A Dyslexic Account

In response to Erin's statement about fitting into, or rather not into, the educational system

When I was seven years old, my family and I found out I was dyslexic.  Although I had an impressive vocabulary of made up words and never seemed to tire of talking, and got by in my French immersion classes, I was almost completely illiterate. The words that I did know how to write and read were things like ‘cat’ or ‘bat’ or ‘mat’ that were possible because it was simple rhyming and easy memorization. As I came from a specific socio-economic background I was able to hire a private tutor who was able to identify that I had little to know phonological awareness and spent the next few years of my life developing a muscle so that I could read. I remember spending hours in that room with the tutor learning techniques to make sense of words – an ‘A’ sounds like an ayyyyyyyy sound when there is a consonant and then the letter e, (i.e. face) but an ‘A’ sounds like an AH when it’s a closed vowel, surrounded by consonants (i.e. fat). For years I spent studying these little tricks breaking down language so that I could digest properly, work within a system to comprehend the prolificacy of the written word.

However, there was another aspect of the dyslexia that I could never quite put my finger on. It took me a very long time to adapt to what the educational system demanded of me. I remember getting assignments throughout elementary and middle school and I would think I was doing exactly what the teacher was asking me and yet when I handed in the project the format, the thesis was completely wrong – not even resembling what was asked. I coasted for a long time. I participated in class, I loved presentations, I could follow a verbal train of thought easily. In high school, I remember an educational psychologist sat me down and said, “Elizabeth, you think differently, there’s no denying that but somewhere along you trained yourself to fit in” Determination. Spending hours in room rewriting paragraph after paragraph trying to get it write while it took my classmates all of 45 minutes to write the same response. I remember those spaces of time felt almost clinical. Silence, a room without distraction followed by countless hours of editing with my mother and being told what I was saying just didn’t make sense. It took me a long time to begin to fit – and at times I’m still not sure I do.

Despite my reluctance, I am happy I learned how to read. Slowly, I feel in love with words, with books. They became an escape – a space to learn. At times, I really like the pace it takes me to absorb a text. It’s nice to have to slow down.