia that has been backed up by independent research. Many claims have been made, but they only provide treatment to read to some level. The delay in decoding sounds and symbols to read unfamiliar words is always present even with intense intervention all the way into adulthood.

In desperation of avoiding a diagnosis with the above description, many parents will push their child harder, “She needs to practice more and try harder”, or they will spend thousands of dollars in the hope of a magic cure, only to be disappointed when it never materializes or to pretend that the cure worked. In reality, the child has not gotten any closer to processing and decoding new words quickly like other children.

Using various forms of reading therapy, Dyslexia can be managed to the point that many words can be recognized by sight, and new words can become decoded albeit at a slower pace and with more concentration.

However, the first thing parents need to do for their child with reading difficulties is to first learn and come to terms with the nature of dyslexia and realistic prognosis. This will save much heartache and wasted money in the long run.

Costly quick fixes just to avoid the D word ignores the true nature of the child’s challenge and will only frustrate the child, complicating the chance of getting effective treatment.

Progress is possible to the point that the child may learn to read to some level of function and accuracy. No magic cure; only therapies that break things down, use workaround techniques, and take multiple years with small steps of progress. One step back, two steps forward.

Many people with dyslexia will often complain how they were not understood, not by their friends, teachers, and in some cases by their parents. A community wide awareness is a must. At least one in every 20 children in our yeshivas have some form of dyslexia. For a child with dyslexia, awareness and understanding of dyslexia can make the difference between dysfunction to a successful adult.

Just imagine how many neshomas and lives could be saved if every parent and teacher would understand dyslexia.

There are many famous people who were challenged with dyslexia. Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill, Steve Jobs, Steven Speilberg, just to name a few. They will all agree that they were not lazy, had to work hard, and still had some delays into adulthood, but most importantly, Dyslexia is absolutely not a dirty D word.

Rabbi Yehuda Adelist M.S. Ed SpEd is licensed in special education working in remediation for more than 10 years, and is the director of Torah For Children, publishers of the Children’s Chumash and Seder Kriah. Seder Kriah includes an acclaimed hands-on kriah curriculum, and a free interactive kriah evaluation tool available at target=’_blank’>www.torah4children.com

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