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Writer's pictureNewsmakers with JR

Dispatch from DyslexiaLand: The Ongoing Struggle for the Right to Read




(Editor's note: "Dyslexia Awareness Month," which falls in October, aims to raise awareness of the need for a more accessible and inclusive world for people with dyslexia and low literacy. No one is better suited to illuminate the matter than Newsmakers education writer Cheri Rae).



By Cheri Rae   


Amid all the talk about equity in education, dyslexic students — who represent 20 percent of the population — are simply left out of the discussion.


The Santa Barbara Unified School District's promise of “Every Child, Every Chance, Every Day” is a meaningless phrase when these students are allowed to struggle from the moment they enter the classroom as kindergartners until they finally graduate from high school — if they manage to last that long.


The mounting frustration, humiliation, and sick worry over a dyslexic child’s future is enough to make hardheaded adults cry. It’s something I’ve witnessed many times, when memories shared in private conversations make them well up, or when administrative stonewalling at school meetings trigger hot tears.


The saddest of these remembrances came when a father wept at the lectern at a school board meeting. As he detailed his concerns about the lack of attention paid to his dyslexic daughter’s struggles, he was met with a terse “Thirty seconds.” as a board member reminded him of his expiring time.



And for dyslexic adults it doesn’t end: “I can still remember the horror I felt in third grade when I realized how much more time I had to spend in school," a dyslexic 64-year-old drama teacher recalled, with tears in his eyes.


Their parents—even their teachers—likely don’t even know that the different wiring in their brain is the source of their difficulties reading, writing, spelling, and even math. Guaranteed these parents experience sleepless nights and stressful days trying to figure it all out.


Getting Personal. Two decades ago, I was on that list, the mother of a bright, motivated child whose verbal abilities, curiosity, and determination led to high expectations for his academic achievement before he stepped foot on his elementary school campus.


Yet this boy who had been read to since infancy stumbled over the simplest of words on a page; he could tell a story in detail but was finished writing one after two messy, misspelled sentences.


His kindergarten dreams turned to third-grade nightmares and junior high humiliation when his classroom experience was filled with unexpected failures.


A well-meaning teacher tried to be helpful: “It’s almost like there’s a block between his brain and his eyes when he tries to read, and his hands when he tries to write.”


Turns out the teacher knew something was wrong, but didn’t know enough to identify my son’s dyslexia. For far too long, no one did.


Not until I was forced to become a fierce advocate — what so many are referred to as a “Dyslexia Warrior Mom.”


It was a steep learning curve back then; sadly, it is still very difficult to understand that the schools are unprepared and unwilling to address this very common learning difference, treating each struggling dyslexic as a total mystery.  


Fourteen years ago, I wrote a cover story for the Independent, detailing my family’s difficult journey just to secure my son’s right to read.


My son was finally taught properly in seventh grade, when the SB school district agreed to pay for private instruction. I received the news with conflicted feelings: relief for my son, mixed with outrage that it had taken years of focused advocacy and the knowledge that his equally deserving classmates did not have access to the same remediation.


It set me on an obstacle-filled path I never imagined I’d still be plodding along all these years later. Determined to make a difference, I appealed to district officials to let me share my expertise in the high hopes and great expectation it would lead to lasting and beneficial institutional change for our dyslexic population.


A Parent Resource Center. Back then, a new superintendent supported the idea of helping the one-in-five kids affected by dyslexia.


He gave the green light for the creation of a Parent Resource Center at the district office. A generous philanthropist funded my work in hopes that it would help other dyslexics avoid the painful, never-forgotten experiences in school.


We developed a full slate of activities and outreach to the community: Monthly Dyslexia Dialogues at the district office and the Central Library; an annual Distinguished Dyslexic Speaker Series. I even became the “Dyslexia Lady” in local classrooms, explaining dyslexia in positive presentations tailored for young students.


The lessons taught included: 1) Dyslexics are smart, they just learn differently; 2) It’s important to be helpful and be a good friend, not to make fun of a classmate who struggles to read; 3) Lots of famous and high achieving people were/are dyslexic, like Kobe Bryant, Tom Cruise, George Washington and Steve Jobs. Pretty good company to be in.

 

We also managed to arrange professional development for educators in the hopes of organically building in-house capacity for teaching dyslexic students that would continue long into the future.


Back then, school board trustees were tremendously supportive of the dyslexia effort that addressed issues early and reduced lawsuits. They were always willing to schedule a conversation over coffee to figure out ways to become ever-more effective.


Hard-won progress ceased with the visionary superintendent’s retirement. His replacement declared he didn’t know much about dyslexia but said with a shrug, “I think dyslexics get the short end of the stick.” 


A new school board member followed his lead, musing, “I don’t know why parents of dyslexic kids get so upset.”


That administration’s focus on dyslexia diminished greatly, no longer a priority for the district—an attitude that continues in the current administration.


Last year my advocacy for a long-overlooked dyslexic student was met with hostility from the campus to the district office. The first week of this new school year, I wrote an email to the school board trustees and asked them to once again make dyslexia a priority.


To date, I have not received a single reply. Not even a bounce-back message.


Playing politics. The state of California hasn’t been much help, either, playing politics with dyslexia for decades, and trailing other states that require adherence to best practices.


In the early 1990s, a state-sponsored dyslexia handbook, with the insulting title, “I Can Learn,” was briefly distributed, then abandoned and handed off to a private publisher that revised, retitled and added it to their list of back titles.


In 2015, hotly contested legislation passed, with a mandate to develop a new California state dyslexia handbook. But the important provisions for dyslexia screening and teacher training were eliminated when they were opposed by the California Teachers Association.


The union also succeeded in reducing the handbook’s approach from mandatory to “guidelines.” Although it was made available in 2017, few educators even know of its existence, much less use it to inform their instruction.


But there may be hope on the horizon.


Dyslexic governor Gavin Newsom launched and funded the California Dyslexia Initiative in 2021, with the Sacramento County Office of Education as the lead agency


One of its projects was to work with researchers at the University of California San Francisco’s Dyslexia Center to develop a dyslexia screening tool for use in public schools free of charge.


That long-awaited tool, known as "Multitudes," is now in its 2.0 version, and being piloted in select schools. Another layer of bureaucracy was added last year to debate which screener will eventually be selected for statewide use, expected for implementation in the 2025-2026 school year.


And the innovative dyslexic entrepreneur Richard Branson, who founded the international charity, Made By Dyslexia, has just released an intriguing video where he announced the creation of "The University of Dyslexic Thinking" — where non-dyslexics can study the characteristics of dyslexia. It is described as “a new school of thought where you can learn the intelligence the world needs now.”


When dyslexic screening is finally available and implemented, students who exhibit signs of dyslexia will need skilled and experienced teachers who can teach them in the way they learn best.


That ought to raise some questions that need to be answered right now about how local districts plan to implement best practices for young dyslexic students.


Also unaddressed is what to do for the unidentified older students who continue to struggle to read. The dyslexia-supportive administrator who declared, “We have a moral imperative to teach these students to read before graduation” is long-gone.


Getting Real. Thanks to more than a century of research on the subject, there is no lack of knowledge about dyslexia, nor is there a lack of knowledge about how to teach dyslexic students.


Local concerns about dyslexia are nothing new. Back in 1990, forward-looking Superintendent Blas Garza convened a Dyslexia Task Force that came up with an impressive plan of action recommended for the school district. It was never implemented.


The report cautioned that failure to provide appropriate interventions or expertise about dyslexia would, “Contribute to the growing number of dysfunctional adults.” Among its eleven recommendations were: outreach to parents, collaboration among all educators, and training for all school administrators in state and federal laws to evaluate dyslexia policies and procedures.


If only that had been implemented all those years ago, Santa Barbara now would be a leader in addressing dyslexia; the suffering of generations of local students and the denial of their right to read would have been averted.


Instead, they would likely have been able to achieve their childhood dreams of what they wanted to be when they grew up. Nothing takes a person off the path of achieving their full potential than the inability to read.

 

Can we, finally, learn from example? Several years ago, I was contacted by a family that lived in the Fairfax County Public Schools district near Washington, D.C.


It’s a huge school district with 60 percent minority enrollment, with 24 percent English Language Learners and 24 percent economically disadvantaged.


That family planned to relocate to Santa Barbara and expected that their dyslexic son’s classroom experience here would match the supportive environment and skilled instruction that he received in his current public school. 


After much consultation, conversation, and multiple classroom visits, the parents realized that for the sake of their son, in third grade at the time, they could not make their home in Santa Barbara.


They knew they made the correct decision when the then-superintendent advised them that their dyslexic son could not be accommodated in local schools.



They know what they’re doing for their dyslexic students.


I can’t even find the word dyslexia on the SBUSD website anymore.


The comparison reveals stark differences—and an opportunity to emulate a good example to guarantee all our children have the right to read. Even the long-ignored dyslexic ones.


Cheri Rae is the director of The Dyslexia Project and the author of DyslexiaLand: A Field Guide for Parents of Children with Dyslexia. You can reach her at TheDyslexiaProject@gmail.com


Lead image: Dyslexia Resource Center.

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