Why I Blamed Myself for My Son’s Dyslexia (And What Actually Helped)
The reading specialist slid a list of nonsense words across the table. Sam had to say them aloud. “Baf. Dod. Plim.” He got some, then stumbled on “vab” and said “vad.” She marked something on her paper. I folded my arms, then slowly unfolded them. In the next room, another child was laughing. The lights hummed.
“Has he always guessed at words?” she asked.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” I could feel my own childhood sitting behind my teeth. When I was seven, I used to read “saw” as “was” so often that my teacher wrote a note home. My mother put flashcards on the fridge. I still mixed up letters when I was tired, or when I was nervous, or when someone was watching.
Sam is eight. He has the same crooked way of holding his pencil. When we do homework, he looks at a word and says a different word that starts with the same letter. At dinner last week, he read the pasta package as “organic” when it said “original.” It wasn’t funny, but we laughed because Sam did, and laughing was easier than crying.
The specialist said, “I’m seeing markers that are very consistent with dyslexia.”
I nodded. The word “dyslexia” felt like a door closing on a room I’d been in my whole life. “I know,” I said. “I blame myself.”
She looked up. “Why?”
I gestured at Sam. “He gets this from me. I gave him this brain.”
The self-blame wasn’t rational. I understand that now. But in that moment, I was convinced that if I had been a better reader, or if I had read to him more, or if I had not passed on this exact wiring, Sam would be fine. I used to stay up late with him with picture books, but when he started sounding out words, I felt impatient. I thought he was sloppy. He’d say “d” for “b” and I’d correct him firmly, the same way my father corrected me. I saw the disappointment in my own face and hated it.
The specialist said something I didn’t hear right away because I was busy recounting every mistake I’d made as a parent. “Dyslexia is hereditary. It has nothing to do with early reading exposure. It has nothing to do with discipline.”
I’d heard that before, but I didn’t believe it until I found my third-grade report card in a moving box two weeks later. The comment was written in cursive: “Anna is bright and articulate but needs to slow down and pay attention to the letters.” And on the back of one page, there was a drawing I’d made of a rabbit with the word “rabit” underneath. My mother had corrected it to “rabbit” in red pen. I kept that piece of paper for a week.
When I finally stopped blaming myself, I could actually help Sam. That sounds simple, but it’s not. The guilt had made me either too soft or too sharp. Some nights I’d let him skip reading entirely. Other nights I’d push him through the same ten-minute reading assignment until his voice was flat and his shoulders dropped. Then I’d feel worse and promise ice cream. That’s not a plan; that’s a mess.
After the evaluation, we got a list of accommodations. Not fancy ones. Sam’s teacher agreed to give him instructions in writing as well as verbally. He gets to use speech-to-text on his tablet to type his answers in social studies. At home, we stopped doing timed word lists. The timer helped no one.
The most helpful thing we started: read together for ten minutes, but not the way school suggests. We alternate. Sam reads first. When he stops on a word, I say the word immediately, without making him sound it out again. Then he repeats it and moves on. The reading specialist told us that “guess and check” doesn’t help; it just builds anxiety. So now I don’t say “try again” or “sound it out.” I say, “That word is ‘again.’ Say it.” He says it. We go on. He gets to experience reading without the feeling of being tested. That’s more important than decoding practice at that point.
We also bought a cheap pair of earphones and set up audiobooks on his night table. He follows along with the paper book while the audiobook plays. Sometimes he just listens. When a story hooks him, he forgets he struggles with reading. He talks about characters at dinner, which he never did before.
And I stopped saying “I gave you this” in front of him. I told him quite plainly: “Your brain is wired differently. That’s why some words are slippery for you. It doesn’t mean you’re not smart. You’re already good at building LEGO and remembering baseball stats. We just need to teach your brain a few different routes.”
He didn’t respond. He was busy arranging his Pokémon cards by type. But I think it needed to be said.
There are still bad days. Last week, he came home with a worksheet and stared at it for ten minutes, unmoving. I sat down next to him and said, “What’s the first word?” He read it. I wrote it on a scrap piece of paper. Then the second word. Eventually he had a small pile of paper with ten words. He didn’t write them on the worksheet. I told him that was okay. The teacher didn’t mind. The worksheet isn’t the point.
The thing is, I will probably never stop knowing exactly how his mouth feels when a word refuses to match the letters on the page. Because my mouth does the same thing. I have my own dyslexia, even though nobody caught it until I was well into adulthood. I don’t know if I “gave” it to Sam. To say genetics caused it feels too clean. But I know we share this particular pattern, and it means I can offer something most parents can’t: I can say, “I know.” I can mean it. I can show him that the word “was” still flips on me sometimes, and I survive.
What I don’t know is how school will go next year, or the year after. I don’t know if this year’s good teacher will be followed by a good teacher, or if someone will tell him he isn’t trying. I suspect there will be more worksheets and more laminated lists. I suspect I’ll need to say “that word is ‘enough’” a thousand more times. But I’ve stopped turning my past into a weapon. It’s just a thing I have. He has it too. We’ll read together, badly and imperfectly, and keep going.
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