“In second grade, you have to learn how to read because, in third grade, you have to know how to read to learn.” ~ 2^nd Grade Teacher

If you’ve never heard about the “3^rd Grade Wall,” I have.

When my daughter got to the end of the second grade, her teacher called me to a meeting with the principal and informed me she could not be promoted to the third grade because she could not read.

Then I was told that the third grade is a pivotal grade, and reading is essential there.

Not that the teacher didn’t like my daughter… research backs up her statement.

A Hunter College study found that students who did not read proficiently by the third grade were four times more likely to leave school without a high school diploma than those who did.

Most colleges do not train teachers to identify dyslexia symptoms in their students.

Many dyslexic students are gifted at memorizing their favorite books and can appear to be reading. If the teacher pointed to certain words randomly, they would clearly see the difficulty the child was experiencing.

I’ve worked with children who guessed their way through a story or read based on the shape of the words.

This problem makes it even more important that parents observe their children, listen to what they say when completing assignments or trying to get out of doing them, and note the academic challenges they display at home.

Here are some signs in grades 3-5 that signal your child may be dyslexic:

• He confuses or skips small words when reading aloud, e.g., for and of
• He has trouble sounding out unfamiliar words.
• He struggles to recognize frequently occurring word—commonly called sight words
• He has difficulty explaining key details of a story or tell what happened in sequence.
• He frequently transposes letters and numbers.
• His spelling is poor and inconsistent—correctly spelling a word one day, but not the next.
• He finds every excuse possible to avoid reading.
• He gets easily frustrated or upset when reading.

Besides these academic difficulties, your child may also have trouble with short-term memory and executive function skills.

Address these first.

After making sure that the foundational skills are in place, children with dyslexia need academic instruction that is:

• Explicit
• Systematic and cumulative
• Structured
• Multisensory

It is important that dyslexic students are given the tools they need to succeed in school and in life, which means parents should be open-minded and advocate for their children while teaching them to advocate for themselves.

They must ensure that educators take into consideration different accommodations that can help their dyslexic children.

Things like additional time to complete assignments and tests, oral testing, scribes, testing in a small group in a separate location, and giving instructions one at a time make a difference.

With the right guidance, dyslexic children can flourish at school and in life despite having their thinking and learning differences.