Doc’s Sunrise Rants

It’s very hard, as a parent, not to compare your kids with each other, or with other kids. It’s a mistake though. Each child develops on their own schedule. Milestones are not reached on a timetable set by averages, they are reached when each child is ready to grab them.

My Jacob has always danced to a different drummer. He’s a gentle soul, very sensitive to his world. He is quiet and introspective, and very intelligent. He spoke long before his sisters, using mature language and full sentences at 18 months. I knew he was a genius. Jacob’s differences were not apparent until he was of average reading age. His sisters picked up the mystery of written language with almost no instruction - as it was, Jacob, my dreamer, was really the only one I “taught” to read.

By 7, he still had not mastered the sounds that each letter represented. He confused so many letters. His writing was labored and at least 50% of the time he reversed letters and numbers. Dyslexia. I was advised to put him in school, where “experts” could teach him to read. If I wouldn’t do that, then I should consider intensive therapy. All of this would have been intimidated me had it not been for my brother - a successful professional with two masters degrees - and severe dyslexia. I remember reading him the comics when I was 5 and he was 10. My mother never let him know he was different (we were, for the most part - home taught). She patiently read easy books with him, over and over, for years. She always told me there was no cure for dyslexia, there was only patience.

I would teach him myself. And in the process, I’d protect his self esteem and make sure he knew how smart he was.

I did some research - and I never did find any program that was any different than any average reading program. You can’t cure dyslexia. You can only repeat the reading instruction as many times as it takes for the young reader to “get it” - and in Jake’s case, that was 10,000 repeats of Reading Reflex and 20 million read throughs of Phonics Pathways, Add to that lots of easy reading - over and over and over. Not losing patience. Making allowances for him - not making him write - what’s the use? He can’t write. He’ll never be able to write with a pencil. The mechanics of getting the signal that’s already skewed in his brain, all the way out to his fingers, is just impossible. My advice to parents of dyslexics: Bag the handwriting. Concentrate on reading. Eventually they will get it, but the learning curve is very slow. Let your dyslexic type. Teach him to sign his name and fill out information for forms - he’ll never need to write anything else - I even have math software that allows him to write out his algebra on the keyboard. Teach them to type. Teach them to use a hand held voice activated recorder for notes.

I did do a lot more memory work with Jake - all verbal. I found word search puzzles to be good practice for him. When he did write, he did better with colored pencils, sharpie pens, or dry erase markers on whiteboard. He does not have any attention span deficientcy, so that has never been an issue. He’s always one hundred percent into whatever activity he’s doing. Other than the reading, he kept up with all his other work, math, science, history - he did everything his sisters did - verbally. He dictated his written work to me. He did laborious copy work. He memorized inspirational quotes. I love this kid to death and I never lost patience with him. I never let anyone tell him he was dumb. Yes, I protected him. I covered for him when he did activities with other kids. His sisters read for him if he needed it. I knew that eventually his brain would recognize each letter and number - reversed or not - within its rightful place in a word. And eventually that did happen. He didn’t read at “grade level” (and then just barely) until 8th grade. He reads slower than most, but he reads well now. He has to work harder to do the same work - and he never complains, and for that, I’m extremely proud of him. If you read this with the hope that there was a magic formula for a reading disability - there isn’t. I’ve researched the different “therapies” available. I’ve read all the books. It’s all the same thing. Repeating the slow process of reading instruction over and over, and lots of reading practice. Toss in a lot of memory practice. Don’t waste your money on computer programs with flashing lights and whizbang guarantees. Yes, his eyes didn’t track together, a common denominator among dyslexics - but neither did Katie’s, and she had no problem learning to read. His opthamologist also said he’d grow out it by 11 or 12 - with or without “eye training”. And he did. He wore reading glasses until about that time, and now wears glasses all the time - but so do his sisters. It isn’t a matter of poor vision, it’s that English is a very hard language and it’s amazing that 5-6 year old children learn how to do it. However, it takes them several years to get good at it. It just takes the dyslexic longer - probably about twice as long.

No earth shattering new curriculum - just hard work, and lots of it.

This is the last installment I have. I hope you, the reader, learned a little bit about our days here at Lazy T Academy.

Go To K-8 Master Syllabus