What is dyslexia?

I think there’s several things that I would look for in terms of a definition, say, of dyslexia, and the key things I would be looking for in such a definition would be something that says something about reading and writing difficulties. And the phrase that I quite like in some definitions is the idea of accurate or … difficulties, problems with accurate and/or fluent reading and writing. And these skills of reading and writing develop incompletely or with great difficulty. And I think those terms ‘develop incompletely or with great difficulty’ are quite good, because it suggests it’s not impossible. And I think one of the things that sometimes people think about as dyslexia is that it’s a disability which means you can’t read or write. Dyslexia is something that leads to difficulties with reading and writing and therefore may not develop completely. There may be certain aspects of reading, writing with a problem. And the ‘great difficulty’ idea in there as well is that it’s going to take longer, it’s going to be harder for a dyslexic than maybe the kid in the seat next to them in school, in the classroom. So I think that’s quite a nice phrase to encapsulate that key element. And that ‘great  difficulty’ means that an individual with dyslexia is probably going to take a little bit longer, as I say, but the difficulties will be more persistent maybe than with some other kids. So persistence in the difficulties is the other element I’d look for in a definition. And the third key thing that I’d look for is that a definition will talk about language processes, particularly language processes related to say phonological deficits. So I think those areas of language and phonology, I think are the key thing. So I think those phonological elements are the other things I’d look for in terms of a definition. And phonology refers to processing sounds within words. So dyslexia is a problem with reading and writing. It occurs potentially for a long period of time. And the most likely reason for those problems are difficulties in part of the processing of sounds within words. Now that doesn’t mean to say that it’s sort of a hearing impairment. It doesn’t mean to say that it’s necessarily a problem with language as well. Many individuals with dyslexia have very good language skills. And hearing may be perfectly fine. It’s something to do with the way the brain is processing those sounds differently from other individuals. It’s just because of the way that the dyslexic brain processes these sounds within words then leads to problems with literacy. And as I say, therefore, it doesn’t mean to say there’s something wrong with the brain. There isn’t. It’s just it’s doing it differently. And because it’s doing it differently, there’s then problems with making links between letters and sounds. And one of the key skills in terms of reading and spelling particularly is making those links between letters and sounds. And if that sound system is not working exactly right, those links may not be entirely efficient, may not be working that well. And therefore, reading and writing develops incompletely or with great difficulty. Outside of those problems with literacy, an individual with dyslexia should be as good as any other kid in a particular task or any other adult in a particular task. 

What will teachers notice in dyslexic students?

So early years you’re looking for that problem with reading and spelling that seems to be because the child isn’t making those links between letters and sounds, between the d letter and the ‘duh’ sound. They’re just not getting that right somehow. If you can identify that quickly, then we can work reasonably well and overcome many of those problems before they come a major problem.

How does dyslexia impact students’ learning?

Reading is a fundamental skill in education, so if you struggle in those first years and we don’t identify and we can’t support, then two or three years later, you’re going to be struggling reading any textbook that the teacher gives you. So it starts off with a problem reading individual words, becomes a problem with reading text, becomes a problem with reading textbooks, that then leads to a problem with reading any textbook. So any part of the curriculum that’s requiring you to read something, you’re going to struggle with because you’re struggling with reading. And that can lead to a nasty element of self-doubt, feelings of failure, disengagement with learning, possibly even behavioural problems if it’s really bad. And so that initial starting point can then lead to other things. And that’s what, as you get older, that’s what you’re probably looking for. You’re probably looking for a child who the early teachers said was struggling with those initial starting points of learning to read. Now when they’re in their, you know, fourth, fifth, sixth year in primary school, they’re struggling reading the textbook, that they’re slow with reading text, they may stumble over new words that they haven’t seen before.

How can primary school teachers support dyslexic students?

In many respects the easiest way of dealing with dyslexia is to identify it in the first year of school. If we can do that we’ve got a lot of things that we can do to overcome most of the problems apart from maybe in the very, very severe cases, and if we get all of that right, that early identification and early intervention right, the data suggests that we can reduce the incidence of problems down to one or two percent from five percent. So if we can get it right really early on, that’s what works well. And the reason for that is that the difficulties, again, assuming that it’s that phonological area that’s different in the dyslexic brain and then it’s making problems or causing problems making the links between letters and sounds, and working out that alphabetic principle as to how you can decode words, it’s usually referred to, which then means that you’re struggling with new words because you haven’t got the decoding strategy to deal with new words. If all of that is happening in that first year and we can overcome that by some more intensive teaching of specific teaching of the clear links between things and what you do, the rules that you use to overcome some of those difficulties, maybe some phonological training a little bit, but particularly making those links between letters and sounds as efficient as possible as we can with an individual with dyslexia, then that works brilliantly. The tiered idea of response to intervention helps us with that identification process. So tier one is everyone gets the best teaching they can, then tier two, we put them into small groups if they’re struggling with tier one, and then tier three, it’s individual intervention. And that’s what the dyslexics, probably the most severe ones, the ones that I would call individuals with dyslexia, then they’re the ones that need that individual tier three sort of intervention, but some of them, you know, there’s certainly the milder problems will probably offset by tier two. If we had very good assessment tools that were very accurate, we could probably identify them and put them straight into tier three. But I don’t think we do.

Not all reading difficulties are dyslexia

Every word to a five-year old just starting to learn to read is a new word. How do you deal with new words? A good strategy is decode letters into sounds. And if you’re struggling with that, you’re going to struggle with everything. Now, some kids can do that. And then a few years later, we’re expecting them to comprehend complex text. And when they start being required to comprehend complex text, they’re struggling with understanding. So they’re okay with the word decoding. There’s no phonology difficulties we can see at all. But they’re struggling comprehending written text. What usually we find as well is that they may have difficulties with language as well. So they may have difficulties with understanding the subtleties in language. So it might be a bit low on vocabulary  levels. They might be a bit low on verbal reasoning skills, you know, saying how two words are alike or different. And I wouldn’t call those kids dyslexic, even though they definitely have reading difficulties. What they need is strategies probably a little bit later, although if we could identify them early, we’d do it earlier, but probably we can’t. A little bit later, that’s going to support vocabulary development, going to support an understanding of how words go together. So not only vocabulary size, the number of words they know, but what’s usually called vocabulary breadth, where they understand how words go together. So multiple meanings of words, how a word can change its meaning in a particular  context, how words can have a sort of – words can be function words, words can have a particular association with place or with, you know, metaphors or certain semantic elements associated. So all of the complexities of what meaning means, I think these kids are struggling with. And if we can support them along those lines, and there are some very good strategies for supporting oral language development, vocabulary development, if we can support those kids with that, then that should be the benefit, the improvements that they get.

What else do teachers need to understand about dyslexia?

Just because you’re dyslexic, it doesn’t mean to say that you’re going to struggle with everything. If we can support you well, then these other areas shouldn’t be a problem. So dyslexic kids can be the best artist in the school, can be the best rugby player in the school, can be the best chess player in the school. You know, it could be anything. All of those skills are still there. The potential is still there. The problem is that if we rely on reading and writing as our primary ways of assessing their performance in school, then those kids are going to underachieve, unless we support them appropriately with that. And the other problem is that when a child does go through a lifetime of failure, that becomes almost the  norm. I’ve had very good students coming into university saying ‘I can’t do that because I’m dyslexic’. And then when you get them to do it, they produce some of the best work in the class.

Growing up with undiagnosed dyslexia

Ko Rangikahiwi toku ingoa. Ko Putauaki te maunga. Ko Te Moana a Toi te moana. Ko Rangitaiki te awa.  Ko Ngāti Awa te iwi. Ko Ooraeroa te marae. Ko Ngāi Tamawera te hapū. So my home place, where I call home, is in a small town just outside of Whakatane, Rotorua, Te Teko. Grew up with my grandparents, went there a lot in the holidays. Grew up on my marae, grew up on my marae and enjoyed stories that were passed down and the history. Born and bred in Rotorua, found education very hard. I was a sickly child growing up, lived half the year in hospital, every year since I was about 12, 13. So in that, missed out on a lot of education. Didn’t feel very confident at school, moved from one school where I found that it had a lot of good support for me, moved to another school where I didn’t find as much education support but a lot of love and aroha from the teachers. When I went to high school, my youngest sister had just started primary school. She was fluent in te reo Maori. My parents had put her and my other sisters through the Māori medium, but I was still in the mainstream medium. And she had to self-teach herself how to speak in English and how to read in English. We spoke in English at home, but read in English. And her reading level was higher than mine when I went to high school. So at the age of 13, 14, I already knew, you know, that my reading level wasn’t as great as my five-year-old sister. Didn’t know why, I just thought, well, that’s just life, you know, that’s my part. But I could always talk my way out of things. I could always have great ideas. I didn’t like reading books, but I watched documentaries, built my knowledge through the news. So I always had base knowledge to go to school with, and used those type of skills to get around the things with questions and stuff like that. I remember one teacher saying to me, you do really well in the classroom, why don’t you do well in exams? And I thought to myself, yeah, I can do this in the classroom, but why can’t I do this on paper and pen? Became a chef, did that for a couple of years, got my education, that was pretty hard but being with a lot of other similar demographic learners as myself, Māori in Rotorua, we all struggled in doing the paperwork but really good at cooking and stuff like that, so didn’t really see it as much. Went to UniTech up here in Auckland to do a photography course and design tech, and found that really hard, struggled with the paperwork but enjoyed the hands-on things. And then went into warehouse working and just thought, nah man, I’ve got a brain, I’m sure I could do something. I remember very clearly on the radio hearing this statement or this statistic that I always knew growing up that Māori boys [were] dropping out of school at the age of 13. And it’s still happening today and I thought to myself, well I think I could help with this. My mother was a teacher, she put herself for education. So I thought, well, I’ve got an auntie that is a doctor in linguistics and she’s at the Auckland … at ACE, University of Auckland for teachers. So I just started talking to her and she goes, ‘yeah boy, come along, do this course and you can learn your te reo Māori and then you can go into the teaching course, Pathway in te reo’. And I struggled the first year. I did well in the pre-course but when I got into the teaching course I struggled and failed a couple of papers, and I was going to get kicked out of the course for failing a couple of papers, and they said to me, why don’t you go and do … why don’t we get you tested in dyslexia and just see, you know, and so I drove to the city, parked up and was only in the room with the lady for about five minutes, and she had already signed me off. She just asked me, whitiwhiti kōrero, just asked me questions and talked to me about my background. She goes, ‘I don’t have to do a test. I know you’re dyslexic. I’ll get you the funding and we’ll get you through’. And so having that support actually got me through my degree, and I know if I didn’t have the support and the funding to get the extra support that I could get as myself, as a learner with Pathways, I probably wouldn’t have got through my degree for myself. And then after, every time I would come into the classroom, I would just tell my story to the students, because my spelling was shocking, especially in those first years. I’m pretty shocking still now, but I can get myself through because of repetition. One thing that, for myself, as a learner with dyslexia, I know that repetition helps me a lot. But in those first years, yeah, shocking writing on the board, slanting my words to the side, skipping words and then coming back and putting them back on. Students always having to correct me, but I found that a lot of students seeing me struggle out there or seeing my pathway or my journey, they actually had no excuses for themselves. I would use my story and I’d say, man, can you see how bad matua’s spelling is? And then they were like, yeah, yeah. And I said, well, hey, you could have a chance. You know, you could try this. And they’re like, oh, yeah. So they didn’t really have any outs of getting themselves out of work because of their own struggles with education. And that’s one big skill that I use is just my own journey and using a lot of my own experiences. The sad thing is when you have those type of things, some people start to think that they’re not smart, they’re not clever, they’re dumb, they’re stupid, blah, blah, blah. But I never… I don’t think like that. I just think that it’s a toolkit for myself to know my strengths and weaknesses and what I need to do. And in putting my story out there, coming to Stonefields School this year, there was a student in our hub that actually self-diagnosed herself and heard my story and said, wow, these are the things that I do. And she went home to her parents and said, I think I’m dyslexic.

What can teachers looks out for and notice?

Some of the key features that I always see for myself and that I’ve seen over my teacher’s journey with dyslexic learners is I always say to teachers, do they write a word, miss out a first word or one of the letters inside the word and then come back and fill it in afterwards? Or do they write a sentence and do they skip and leave a gap for where a word is missing? Or when they’re reading, do they skip over words? And if I hear those things straight away, then I’m like, well these are usually the first signs of dyslexia from my own experience. And I always ask them, does it take them a long time to write? Because that’s another key feature of dyslexia, that it actually takes them a long time. And then I say, but do they have lots of words? Do you find that they ask lots of questions? Do you find that they give a lot of their knowledge out in the group settings? And they say ‘yeah, yeah, I do.’ And I say, well how do you find them when they go back and work by themselves? Oh they distract others, oh they distracted themselves. Why do you think that they’re distracted or what’s these things …? And so then we start to find out that actually these are because the student might, usually it’s in writing, a lot of it is in writing, and the grammatic stuff is not there. And because the child’s had so many mishaps or failures in their own mind of writing, they try and avoid the writing, you know, or enjoy writing on the computer more than with pen and paper, because they can use Grammarly to fix up. One of the biggest hurdles for dyslexic learners to even start is because, oh, I just can’t spell the words. So you know, maybe getting a word card in front of them, their spell words, all these different things just to eliminate those first barriers to even starting. If you can have modelling books open up with a whole lot of words or parts of the story, or the starters there, that I find just helps them to take away a lot of the barriers to even start to pick up the pencil. You’ve got your spell card there, you’ve got your modelling book, because a lot of our students don’t want to look different from their peers. But if everybody has the modelling book on the table, then it’s not a shameful thing for them to be using it because everybody’s using it.