A Struggle to Read

In a previous post I have mentioned how difficult it has been for George to learn to read. We started when he was 5 1/2 using Veritas Press Phonics Museum. That was slow going and eventually I changed over to "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" which seemed to really get him on track and help him with blending. So we went back to finishing up the curriculum we started and have been working slowly on that ever since taking breaks when he would get stressed and focused on just reading simple books.

George has always loved books and will sit in bed at night trying to read. Very often I have found that he will memorize the story so that the next time we go through it he can "read it". Otherwise he will look at the picture and guess at what it says. He has always done the typical reversing of the b & d or p but has never really gotten past doing that. He also frequently reverses a short word or the syllables in a word. An example of this is when reading the word cart he would say "crat". After a friend mentioned that her son may have dyslexia I started to wonder about George and began to search online. In talking with my Mom I found that a friend of my grandparents works with dyslexic people and so I contacted her. Nancy's son has dyslexia which they found out when he was in high school and this caused her to take training to help others.

George was tested a few weeks ago and while Nancy can not legally say that he has dyslexia the test leaned in that direction although very mildly I think. We decided to go ahead and have him work with Nancy on a weekly basis to give him the boost he needs and his first lesson was this week. George was not thrilled with the idea at first but when he was done he was quite proud of himself and seemed to have an excitement to read again, which had seemed to be fading due to his discouragement. I am not sure how long we will continue with the lessons but Nancy has said that in working with a child over a summer they often will progress two grade levels in reading which would be wonderful! George may always have a "difficulty with words" but I am thankful that he can overcome that with a bit of help.

In researching dyslexia I found some interesting sentences demonstrating why English is such a hard language to learn. Here is one example...

The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

I also found that there are quite a few famous people who had learning problems associated with dyslexia but all overcame the difficulty -- George Washington, "Stonewall" Jackson, Winston Churchill, Hans Christian Anderson, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, and many more.

"Dyslexia is not a disease to have and to be cured of, but a way of thinking and learning. Often it's a gifted mind waiting to be found and taught."