Sass: "Hey mum - look - I've got a cricket on my shirt"
"Hey mum - do crickets bite? can they sting you? what do they eat? where do they live? can they swim?" (ummm our kids are monster swimmers, so this is a kinda logical question for them to ask!)
"what sorta cricket do ya think it is mum?"
mmmmm - I smell a school holidays project opportunity
we find books, I find an internet link
(we pour over the facts... mmmm - nocturnal, likes to hide in vegetation/under rocks, eats decaying plant matter, doesn't bite/sting/attack humans)
so Sass builds a cricket condo in a shoe box and a cricket viewing jar
complete with rocks, grass, sticks and tube (for hiding)
and as I watched him get super excited about learning
the teacher in me felt vindication for my belief in the power of student-led education
and as a parent - I felt so happy that Sass was motivated to delve into a book
you see - our boyo has severe dyslexia
books (ahhhh 'my precious') aren't so much his friends
as they are scary, scary things that were put on earth to humiliate and embarrass him....
This is a common feeling amongst folk (young and old) with dyslexia or other 'learning difficulties'
So I suppose you've figured by this stage that this is not a post about crickets - but our tale of dyslexia.... It's a somewhat rambling tale (please bear with me) - shared today in the hope that it may help other parents and folk who 'see things a little differently' ....
We became aware that something 'wasn't quite normal' with our lad's reading around the end of his kindergarten year.... while almost all of his classmates could read simple (or not so simple) booklets, our son seemed to have difficulty just following the line of text.... no we weren't overly worried (I've been a fan of Steiner education that doesn't even begin teaching kidlets to read until after the age of 7...)
In year one sass continued to make very slow progress - by the middle of the year sassy's peers started seriously outpacing our boyo in the reading department and the school started him on the 'reading recovery' program (intensive 16 week program designed to help struggling readers) .... and then there were the tell-tale letter reversals ('b' might be 'd', 'p' and 'q' were swapped - and my fav - 'm' and 'w' were interchangeable!) After Sass completed the reading program (making little progress) it became clear that there was something 'else' going on - we weren't overly worried - but it was time to check all the obvious things - we had eyes and ears tested (like many kids his age sass was slightly long-sighted - they also found he had a small hassle with changing focus from distance to close vision... ), we went off to
'smart body smart brain' for extra testing (turned out sass had a small hassle with audio processing... no not a hearing problem - but his brain had a delay in figuring out what he was hearing - it took in the first and last bits of a word, but not the middle.... and viewing anything black on white on paper just made his brain go into a total spin - the stuff kept moving damn it! like a river of ooze on a page.... no wonder he couldn't track a line of text! and before you ask - yes we looked into
irlen lenses - but he isn't a strong candidate right now....) Armed with this knowledge I spoke to everyone from the GP, educational psychologists, his classroom teacher and specialist literacy teachers, the department of education learning support unit, reading tutors... (believe it or not - there isn't a lot known about what dyslexia is - how and why it occurs - and its generally a very loooong process to have 'dyslexia' diagnosed...)
By the end of year 2 it became very clear to all that our boyo had a classic type of dyslexia. Luckily Sass had a wonderful classroom teacher (who also happened to be the wonderful new principal at our little public school) I say luckily because the NSW Department of Education does not recognise dyslexia as a supportable condition (WTF?!!!!!!!!!! don't get me started on this..... totally insane!)
Through his school Sass has undertaken the 'reading recovery' program (twice), a computer 'brain training' program (an expensive program purchased by his little school because the government wouldn't...... grrrrr - I said don't get me started!),
multi-lit (a reading program run by volunteers.... because the government doesn't fund..... oh you get the picture!) he has had a one-to-one reading tutor (you guessed it - not government funded but a community volunteer) since Year 1..... Our little school has left no available (educational) stone left unturned to assist our sassy-boy and other kidlets with reading difficulties -- but it is uphill battle.
Sass is now in year 4 and for the first time he is starting to realise that there is a world of reading difference between himself and most of his mates..... we are now entering the really challenging time.
One of the biggest problems for kids with dyslexia (and other learning difficulties) is self-esteem - It's heart breaking to hear your child say 'I'm dumb' or worse - for him to come home from school weeping 'everyone tells me I'm stupid'.... we tell him (and the world!) people with dyslexia aren't stupid - they just comprehend things in a different way (ps
check out a few famous folk with dyslexia) - but this is small comfort for our not-yet-ten-year-old.....
yes we've talked about homeschooling to overcome the teasing (I heartily support anyone who has
chosen this path - I just don't know if I've got the 'goods' for our
kids)... but I'm not convinced that homeschooling is the right path for our kids who are both monster (MONSTER) sports stars. Sass is the school's athletics, cross country and swim champ - actually
he's the zone PSSA swimming champ and was recently selected by Swim
Australia to meet and train with
AIS
Olympic hopefuls Alicia Coutts and Sally Foster..... (but he's very
quiet about his sporting abilities so I shouldn't start carrying on
here....) Doing well in sport has helped our Sass feel good about
himself - its a small counter to the constant negative messages he is
bombarded with..... but it's a tricky balancing act isn't it?
Our main focus has always been to help both our kids to feel
confident about themselves - to know that they are ok, no matter what
anyone may say (I think this is the main thing all we parents want eh?) We want them to know and feel proud about their strengths (not to be braggards or poxy little snots - and certainly not to use their strengths to make other people feel small) we want them to appreciate that we are all different - and that's ok!
my oh my - I hadn't meant to rattle on and on...... but dyslexia is something close to my heart - and our kiddies are even closer ;~)
And strangely this neatly brings me back to the sams creek bookworks open day (May 5th don't forget) - We are holding the open day as a fundraiser for Cobargo P&C - as a small show of support for our fabbo little school - thanks Cobargo PS for all you do for our kiddies...
