Dyslexia

This article was fascinating. I did not have a good understanding of what dyslexia actually is until reading this.  Dyslexic children have great difficulty   processing and recalling  the correct phonetic parts of words.  Many children have trouble learning to read.  A dyslexic child stands out because s/he should not be having trouble.  The dyslexic child has a normal or above IQ, is motivated to learn, and has had good reading instruction but still cannot read.
Dr. Shaywitz and her colleagues have conducted a number of long term studies, individual case studies, and used MRI imaging  to study the brain of dyslexic individuals.  They have concluded that the basis of difficulty lies in phonological processing, not in letter and word reversals. Dyslexia is a localized problem, involving the sounds, not the meaning, of spoken words.  Children  have difficulty attaching appropriate meaning to the graphemes.  The sounds, phonemes, in words are less distinct to them. 
This article was written in 1996.  A more recent article was just as disturbing.  The Connecticut Longitudinal Study found that 1 in 5 kindergarten children in the group studied was dyslexic.  At the same time only 5% of the children were served in Special Education. 
After reading these two articles it seems plain that public education is not adequately serving these children.  Dyslexia is not something that goes away or that children will outgrow.  We must do a better job of  identifying and helping these children early.