I found a great article by HollyPevzner on the struggles of kids with
dyslexia and how one mother didn’t give up on her suspicions that her son had a
learning disorder.
Holly’s son Theo was a bright, sweet kid with a great
memory; but she started noticing when he was in pre-school that he had no
interest in learning words, saying rhymes, or reading. Holly brought this to
Theo’s teacher attention, but she did not seem concerned; “Instead, they
focused on my son’s frequent baby talk and got him speech therapy right away.”
Then when it came to Theo going to kindergarten, all the children were learning
their sounds, he was not all interested; he didn’t want to even try.
Holly’s husband was dyslexic, so she wondered if the same
was true for Theo. Holly took her suspicions to the teacher; but the teacher
insisted that Theo was “not reversing his letters.” She went on to tell holly
to give it time and he will catch up.
When Theo went into first grade he was struggling to read,
“My son stumbled over at and the.” It was especially hard at homework time;
Theo would get mad and yell at himself; “I’m a failure!” “My brain doesn’t
work!” Holly and Theo would be in tears every day. Still the teacher told her
that he would be fine; even though the teacher ended up tutoring Theo twice a
week. He felt better, but Holly didn’t see much of an improvement.
It wasn’t until the speech therapist overheard Holly talking
to a friend about her concerns about Theo’s reading; the therapist spoke up and
told Holly; “If you think your son might have dyslexia, we can test him this
week.” The following day Theo was tested; “a reading specialist tested Theo’s
ability to detect and discriminate differences in speech sounds.” She also
looked at Theo’s medical history and his written work. The end result; Theo is
indeed, dyslexic. I know I sound like that is a great thing, but growing up not
knowing is way worse than finding out and learning how to work with it.
Dyslexia is the most common of the learning disorders; “It
affects one in five kids.” There is on an average, four to six dyslexic
students in a class. Unfortunately most of these children will fall through the
cracks of the school system Dyslexia is very hard to detect because, “many kids
are savvy at masking their struggles,” where “most adults meanwhile, aren’t
equipped to spot the signs of dyslexia when it’s most critical,” and, according
to the article, is third grade. Students must know how to read to keep up with
all the learning they have ahead of them.
I went through school not knowing that I am dyslexic; I went
through school thinking I was just plain dumb. I could not read well, and when
I did read, I didn’t remember any of it. It was such a frustrating time in my
life. I did not enjoy school at all, except for P.E., we didn’t have to read.
Now that I know I am dyslexic, I try to find ways to help me read and remember
better. One of my favorite ones is to buy, if available, the unabridged audio to
the required reading. I came up with this idea on my own, and it got me an “A”
in both English 250 and 260. I would have never made it through the book
without reading along to the audio.
I am so glad for Theo that his mom cared enough about his
education to pay attention and to recognize his struggles in the very beginning
of his learning.
http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6f4e7b3e-fc17-45d8-ab2e-9094ff95cdcc%40sessionmgr113&vid=4&hid=113
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