Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

Often, the daily, frustrating, distressing slog of trying to read causes children with reading disabilities to quit. After months, even years, of struggle and failure, many of them see no reason to keep trying-reading is just too difficult. From their perspective, quitting is rational: Why struggle, why be embarrassed when success is impossible? As you might expect, these feelings frequently drench many if not all areas of their lives.

If this is true of your child, what can you and your child’s teacher do to strengthen his motivation to read? What can the two of you do to strengthen his persistence for learning to read, to strengthen his resilience in the face of ongoing adversity?

Part of the answer is ensuring that he (a) is taught at his instructional levels; (b) is given homework and seat work at his independent levels; (c) reads or listens to interesting, easy-to-slightly challenging materials for 40 minutes or more daily; (d) gets a substantial amount of extra reading instruction daily from knowledgeable and skilled reading specialists; and (e) has a carefully coordinated, systematic program of explicit instruction that’s continuously and carefully monitored and adjusted to ensure success. But even these program components may be inadequate. He may also need you and his teacher to knowledgeably and systematically help him overcome the stresses and strains and weak resiliency that often accompany reading disabilities.

To strengthen your child’s resiliency-which includes helping him deal with the stresses and strains of reading difficulties-you and his teacher need to know what to do and what to say. A wonderful book that can help is Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein’s Raising Resilient Children (McGraw-Hill, 2001, $14.95). By following its guidelines and working together, you and your child’s teacher may well help him develop the emotional resiliency needed to overcome reading disabilities.

Below are three of the authors’ ten guidelines. Following each guideline is a quotation that’s particularly relevant to children with reading disabilities.

1) Be empathic. “If we fail to be empathic … our words and actions are likely to trigger negative reactions that minimize a willingness to listen, respond, and cooperate…. To be heard and understood one must first listen and seek understanding…. We can be empathic and yet disapprove of what our children do…. Empathy … has nothing to do with giving in to children, spoiling them, or refraining from setting appropriate limits. In fact, children will learn better from us and accept our limits when we practice empathy and try to understand their point of view.”

2) Change negative scripts. “A parent [or teacher] with a resilient mindset recognizes that if something we have said or done for a reasonable time does not work, then we must change our ‘script’ if our children are to change theirs. We must have the insight and courage to think about what we can do differently, lest we become embroiled in useless power struggles.”

3) Help children recognize that mistakes are experiences from which to learn. “If parents are to raise resilient children, they must help them develop a healthy outlook about mistakes…. If parents are to reinforce a resilient mindset in their children, their words and actions must communicate a belief that we can learn from mistakes. The fear of making mistakes is one of the most potent obstacles to learning, one that is incompatible with a resilient mindset…. It is when our children make mistakes and experience setbacks that our ability to be empathic is really tested, but these are also the times that provide an opportunity to educate our children about the positive results that can follow from mistakes…. [After his daughter fell off his bike], one father told his daughter, ‘But don’t worry, I’m here to catch you and help you get on again, and after a short time you’ll be able to ride on your own.’ A simple but powerful message such as this teaches children that they can all expect to fall at different times, but we are there to help them get up.”

Raising Resilient Children is a wonderful book that offers parents and teachers deep insights, powerful guidelines, and enlightening dialogues that can help struggling readers overcome the pessimism and distress that reading difficulties so often cause. Its perspective and recommendations for strengthening resilience are invaluable. My advice-read it, study it, use it, live it.

My full review of this posting was published in Strategies for Successful Learning (April 2008). You can see it at Learning Disabilities Worldwide’s informative website: www.ldworldwide.org.

HM © Reading2008&Beyond