In last decade I’ve seen a growth each year in the number of 17/18 yr old students given dyslexia statements, often after shoddy treatment and total denial at schools. In one case a young man was hounded out of his fee-paying 6th form so he didn’t damage their statistics, but found help in the FE sector. Sometimes the extra exam/coursework time entitlement helped to boost grades. But these success stories were exceptional, and usually only when learning support was given by a subject specialist. Colleges won’t fund tutors to support their own students, and the dyslexia help is usually done by generalists – well-meaning and capable but with little subject knowledge.

It is infuriating when many students just don’t turn up for their expensive support sessions, which are statutory under DSA regulations. Having sought the label they spurn the help on offer, perhaps through pride, or maybe because its just ineffectual. Springer’s point is sound – these wasted resources could be better spent on literacy in a wider sense.

A depressing number seem to view their dyslexia as merely a passport to assessment concessions and glamorous equipment, without any genuine commitment to improving their reading / writing. I have seen dyslexic students given £4000 of Mac kit & multimedia software, only to swiftly drop out of courses. One can’t help but see the whole thing as a box-ticking exercise by an equally cynical industry.

So, both of these people were diagnosed with dyslexia, and gained all the “benefits” that come with it, extra exam time etc. However, one of them doesn’t even believe himself to be dyslexic and the issues he has are qualitatively different to those of the other one.

Does dyslexia exist? Yes.
Does everyone diagnosed with dyslexia have it? No.

It is my belief that before someone with dyslexia is medically stamped with that label, they are given extra help reading and writing to see if there’s any improvement with a retest. For many people with dyslexia such help would make little or no difference to their reading age in comparison to their IQ. For those who are just a little behind such help will help them to catch up with their peers. Much better than being stuck with the label of an incurable condition, what’s the going to do to people’s self esteem?

People are always going to achieve differently in reading and some people will advance more quickly than others. Saying an 11 year old child should be at a certain level is rubbish. Education needs to be less about funding issues/targets and more about the children.

Oh and a little aside: I work as a part time tutor in English and Maths and many of the kids I work with who have been labelled dyslexic by their parents (so they get extra attention from the tutors), though there is often no visible evidence of this dyslexia than a kid who reads a little slowly/has messy hand writing. I see no reason why these parents wouldn’t go out of their way to get struggling little Sammy tested and re-tested until they can get certain help that goes with a SEN.
This is not to say that all parents do it, nor that there is anyway of stopping it.

AR, of course reading difficulties exist and there is a huge spectrum of problems that young children have. However, labellling some children ‘dyslexic’ while other are simply labelled as ‘thick’ or ‘poor readers’ is unhelpful and has no scientific basis. Being taught by the same teacher doesn’t escape the fact that reading problems are partly neurological in origin, meaning that good teaching alone cannot overcome them in many cases. This is why the extra layers of support must be available to ALL poor readers, not just those who supposedly have a distinct condition called dyslexia. And since you asked, I have a postgraduate degree in Developmental Psychology as well as having spent months researching reading intervention programmes and also having read some of Professor Elliott’s research into this area.

You speak of no evidence of dyslexia but medical research has shown abnormal neurophysiological responses to various auditory stimuli as well as brain imaging studies showing anatomical, metabolic and activation differences in the cerebellum of dyslexics.

If you choose to ignore all (I cant get over your response to Dave which just seemed to ignore all the facts) then please be kind enough to explain why I struggle with reading and writing.

Since I was very young I have been a very keen reader. I have had drilled into me the rules of our mother tongue since before i even went to school and i was taught something very similar to synthetic phonics as one of a number of techniques to improve my reading while still at school. (Its really not such a new concept – its just been rediscovered)

I left school with 12 A* at GCSE (including English language) and went on to get 5 As at A level and a first class honours degree at an old red brick university. (Admittedly I dropped English after GCSE)

Despite this and despite the fact I’m an avid reader – (I read a new novel on average every two to three days) I still struggle reading. I find it impossible to read out loud – letters jump all over the place.

When doctors (these are people in the medical profession) recommended I be diagnosed for dyslexia I was sceptical. I went only after much persuasion. I must admit I was very naive about the condition. But after I explained the problems I had encountered all my life the person testing my condition showed me a list of symptoms which exactly mirrored my problems. Please explain this – are all illiterate people therefore exactly the same or could similar symptoms suggest a condition they each have in common?

Part of the test looked at my IQ – (much higher than average thank you) and my reading age – (much lower than it should be).
Surely for the amount I read and the effort put in to teach myself better reading techniques as a child would put my reading age above my own – (or at least on par) – unless something else was counteracting that?

If you claim I’ve just got a reading difficulty then surely you’re admitting such a condition exists and if so why is dyslexia (a reading condition) a myth?

If you claim I was not taught properly at school – even though most of my lunchtimes were taken up by teachers trying to teach me other ways to read because I was painfully slow – please explain why the rest of my class didn’t suffer a similar problem? – Surly this alone makes Graham Stringers attack on teaching methods erroneous!

I look forward to hearing your response as well as a clue as to your experience in this field.

In my mind there appears to be a middle ground – that dyslexia might actualy exist…in a very small group of children.

However, due to the lack of a good definition (or possibly a lack of definitions – multiple forms, each with a specific trait) causes not only those with a genuine condition but also those who are badly taught, are lazy or simply less able.

This could cause a cluster of conditions with similar gross symptoms to appear to be more common then they are and almost impossible to diagnose due to the difficulty in seperating them out into groups.

Or – a description of the current problem?

Unless I’m missing something?

The underlying problem with all poor readers (including those with dyslexia) is neurological and appears to be partly genetic but also partly environmental, meaning that with the right support – best delivered when a child is still young – it is more than likely that reading difficulties can be overcome in all but the most extreme cases. Intelligence and IQ has nothing to do with it as poor readers with high or low IQs make exactly the same mistakes when learning to read – that’s what people like Professor Elliott have been trying to tell everyone!