Eulexia Tutoring: An Origin Story

About EulexiaReading InstructionScience of Reading

Apr 26

When I first started out, I just wanted to teach French. It’s my favorite thing to do.

But along the way I noticed something that disturbed me. There is something that really needs my attention. There are these kids…

I was the head of Language Arts at an after-school program when I encountered my first of these kids. He was a very bright student. He loved science and math. He had lots of friends, and he was a good friend to his friends. One day his parents spoke to me and said that they had some concerns about his reading. I found this a bit surprising, as he was so bright, but I gave him a little reading assessment. He pulled out his school book. It was a little chapter book, seemingly appropriate for him as a 2nd grader.

I had him open the book to a random page. There was a big picture on half the page, and a paragraph of text below it. I will never forget what he read:

“John was cold so he put on his… jacket.”

I asked him about the last word. He repeated it. I asked him to spell it. “C-O-A-T”.

“What does that word say?”

“I’m not really sure, but it means jacket.”

I asked how he knew what it meant if he didn’t know the word. He pointed to the picture. It showed a man who looked cold, putting on a coat. He then told me that his teachers at school had taught him how to guess words if he didn’t know what they were by looking at the pictures in the book, or what would make sense in the sentence.

I didn’t really know what to make of this at the time. I learned that other students had the same issue, and also that phonics was not taught at their school. I dug up Webster’s Blue Back Speller, and used that to teach phonics systematically. First published in 1783, the students still found it to be fun. I’m glad I was able to offer them something, but looking back on it, I regret that I didn’t know then what I know now.

Years later I was working at a private school as the Language Arts, History, and Spanish teacher for the high school kids. Each student had either been diagnosed as dyslexic, or had difficulties in reading. One student in particular, I noticed, would read relatively accurately up to a point, but would come to a word he didn’t know. When this happened, he would invariably look up and to the left and say a word that started with the same letter as the word he was trying to read. Initially, I would correct him as he did this, have him spell the word out and then try to sound it out, but he was not very accurate at this. Eventually I would try and have him keep his eye on the word and follow his finger as it passed by each letter and sound it out, but he had this ingrained habit of looking up and to the left that he could not break. Since that time, I would venture to guess that about 80% of the students that I work with have that same ingrained habit of looking up and to the left and then guessing a word based on the first letter of the word.

Another student in this class had been diagnosed with dyslexia and her grandmother told me about how she would practice sight words with her for hours on end. The girl would cry, but the grandmother knew that sight words were important, so they kept at it. This girl enjoyed my Spanish classes, where mostly I taught ortografia - Spanish for orthography or spelling. She remarked once that she read the words in a language she did not know better than she did in English.

All of this was more than I could bear. I felt helpless, not knowing how to help these poor kids. I decided to learn everything I could about reading and dyslexia. Through a careful perusal of literature from the Science of Reading, I started to develop an understanding of the situation. I discovered that the curriculum of the school, advertised as phonics, was actually a “balanced approach” to literacy. The first graders were not being taught systematic phonics, but embedded phonics and the Three-Cueing System. I understood that these methods of reading instruction had been thoroughly discredited, and that many academics and researchers even believe that this sort of instruction contributes to the onset of reading difficulties that often result in a dyslexia diagnosis.

I brought my research on systematic phonics and concerns about the current curriculum to the principal but ultimately, the school decided to continue with its established 'balanced approach'. At the end of the semester I moved on and found a new job in literacy instruction and dyslexia remediation. I was sad to not be teaching Spanish anymore, as my greatest love is teaching languages, but I discovered that successfully remediating dyslexia using effective methods was ultimately more fulfilling than doing what I love most.

The kind of experience that solidified my resolve to dedicate myself to literacy instruction and remediation is as follows:

I get a student. I am told that he has behavioral issues. He has oppositional defiance disorder. Diagnosed. What I find is a kid who has received instruction that he finds confusing, and that this has been going on for years. He sees his classmates surpass him in every way. He sees the joy they get out of knowing the answers and the joyful recognition the teacher gives them for knowing the answers. We start our sessions and he is reluctant at first. He doesn’t like this and doesn’t know why he has to do it. It’s too hard anyway. He doesn’t get it. Soon, he finds that he actually does get it and he warms up to me and starts to feel confident. He is developing phonological awareness skills that were deficient before. He is developing automaticity in segmenting words in spelling. Now he can manipulate individual phonemes in the onset or rime of a word. He recognizes immediately whether [c] says /k/ or /s/. He knows when /j/ needs to be spelled as [-ge] or [-dge]. There is often an ebb and a flow as he progresses through the program, but there is always general progress. Sometimes the ebb comes when a well-meaning teacher devastates him by reminding him that he is a lifelong dyslexic and that this will never be easy for him. Then there are the flows after he reads a paragraph and doesn’t guess any words, then when he successfully sounds out every word in a text. Then comes the day when he is reading fluently for the first time. Finally, his attention is able to be partitioned to understanding the text as he automatically decodes unfamiliar words and confidently announces those words that earned a spot in his orthographic lexicon. He realizes that he is reading for the first time. This is what it is like! This is what he has been missing! He can’t believe it! Here, I am overcome with joy and sometimes have to hold back tears. I witnessed this awesome journey. I saw a kid realize that he wasn’t dumb. I saw a kid that can now go enjoy what other kids take for granted. He can go on with his life and be a reader. I am so proud of him and so grateful and honored to have been a part of it.

But, I also feel sadness. Was this really necessary?

These kids deserve better.

I believe that with proper instruction that follows the findings of the Science of Reading and the Science of Learning, that remediation would not be necessary for so many kids. I started Eulexia Tutoring to offer my services in dyslexia remediation because there are so many kids that do need it. But what I really hope is that I can teach a lot of parents and teachers about the fundamental principles of effective instruction that has been shown to avoid the onset of reading difficulties in the first place. In this perfect world, my dyslexia remediation services would become obsolete. I could focus on teaching French. Until that eucatastrophic seachange of literacy instruction occurs, Eulexia Tutoring will be here to offer our services.