Raising a Dyslexic Child

After the birth of our first child, a son that I will call Peter (name changed for personal reasons), we soon realized that he was not developing properly. He was such an easy baby, never the whining or fussy type. In fact, you could put Peter on a blanket on the floor and he would lay there for hours entertaining himself. It was more in the performance of certain day to day activities such as remembering directions on how to get to certain places, such as his grandparents, or to his cousins house. There were also problems with Peter being able to follow directions on easy items such as tying his shoes, being able to stay focused playing with his toys and games, going from one to another without spending any length of time at any one activity.

When he reached the kindergarten age, his problems were along the lines of being able to spell words correctly, Peter would always spell the words more phonetically, or like they sounded to him, rather the how they actually were spelled. When it came to reading, books that were his favorite he could read (or so we thought), but new books at the same reading level he struggled. Turned out he had memorized those ?favorite? books and wasn?t actually reading the words, he did of course, know some of the words, but not at the same level as most of the other kids his age. It was a problem to the point that when he was in first grade, his teach convinced me and my mother to have him repeat the first grade, rather than moving on to the second grade. His teacher felt that he needed another year to mature to be able to ?grasp? what was going on. What would happen over the next couple of years would surprise both myself and my mother, especially given the fact that my mother in law is a PHD child psychologist specializing in children in the 9-12 year age range in a public school. She was apparently just too close to the situation to be able to recognize what the problem was.

As we struggled trying to figure out why Peter was having these problems, the time came for us to move to a new town. After moving to the new place in the summer and when school started in mid August, Peter was once again was struggling with his school work. Since he was now 9 years old and in the 3rd grade, things were not as easy to deal with as when he was younger. He would now argue with us on his homework, telling us that he didn?t know how to do the work, that the teacher never explained it at school. When we had the parent/teacher conference they suggested that maybe Peter should be tested for ?ADD? (Attention Deficit Disorder) and Dyslexia. This was a shock to us as we had always associated this to children who were ?hyperactive? which Peter was not. When I talked to my mother in law about this, she was heartbroken, as she immediately said, yes I do believe that the school may be correct, but being his grandmother, I guess I didn?t want to accept the fact that it might be so. She was heartbroken because if she had been willing to recognize this years earlier, then he would have been under a doctors care and program to help him mange this illness. So the teachers gave us forms and questionnaires to complete as well as informing us that we needed to have his doctor examine him for it also. After all of us completed these tests and questionnaires and submitted them back to the school, the verdict was in. Peter did in fact have what is actually referred to as ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Peter?s doctor suggested that we start off taking a drug called Ritalin first to see if it would help. All I can say in regards to this first suggestion was ?OH MY GOD?, it was like we had been given a key to unlock Peters brain and all that he had learned or was learning was now open and available to him. His grades went from the low D?s and F?s to A?s and B?s. We did have an ?adjustment period?, a trial and error process in regards to him doing his homework at a certain time, because the dosage that the doctor gave him only lasted for about 10 hours. What we found was that if Peter did his homework as soon as he came home from school, everything went well, and there were no problems with him doing the work or understanding it. However, if he had to wait until later in the day, say after 6 PM, we would encounter the old problems again, the ?the teacher never covered this?, or ?I?ve never seen this before? complaints. We mentioned this to the doctor and he did tell us that, that was perfectly normal, that when the Ritalin would wear off, then Peter may have trouble concentrating or doing his school work, but he didn?t want to increase the dosage, because one of the possible side affects can be a ?lack of appetite? and Peter was a finicky eater as it was, so we didn?t want to risk that. After we reached the decision that Peter needed to have his homework done before 5, then our school problems went away.

Well this looks like a good place to end part one. Stay tuned for the second part, where I will cover the wonderful years of Junior High through High school. See you soon?.

By: Steve Stuchlik