The Dyslexia Trap
I am reminded of the monkey trap, where a monkey hunter drills a hole in a coconut, pushes food through the hole and tethers the coconut to a tree. A monkey will reach in, grab the food, and not let go, no matter what, and as a result, he becomes tethered to the tree and easy to capture. The monkey doesn’t seem capable of recognizing that holding on will lead to disaster. I first heard this description when talking about commitment. The monkey is singularly committed to getting the treat. He cannot see the big picture. He cannot see that it would be best to let go, escape the trap, and find food elsewhere. He’s not capable of avoiding the catastrophe.
A good thing for students with dyslexia, explicit instruction for learning to read, leads to something like a monkey trap when students are directed to use their slow and labored visual reading on activities which require fluent reading. The disaster does not come quickly like it does with the monkey. Instead, it comes slowly, in small increments of loss that is barely noticeable at the time. The loss comes from the distraction of sounding out words instead of comprehending the text. Beginning in the formative years, our students start missing out on important classroom learning. And before we know it, they have serious deficits in vocabulary, general knowledge, academic, behavioral, and emotional development. Continuing to hold on becomes the tether that keeps our students from developing their strengths and abilities. They miss out on cultivating their innate language, thinking, and comprehension skills – those skills that others are developing through fluent reading and writing.
Perhaps eventually, the monkey would squeeze the fruit till there’s nothing left in his hand but juice. Then, empty-handed, he could slide his hand out of the coconut and escape. However, the way the system works is that before he learns that he can never get what’s in that coconut, the monkey hunter will be there, and he’ll be captured and lose everything. I understand this commitment; I spent 18 years holding on to the dream that I would be able to learn to read like everyone else. My teachers and parents didn’t know what we know today about dyslexia, but finally, a reading specialist in college, who could see the big picture, told me the truth about what I was holding onto. The truth was that the dream couldn’t come true for me; I could never become a skilled reader. And I needed to let go of the dream, so I could be free of the trap. I understand the commitment, the hope, the holding on. Once I got free of the trap, I was able to save myself. I saw the big picture, the world opened up as full of opportunities, and I no longer felt disabled. This happened because I discovered a path that turned me into a rapid and effortless reader and writer. In days, I went from making F’s in classes that required reading to making A’s. I started a life reading by listening at 250 to 350+ words per minute with excellent comprehension and writing as fast as I could speak. However, classmates I’ve stayed in contact with over the years, who had the same problem, never got free. It saddens me, but I understand how they have stayed trapped all these years. They couldn’t hold out for 18 years like I did until someone discovered the truth for them.
Today’s students shouldn’t have to wait 18 years to learn the truth because now we have research that tells everyone the truth about the reading outlook for today’s first graders with dyslexia – research that says “… reading remains effortful, even for the brightest people with childhood histories of dyslexia” (Shaywitz). With this knowledge, we would expect that parents and teachers would recognize that slow and effortful reading is the best their student will get from visual reading, and they need something else to keep from missing out on learning. However, holding onto that dream continues to be a trap when students are not completing reading and writing tasks in the same length of time as their classmates because they expect to be able to do that with their slow and labored reading. Telling a student with dyslexia that someday they’ll become a skilled reader is like telling that monkey that they do not need to let go of the treat and can pull their fist through that tiny hole in the coconut.
Even when parents and teachers realize it’s time to let go of what’s in the coconut, it may be too late. I’ve seen this happen with students. This is illustrated by a middle school student whose parents and teachers finally realized that his slow and labored reading was holding him back from learning, and he needed to use audio textbooks. Goals and objectives were written, and training was scheduled. In what was to be the first of three training sessions, he demonstrated that he could read his grade-level textbook at a rapid rate of speed with excellent comprehension by listening, but he stopped and said, “How is this going to help me learn to read?” It was explained that this would be the way he could read as fast and well as everyone else and no longer miss out on learning. But, he had his grip on the dream, the belief that he could learn to read visually like everyone else. He was committed to that singular idea. He insisted that reading by listening was not for him. His Individual Education Plan (IEP) had to be rewritten to remove the assistive technology services because it was too late for him. His parents and teachers were able to let go of what was in the coconut, but he could not. There was something holding him that his parents in the IEP team had not anticipated. It was not enough for me and his parents to tell him that he was smart, he could read better with his ears than his eyes, and he would be doing grade-level work like everyone else. The holding on had trapped him in ways the adults had not anticipated. His parents and teachers had told him it was time to let go, so he could be free to learn, but something else had captured him, something insidious.
His parents could pivot and go against everything he had been told about how to solve his reading problem, but he could not. I don’t know what his thinking was, but based on my own experience, I imagined that he had nowhere else to go without giving up on the dream that had sustained him for years – the dream that offered only one solution. It’s likely that no one talked with him about other options, other solutions, never talked with him about the best outcomes he should expect for all his reading practice, and never told him about the research that says, “… no one has figured out how to overcome the lack of fluency. As a consequence, for dyslexic children and adults, instead of its being rapid and automatic, reading remains slow and effortful” (Shaywitz). Others could hear this truth and change, but he has spent years working toward his dream, counting his successes, making his plans based on realizing his dream, and the holding on had become part of who he was. He couldn’t just let go. That would be too scary.
All the monkey had to do was let go of the fruit, and he would have been free. But, evidently, if you are a monkey, you are not capable of doing that. And apparently, if you’re a student who’s been told for years to hold on to a dream, you may not be capable of letting go either. For me, It was hard to let go, and it took hearing the truth from a brave reading specialist in college, who took a stand and said we can’t keep going on like this, you’ll have to find another way. I could not go back to the reading clinic. The reading interventions had done all they could do. My slow and labored reading wasn’t going to get any better. The truth was that I would never be able to sound out and spell words like skilled readers do, rapidly and automatically. I was a drift, but the truth was what I needed. That truth was a gift. It let me see myself and the world clearly, and pivot. I was able to see what was most important. It wasn’t sounding out and spelling words; it was reading, writing, and learning.
References
(1)”Residua of the phonologic deficit persist, so that reading remains effortful, even for the brightest people with childhood histories of dyslexia.”
Source:
(Shaywitz, Sally E., M.D., The New England Journal of Medicine: DYSLEXIA, v 338, #5, pp 307-312 )
(2) “Educators have learned how to help children and young adults to read more accurately,… However, no one has figured out how to overcome the lack of fluency. As a consequence, for dyslexic children and adults, instead of its being rapid and automatic, reading remains slow and effortful.”
Source:
Dyslexia and the Americans With Disabilities Act: A Q&A with Dr. Sally Shaywitz
Putting Science before Mythology and Misunderstandings (11/8/2008)
For more information
Read: Solving the Reading and Writing Problems caused by Dyslexia
(Matvy, Mike, Closing The Gap Assistive Technology Resources for Children and Adults with Disabilities Solutions, February / March, 2023, Volume 41 – Number 6, , pp 21-26)
