When I was young I hated reading. I really hated when
a teacher would ask me to read out loud too. I had trouble reading and I couldn’t
figure out why, so I just didn’t want to do it. I came up with ways to read
without actually reading. However, I could never avoid reading out loud. My
problem was I would stumble over words and have a hard time saying them because
I have a slight dyslexia and it gets worse when I am put on the spot. For years
it made me not want to read at all. Scared me almost to have to admit I needed
help. Then one day I was hanging out in the library with my friends during
lunch. We were the card playing nerds who did this every day. I was watching my
guy play his game and I saw a book on the shelf that looked interesting. I
loved looking at book covers because I thought maybe someday I could read a
book like that without trouble. I had convinced my parents to buy me lots of
books in the hopes that one day I would actually be able to read one. This day
was that day. Without thinking I took the book to the counter and checked it
out. I read it cover to cover by the next day lunch and returned it. This prompted
me to just start grabbing books that I liked the cover of and just read it. If I
struggled with it, I quit reading it and got another.
I still struggle today with my dyslexia, but I have
now learned how to handle it better. Some days it is still pretty bad, but I power
through. I recently met a kid who suffered from dyslexia, he is failing out of
school and has no desire to even graduate. He is less than six months from
graduation and less than two months from his eighteenth birthday. He told me he
plans on dropping out the day after his birthday and getting a job. He and I talked
for thirty minutes about reading required for school and how he just didn’t read
because he could not find a helpful way to do it. When I told him that I suffered
the same issue and was just about to finish my teaching certification he asked
me how I do it. What I told him was there is no one way to read when you have
dyslexia. Different texts take special treatment. I will sometime read and then
reread the same thing 3 times before the text will understand. However, I also
told him about reading for pleasure and what that did for me. When I finally
got into reading my own things I was able to identify words and times my
dyslexia would flare up and how to combat it or just take a break. He liked
that I had figured it out on my own and wanted me to help him. I told him that I
would help him no problem, but he had to put forth the effort and contact me on
his own. I have never heard from him.
When we slow down and hear what is causing our
students the problems we can really try and help them. Something I do know is if
I don’t know a word or I am unsure I am reading it correctly I will type what I
see into dictionary.com and they will tell me what I am reading. It has helped
when because when I see that word again I remember what it means. We all have
struggles when it comes to reading we just have to find the trade off of how to
make it into something we can enjoy or want to read.
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