Dyslexia and Vision Therapy

I really, really wanted to pull my 3rd grader out of Catholic school. I really did. I knew that homeschooling was an option and thought it may be a good idea. His 3rd grade experience was horrible! The teacher enjoyed picking on him "for his own good" and accused me of babying him. Reminder: he was in 3rd grade and 8 years old. I'm thinking the school of hard knocks is a little premature for most kids who have only lived for 8 years so far! As adults, doesn't 8 years ago seem like yesterday? Sigh, yeah me too!

We didn't pull him out until beginning 5th grade. How I wish I had listened to that little voice in my head (not the schizophrenic voice, that's different! :) telling me to TAKE HIM OUT NOW! Damn! There is no going backwards in time. Want to know why I didn't just pull him? Well there were a couple of reasons actually. First one is that I got a really plum job with my former company. I worked from home in our office and my hubby worked for the same company. We occasionally traveled together for work. It was a great job and I loved it! The second reason was fear. Fear of reprisals since my daughter would have stayed there. She certainly didn't need to get subtly, or overtly, picked on because of my decision to pull her brother.

Of course I wish I had just pulled him out! He actually had post traumatic stress from the "wonderful" 3rd grade teacher's treatment. It was open season on my son and all the students helped pick on him as well. Know what's funny? (ok not ha ha funny, but weird) He was a GOOD student! I think it burned her butt that he appeared to NOT pay attention but always did very well. He had two things going on. He had dyslexia in a mild form but enough to make things like math speed drills difficult AND he is an auditory learner. This kid (or young man, now) remembers everything he HEARS! He was listening to the teacher and learning, but not looking at her. Much of that is due to his dyslexic problem which was later described to us by the eye specialist as "he can't believe what he sees."

After I pulled BOTH kids, we traveled all over the place as a family with Dad who still traveled for work. We also joined an "umbrella school" which turned out not to be a good fit for us, but we had the BEST curriculum coordinator there! She heard what I had to say about our son's problem, recommended the eye specialist, and problem solved! So, we paid the Catholic school thousands of bucks a year and they could not tell us what was going on. We saw this very lovely woman at the umbrella school ONCE and poof! Problem solved. OK after a lot of testing and vision therapy. After hours of vision therapy, my son was having way less reading problems and his confidence went UP and UP! When we left the eye specialists office one time my son looked at me and said, "So I'm not just stupid!" Damn! Breaks my heart! He had a very high IQ and was the #1 student based on testing to get into Kindergarten, but the teacher had the nerve to MAKE HIM FEEL STUPID! She is retired now and I hope she is having a lousy time. Seriously.

After the vision therapy he started reading a lot more and we left him alone to read whatever he wanted. He was 10 and started reading all the Garfield comic books we had. He read the Animorphs series, then on to the boyish Ramona books. One day my hubby and I saw these books that looked right up his alley and bought the first two in the series. They ended up sitting there and the only books his level that he had not read. One night I said he could either go to bed right then (he was 11 and did not want to go to sleep until, like, 1AM) OR he could read but the only book left was this one. He decided to read, but grudgingly. In the morning he didn't get up until really late, maybe noon. The first thing he said was "You HAVE to read this book it's great!" It was Harry Potter. When book 4 came out, all gazillion pages, he could not wait to read it! Here was a kid who had trouble reading paragraphs due to dyslexia now excited about the gazillion pages! I sure felt like going to the school and shoving those gazillion pages up that teachers..... You get the picture! :)

My son is now 21 and a senior at the university majoring in economics. He LOVES economics and looks forward to a great career! Vision therapy works! PLEASE contact me if you have any questions about it!