The upside to dyslexia, even as a journalist

As a parent, if you were told your child would be a creative, intelligent, big-picture thinker with a strong sense of grit and resilience, you’d be happy, wouldn’t you? That sounds like a great set of skills for life success, doesn’t it? Now, what if you were also told that your child would have trouble learning to read and write for the rest of his or her life? Like two sides of a coin, dyslexia is a gift and a struggle. I know this because I’m dyslexic. So is my youngest child. It’s genetic and extremely common. It’s estimated that 1 in 5 people have dyslexia. Dyslexia is, put simply, a different wiring of the brain. It is not a measure of intelligence. Dyslexic brains find it difficult to recognize how sounds, words and letters match up phonetically. It’s an alternative way of thinking. While dyslexic minds process information differently, in lateral way, it also means we are singing a different tune when it comes to literacy, memory and concentration. Then there’s the speling (spelling). In fact, just having to spell “dyslexic” is a constant frustruation (frustration). As I’ve been writing this I’ve spelt it “dylesic” “dyslexic” and “dsyleix.” During our coverage of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his investigation, I don’t think I ever wrote soepena (subpoena) correctly. Because of our trouble with spelling, if there was shrine or diety (deity) for autocorrect and spellcheck, dyslexics like me would worship at it. Obvioulsy (obviously), spelling tests, rote learning, reading aloud in class and standardized tests all work against dyslexics in the classroom. Outside of the traditional classroom though, many dyslexics thrive. More struggle, and more perseverance My late father was never diagnosed with dyslexia, but probably had it. After all, he misspelled “Granddad” inside his last gift […]

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