I don't know very many dyslexic people.  Three, actually.  One is a venture capitalist, one is a very successful management consultant who lives in Atherton and is known for being one of the best organizers around, and the third is a twinklingly brilliant CTO for a successful startup company in San Francisco.

Every single one of these people cheerfully admits that their spelling is terrible.

As the mother of an apparently bona fide dyslexic child (We'll see about that.  Mommy's involved in enough alternative movement therapies to choke a horse!), it's been amazing to me just how difficult it is for my son to spell.

Of course he started off in German school, so when he entered English school, in first grade, he had missed phonics.  The first week of school was a spelling test that listed, if I recall correctly, a bunch of words that used the "A" sound -- and each word spelled the same sound differently.  It was like a sick joke.  I felt VERY sorry for my son.

This summer, we were urged to NOT give our child big reading tutoring. Instead, our doctor urged us to exercise with our son.  So we did that, and we even took him to Germany, where you can bet they're not teaching American spelling!  At the beginning of this year (third grade), I was shocked: his spelling is much better!

This doesn't mean that it's correct, by any means.  But it does mean that he seems to be a little more capable of noticing differences and remembering things.  Gone are the days when he just put an "e" behind every single word "just in case."

In case you missed these from the Learning to Read page, here are two articles about what your child needs to have developed before learning to read and write. These were written by Dr. Susan Johnson from Northern California.


How does Spelling Work?
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Here is an interesting link talking about all of the things that a young reader needs to know before they can spell successfully.
Learning to Spell
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