What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a learning disorder that involves difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words (decoding). Also called reading disability, dyslexia affects areas of the brain that process language. Dyslexia occurs in children with normal vision and intelligence.
Symptoms
Early symptoms include late talking, learning new words slowly, and a delay in learning to read.
Other symtoms that would occur later in life could be the counfusion between the directions left and right as well as the confusion between the words and meanings of yesterday and tomorrow. Other more common symptoms include the mental switch between letters like b and d as well as i and j more commonly m and n.
How to deal with it
Embrace it no matter where you are, even if you're embarrassed to talk about it, that's okay. Everyone is embarrassed by something but every once in a while it's nice to not be embarrassed, so embrace it. At school you can either embrace it or you can fight it and wish it never happened, but eventually you have to learn from it because its there, it's real, it's a part of you now.
At home you will either want to talk about it and discuss every part of it, or you'll want to leave it at "I have Dyslexia."
Parent Advice
These are my parents advice to fellow parents:
Listen
Help your child understand what dyslexia is. Dyslexia affects each person differently.
Over time, you can learn together what your child’s experience is and strategies to help.
Don’t criticize or stress about the effects of dyslexia. So what if handwriting isn’t perfectly clear?
Be your child’s advocate with the school. Help her find teachers and school staff who understand and will support her.
At the same time, listen to teachers who have experience working with dyslexic students.
Get outside tutoring if needed.
Make sure the school is following appropriate accommodations for dyslexia.
At the beginning of the school year, connect with teachers and provide a list of main things that have helped your child in school.
Communicating with teachers is a delicate balance of being helpful and watching for undue criticism or negative patterns rather than being a hawk complaining for every little misdeed.
Help your child try different ways to read. This can change over the years.
They may prefer audio books for a while and then tire of them.
Then they may spend more time with graphic novels.
Help them find ways to experience reading for fun.
Celebrate successes. The dyslexic brain has strengths others don’t. That’s awesome!
My Personal Advice
Embrace it, it will only make things easier. I have Dyslexia, I don't like going into the different types because there's so many. I get some of my letters mixed up, I transpose words very often, one time I even read the word transpose as transportation! I got the meanings of the words yesterday and tomorrow mixed up as a kid, and still to this day I have to think about which way is left and which is right by looking at my hands and remembering which hand I write with. I talk about Dyslexia with everyone that knows me, because I think of it as a chalange, a problem to solve. When I found out that I have Dyslexia, I was in 7th grade, I only fond out because I had been failed the reading State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test for several years, and once I started middle school, I had to take a seperate class with a reading specialist, whom I grew to appreciate so so much. She helped me to know that reading slow is not a dissapointment, but something to improve on. After a year and a half in her class she talked to my parents about taking a dyslexia test. Taking the test felt easy because I knew that in order to take it and get the correct results, I couldn't think of it as a test, but rather as an oral assignment like in school. If you've just found out that you have Dyslexia, don't be shy to talk to teachers and friends, because chances are that if you talk about it, you'll find someone else that has Dyslexia. That person will be your Dyslexia buddy, someone who understands all the same struggles.
Quotes
"I failed in some subjects in exam, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer for Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft"
~Bill Gates (he is dyslexic)
"Being dyslexic can actually help in the outside world. I see some things clearer than other people do because I have to simplify things to help me and that has helped others."
~Richard Branson
"Dyslexia is not a disease or an identifiable physical condition, but a learning style."
~Bette Fetter
"Dyslexics are round pegs in square holes when it comes to school. We don't fit that well unless our way of thinking is recognised and supported"
~Kate Griggs
"When I was about 7 years old, I had been labeled dyslexic. I'd try to concentrate on what I was reading, then I'd get to the end of the page and have very little memory of anything I'd read. I would go blank, feel anxious, nervous, bored, frustrated, dumb. I would get angry. My legs would actually hurt when I was studying. My head ached. All through school and well into career, I felt like I had a secret. When I'd go to a new school, I wouldn't want the other kids to know about my learning disability, but then I'd be sent off to a remedial reading."
~Tom Cruise
"Dyslexia is a different brain organization that needs different teaching methods. It is never the fault of the child, but rather the responsibility of us who teach to find methods that work for that child."
~Dr. Maryanne Wolf