Dyslexia by Joy Nord
Tick . . . tick . . . tick. I watched the wall clock. Good. Only ten more minutes before Sunday school would be dismissed.
Every muscle in my body tensed as beads of sweat started to form on my forehead. I counted the ladies to my right that hadn’t read yet. Three. Then I calculated the verses they would read. As I nervously scanned over the scriptures in my Bible that I would be expected to read and I silently prayed. “Please—please! Lord . . .”
I looked around at the other ladies in my class. They sit relaxed and content as if they didn’t have a care in the world. All of them considered this one-hour of their week blissful and uplifting. But for me,
this torture I sit through was the longest sixty-minutes of my week. Not that I didn’t enjoy the fellowship with my Christian sisters, but because of the incompetence and the embarrassment I felt when it came my turn to read aloud. I couldn’t.
Dyslexia—a curse or a gift?
What do Tom Cruise,
When we hear the word dyslexia we think only of reading problems. Some associate it only with word and letter reversal, and some with slow learners. Most people consider it some form of learning disability. However, the learning disability is only one challenge for the dyslexic.
Dyslexia was the first general term used to describe various learning difficulties in reading, writing, spelling and math. Even through over seventy different names are used to describe the various aspects of dyslexia, it has received the title “Mother of Learning Disabilities.”
The word dyslexia means difficulty with words or language. It is frequently used to refer to a child or adult who seems much brighter than what his or her reading and written work suggests.
Recent studies have shown that not only does dyslexia run in families but also it is carried as a genetic trait. My father had a learning disability that he passed to me. Unaware as a child that dyslexia even existed, I just assumed that since I had attended so many different schools being a military brat, I hadn’t received the proper tools for learning. And I hadn’t. Unfortunately, my reading problems got handed down to my daughter, and last year my grandson who is nine was diagnosed with dyslexia. However, with the new technology about this learning disability, I pray that my grandson won’t have to suffer from the humiliation, of not being able to read or spell, like his mother and I have had to endure.
Ronald Davis founder of the Davis Dyslexia Association International considers his dyslexia a gift. I wouldn’t go as far to admit that about myself. Ever since the first grade I have struggled with reading and math. When I entered the ninth grade, I was forced to take algebra. Oh, good gracious, I thought. Now these teachers are mixing numbers and letters together. How am I ever going understand this? I just knew I would spend the rest of my life in high school. After failing algebra three times, my counselor decided to try a different method of explaining the problems to me. Kind of like “show, don’t tell,” in the form of
writing. Well, I finally passed the class in my senior year. My point is that dyslexics are visual, multi-dimensional thinkers. We are intuitive and remarkably creative, and excel at hands-on learning. Since we think in forms of pictures, it is usually hard for us to understand letters, numbers, symbols (punctuation is one of my biggest struggles), and written words. For example: At a restaurant when I order a hamburger from the menu that doesn’t provide me with a visual picture, I expect HAM. When the waitress brings me my hamburger with beef, which is what I actually ordered, I can’t complain to the waitress that she misunderstood my order. I made the mistake when I visualized ham in the word hamburger. But when I order a Single Classic combo from Wendy’s or a Homestyle combo from Jack-in-the-Box, where a picture is displayed, I expect the burger to have a beef patty because that’s what I’ve seen. If you think this clarification about hamburgers is totally weird, you don’t want to know what my brain goes through when deviled eggs are mentioned.
My critique partners have praised my descriptions of scenery, settings, and /or surroundings that I bestow upon the characters in my stories. I would love to tell them my inspiration came from reading the classics written by Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Louis May Alcott, Jane Austen, Herman Melville, and many other famous authors. But, the truth be known, I’ve never read any of their work. Therefore, the creativity they are reading has come from my disoriented imagination.
Tick . . . tick . . . tick. As the clock rapidly ticks away while I finish writing this column, I can’t help but wonder if my learning problems are a curse or a gift from Dog, Oops! There I go again. I need to spell GOD. Whichever it may be, I’ve learned to accept and deal with this handicap called dyslexia.
References
The Gift of Dyslexia, Ronald Davis
Overcoming Dyslexia, Sally Shaywitz
