By Christina David
I experienced a journey of discovery that was born out of hardship. A decade into my teaching career, I became a mother. As my children grew and started school, I began to notice concerns. Why would a young kid who was previously happy and inquisitive, bright and creative, struggle in school? Why would he hate school? Despite everything we tried, the situation grew worse. Children don’t enter the world with fine print letting us know their needs, strengths, and what makes them altogether unique. We discover these things together along the journey. For children who are differently wired and born into a world designed for neurotypical minds, this can be a difficult process. I watched as adults became angry and frustrated with my child, and I observed all the joy drain from him. He went from a classroom where teachers were concerned but caring, to a situation where the adults felt my son was “a problem.” Finally, his level of unhappiness shifted from a daily, chronic problem to an acute concern, and I pulled my little boy out of the school altogether.
That was the turning point: we flipped the script, changed schools, and threw out traditional parenting handbooks. In that path of discovery, I learned I have bright children with differently wired brains and disabilities, who thrive in learning environments that accommodate them. In his book, The Explosive Child, psychologist Dr. Ross Greene explains that children do well if they can. Behavior is communication. We can follow the path and pattern of the behavior and it will lead us to the root cause: an unmet need or lagging skill (Greene 2021, 12–15). Sadly, there can be times when parents, family members, teachers, and other adults see a child’s behavior that doesn’t meet expectations, and mistake this for laziness or a lack of discipline. In reality, the behavior is a communication of an unmet need.
In the adjusted environment, my children are doing great. My son is thriving as a homeschooled high school student, studying art and taking dual enrollment college classes. He has a wonderful group of friends, plays guitar in a band and at church, and actively volunteers in the community. The “behavior” long ago was a sign that he was not in a healthy environment where his needs could be met.
In this article, I’d like to focus on one kind of neurodiversity: dyslexia. It is very common for dyslexia to fly under the radar, going unidentified and undiagnosed for years. Perhaps you are aware that one of your students is dyslexic, or maybe none of your students are, to your knowledge. But that is where we need to take a breath. Approximately one in five people has dyslexia. If you have twenty children in your studio, three or four of them likely have a dyslexic learning profile. Statistically, 80% of people with dyslexia exit the school system without ever having been identified (Made by Dyslexia 2025). For children to thrive, we need to create space for any identified learning differences. Since many children go undiagnosed, we also need to take Dr. Greene’s approach and follow the signs of behavior to discover the unmet needs and lagging skills. It is not in our ability as teachers to diagnose, but we can observe a need and find a way to make the arts accessible to every child.
Possible Signs of Dyslexia in Children
What does dyslexia look like? I will identify some general signs here, and then discuss how they can appear in a music educational context below. I use a strengths-based lens, so let’s start by discussing the strengths and gifts of dyslexia. Dyslexics are problem solvers who spot patterns that others miss. They are often creative, artistic, and have strong visual-spatial skills. You could imagine how adults may look at a child with dyslexia and label them as “bright, but lazy.” They see the potential but don’t realize the behavior is pointing to an underlying struggle (Griggs 2019).
Each person with dyslexia has their own wiring and areas of strength and challenge, like a unique fingerprint. Keep in mind that children may exhibit only a few of these signs. For instance, my youngest son is significantly dyslexic, but he was good at rhyming in pre-kindergarten.
Many children with dyslexia were “late talkers” as toddlers, and may have experienced speech articulation issues. Syllables could easily get mixed up. One of my kids still says “Skwunge Bob,” instead of “SpongeBob,” and another kid used to say “jamamas” instead of “pajamas.” They may have trouble remembering a word, or will mix up words. My child once asked for more mustard on his pancakes.
By the end of first grade, if children are still reversing numbers or letters, that is considered a potential sign. A gap between verbal ability and written ability is another telltale flag, as well as slow, deliberate, or messy handwriting. Dyslexics will use their creativity and clever thinking to guess at words they can’t read, from context clues.
People with dyslexia may also have messy bedrooms and desks, have trouble reading the hands on a clock, and often struggle following multiple verbal directions. Because school without proper support can be stressful, chronic stomach aches, constipation, headaches, school anxiety, and dreading school can all be signs of dyslexia.
Dyslexia is highly inheritable, so a relative with dyslexia could also be an indicator. However, don’t forget that 80% of dyslexia is undiagnosed; in our family, several adults were identified with dyslexia after my children were diagnosed.
People with dyslexia often have relatively lower working memory skills compared to their other abilities. They also don’t respond well to rote memorization without context. It can feel like something you taught fell right out of their brains two weeks later. This has nothing to do with intelligence or commitment. They may require more time and more encounters with new information before developing a strong neural pathway. The child can experience a delayed neural commitment. However, it is believed that once the connection is established, people with dyslexia are then especially able to synthesize the new information with their previous neural connections. This process fosters a neural web highly capable of creativity and new ideas (Eide and Eide 2023, 56–57). In other words, it may take more time, but the end result brings about rich and robust neural connections.
Musical Signs of Dyslexia
You may see confusion between left and right, and they may take more time to establish a dominant hand. A student might randomly use the wrong hand to hold their instrument. For years, my daughter consistently put her shoes on the wrong feet. It is not uncommon for dyslexics to take longer to learn to tie their shoes or to experience difficulty rhyming. One of my kids couldn’t learn our phone number and address for a long time. I had no idea it was a sign of dyslexia.
Spelling is often a problem. For music, answering “what note comes before A?” can be difficult for people with dyslexia, and they may need to recite the musical alphabet in their head to give the answer. Likewise, they might guess at music notes and lean heavily on their ear as compensation. They may skip or substitute words or notes, or play the correct pattern on the wrong string or section of the instrument.
For many people with dyslexia, it is easy to confuse which way is “up” or “down” in reference to playing notes on an instrument. Think about the video game Tetris. It utilizes visual spatial skills as you turn falling shapes so they fit like a puzzle. Someone with dyslexia may be quite skillful at that game as they can visualize the shapes in their mind, rotating them 90 or 180 degrees. If it is so easy to rotate and move shapes in their mind, then the mental image can shift even when it isn’t intended. A “d” sneakily flips over to become a “p”. Or the word “discovery” manages to become “disvocery” as those little Tetris pieces flip and dance in your mind (Silverman 2002, 10–11).
Dyslexia experts Brock and Fernette Eide coined the term stealth dyslexia in 2005. They explained how a child can learn to read at grade level or even well above grade level, and yet still actually be dyslexic. These children are utilizing their other strengths to compensate for their deficits (Eide and Eide 2005). However, it is fatiguing and unsustainable to continually compensate without appropriate support and intervention.
Knowledge Into Action
What can we do with this information? First, we must recognize that children with unsupported learning differences are at greater risk for depression, anxiety, insecurity, and losing their motivation (Hagan 2025). If the child is struggling with you, she is probably also struggling with certain aspects of school. These children are at higher risk of chronic frustration, correction, and disappointment from teachers and adults. As music teachers, we have the opportunity to help shape each child’s inner voice. Try to look past what is frustrating and see the child who very much needs to experience your warmth, your calm, and unwavering acceptance. Our approval should not depend on their performance, because the performance does not determine the child’s value. Here are some proactive suggestions:
1. Partner with Parents
The Suzuki Method works seamlessly with this. Find out what observations and suggestions the parent may have, as they are the experts on their children. Keep lines of communication and collaboration open.
2. Encourage Music Listening
This is another beauty of Suzuki, as we are already supporting a child with dyslexia by having him listen to music daily. This is a win, and is an inclusive approach.
3. Focus on Strengths
A rule of thumb from the “Bright and Quirky” neurodiversity specialists is to devote twice as much time to the child’s strengths and interests as you do to deficits and areas of challenge (Bright and Quirky 2025). This will keep the light in their eyes and prevent burnout. While we shore up areas of lagging skill, home in on where they exude joy. The key to thriving is finding where a child shines and doing more of that thing.
4. Flexibility is Key
Adhering to a rigid way of doing things can overlook the outside-the-box strengths of people with dyslexia and tether them to their deficits. Flexing could mean observing a mental block and fatigue and pivoting to a different activity. If the child is struggling with reading pitch but is enjoying reading rhythm, lean into rhythm study.
Dr. Melanie Hayes, LMFT, author and neurodiversity advocate, explains that we need to be ready to pull away from a “typical, step-by-step progression.” A strengths-based approach means giving these creative learners access to advanced work before they have checked off all the boxes. If a child is highly motivated to play a video game theme song or to compose her own music, be flexible and creative to make it happen.
5. Allow More Time
On the dyslexia spectrum, some students won’t have trouble reading music. Others may experience significant struggle. You may need to change your expectations and timeframe around note reading and memorization. Children with dyslexia often benefit from more time to process before giving an answer. You can ask a question, and then pause. Try adding an extra five seconds to your typical pause before you break the silence or try to prompt them. Prompting early can disrupt their thought process.
6. Accommodation Provides Appropriate Access
Avoid filtering all learning, musical expression, and artistry through a child’s disability. Forcing everything through their deficits will strangle their joy and leave them feeling inadequate and unhappy. People with dyslexia can lose their sense of directionality, especially regarding verbal instructions. They may not process verbal directions like, “play that B with your first finger,” because there are multiple perspectives of which finger is the first. Your pinky could be your first, or your index finger (violin) or your thumb. And “up” may actually be “down,” high might be low, depending on your perspective.
For a child whose struggles resonate with this description, color coding can be life changing. It has three parts for a string player: a colored finger tape on the instrument, a corresponding color marking on the tip of the finger, and a marker color on the written note itself, when needed. Now you can say, “Play that B note with your blue on the A string.” You can speak in color to explain a note, and the child won’t become disoriented.
Consider this a “scaffold,” or a temporary support the child will grow out of needing. The long-term goal is still to read music fluently. In a situation where a child’s ability to read is profoundly impacted by dyslexia, the goal may be to give them a rich, aural legacy for now and later learning to read chord charts.
7. Give Hands-on Experience
People with dyslexia often learn by doing. Allowing the child to roleplay as the teacher with you or the parent is a fabulous, hands-on way to help strengthen neural synapses. Meaningful, hands-on, multisensory encounters with information will lead to connection. Avoid timed quizzes, rapid-fire flash cards, and drilling facts.
8. Allow Access to Reference Materials
Examples include: open book, a circle of fifths sheet, a chart of rhythm durations, and two octaves of the alphabet written out ABCDEFGABCDEFG for note order reference. Supply options, multiple choice, or a word bank for answers. For example, instead of asking, “What is this?” and pointing to the scroll of the cello, you could ask them to point to the scroll (supplying them with the word). Or, you could point and ask, “Is this the scroll or the frog?” (giving multiple choice options.)

Finally, be aware that it is common for additional differences or disabilities to be involved alongside dyslexia. Frequent comorbid diagnoses to dyslexia include ADHD, Autism, anxiety, sensory sensitivities or SPD, low muscle tone and hyper-mobility, visual processing deficits, auditory processing deficits, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and giftedness.
As we hold our expectations and routines with intentionality rather than rigidity, and choose to view areas of deficit or behavior in our students with curiosity rather than judgement or frustration, we begin cultivating a studio culture and environment that allows children with dyslexia to thrive.
References
Bright and Quirky. Bright + Quirky 101 Strong Start Guide. 2024. https://brightandquirky.com/free-resources/

Eide, Brock and Fernette Edie. The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain. Plume, 2023.

Eide, Brock and Fernette Edie. “Stealth Dyslexia.” 2e Newsletter, October 2005. https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Stealth-Dyslexia-2E-original-article.pdf.

Greene, Ross W. The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children. Harper Paperbacks, 2021.

Griggs, Kate. “Dyslexia Awareness Part 1: Module 2—Dyslexia Strengths.” Posted January 24, 2019, Made by Dyslexia. YouTube. 8 minutes and 7 seconds. https://www
.youtube.com/watch?v=d4VRjQnBoWM

Hagan, Molly. “Learning Disabilities and Depression: Why kids with LDs often develop depression, and need emotional support, too.” Child Mind Institute, June 12, 2025. https://childmind.org/article
/learning-disabilities-and-depression/

Made by Dyslexia. “Education – Teachers.” Accessed August 2, 2025. https://www.madebydyslexia.org/teachers/.

Silverman, Linda K. Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner. DeLeon Publishing, 2002.