Dyslexia and When Learning is Trauma: Social-Emotional Learning Environments

20 Aug 2020 · 2 min

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Lois Letchford, a literacy advocate, describes keeping her dyslexic son in traditional school in 1994 despite his need for one-to-one support as a major mistake. She now sees that choice as traumatic for him and regrets not pulling him out for homeschooling, urging other parents to prioritize individualized learning for children with learning challenges.

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Hello, I'm Lois Letchford, author of the book Reversed: A Memoir and literacy problem solver. What do I wish I had done as a parent when my son struggled with school? Today, I would give you an entirely different answer to what I gave in 1994. In 1994, I said to him, you've got to go to school. The situation I was in was that my eldest son Was 9. He was in the 3rd grade. Nicholas was 5 and a half. He went into 1st grade. And I had a young 3-year-old coming up. The 3-year-old was not sleeping through the night. He yet wasn't yet in kindergarten, so he's home with me full-time. And I wondered, how could I teach Nicholas at home in that time span with the youngest one at home, knowing Nicholas needed One-to-one individual attention, and I thought, this will not be possible. I won't be able to work with him. I think that is one of the biggest mistakes I have made of my life because the learning that happened in school that year was so traumatic. Anything I had done Taken him out of school and let him play at home and tried to work when the younger boy was sleeping. Do anything but let my son fail in school should have been my response. Hindsight is so easy. So I'm sharing my, my thoughts as a mother, what I wished I had done 25 years ago. Hit like, hit subscribe. Thank you.