Essay Week 10: aixelsyD

For this week's essay blog post, I am choosing to write about my first experience as a reader. I can remember when I was in pre-school at St. Joesph's elementary school where I was given my first school based book. I opened the large colorful front cover that depicted an image of a teddy bear sitting in a rocking chair with a book on it's lap and began to look at the words on the page.

As my peers began to read their books aloud, I sat in shame. The words on my book were unfairly scrambling themselves into incomprehensible inscriptions. When I looked really closely and slowly. they would occasionally return themselves to their proper orientation. I felt dumb.

My teacher had each of us kids line up across the rug and read the first page of our books out loud. One by one, my peers proudly read their lines and my anxiety grew. When my turn came, I shakily read my first page aloud and was met with laughter. I read what I saw and what I saw was jumbled words that formed a sentence that sounded something like Yoda.

(Dyslexia. Web Source: Wikipedia)

This fear of reading, books, talking out loud, and even math continued on until I was eight years old. My third grade teacher noticed my language handicap and recommended that I participate in a special reading program at Northeastern State. My parents enrolled me in the program and my life was forever transformed.

The psychology professors at the college told me that I have a disability called dyslexia that causes me to mix up my letters, numbers, and speech. They created a plan that was specific to my needs and had me meet with them three times a week for a couple of hours a day.

Now, I don't remember much of what we did, but somehow they taught me how to work with my dyslexia. Within a couple of months, I went from being a very shy mediocre student to the top of my class. It was as if something snapped inside of my and released me from my language bonds.

Of course, I still struggle with certain aspects of my dyslexia, but I have learned how to slow down and really try to understand what I am reading. Any mistakes that I make, I laugh off and move forward.