Charlotte Mason and Dyslexia
Charlotte Mason wrote: “once the habit of reading…with delight is set up in a child, his education is not completed, but ensured.”
When I was a homeschool mom, I would’ve worn that on a t-shirt. Or put it on a very long bumper sticker. It inspired most of the decisions I made when I was educating my kids. Reading it now as a dyslexia specialist, I find it equally inspiring — but perhaps a bit more complicated. After all, how do you help a child develop a habit of reading (with delight, no less) when the child finds reading to be so difficult? What do you do when your child would rather do almost anything but read?
“Once the habit of reading…with delight is set up in a child, his education is not completed, but ensured.”
It’s easy to extole the virtues of reading when your child is reading fluently. But for parents of dyslexic children, it can feel like Mason’s philosophy isn’t really meant for them — or that it’s meant for them only after their child has learned to read at the desired level.
I would argue, however, that Charlotte Mason’s wisdom applies just as much to children with dyslexia. I lean on her work consistently in my practice, finding it to be the perfect complement to the structured, scientifically-based Orton-Gillingham method I use for dyslexia remediation.
Charlotte Mason believed that every child deserves an education as unique as they are. Her work embraces the whole child, and offers tools that can help children develop in ways that will help them become curious, well-rounded, life-long learners. When I’m working with a child who has dyslexia, there are three principles from the Charlotte Mason Method that I use consistently in my practice.
1. Reading aloud. Reading aloud creates a “database” of sophisticated language that helps dyslexic children read more easily and accurately. Take the word: “legislature.” This is an extremely difficult word for a dyslexic child to learn to decode, but if they recognize the word as they’re decoding, they’re far more likely to read it quickly and accurately without having to recall multiple decoding rules. I spend the last 15 minutes of every tutoring session reading aloud to students from books like Where the Red Fern Grows. This gently and naturally introduces them to language — encouraging them to see books and stories as a source of delight instead of discouragement.
2. Narration. Charlotte Mason used narration to help a child learn to articulate what they had learned in their own words. For dyslexic students, narration is a useful tool for helping them grow their comprehension skills — as well as their love for reading. After reading to a student, I ask them to tell me what they remember. A young student might say, “There was a little boy who found a dog.” An older student having listened to the same story might say, “There was a lonely dog who needed a home.” In both cases, the students are learning to engage on a personal, critical level with the material they’re reading.
3. Attention-building activities - Charlotte Mason believed that while learning to read, a child must also be taught a habit of attention. Studies show 40-50% of dyslexic students struggle with attentiveness. They can be easily distracted by the ticking of an overhead fan, the barking of a dog outside, or simply by their own imagination. In order to cultivate a habit of attention, I am careful to keep my student’s lessons short. When working with an eight year old, I teach decoding and encoding for 15 to 20 minutes. As the student’s capacity for attention grows, I increase the length of the session by five minutes. By 5th grade a dyslexic student can engage happily, distraction-free, for 45 to 60 minutes.
Dyslexia was not widely recognized until long after Charlotte Mason first introduced her philosophy. Yet her ideas remain as relevant and powerful today as they did over a hundred years ago. Mason believed in educating the whole child — which means not simply isolating challenges to “work on” but instead understanding how challenges in one area might point to strengths in another. I believe that while some children might require extra time and assistance when it comes to learning the mechanics of reading, every child can fall in love with stories and engage with ideas — and that doing so will set them up for success in all aspects of their lives.
