Pt 1 – Dyslexia, the battle my son fought and lost – My Regrets
Our battle with dyslexia started even before I knew what it was called. I am the proud mother of three boys. My boys were noisy loud and playful kids like you would expect. My oldest DS did well at school and, once he learnt to read excelled. My middle son however struggled. I was a mum who was always in the classroom helping. I took reading groups I went on excursions and was very involved in their education. I’ve always read to my children and books have been a regular part of our bedtime routine and relaxation time, so when DS found it difficult to learn to read I was concerned. I was told that some kids learn at a different pace to others. His teachers assured me that he would get it, by grade 3 he was reading but not at year level. His teacher suggested occupational therapy, a Behavioural Optometrist and speech therapy, all of which we did to the point where DS was so stressed from doing all the extra work he broke down.
None of that made a difference, learning to read and write was hard for him. In all other aspects, he was a bright young student he had a wonderful ability to work with anything hands on and rarely disrupted the class. His year 5 teacher was not his best teacher telling my DS that “teaching him was like flogging a dead horse”. I couldn’t see it at the time because when he was at home he was still our bright and caring DS but, the damage had been done, his engagement in learning was diminishing, he would rather be at home than be at school. His school reports were terrible, filled with words like “he doesn’t apply himself”, “he must try harder”, “DS fails to concentrate”, DS should try harder to be neater”. Dyslexia was never mentioned nor was dysgraphia or dyscalculia, these words were simply not even part of our vocabulary back in 2004.
The journey through high school was no better, He did have one teacher who recognised that DS could orally present his work at a far higher standard than his written work but did know why and no other teacher would allow him to present his work orally insisting on written only.