Once upon a time in a coreign fountry, there lived a geautiful birl named Rindercella with her mugly other and two sad bisters. One day Rindercella was invited to a bancy fall. Thanks to her gerry fodmother, she wore a drancy fess and rode in a kig barriage pulled by six hite worses. At the bancy fall, she danced with the pransome hince and lell in fove. As she raced home from the bancy fall to make her curfew, she slopped her dripper. The pransome hince was willing to search war and fide for his geautiful birl who had slopped her dripper at his bancy fall. He tried the slopped dripper on the feet of many geautiful birls; he tried it on the mugly other, but it fidn't dit. He tried it on the two sad bisters, but it fidn't dit. He tried the slopped dripper on Rindercella's foot, and it FID DIT!
From the way this tairy fale was going, Rindercella and her pransome hince probably were mappily harried and had lysdexia...sexdaily...I mean dyslexia!
These are the types of malapropisms that happen daily to individuals with dyslexia. I have conversed with many dyslexic clients over the years who have wanted their hair done "buck straight". They ordered "hangabers" and "puzghetti" at restaurants and complained about their "oderarmdeunderant" (o.der.arm.de.un.der.ant).
Dyslexic individuals have difficulty breaking words into sounds. That causes problems blending sounds back into words. So...dyslexic individuals often say funny words...or, if they don't want to risk these embarrassing errors, use empty words like "stuff" and "things" to express themselves. They use empty words to replace the descriptive vocabulary like "underarmdeoderant" and "spaghetti" that they are likely to mispronounce.
Dyslexia is a VERY COMMON PROBLEM. Recent studies indicate that 20% of our population is affected by dyslexia. Yet, many classroom teachers will tell you that there are NO dyslexic children in their classrooms. How is that possible? Statistics indicate that there is at least one dyslexic individual in every classroom of 20 kids.
The problem is...it often goes undiagnosed!
Parents will frequently come to me with concerns about their child's written expression. They proclaim that their child has read the complete Harry Potter series as well as the Hunger Games. Yet, when you ask this child to write a summary or an essay about the story, he freezes or writes a document that is not even legible to the child himself.
The challenge arises when I give that child a list of words. Many bright dyslexics have memorized the real words...the "sight words" as they are called. They can read off "president" and "chemistry" and "powerpoint" like a pro.
But give them a list of nonsense words, and they fall apart. That child does not know what to do with words like "plesiam", "dorbert" and "rockeplasm".
And that challenge shows us dyslexia experts that phonics and syllabication are useless to that child. That child does not have a clue how to decode, or break the code of a word that has never been introduced in the classroom or during recreational reading.
The other weakness that gives these students away is their writing. These are the kids with writer's block. Given 25 minutes to compose an essay, they produce a total of two sentences. Other dyslexics can produce an entire page of text, but nobody, including the child himself, can decipher that one-page run-on sentence or figure out the spelling.
These kids have dyslexia!
You may be thinking that a child who can read Harry Potter and the Hunger Games is overcoming his reading problems and does not require intervention. You may even be thinking that writing is becoming a lost art and may not be necessary to get a higher education and/or succeed in life?
But what happens to that child when she must take college entrance exams? What happens when she must write her timed SAT essay with organized thoughts and excellent mechanics?
Or if she bypasses that hurdle, what happens when she goes off to college? What happens to that child when she starts taking college-level science classes like anatomy and physiology...when she has to read about the respiratory system in vertebrates and write a timed essay test about it? What happens then?
The good news is that individuals with dyslexia CAN learn phonics! They CAN learn to break words into syllables and sound them out.
They can also master their textbooks, take excellent notes and then plot the information on brain maps (charts) for long-term memory.
Most of us would agree that learning information in visually organized patterns like this is SO MUCH EASIER! And for dyslexics, these strategies are CRITICAL!
When should we start teaching/using these strategies? How about elementary school?
When should we identify dyslexia and start treating it? How about kindergarten?
If you know of an individual of any age who is having difficulty with reading or written expression, visit our website www.speak4success.com or call us at 858.509.1131. Better yet, send us a preschooler who has speech challenges which are the red flags for dyslexia. We can prevent their reading problems! We can help dyslexic individuals at any age, but the earlier the better....so remember our motto......Early to Talk, Early to Read, Ready to Succeed!
This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.
The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?
