Hi! I am Kati Watson the Community Director of Dyslexia in Adults! We decided that it was about time that I formally introduced myself to the community!
So...Hello!!!
As a note I normally spell check EVERYTHING using Grammarly but... in the spirit of being dyslexic I am not going to correct anything in this article (gotta be authentic right)!
My Dyslexic Story:
When I was in the first grade my teacher Mrs. Apple (yes that was her name) recomended to my parents that I get tested for learning disabulitys. I went and did oodles of tests. It turned out to be a good news bad news situation. Good news as a first grader I had the vocabulary of an 8th grader. Bad news I pretty much could not read or right.
My parents made the hard decision to hold me back a grade. I was a fantasticly social and bright young kid so it was not an easy choice for them (I had oodles of friends). They also enrolled me in special language therapy classes to learn how to read and right. I just have to take a quick secound to thank Lou Ann Cozart. Mrs. Cozart was my laugage therapy teacher and beside my parents she is THE reason I have been able to accomplish as much as I have in my life. In these classes I had to learn how to learn, all the simple things that come easy for kids like how to spell and read I had to practice. I was tought what sounds combinations of letters make (ex. a 'R' sounds like "er"), the i before e rule and more. I am not going to lie it was really hard and my mother and I had so so so many fights while doing homework (sorry mom).
I went to public school starting in the third grade. Long story but the short version is I was tested privately for my dyslexcia and my public school would not recognize the results so I was given no special help. I mean I got a little bit of help like the teacher would give me 10 spelling words insted of 15, and they would ignore some of my spelling mistakes on my papers but for the most part I went through out my educational career with out any formal assistance. Evne in college I would go in and tell my teachers my story but I never got extra time on assignemnts or on tests (there were a few who would help me proofread stuff so that was awesome, shout out to Dr. B and Dr.P).