Michael Malione is an educator friend of mine who has written for this education blog eduissues.com previously. He is also a friend of Jane Molnar, the author of the book that I am reviewing here.
When I told Michael about one of my grandchild’s struggles with reading in first grade and my concerns about possible dyslexia, he referred me to this book which was self-published by its author on Amazon.
Prior to this referral, I spent a considerable amount of time doing Google searches and reading descriptions and reviews about dyslexia books on Amazon. I discovered that one of the most nationally recognized experts is Dr. Sally Shaywitz who wrote the book “Overcoming Dyslexia” which is in its second edition as of 2020. Dr. Shaywitz is a noted researcher in the field, is co-director of the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, has testified before congressional committees on dyslexia policy, and has also written a dyslexia article for Scientific American magazine.
Dr. Shaywitz advocates early testing for dyslexia, as early as kindergarten or first grade, which I immediately noticed was in conflict with the information provided by my local K-8 school district. The district appears to favor postponing such evaluations until as late as third grade since “different children learn to read at different times.” If Dr. Shaywitz’s claim is correct that as many as 1 in 5 children worldwide are affected by dyslexia, I would also have to assume that budgetary considerations play a role in the district’s recommendation. In most school districts, special education already consumes a sizable fraction of their budget, and potentially diagnosing a condition that might be this widespread probably fills school districts with dread.
Dr. Shaywitz, however, advocates that parents do not try to remedy their children’s reading problems on their own. She says that they should leave the bulk of the work to trained reading specialists, but offers parents suggestions in her book for how they can help their children.
Jane Molnar, on the other hand, was a math teacher who was homeschooling her three sons, the youngest of which had severe reading problems. Jane was not a reading specialist, but dove into the subject with a dedication that most parents will not have, nor have the time to match. She initially tried phonics-based programs, but made little to no progress. Later when she had her youngest son evaluated by a specialist in Berkeley, CA, she discovered that her son had a phonemic awareness problem (a severe disability to break words into their component sounds – phonics, by contrast, deals with the sounds assigned to various letters and letter combinations).
He also had a “rapid automatized naming deficit.” Tests of this ability show children row upon row of pictures of familiar objects which they already know and measure the amount of time it takes the child to name them. This issue also affects reading speeds because, although readers initially use techniques like phonics to decipher unfamiliar words, after sufficient practice the brain stores the sight and sound of the entire word in long term memory, and the fluent reader simply retrieves the sound from memory instead of “sounding it out.” This word recognition process is given the technical term “orthographic mapping.”
The bulk of Ms. Molnar’s book ( https://a.co/d/09LhHNJ ) describes in detail the many methods she tried to overcome her son’s reading difficulties. I have read no greater testament to a mother’s love for her child than her descriptions of these efforts. I think that parents of dyslexic students should find her narrative useful and compelling, even if they do not have the time or ability to carry out her program themselves. For example, a reference in Ms. Molnar’s book to Dr. Michael Bend’s ABeCeDarian reading program along with subsequent Google searches led me to the discovery of the relatively new Sharpen Reading Program which I have used with great results to improve my grandchild’s reading ability. (Sharpen will be the topic of a future Eduissues blog article).
Sadly, just as she was starting to make progress with her son’s reading, she went through a divorce proceeding. Her husband argued to the judge that their son needed to be sent to public school to socialize better. The judge initially sided with the father, and the subsequent story of Ms. Molnar’s battles with the Berkeley public school system is completely disheartening. The district appears to have taken every step in their power to prevent Ms. Molnar’s son from getting the help that he needed for his learning disability. However, given my struggles with other education systems as described in several articles on eduissues.com ( particularly https://eduissues.com/2018/01/29/never-believe-educational-experts-or-me/ ), I can’t say that I am completely surprised.
After the better part of a year, the judge reversed his decision and returned the boy to his mother’s homeschooling where the two resumed their progress.
The ultimate result of their efforts are described on pages 250-1 of the book (Kindle edition):
When William was in sixth grade, three years after his first evaluation and dyslexia diagnosis, Dr. Grue did a second comprehensive evaluation.
Molnar, Jane. Dyslexia Cured: One Child’s Story (p. 251). Kindle Edition.
Dr. Grue was astonished by the results. William was no longer dyslexic. This was not a case of William learning to cope with his dyslexia, or even to thrive despite his dyslexia.
His dyslexia was gone. And gone with it were its root causes.
This surprised me less than it surprised Dr. Grue because the curing of William’s dyslexia had been my goal since Dr. Grue had first laid bare its causes.
I have discussed the book directly with Ms. Molnar after Mr. Malione set up a meeting between the three of us. The audacious claim of a “dyslexia cure” has unfortunately led some people not to take her book seriously because the current received wisdom states that dyslexia can not be cured, only partially remediated. Thus some people have refused to even consider her book.
I find this reaction to her book to be very disturbing. While it is completely true that Ms. Molnar’s son’s case is a single incident, I believe that the effort that she made on her son’s behalf needs to be considered. This effort was far above that which the vast majority of parents or school systems will be able to make on behalf of a struggling student, so the two conclusions about dyslexia’s “curability” are not necessarily contradictory.
In summary, this book is an inspiring story about how, through amazing dedication to her child, a mother was able to overcome his reading problems. It has many useful suggestions for concrete actions that parents can take to help their children and deserves a much wider audience than it has received to date.
EduIssues 