When reading stops working

Question: What happens when you try to read?
Answer: It stops working
Q: What do the words look like?
A:‍ ‍They look like pieces of art.

Q: What do you do at school when you have to read?
A: I pretend that I’m reading.

Q: But don’t you need to read the words to your work?
A: I just look eat the words and say random words.

Q: How do you do your work?
A: I guess I can read. I’m just too lazy.

Parent reflection
Reading is no longer a leisure activity.
My child remembers when reading was enjoyable. It no longer comes easy.

I am trying to understand what is happening. Is this a consequence of past disruption from EE-SWAS, or related to ongoing spike-and-wave activity? Is it permanent? And is there anything I can do to help my child read again?

They describe the words as looking like “pieces of art”. Letters seem to have lost their meaning, or decoding them now takes much more effort, where it once felt automatic.

At school, my child listens carefully and says they pretends to read. They answer questions by picking up information verbally in the classroom, or by relying on memory.

My child still loves being read to each night, and can recall what they hear, including detailed information about characters.

They think the change is that they are lazy, as they remember a time when reading came easily. Is it possible that others have interpreted the change as effort-related, and that my child has internalised this perspective?

Shared with the child’s permission, from a short conversation during nightly reading time. Before EE-SWAS, the child enjoyed reading short novels such as Funny Kid independently. The parent now reads aloud to the child, in this case a One Piece comic. The child is 11 and was diagnosed with EE-SWAS at age 8, but related behavioural changes and absence seizures were happening for at least a year before.