Monday, September 17, 2018

One of a Kind...

Right now, Remi has a favorite song. We have been listening to it the minute we get in the car, over and over. Between the melody and the words, it never ceases to bring a little tear to my eye and smile to my face.

This song that he loves so much, seems to be written about him...

"I'm one of a kind,
I'm tough as you can find"...

"Fire and passion,
good old fashioned"...

"I can be stubborn
And lock up sometimes"...

"Put me on a bullseye
Baby I'm dead on"...

"When your world gets dark
I'll be your spark"

And ironically enough, the name of this song is Remington.

I'm going to be honest and say, that 3rd grade has be tough. As in tears more nights than not kind of a way. I don't mean tears because we are throwing a fit, I mean tears spilling out because of inner frustration, shame, heart-ache...deep down, sadness.

Y'all, this year has been been so extremely hard for Remi. The emotions he is experiencing and trying to sift through are something I wouldn't wish on any child.

This year, we are finally seeing the magnitude at which Remi's Dyslexia truly affects his daily life. As his peers make leaps and bounds in reading, as they bring home 105's on Spelling Tests, Remi is seeing the difference and wants nothing more than to be able to bring home a 105 on his Spelling Tests, wants nothing more than to be able to check out a 3rd grade level book from the library, and be able to read it. The reality that things won't come easily and never will, has been hard for us all to come to grips with. When Your 8 year old is crying in your arms over a 67 he made on a Spelling test after at least 6 hours of study time is the most heart-breaking place to be. Holding your child as he falls asleep crying because he got made fun of at school because he is always the last one to finish his work hurts my momma heart in ways I can't explain. Wanting nothing more than to march up to that school and give those kids a piece of my mind, but choosing to love those kids out loud in front of him, is not easy. Wanting to fix something that can't be fixed is frustrating and unfair. The truth that Remi's Dyslexia is far worse than we had initially thought isn't what any of us want.

Dyslexia can't be cured. This won't go away. Remi will learn tricks to keep in his pocket, but the reality is, if you give him a sheet of paper with small font, small spaces between sentences, with no color, it will swim around into a fuzzy blur and will always be extremely hard for him read (put it in a fun font and it's hopeless). It will be so downright exhausting that by the time he gets to the end he will mostly have no idea what he read. When someone asks him to spell 'shopped' he will write down 'shoppted' because that is how it sounds- and that is how his brain tells him things are spelled- how they sound.

When he is doing a math paper, he might write a 9 when he meant to write six. When he is copying from a list he might write 'for' instead of 'forty'. He leaves things out when he writes. He flips and reverses things constantly. He asked at dinner one night 'What is 1A?" and after looking at what he was seeing I said "Oh, you mean the A1 Sauce". He might accidentially write Rmi instead of Remi. He can come home and write his spelling words 3 times each every single night and by Thursday night might only be able to spell two.

But...

he might also go out back for hours, take apart his old go kart, and create a Tom Sawyer style raft with the tires, wood and rope. He might understand electricity in a way that even we don't. The same little boy who can't learn to spell 15 words in a week, falls asleep building rockets that can get him to Mars. This same little boy was piling his Gator with junk taller than he was in impressive heights at less then two years old. This same little boy brings home 100's on his math test and could lead his class in Science lessons. Remi's little brain processes things differently. Remi's mind is a colorful mixture of art, math, science- an engineering genius. At 8 years old, Remi has invented and created more ideas than anyone I know. Remi gets things in a very grown up way. I would trust that boy with my life, because he just gets things. If I need it done, he will do it perfectly- every single time.

On the days that are filled with tears, we feed him full of the good things. The things that come so easily to him, that others can't fathom. The things that you don't get graded on, the things not witnessed in a school setting. We take our focus off of grades because at the end of the day, those silly spelling words won't get him to Mars- but that magnificent mind of his- yes, that is where it's at.

So this little song, has silently become our daily anthem. The four of us singing our hearts out, saying, "Remi, we are behind you, we believe in you- rise above and set yours sights on higher ground, because baby, you truly are ONE OF A KIND."


.............................


I truly think there is a gap between knowing about Dyslexia and understanding Dyslexia. I am sharing the following because without parents as their advocates, these kids don't stand a chance- and without sharing, no one can understand. (I have since met with teachers and we have put some modifications in place to help make the classroom a successful place for Remi.)


Remi's Spelling List looks like this each week. The first thing I do, is retype it in Dyslexia Font, bigger, more spaced and in a different color than black. The first list he came home with, he said 'Momma, I can't read that list'. Lists of words, all in black, that are stacked closely are a nightmare to a dyslexic. He was working on writing his words in alphabetical order- copying from a list requires the upmost concentration and probably took twice as long as it would have taken a typical student...



I also make a second list with his words. I sort them into 'families' and color each family in a different color. This helps him recall the words. When I test him orally, he will often say something like 'this is a green word'. He has to have something he can visualize to set the words apart from each other.



This is a math paper. Remi excels in math and it comes to him easily. This is a prime example of how all the words on this paper got him a bit mixed up. On the first problem, he left out several letters/words. The list on the left might as well not be there- trying to find anything he was looking for would have been almost impossible. On the last problem, I can see he flipped the six and wrote down nine instead of six. If you were to ask these to Remi orally, he could tell them to you quickly and easily.



This is an example of one of his Spelling Tests and Math Tests. On this particular Spelling Test, I bet we spent nothing short of an hour a night studying these words. In fact, on Thursday night, he could spell them orally almost 100%. When he starts having to write letters/words things get mixed up very quickly. Dyslexias tend to spell what they hear and struggle with the short term memory to learn the words. If I were to ask Remi to spell any of these words today, I would be shocked if he could spell even one. Retaining these words is not a reality.

On this Math Test, the words were spaced out enough that he was able to show his math knowledge and made an easy 100. Had this test been set-up differently, he could have easily failed it.




Remi's teacher have been amazing. We have been working together to get some of these kinks worked out to make his success as easy as his peers. Often times, people do not understand what it means to be dyslexic and although I am still learning, it is my goal to spread what I learn to help these kiddos get the break they need!

1 comment:

Cindy Rector said...

I just listened to “Remington “ ...beautiful song! I can’t find the words to express what is on my heart, so I’ll just say I love you all and will keep y’all in my prayers always ❤️