Two weeks ago, a friend asked me to meet a 19‑year‑old student whom he suspected was dyslexic. I explained that I had only ever taught children up to Year 6 (around age 13). He insisted, so I agreed — not to teach, but simply to help determine whether the boy was truly dyslexic.
When I met the father, he immediately described his son’s “bad memory.” He explained that his son could hardly retell a short story after reading it, despite years of tuition with different teachers and centres. Progress had been minimal.
The next day, the student came to my house. I asked him to read a simple story in Romanized Mandarin — he read fluently. I then gave him an English storybook — again, he read fluently. That was enough for me to conclude he was not dyslexic.
But when I asked him to retell the one‑page story in his own words, he struggled. To probe further, I gave him The Proud Swan — a book I normally use with my Primary One students. He read it easily, yet again failed to recount the story.
This raised immediate questions: Was the father right about his son’s memory? Why could a teenager who communicated well fail to comprehend what he read?
I tested him on the meanings of key words from the story. To my surprise, he did not know many of them. He could pronounce the words correctly but had no grasp of their meaning. Words such as swan, proud, looks down on, teases, hunter, surface, trick, dives, ugly, lifts, neck, strange, raft, and floats were unfamiliar to him.
It became clear: the problem was not memory, but language. He lacked the vocabulary needed to understand the text. I confirmed this by asking him to read a simple story in Romanized Mandarin and retell it in Mandarin — which he did with ease.
So why had “experts” told the father his son had a memory problem? The truth is simpler: without vocabulary, comprehension is impossible. Dyslexic or not, a child who does not understand the words cannot understand the story.
A Word of Caution
Do not blindly accept what so‑called experts — even those with PhDs — claim. Many insist that “one of the problems of dyslexics is reading comprehension.” That is misleading. As this case shows, comprehension failure often stems not from memory deficits, but from inadequate vocabulary.
We will explore this further in upcoming articles. For now, reflect on this: a father trusted experts for years, yet his son’s real difficulty was never identified. The lesson is clear — reading comprehension depends on vocabulary, not memory.
6 comments:
You have me intrigued! I can't wait to read the rest of the articles! You hear very often that reading comprehension is a problem for people with dyslexia. I think a big part of it is because they struggle so much with the reading and have to concentrate so much on actually decoding the words that they don't pay as much attention to what it is they are actually reading.
That seems to be the case with my son. Because when I read the story to him he does much better with answering comprehension questions than when he reads it himself.
Interested to see if my theory is the same as yours...
Hi Sarah,
Thank you for your comment. I look forward to comments and questions from my readers.
I have started writing only short articles as a reader suggested that if my article is too long the readers will get bored half way through.
Yes, I read very often that reading comprehension is a problem for people with dyslexia. From my teaching experience I find that statement to be false.When I first start teaching, almost all my students seem to have a reading comprehension problem but when I read to them they understand the whole story and can answer most if not all the comprehension questions at the back of the book without having to look at the passage. Believe me, when I say that most of the time all it takes is one reading by me. I have written an article on this on March 9, 2010. Please refer to that article. I continue reading about reading comprehension and therefore decided to write again on this topic.
As can be seen in my March 9th article, I completely agree with your findings.However, it is not limited to reading hesitatingly. If I were to read Einstein's theory of relativity even for the next one month I'll probably not understand even 10 % of what he has written and definitely it will not be because of reading fluency.
Reading comprehension can be affected by language difficulties or word identification difficulties (which cause hesitant reading).
If a student does not understand material read to him or if he reads fluently and yet does not understand what he has read then he may have a difficulty in understanding language.
The most common type of reading difficulty, however, is the difficulty with word recognition. Because he does not recognise the word instantaneously he has to sound it out and therefore reads hesitatingly and concentrates most of his effort on reading that he cannot quite comprehend what he has read.
Let me try and give an analogy - If I cannot play ice hockey it could be because I cannot skate and not because I cannot learn to play ice hockey. If you can think of a better analogy please let me know so I may include in my next article on comprehension with your permission of course.
Wish you well.
Allow me to add a little more.You wrote :"That seems to be the case with my son. Because when I read the story to him he does much better with answering comprehension questions than when he reads it himself."
I would therefore like to say that your son's comprehension problem is because of his hesitant reading and not really a comprehension problem because he is dyslexic. Does this make sense?
This could happen to any child before he becomes a fluent reader.A dyslexic child or a non dyslexic child will have reading comprehension problem before they become fluent readers. I hope I do make sense.
Yes, that does make sense. I agree that my son's comprehension problems are because he is a hesitant reader. But my point is that he is a hesitant reader because he has dyslexia.
I am actually a speech and language pathologist. So, I understand and agree with you when you say "if a child does not have the vocabulary he will not be able to comprehend what he is reading"
looking forward to reading part 2. I am going to go read it right now.
Sarah
Thank you Sarah. I'll think of what else I can write on this topic.
Just discovered your site really interesting info.
Sounds like a receptive language disorder in the case of this young man.
My son is dyslexic and reads and comprehends above his age, he was heavily remediated with his reading and there seemed to be a point which he passed in which a critical reading speed was passed where the comprehension picked up. His oral reading still remains inaccurate and not fully fluent but he obviously copes well.
However we were questioned by a head of Year teacher whether he actually had dyslexia as he reads and understands above his age. The teacher totally ignored that fact that his writing skills (motor skills and organisation skills) are well below age.
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