My Struggle with Reading

Growing up, I had a very hard time reading and writing. When I read, I didn’t see the word clearly, so I made up words that weren’t there, or skipped words I didn’t understand. When I read by myself, I had a hard time understanding what I was reading because of this. This became more difficult when I had to read out loud in class. When I spelled, I added letters into the words that don’t belong there, and I use to write my B’s and D’s backwards. When spelling my name, I spelled it Mabison, instead of Madison. My parents worked with me to try to help me slow down while reading so I can focus on it more clearly, and to fix my B’s and D’s. This did help me with some of my problems, but I still had a very hard time with reading. I have had these problems my entire life. I have had two literary sponsors in my life, one being my parents and the other being my 3rd grade teacher who pushed the school to have me tested for dyslexia, and both have helped me to become the reader and writer that I am today.

My first literary sponsors were my parents. When I was younger, my parents and I tried to read whenever possible. It was hard a lot of the time just because we lead and still do lead very busy lives. But whenever we could, my parents let me pick out a book, and then we read a chapter or two each night. Normally the books consisted of the adventurous Magic Treehouse or the mischievous Junie B. Jones. My parents and I took turns reading each chapter and did funny voices and try to make the story come alive. We worked a lot on reading because, like I said earlier, I had a hard time. When reading out loud, I had a very hard time and messed up a lot of the words. I spoke to my mom recently, and I asked her if they had ever thought to get me tested for dyslexia before my 3rd grade teacher had. She said, “You were having some reversals, like your B’s and D’s, and were a slow reader. We never thought much of it though cause your grades were good, and you were a hard worker.” Like my mother, I never thought much of it either. I just thought that I was a slow reader and was confused about which way the letters go. In the essay called “The Magic of Literacy”, the author, Grace Baroun says, “In my house, I was dubbed ‘Backwards Jackson’, because I could never arrange anything in its proper order… how did anyone expect me to remember the difference between ‘q’ and ‘p’?” (38). I related to this a lot because that’s exactly how I was. I could never spell my own name right, how did anyone expect me eventually be able to spell anything else, let alone understand what I read.

My second literary sponsor was my 3rd grade teacher Ms. Neil. When I started school, and I had some trouble keeping up with the reading we did in class, and I had a hard time understanding what I was reading. I always thought that I was bad at reading, and that hopefully when I got older, I would be better at it. It wasn’t until 3rd grade that my teacher, Ms. Neil, had the idea to get me tested for dyslexia and reading comprehension problems. She pushed the school to get me tested even when my parents and I didn’t know there was a problem. To my parents and I, we weren’t completely convinced that I would have a problem because my grades were always good. But Ms. Neil knew that, even though my grades were good, I was still having a problem. She noticed that I was having trouble understanding what I was reading and was having a lot of trouble reading. Instead of thinking that I was having a hard time because I was young, she knew that there had to be something else behind it, and she was right. Ms. Neil pushed the school to have me tested so that in the future I wouldn’t fall behind. By doing this, she helped me find new ways to work through any problems with reading and writing that I might have. One way school would help me do that is I would go with a separate group of people and would practice reading using flash cards, or we would read the story at our own pace. I really appreciated doing this because it helped me to focus more clearly on what I was reading.

As I have stated, I had no idea that I was dyslexic. I knew that a lot of words didn’t make since to me, and they never looked quite right, but I just thought that I would get better as I got older. In an essay called “Learning to Read” Malcolm X explained what reading was like before he really learned how. “But every book I picked up had few sentences which didn’t contain anywhere from one to nearly all of the words that might as well have been Chinese. When I just skipped those words, of course, I really ended up with little idea of what the book said.” (107). This how I read. When there was a word that I didn’t understand, I skipped it and moved onto the next word. Besides being dyslexic, I also had and still have a reading comprehension problem, meaning I have a hard time understanding what I’m reading. When reading I have to read something over and over again until I finally understand what I am reading. With the help of my two literary sponsors I was able to work on my reading and find new ways to help me read. To help me better understand what I was reading, Ms. Neil taught me to slow down and make sure that I caught all the important details of what was happening in the story.

My literary sponsors have helped me a great deal with my reading and writing. My parents have done everything they can to help me. From quizzing me on spelling words, to sitting with me every night to read stories at a slow pace to make sure I was focusing on the words I was reading. Ms. Neil always made sure that if I needed help that she or another teacher would be there to help me. These people helped me to become the reader and writer that I am today. With their help I learned how to work through my problems instead of just struggling with them.