The Beacon Kansas City: A parent’s guide to getting support for a child with dyslexia
By Maria Benevento
There’s a kid with dyslexia — maybe more than one — in the average classroom. But the disability, which makes it harder to learn to read and write, is often misunderstood.
Louise Spear-Swerling, vice president of the board with the Center for Effective Reading Instruction, estimates that 5-10% of people have dyslexia. Another commonly cited number is 20%. In either case, practically every teacher encounters a student with it every single year.
Yet Spear-Swerling — also a professor emerita in Southern Connecticut State University’s special education department — said there’s still a myth that dyslexia involves seeing letters backwards. It’s actually a language-based disorder that can’t be fixed with vision training.
Parents can also be uncertain about when and how to push for more support.
But there’s growing awareness that dyslexia is widespread and that there are proven ways to help children who have it.
“I’ve been doing these evaluations for over 20 years, and I will say this is the best time to be dyslexic, because things are changing,” said Chris Scranton, a speech-language pathologist at Children’s Mercy Kansas City. “Maybe not as fast as we would have hoped.”
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