Dyslexia: A Story of Hard Work and Success

This story is not about some epic trip that I took or about some spiritual truth that I have gleaned, but instead it is about something that has shaped my life so deeply that I can’t imagine life without it. It’s my dyslexia. Because dyslexia is a genetic thing, I feel that the only place to start this story is with my birth.

I was born to parents who are educated, meaning I had a high bar set for me academically from the start. In addition, my dad was a school teacher which made me think that I needed to be one of “the smart kids” in my class because that is who teacher’s kids are. I was a pretty normal kid before I started school. It’s easy to seem “normal” when no one could read or spell. Soon after starting school, I quickly dropped to the bottom of my class. I would go to school all day, then I would take home my work and spend hours each night trying to get things done. No first grader should have to work that hard at school, but it was the only way I could manage to keep up. About that time my aunt, who was a teacher in Texas, suggested that I might have dyslexia. I was so upset that there might be something wrong with me. I really wanted to be a smart kid, but I now didn’t think I could be one. My mom tells me that I looked at her and said, “I don’t want to have dyslexia, I just want to be a slow learner.” I was embarrassed that I might have a learning disability, so I was resistant to getting tested because if I didn’t have a label then I would be “normal,” right?  Much to my resistance, my parents had me tested and sure enough I have dyslexia.

Growing up with dyslexia was hard. I was embarrassed, so I worked to hide this part of me. Still to this day I feel a little shame about my dyslexia. My school gave me a 504 plan and made me go to reading intervention which did not really help because it was not set up for dyslexic people. I continued to work hard throughout elementary school. Each night I would bring home my work and spend all evening fighting with my spelling words and my reading book. I can count on one hand the school nights that I did not have homework. In addition, my school did not know much about dyslexia at that time. Teachers told my parents that they didn’t think anything was wrong with me; if I applied myself more I would do fine in school. The teachers had no idea how much I was applying myself.

Sometime in elementary school I started having to take standardized tests, which is when things got interesting. I was given extended time for my tests which changed my life. I took the tests and I scored well! In fourth grade I scored so well on my reading test that I was given another test that got me into the talented and gifted program. That’s right -- I was given the TAG label for reading. This was not because I was a great reader, but because I have excellent reading comprehension. Ironically, I would go to the reading intervention class one day and to the TAG class another day. In fifth grade I even won a state-wide writing competition and my writing was shared in schools across the state. Despite all of this success, school never got easier for me. I was still spending every night working for hours just to keep up. To make things worse, I was having so much success that my teachers started to think that I didn’t really need the accommodations that they were required to provide for me. I remember one day asking for my scribe (for my dysgraphia), but was told that I could write fine with my own hand.  When she said that it added to my embarrassment.

Then came middle school. Unlike many people, I did not have a negative middle school experience. I went to a virtual school so that my parents could work with me and this was when I started to thrive in school. The curriculum that I used was more advanced than the one used at the public middle school that I would have attended, so by the time I entered high school I had already learned much of what was taught. For example, all of the significant novels that I read my junior and senior years of high school, I had already read in 7th and 8th grades. Because I went to school at home, the only thing that my dyslexia affected was the time it took me to do my work. My life revolved around school and only school. I would work on lessons first thing in the morning right up to my bed time. I worked hard and I learned a lot.

When I left middle school, I also left virtual school and went back to my local school district. Upon my return, my old challenges re-emerged. I hid my dyslexia as best I could and again tried to be seen as “a smart kid.” I took advanced classes and passed them with flying colors. The lowest grade I ever got on a grade card was a C and that only happened once or twice. I had to be in the top of my class; I wanted so badly to be smart. Slowly, my friends started to find out about my learning disability. I hated it when they would come up and ask me about it. I was so careful to hide it, but I just couldn’t. I assumed my mom talked to their moms and then the word was out. I have always been an honest person, so if someone asked if I had dyslexia I would always tell them yes, but I hated it. I did not want these people to see me any differently. I thought that if they knew about it, then I wouldn’t fit in with them anymore. To my surprise, I found freedom in letting them know. When I hit my junior year, something shifted in me. I realized that I had achieved my goal of being a smart kid. I was in the advanced classes and I was ranked toward the top of my class. I even received a perfect score on my reading ACT. With the realization of my success, I became open about my dyslexia. It was amazing to be able to ask the people around me for help with spelling or to let them read things for me. In addition, my high school teachers seemed to be more willing to help me succeed. I received academic awards and was content. Despite all of my success, school was still not easy. I had to work hard every day. One of my least favorite parts of school was when teachers would have students take turns reading out loud to the class. I would anxiously sit and count how many people were ahead of me to help me predict which paragraph would be mine so that I could try to memorize it. To this day I absolutely hate reading out loud. I am a firm believer that no person should ever be forced to read aloud. There are few things I hate more than this.

I graduated 12th out of my class and was even the vice president of National Honor Society. I was accepted into college and that was when I really started to thrive. I had practiced working hard all through school, so the transition was easy. I often felt that I was working less than my peers and was having more success. I don’t think that I would have had that experience if I had not worked so hard leading up to college. I am so thankful for the ability to work hard and to accept that I was not going to get everything right all the time. These lessons have shaped me into who I am today. I still cannot read fast and I absolutely despise anyone asking me to read aloud. I can’t spell very well, and I still sometimes get a little embarrassed about my dyslexia, but at the end of the day it is part of what makes me, me. Few things have shaped me quite like it has and I am thankful for that.