In this personal narrative, author and literacy advocate Lois Letchford recounts the multigenerational impact of dyslexia within her family. She describes how her mother, herself, and her two sons (Nicholas and Isaac) each faced undiagnosed or late‑diagnosed dyslexia, leading to severe educational trauma such as caning for spelling errors and chronic reading‑comprehension failure despite adequate decoding. A pivotal moment came when she removed Nicholas from school for six months in 1995, taught him at home, and recognized her own struggles, prompting her mother to seek similar help. Lois contrasts the outcomes of unsupported dyslexic learners—who are labeled “not smart” and marginalized—with those who receive proper diagnosis, targeted instruction, and “curious” teachers willing to adapt. She highlights how high‑school content‑rich instruction finally improved her own literacy, and she urges parents to seek teachers who diagnose and tailor support rather than placing children in generic programs. The video ends with a call to share the message, emphasizing that with the right support, dyslexic children can thrive.
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Hello, I'm Lois Letchford, author of the book Reversed: A Memoir and literacy problem solver. This week talking about and exploring the family affair of dyslexia. Dyslexia rarely comes in isolation. The challenge is that we have never really explored the depth and the cross-generational Genes that get passed on from one to another. In my family, the obvious problem came when my second son Nicholas went to school and failed first grade. It was the first time there was this big explosion in our world that things were not normal and that life was not going to be normal from there on in. I had the opportunity to remove Nicholas from school for 6 months in 1995. I took it. It was the best thing I did because by looking at Nicholas and teaching Nicholas, I could then start examining the depth of my problem. And it was really the first time I acknowledged my struggle in school. And it's while I was teaching my son Nicholas in 1995 that my 70-year-old mother watched and she said, Lois, I needed help like you're giving Nicholas. So there's the 3 of us: my mother, undiagnosed; me, undiagnosed; and Nicholas with a diagnosis. My youngest son Isaac also struggled with reading. And he was diagnosed as well. So it's there. It's a family affair. So how can this help us get through the whole scenario of getting children not only to read and write competently, but become strong and know that they can be successful? By acknowledging that we all have problems. It brings it out into the open. It brings the problem of dyslexia and learning out into the open. When I went to school a long time ago now, I started in a one-teacher school and it was fascinating because there was my family at all 2 years apart, my brother, my older sister, me and my younger sister each. 2 years between us. So my brother had a head injury or an injury from an accident. I assumed it was a head injury because he was very sick for a very long time and he also had migraines. And back in that day, it was really quite a cruel treatment and he had very little relief. However, he still went to school like the rest of us. And one of my earliest memories from that school Was my brother being caned, not because he was disobedient or got into a fight. He was caned because he got his spelling wrong. That was traumatic for me, and I don't know what it was like for my brother. But I do not understand why we think caning children. For doing something they cannot do helps them. But that's a memory I have, and so I suppose that made me work even harder just to pedal along and not be Cain because I couldn't get the spelling right. I actually managed to do the spelling. I could do the decoding and I could read the words. What I couldn't do was comprehend a text. I have a clear image of me doing the SRA reading box. Now, the SRA was a box of coloured-coded stories, story on one side, questions and answers on the other, and you had to self— read the questions, read the passage, read the questions, and then answer. So you got direct feedback as to how well you were doing. In reading comprehension, and I distinctly remember reading a passage, turning it over to answer the questions, to check my answers, and I got every one wrong. I didn't know what to do. I went back to the passage. I reread it. I went back to the questions and I looked at the questions and I tried to find some of the words from the questions in the passage. I couldn't do it. I just remember being frustrated that I couldn't get it right and I couldn't understand. It was an alienating experience. To sit there and know you can't do it. It wasn't just the SRA reading passage. It was also when we go to the library to get books out, to select a book and read it. Well, I could barely select a book because I had no idea when I read the book what it was about. Over time, Just through the use of pictures and through constantly reading, you get some sort of an idea of the book. Some sort of an idea. It's like the stick figure. The most you can get out of the text, out of how many pages, 50 or 100 pages, is you can create a stick figure from the text. Skilled readers, those who are really good at it, create a Rembrandt which leaves you in awe of all that they can do. But for me, it was that stick figure. So much work. And I think what really disappoints me even today is that I had no support. No one said, this girl needs help with reading. She can read the words, but she's not comprehending because the answers were really quite simple. The girl wasn't very smart. And that becomes the solution, isn't it? The child is not very smart. And I'll go back to my mother. My mother in school would say to me, oh, you know, I like to play sport and I could run and I could play tennis and I could find all the tennis balls. But I didn't really like reading and writing and mathematics. It's interesting how these events early on in our lives impact every other component of our life. Reading and writing has become so important, and yet really what it is, is we don't get the support we need. And that's the story of my dyslexia, is it's unsupported dyslexia. My son was not only diagnosed, he had the right support and he got himself through school with my support. But when you're unsupported with it, like my mother, like me, and like many children today, they do not get the right support. That leaves us on the outer of the education system. So, What is it? What are we going to do with our dyslexia today? How are we going to help our children survive the system? Parents, you're the people I'm really talking to. What can we do? I tell my story because I don't want anyone to go through school the way I did. My son's story was a completely different ball game. So there's the difference between the child that's unsupported and the child that's supported with the right support, with the proper teaching, with adequate teaching, with thinking teachers, with curious teachers. And that's a word you're going to hear coming up again and again and again from me. With curious teachers who are willing to adapt and change. And engage our children who are struggling with reading. I never had that support throughout elementary school. It was only in high school that I really started to learn to read and write more effectively. And why did it happen there? Because you're dealing with content. We did content, was critical, and you're reading with background knowledge. There's more talk in the classroom. There's more discussion in the classroom which gives you the background knowledge to make sense of the text. So that's where I really learned to read and write more effectively. However, it's still limited to the subject areas. So I can read any nonfiction text, but reading a fiction text without support was incredibly difficult for me for a very long period of time. So parents, if you have a child who is struggling in school, what's the goal of this video? Get the right support. So what does that mean? The right support to me means not putting children in programs but finding teachers who are curious about your child and willing to work with them to say, this is what has to be done. They're willing to diagnose what's going wrong and then find an appropriate solution for your child. That's the goal. That's the goal of reading instruction. And it's the— why I'm talking about dyslexia as a family affair. Because when you start to see that it's not only the child, that there will be a parent involved and even possibly a grandparent, there will be generational changes. We can support each other and we can change the outcomes for our children. Thank you. I am Lois Letchford. Please hit like, hit subscribe, and share my video so that we can share, simply share. Dyslexia is a serious condition with— but once children are supported, anything is possible. Thank you.
