I wish I had known that even Resource staff is not trained to work with Dyslexia! I was like many on this list thinking that the school would always have my child's best interest at heart. I think they do to an extent but the system and just general ignorance about research on the matter don't allow correct action...even though my own efforts with hiring an O/G tutor have really made a difference her time in resource is a waste and they just don't get it...

To Rogomom2, Don't regret what you did not know. The knowledge of how important the milestones were not generally known until the year 2000 or so. The help books regarding infant to age 6, may tell you a lot but what is not told is why. Ditto for literacy. I just came back from an IEP meeting, where everyone at that meeting was talking about the delays of the milestones. Imagine that, after all these years there may be hope for a public education system, no matter where it is, that behaviour and other symptoms that manifest in the early grades are not used as the excuses for denying reading help for the child. It is a bit too late for my child, who is in grade 9, but the good news is she will be receiving targeted help for her core weaknesses. She is the first in the school to receive the specialized help, instead of what I call remedial help that has been dumb-down. Next week she will be receiving the O/G help, that was taken away from her in the early grades as soon as improvement was seen in her grades. This time around, the O/G program will be finish, with assessments being done on a regular basis to see if the program is helping her. Her grades will no longer be the sole deciding factor.
Which brings me to the second factor that I wish I knew. I wish I knew, how schools have a tendency to assess a child through grades only. There is an assumption that if a child is passing, the child is not having any learning problems. This is more so, when the grades are much higher than the 50 % pass. When a child is receiving targeted help for their learning problems, and than it is pulled for the reason of higher grades, when the program has not been completed; there is a very good chance of regression. This is what happen to my child, who only knows 5 phonemic sounds as of today. Hopefully, by the end of the year, she will know all the sounds.

I wish I had known that my daughter wasn't just being stubborn when she wasn't following my directions as a preschooler, but that she didn't understand what I was saying. I wish more mainstream parenting books and articles, more pediatricians, and preschool teachers would take the time to explain learning disabilities to parents and give more detailed information about cognitive milestones. That way I would have known that a child can be walking and talking at one year of age and using sentences at age two but still have problems. How many times was I asked, how many words does she know? What about understanding those words, being able to respond to questions, being able to remember things etc. With more information, it would not have taken me six years to really know what a learning disability is and how many kinds there are. I wish elementary schools would recognize that there is more to early childhood education than reading. Yes, I understand the significance of reading, but what about telling time, money and other math. Children with math disabilities need help from get-go and more schools need math specialists to provide this help. How many schools only have reading specialists and speech and language pathologists? I wish some teachers would not look down their noses at you as a parent because your child is struggling. I wish teachers were continually educated so that they are up to date on their knowledge. Like other parents, I just wish I had known more earlier. I read everything I could get my hands on about parenting before having my first child, and it was so sad that despite that I didn't help her in the right way for so many years.

I too had suspected dyslexia in 1st grade for my child. On every IEP from 1st grade through 5th grade when I took him out of Public School it says that. I remember his reading specialist agreeing with me in one IEP meeting and the principal nearly blasting her out of the room saying she was not qualified to make such a comment. I wish, now that I too have grown and been educated that I had not thought always that the teachers and schools would always have my sons best interest at heart. Now he is 14 in his first year a an appropriate school for dyslexic children. He has already shown HUGE leaps just in the first 2 months! His self esteem has gone from nearly nothing to that of an almost normal person. I wish I would have listened to my instincts, rather than thinking.. "Im not an educator, if they do not see it.. maybe I am just paranoid and he is lazy". Really it was the school that was lazy..