This post was first posted here.
Hi, everyone!
When I posted my question, I thought I would be lucky enough to garner 5 responses, so you can imagine how astonished I was when I received 50+ (and counting!) comments. Thank you for letting me into your world. You have certainly made it easier for me to understand dyslexia with your lived experiences and insights. Thank you so much for sharing!
Since I received so many comments, I feel that it is my duty to surface the commonalities from your very diverse experiences and generate them into useful articles, which I would later disseminate to a wider audience.
[Core Message]
It's very important that children do not attach difficulty with reading and writing to their character or self-worth. If children seem to stop making an effort, question the root. [Yammy_Lyfe]
[What Goes On In Dyslexic People’s Minds]
Dyslexia is linked to left and right lobes of the brain communicating less well than the typical brain. This leads to the brain usually leaning on its right lobe more and dyslexics often exhibit very, very good visual/spatial abilities. A dyslexic is unable to remember b vs d often because their brain can literally “see” the “b” in 3D and from any camera angle. Front, back, side, etc. If I can grasp a “b” from any angle, then what is to tell me what is the front of a “b” because from the back “b” looks like “d.” [Gnowbot]
The right brain works harder to encode memories and this does it in a more picture/visual way. Personally, I literally encode everything into 3D and images. The only way I can remember your name is to draw a picture of it in my head or visualize your face next to another person from my past. When I see you for the rest of my days, I will pull up this image, stall for a few seconds, and then recall your name. I have no filing cabinet in my brain with which to put textual information. [Gnowbot]
Language processing requires basically all my processing power. The problem is that the fine motor control and sequencing required to physically write also depletes all my available resources. The result is complete overload. I functionally can't think and write; it's one or the other. In particular, the sequencing issues make this truly disastrous. I can take the time to figure out what I want to say, but as soon as I try to translate it to paper, any semblance of structure vanishes. I lose my starting point. I often can't even begin to write manually because the act of transcription scrambles the source in real time. Add in the sort of distractions school is full of, and an already impossible task became laughable to even contemplate. Turning in a blank sheet after 45 minutes of writing time was my norm growing up. [Keytargonian]
When I write something down, I think of the images and videos and 3D space, and then somehow transcode these visuals into words. This takes quite a bit of brainpower, more than your typical kid. And then when I read what I wrote, cruelly, I once again have to decode them into images. And it’s literally harder to turn my written thoughts back into understanding than it was to write them down. [Gnowbot]
My first tip is check if a color filter with a line on it helps. It wasn’t until I was 40 when someone tried that with me and the lines and words stopped swimming. Ask what the paper looks like in full sunlight because for me it flashes all sorts of colours. [not-ready-yet]
One thing that caused me massive anxiety was having to read out loud in front of the class. The more nervous I was, the worse my dyslexia would get. Sometimes I wasn't even able to see the words on the page. [John-AtWork]
[Maybe that’s why dyslexic people have poor working memory]
Understand the variety of dyslexia symptoms, many of us can read and write just as well as people without it, but things like working memory are rarely talked about. [Barrenvagoina]
My son is supposed to dictate FIRST - not write it - and then orally elaborate. As he also has ADHD (many with dyslexia have both) he will lose his train of thought if he is trying to remember how to write something. [Gold_Relative7255]
I know my dyslexia affects many more things (written on my formal diagnosis) like my ability to follow plots in movies/books, I can read mostly fine but I can barely retain the information I read and struggle to understand the plots anyway. And I also struggle to process large amounts of information at once, so it’s really useful when things get broken down more. [Bluejay2973]
[A multi-sensory approach will help them]
Learning to finger spell. As in getting taught by a user of ASL. When you see finger spelling used by the deaf community, they take spelling shortcuts. The result is that the individual letters may be blurry but the overall shape of the word is what ends up being important. So now when I read, I don't really look at individual letters but more on the shape of the word. So yes in some instances, I may guess the word and realize it a few words down when I can get the sentence context, I then just replace it mentally with a word that would work in that space. As I was looking at shapes of words and not letters after some mental reprogramming, it really opened up reading to me. [40_ton_cap]
Looking at shapes of words is exactly my coping mechanism, and honestly it results in something close to speed-reading. This allows me to read voraciously and with pleasure, which is not the stereotype of a person with dyslexia. Really the only downside is, I can't always recall the names of characters (since they're encoded as shapes not sounds). [kweeket]
And a message to all teachers:
To OP- helping your students develop self-compassion is really important. Understand that they are trying their hardest, even when it doesn't look like they are. Have compassion and patience for them. [AL_12345]
