What A Month

You know, I am still here. Really I am. It is just that this past month has been a whirlwind of things. I can not really say that many things have been going on. It is that the few things that have happened have taken us by storm.

The biggest one.... Sarah has dyslexia. Notice the number of days until Christmas? Yeah, she sees nothing odd about the display.

I need to start from last year for this to make sense.

Last year, when Sarah was in Kindergarten, we realized that she was not making any progress in reading/writing or spelling. Each day that went by, she was fallling more and more behind her classmates. But, she was cooperative, eager, bright and willing to learn. But something was not clicking with her. No one could figure out what was "wrong" with her. Headaches, belly aches and nail biting became normal for her.

About Christmastime of last year, I started suspecting dyslexia. But, like many people, I didn't have all of the facts and I was uninformed. I mentioned this to her teacher, and I was told that no way does she have this and that her problem was not really a problem; it was a "readiness" issue. Her K teacher thought it was all about timing. Sarah would read when she was ready.

That was just something that I could not digest well. I wanted to believe her, I wanted so much to believe that Sarah was just taking her time. That she would take off running when she was ready to read. After all, it sounded good, and her teacher was doing everything that she could do to help her.

By March, I knew that Sarah was so far behind and that catching up was going to be difficult at best, even if she started to read right then and there. Something bigger than we could have imagined was at work here. After many attempts to schedule an SST with the teacher (she didn't want it, remember she said it was a readiness thing) I called the school counselor and scheduled it. But, three weeks later, two days before the meeting, she suggested it be cancelled due to "minor progress" with Sarah.

What was perplexing and frustrating for us was that she had everything going for her. She was a second-born child, she was a girl (she still is, by the way) and she was a year OLDER than most of her classmates. She should have been running circles academically around the other kids. And her brother was doing well in school. Why did it seem that she was trying to get her head above water as if something was pulling her under?

In May, her teacher excitedly told me that Sarah has taken the K test and passed it, that she would be going on to 1st grade!. I could not believe it. By now, I was so convinced that Sarah was failing that when the teacher told me that, I walked out. There was no way that this was true. My reaction was "just barely, and who helped her." Please understand, I am not trying to be negative, I am being realistic.

So the summer comes and as if someone has been daily layering on a pile of bricks on my back, I began to realize that Sarah needed some major intervention. We started to realize that she was squinting, rubbing her eyes, closing one eye when she would try to read. She would yawn, her eyes would water and turn red. Sometimes she would even fall asleep.

We began homeschooling and she was making no progress in anything relating to language arts. She loved math, did well in it but reading....not her thing. I found a list of symptoms of dyslexia and noted that she had about 10 strong indicators there. A good friend of mine gave me the number to a specialist in Burbank in November.

After the initial phone conversation, Heather (the specialist) suggested further testing. So we began the process of identifying and diagnosing dyslexia. When we met with her after it was all done and scored, the results were not only what we suspected but much more.

Sarah has dyslexia, and not just a mild case of it. She also has extreme dysgraphia which is difficulty with writing. Her brain processes language in a way that most people's brains do not. She has a hard time breaking sounds apart in individual phonemes (sounds). She does not understand how a syllable is made up of different sounds, and then to make those sounds match up to a symbol (letter) in print is inconceivable to her. Her ability to hold a pencil and copy or just write is impaired. Her ability to differentiate between left and right is off. She struggles to find the right word in a conversation, sometimes calling something very specific a "whatchamacallit."

And the list goes on and on for her. She has a very hard road ahead.

But there is an extremely bright side for her. First of all, she has parents who are absolutely committed to getting her whatever she needs to learn properly. She was diagnosed early. She is being homeschooled which is the best thing for a child with dyslexia. And, we have been referred to an incredible reading program that was designed for one-on-one teaching. I can be trained to use it with her! We don't have to pay for tutoring but we do have to buy the program (choke, choke it is not cheap). With intense and consistent tutoring, she may be brought up to grade level within 36 months.

But, we had to do something extreme to make this work. We struggled with this decision for a while. We decided to enroll Jacob in a Christian school so that we could focus all of our teaching on Sarah. He is not one bit mad about that at all. He is happy and loving it. We love the school but honestly, I miss him during the day. I want him home with me but Sarah needs a lot. It is ok.

And, something wonderful happened today. I swear I will start crying as I type this. With dysgraphia, Sarah will need to be tutored through a special handwriting program. I have been online looking at what to order, how to get trained, and what to learn from it. The ordering page is not user friendly so for the past three times I have looked at it, I have not ordered. I didn't know exactly what to order, what to concentrate on and so forth. I remember thinking just two nights ago, "I wish I knew someone who knew about this. Someone who I could just ask a question and maybe get some help from."

So this morning, I was chatting with our neighbors who moved in about a year ago. I told Keri about Jacob going to school, what was happening with Sarah and so forth. I usually don't tell about the dysgraphia because most people have never heard of it, but something pushed me to say it out loud. As I said it, Keri nodded knowingly. She says to me, "I know what dysgraphia is. I am an Occupational Therapist and I work with children with fine motor skill development delays. I have Handwriting Without Tears in my garage. You can use it if you would like." WWWWHHHHAAATTTT????????

So later this evening, she came over and brought it all out to show me. She then said that since she is not working right now (stay at home mom) she would like to meet with Sarah and test her!!!! Can you even stinkin' believe it?

I believe that God has protected us and carefully laid out his plan for us. I see it in the steps that we have taken, in the doors that were opened, the doors that were closed and the people that have fallen into our lives. Concerns that were present have been clearly and easily taken care of. Thank God the SST meeting was cancelled. You see with dyslexia, public schools have no resources to test for it, to diagnose it, to treat it, to remediate it. Had we gone through with that meeting, Sarah would have been put into special education but would have done her no good at all. An IEP does nothing for the problem of dyslexia. God knew. I was mad but in his infinite wisdom, he knew. He shut the door. For that, I will forever be grateful. He knew she needed something else.

We are plugging away at this new program. We are praying each day for her brain to unlock and receive what she is being taught. We are confident in our place right now and what good is going to happen here in our home. We are eager to show God's glory through all of this.

So I ask you to do something for us. Please take a look at this list of warning signs of dyslexia. Look at it and watch for them in your children, in your nieces and nephews, in anyone. If you are a teacher, I BEG you to please print this list and keep it in your desk. Watch your students. Talk to the parents. I realize that it might be a touchy situation but I wish that Sarah's teacher would have at least pointed some of these things out to us. Check out this website for more information.