The Myth Isn’t Dyslexia, It’s the Numbers

 

Zack Barnes, PhD posted the following on Facebook today, 16 September 2026.

Dyslexia is real. There’s no denying that. However, there is a small group of literacy professors who think dyslexia is a myth. The article below is from way back in 2019. At the time, I released audio from a prominent literacy professor making outrageous claims about dyslexia and a newly passed dyslexia law in Tennessee.

Richard Allington is a huge name in literacy. Think about how many teachers and professors he trained to think that dyslexia wasn’t real. Around the same time I went to a national literacy conference where I heard professors talk about how dyslexia was a myth.

It. Was. Wild.

I was taught in my PhD program that there were people like this, but it was mind blowing to see it in happening in front of my eyes.

It’s people like that who have kept the field of literacy from moving forward. We can have debates about specific teaching practices, but you can’t have collaborate conversations with someone who does not believe in learning disabilities.

Dyslexia is real, and we need to identify students and provide intensive intervention.

 

Dyslexia exists. What is inflated is the scale.

My thoughts on Dr. Gwendolyn's post

 

Here is a post by Dr. Gwendolyn and my thoughts. LINK.

Dr. Gwendolyn:

Can we wait until third grade to address reading gaps when we know that early intervention is effective? Research consistently demonstrates that the sooner we intervene, the better chance we have of closing these gaps before they widen and become more challenging to manage.

 

My thoughts:

I agree. I’ve often questioned why we wait until fourth grade to identify students who aren’t reading at grade level, and I haven’t received a satisfactory answer. This notion that we must wait until fourth grade seems to be perpetuated by those with vested interests. Just think about how many intervention and remediation services would be impacted. Another unanswered question is how we can identify children likely to struggle with reading by the end of first grade right at the beginning of that year.

Zack Barnes and Dyslexia

In the article I posted earlier this week, Zack Barnes Ph.D. was said to have made some comments as below.

But Zack Barnes, an assistant professor of education at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, says that the research is clear that dyslexic students need systematic, explicit phonics instruction.

Who are these dyslexic students? To lump each and every student who cannot read in English as dyslexic is what those with vested interest have been doing for the past more than 50 years.

Richard Allington and dyslexia

In a special report on Education Week Teacher by Sarah Schwartz on December 11, 2019 was an article entitled:

ProminentLiteracy Expert Denies Dyslexia Exists; Says to 'Shoot' Whoever Wrote Law on It.

Here are some extracts and my comments: