Wikipedia Rocks!!!!

Although wikipedia is not a legitimate source for a college paper (much to my discouragement), it's good enough for me and this post.  In the words of Michael Scott, "Wikipedia is the best thing ever.  Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject.  So you know you are getting the best possible information." 

So in research of dyslexia, I decided to skip all the medical journals and websites and go straight for the most correct source out there.  I have to admit, Wikipedia definitely gave me justification that I'm not making up being dyslexic.  Lets go through the things Wikipedia says are characteristics of dyslexia:

Preschool-aged children
delays in speech
slow learning of new words
difficulty in rhyming words, as in nursery rhymes
low letter knowledge
letter reversal or mirror writing (for example, "Я" instead of "R")

Early primary school children
Difficulty learning the alphabet or letters order
Difficulty with associating sounds with the letters that represent them
Difficulty identifying or generating rhyming words, or counting syllables in words
Difficulty segmenting words into individual sounds, or blending sounds to make words 
Difficulty with word retrieval or naming problems
Difficulty learning to decode written words
Difficulty distinguishing between similar sounds in words; mixing up sounds in polysyllabic words (auditory discrimination) (for example, "aminal" for animal, "bisghetti" for spaghetti)

Older primary school children
Slow or inaccurate reading (although these individuals can read to an extent).
Very poor spelling
Difficulty reading out loud, reads word in the wrong order, skips words and sometimes says a word similar to another word
Difficulty associating individual words with their correct meanings
Difficulty with time keeping and concept of time when doing a certain task
Difficulty with organization skills
Children with dyslexia may fail to see (and occasionally to hear) similarities and differences in letters and words, may not recognize the spacing that organizes letters into separate words, and may be unable to sound out the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word (auditory processing disorder).

I'm going to share some personal examples of some of these things.  In the first section, I used to have a problem with the mirror image thing.  In pre-school, we would be rewarded for spelling our names right for the first time.  I could never do it because I would always write my "e" backwards.  I finally got frustrated and had the girl sitting next to me write the "e" so I could finally get my treat.

My favorite example for blending sounds to make a word is my word "glew."  This happened within the past 5 years when I was telling my family the story of how I found my mom's christmas gift.  She collects snowmen and I was in the store and I saw a cute one that had a LED light in it that changed colors.  I got all excited about it, and in the story I said, "...and then I pushed the button and it glew."  In my backwards mind, glew makes perfect sense.  Flow/flew, blow/blew...why not glow/glew?  Right?  Doesn't it make perfect sense?  I didn't even know I said it wrong until my brother-in-law started laughing at it.

The mixing up of sounds--well this is a family favorite story.  My sister, Tricia, had a dance teacher named Jalahna (I have absolutely no idea how to spell her name.  At least I have an excuse for butchering it).  Well when I was little I would always get her name and lasagna mixed up.  So whenever we had lasagna for dinner, I would say, "We're having Jalahna."  Still haven't lived that one down and probably never will.

Slow or inaccurate reading:  This one is still haunting me.  Just this past semester in school, I was given a final where we had to present our term paper as if we were in a scholarly conference.  My teacher told us to practice reading our paper before the final so that we would be perfect because if we weren't we would lose points.  I practiced, but no matter how much I practiced I couldn't read it without mistakes.  I eventually lost points on my presentation because of my faulty reading.  At that point, I had no idea that reading out loud corresponded with dyslexia.  It has always been a struggle for me to read aloud and now I know why.

That's all I will write for tonight.  There will definitely be more stories associated with things on this list, but I'm pretty sure you are probably sick of reading this post.  I'm off to bed...good night one and all :)

Answer

So in answer to the title of one of my previous blogs "How do you spell 'saw,'" well I have an answer.  I just looked at the book I wrote, and I originally had written sawz for saw.  Hey, I got three letters correct.  Oh, and the title of the story is My Special Memories, but on the cover I spelled it wrong.  In Katie fashion, I wrote, "My Special Memres."  It wouldn't be a dyslexic child's book if the title was spelled correctly :).  And it definitely wouldn't be a dyslexics book if on the title page I spelled it correctly.  Yeah, that's right, the cover page was wrong and the title page was correct.  Hmmm...here's a thought, dyslexics are creative in their ability to come up with mulitple ways of spelling a single word in one paragraph.  My standing record on that one is spelling the word 4 different ways.  What's yours?

Present

So instead of talking about where I came from, I'm going to talk about where I am. You have gotten a little taste of my early childhood and the struggle I had with reading/spelling. I now want to explain my present condition.

I still have trouble reading, especially really long and boring history books. You know the ones, they throw in French words like Entente and German phrases like Mein Herr (I guess for some reason I have WWII on the brain) and then give no pictures to go along with the text to break up the monotony.  I love history but slogging through history books is no bueno.  And trying to read history books on the middle east and asia...AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!  I can't, for the life of me, pronounce 95% of the names in those books.  If it's not spelled phonetically there's no way I can figure it out.  Thank you dyslexia and making my brain logical. 

Yeah, probably never heard someone say dyslexia is logical, but I have to argue it is.  I've gotten passed the point where I mix up my B's and D's (well for the most part anyway) and have reached what I consider phase 2 of dyslexia: the constant challenge of pronouncing words when you don't mix the letters up.  If it's not spelled how it sounds or is similar to other words I know through repetition 1) I usually can't figure it out and 2) I cannot spell it.  As an example, I was taking a humanities class a couple of years ago and my teacher was talking about Don Quixote which was the first time I was faced with that story.  In my notes I wrote Donkey Hote because I couldn't figure out the words.  It was rather humours and now me and my roommate joke about it.  I rock at life, I know :)

So I just got a little side tracked with what I wanted to say in this blog so I will try and get back to the point.  Even though I just said I still struggle with some things I have definitely improved...drastically.  If you haven't read my about me, I will catch you up.  Even though reading was a challenge for me when I was younger, it is now my passion.  I am an English major at Brigham Young University and I only have 1 semester left.  At this moment in time, I am preparing to take my GRE to get into grad school so I can get a masters and possible PhD in Victorian Literature.  My emphasis are Victorian Lit and creative writing.  So I can honestly say that I faced down my demons and said, "I will 'not got gentle into that good night.'"  Dyslexia motivated me to prove to myself and others that I would not let it over come me, and I did just that.  I fought a hard fight and it's one that's still going on, but now I can say I'm on the winning side.

So I feel like I'm tooting my own horn right now, but what I'm really trying to do is show that those with dyslexia or any other learning disorder can do well and are smart.  Don't let what others say or think about you get you down.  Just know your own limits and then push them.  Grow.  Improve.  Believe.  Be the best you can be and not what others think you should be.  It is your life and you know who you are and what you can accomplish.  Set goals and do whatever it takes to achieve.

I set goals for myself from an early age.  I made the decision that I wanted to go to BYU and be and English major.  I said I wanted a scholarship and I got three of them.  I spent many nights in my parents room crying because of how frustrated I was, but the next day I got up and I pushed on because I was determined to reach the goals that I had set for myself.

So I would challenge you, make simple goals like reading your first chapter book or writing a paper without mistakes.  Get the help you need to accomplish them whether it be someone to edit your paper or help you with words you don't know.  Just do it because you will learn each time you make a mistake.  Make the same mistake enough and correct it enough times and soon it will no longer be a mistake.  Learn from your errors, don't let them discourage you.

Flashback 1

Well for entertainment purposes on this already too serious blog, I'm going to put some samples of my writing from my childhood. These will be the actual way I spelled the words...nothing edited. Some will be from my journal as a kid and others from school assignments my mom has kept over the years. I have to admit, some of them are pretty dang funny. In some cases I will need to translate the things I wrote because I'm fairly positive I'm the only one who can read the majority of what I wrote. My roommate and I went through my journal one time and had a great laugh about my writing and the topics I wrote about. So for your delight, here is one of my early journal entries.

This is my first entry ever. I wrote it when I was eight and first baptized into my church.

"to bay I got batist. Now I am a mebr of the Chrech of Jises Christ of Latdr Day Sints (Now I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). I got to be cfrmed a whole et in mebr of the chrech (I got to be confirmed a whole...member of the church). It is fun being a mebr of the cherch of Jisest Christ. After that I went home. I to got to open my presets and I got two Bible's and a Journal and a thing that I can write about my batism. After that wnet out to eat but now I can right down want (what) I now. I feel like a new person and like I got new born."

I think my favorite thing about this entry is the misspelled words spelled a couple of different ways. What I didn't post is that whenever I wrote "of" I had gone back and corrected it because I originally spelled it "af." Oh...eight year old me was cute.

Well that's it for this entry. More flashbacks to come at a later time.

How do you spell "saw?"

In fourth grade, I was presented with a task that I found quite enjoyable; I was required to write a short story that would be bound in a hard cover. Every kid in my elementary did the same thing...it was kind of a school tradition that still goes on to this day.

Even though I truly hated reading, especially at that time in my life, I still loved to write. Writing has always been an escape for me (hence the blog) and so I gladly faced the challenge.

I believe that the book pages I was given to fill with words and pictures was about 10 pages. Me being the rather wordy person that I am, filled up all 10 and had to request another 10 so that I could finish my story. It was a story about a jockey whose horse broke its leg but still got to compete by riding a another horse that looked exactly alike. I had a thing for horses back then and I know now that horses are put down if they break their legs. But it is a story that is near and dear to my heart, and I will always defend it even when my dad reminds me about the horse being put down part making my story illogical.

Now back to the part about being dyslexic and writing this story. My class had a student teacher at the time and she would help us out with our stories or words we couldn't spell. She came up to me and started making suggestions but I don't recall what about. The only thing I really remember about our conversation was her telling me something to write and me getting stuck on the word "saw." I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to spell it. She looked down at me with the to-sweet smile that teachers give when they know a student is struggling and needs help. It was the look that says, "I know you're not as bright as the others, but I will take pity on you and help." She asked ever so kindly if I knew how to spell the word saw. I told her no and then she spelled it out for me. For the longest time the only way I could remember how to spell saw without an "h" thrown somewhere in the middle of that three letter word, was by thinking of how it was "was" spelled backwards.

It's something that I laugh about now, but back then it was really demoralizing. I knew I wasn't up with the other kids in reading and spelling, and I hated when a teacher made me realize my inabilities. It brought out anger and frustration that I only rarely let show. Writing for myself was a way I could escape from my problems and learning disabilities, but when it collided with school and the necessity for correctness, it became a hindrance and a reminder that I didn't belong.

I look back on the times in elementary and how crucial a time it was. It was a period in my life when I wish I could have shared my frustrations with a like soul. Not in the shrink type way, but how it was in Texas--a class full of kids who were all at the same level I was. I strongly feel that that was and is the best thing someone with my disabilities needs. A class room that covers the same materials as any other class, but just at a different rate and with teachers who know how to teach to those types of kids.

The Beginning

A few hours ago I was in my parents room as my dad cleaned out his night stand drawers trying to find his passport. Some treasures came out of that abyss, one of them being a Father's Day card I gave him some 11 years ago. As I struggled to read my 10 year old self's writing, I came to realize my dyslexia was horrible back then. I spelled words like grateful, great, and good "geartful," "geart," and "god." In talking to my mom shortly after sludging our way through my writing, she suggested to me that I should write a blog about my experiences as a dyslexic because my story might help or bring hope to those who either suffer from dyslexia or have a child who does. So this is my story of all the problems I've had to face and the success I have had even with my disability.

I was diagnosed with dyslexia as well as ADHD when I was around 8 years old. Some people might know that ADHD is rarely a stand alone disease. Many suffer from dyslexia like I do or other learning challenges that compound ADD/ADHD. Even though I was only in my early years of schooling, my grades weren't necessarily the best and I can honestly say I hated reading.

I remember 2nd grade which I shared with my best friend, Andrea. We would read the "See Jane Run" type books but she was always at a higher level than I was. I would spend hours trying to get through the easiest of the children's books while Andrea breezed right on through. I have a distinct memory of sitting on the couch with my mom trying to get through one of the books before school started. She was getting frustrated with me because I would constantly be putting in letters that wouldn't be in the words or getting the words wrong. I was in tears because of the challenge it was for me to read books that the other kids in my class had finished weeks before. Needless to say, grade school was complete torture.

During 3rd grade my family moved to Houston, Texas where we lived for about a year. In the summer between third and fourth grade, my mom took me to a test type thing to see if I needed to be placed in a resource class. I didn't know this at the time but looking back, it was probably the best thing they could have done for me. I was placed in a class entirely of kids who were at my same learning level. I always excelled in math and science so I was a little ahead of the kids in my class, but in English I was right at their level. My grades improved and I remember running up to my teacher from the year before and showing her my A's and B's which I had never gotten before. It was an exciting time in my life where I didn't feel out of place and was excited to learn.

Only a few short months after 4th grade started I was back in Utah. I continued on with the resource, but unlike Texas, Utah didn't have a separate class for those who had learning disabilities: it had a small class during the school day where I would go for about an hour while the rest of my classmates got to remain with our normal teacher. It put a black mark on my back for snide comments because my peers all knew where I was going and why I was going there. It was absolutely miserable. My tutor made me feel stupid as she bounced her pencil on each word that I read from the book of the week. For two years I begged my parents to let me stop resource and finally in 6th grade I was allowed to leave it.

It was at this time in my life that things started to change for me. But those are stories for another time. For now, this was the beginning of my life as a dyslexic. For those of you out there reading this post, don't be discouraged by dyslexia. I will share my stories in hope that they help you. Don't think of dyslexia as a reason to feel stupid or bellow others, but a reason to feel proud of where you once were and where you are now. We have to fight a steeper battle than others around us, but in that fight to learn and improve ourselves, we should find pride that we made any ground at all. Dyslexia is a disease that could easily cripple us, but when all is said and done, we can come away saying, "I conquered."