When I started going to school, it was in the days when every teacher was made a special paddle by the school’s wood shop teacher. I recall being sent to the hall once a week in the first grade for not turning in my assignments. I hated the sight of the large flat wooden paddle with holes drilled into it swinging from the arm of my teacher as she followed me out into the hallway. Then as if doing nothing out of the ordinary, the teacher would tell me “You know what to do, grab the bottom of the chair”. I would bend over, dreading what was coming next then take my three or so paddles. With tears in my eyes I would return to the class. Embarrassed for being punished just outside of the door, where they could all hear it. God forbid I would let my parents know what was going on. I knew I would just be spanked at home for getting spanked at school. To this day my mom swears she never knew about it.
I could not help what I was. Looking at instructions on a piece of paper was completely incomprehensible to me. I barely knew my letters and could not keep them straight, right side up or in the right order. I wrote my own name wrong most of the time. No one said dyslexic. I did however hear a lot of “she’s just lazy” and “buckle down and apply yourself” and “she should be moved to the special ed class”. Really, in 1980 these were the best solutions anyone came up with.
The teachers looked at me as dead weight, lowering their classes overall grade. They would give paper after paper for me to read and answer the questions. My pile of unfinished papers grew and grew until the teacher would have me spend recesses indoors to work on them. I would fill in the blanks with guesses of what I was supposed to be doing, turn it in, get a zero with a sad face in it and go outside for recess the next day.
I was born a lefty, but the school’s stance was to make everyone right handed. It took a while, a lot of grabbing my crayon or pencil from my left hand and forcing me to use my right. By second grade there were still some left handed boys in our class, but I was converted. Although I now consider myself to be ambidextrous.
Throughout elementary school I was nearly always lost, guessing and behind. I was either lucky to pass my class each year or pushed through. I hated reading, I hated report cards and school was not working for me.
There were bright spots of human beings that stand out in my memory. The second time I took second grade was slightly easier than the first, but I still was at the bottom of the class. In third grade we learned our multiplication tables, did a leaf and bug collection as well as learned our states and capitols. It was the best year of elementary school. My teacher was touch, she would pinch your cheeks if you did something wrong. She scarred me when she did that. But much to her credit, she introduced me to one of the learning tools I utilized, sometime to a fault, throughout school.
Memorization! It seems so simple, but to me it was a break through. I could not read and re-read the states or figure out the multiplication tables but I could memorize them to music. I was nearly always the first student to get a coveted cheese puff prize for being able to recite the times table of the day. Then when it came to memorizing the states and capitols our music teacher taught us a song with the states in alphabetical order, that I still use to this day. I was the first to tell the third grade teacher the states and their capitols and as a prize I got to say the states and have the class say the capitols when the eighth grade class came to see us. It was exciting! My first wins at anything inside of a classroom. After that we memorized the Gettysburg Address without music. By then I had really awoken the part of my brain able to memorize anything. Unfortunately it is not the same place that remembers and I was only able to retain the information for less than a day at a time. Of course no one noticed that so I went on my merry way to the fourth grade.
It was the year of the horrible hair cut, looked like a boy. My fourth grade teacher was the first male teacher I had ever had. He was great! Fun and interesting. We had state history that year, so we got to do a lot of hands on activities, which was perfect for the way I learned best. We tapped maple trees and made syrup. The lunch ladies made us a pancake lunch to have with our awesome syrup. We made funnel cakes in the class room, got to dress up for pioneer days. He taught me two valuable lessons. That if I have the hiccups they will go away if I stand in front of the class with my mouth open and that I was worth spending the time to teach. He has since become the schools superintendent and is a very good choice if I so say so myself.
By sixth grade I considered myself a writer. I liked to write. I still hated to read, could not spell well and my handwriting was messy. I would think of something interesting and write a few pages about it. It did not always make sense when I read it back. I could interpret my writing most of the time. In seventh or eighth grade I wrote my first book. I wish I still had it, I would love to read it. It filled up a writing paper notebook front and back. I was so proud of it. I corrected all of the spelling mistakes, at least the ones that I recognized as mistakes. I was really excited to let someone read it and took it to my English teacher who said he would read it. The next day I came in excited to hear what he thought. In front of the class, he returned my notebook saying “Books don’t begin that way” then went back to his desk. I thought “Movies do, books can too” but honestly I had not read a whole book, so he could have been right. Instead I thought “You’re a jerk” and I ignored his advice.
In high school I squeaked by with bad grades in most every class. Algebra clicked in my head like a second language. The teacher asked me to tutor other students. I loved it. However when I was in Geometry I barely passed. There was so much reading and too many words that I did not recognize.
It was just as frustrating as English class. We were assigned interesting stories to read in English. I would start them and read every night and during class and still only get through a couple dozen pages by the time the book report was due. So I began reading the first ten pages, the middle ten pages and the last ten pages. Then I would ask my friends in the class what the book was about. I would be prepared enough for the book report to get a passing grade.
The summer before my senior year I took summer school English, and was able to take a short story creative writing class. The teacher was engaging and supportive. I wrote and read short stories, got constructive feedback and wanted more.
The second semester of my senior year I worked part time and went to school part time. That was another pivotal point in my learning. A light bulb went off. I could concentrate during class on the letters and words on the pages. I could almost always read the instructions on pages headings and comprehend it on the first or second try and I rarely was frustrated enough to completely give up trying any more. I got great grades that year. It was a miracle. But I still was not reading or comprehending at an age appropriate level.
When I was 23 I began writing a lot of poetry. A lot being well over a thousand poems in five years on all sorts of topics. During that time I began to see and process the mistakes I make writing, reading, editing, typing. For the first time I noticed patterns in my dyslexic tendencies. Mixing up lower case letters d, p and b. Mixing up 2 and 5, 6 and 9. Taking letters from the next word and adding it to the word I am writing or reading. I even made typing dyslexic errors. Typing a letter with the wrong hand such as K instead of D on the key board. I learned how to spell words I should have learned in first grade. Words like from, of, for, made, but and people’s names such as Sean, Jennifer and Dolores.
That year when I was 23, I bought a book with lots of Greek mythology stories in it. I read each short story and eventually read the entire book. It was the very first book I had ever read cover to cover. I mean really read, comprehended and best of all enjoyed. I felt that at last I was reading at an adult level!
When I was twenty seven, my daughter was six and we confirmed that she too is dyslexic. I was so mad at myself for passing this onto her. I did not pass that frustration onto her. I made lists of famous dyslexics who had done amazing things with their life. We made learning to read as fun as possible. She and I have worked, researched, tried new techniques, schools and various tutors. I am an active participant in her education and her biggest supporter advocating for her rights as a student with a learning disability.
She is a remarkable young lady. She still struggles with reading, but she has enough improvements to be at an age appropriate level on most reading and writing skills nearly ten years before I did. She read her first book a few years ago, then kept reading more books she is interested in. She also loves writing, her own stories or writing down lyrics to songs or lines in movies she likes. I am so proud of her. She does shy away from reading anything she does not have to and leans towards the arts and hands on activities. But I have great hopes for her. She will be going to college in a couple of years and with this rate of continued improvement she will be able to handle the work load that college will give her.
And never once in my daughter's journey toward being a good reader, did I ever think “I should get a big board, drill some holes in it and spank her to make her read better”. How ridiculous were we as a society in the past and how ridiculous will our children think we are in the future.
JL Cooper
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