STILL GRATEFUL EVERYDAY......

I was cleaning out our schoolroom today.  I had no idea this would be such an emotional chore for me.  The picture above is a concoction of the hundreds of games I developed over homeschooling Alli for 2 years, TRYING to help her to learn something, ANYTHING!! 

It makes me cry to think of how much she struggled before we knew she had a vision problem. 

For 2 years, I spent more time, money and tears trying to figure out THE THING that was going to make learning easier for her.   I honestly believed that one day a lightbulb would go off and she would remember the direction that 7 went and that the word MAT on one line was of COURSE the same as MAT on the next line.  I had no one to judge her against, she is my firstborn, and I was homeschooling her...she wasnt in a classroom with a teacher who would have labeled her "dyslexic" and I, obviously, was not willing to accept that it might be true...

Now that Jill is in 1st grade and learning to read I see how it should have been with Alli.  

When Alli was in 1st grade it took THE ENTIRE YEAR to learn the numbers 1 - 10.  11 and 12 were just too difficult.   Jill ALREADY knows the numbers to 100 without me really having taught her anything.  

When Alli ended 1st grade even simple sentences like "The cat is on the mat." would have brought her to tears.  Today, Jill read, "That is a seed.  See the ram eat it."

If Jill had been my first child, then maybe I would have been quicker to label Alli, "SLOW and DYSLEXIC".  But luckily, I did not know the difference.  I just always assumed Alli was on her own schedule and it would "click" when she was ready.  I gave her all the time she needed to learn what she was CAPABLE of learning.

Today, as I throw away all above games/crutches/bandaids I am so THANKFUL to myself that I was always patient with her.  She was doing the best she could, considering that books probably looked something like this to her:

Alli is FIXED.  She can learn just as easily as Jill does now.  She can SEE CORRECTLY.  She read to me for 10 minutes on the couch today, happily.  Her reading is slow and she still sounds lots of words out, but she has only been seeing correctly for 6 months of her school life....she is doing AMAZING!  Three cheers for Alli.

If you do not know Alli's story, please read this article I wrote when she completed Vision Therapy 6 months ago...

HER SYMPTOMS OF DYSLEXIA TURN OUT TO BE A VISION PROBLEM