This past spring, I helped a friend’s son who was in second grade at the time and having problems. He should have been in third grade. I went to his classroom and worked with him one or two mornings a week and some days we would work out in the hall. I could tell he was having trouble processing info, so one day I asked to speak to someone in the office about him. I talked with a counselor and told her there was something wrong with his processing skills. They had given him tests before and had sent him to another place for further testing and found no reason why he was having trouble in the classroom. I knew they thought his problem was all behavioral. I explained to the counselor that I had worked for six years as a Resource Room teacher and knew something was wrong. They just hadn’t pinpointed it yet. I asked if they had tested him for dyslexia. They had not. (Why hadn’t they tested him for dyslexia before he was nine yrs old! I don’t understand that. When I used to teach first grade in another district, we were told to start watching for signs of Dyslexia at age six or seven.) Well, I talked to his mom, she requested dyslexia testing, they tested him, and the test showed that he was dyslexic. Now he goes to a dyslexia class every day. I just wish the school had figured this out a couple of years ago or at least one year sooner.

I have talked to someone else since then whose son is having problems in school also. Again, there have been no tests for dyslexia. From what the parent told me, it sounds like their son is dyslexic. They have requested dyslexia testing and I’m anxious to find out the results. I don’t understand why schools are waiting so long to test, and in these two cases it’s only after the parents’ request the testing that the testing is actually done.

If your child is having a lot of problems in school, it might not hurt to ask the question, “Have you tested for dyslexia?”