What I Learned As a Parent of Children with Dyslexia

The biggest thing I learned as a parent of children with dyslexia is that you are often your child’s only consistent advocate—and that explicit, structured phonics instruction is what actually teaches them to read. I am a former elementary teacher and the mother of four. Two of my children have dyslexia, and getting them the help they needed took three school districts, an outside specialist, and years of refusing to give up. Here is what that journey taught me.

How did I first realize my child had dyslexia?

I was an elementary school teacher for six years before staying home to raise my own children. When my oldest started kindergarten, I noticed she was struggling to learn to read, and I brought my worries to her teacher. The teacher saw the same difficulties but couldn’t understand why such a bright girl was having so much trouble. So I gathered my teaching resources and worked with her all summer on sight words and fluency—and still saw almost no progress.

That is when I started researching. I read everything I could find about children who struggle with reading, and that is when I began learning about dyslexia. I was not completely unaware of it, but none of my teacher-education courses had taught me to recognize it, let alone teach a child who has it—that was always left to the special education teacher or reading specialist. What I did know, I had learned from my mother, because my brother has dyslexia. When I called to describe my daughter’s struggles, my mom recognized every sign.

My daughter showed all of them: delayed speech, mixing up sounds and syllables in words, stuttering, trouble memorizing the alphabet, an inability to make rhyming words, and a close relative with dyslexia. Dyslexia is a brain-based difference that makes it hard to connect letters to the sounds they represent, despite normal or above-average intelligence. Even before any formal testing, I was fairly sure I was the parent of a child with dyslexia.

Why did the schools make it so hard to get help?

This was the part I never expected. I had taught in public schools. I assumed that once I raised a concern, the “team” would help me advocate for my daughter. Instead, getting anyone to test her became a years-long fight across multiple districts.

At our first school, the district psychologist insisted that because my daughter was not two grade levels below in reading—and was above many peers in language—there was no need to test. I remember thinking: how can any child be two grade levels behind in first grade, and why would we ever wait until a child is that far behind to act? About half the students at that school came from non-English-speaking homes, so comparing my daughter to that group was an unfair measure of her language. At one point the psychologist looked at me and said, “Dyslexia is not a real thing.”

When we moved for my husband’s job, I hoped a fresh start would help. Instead the new school kept delaying—first to let her adjust, then because it was late in the year, then because it was a new grade. I also learned they would not test for dyslexia specifically, only for a “specific learning disability.” I eventually went outside the school for a private evaluation, drove an hour through traffic for it, and even then the specialist diagnosed a learning disability but would not use the word dyslexic. For a long time, dyslexia felt like a forbidden word.

How do you advocate when a school says no?

After my first request was denied by letter, most parents would have given up—and I understand why. But I had started studying with a dyslexia training program to learn how to tutor my own daughter, so I knew her rights. My next email was not as gentle. I reminded the psychologist that the team had not been unanimous: three members wanted testing, two were unsure, and only two were opposed. Then I cited the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which requires districts to find and evaluate children with potential disabilities. I copied the entire team and the psychologist’s boss, the District Special Services Director.

After that email made the rounds, my daughter was granted testing almost immediately. The lessons I took from that fight are ones I would give any parent in the same spot:

• Put requests in writing. Email creates a dated paper trail the school cannot ignore.
• Document the signs. I brought written notes on every concern and every intervention I had already tried, with copies for each team member.
• Know your rights. Federal law requires districts to evaluate children suspected of having a disability. You can name that obligation.
• Go up the chain. Including a supervisor changed the response overnight.
• Use an outside diagnosis. A private medical evaluation can qualify your child for school services even when the school resists testing.

For more on this, I share what helped me in understanding your rights as a parent of a dyslexic child and in tips for when the school refuses help.

Does dyslexia really run in families?

Yes—and I learned this the personal way. My brother has dyslexia, and once I started looking, I found it on my husband’s side too. Many of my nieces and nephews have it. With dyslexia in both families, I knew the odds were high that more than one of my four children would be affected, so I watched all of them closely.

My youngest, my only son, was born just before my oldest started kindergarten. By the time he reached school age, I was hyper-aware of the warning signs. When he struggled to learn his letters, had trouble rhyming, and wasn’t starting to read with his peers, I didn’t wait. I knew exactly what I was looking at, and I knew to get the school involved early instead of spending a summer hoping it would resolve on its own.

Because dyslexia is hereditary, a family history is one of the strongest early signals to watch for. If one child has been diagnosed, it is worth paying close attention to younger siblings—and to your own and your partner’s reading histories.

What finally helped my children learn to read?

For both of my children, the answer was the same: explicit, systematic, multisensory phonics instruction—the kind of structured literacy approach built on the Orton-Gillingham method. Orton-Gillingham is a structured, step-by-step way of teaching reading that directly teaches how letters map to sounds, in a deliberate sequence, using sight, sound, and touch together.

With my daughter, I had already begun tutoring her at home using what I was learning in my coursework, and her reading started to grow before the school ever offered help. Once an outside diagnosis qualified her for a phonics-based program at school, the combination of that instruction and my home tutoring finally clicked. She is now an honor-roll tenth grader, an avid reader, and a writer who loves creating stories. She still dislikes spelling and leans on spell-check, and that is a perfectly fair accommodation.

My son’s path was choppier because the pandemic interrupted everything. I pulled him out for a year and taught him at home with the Orton-Gillingham method until schools reopened. When we settled in Texas, testing finally identified his dyslexia—and showed he also scored high enough to qualify for the gifted program. This combination is called twice exceptional, and it is common among children with dyslexia. His school started him on a research-based phonics program, and in a single year he gained several grade levels of reading growth.

The throughline is clear: the science of reading works, but a child has to actually receive it. If you want a structured place to start at home, our Dyslexia Intervention Curriculum walks parents through Orton-Gillingham step by step, and the matching workbook on Amazon gives your child the practice pages to go with it. If you are just beginning, using Orton-Gillingham at home without formal training is more doable than most parents expect.

What I know now, after years of fighting for my own kids, is that dyslexic children are not broken—their brains simply work differently, and they are often remarkably gifted. Not every school knows how to help them, and some still deny dyslexia exists. That is exactly why parents have to learn the signs, learn their rights, and keep pushing. With the right instruction, our children don’t just cope—they thrive.