My child was diagnosed with dyslexia in the fall. His phonemic awareness and spelling skills are still at mid-1st grade. Is it important to go back and systematically teach the missed skills, or due to his age, begin work with multisyllabic words and affixes? He has deficits in letter-sound knowledge, suffixes, inflections, and syllable insertion or omission. He also has deficits in segmenting (sound and syllable) and in phoneme isolation.

I’m now 40 and am fairly certain that I have dyslexia. My concern isn’t with me, I have adapted to it after all this time. But my daughter is 8 and is struggling in school and I’m starting to think she may suffer from the same thing I do. I’m wondering how to get it diagnosed correctly?

I have a son that I think may have dyslexia. On your "Clues to Dyslexia" page, there were multiple boxes that I checked as things that my son struggles with. We sent him to a reading tutor when he was younger; but with the 4th-grade work getting harder and more complex, we're noticing him struggling a lot more. He starts next week with an online tutor, but I think he needs an official diagnosis for school.

I have a daughter who has been struggling with reading for awhile now. Sight words are still a struggle for her and she is continuing to reverse numbers and words both while reading and writing. My husband is dyslexic. I didn't know if it was hereditary or not. I keep bringing it up at her school but I keep getting a simple answer of “we are keeping an eye on it.” I feel like we are beyond that point and she needs more intervention. What are the steps in Michigan to get your child evaluated?

I am in need of finding a tutor for my 8- year-old son, who is dyslexic. His school has told me that the State does not recognize dyslexia and doesn’t have any tutors they can recommend. I have contacted many places but can’t find any that specialize in the Orton-Gillingham teaching. I would really like to get him help so that he doesn’t fall too much behind in school. Trying to homeschool him is very hard and frustrating for us both.

My daughter can spell but has been assessed as having a reading rate (not comprehension) that is two years behind her age average. Her reading was assessed by a literacy teacher at her secondary school. She was assessed as she is consistently way slower at her work than her peers (despite apparent concentration), though given time she does well. Given that she can spell does this rule out dyslexia? Is there some other learning difficulty that I should have her assessed for?

My son is six years old. He has been working with a speech pathologist since age 2. He was enrolled in the Early On program, as well as a preschool program with the public schools for 3 years. He will be headed to first grade next year and will be working with the literacy specialist at his school. I thought that you may have some suggestions or thoughts on how we should proceed. I’m not sure if it’s too early to have him tested for dyslexia or if there are special tutors/things we should be doing now because he also has a speech delay.

I am a teacher and I had the opportunity to do a presentation for 40 teachers in my district that were interested in learning more about dyslexia. After my presentation, my building principal asked what we can do to help these kids. At the present time, very little is being done. The K-2 building does Wilson reading and Fundations, but that is as far as it goes. Do you have any suggestions that I can give her?

Dr. Pierson explains why a child who enjoys reading may still score low on standardized reading assessments, and what parents should consider when interpreting those results.

I have worked with many dyslexic kids over the years, there are never any decent resources or help that actually works. Sight words seem to set them back. I want to get certified to teach a program that works really well for kids and learn to assess and train teachers. I was thinking Orton-Gillingham, however the priority is my grade 7 boy at barely a grade 2 reading level that needs help. What program is the best for him? What is the best for me to get certified to help train other teachers to teach kids how to read and assess them early?