Goals: Essential Roadmap

Before you start deciding on tutors, educational therapy, software programs, etc. to support your struggling reader, you need to think about what your goals are for them, and what their goals are for themselves. The younger the child the more your goals take priority, but the older the child the more their goals will take priority. It is always a balance between the two.

Why do you need goals? Isn’t the goal to get them reading? Yes, this is true to a point, but reading at what level? What about comprehension? Speed of reading? Enjoying reading? Writing skills? Use of assistive technology? Overcoming the learning challenges presented by dyslexia will take a lot of work, both by you and by your child. If both of you don’t have a clear goal to work towards and a strategy to get there, you could end up spending a lot of time, energy, effort and money to reach a goal that isn’t actually what you really intended to achieve.

What does your child want to be when they grow up? Many don’t know, but many do. Where do their interests lie? Answering these questions will give you some clues as to what their educational needs might be, beyond high school. I am assuming here that you want your child to graduate from high school at a minimum, as this dramatically improves their ability to find a job. Also, there is a big difference between reading for high school and reading at a college or university level, in both the complexity of the language and the volume of reading you must complete in a semester. Reading is a big component of being licensed in a trade. Your child might be great with practical skills, but they still need to pass the licensing exam.

There is a big difference between reading to pass courses or exams, and reading for pleasure.

It might seem extreme to think about what your child will want to do 10 – 15 years in the future when they’re struggling with reading in grade 2 or 3, but laying the groundwork for the skills they will need starts now. It is important to take the time and decide what your (you and your child’s) goal is for their literacy skills.

Decisions about how to support them, and the time, energy, effort, and money required are much easier when you have your end goal clearly in mind.

I had two goals for my kids. I wanted them to have the skills they needed to pursue whatever career interested them, without being limited by their literacy skills. This meant that they needed to be prepared for university, since that had the more advanced literacy requirements compared to college or trade school. I also wanted them to enjoy reading for fun. I am an avid reader and absolutely love to read! I wanted my kids to have that enjoyment in their own lives. As simple as these goals may sound, they were a significant challenge to achieve.

These two goals guided my decisions about learning, reading, writing, interacting with books, and external help such as educational therapy and courses taught by others. They also helped me to encourage my kids to dream about their future, what they wanted to do or be, and give them the motivation to keep going, even though the work was very challenging and frustrating at times.

Most years, I did not believe it was possible to achieve these goals, but over time the work accumulated and they are now both pursuing the post-secondary education of their choice, and they both love to read.

Take some time to really consider what your goals are for your child. What are their goals? Having clear direction will make future decisions much easier to evaluate whether or not the costs of time, energy, effort and money are worth it to you and your child. Each family is different, each person is different, and dyslexia presents differently in every single person. A clear goal will help you find the right path for your family, and your child.

If you would like a more detailed explanation of setting goals, this post by Glenn Sommerville will give you some very specific guidelines of how to go about it.

Other posts in this series:

1. Now What?
2. Educate Yourself
3. Take the Pressure Off
4. Reading: A World of Adventure
5. Goals: Essential Roadmap
6. Get the Right Kind of Support
7. Persevere: Good Days and Bad
8. Nothing is Permanent Except Change
9. Encourage! Encourage! Encourage!

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