Homeschooling a Dyslexic, ADHD, Celiac kid. Not So Hard! Continued, our story...
(Continued from May's Archives)
...And from the very beginning I knew there was more than just tears at preschool. I knew she was dyslexic! The roller coaster just got stuck upside down!
So you may be asking how could I possibly know at 3 she was dyslexic. We'll let me debunk that fact that dyslexia is just switching your b's and d's around, there is so much more to it than that. Below a few clues are mentioned. For starters we had a hard time with all of the alphabet, numbers and shapes. Colors weren't a problem.
Hold on, hold on, let me back the roller coaster a little bit. As a baby she often had chronic ear infections, a runny nose, a gassy tummy, and was very quiet. ( I know those of you that know her, could probably never imagine her as a quiet girl, but she was, unless she was agitated, then she fussed.) She rarely talked actual words. Since my background was in American sign language, I taught her key words that she often communicated with me. It concerned us that she didn't speak, she has a cousin that was born deaf and we thought maybe she could be too, or hard of hearing. So at 15 months we went to an ear specialist and it turned out she needed tubes in her ears. Well, when the doctor completed the surgery, he reported to us that she had more than 6 inches of yucky gunk infection compacted in her ear. He also let us know that she wasn't hearing correctly, because of the compacted gunk she was hearing like she lived under water. (This may explain her fascination with mermaids, LOL!)
What does this have to do with dyslexia, well I will tell you. First off, it put her behind understanding audible language. The first two years of a child's life, hearing words is so very important. She needed to be gathering words in her word bank, for all of the 15 months, but instead it was only visual information that she gathered, (Can you guess her learning style?) After her surgery she began to hear, however, if we were to compare her to the average 15 month old she was extremely behind. Words were new to her. After the surgery a "whole new world" opened up to her ;) She could hear, more important she could hear her own voice. (Our house became a much louder place.) At this point she often said things wrong. We thought nothing of it at the time. We thought is was cute! For example; she often said "whoop cream" instead of whip cream. No matter how often we corrected her, she always said "whoop cream" she still says it, but it's to get daddy's attention to squirt some in her mouth for fun. Clue #1.
Moving on! So fast forward to preschool drop out, LOL! She spent 1 and 1/2 years in preschool before I pulled her. Even the head teacher, whom we all loved, noticed her lack of abilities that her peers were accomplishing, from letter recognition to cutting and fine motor skills. At home we began the frustrating task of learning our ABC's and 123's. Oh! It only took 2 and 1/2 years for her to get the letters, sounds and to write. Often with tears. Clue #2.
To be continued... must make dinner and other chores, talk to ya later gator :)
xoxo ~ V
Here are some websites that list characteristics of dyslexia.
37 Common Characteristics of Dyslexia http://www.dyslexia.com/library/symptoms.htm
http://www.bartonreading.com/dys.html#signs
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