Let me give you a bit of a background about me. I am a bibliophile. I love to read, and I love books. My mother and I recently attended a church free sale, in hopes of finding a few pair of jeans for my extremely tall and skinny boys. No such luck, but the church was also giving away toys and assorted household items. We wandered around for a bit, avoiding the horde around the toy table, and I stumbled upon a room full of books. The lady who worked there assured me that yes; they were giving away the books, too. There was no one else in sight. I am of the ilk that a book not read is a tragedy, and so I began gathering books. There were Newberry award winners, Caldecott books, even a few textbooks. I needed a cart to leave the church.
Fast forward a week and I am at the Ozarks Literacy Council, searching for materials that will help me teach a 6th grade dyslexic student that I tutor how to read. The Literacy Council works with children and adults, and out of their library they had no books directed towards dyslexia. My children's library alone is larger than their library, and while I am responsible for teaching my three children to read, they serve the entire city of Springfield. Dyslexia affects 1 person out of 5. ONE in FIVE!! Yet, they had no resources for dyslexia.
They did, however, have in a back room, collecting dust, three boxes of Science curriculum. They had entire sets, Teacher's Edition, Student Edition, and workbooks, activity books, and resources for the REAL Science series, grades K, 1, 2, and 5. They were donated last year, and no one wanted them. BRAND NEW 2006 TEXTBOOKS and no one wanted them. There were other books there, too, Holt, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Scott Foresman, Houghton Mifflin, all brand new, never used. After my long search for secular science curriculum I could afford and coming up with nothing (these books are $300 a set, per year) they now accompany a shelf in my home. They will be put to good use here, but it still strikes me with disbelief that no one wanted them.
I used to be an Usborne consultant. I wanted to share my love of books with the world. That dream went up in smoke while at a vendor fair, watching family after family drop hundreds of dollars on cosmetics and Tupperware while telling their children they could not afford the $6 book their child had chosen off my shelf.
The Springfield School District, where I live, does not test for dyslexia when they test for learning disabilities in their students. The Forest Institute does so for $150 a pop. The child I tutor cannot afford that testing, and so is stuck with the label of mentally retarded, with the school telling her mother that her child will never learn to read, even though her IQ is rather high. I have spent a lot of time with her, and she is extremely bright, and she has slowly been learning to read, but she is obviously dyslexic.
I have limited time outside of class, home schooling, tutoring, and running my household, but I am working on developing funds for the literacy council to buy materials to help children with dyslexia. I suggest to those living in my area that you look into the Literacy Council when you select your charitable donations this year, and every year. Literacy is vital to the well being of our society. These organizations cannot exist without help, and they are so pitifully underfunded. When a child cannot read, or is a late reader, it is hard for them to develop the love of literature that is so fulfilling.
Dyslexia is not letter reversal. People with dyslexia are not lazy and stupid, as many teachers are led to believe. Dyslexics have so much trouble learning how to read because they read with the right side of their brain instead of their left, and when they do so they are using 5x as much of their brain as you and I are, leaving them fatigued after reading. Many dyslexics are highly visual individuals, and they can learn to read, if it is taught to them in a way they understand.
Many dyslexics are blessed with a gift of amazing visual acuity. Their long term memory is not affected by dyslexia, and once something is there, they usually demonstrate amazing recall of it. These children are being left behind in a fog of misunderstanding. If we do not do something about it, who will? Different is not bad, different is our world.
And so I begin the long and arduous task of becoming a fund raiser and a political activist. First and foremost, I need to delve into the world of fund raising to provide books for the Literacy Council. Secondly, our school district should be testing for dyslexia. Many of you might question my reason for this. After all, as I previously stated, I home school my children. Why should the public schools testing policy bother me? Because even one child not knowing how to read is too many. These children will become adults, and as adults, they will fill some role within our society. This affects me, you, your friends, your children, and your grandchildren. If not me, who? You? Perhaps. I do this because it starts with one person. For now, that person is me.
