Church Literacy, Part One: Interview with Mom of a Dyslexic Child

How Is Your Church Affected by Literacy Challenges?

How many words do you read in your church worship service?  500 or more?  Don’t forget to count the words of hymns, Bible readings, and bulletins.  If a visitor came to your church, how many words would he read to get to the right parking lot, Sunday School room, or coffee area?  How many words would a child be expected to read in his Sunday School class?  How about an adult in your class?

For children and adults struggling with reading difficulties, each of the hundreds or thousands of words encountered in a church setting presents a stumbling block–a stumbling block not only to potentially understanding the message of the gospel, but also to feeling safe and fully a part of the life of the church.

Some studies suggest that roughly 20% of any given population may struggle with reading.  That means in your church, in my church, there are almost certainly people who have reading difficulties.  There may be many causes behind these struggles–vision impairment, comprehension problems, etc.–and we’ll talk about more of them next week.  I also have done several interviews and a lot of research about how you can address the issue in your church, which I will share next week as well.  (And just for the record, it ISN’T to take the written word out of your church!)  But today I’d like to start by just raising the question in your mind: how are the members and visitors of your church affected by reading challenges? 

Toward that end, I invited Molly of MyAudioSchool.com to share with us her experience as the mom of a son who has struggle with dyslexia.  You will probably note right away that for Molly, her son’s reading difficulties were not due to a mental deficit.  Despite having worked as a literacy tutor myself, I actually learned quite a bit from her story.  I hope you will too!

Molly’s Interview

1.  Tell me a little about your son’s reading difficulties.  How did they impact his life and how did you discover them?

I always knew one of my children was a little different.  At age two, he could quickly complete complicated puzzles that his six year old brother struggled to put together.  His mind just saw the way it had to be!  He was incredibly smart and continually amazed us with his mechanical mind and ingenuity.

When I began teaching him to read, though, he struggled.  He changed b’s into d’s and 9?s into 6?s.  More telling, however, was the fact that he couldn’t remember little words.  If he was reading “Tim and Tom and Mary and Jan” he would have to sound out the word “and” every single time.  He could not remember it from one second to the next. 

He skipped words or even lines while reading, as if they weren’t there.  He read words backwards. He could even read upside down about as well as right side up! He added letters that weren’t there, or deleted ones that were.  He ignored punctuation marks.  Reading and spelling became a horrible chore. 

When he was in 2nd grade we had him tested by a trained psychiatrist and found out that he was dyslexic. Dyslexia is not diagnosed only by a child being behind…it has to do with the discrepancy between the level he is working at when reading and writing versus the level he is able to work at when those components are removed and he is listening and speaking.  There were 8 grade levels of discrepancy between those two points for our son….so although he wasn’t very far behind his grade level, he was miles away from living up to his potential academically.

2.  What kind of journey was it for you to find some solutions?

Discovering the problem was the key. I started reading and researching how to help him. As a homeschooler, I had great freedom to walk away from programs that didn’t work for him and implement things that did. There were some ups and downs, to be sure, but we were relieved to begin making some slow and steady progress as I changed my traditional approach to reading, writing, and spelling. Up until that point we had both been very frustrated. Once I began to use methods which remediated his weaknesses and capitalized on his great strengths school became much more enjoyable for both of us! As the various components started to come together, we saw a lot of breakthroughs.

3.  Do you know of any resources you would recommend to families wrestling with a similar issue?

I’ve compiled a lengthy list of curriculum and resources that I recommend for parent reading as well as most school subjects on my education blog, CounterCultural School. I have also posted several articles about dyslexia and some of the hands on activities we have found helpful. Parents may also want to listen to my podcast about Remediation and Accommodation for the Dyslexic Child, in which I talk about how to strengthen areas of weakness while enabling children to soar where they are strong.

4.  You created a web resource for parents and educators called My Audio School.  How does it uniquely serve children and teens with reading difficulties?

Dyslexic children are often compelled to work below grade-level in core content areas such as history and literature, simply because they are unable to read a grade-level book independently. Yet most dyslexics are quite capable of working above grade level if the visual reading component is removed.

Excellent audio content in a child-friendly format allows a child with print disabilities to take control over his own educational destiny. All of a sudden, the child is on an even playing field with his peers, and he can access the same challenging content present in a language-rich education.

A learning disability can keep an intelligent child from working up to his or her potential unless the child can learn ways to self-accommodate. It is both frustrating and boring for these children to be forced to learn only what they, themselves, can read independently. Equally aggravating is waiting around for a parent or teacher to help them when they simply want to get on with the task at hand.

We have always made use of audio books and read-aloud time in our home school.  But with my son’s dyslexia diagnosis I realized that audio books were no longer a luxury for us, but a necessity. My Audio School is great for all children, but it was designed with the dyslexic child in mind. In creating My Audio School, I wanted to provide a safe and attractive site where my own dyslexic child can “read” the material he needs to learn for school.

My Audio School has given him a sense of empowerment, as he can now take responsibility for completing grade-level reading assignments independently for the first time ever. He can listen to individual chapters to complete a given day’s assignment, or books can be burned to CD or downloaded to Mp3 for learning on-the-go. All the books are arranged by time period or subject matter, making it easy for parents and educators to quickly find carefully chosen audio books on a wide variety of topics.

5.  Do you have any suggestions for churches who might like to make their services more friendly for kids struggling with reading difficulties?

Worship services were a struggle for our son before he learned to read, as he was unable to follow along in the hymnal.  Several years ago we began working on memorizing one hymn each week. Often I say the words to one or two of the verses aloud before we sing it, and we talk about the meaning of difficult words. Periodically we allow the children to choose what we will sing by way of review.  We never know which hymn will be chosen on a given Sunday, but by learning dozens of hymns each year by heart, we increase our chances of knowing something that was selected. 

Although our dyslexic son reads well now, we still have some young children in our home so we have continued this practice.  If your church’s worship leader chooses the songs a few days in advance, you could focus on learning one or two of the songs you’ll be singing each Sunday.  Our church chooses one Psalm that we sing morning and evening every Sunday for the entire month. This is an opportunity for the whole congregation to learn a song well and then sing it several Sundays in a row.

When he was younger I recorded predictable elements from the worship service, such as The Apostle’s Creed and the Ten Commandments, so that our son could learn them and participate in those elements of worship.  Now I record his catechism and scripture memory work on his iPod, using the voice notes feature. 

His iPod has become an indispensable tool, as there are so many apps which make life a whole lot easier for those with print disabilities.  For example, during his personal devotions, our son uses the You Version Bible app. This app allows him to select the passage he wants and then a narrator reads it aloud. 

Thanks so much, Molly, for sharing your story and for preparing these resources for us. 

Next week, we’ll hear from someone involved in Joni and Friends, an organization run by Joni Erickson Tada to help churches serve people with disabilities.  We’ll also look at practical ways you can address literacy challenges in your church.  Until then, be sure to check out the free resources at Molly’s website, www.My Audio School.com!  We actually did an interview with Molly and her sons during our Hobbit Read Along, so you can listen to her talk about some of these issues further in Audiobooks and Caricatures.

Until then, you can read more about reading challenges in my post, Help for Struggling Readers: Dyslexia and Beyond.  If your kids can read but don’t like to, here’s a book for you: Are You a Book Whisperer?  And I dare you to try these book-based cookbooks with your reluctant readers….who could resist Snozzcumbers and Stink Bugs’ Eggs?  See more in Cooking Up Fun: Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes and Food for the Soul and for the Reader.