2012 Class Act: Kelsie Summit Views Her Dyslexia As a Gift, Not an Obstacle

Editor's note: This is the third in a three-part series profiling members of the Class of 2012 from Clover Park schools. Read about Harrison Prep graduate Cady McCullar  and Clover Park graduate Cinthia Vazquez .

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Kelsie Summit doesn’t let anything stop her.

As a senior, she led Lakes High School’s water polo team on its first state run in school history – despite not being able to swim just a year before.

She started high school unsure of whether she would fit in – and ended up involved in myriad extracurricular activities ranging from National Honor Society to the Culinary Club.

And she graduated this week with honors – while living with severe dyslexia.

Summit, who is headed to Central Washington University, where she will study secondary math education, doesn’t see her disability as an impediment. Rather, she views it as a gift.

“I need to embrace it and show people how to live with their disability – that it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be frustrating, but they can do it.

“I want to show people that hey, I did this, and you can do it, too.”

Lakes Principal Karen Mauer-Smith said that Summit’s positive outlook is going to make her a fantastic teacher.

“She’s somebody who doesn’t see challenges,” she said. “She knows she’s going to get where she’s going, and she’s just going to work at it.”

Summit was diagnosed with dyslexia as a first-grader at Concordia Lutheran School. Her father also has the genetic condition, which, in turn, has provided her with extra support.

“I have gotten frustrated, but I’ve learned to just say, hey, I’m just going to take my time, I can’t rush into things, and I’m going to work with my dyslexia,” she said. “But I’m still going to have it for the rest of my life.”

~ "I can do anything" ~

That hasn’t prevented her from achieving academic success, though: Summit graduated with a 3.99 grade-point average.

She took the same classes as everyone else, but simply needed accommodations to complete her work, such as books on tape, tests read aloud and extra time to complete essays. The SAT came with tapes and she took it during the school day.

Mauer-Smith said that Summit has been a great advocate for her education.

“When testing comes up, she comes to us and says ‘Here’s what I need,’ and she really knows,” she said. “Everything she does, she just turns into a positive thing. She has basically said to her parents, ‘This is my education and I need to take care of it and I need to be responsible for it.’

“She’s really grown into a leader for both herself and other students, and it’s really been great to see.”

Summit said that being perceived as one of the “smart kids” meant that classmates often didn’t realize she had a learning disability until she told them.

“They don’t realize I have to spend double the time they do,” she said. “They do an hour of homework; I do two hours. But it’s worth it. I just want to do my best. I don’t want to be the typical person with a learning disability in the back of the room not doing anything because they can’t do it.

“I have dyslexia, but I can do anything.”

~ "Numbers stay the same" ~

Rigorous testing during her sophomore year revealed that Summit has the reading comprehension of a kindergartener and reads at a second-grade level. But her math scores were at a 13^th-grade level – a college freshman. She aced first-year algebra and scored the first-ever 100 percent in her geometry teacher’s class.

“Words are just, ugh, horrible for me,” she said. “But numbers stay the same.”

She elaborated that unlike letters, numbers do not transpose when she looks at them.

“Writing a paper, I’m always switching back and forth between past and present, and I don’t know the difference, and it’s hard,” she said. “But math is constant. It stays there, and I can go back and teach people how to do different things I have learned.”

Summit’s passion for teaching was borne of three years as a Lakes IGNITE Mentor, as well as tutoring her peers in pre-calculus. She also was a member of the National Honor Society and Culinary Club, and first-chair violinist in Lakes’ orchestra.

And no one was more surprised than Summit herself when she ended up being good at water polo.

After playing three years of soccer and basketball, she decided to try something new in spring of her junior year – despite not being able to swim.

“My first practice, my coach thought he’d have to dive in and save me,” she said. “But I worked my butt off and I was a starter at the end.”

So she’s no longer in danger of drowning?

“I can swim now,” she said assuredly, adding that she joined the swim team in the fall to bolster her skills and is now playing for a club team. “And this year, I was a captain.”

Also laudable was that Lakes made its first appearance in the state tournament in school history and finished sixth.

“That was a big accomplishment,” she said.

~ "I'm so blessed" ~

Summit said she is a bit apprehensive about college – she calls Lakes her comfort zone – but that she is looking forward to being independent. She has been accepted into Central’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program, which means she will be living and learning in a community setting.

“I’m really excited because I get to work one-on-one with professors on science and math, and I really love that,” she said.

And she plans to continue to increase others’ awareness about dyslexia. During her time at Lakes, people would come up to ask her about it, and she was more than happy to discuss her success.

“I’m so blessed that I’ve gotten this opportunity,” she said, “to have dyslexia and graduate with honors.”