There’s an interesting thing about us humans - upon learning something new about ourselves, our brain immediately fills with questions and begins racing to find answers about that subject. Knowing that, it will be no surprise to you when your child begins to inundate you with questions about dyslexia for hours, days, months and years to come upon learning that he/she is dyslexic.
Often times the children I teach will politely ask, “Mrs. Jones, can I ask you a question about dyslexia?”
I expect these questions and I always reply warmly, “Of course.”
Today I’m sharing some of their questions and my answers as they may be of help to you as a parent and/or as a teacher.
A frustrated ‘Annie’ asked me, “Why do some people have dyslexia and others don’t?”
I replied, “There are many learning differences which we are understanding more and more about. We do know that dyslexia is an inherited learning difference. You are dyslexic because you inherited genes for dyslexia from one or both of your parents. About 20% of the population learns differently in the way referred to as dyslexia. That means you probably have friends who learn differently too.”
‘Travis’ wanted to know, “Why does my brain work differently than most other people?”
“Actually,” I shared, “everyone’s brain works differently from any other person. Even though we are all human beings, we are ALL unique individuals.
“When researchers study brains, they look for commonalities in order to help them understand how our brains work. They ask, ‘What common characteristics do we find in people who struggle to learn to read, spell and write?’ In dyslexia we find people who are processing language—visual sequencing, visual processing, auditory sequencing and auditory processing—differently than many other people. Dyslexics process in a way that makes them need to learn to read, write and spell using different approaches than the traditional way schools have taught.
“You are realizing this about yourself as we work with Silent Elephant “e” and the way it is helping you understand reading, writing and spelling. You are understanding the difference in how you are learning.”
“Do you have to reverse letters or see letters and/or words backwards to be dyslexic?” ‘Travis’ continued.
“No. Some dyslexic people have those learning differences, but not all dyslexic people experience letter and word reversals.”
Beginning to understand herself, ‘Mia’ asked, “Is putting capital letters in the middle of words; is putting periods in the middle of a sentence; is putting periods on the middle, dotted line; is popping in tall letters from neighboring words into words I’m trying to read; is seeing numbers move on paper part of being dyslexic?”
“Yes, all of these things can happen to people who are dyslexic due to visual sequencing and visual processing differences. They don’t happen to everyone who is dyslexic, as everyone is different.”
I guided her, “When you are experiencing visual difficulties, try to use colors to help you calm and stabilize the movement of letters, numbers and symbols.”
As ‘Carly’ began feeling success in her reading, she inquired, “How soon will I actually see the colors we’re using on my Silent Elephant “e” papers in my school papers and in books?”
I helped her realize how far she had come. “It’s true that I’m having you physically write colorful red diacritical vowels markings, orange wiggly lines, blue straight lines, green circles with brown lines, purple slanted lines and other tiny pictures on your Silent Elephant “e” papers to teach you phonics rules.
“All of these colors, with their specific jobs, are creating connections within your brain to precise phonics rules. The colors not only help you remember the abstract phonics rules, but they solidify the neurological connections between each phonics rule and the sound(s) the letter(s) represent.
“The more you use the colors on your Silent Elephant “e” papers, the more nerve pathways you will make to imagine the colors. The more you practice, the faster the synapses in your brain will connect colors to rules and sounds. You will visualize the colors. Your brain will begin to “know” the colors are there. You will read smoothly and faster!”
This helped ‘Carly’ relax and focus even more on how she was learning.
‘Quinn’ asked the question on all their minds: “If colors help me so much in reading, spelling and math, why don’t all teachers use colors to teach?”
I smiled, “Most teachers have not studied learning differences like dyslexia, and therefore, do not understand the differences in how people learn. Teachers truly want to help all of their students learn, so more and more educators are taking classes themselves and are learning about dyslexia and other learning differences.”
Lastly, this is something I share with all my students: “Because of YOUR learning difference, we are understanding better that people are very different, and each of us learns in the unique way we learn. This is powerful to realize. It lets us and everyone else off the hook because it lets us quit comparing ourselves to other people. We don’t know how they learn, and they don’t know how we learn. We only know about ourselves.
“As we are learning more about learning differences and your learning difference in particular, your parents and I, as your tutor, are sharing what we are learning with your teachers. They are working hard to learn about dyslexia and other learning differences too and they are sharing what they are learning with us. We’re all working together.
“Working together makes everything easier.”
Contact us if you have any questions and to share your experiences. We look forward to hearing where you are in the process and how it’s going.
If you are questioning whether someone in your life is dyslexic and you’re not sure what to do, feel free to contact us.