Dyslexia and College Success

By James Nuttall and Maria Johnson

Adjusting to college from high school is difficult; add to that the struggles with reading, writing, and confidence due to Dyslexia, and the situation can feel impossible! This book is specifically for that student and their transition to college. Written by two individuals with dyslexia and dysgraphia who have successfully navigated the college experience, it provides a unique first hand perspective on attending college with these limitations. They share personal experiences and advice, approaching challenges with assistive technology and reasonable expectations, and cover reading, writing, studying, learning a foreign language, self-esteem, and social life. Additionally, you, the reader, will find dozens of software applications reviewed — such as Voice Dream Reader or FineReader Pro, in order to help you know what will work best for you. Whether you have a PC, Mac, Android, or iOS device you will learn how to use that device to aid you in your scholastic success. The suggestions in this book will help a majority of dyslexic students cope with the demands of college or university work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Nuttall
• Release date: Nov 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223183693

Book preview

CHAPTER 1 - Introduction 

CHAPTER 2 - What Is Dyslexia? 

CHAPTER 3  - Struggling with Dyslexia 

CHAPTER 4 - College 

CHAPTER 5  - Tackling the Reading Challenge  

CHAPTER 6 - Tips for Supporting Your Reading 

CHAPTER 7  - Tackling the Writing Challenge 

CHAPTER 8 - Assistive Terminology with Word Processing 

CHAPTER 9 - Taking Notes 

CHAPTER 9 - Foreign Language Study 

CHAPTER 10 - Tips for Studying 

CHAPTER 11 - Social Life 

Appendix - Jim and Maria Discuss Reading Styles 

Acknowledgements 

CHAPTER 1 - Introduction

Sharing Lessons From Life

Hello, we are James Nuttall, Ph.D. and Maria Johnson, B.A.. We wish to welcome you to this book on helping the college student with dyslexia. We wrote this book since we are dyslexic and loved going to college. To differentiate between the two narrators, any important shift in who is writing will be indicated. So when Dr. Nuttall writes about himself he will say I, Jim. If Maria writes about herself she will say I, Maria. When referring to each other we will simply use our names Jim or Maria.

While growing up, I, Jim, knew that I had a reading problem. During elementary school and high school, I struggled to read. Throughout school, I was basically a non-reader. Every day, I watched my family and fellow students read books, magazines, and newspapers. I longed to do the same. When I went away to college, I visited the University of Chicago Reading Clinic where I learned that I had dyslexia. I persevered with college and eventually earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from Michigan State University. I asked Maria to join me in writing this book since she is a successful student and her college experiences are current and up-to-date.

I, Maria, have always struggled to read. I considered myself a non-reader and acted like one for most of my life. I love history, though, so I learned about history through listening to people and watching documentaries rather than reading. I started college at a very young age and carried on until recently, receiving my B.A. in Humanities and Cultural Studies from the University of South Florida. I found out in the last year of my college career that I had dyslexia and was formally diagnosed after graduating. Despite my late diagnosis, I always knew I could not read well and developed ways to help myself do my best despite my difficulties.

This book is aimed at struggling readers and writers, suggesting to them ways to succeed at college. Over the years we learned some tricks for coping with dyslexia, many of which are enhanced by recent technologies. We would like to pass these tricks on to you. If you struggle with reading and writing, we hope you will find this book helpful. You do not need to read this book from front to back, but can skip around, reading what you like and find useful.

Why This Book?

As we grew up, we struggled with reading and writing. When we went to college these difficulties did not go away. In fact, the work demands of college exacerbated these struggles. Even though our colleges were nurturing, there were few people to talk with to get advice and help about our struggles. So for the most part we forged our own pathways to success. We thought it would be beneficial to put some of our experiences and lessons learned down on paper. Hopefully, by doing so we can help others who struggle with reading and writing find success. In this book we outline how technology and study strategies can revolutionize the lives of college students with dyslexia. Along the way, we discuss a variety of techniques to improve the reading and writing skills of people who have dyslexia. We hope you enjoy this book, and feel free to email us at [e-mail].

CHAPTER 2 - What Is Dyslexia?

What is Dyslexia?

The primary indication of dyslexia is a difficulty with reading and spelling. Some reading difficulties could result from lack of adequate instruction, practice, or availability of books. Dyslexia, however, is not a result of these factors. Evidence shows that dyslexia is a neurological learning difference, based on differences in how the brain processes print and language. Let’s look at how dyslexia affects Bill, a college sophomore. Bill is a smart, friendly student, and loves sports. But Bill has difficulty with reading.

Phonological Awareness

Bill has difficulty hearing and pronouncing the sounds of new words that his professors say in their lectures. This is especially true of scientific terms.

Phonics

Bill has a hard time sounding out long words or scientific terms he meets in his textbooks.

Sequential Short-term Memory

Bill often cannot remember sequences of letters. When trying to copy words from PowerPoint slides during lectures, he can only remember about three letters at a time. He has to keep looking at the slides frequently while trying to copy words.

Auditory Memory

Bill has a hard time remembering names or numbers as they are said to him. While in class, if he asks a girl her name, he cannot remember it unless he quickly writes it down. The same holds true for phone numbers.

Verbal Memory

While reading complex sentences, Bill often cannot remember all the words in a sentence as he reads, so he has to reread the sentence several times to understand it.

Overworked Short-term Memory

When we perform a task like reading, we use our short-term memory to keep the words in our mind, so we can make sense of what we are reading. At times Bill is working so hard to read each word that he often looses his place while reading. His working memory is so focused on the words that by the end of the paragraph he has no idea what he has read.

Verbal Processing

It is hard for Bill to keep the different steps of directions in his mind. So while the professor solves a mathematical equation Bill looses track of the different steps in the solution.

Rapid Naming Speed

Research shows that students like Bill recall words more slowly than others. So Bill takes longer to recognize words and remember words as he reads. Bill reads more slowly than most of his friends. It takes him much longer to read assignments.

Automatic Word Recognition

Proficient readers automatically recognize words quickly. It may take only up to 12 times of seeing a new word to make it automatic both in terms of recognition and memory. However, for Bill it takes 30 or more times to learn new words, so learning new English or foreign language vocabulary is an arduous process.

Subvocalization

Bill does not automatically recognize words silently. Instead, while reading Bill says each word to himself quietly, so his reading is much slower than the other students who are true silent readers. A friend suggested that Bill put a pencil between his teeth to stop saying the words. When Bill tried this he got very frustrated and stopped reading. This trick did not work for Bill. In fact, this is a bad strategy often improperly recommended to dyslexic readers.

Spelling and Writing

Bill has a rich vocabulary. When he speaks with others, they are impressed with his erudition. When he writes, though, his vocabulary is stunted in comparison to his speech. Bill uses only the words that he can spell, so his writing often does not show what he knows.

Inability to Follow Printed Text

Bill keeps his finger on his place in the text as he reads. Otherwise, he often loses his place.

The Dyslexic Struggle

As can be seen, dyslexia affects more than just the reading process. Individuals with dyslexia often have difficulty with organizing assignments and remembering important dates for tests. They may also have difficulty with doing calculations in one's head as opposed to doing them on paper. I, Jim, was the last one in my class to learn the multiplication tables. Then sometimes while speaking, your mind simply goes blank, giving no indication of what the train of conversation was about. A very frequent characteristic of dyslexia is having a problem with short term memory. As pointed out above, this leads to struggling with learning people's names or looking up and dialing phone numbers. Finally, the emotional stress of living with dyslexia is potent, though often not discussed. After years of struggling with reading and school assignments, it is not unusual to have a very low self-image and to lack self-confidence. On the positive-side, every person has strengths to draw on. Often individuals with dyslexia have learned to be persistent and self motivated.

We know that 25% to 30% of high school students struggle with reading. Generally 10% of students struggle to such a degree that they can be considered dyslexic. Men and women are equally affected. Additionally, dyslexia runs in families. Often, a mother or father also struggled as a reader in school. In the early grades, dyslexic children have a hard time learning to read. Later on in high school, dyslexic students can read, but often very slowly and with great difficulty.

Elementary to High School

Both children and adults can struggle with reading. Ben, who is a third grader, has a very difficult time sounding out words. Sue is in fourth grade and often sees words but does not know what they mean. Richie is in seventh grade and reads all of the words but does not understand the sentences. Kelley, a ninth grader, gets discouraged about doing homework. Her reading is so slow, the homework takes hours while her friends get done fast. Guy is an eleventh grader, but is reading at a fifth grade level. He is unable to read his high school textbooks. These struggles give a picture of what dyslexia looks like for different people.

Key Areas

The key areas of reading are word decoding, vocabulary knowledge, comprehension of sentences, fluency while reading, acquiring adequate background knowledge, and finding the appropriate book to read.

Decoding

The ability to sound out and blend words is basic to the process of reading. At the very beginning, all readers must learn how to decode words. Phonics teaches the sounds that go with letters and letter combinations. When adults are having decoding difficulties, often one-on-one tutoring with a multi-sensory approach to learning phonics will help. Older struggling readers, especially those with dyslexia, have difficulty with decoding and phonics. It is not unusual for dyslexic adults to still struggle to figure out the words that they see. Sometimes participating in an adult literacy program of tutoring at a dyslexic center can help.

Vocabulary

Almost every new book contains new words. One of the major tasks of the college student is the learning of a large quantity of new vocabulary associated with each subject area being studied.

Fluency

Kelley, a college junior, reads slowly and stumbles over words. Kelley reads haltingly and with little expression in his voice. Often he must reread texts to develop fluency in a subject area.

Comprehension and Background Knowledge

College textbooks and resource materials are often difficult to comprehend. There are two ways to help with comprehension. First, you can read the chapter several times. Many times we do not understand the textbook chapters the first time around. Second, gain background knowledge outside of your current reading. When you do not have the background knowledge in a subject, the subject does not make sense. In order to get the background knowledge needed for understanding, it is helpful to first read an easier secondary book to get some information. There are a number of these types of books for most college subjects.

Reading and the Brain

Reading involves a number of major systems of the brain. The first area, of course, is our visual system. We first must see the letters and words on a page with our eyes. The images of the letters fall onto our retinas, but the letters do not go like a picture to our brains. Instead, the cells in our retinas actually respond to the lines and curves of each letter. Our retinal cells fire, sending information about the lines and curves to the back of our brains where the visual cortex is located in the occipital lobe (see Figure 1). As we repeatedly see the angles, curves and lines of the letters, our brains learn these neural patterns and soon learn to recognize letters and words.

As we read, our eyes actually move in small steps across a line of print. These movements are called saccades. After each time we move our eyes, we stop with a fixation and focus on the letters in the line. Our eyes can clearly see only about six to eight letters in each fixation. This is often enough to see a word or two. Non-dyslexic readers often experience their eyes easily gliding along the line and taking in the print. But dyslexic readers frequently have to use a lot of attention to make their eyes move from one spot to the next. Dyslexic readers find that their eyes often back up to reexamine