RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.: Americans need a better understanding of dyslexia

Have you seen a shark cry? It’s unsettling. But when the tears are caused by dyslexia, it can also be revealing.

October was Dyslexia Awareness Month. But it’s never too late to explore the peculiar world of a learning difficulty that experts say could afflict as many as one in five Americans.

The shark is Kevin O’Leary. The boastful Canadian-born “Shark Tank” host and multimillionaire investor — aka “Mr. Wonderful” — who chokes up when discussing his struggle with dyslexia as a child in the 1960s.

“It was very difficult for my mother,” O’Leary told Yahoo! Finance. “She was very worried about me. Parents don’t know … what the future holds. They’re not sure what’s going to happen. And that puts a lot of pressure on relationships and families.”

I hear this often from dyslexics, that their parents wanted so badly to help them but didn’t know how. As a parent, it breaks my heart.

I’ve also seen many parents of dyslexic children shell out money for specialized language therapy and shuttle their kids to after-school sessions.

I’m impressed by dyslexic children who battle a public school system that was not built for them.

But I’m in awe of those parents who heroically fight for their kids against an invisible enemy.

The reason much of that battle occurs in public schools is because — unlike private schools, or even charter schools — the public schools are often too rigid and regimented to accommodate children with dyslexia. Also, many of the schools of education that credential teachers are outright hostile to the very concept of dyslexia; some even teach that it doesn’t exist.

This frustrates Dr. Kelli Sandman-Hurley. With her longtime friend and fellow literacy specialist Tracy Block-Zaretsky, Sandman-Hurley co-founded the San Diego-based Dyslexia Training Institute more than a decade ago.

The center offers training and certification for teachers, one-on-one tutoring and reading therapy for students, and simulations that help people who don’t have dyslexia see the world through the eyes of those who do.

The goal is to help untangle what is, for many families, the baffling riddle of dyslexia.

I was curious how Sandman-Hurley defined the concept.

“Dyslexia is a phonological processing problem that someone is born with,” she said. “Someone has difficulty accessing written language. They might have trouble spelling or decoding words. Reading fluency is slower. It occurs in degrees, from mild to severe with everything in between.”

What is it not?

“It is not seeing things backwards,” she said. “That’s a myth.”

For 20 years, I’ve been fascinated by what has been called the “gift” of dyslexia, owing to the fact that my wife is a dyslexia specialist. Lately, I’ve become interested in how it affects adults. Dyslexia can’t be “cured.” Children with dyslexia become adults with dyslexia.

Sandman-Hurley tells some of those stories in her important new book, “The Adult Side of Dyslexia.” She interviewed 50 adults who have dyslexia and asked them the same questions.

Many of these folks still have vivid — and horrid — memories of their school days. Describing the experience of reading aloud to the class, many used words such as “trauma” or “torture.” Teachers need to handle with care those who struggle with reading and writing.

“What you say to them, they will remember when they are 50,” Sandman-Hurley said. “And they remember it like it was yesterday.”

Dyslexics aren’t dumb or lazy. In fact, they are often incredibly hard workers given all they must overcome. High-functioning dyslexics include not just O’Leary but actress Keira Knightly, British billionaire Richard Branson, film producer Brian Grazer and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Sadly, other dyslexics wind up unemployed or homeless or in prison.

How that final chapter gets written depends largely on whether the dyslexic has enough love and support at home to survive the buzz saw of the educational system.

I asked Sandman-Hurley about being an advocate for kids and confronting school administrators who either know what they need to do and refuse — or, worse, don’t even believe that dyslexia is really a thing.

“The advocacy is really stressful,” she acknowledged. “But it’s not even close to how stressful it is for a parent. The parent sees their child starting to struggle. They don’t really know what’s happening. They go to the school, and the school says: ‘It’s OK, they’ll outgrow it.’ But the parent’s gut is telling them that something is wrong.”

Parents, trust your gut. And stand by your child. As adults with dyslexia will tell you, it means everything.

Ruben Navarrette’s email address is crimscribe@icloud.com. His podcast, “Ruben in the Center,” is available through every podcast app.