Amazing what putting a name to a condition can do
People have told me over and over again that the day they discovered they had dyslexia was the best day in their life — as this woman shares:
Thank you for your on-line video. I watched it because I suspect my 5 year old has dyslexia. Now I’m convinced. But just as important, I found out that I have mild dyslexia.
I cried when I watched your video because you were talking about my life. I related with everything you said. I was actually a B high school student only because my A+ in Art brought up the rest of my grades.
I was on the 7 year plan in college and avoided classes that required written reports. I still can’t believe you knew that. I had to take an upper-level developmental biology class that had all essay exams. The professor would give me partial credit because he knew I could sit and talk about the material, but I could not seem to get it down in written words.
M mother still teases me that I was in my 20’s before I knew my left from right. I knew the days of the week, but struggled with the months.
I still remember her trying to teach me to spell, telling me to look it up in the dictionary, but me not having a clue as to the first, second, or third letter.
My writing was in run-on sentences (still is, sorry). I knew the teacher wanted periods, then a capital, so I would go back over my work and if a sentence looked too long, I would take out a word and put in a period.
Because of your video, when I make word substitutions when reading to my girls, I will no longer cringe when I realize my mistake.
My dirty little secret in life is, of course, that I can’t spell. My husband can’t either. We have worried about the day our kids will find out our “secret.” Well, it is not going to be a dirty little secret any more.
I am not embarrassed to send you this awfully written note. I am not going to rewrite it 3 times, then wait 24 hours, and read it again before I send it — as I usually do. I can stop beating myself up thinking I’m stupid. I’m just mildly dyslexic. Too bad I had to be 42 before I figured that out.
Even though you don’t know me, I am so relieved that there is someone in the world who understands me, and I don’t have to feel crazy or retarded because I can’t spell, write, or read out loud.
I have to look at my whole life differently now. I have lots of new questions, like: is dyslexia why, after 30 years of keyboard use, I still have to look at the keys?
Thank you for giving me the answer to my question of what’s wrong with me. My head’s a little higher today. I think you healed 40 years of emotional scars in the few minutes it took to describe an adult with mild dyslexia. Amazing what putting a name to a condition can do.
Emotional Disorder or Dyslexia?
Parents often don’t believe me when I tell them that most school psychologists have had no training in dyslexia. But I get emails like this every day:
From a school psychologist in New York:
I would LOVE to attend your Screening for Dyslexia conference.
Our number one question during RTI meetings is if there is a possibility a child might have dyslexia. This topic is vague to me even after years of reading and doing independent research.
Yet as the “expert” at these meetings, I struggle with remediation techniques that may work after I screen a student and determine deficits.
Or from this school psychologist in Colorado:
I am a school psychologist in Colorado. I agree to your notion that we have no specialty in diagnosing dyslexia, however the prevalence of parents’ requests seems to grow and grow. Unfortunately, when parents cannot afford outside assistance, we are the only ones that are left.
I have been to several workshops, symposiums, etc, yet do not feel completely educated on the subject. Do you recommend any books or specific journals on the topic? How about books that may target age groups lower than 8 years old in looking at dyslexia?
That lack of knowledge causes this:
My son just finished second grade and is dyslexic. I am sure of it. His father is dyslexic, and his father’s father is dyslexic. He has almost every single warning sign listed on your website and in many of the books that I have read.
Yet when he qualified for special education services in May, they classified him as having an “Emotional Disorder” — even though his reading scores were really, really low. The school considers “average” anything from the 16th percentile to the 85th percentile, and his reading score was exactly at the 16th percentile.
The school psychologist told me that my son’s anxiety and depression were “off the charts” and that he CAN read — but his anxiety gets in the way and he becomes “too stressed out” to read.
When I tried to explain that he was most likely anxious and depressed because he CANNOT read, the psychologist just flippantly said, “So it’s one of those which came first things — the chicken or the egg.”
They never looked at his spelling (which is horrible, with all of the classic dyslexic spelling mistakes) or asked him to write anything (he HATES to write, even a few sentences).
His IEP only lists services for emotional issues (meet with the counselor once a week). What do I do? Just let him flounder?
He won’t be able to read the board or any of the books used in third grade. Do I just let him founder with no accommodations? That seems so cruel.
He already hates himself for being “stupid and different” — his words, not mine.
Written Expression
Written expression is the hardest skill of all for people with dyslexia — as this engineer and inventor without a college degree remembers:
I am in one of those very old desks made out of metal with the wooden top and seat. It is hot. There is no AC in this small Central Texas school. The windows are open, but the chirping birds outside are interrupted by the chalk squeaks on the blackboard as the teacher spells out the writing assignment.
“One page before the bell.” I know the topic, but it doesn’t really matter. I know I won’t do well. My pencil has only been sharpened a couple of times, but the eraser is all but gone and the metal end has been squeezed together to force what little eraser that is left to bulge past the metal edge. I am concentrating hard — very hard. I start the first sentence but I know I can’t spell some of the words, even some simple ones. So I reword the sentence and try again several times, but I know some words are still wrong.
By now I have erased in some places to the point the paper is about to tear. I peel the metal edge back on my pencil with my teeth to expose more eraser. If I am careful, it may last through the class. I reword the sentence over and over in my mind. Somehow, I have to make this work. I bite the knuckle on my right hand hard because sometimes, the pain will make the confusion go away. The teeth marks will last for days. I concentrate even harder. As I do, I grip the pencil harder and harder till cramps fill my hand. Still I continue on…
The ringing bell does not bring the normal relief of the end of class. My hand is aching, yet I have less than half a page. I try to read it over quickly to look for mistakes. I know what I wanted to say, I know the subject probably better than the teacher, but I realize this paper makes no sense, not even to me. Head down, I turn in my paper, glancing up only to see the teacher frown in disgust at the look of the messy page. I want to scream and do, only it is a silent scream of anguish and despair…
Were it not for word processors with spell-checkers, I would never have been able to write the story above. Dyslexics — partly because of their intelligence — have found amazing ways of hiding their handicaps. You probably never guessed I was dyslexic. How could you, when I didn’t even know.
Even with these new technologies, stories like the one above that flash through my mind in a few seconds, can take hours to write. However, hours are so much better than never.
Bright Solutions for Dyslexia 