Here We Are: The Dyslexia Journey (Part 1)

A mom's journey with her child: a reading problem

Part 1

Today, I sat next to my son’s Academic Resource Program counselor to discuss my son’s progress in ninth grade. I looked at the screen, straight A+s and the tears began to threaten to spill out of my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not because they are A+s. It’s because I know how he got here.”

This year, his first year of high school, my son transitioned out of the little program within his school for children who need academic support, and into the “regular” school. He was diagnosed with dyslexia when he was in the third grade. Since I am a clinical psychologist trained to perform psychoeducational assessments, I knew he had dyslexia way before his diagnosis in third grade. I had known he had dyslexia for years. I had known since I first started reading with him and noticed that I would teach him a word, he would successfully repeat it as I pointed to it and then if I dropped my finger and returned to the same word moments later, he would stumble and struggle again, as if he had never seen the word before. My frustration would mount. I had just showed him the word, not even a second had passed. Was he not paying attention? Did he not care? There were moments, shameful moments, where I could have sworn, he was being oppositional, but my son is so very far from an oppositional child.

My sweet boy wants to move gently through this world, leaving everyone content and peaceful in his wake. I could see, with my eyes his physiological struggle, as his eyelids would droop, and he’d look at me questioningly, pleadingly, his whole body struggling. I would struggle too. My sweat pouring down my face, my skin itching and burning with frustration and the desire that the ‘b’ would be a ‘buh’ this time. I tried everything I could think of to match the ‘b’ symbol with the ‘buh’ sound and then, I would turn to him and he would be fast asleep. Time and again, there would always be a point when, with my confusion and frustration growing with every word he tried to read, my fear and desperation mounting until it filled the room, I would look over at him and he would be sleeping, exhausted by the effort of trying to please me, trying to read. I could not wake him from his reading induced sleep sessions so I decided he wasn’t ready to read. He is only four, I told myself. I consoled myself through research…. In other countries, children do not enter kindergarten reading and the children turn out just fine. It would be ok. He wasn’t ready.

While I was alarmed and realized there was a problem, in an effort to not scare him or myself, I told myself he wasn’t ready and worked to let go of the need for my child to be the child that read before kindergarten. Park talk was never easy. “Johnny is reading Dog Man and Matilde who is in first is reading Harry Potter”, a mother would say as she stared at little Johnny and Matilde fighting over the swing. The battle to slay the requisites that came with my ‘successful mother guidebook’ was fierce. I kept ripping out pages but would find them there again at the next gathering of mothers in the park. For a year though, I did well, resisting the urge to pull out another book and say, “Let’s take turns.” Instead, I would just cuddle up next to him and say, “Mama is going to read to you.” Finally, it was time for kindergarten, I held my breath and sent him off.

The teachers loved him....

Read Part 2 of Here We Are: Dyslexia Journey