2e Tuesday::Dyslexia Watch, 2011.
Dyslexia is a sneaky bastard, for those who aren’t aware of it or had personal dealings with it. There are so many different types and symptoms of dyslexia, and diagnosing it and/or understanding it is a rather complicated and tricky thing…and no one has identical signs when they have it.
Because Naturalist does have it, and because there are other people in my extended family with it, I watch the other two kids to see if it is an issue with them. I do this with bated breath, because after watching Naturalist deal with it I’d much prefer no one else that I love would have to go through that level of frustration, anger, and hurt. Even though I know that I wouldn’t change anything about Naturalist and we both agree thatthere are a lot of strengths of dyslexia,
“>, there also are a lot of reasons to freaking hate it.
Golfer breezed through reading and spelling without any hitches. He went to Kindergarten, then when we pulled him out to unschool he pretty much taught himself to read, spell, and write without any formal lessons. After watching many kids make the transition from illiterate to literate, I believe that it usually flows in a very easy, organic way, like it did for Golfer. Schools lead us to make the assumption that without phonic lessons and daily spelling tests, kids wouldn’t learn any of it, but that’s not true. Literacy, in a general way, follows passion and interest, and kids are driven to read, gather information, and self express.
But Sassy. Oh, Sassy. I’ve been keeping my eye on her for a while now, and think I’ll start sharing what I notice as it’s becoming clearer to me that she is dyslexic like her sister. There are a lot of people out there either unknowingly dealing with dyslexia or who know someone with it, and I hope that by making our process public it will help shed some light on what dyslexia is like. The symptoms of dyslexia start out innocently and in ways that, taken individually, don’t mean much. But when you put them all together it adds up to trouble when it comes to reading/writing. These are the things I’m noticing in Sassy that may or may not indicate dyslexia…
She has a hard time remembering her nouns. Sassy makes up words. For a long time, stars were ‘gips’. She’d have other nonsensical stand in words of her own making for other common words. When she isn’t making up her own language (she’s kind of slowed that down the older she’s gotten), she will mix nouns up. She’ll say a random noun instead of “Taco” for instance. Or, when I say something like “spatula”, she doesn’t understand what I’m talking about until I describe it to her. Then she knows what I’m saying. But words, especially nouns, don’t have a lot of meaning to her without context. Often dyslexia makes it difficult to associate meaning to symbols…and words are symbols for an idea.
She knows the value of reading, but still can’t. In my experience, as soon as a kid realizes that there’s a world of words out there to be tamed, and then finds a reason for taming them, that’s when reading starts. And usually once this combination locks in, it’s fairly unstoppable. I can’t remember…stop me if I’ve said this before…but literacy, in a general way, follows passion and interest, and kids are driven to read, gather information, and self express. Sassy has the strong desire to read, sees other people reading, but still can’t.
This is in spite of working with letters and words for years. We have enough games, toys, songs and books to give her a good toehold on literacy. She still doesn’t have an order to her alphabet, or much letter recognition. I’d say she knows maybe 10 letters by sight. I become the lightning rod in this area of her development. When family/friends/strangers realize that she can’t read/doesn’t know her alphabet, they immediately put the focus (blame?!) on me. Because I unschool. Because if she were in school she’d be doing all this. Because I’m not a teacher and she obviously needs a teacher. Etc., etc. But, Naturalist was in 4th grade when we pulled her out, and she couldn’t read, so I know that’s all bullshit (I’m calling it!). But it is hard to deal with the outside opinions.
This inability to do something she wants to is uncharacteristic, and frustrating. Many people with dyslexia are bright, gifted, creative people. Sassy is no different, and when she puts her mind to something, she always finds a way to do it. Except read and write. This exception leads to extreme frustration that is always on the verge of turning inward and becoming a negative self reflection. The more I sit down to try to help her focus on practicing learning letters/words, the more frustrated and upset she gets. If I were the Tiger Mom, I would make her do it come hell or high water. But I’m not Tiger Mom. I have more respect for my kids as individuals than to agree with that nonsense.
So, what am I doing about it?
Well, I’m doing what I wish I would have done for Naturalist when she was little. Nothing. Actually, more than nothing, but less than Something (with a capital ‘S’). Let me rephrase. I’m actively staying calm, upbeat, supportive, and unafraid. I’m focusing on the things she can do and work around all the things she can’t do (yet). This runs counter to every parental fiber in my body when I see a child of mine in distress with a potential life altering issue facing them. What I want to do is freak out, find experts, put her in a program that will make her mind read, bribe her/force her/help her NOT have any dyslexic symptoms and then pretend everything is OK. I know this is what I want to do because it’s what I did with Naturalist, and it didn’t work out so well for her.
There’s a big push in our culture today for early intervention, and there are lots of resources to put Sassy into to try and “fix” this. I resist this, though. I know it’s not to be ‘fixed’, first of all. Second of all, I want her time to be spent exploring what she can do, not sitting for hours at a time focused on what she can’t. Thirdly, I know that dyslexia won’t stop her from being independently literate but it will have to happen in her own time. For Naturalist, this happened around 12. Fourthly, I don’t want to tamper with the way she learns but I do want her to understand it. So when she gets angry and frustrated because she can’t read, we talk about it. About how her brain might not be ready to remember how to read even though her friends brains do. And for the fifth thing, I prefer to take my nervous energy out in research and not out on her. So I use my time to understand dyslexia (thanks to brilliant places like this) so that I can help her best. I do want experts to help me help her, but I’ve discovered that dyslexic kids are their own experts. Given enough time, space, and encouragement, they have remarkable capability to accommodate and work around their issues.
So right now I’m giving her time, space, and lots and lots of encouragement.
I’m doing what I try to do with each of my kids: accept them for who they are right at the moment and then take my cues from them as to how to help them be who they want to be.
9 Comments
I share your sentiment so much….my 10yo is dyslexic. And she's starting to find her strength in violin. But school is hard. And she has problem communicating her thoughts. And expressing her feeling. So socially, she's struggling to fit in too. Sometimes, I can get so overwhelmed with her dyslexic issue, I forgot she's just a kid. As much as I want to believe they are gifted, I also have lots of reason to freaking hate it
And yes, I'm watching my youngest one's development like a hawk…more like a very nervous hawk 
thank you for this post. Just a couple of days ago I've been googling dyslexia, as I suspect my 5 year old has it, but all I could find was articles on early intervention and the like. We are unschooling too, so the thought of putting my son through any kind of special program to force him to read just didn't sit right with me. He's pretty brilliant in many other ways, yet would love to be able to read like his older sister (who started reading just before she turned 4 on her own). But for now, I'll let him discover and develop his strengths instead…
Dyslexics may share similarities in how it is expressed in their lives but they are all different as well, so one child may not take the same path as another.
As a dyslexic, I stress accommodations, just as you have noted in your post accomodations are important. These may be all things you've learned already but I'll comment on them none-the-less. Make use of the computer. Make use of text to speech software. Let the computer do the reading. Don't stress about handwriting, let the child learn to type. Teach the child how to use spellcheck, and inform of its weaknesses. Find educational books that are more like comic books. Make use of videos and websites like Brainpop. Foster an interest in great movies, a complicated art every bit as wonderful as books. Utilize spoken books–it's the same information, the same stories, they don't have to be read to enjoy them. As the child grows older, make use of age appropriate forums and FB on which the child may enjoy learning to communicate in brief text bites. Dyslexics have poor memory retention for certain types of information and your children may naturally develop good research skills because of it, learning how to quickly and aptly find information they need. Again, you probably know all this and more already.
As I noted, I'm dyslexic. I am homeschooling my dyslexic son who is now 13, and have homeschooled all along. We're eclectic in approach, child led, and so much of it is done in the unschooling way, providing tools and opportunities to meet and develop interests and skills. Our home is filled with thousands of books, my husband and I do a lot of reading and read to our son daily for years, but our son has yet to take any interest in reading–which isn't to say he won't eventually. (However, I know people who have children who don't have dyslexia and never become interested in reading, even though their parents are avid readers.) He's entirely visually oriented and since he was a small child has never ceased continually drawing. He sculpted for many years, and made stop animations and animations for a while. The past couple of years he's worked a great deal using MIT's Scratch, which he loves, and is learning about film. He's a natural storyteller and has been developing stories for years.
Please, try not to hate the dyslexia. Different modes of thinking are invaluable to a society that is catastrophically out of balance. You know this, you're an artist, you value out of the box thinking. You are attempting to bring up your children in a spirit of making the most of what they bring to the table rather than their confidence being shot down because they don't fit in what is for them a highly artificial and unnatural mold wrought of the emphasis on attaining conformity in the reception of knowledge before the introduction of critical thinking and encouragement of individual talents. Continue with what you're doing and your daughters will not regret their dyslexia. It is part of them. They will produce wonderful things that only their minds will have the peculiar and highly individual insight to perceive and conceive.
Great post, Tiff. And, you ROCK!! Your kids could not have a stronger advocate for them than you.
"Given enough time, space, and encouragement, they have remarkable capability to accommodate and work around their issues.
So right now I’m giving her time, space, and lots and lots of encouragement."
I have found it to be the same with my 2e asperger's boy. Freedom, support, love, understanding go a long way so that they have the time and space to navigate and find the right way to manage their issues. It is amazing to see, actually.
You are an amazing mama and she is lucky to have you.
xo
I think I messed this post up…I wanted to say I did the same as you – but also I learned from you and your experience with naturalist – your one of the reasons I stopped forcing. And the love and patience of a sibling lasts about 15 minutes
You have such a natural approach with your kids, and I think if the outsiders would just stop and listen they would learn a lot.
Hello
This is my most favourite post ever! EVER!!!
I have a dyslexic son, and when I found out, I freaked out. He is seven now, and way behind his peers (if he were at school that is) but he doesn't go to school so he doesn't know, and he doesn't care.
He is my creative, artistic boy. The one out of my four who sees some thing where the rest of us see nothing.
Initially when I realise he was dyslexic, I got a friend to come round who is retired reading tutor and mother to two grown up dyslexic children. She was amazing. She showed me that dyslexia isn't some thing to be afraid of, but rather some thing you can come to celebrate.
She didn't "tutor" my son in any way that would be recognised in a school setting. She came round once a week for a couple of months and played games with us. If he wasn't interested (and this only happened once) she had a cup of tea with me and we talked. Her biggest bit of advice was to lay off him, and lay off the pressure. In her own words "to pile academic pressure on a dyslexic person, is to destroy them."
The games were crazy ones that employed the use of shaving foam, water shooters, slime, rude words and burping. All things that appeal to a seven year old boy (and a thirty three year old mother. Ahem.)
We were lucky to know this lady. I know there are plenty of kids out there having their lives made miserable by dyslexia and people not understanding.
Well done for being brave, sticking to your guns, being the fall guy and your own, fiercer version of the Tiger Mom.
Truly, you rock!
I'm so glad you shared this. He's lucky to have you as a mom!Sent from my iPhone
Have you tried dictation with her? Like, she narrates a story and you write it out? If she is interested in reading, this tends to help a bit as the story came from their own brain so is familiar. See if she wants to illustrate the story and you can make a nice "published" copy at kinkos on the spiral binder. When a dislexic kid can see that they are able to author their own book it helps boost confidence.