Struggles of this Homeschooling Mom

Since I found out 2 of my girls are dyslexic...what have I done?

Well a TON of online research...which can get confusing.  One site says one thing, another site says something different, then another site says something completely different than the other 2!  AAAGGGHHH!!!!  What is a person to do?

In our home school group...the day I was at my wits end with home schooling....I got an email from the group about a class here in town on different learning styles...mainly dyslexia.  I thought like probably many of you, dyslexia is only transposing numbers and letters...I had no idea what it all entailed.  That weekend I did so much online research on dyslexia.  I found out that it is not just transposing letters and numbers.  On all the sites (even with the contradictions) I saw all the symptoms of my oldest daughter.  The light bulb went on and I called the lady Monday morning asking questions about this class.  I didn't really talk much to her then, but she said she would mail me information on the class and the information on the guy who started this teaching method.

Upon getting the information on the class I looked up this guys website...www.dyslexia.com.  On his site I saw he had 2 books that he wrote...The Gift of Dyslexia....and...The Gift of Learning (which is more about ADD, Math, and Handwriting problems).  So of course I ordered those books!  While waiting I searched this guy Ron Davis site.  I found an online assessment you can take...so of course I took that for both Hunter and Logan.  Now those are not "official" assessments, but it is a good starting point.  Both Hunter and Logan ranged in the Moderate to Severe area.  So after even MORE research and getting myself all worked up I called this lady again that teaches the class.

We talked and talked for hours (and she was on vacation...I felt so bad after I found that out)  I told her what all I have been dealing with the past school year and all the frustrations and all my fears and she was so patient and reassuring...which is what I totally needed :-)  She suggested getting the Gift of Dyslexia book (which I had already done.....my brilliance precedes me).  A few days later I got the book!

OH MY GOODNESS!  I read the one book in a day!  I was SOOOOO into it and seeing Hunter in every page.  I was excited and sad at the same time.  Realizing what all she has been going through the past school year was so heart breaking.  There is a section of this book I want to copy into this post...but I am so afraid of the legalities...so I am going to do my best to properly note it and everything...if you are a lawyer and I did something wrong please let me know ;-)

From the book The Gift of Dyslexia by Ronald D. Davis pgs 22-24

To put the puzzle pieces together, let's look at a typical scenario of a dyslexic child trying to read aloud.

A simple sentence like the one below would be easy to read for a ten-year-old who thinks with the sounds of words.  But for a ten-year-old dyslexic who constructs mental pictures of the scene as each word is read, the process is more difficult.

                         The brown horse jumped over the stone fence and ran through the pasture.

For the ten-year-old dyslexic, the first word, THE, caused the mental imagery to go bland, because there was no picture for it.  A blank picture is the essence of confusion; nothing a person experiences can match the confusion it causes.  Using concentration, however, the child pushes past the blank picture and says "the" and forces himself to skip to the next word.

The word BROWN produces a mental image of a color, but it has no defined shape.  Continuing to concentrate, the says "brown".

The word HORSE transforms the brown picture into a horse of that color.  Concentration continues and "horse" is said.

The word JUMPED causes the front of the brown horse to rise into the air.  He continues concentrating as he says "jumped".

The word OVER causes the back of the brown horse to rise.  Still concentrating, he says "over".

The next word, anther THE, causes the picture to go blank again.  confusion for the reader has increased, but the threshold of confusion has not yet been reached.  He must now double his concentration so he can push on to the next work.  In doing so, he may or may not omit saying "the".

The word STONE produces a picture of a rock.  With concentration doubled, he says "stone".

The next word, FENCE, turns the rock into a rock fence.  Still with doubled concentration, he says "fence".

The next word, AND, blanks out the picture again.  This time, the threshold for confusion is reached.  So the child becomes disoriented.  The child is stopped again, more confused, doubly concentrating, and now disoriented.  The only way he can continue is to increase his concentration effort.  But now because he is also disoriented, the dyslexic symptoms will appear.  It is very likely that he will omit saying the word AND, or just as likely that he will substitute A, AN or THE instead.  At this point, he is no longer getting an accurate perception of the words on the page.

He is now expending a tremendous amount of effort and energy on concentrating, just to continue.

The next word, RAN, because he is now disoriented, is altered into the word RUNS.  He sees an image of himself running, entirely unrelated to the picture of the hovering horse.  Then he says "runs".

The word THROUGH is altered into THROWS.  He sees himself throwing a ball and says "throws".

The next word, THE, blanks out the picture again.  The child is stopped again, even more confused, and still disoriented.  His only recourse is to quadruple his concentration.  In doing so, he omits saying "the".

By now his disorientation has created a feeling like dizziness.  He is feeling sick to his stomach, and the words and letters are swimming around on the page.

For the last word, PASTURE, he must track down each letter, one at a time, so he can sound out the word.  Once he does, he sees a picture of a grassy place.  Even though he is disoriented, because of the extra effort and energy he put forth in catching and sounding out each letter, he says it right, "pasture".

Having completed the sentence, he closes the book and pushes it away.  That's enough of that!

When asked what he just read, he is likely to answer with something like "a place where grass grows."  He has a picture of a horse in the air, a stone fence, himself playing ball and a grassy place, but cannot relate the separate elements in the sentence to form a mental image of the scene described.

To everyone who saw or heard him read the sentence or heard his answer to what it was about, it is obvious that he didn't understand any of what he just read.  As for him, he doesn't care that he didn't understand it.  He's just thankful that he survived the ordeal of reading out loud.



Now I know that was a long thing to read (and type out) but it is EXACTLY how Hunter reads.  Once I read that...another light bulb went off in my head...and another guilt/sadness of knowing she feels like that :-(  Every time we read she gets a stomach ache..she skips words, she adds words...it is WAY more than just transposing letters and numbers!

Since this post is so long...I will end here for now...but don't fret...I have TONS more to share ;-)