So if he has dyslexia, is he getting special reading instruction like Orton-Gillingham?

Thank you! I appreciate that there is hope and your story is helpful in reminding me. I just want what is best for my son and the public school has not done a good job at identifying his learning needs. If I had kept going along with what they were telling me he never would have had any reading intervention. It took 3 IEP meetings and an outside consultant to interpret their testing reports to get 45 mins a day for him. It was way too difficult and much like buying a used car. Every child deserves better than that!

Take a deep breath. He is not behind. He's right where he should be. It's nerve wracking, but he will read when he is ready. My A did not read, or do anything that looked like academics until she was 10. Then she started figuring it out, it wasn't like flipping a switch. She just decided to start working on it. She graduated highschool at 16, and graduated college magna cum laude, at 21. My son, G, really just wanted to play his video games. He got motivated to learn to read at 9. He said it was like opening up an awesome new cheat code. Instead of just randomly swinging his sword and opening up chests, he could read the script and know what he was supposed to be doing. I have a friend who's son is 12. He still is not on board with learning to read. Readiness and willingness go hand in hand. I have faith that eventually, he will see a reason to want to do it. I have watched teachers do all kinds of tricks to teach reluctant readers. Ultimately, it was no better than what I did with A. I left her alone and let her spin on the tire swing until she was ready.