The Po Show

Well, Duh

The more I read about dyslexia, the more OBVIOUS it is to me that the criteria totally fit Matthew. It's one of those revelation/oh shit moments, with the revelation being "THIS is what's been wrong!" and the oh shit being "And we haven't been doing anything about it!"

Last year, at the beginning of third grade, I was pretty fired up to get him assessed for dyslexia, since he still was not reading. I mentioned it to everyone, and they said they'd observe him and see if they thought that it was warranted. Then, abruptly, I mean like in two WEEKS of his special reading group with the inclusion teacher, he was suddenly reading at grade level. I was shocked, and so pleased, and I dropped the whole dyslexia issue. It was such a joy to see him reading, and enjoying reading for the first time, that I didn't look further. And neither did anyone else, which now bewilders me a bit.

But OMG, the whole inability to decode, the utter opacity of letter sounds, the fact that he CANNOT memorize his times tables no matter how many times we go over them, it's all pointing straight in the direction of dyslexia. It's so weird to me, because he had incredible auditory memory as a toddler (he was one of those toddlers who'd memorize a 500 word book and "read" it back verbatim). Everyone in daycare said he'd be an early reader. And he was not. I didn't worry about it a bit, even into second grade, because I kept telling myself that kids learn to read at different rates. Now I realize I should have been looking more at the big picture, seeing the connection to the Asperger's, seeing his difficulty in organizing his thoughts when he spoke, his difficulty in understanding what others were saying to him.

So yeah, I'll be pushing hard at his program review on the 30th, for them to DO something about this. He needs some appropriate accommodations to address this. Expecting him to prepare for the ELA test in the same way as the other kids is just bullshit.

Ugh, I'm tired :(.