Navigating a Dyslexia Diagnosis: A New Series
Last year, I posted a video that showed little snippets of a day we spent at Harlow’s school, where she showed us some of the projects she had been working on throughout the year. I got a ton of messages from people raving about how hands on and creative Harlow’s school looks, which prompted me to share that Harlow was diagnosed with dyslexia in the middle of second grade. Her evaluation was in February 2020, right before the pandemic, so while we were deciding what to do, we had the unique experience of watching her struggle firsthand during virtual school. Ultimately, we decided to switch her to a private school for kids with language based disabilities at the start of third grade.
Since I shared Harlow’s diagnosis, I have gotten a ton of messages from parents on a similar journey and many questions from parents who have a child who struggles with reading and are wondering if they should get them evaluated. I have messaged with those parents privately, but today, I’m launching a new series called “Navigating a Dyslexia Diagnosis” to answer all your questions in a more public forum and give you access to each other in the comments. Obviously, I can only speak to our own specific experience, so once the series gets going, I would love for people to weigh in with their own perspectives.
The reason I have not written at length about this yet is because Harlow was sensitive to her diagnosis at first and I didn’t want to betray her privacy. But now, it’s been a few years, she’s doing great and it’s part of her identity. Plus, if you’ve been following for awhile, I think you can see how brilliant and funny and multi-talented Harlow is, so perhaps sharing her experience can help break any stigmas. I know reading about all the inventors and artists and pioneers with dyslexia who paved their own path to success have been a great inspiration to us.
Still, these posts contain personal information, so I am opting to make them for paid subscribers only. The series will split up your questions to address my experience with: identifying early signs, testing, sharing the diagnosis with Harlow, our decision to switch to a specialized school and how she is doing now. The first post will drop later this week and will be all about identifying the early signs and some signs that we missed.
Before I share the first installment, I wanted to give you all the opportunity to ask questions in the comments below and a heads up, in case you’d like to follow along! You can become a paid subscriber by entering your info in the box below.
My daughter was also diagnosed with dyslexia in 1st or 2nd grade. Can't remember anymore as she is now a senior in high school. We did a number of things to help her, one of them being putting her into the Lindamood Bell program so that she could learn how to read in the way that her brain would find it easiest. She would describe that experience as being the worst weeks of her life, despite the fact that she now knows how to read because of it--I reminded her of this when she got a perfect score on the reading portion of the ACT recently. It is crazy to look back and see how far she has come. It really can become part of your child's identity and one that they can use to figure out how they learn best and then go from there. We were lucky in that she made great progress once we were able to identify what needed to happen to help her succeed. We were also fortunate in that she was already attending a very small private school that was good about being project based. She then went to a HUGE public high school and has done great, has learned how to advocate for herself and got into her first choice college early decision. I'm so proud of how far she has come.
I’m so exited for this series! As the K-5 counselor at a private school just like Harlow’s - exclusively for students with language-based learning differences - I know first-hand how exceptionally talented, empathetic and wise this population of kiddos is!
My question is this: What were some of the most impactful or valuable pieces of guidance you were given in this process? I work a lot with the parents of my students and would love to know from a parental perspective what you found to be most helpful.