Playing Games

Playing the game "Hang man" is not recommended for a child with dyslexia.  Such a game will cause fighting and accusations of cheating by others or just bad feelings from mean sayings.  Each player wants a chance to make up the word and let others guess.  Sierra, for example, may think she knows how to spell the word but throughout the game she spells it at least 3 ways and none are correct.  When she learns of the mistakes at the end she is upset while those she is playing with are also upset.    It's ok to say, let's not play hangman, let's play "x" and let it be something positive that builds on his or her talents.

There are so many wonderful games that can be played just for fun both outdoors and indoors.  There are many board games but stay away from games that require a lot of card reading.  Sierra loves dominoes and is learning Texas 42 dominoes.  Simplify games for your child and allow them to with make up games or to use their imagination to create stories.

It is important to know the talents and skills that your child will excel in to help build them up.  Some have great memory skills, math or drawing skills.  Teaching them to learn what their talents are at an early age will help them grow.

They already understand hard work because reading is hard work.  Help them transfer their work ethics on their skills and talents.  Play games for fun.  They already work hard so keep work separate....practice is work no matter how you look at it.  They may enjoy dancing and acting but it is still work when you practice.  They should be congratulated for their hard work with pure FUN in real games that engage them.

Building a Positive Future

Our task is to continue to help Sierra grow and learn.  We purchased an iPad for her to use the app Dragon dictation as well as the audio book functions.  Because her verbal skills were so fine tuned we directed her focus on these positive skills.  Enrolled her into a local children's  theatre so that she could build on her talents of speaking and singing.  Immediately she bonded with everything theatre and acting.  One day on the way home from rehearsals she said "I'm in love with acting".

Sierra and I have a very special relationship as a mother and daughter.  We occupy our free time playing games such as "I Spy with my little eye" and tell stories from our imagination using our environment and surroundings.  It's a game, one of us begins and we each add twists and turns.   One day about 2 years ago we dreamed up our story Caterpillar Stickers.  We liked the concept and I decided to write it down.   We had imagined our village and characters but neither of us could draw or put the pictures down on paper.  Since then we wrote down several more stories and thought we would take the next big step to publish, one day.  All along we were seeking an illustrator for Caterpillar Stickers.  Through  my research I learned we could be matched with an illustrator through a publisher and so we went down the path to sharing our book with everyone.

We want people to look inside themselves and see their inner beauty.  We want to inspire others not to give up.  Encourage the young, especially, to see that glitter and wings only change what people see on the outside.  Perseverance and doing the right thing is what transforms us, making us beautiful from inside out.  

Sierra and I worked together in every course of publishing our book from completing the IRAD which lays out the book, planning the illustrations, format, layout, fonts, etc.  She explained to me that the picture needs to be on one page without words.  She did not want words to mess up the pictures.  Additionally she wanted the letters and words to look normal and big.

We found Light at the end of the Tunnel

This is a bit of an interjection to my previous blogs but thought I would show you a bit of the light at the end of the tunnel.

This link will take you to our Facebook page which has an album of pictures from our book signing today.  Sierra was so happy!  You can tell by looking at the pictures.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.540494169312645.136902.498482983513764&type=1&l=1639518333

Sure signing books sounds easy but for someone with Dyslexia it is NOT easy.  Also Sierra is a perfectionist and would be devastated if she got someone's name wrong. 

I write down each name that Sierra must spell so that she can look back at each and every letter to make sure it is being spelled correctly.  At the same time she writes, I say the letters aloud.  This helps her and she has gotten every name perfect!

DYSLEXIA - Side Affects

There are many "side affects" along the pathway.  Mostly its frustration which causes much anger and tears.  Sometimes it's not only her frustration.  For the longest time she had problems with clothes.  Sierra would not wear jeans until this year, 2012.  Many materials and all tags bother her.  I have learned just to cut the tags out if she says something, it saves on wardrobe changes! She has major hair sensitivity.  No brush shall touch syndrome, is there such a syndrome?  I had to keep her her short until now as she screamed if you brushed her hair.  Funny thing is she literally laughs uncontrollably from being tickled if a hair stylist runs the water spout over her head. Funny girl.

Another unfortunate side affect is balance, my dear child falls Alot!  She is accident prone.  I am always afraid when I receive a school call during the day.  It's usually the nurse and she's never running a fever its always some odd ball accident.  She fell off the monkey bars the 3rd day of 3rd grade, the nurse stopped calling me about some things like scratches and cuts....   Although once in a while I would get called to warn me of her appearance. The last one I remember had to do with her hand being smashed by a ping pong paddle on the ground and she was no where near the table...how does that happen?

We were at Girl Scout camp and the girls blew their whistle and were screaming for help.   Immediately I jump up and thought oh my what now.  In the distance, we saw her friend bent over and someone said she was getting sick so her mom ran out to help.  The  next thing I know The friend's mom is carrying Sierra on her back!   Sierra had those brown burr type thorns in her feet.  I saw a few and started to pick one out of the heal and then a couple from the toe, once I moved around her where I could to see her entire foot, I nearly fainted.  Her foot was brown with burrs.  I had to try to keep composed so she did not realize how bad it was,  but I was freaking out. Both of her feet were covered with thorns.  How does someone walk both feet into a rug of thorns?  Thank God for her friend's mom as she is a practitioner and picked every last one of those out of her feet.  Sierra was very brave I was not.
There are dozens more and probably some I could not think of like the elevator incident but well leave that for another time.

Hard work = Success

We ended up seeking help at her school and requested that they test her at the end of her 2nd grade school year.  They did and found she had "tendencies towards dyslexia" as they do not diagnose.  Honestly it was such a relief to finally be able to understand what was happening because now we could attempt to help her.  When you don't know the problem. How can you solve it?  She began special education classes in 3rd grade.   Texas state laws allow her added special education classes and calls for some accommodations in certain scenarios. Such as spelling lists etc.

She spent Saturday's at the Shelton school in Dallas as they specialize in dyslexia.  She also worked with them the entire summer of 2011.  This last year while in 4th grade,  PISD changed the curriculum for dyslexia using what they call "Take Flight" developed by the Scottish Rite hospital and Sierra really learned how to read, It was so amazing!  She must "decode" every word but it is her way of reading.  She struggles everyday  and cannot spell the same word correctly over and over and thus writing  down her words is a trial.  But hearing her say she liked books was music to my ears!

Discovery with MONEY magazine

I became tired of all the frustration.  How many hours can you force a child to do something they hated?  Feeling both frustrated and helpless, I could not begin to imagine how Sierra felt. I prayed for an answer.   

I began researching her demeanor, moods, attitude and behavior on the Internet and borrowed several books from our local Dallas library, including the book Right Brained Child in a Left Brained World, by Jeffrey Freed.  Skimming the book, I mentally eliminated many of the behavior items listed in his book such as ADHD. I skipped alot of his content on Dyslexia because I had thought it was only mixing up letters like b and d.

 

I decided to try one of the tests from Jeffrey's book.  I held up a magazine and asked Sierra to look at the title on top.  This happened to be the MONEY magazine.  Next I told her to make a picture of this in her head.  I let her look for about 20 seconds, then put it down and asked her to spell the word in her “picture” BACKWARDS.

She did it! I was amazed and confused to say the least.  But so excited because finally we were getting somewhere. 

I asked her what it was that she saw in her picture.  She said “It’s easy, a hand holding a dollar bill”.  Glancing at the magazine again, below the heading of MONEY was a graphic of a hand holding a dollar bill.  She memorized the entire page and made it one big picture (including the word) and was able to tell me the letters YENOM in order.

Immediately I picked up the telephone and called the author, Jeffrey Freed in Colorado. I left a very long voice message on his phone. He graciously called me back and said, "I know what is happening with your daughter.  She has Dyslexia."  He could tell I was puzzled so he went on, "There is no doubt in my mind based on your description." He offered to come to Dallas to work with her.