For my daughter with dyslexia, the key was graphic novels. And Raina Telgemeier. Oh, bless that woman. If I ever meet her, I’m going to kiss her on the lips. She wrote Smile, and my daughter read Smile, and everything changed. It was just really a breakthrough moment. Just the other day she was asking me, “Has she written anything else? Why hasn’t she written anything else?” For her it was the perfect melding of art.
She’s very artistic anyway, so for her it was a great way for her to see a story unfold. It’s interesting because for me I have a hard time knowing how to read a graphic novel. I love them, but it doesn’t come as naturally to me as, say, parsing a sentence. So that was great. Some kids with dyslexia use audiobooks very successfully, and that can be a key to success. Picture books are great, too. They tend to be reluctant to read them, but if they’ve got adults and older kids who are comfortable or the content is a little more sophisticated, that’s a really good strategy.