Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Reading

I managed to read a whole book this break.
I have trouble reading in this house due to frequent interruptions. Emma and Rob are not "readers". In fact, we just recently realized that Emma has a reading disability. So does Rob. (So does my younger sister.) This goes a long way toward explaining why Rob ended up getting his degrees in math, and Emma finds her math homework easier than any other class. Reading a math book is very different from reading the text for a history class. While Emma has been successful so far in school, it was largely because so much of the learning from K-8th grade was project-based. She's really been struggling with the reading for her high school classes. When I realized that she saw 7 pages of reading as a veritable mountain of work, I started asking myself (and her) why? I found a website on dyslexia and had her answer some of the questions they suggested for self-diagnosis.

So, I found an online service that offered audio book versions of the high school text for her AP World History class and the book she was reading for her English Lit class. The first time she used the audio book versions, she was so excited --not only was she able to progress through the reading much faster, but she said that she was able to understand and retain the information so much better than when she read it herself.

Even though you have to pay for a yearly membership to this site (Learning Ally), you also have to send them documentation indicating you've been diagnosed as needing the service.  It was quite interesting when we met with the psychiatrist who will eventually evaluate her test results. He talked to me first, by myself, and asked me questions about Emma; then he brought Emma in and asked her many of the same questions. In some cases, her answers were different from mine, and I realized there are other things she's struggled with that none of us ever realized were problems. He asked her if she had trouble with "over" and "under". She thought for a moment, and then laughed and said to me "You know how you and dad call me your blind girl? Sometimes I look for things in the wrong place when you've told me where it is . . . " It's so funny how you go through life just figuring that everyone experiences things the same way you do, until you find out differently. (This happened to me with my anxiety issues.)

I should have realized that no one is just "not a reader". Emma loved it when I read books to her when she was younger, but she could never disappear into a book when she was doing the reading, and she's never been able to read out loud terribly fluently. Rob has some similar issues. For instance, he finds it much easier to read emails and text that has frequent paragraph breaks. All of these things are clues that there is a reading disability getting in the way.

A few years ago, Rob discovered that he loved listening to the audio book versions of the Inspector Rebus mysteries. He first delved into one simply because the narrator had a Scottish accent, but now he tells me how wonderful it is to experience the books vs. the videos that have been created based on the series --the books are so much more complex, the characters so well-developed. The same thing just recently happened with my sister --she has been listening to audio books as well. I mean, who doesn't like a good story?

So, I managed to read a whole book this break. I might even have time to start another, but I have to wait a bit --this one was so wonderful, and the characters always stay with me for a while. I find myself thinking about them at times, as if they were real people I knew but hadn't seen in a while. Does that happen to anyone else, where you have to let the characters fade before you start a new book?

Elizabeth George and her Inspector Lynley books is one of my favorite authors and series, and I saved this book so I could savor it over break. Now I have a choice of new two sci-fi books on my Kindle: one is the second in a trilogy by Greg Bear (Killing Titan, the War Dogs trilogy), and the other is the next (4th, I think) in the Expanse series. I'm leaning toward the Greg Bear.

8 comments:

  1. Wow! I wonder if Emma feels relieved at this diagnosis; getting a solid diagnosis from a professional always feels like, "THANK GOD, it's not just me!" At this point I have a number of friends whose children have dyslexia, and it's fascinating to listen to their conversations about the importance of font styles and audio books and teaching and on and on. I hope you continue to get answers and the tools you all need to support Emma.

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    1. Emma is relieved, definitely. You're right --it's very helpful when you realize that you're not just slow, or dumb, but having a problem that others aren't :-)

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  2. Your epiphany with Emma is much like when we finally figured out what was going on with boy#2 in my house. Having tools with which to navigate life is so much better than just floundering!

    I recently read Q&A (the book upon which "Slumdog Millionaire" was based) and then jumped right into reading The Ship of Brides, by JoJo Moyes. The former takes place in India and the latter begins in India, and in some ways, it highlighted the danger faced by the characters at the beginning of the Moyes tale, but I was also waiting for the same kind of storyline as happened in Q&A. I probably should have taken more than an hour between books!

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    1. Okay, this reminds me a bit of when characters in books get incorporated in my dreams . . . :-)

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  3. Sometimes I do have to wait until the "world" of one fiction book fades from my head, before I start another fiction book.

    And we also have experience in our household with the relief of "finally figuring out" what is going on, and getting a diagnosis, although it is not related to reading.

    Enjoy your reading!

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    1. So . . . I still haven't had the chance to start the new book. And now I need to prep :-(

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  4. Emma is so fortunate that you realized what was going on and are finding alternate ways to help her with her reading. I'm so glad to hear that you enjoyed Elizabeth George's latest; I usually buy her books rather than get them from the library, so I will order this one right away! I know what you mean about enjoying the characters; Sgt. Lynley and Barbara are like old friends, and I hate to move on to another set of characters for awhile. I have the same feeling when I read Martha Grimes' Richard Jury series.

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    1. Yes --I love the Jury characters as well. They definitely feel like old friends :-)

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