Most kids who “struggle with reading” are not struggling with reading. They are struggling with a method that was built for someone else.
There are ways to get them what they need. Figuring out WHAT and HOW is the hard part. There is no manual, no two kids are alike, and most of the parents who have figured something out are too underwater to write it down. I am trying to break that cycle.
That is the premise of Decoding Mom.
What I do here
- Read obsessively. Scientific studies, for fun. Yes, I am a BLAST at parties.
- Track down what experts actually say, and rewrite it in language an overwhelmed parent can digest and apply.
- Add my own commentary sparingly. The goal is to amplify the people doing this work, not to add noise.
What I am
- A parent of a kid who reads on his own schedule.
- A full-time operations professional. This site is a side project, so content comes in fits and spurts. Mom’s gotta pay the bills.
- Powered by ADHD-fueled hyperfocus, which turns out to be excellent at reading a hundred sources and pulling out the three points you actually need.
- A natural skeptic, which is why I link to research and trusted sources whenever I can. You should be a skeptic too. If you catch a misstatement or have a POV, drop a comment or send me a note. I am here to learn.
- A believer in public education and teachers. Schools usually want to do the right thing, and most are working with real constraints (time, money, energy). The job is to navigate, not to tear anyone down.
What I am not
- A teacher. I have never taught in a classroom.
- A reading specialist, an SLP, or anything remotely credentialed in education.
- An expert. I cannot stress this enough. I am a stranger on the internet and you should treat me as such.
What I’ll promise you
- I will not blow smoke up your ass about what works.
- I will share what I learned the hard way, like the $3,000 I spent on an attorney to find out that procedural IEP violations are not worthless, exactly, but are also not a smoking gun that forces change. Oof.
- I will throw in the occasional joke. Mostly sarcasm, which is my love language. Parenting is hard, and a stupid joke at the right moment is a small mercy.
One more thing
My kid and I are both 2e. Neurospicyness abounds in our home, and my husband is a lucky, lucky man. That shapes a lot of what I write here, and probably most of why I write it at all.
The plan is not to fix our kids. It is to stop people them the wrong tools and calling it their fault.