Do all children w/ Dyslexia hate reading?

[HeyThereDelilah]

Or are there some children with dyslexia who can read fairly well and don't hate it?

[TamieJP]

I think we would find a RARE child that has difficulty reading BUT LOVE IT ANYWAY (or at least try to love it).

[Jean]

Two of our four struggled and struggled with learning to read and, in spite of all their hard work, couldn't "get it" until age 8 and 9. They did a lot of listening to audio books for a very long time--certainly before learning to read but also afterwards. Neither ever had the opportunity to be tested for dyslexia though they did exhibit many of the characteristics. They did, however, each have the opportunity to work with one of a couple of gifted teachers. And I worked with each of them using many different learning approaches. Eventually they both became avid readers!

I remember telling my youngest as she struggled and struggled to remember letters and their sounds, "One thing we do in this family is turn out good readers. It may take you more work but you will become a good reader!" It did and she did.

Those two dds also were very, er, creative spellers. Interestingly, as the years went by, the more they read, the better their spelling became. Also, the more they read, the better they got at it and the more they enjoyed reading.

Another factor in their eventual success in reading may have been that I severely curtailed all my children's television exposure while they were toddlers/preschoolers (none at all as infants) and set very strict time and content limits on how much and what they were allowed to watch even as older children/teens.

[vicki]

One of ours didn't read much until his teens. Prior to that, I bought Steck-Vaughn "classics" which were very thin large paperback versions of classics. Those interested him enough so that when he was much older he wanted to read the 'real' versions of the books. He reads all the time now.

[Kel]

I've wondered that, too, because Faith still writes some of her letters and lots of her numbers backwards quite often. She's ten, has been reading since she was four, and is a voracious reader of books on any reading level. So, why does she make her numbers backwards so often? She even writes from right to left on occasion. Her test scores, when tested by the state, put her reading comprehension ability at post high school level. I'm very puzzled! We've been doing Handwriting Without Tears, which promises to help with letter/number reversals.

[teachermom]

Dysgraphia, not dyslexia, Kel?

[TamieJP]

If I remember correctly, all of my children wrote backwards much longer than PS kids. I thought that maybe they simply did not write as much material as PSers. They have all turned letters and numbers correctly. I think there's a chance that NTL might still write a backwards letter or number but it's been years since I've seen any of his writing.

[Jean]

Kel, is Faith ambidextrous by any chance?

[Cindy]

Two of our dd's have dyslexia. Now as adults one is a avid reader and the other one reads some. It has to be something she is really interested in. The one who now reads some really had a hard time with any reading for school. Her older sister or I had to read a lot of her lessons to her, or at least the questions at end of the reading. By time she was in high school it was a little better, but she would get really stressed with too much reading by herself. She has taken computer classes for her work requirements, and has done really well on them. She knows she has the dyslexia, and now if she has to write something important she has a few friends that she can have proof things for her. For the most part though she can do fine on her own.

The one dd who now is an avid reader is ambidextrous. The one who still struggles some, is not, but did not know which hand to write with until she was 9 or 10.

[Cherie]

One of my boys is dysgraphic (writes backwards, upside down, etc). He is 22 now and every letter or number he writes is a struggle. He is NOT dyslexic. He is a good reader and likes to read.