“Dyslexia might have made things more challenging
but it didn’t stop me
and the challenge made me stronger.”
~Bella Thorne, actress, star of Shake It Up on the Disney Channel.
Tag: determination
The Little Red Toolbox
Too cool for school
In teaching children, there are a lot of wonderful moments of honesty. The way a child can cut right to the heart of a matter by an unvarnished version of life as he sees it is one of the things I love about teaching.
One of my students from several years ago, HD, was transferring to my school to be part of the Dyslexia Center program. He voiced his concerns the first time we met, about three weeks before school was set to start. He worried that no one at the new school would know what he could do, and that he was way too cool to have a reading problem. Unedited and forthright, he let me know right then that this was probably not the place for him, and encouraged me to share that news with his mom before it was too late for him to get back into his former school.
Great at building things
Prospective student interviews are really about making sure a student has what I call a teachable spirit, so we cover all kinds of topics during our time together. One thing that is usually very interesting is to ask a child what they are good at. People with dyslexia have areas of strength that are generally just as deep as their areas of weakness, and I like to know what those areas are for each of my students so our staff can be aware and build confidence by pointing out natural talent areas and using them in our lessons whenever possible.
HD told me he could build things. He named several projects he and his engineer dad had going out at their farm. Confidence filled his voice and his fifth grade shoulders squared as he detailed for me their fencing project. I was reminded of the importance of letting people shine as he filled me in on the key factors of wire tautness and post alignment. If ever I needed a fence, HD would be top of my list to call.
Desk chair pieces
While my classroom was free from fences to be erected, what I did truly need was someone to assemble my new desk chair. My confidence in being able to build it myself was shaken as soon as I opened the box and saw the great number of parts into which a chair can be disassembled so it fits into a small box. I asked HD’s mom if he could come one afternoon the next week and help me with the chair. A day and time were set, and HD advised me on the tools I would need to bring to get the job done.
The little red toolbox
That afternoon at home, I related my idea of having HD build the desk chair to my usual go-to guys for assembly, my husband and three sons. My middle son, a college sophomore at the time, suggested I get a school tool box and stock it with the basics. He recalled how he had liked using one of his teacher’s tools to fix stuff around school. A toolbox was ordered that evening, along with two screwdrivers, a hammer, pliers, a level and some allen wrenches. It arrived just in time for chair assembly day.
From a pile of pieces to a chair
On chair assembly afternoon, HD was a different boy from the one who let me know he was way too cool to need reading help. He was not too cool to help me, in fact he was interested in getting right down to work on that chair. The red metal toolbox met with his approval, although I had omitted an old baby food jar to keep loose screws in. Clearly I was fortunate to have HD to advise me on things mechanical, if I was such a novice that I hadn’t known I would need an old jar.
In a surprisingly short time, a working desk chair emerged from the random items included in the box from Staples. Since no desks had yet arrived in my classroom, and my teacher desk filled only a small corner of the room, we decided a few trial runs of how far each of us could propel the chair powered by only one push of our feet were in order. HD was a skinny kid, but he could bury me at desk chair rolling.
The right tools for the job
A new bond was forged that day. He was willing to let me help him with reading since I was willing to let him do my projects requiring tools. It was an agreement that served us both well, built on mutual respect and a willingness to let each other shine in our talent areas. All we needed were the right tools for the job.
Jeremy, the Jeep Guy
Jeremy came to my private tutoring practice through the friend of a friend. Two moms were chatting at a baseball game. One mom was telling how her dyslexic son was now able to read better after starting with me and the Orton-Gillingham method; the other mom was telling how her teen-aged son had just told her he could not read and had been faking all these years. Faced with college coming up soon, he was ready and motivated to learn to read. After hearing how one boy had improved through tutoring, Jeremy’s mom called me, got Jeremy tested for dyslexia and we began tutoring.
Jeremy walked in my door ready to learn. He arrived at his sophomore year of high school getting by on charm and the help of a lot of cheerleaders. He was a star athlete at his school, and a lot of books had been read to him by friends and fans. But now colleges were beginning to make noises about athletic scholarships, and he knew he had to learn to read on his own and stop relying on the help of his network of groupies.
In our first session we did an evaluation, part of which was Jeremy reading the back cover of his summer reading book. He stumbled and stammered through the text, and I could tell it was an embarrassing experience for him. Then I asked him what the book was going to be about. His look of incredulity was priceless. I might have just as well asked him to turn straw into gold. He had no idea what the words he had just labored to read actually said. Our work was laid out for us.
Never having tutored a student this old, I went with my instinct and began at the beginning. Jeremy, like most dyslexic people, had a lot of language information in his mind, but it was not readily available enough to be useful. Our first task was to help him learn that information well enough for it to be called up at will.
Multiple repetitions of material to be mastered are a key for people with weak memory for language. During tutoring lessons, we create a drill ring of small flashcards with material presented but not yet mastered. The student is to go through these cards daily with a parent or adult. In the summer, it takes a mighty well stocked prize box to coax a reluctant reader through phonics practice. Jeremy’s motivation was more tantalizing than prizes. He was thinking of his own future, knowing it was pretty grim unless his reading improved greatly.
Calling on the same self discipline that made him great at sports, Jeremy gave himself to mastering every card in his drill ring. I could see him sitting in his Jeep in front of my house 30 minutes before his lesson started, baking in the hot Alabama summer sun, and flipping through memory cards. He knew what it took to succeed, and was prepared to do it.
The work paid off. As the lessons built his skills, Jeremy could tell his reading was improving. By the end of the summer, he was daring to hope the dream of self-reliance in his school subjects would be a reality. That fall we moved lessons to his school library, and the intensity ratcheted up. He thrived on it. Teachers began to comment on the change they saw in his school performance. His mom was thrilled. His efforts redoubled.
One cold, rainy, winter afternoon I passed him a gift to commemorate a milestone that seemed a distant dream six short months before. It was a signed copy of the first book he had ever read cover to cover all on his own. The author had kindly inscribed a sentiment appropriate for the occasion. “Let this be the first of many steps in a long and successful life of reading.”
Jeremy is now a junior in college, preparing for a career as a physical therapist. On his college bookshelf sits the autographed book, a beacon of hope and a testament to the value of the right path, and determination to reach the reward at the end of the road.
Tales from the Dyslexia Center 