Garcia 1

Jesus Garcia

Professor Jesus Reyna

English 1302

10 December 2023

Dyslexia in the Education Field

Dyslexia is one of the more overlooked disabilities that affects a small part of students

which according to Shaywitz, (qtd. in Bratsis 19) around 17% of school age children manifest it.

In modern day, dyslexia has transformed into a common disorder that people know about but

don’t know how it affects in detail. The seriousness of the disorder has depreciated into funny

commercials or as a lighthearted insult. This is the extent to which people know about dyslexia

and often people don’t realize it isn’t just mixing up letters or seeing them squiggly. Dyslexia is a

legitimate language disability that potentially stems from cognitive issues not laziness or

unintelligent students. Dyslexia isn’t a psychological but physiological disorder that comes from

less grey matter in the brain that, “adversely affects decoding, fluency in reading, reading

comprehension, recollection, writing, spelling, and sometimes speaking” (Dobur & Kumas 2).

This means that those affected have a harder time being able to understand words especially

written and need supplemental ways to help them. This is information that has been available for

quite some time already, yet the harmful misconception that dyslexic students don’t try hard is

still prevalent among some teachers, but even then, the less harmful misconception are still

misconceptions that affect the student. Obstacles like this are the reason that the current school

system isn’t developing dyslexic students like it should.

One of the major factors that decide a dyslexic student’s success in school is the teacher’s

knowledge of dyslexia. According to Dobur and Kumas, “studies report that teachers have poor

and misguided information about fundamental concepts of grammar” (595). This means that the

teachers that decide the curriculum and offer to students have a skewed perception of dyslexia. It

is very difficult to be able to help someone when they don’t know what they are dealing with.

Congruently, a big part of the poor understanding of dyslexia is because they were ill informed

about dyslexia from their younger years studying (Sümer Dobur and Altindag Kumas 595). This

leads to a teacher being ill equipped to teach someone later on who has the disorder putting them

both in a hard place. Another problem that arises from this is that those teachers then aren’t able

to tell when a student has dyselxia leading to both sides not knowing how to work together to

have more success. A solution to this would be to better equip teachers to recognize the patterns

of dyslexia and how to deal with that since the knowledge a teacher has about teaching gives a

student the best chance of succeeding.

Aside from a teachers knowledge about the disorder, finding a way to accuratley

diagnose students with dyslexia is another way to increase the progress of students. It is hard to

find ways that universally diagnose someone with dyslexia; however, there are some tests that

can test for things they struggle with. A small number of tests can be used to diagnose students

with dyselxia in higher educations such as word reading word spelling, and phonological

awareness (Tops, Callens and Lammertyn 198). If a student is able to be aware that they have

dyslexia it would be essential since they know what they can focus on to improve. There are

many cases where a student knows that they sturggle with a certain aspect but don’t know why.

This can sometimes lead to them thinking it is because they are not intelligent enough. This very

situation has happened to a friend of mine and she had low self confidence until she found out
 Garcia 3

she was dyslexic. Being diagnosed with dyslexia can be a life-changing event for people that

don’t even know they have it.

While I mentioned how detrimental dyslexia as a language disorder is for someone

reading, dyslexia does come with advantages in other ways. For years scientists have delt with

the consideration that dyslexia could come with creative advantages. Some of the more creative

job fields have a high concentration of dyslexic people like entrepreneurs. MIT has also found

that dyslexic people could deal with audio inputs at once (Schneps 24). This further supports the

claim that when a certain group has trouble in one field they can sometimes excel in another

field. Schneps also mentions how the group that benefit the most from dyslexia are ironically the

harder fields such as scientists; this is in part because dyslexic people are not very good at

focusing on one thing too much and their counterparts who have spent years of training and

using the neurons needed for visual concentration lack this which leads to poor central attention

but rich surrounding awareness. Schneps also mentions how according to his colleague Facoetti’s

work, the advantages that people with dyslexia exhibit are mostly in part because of differences

in the brain that have been present since birth relating to thinner gray matter in the cortex part of

the brain (24-25).

So how do we resolve this issue? Simple we inform teachers on how dyslexia affect and

notice early patterns of it. This can greatly help struggling students who maybe don’t know why

they can’t keep up with the other students in reading or writing. In addition to that, figuring out

who is dyslexic with proper dyslexic tests is another key in being able to turnaround and lead

students to success in education. There should also be an emphasis on teaching students with

science-backed ways to instruct a dyslexic student in the classroom. The research that Dobur and

Kumas analyzed showed that effectively, “establishing a pedagogical team in educational

institutions and creating a setting to have discussions on various themes concerning various

teaching methodologies and science-based responses as part of meetings, workshops and case

studies” (604). Following this structure, the problem with dyslexic students in the world can be

helped more than currently available. Together we can help these neglected students reach the

ceiling where they belong.

Works Cited

Bratsis, Michael E. "Health Wise: Helping Students Cope With Dyslexia." The Science Teacher

(2016): 1. Document.

Schneps, Matthew H. "The Advantages of Dyslexia." Scientific American Mind (2015): 2.

Document.

Sümer Dobur, H. Miray and Ozlem Altindag Kumas. "Knowledge and beliefs of classroom

teachers about dyslexia: the case of teachers in Turkey." European Journal of Special

Needs Education (2021): 17. Document.

Tops, Wim, et al. "Identifying students with dyslexia in higher education." Annals of Dyslexia

(2012): 186-203. Document.