What I Learned When My Anxious, Dyslexic Middle Schooler Got The Greatest News Of His School Year
I was folding mismatched gym socks by the front door yesterday when my 13-year-old Javi burst in after school, backpack slipping off one shoulder, sneakers scuffing the smudge of toothpaste he left on the hardwood that morning. He didn’t stop to yell that he needed a granola bar immediately, which is his usual opening move after walking in the door. He just held up a crumpled blue essay cover sheet, and stared at me.
“Ms. Lopez picked my essay to read at the all-school assembly next week,” he said, grinning so wide his dimples showed all the way. I froze. For two years, we’ve fought to get Javi consistent accommodations for his dyslexia. He’s had multiple panic attacks after being called on to read out loud in class, turned in more blank writing assignments than I can count, and once told me he’d rather fail than let anyone read his work “because all they’ll see is bad spelling.” This was the last thing I expected him to be excited about.
The essay assignment was a personal narrative about a favorite memory. Javi talked for weeks about building our backyard treehouse with his abuelo last summer, right before abuelo moved back to Mexico. But he refused to put anything on paper. Holding a pen and working through spelling makes his hand cramp and his brain shut down, so I didn’t push him to knock out a whole draft in one night. We sat on the porch for 10 minutes after dinner every week, and I just typed what he said out loud. He edited line by line, added the part about hitting his thumb with a hammer and abuelo not telling him to step aside and let a grown-up do it—just handed him a root beer and a band-aid and told him to try again. When he turned it in, half the words were still misspelled when he copied it over by hand, because that was the requirement: he had to turn in his own writing.
Ms. Lopez’s first comment, written at the top of the page in blue pen, was “This made me cry. I can feel the splinters in my hand and hear abuelo’s old radio. Can we talk after class?” No note about spelling errors, no grade mark first, just that. Then she asked Javi if he wanted to read it at the assembly. She didn’t sign him up and tell him it was an honor he couldn’t turn down. She told him if he said no, she’d still frame it and hang it in the hallway outside her room, and that would be that. If he said yes, she’d meet him 10 minutes early every morning this week to practice, she’d get the text printed in 18-point font for his copy, she’d stand off to the side so he didn’t have to scan the crowd for faces, he could bring his favorite lemon seltzer up with him if he got dry mouth.
I hear so many parents talking about the great news they’re waiting for from school: straight A’s, acceptance into advanced placement, a top score on a standardized test. I used to lie awake at night waiting for that kind of news too, worrying that Javi would never catch up, that his dyslexia would hold him back from everything he wanted. But this? This is the greatest news a student like Javi can get. It’s not news that his gaps are gone. It’s news that someone saw him, past the spelling mistakes, past the accommodations checkmark on his file, past the fact that he reads a year below grade level.
I’ve changed a lot of small things in how I talk to Javi about school after watching Ms. Lopez, and any parent or teacher can do these same things without extra time or special training. First, always ask about the part of the work the kid cares about before you mention mistakes or grades. I used to open Javi’s backpack, see a paper with red pen all over it, and immediately ask why he misspelled so many words. Now, the first thing I say is “show me what part of this you like the most.” It takes 10 seconds, and it changes everything. Second, if you’re asking a kid to do something scary like read out loud or share their work, don’t just tell them it’s an honor or that they’ll be fine. Give them a concrete list of what you’ll do to help, and leave the choice 100% up to them. No guilt, no pressure, no “don’t you want to take this opportunity?” Third, don’t fix their voice for them. Ms. Lopez didn’t make Javi change any of his words to make the essay sound “better” or more polished. She just adjusted the formatting for the assembly. All his original lines, all his slang, all the little specific details he added that no one else would write—those are the parts that made it matter.
Last night, Javi practiced reading his essay out loud to our golden retriever, Max. He stumbled over “foundation” three times, got red in the face, and crumpled the paper halfway through. I didn’t tell him he was doing great, or that everyone would love it anyway. I just handed him a pencil and said “want to circle that word bigger so it stands out, and practice it slow three times?” We did that, then he put the paper away and went to play video games.
He still says he’s pretty sure he’ll freeze up on stage. I told him if he gets up there and decides he doesn’t want to do it, he can just wave and walk back to his seat, and I’ll buy him his favorite mint chocolate chip ice cream after anyway. Nothing is perfectly resolved. Javi still struggles with spelling, he still hates timed tests, we’ll still be fighting for consistent accommodations next year. But this week? We got the best news any of us could ask for: someone saw his work, and it mattered. That’s enough for now.
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