While I was teaching in front of the classroom one day, I walked toward the center of the classroom to begin my lesson when I looked up and saw what I wrote on the chalk board. My words were not fully misspelled but the letters were reversed! My students looked at me with confusion and my lesson became an explanation of what Dyslexia is.
At first I heard the chuckles but I was laughing too! I didn’t know why this happened or how come it decided to come out in my early 20’s but here I was facing it with a room full of 4th graders.
Dyslexia is a form of a learning disability or LD. There are many forms of dyslexia from reversing numbers, reversing individual letters, reversing entire words, not being able to comprehend while reading, and many others. At a young age I always had trouble with the subject of Math but didn’t know why. I would bring my math test home to get signed and my father would make me go through all the problems I did wrong with him (not fun when your father is a math and science whiz!). The weird thing was I could get the correct answer when I did the problems with him and many times the mistake was only a few numbers off.
In my early 20’s I found out that my Math troubles were not due to my skills but the way my mind processes the information, BACKWARDS!!! (As I am in charge of the financials of the family as some bills must get paid double the amount!)
People with Dyslexia have a gift. We are visual learners and multi-dimensional thinkers. Interactive lessons, hands-on learning, and many dyslexics are creative but can learn any subject if taught in a certain way which allows the brain to process the information differently. For more information on Dyslexia, visit http://www.interdys.org/ , the International Dyslexia Association.