When Learning to Read is a Challenge--Part III

Dyslexic children tend to be "misunderestimated" by nearly everyone with whom they come in contact. Nevertheless, history provides an impressive list of dyslexic people whose accomplishments have significantly impacted society: Agatha Christie, Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Hans Christian Andersen, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Winston Churchill, and General George Patton are only a few of the notables who battled dyslexia. The problem is that those who suffer from dyslexia are not appreciated until long after they have found ways to overcome their differences, and many dyslexic children never receive the help they need to compete with their “normal” peers.

When George W. Bush was running for President, someone wrote an article saying that they could tell from observing him that he is dyslexic. When a reporter asked him about this, Bush responded by saying that he was glad that he had “finally been diagnosed.” I, of course, have no way of knowing whether our former president is dyslexic, but I do know that he displays many of the characteristics of a dyslexic person; interestingly, it is those same characteristics that endeared him to his supporters.

Dyslexic people tend to make up their own words, and often those words are so descriptive that they work better than their “correct” counterparts. For instance, when George W. Bush coined the word “misunderestimated,” he became the object of a lot of teasing. However, that word was so descriptive of the way the media perceived him that it became the title of several books written about him, including one authored by Bill Sammon that was published in 2005.

Not being an eloquent speaker is certainly not a reflection of one’s intelligence; yet, in this age of electronic media, anyone who is not able to ramble endlessly when the microphone is on is frequently dismissed as “dumb.” Conversely, some very stupid people who are able to speak easily have been mistakenly labeled as “smart.” Dyslexic people are excellent communicators, but they communicate less through speech than they do in other ways.

When George W. Bush was in the White House, he became known for his common “folksy” approach to people. This is typical behavior of people dealing with dyslexia. My ninth child stands close to anyone with whom he is speaking and almost always puts his arm around their shoulder. He studies a person’s body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. He is at least as interested in how someone says something as he is in what they say. As a result, he is a better judge of whether someone is lying than most of his siblings. When he talks, which he does incessantly, he relies on body language and facial expressions to “tell the story” nearly as much as he does spoken language.

My ninth child will never be able to spell very well (thank goodness for spell check), and he will never excel at standing before a microphone making a dry speech. However, he has the ability to take the most mundane situation and make it outrageously funny. He also communicates a warmth and personal interest in those around them that draws people to him.

Fortunately for my ninth child and for the dyslexic overachievers that I listed at the beginning of this blog, they each had someone who helped them get past the very real problems that are part of living with dyslexia. That is the key; dyslexic children need someone who loves them enough to spend the many hours that are necessary to help them overcome their inability to see the world through the eyes of their “normal’ peers. It is wonderful when the story of a dyslexic child has a happy ending, but those happy endings are always the result of hard work and perseverance on the part of the child and their teacher.

This is the final blog in my three-part series. If you have a child who struggles to learn to read, I hope that these blogs have helped you understand better what your child is experiencing as well as to better understand what you can do to help him. If you have questions or comments, I will respond to them and give you my best advice based on my years of experience dealing with this very sensitive subject.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker.  Her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother, recounts her experiences teaching her own ten children from the first grade through master's degrees before their seventeenth birthdays.  For more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup