Make Real Progress on Big Goals For Your Dyslexic Kid!

When you have a dyslexic kid, it can be daunting to make longer-term goals. We're here to help you break those down into manageable chunks.

He got me diagnosed when I was in third grade, and it was the most relieving day of my life because I finally had, like, kind of a place to hang my hat and say, see, I told you, I'm not lazy, definitely not stupid. I just learned differently, like, that's totally okay. We dyslexics, we were often, you know, just set up for failure because, you know, we were given books and tasks that really are not appropriate for the level that we were at.

So how do you expect anyone to be open to learning when their entire relationship with reading, with learning, is physical pain? Wish I had understood when I was younger that the fact that my brain worked differently than people meant that I would be good at things in ways that other kids were not going to be good at. I must assume, I can't be dyslexic because letters don't jump up and down for me.

Dyslexia is not a disorder. It is not a disease. Once you sort of own it and embrace it, then you can have the power to deal with it. It's sort of empowering and also enriching to the whole community. To those who don't understand what dyslexia is, that it's not a negative, it's not a problem, it's, like we keep saying, superpower.

Hey everyone, we're Nick and Sonja, and this is Dyslexia Journey. And we today, this is actually a second video related to a video we did before. The video before that we did was about sort of the sometimes trickiness and navigating longer term goals versus, you know, shorter term life things that crop up or like managing the day to day. And in that video, we mentioned, though, that, you know, we wanted to talk specifically about longer term goals and how to break those down, you know, time wise into shorter and sooner, you know, sequences of events.

And so that's what we're going to talk about today. We'll start with some tips for making goals and then tips for, you know, breaking things down. And then we'll give you a couple examples just to ground it a little bit for you. On the podcast, that's episode 122. And on YouTube, we'll go ahead and link that video to this one. Okay, so the first step, of course, in this whole achieving goals thing is to make the goals in the first place, right?

So we have some tips for sort of caveats tips. It's a combination of those just overarching fundamental ideas to help you out with making those goals. And the first one, actually kind of the first two, but they're a little different from each other, is to really sort of be careful and cautious in how you actually make the goal, like what that goal actually is. So, for example, something like reading at grade level being your goal for the end of the year, let's say, like, is that really appropriate, like particularly for your kid?

Maybe if your kid is really close to reading at grade level, that is a good goal, but be careful that you're not sort of basing, that you're basing the goal, like on the kid and individually who they are and like where they're at exactly. And what seems reasonable based on that, not sort of like coming in with a goal that, you know, that is like trying to get them to exactly to where everyone else is or something like that.

Because it's important that this is very individualized for the kid and is going to be something achievable, right? Yeah, that's a really good point. I think customized would be another good word for it. And so one thing that can help with this is to make it a pretty general goal. So rather than having it be reading at grade level by the end of the year, really for these really big goals, right?

So the bigger term goals, rather than having it be that, having it be something like reading more fluently. And, you know, if that sounds sort of ungrounded and like all over the place, I think it's actually helpful to know that the specifics, they'll get more specific and what they're actually doing as you, you know, get to the more monthly, weekly, you know, as you go in the timeframe down in smaller chunks.

But having that big goal feel like something that's achievable, I think is really important. And also like you can, you can meet it because you can see like, even if it's not reaching a certain level, you'll see that there's progress and then that can feel like a win for everyone. So I think to have those big goals actually stay more abstract is actually a good thing. Okay. And then this is kind of just really an addendum to the previous goal, which Sonja kind of made this point already, but I want to emphasize that it's not a good idea to make these goals comparative.

So, so even the, you know, reading at grade level sounds like a standard if you just say it like that, but it's better to have kind of a more absolute kind of goal than, than something comparative to, to other students like of their age. Right. So consider that you're comparing in the progress kind of way, right? So you're comparing them against themselves essentially. Right. So that's a, that's a good way to look at it.

And then we also want to encourage you to not think of goals as only about reading. It's easy to do that, right? I mean, that's often reading and writing are often what a dyslexic kid is most working on. And that feels like it needs the goals that are different, you know, from potentially other people needing goals like that. But it is important because there's, it's really like affects so many areas of life.

And it's also important to not get so, so into where like reading is sort of the only thing going on and the only goal. Cause that can also like kind of comes through in like daily life. If that, if that's the mindset. And so we encourage you to make reading goals or that kind of academic goals. Yes. But also perhaps things like social or advocacy goals as in like advocating for themselves around accommodations and things like that.

And also personal and wellness goals. And as we get to the examples, you'll see a little bit how that might play out. Yeah. And then our final kind of tip before we get into more specifics is to make sure that your child is buying into these goals. Because as we've discussed many times on this show, if your child is not motivated to learn something or to work on something, it's just not going to work.

And yeah. And I think it's important to be open to a kid's own ideas for what they want for a goal. Absolutely. But it may, you know, it may be that you are the one proposing more, you know, simply because they're not a teacher and they might not have the insight, right, into life and wellness and things like that and what's important yet. So it's not that you can't be the one proposing things, but really trying to help them buy into it, like have reason, you know, explaining to them why it's important.

Making sure it's something they feel like is doable and then being really open that they might, once you do propose it, have suggestions. So being flexible about that. Yeah. And be willing to compromise about the sort of level of goal or as we get into the specifics about, you know, how much time is spent on it every day or every week. Yes. And so we just have three quick tips, too, about as you start to break down the goals.

So you're making you have these tips about making sort of the big goals and then as you're going to start to break them down into smaller steps, there's a few things to keep in mind. So one is to really break it down. You know, you're going to go from bigger to smaller. So it'll be big, medium, little, but like really feel free to make it quite tiny steps because all the way down to the really tiny because that is really where the work is getting done and the progress is getting made.

OK, so the second tip is something I started to I alluded to already, which is to go from more abstract to more specific. So it means that the the, you know, the bigger goals are going to feel more abstract and like you can think of that time wise. So like the yearly goal is going to feel more abstract, even if it has some concreteness to it, then like as you get down to the daily goal.

So it's going to get more and more concrete in terms of what the goal actually is about what you're actually doing. And then finally, and this is related to just to keep in mind that there's no step that's too tiny. So no step that's too tiny as long as it's concrete. Like in this, we're sort of stopping at the daily level. But, you know, it could be something that's like a certain time of the day because it just works really well for your family, you know, is when a certain thing happens.

I mean, it really it's just about getting more concrete with those steps so that that's where the implementation happens. So so you can break this down even smaller than we're doing it. Yeah. Like five minutes of work on something is better than zero minutes. Right. But and it could look like so it could but it could look also like it's a particular time of the day. It could look like so. So so even a daily goal might like be something that you want to chunk down even smaller.

OK, now let's let's dive into two specific examples. But before we do that, I just want to to make sure everyone realizes that every child is different. So these two examples we're going through might not be appropriate for your child. What's appropriate for, you know, another child that, you know, may not be appropriate for your child as well. But like this is all success. Like any any goals that you're working on with your child, those are great.

Exactly. And and really the the goal here, we're not getting so specific as to sort of act like this is, you know, a real child with a lot of depth to them. The goal here is just to try to ground it a little more. That's why we're doing examples. So more grounding like than the specific kid so strongly, like the flow of how how the goals are made, you know, chunking down the time frames.

So so so let's say that there is a kid and you've decided that your big abstract goals. So not even just yearly, but like in general, you're hoping to happen next for them. Like the areas that you want to see progress in are to read more fluently. So that's sort of in the academic and reading area. And then another goal is that they will be doing some of their own advocating. So not all right.

Like it doesn't have to be this goal for like when they're an adult, but like you just realize, hey, you know, we're doing a lot of the advocating. It'd be good if they are starting to take some of that on and see how that's still very abstract. You're not putting like what that is on it at all yet. You're just sort of identifying the areas. And we're just going to leave it at those two for now.

And the next example will instead have an example that's about the the personal and wellness kind of goal. So so let's say that that's the overall goal. So the yearly goal then for the improvement in fluency, for example, could look like whatever measure your school uses for that. But you can also just celebrate all improvement. So you could, you know, at that point of the year goal, it's going to depend a little on what like you have access to and how your school does things.

So it may have a little bit of concrete to us to it at that point. Or it might just be reading more fluently by the end of the year as the year goal. And to deal and to dive into the advocacy piece of it, your year long goal there might be to have your child be the one who makes the first contact with the teacher at the beginning of the next school year in order to explain that child's learning difference.

Right. And and so that's pretty specific, but and it might sound like, well, then what do you work on? And we'll get into it, of course, in a second here, you know, for the smaller steps. But keep in mind that if that feels big, right, that would feel big. So you can sort of see that there's going to naturally be steps to get them to a comfort level where they can actually do that.

Yeah. Another way to think about this is you've got your kind of abstract goal that we talked about. And then you pick sort of time frames to have like the year time frame is kind of a milestone. And then you break that down into what can be done on a on on a smaller time chunk basis, which we'll dive into now. Right. So then we're just going to talk about monthly, weekly and daily, you know, possible examples of how it could look.

It's infinite still for even how the specifics look within the particular goals that we said and that were the yearly goals. But let's just talk about a little. So the month goal. So we'd want to have some more concreteness here, right? Could be to have X number, whatever that number is going to be that makes sense for your child and where they're at. X number of pages of reading done by the end of the month where they did it, let's say, on their own, because that's going to help them, you know, build that fluency.

And then maybe that month goal is that they, you know, at least once that month have updated their teacher on how they're doing, especially, you know, sometimes it'll just come up naturally if that happens anyway. And so you can make sure that they're involved in that. But if it doesn't come up naturally, that they maybe do that and talk to their teacher. Maybe it's emailing first, whatever that first level of comfort is as you start to do it.

And then month by month, you're going to increase it a little. So first, it might be that they email them, maybe that they talk in person if emailing is more comfortable, you know, whatever that is that they're starting to do just a little update. Good. And then for the weekly goals, it can again be reading a certain number of pages per week on their own and also having a certain number of sessions of dyslexic specific tutoring.

Right. So if you have extra help that is outside of school or perhaps they have extra help within school, whatever that is to, you know, be it's good to have that as you know, that might feel like, oh, it's already set. So it doesn't need to be part of the goal. But I think it's important to include all those things because that also gives you that sense of progress and having accomplished something.

You want to acknowledge having done it, right? Like that it's good that they did it, even if it was already pre-set up. Yeah, definitely. And then for the advocating long term goal, this can look like on a weekly basis, having your child take the lead a little bit more kind of on whatever comes up during that week. So say, for example, that there's going to be a spelling test, have your child be maybe or have them work with you to be there when you're sort of reminding the teacher about the accommodations or whatever they need for that.

Right. And so and keeping in mind that, you know, the week to week progress of that will look a little different each week. So the so the idea, I guess this is another fundamental thing that we could have mentioned, but, you know, maybe this is obvious to you, which is that, you know, for the month and then it's the next month and the next month and then the week and then it's the next week and the next week.

You're just going to be wanting to have it be a slight nudge forward from the week before. Right. So that could start with the kid, you know, not wanting to talk to the teacher at all. And you just loop them in and they're like there with you if you're talking in person. And then it's gradually as the weeks move along, they're more the one taking the lead. And so then a daily goal might look like, of course, if they have a session that day, they would have the session that day.

But we talked about sort of pages per month before and pages per week on a on a particular daily time. It might look more like how they might have different levels of time each day. Right. So it might be more like that. They do at least however many it is, 10 minutes of reading each day or five minutes. So it might be easier to do the goal a different way when it's the daily goal, because each day is going to look a little different.

That's where it really is getting down to brass tacks. Right. Because each day looks different. So it can be good to have those goals that are achievable. So rather than like working backwards and saying it would have to be a certain, you know, I mean, you can do that a little bit just to get a general idea. So it's not totally off from your page goal and your other and your goal of the minutes.

But it's good to have it be where it's consistency is the most important thing. And so having five minutes a day of reading or like if you know that some days are just too busy for it, then you have bigger amounts. But you say it's every other day, that kind of thing. And then in terms of the advocating, you might not immediately like the day something happens, you know, do the advocating.

But, you know, presumably your kids just told you about it. And so you can together make the plan. Like, when are we going to talk to the teacher and advocate about it? So you can still be addressing it to some degree as it happens in the moment on a particular day, but more in a planning sense, sort of slotting when it's going to happen or perhaps start helping them to start to think about when that will happen, because that will help them start preparing for it too mentally.

OK, so again, there's just so many ways it can look. It's like almost hard to give you give you these examples because it's like, you know, you feel like it's so endless in terms of how you would want to tackle it. But we really just want you to see how it flows time-wise as you chunk down the time and the goal into time segments. OK, so here's another example. OK, so for this kid, the goal is to have work.

So kind of more of a personal and wellness goal is to have more work-life balance and start to learn to do this in their life. So that's sort of their big, this big abstract area that you've realized would be really helpful for them to work on. Maybe they're stressed. Maybe, you know, maybe it's just that you're seeing that they easily could get stressed because they're they're overworked. Whatever that is, the reason for it, this that's that that's the personal wellness goal.

We're going to not do an advocacy goal for this one, but let's add in the reading or academic goal. OK, so for this one, it is to do their homework with less parental or other help. So a little more on their own. And again, keeping it pretty abstract still at this point, but to make progress in that area. OK, so for the work-life balance goal, one kind of tip here is that you could do it on a 10 point scale.

So like your goal is to have like a nine out of 10 in work-life balance. And so the first step is like an honest assessment with your child of where they are currently. And so let's say they say they're currently at a six out of 10 and they want to get to a nine out of 10 within the year. And, you know, depending on their age, you could also make it that you sort of have the mental how you feel like the actual number is.

But you're explaining to them the importance of work-life balance and sort of teaching them about that. And it could stay more abstract for them. But I think it can be helpful just because it's I think it still would be helpful to sort of use a scale like that, because a lot of the focus of this particular example is going to be sort of how you can use a check in at various stages.

And then for the academic goal, for helping them get more independent about their homework. And this is for the year. For the whole year. Yeah, you could like, let's say you're helping them with every single homework assignment right now. Your goal could be within a year that they're doing 50 percent of their homework on their own. Right. And again, we have to put that reminder in all the time. That could be completely different.

Maybe for a different kid, it would be just they're doing a little bit. So it's like still 90 percent that you're helping them. It's going to depend on the age, all kinds of other factors, whatever else is going on for them. But but it can be helpful. Yeah. To sort of put that percentage on it again, because we're going to do this one as more of a check in. So then monthly, that might look like checking in, always having check ins on the progress towards that percent or that, you know, however many out of 10 for the work life balance.

So that's that's going to be like very much the check in time is the monthly is going to be the important check in time, because that's when you can adjust. If it looks like there's no progress or suddenly you're going backwards or something in it, then that allows you both to decide if the goal is reasonable. Maybe you want to adjust the goal a little bit or to make changes to the goals that you've set for the weekly and the daily.

So then also on a monthly level, because we're talking about something like independence with homework, it could be good to have a goal like once a month. Your kid is trying a new tool that's going to help them be more independent, something like voice to text, for example, or audio books. It's kind of sometimes hard to try all that at once. And you also like might not find the right fit. There's going to be different fits of different kinds of programs and even different tools for each kid.

But if you can sort of keep introducing things to be testing and seeing what works, I think that can be a good goal. And that'd be kind of at the monthly level where it would make sense to do that. OK, and then going one level down into the weekly level, this is where it becomes really specific, really concrete in this particular example. And so if so if your goal is for your dyslexic kid to have a better work life balance, that's your overall overall goal.

So at the weekly level, this could look like making time for one fun, non-academic activity each week. And then for the academic goal of getting more independent, you know, let's say it's the beginning of the year and you're just starting this. Maybe it looks like, for example, for math, maybe it looks like just doing the first week of that first month, doing one problem on their own or trying it on their own.

The next week, trying two problems on their own. So it can be very, very, you know, tiny. It might seem tiny, those goals, but it's like over time that those are going to really build. OK, and then at the daily goal, again, it's fairly specific. So for the goal of having better work life balance, you could decide that that you and your child are going to carve out at least a half hour every day of free time for the child.

Right. And again, kind of like with the other example, it's going to look different for each day, but it's important to have those goals like you might lay them out at the beginning of the month and then you have to adjust them each week, you know, depending. Or but if you have like a pretty regular schedule, you might have a sense of like when a kid's more busy and how things are going.

So kind of going along with the like trying one problem on their own, that's going to look a little different each day because it depends on which day they're doing the actual thing. That's the goal for the week. But another thing that's going to affect what particularly the work life balance is that daily for each assignment, depending on how things are going on a daily basis, they might decide to ask, for example, for a reduced number of problems.

So let's say we're still talking about math problems just for the sake of being, you know, following the example along here. So maybe on a given day, they get a lot of problems and, you know, they've still been doing their, you know, on the other side of things they've been doing where they're doing one on their own, two on their own or whatever. And that's going really great. But maybe it's taking a little more time. And then they get this huge slew of problems and you have the sense that, you know, some of them are like very repetitive.

You could at that point ask the teacher and this is where it gets into the work life balance to reduce the number of problems. So they only have to do maybe a couple of each kind. And so that so so the reason it so the daily often has this like has a little more variety to it. It's still super concrete. And in fact, that's where you're actually doing the work and doing the progress.

But because each day is a little different, because you don't know what the particular assignment is that the kid's going to get. So hopefully you can see how the day that's why the daily is very concrete, but is also more varied. And so it's kind of like also responding to whatever the daily needs are as well. And you can always, you know, I said the monthly check ins are the main check in.

And I think that's reasonable because sometimes we're just so busy, it's hard to, you know, do more check ins than that. But I think if things don't seem like they're flowing with the goals, then to add in a weekly check in would also be important to see if you want to adjust sort of like looking ahead to the week, week or couple of weeks that are coming ahead. And then you could make those very concrete adjustments to the with the variety of each day in mind.

Definitely. And one and this could be kind of a general tip as well, but it just reminds me of what you were saying. Remember to stay positive and to celebrate all successes. Yes. So as you're doing your checkpoints monthly, focus on the positive, focus on what what got accomplished, not what didn't get accomplished. Right. And I mean, I think also it's important to. To make to to realize that there's, of course, endless goals that could be made.

Right. So, like, don't be trying to do goals for every single subject and every single thing, because as I'm realizing with these examples, like you might be thinking, OK, well, I'll have 10 goals. We'll have this many personal like try to just do, especially as you're first doing this and sort of starting to figure out the flow of check ins and whatever. Maybe you can add some as you go, but like keep it simple.

Like you're really the point of this is mostly to keep yourself going on the daily level, sort of with that knowledge that that it's going towards this longer goal. And it's also to make it concrete, partly so you can see the progress and celebrate the win. Exactly. The wins. So anyway, hopefully that was helpful. It's a little like hard to, you know, when you're not talking about the actual individual child, it's a little it can be hard to sort of give the, you know, specific examples that feel relevant.

But hopefully that helps you see sort of how the time frames are different from each other, but also how they all play in to making goal setting actually happen, like in a way that the progress actually happens. And so it's not just the abstract thing that never has anything concrete around it. And it's not like just responding to the daily, you know, so this gets back to what we talked about in the other video, but this is like how it sort of all flows together to create success.

Yeah. Well, thank you. And we would love to hear your comments. You can email us at parenting Dyslexia Journey at gmail.com. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, everyone.