I won't be blogging much this week because we're heading out to a homeschooling convention. But I did want to write down some things that have been on my mind. Actually, I've been in a VERY anxious mode of late. I no longer resent Belle and her reading difficulties. I love her to death and I'm so darned proud of her!!
But I have NOT come to terms with the ugly D word. It seems like no matter how consistent I am (doing reading, spelling, writing everyday), no matter how much I read to her (LOTS and LOTS), I still get frustrated!! And I just want to scream!! I want to scream to the whole world that I HATE, HATE, HATE dyslexia!!
I hate it so much. Its not fair. My little girl LOVES books! She would listen to me read for hours! But I don't have hours. I get her lots of books on tape. But she prefers me to read to her (smart girl).
She can read but she can't read the books she likes. And she doesn't want the babyish books either.
I had resolved that this year would be different. I would be patient and I wouldn't care where she's at or where everyone else is. And I don't care where everyone else is. No body else knows how hard she's worked.
But last week I lost it during confession. Poor priest!! I was crying and I was explaining what a bad mother/teacher I had been that day because I was pushing her and making her upset. I was like a train who's brakes were broken. I knew I should just stop and put her books away. But I couldn't. I was acting against my own thoughts and INSISTING (despite her tears) that she read to me. And I was powerless to stop myself.
I expected the priest to tell me that I need to stop, be patient, yada, yada, yada.
Instead, he told me that I should just blame God. I should just tell God He made a mistake with Isabelle. He asked me if I could do that. Did I think He made a mistake with Isabelle??
I was dumb founded and replied of course not!! Well, then, if God didn't make a mistake with her and her dyslexia, I had to accept it and trust Him and lay this cross at His feet.
That was very profound for me. And I never realized until last week that I didn't have trust in God. I am always worrying about her future. What will she do when she's older without a solid reading ability?? How will she enjoy all those good books? What about college? I've been praying for her to be miraculously cured. I've spent thousands and thousands on reading programs and reading therapy sessions. And I haven't gotten the results I wanted.
But I've not accepted her dyslexia. I still think I can make it go away. That I MUST make it go away. Because I truly hate it. I would do almost anything to make reading easy for her. When she prays at night to become a better reader, it breaks my heart.
After confession, the priest whispered to me that his younger brother was dyslexic and that he's doing fine. He sells insurance (without a college degree) and EVERYBODY goes to him because they love and trust him. He encouraged me to trust God and to know that God has a plan for her.
The next morning I sat Isabelle down and just apologized for my craziness the day before. We've ditched that reading book that's labeled Grade 4 Reading.
And today I thoroughly enjoyed reading to her. I read 3 chapters from a book. I read a chapter from her history book. I read poems to her. She listened to me read to the little ones (and ran for water for my dry throat).
Isabelle was absorbing it all. She remembers EVERYTHING she hears. Her narrations are wonderful. She remembers minute details. If learning could just be all auditory!!
I'm praying that I start trusting God more. And that I spend less time worrying and even being angry. I am quite the opposite of Job!! I am going to start thanking God for how He's created Isabelle. Start seeing all the wonderful qualities she possesses. Maybe start researching careers that rely heavily on good auditory skills (is that a little too compulsive and ahead of myself??).
Not wanting to leave my other student out, I asked Anna (my super reader) what she thought about the chapters I had read. Anna said, "Huh??"
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7 comments:
That's so funny about Anna!
On another note, I am sorry about all the stress you are going through. The one thing I kept thinking about as I read your post was that you are such a great mom and you care so much. Can you imagine how a teacher would feel in school??!!! My guess is probably frustrated that she was bringing the rest of the class down, apathetic (sending her off to remedial reading), relieved (to move her on to the next grade).... but probably not heartbroken and extremely worried for her success as an adult. I know homeschooling is so hard and you have to do so much soul-searching, but you are doing such a great job, and you love your kids so much! Of course you are emotionally involved in their outcomes. I think you are just the greatest. Don't beat yourself up so much!
And on a related note, I used to read laps around everyone in my class. Our school had a program where you could read books, take tests on them, and get points. They had a giant posterboard bar graph with the bars stretching out horizontally hanging in the hallway. Most of the other students had an inch or two of bar, some as much as a foot. My bar required 3 additional posterboards (In part because I got a whopping 80 points for reading Anna Karenina in 6th grade). My point? Not to brag about my love of books but to point out that I sit at home and scrub, scrub, scrub at the toilet. I still love to read, and I read as much a possible.... but my MD husband HATES to read. And he is so slow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He didn't even read his medical school textbooks and he graduated from medical school with a 4.0. He has a couple favorite sci-fi-fantasy type books that he reads ever so slowly but I could count the books that he reads on my hands alone.... and he probably reads at a rate of MAYBE one book a year. Maybe.
Now, I am not going to go so far as to say that saving lives all day is any more important than cleaning the toilet, but he does seem to be successful, well-respected in his field, and of course, most importantly, happy. I think this is hard for someone like me who loves to read to understand. I love to read, and to me reading is soooooooooooo important. It opens doors to the whole world. Really. But if I feel I need to open doors to my husband, I get the dvd. Or the cliff notes. Or I just follow him around the house and shout quotes at him.
One more thing: I am thinking again about Isabelle absorbing every word and Anna saying "huh?" after it all...
In college for biochem I used to take my book to the library and study it from 8 am every Saturday to 5 pm and then all the times between my classes. I read every word in every chapter... and yet still struggled in the class. It was very frustrating for me as I had read the material and understood the material.... but still did not do very well on the exams. It really got on my nerves that Mike never read the book at all but Aced everything. While I was at the library, he was over at friends' dorm rooms playing video games. I have gotten over feeling that it is all so unfair now, and I realize that, while Mike sees reading as laborious and pointless, he is extremely good at recognizing what is important versus what is not. He can flip through a chapter and immediately recognize what is fluff and what is pertinent. I never could do that. And that is how he excelled through college (4.0), medical school, and residency. It just about makes this reader sick to think about it, but I love him anyway!:)
Oh, and one more thing,.....
My dad is incredibly smart and LOVES to read.... but he also loves computers and technology. He doesn't read anymore at all. He downloads (illegally.... but I am trying to work with him on this;) thousands of books. He works in construction, and during down times he sits and listens to a ton of excellent books. He plays them sections at a time until he understands what the author is trying to communicate. He is a veritable encyclopedia of information. He doesn't read at all anymore.... and yet he is constantly stuffing more and more information into his brain.
And to complete this mini-book that I am writing in your comments section (if this freaks out on me and doesn't post I am going to have a breakdown)....
The final thing I wanted to write was that we have totally gotten into documentaries over here. We have watched documentaries on a lot of different things, but the example I will give is our study of the Civil War.
I remember reading about the Civil War in school and memorizing dates and parts of Lincoln's emancipation proclamation. I always did well in history and read everything I was supposed to. A week after the exam was over, though, I probably could not have told you very much about the Civil War.... which was fine with me because I really didn't care that much. What changed my mind (and my husband's mind) was watching the Ken Burn's 5 part series. Aside from being absolutely excellent and highly informative, it left us with an appreciation for the Civil War that no textbook could ever communicate. Instead of dry comments from textbook writers, there were interviews with live historians who were just OBSESSED with the Civil War and the people of that era. Their enthusiasm was contagious. I never really thought much about the war and what it meant for our country beyond the simple abolition of slavery and the re-unification of the states under one government. I never really thought much about the people of that era, what they went through, what makes the civil war stand out amongst all our wars, what effect it had on future wars, etc etc. We kept thinking as we were watching it, "if our history teacher had just played this movie instead of making us memorize all that useless information and read all that material, our experience would have been so totally different." Of course, no history teacher could ever justify to the principal or school board spending 10 hours of school time watching a movie... so, alas, we read our books and forgot everything.
The Ken Burn's documentary spurred us to not only get out more documentaries (we watched close to 40 hours worth in all) but to also buy the books of some of the historians whose viewpoints we enjoyed. I learned more from these videos than I ever could have from reading a textbook, and in the end it spurred me to read "a textbook" on a subject that I would never, ever, ever have pursued in school. And it wasn't just us who were affected. Nathan can't read yet, yet he knows who Jefferson Davis is and he can tell you some of the major battlefields of the war. He knows that the south seceeded from the union and that they no longer recognized Lincoln as their president. He was the most disappointed in our family when we made the final sad decision to not attend the re-enactments at Gettysburg (the weekend after our move). Next year we will attend,and Nathan wants to dress as a drummerboy!
Anyway, my point is that we have been just astounded at how much you can learn without books. A good documentary can be worth a thousand words, and a good documentary can also excite enough interest to make a slow reader/frustrated reader read a million. If I could re-make my school experience all over again I would sit in history class and watch documentaries all day with no exams. Then I would think about just what it must have been like to live through these times and actually APPRECIATE it... instead of skimming along and searching for the answer that the teacher is looking for that would give me a smile and pat on the head.
Oh, and my point..... that I have begun to discover that reading isn't everything and that there are sooooooooooooo many ways to learn.
Keep up the great work! You are, as always, an inspiration!
Oh, and one more thing, when I said my husband is slow... I meant to say a SLOW READER. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, I am in sooooo much trouble now.
Lillian,
You are such a great mother and teacher! Your post brought tears to my eyes and now I really need to think about how much I actually trust in God. Thank you for sharing such personal struggles, it helps make all of us better mothers.
Did you know about Isabelle's dyslexia before she got to school age? I guess what I'm asking is did you always plan on homeschooling or was her dyslexia a factor in making that decision?
Emily,
Thank you for the mini novel!! LOL!
Its weird how similar our dh's are. Craig is also a slow READER too! And yet he's amazingly brilliant (I think) and so successful! Hmmmm....
Colleen,
No I didn't know before we started homeschooling. Although looking back I can see why even preschool and Kindergarten was a struggle for her. HONESTLY, I had preconceived notions of winning spelling bees, having children lying around the house reading all day, and college courses at 16 years of age. So, I've come a long way in my expectations but still have a long way to go.
If you have a copy of Real Learning by Elizabeth Foss, there is a chapter in it about her journey in accepting her son with sensory integration disorder. Different subject, but the process of letting go and letting God is very much the same. She talks about her struggle to see that child as a gift in every single way that he was, even when he struggled with the simplest things. She chronicles her journey toward embracing Him as perfectly made in God's sight, and coming to accept him as he was. You may find it helpful as you go through this difficult time...just wanted to mention it.
Thanks for sharing this...Peter's problem is likely the opposite...I don't really know but the auditory part is what's lacking for us. I often think, "if only he could process what I'm saying...it's simple enough I can't think of another way to say it simpler..."
She can get it in there, and there is a way, for me auditory is a road block, but for you it's the gateway.
Again, I'm glad you shared that. Helps me too.
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