Bug Fixes: How I Live With Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a condition in which it is difficult for a person to understand a text: he may not see the connection between letters and sounds, replace syllables and words, miss or skip individual characters. Often, dyslexia and dyscalculia are added to dyslexia - problems with mastering writing and arithmetic, respectively. All this is not related to intellectual abilities, but the cause of dyslexia is not clearly known: scientists believe that it can be explained by heredity or the characteristics of the location of light-sensitive cells in the eyes.
According to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), dyslexia is not considered a disease, but a symptom of other diagnoses. The British Dyslexia Association claims that 10% of Britons live with this condition, the Institute of Dyslexia Research in the USA cites a figure of 10-15%. There are no official statistics in Russia, partly due to the difficulties of diagnosis: dyslexia is often considered “laziness” or lack of ability. We talked to Evdokia Krajukhina, a teacher of English - and she told how to make friends with her peculiarity and understand that the grades at school decide far from everything.
(Jumping letters)
For me, letters are solid sticks and stripes that intersect, enter each other. When a word is long and there are many consonants in it, I can’t imagine how it is spelled - you have to say it out loud in syllables. I think not with words, but with pictures. If I think about a horse, I don’t think of associations like "animal", "jump over" - I imagine a colorful three-dimensional picture, like a horse running around the field for example. It seems to me that not only people with dyslexia see the plot of the book as a film. Moreover, if such a person meets in the text a preposition or a union, for example, “that”, he will stop, because this word has no image - and this is confusing.
I also find it difficult to perceive two-dimensional space, so I am not guided by maps. The numbers in my head are mixed up - I can take the bus 340, although I need 304, and I don’t notice. But people with dyslexia can notice unusual mathematical and physical patterns, they can have a well-developed creative thinking. Dyslexia does not affect speech - I, of course, sometimes speak incoherently, but this is more from fatigue.
The realization that I have dyslexia came gradually. Before entering the university, I watched the performance of the British comedian with dyslexia Eddie Izzard, who jokes a lot about his peculiarity. Then I read a book on this topic, I found sites where I described the sensations that were clear to me. I even got a good mood when I realized that it was not just one. Put a tick in my head and went on, did not focus on this. A few years later she got a job as an English teacher at a school, where she met speech pathologists with speech pathologists. They confirmed that I have dyslexia.
(Work on the bugs)
When I was in school myself, nobody suspected my dyslexia. This feature takes on different forms: sometimes people cannot read anything, but I learned to read a speech therapist before school. But I still did it the slowest - for example, in the fifth grade I was at the level of the second, although I received only four-fives. I thought I just somehow learned the wrong way, and didn’t know what to do with it. Mom said: "Here's your girlfriend is reading well, why can't you?" Then I locked myself in the room and read myself out loud.
Problems arose when teachers demanded to master the book in a week: all my classmates had time, and I was just terrified. I had to cheat on the lessons. If you asked about a fragment of "War and Peace", which I have not yet reached, then I began to improvise: "But you know, this situation is very similar to ..." - and told about a familiar chapter, philosophized, got a five. It seems to me that people with dyslexia often become talkative - you learn to spin. I used to worry that I had missed a lot in adolescence, but now it seems to me that it would have been hard to understand the full depth of, say, Dostoevsky.
The term "dyslexia" German ophthalmologist Rudolf Berlin first used it: this is how he described the condition of a patient who had difficulty writing and reading, although he had no health problems.
At first, my handwriting was very bad - but thanks to the teacher of geography, who refused to accept contour maps from me. For her, I tried to write better, but it did not work out. Once I got tired of it, I took a story and very slowly began to rewrite it in perfect handwriting with curls - almost elf runes were obtained. Now I write neatly and legibly.
Sometimes, when I wrote something on the blackboard, the guys laughed. Although it seems to me that it was quite harmless compared to what is happening in schools now. In general, classmates treated me normally. The teachers were teasing, they quoted my mistakes, but they didn’t spread rot - they simply told their parents: “Well, the girl’s Russian, of course, is bad.” They helped me, tried to pull me out, although they often asked: "Evdokia, why do you know the rules, but do not use them?" But I simply do not see that I was mistaken.
Earlier it was believed that boys are mostly confronted with dyslexia, but modern studies show that this is not the case.
But with geometry and physics, I was excellent. I managed to calculate something earlier than to understand how I do it: I did not solve specific problems or examples, but represented figures and relations. That's why I entered the university to study physics. During my studies, I understood everything, only confused the numbers, but this did not stop - we mostly did laboratory work. True, the education system disappointed me, and I eventually quit the institute.
Dictation for me was a complete nightmare. For eleven years of study, I probably got only two triples, otherwise - colas and two. The worst thing was not even the dictation, but the work on the mistakes: someone needs to correct three fad, someone one, and I'm twenty-five. At school, I sat until the night with checks and rules. On the writings I was given a five for the content and a two for spelling and grammatical errors. I still do not write very well - helps autochange on smartphones. And the mistakes are completely stupid: I can not write a letter or swap it with another. My brother is also dyslexic. I remember how he did his homework in the Russian language - he conjugated a verb, and he could not do it. He began to think out loud: "Drown, drown, drown ..."
(Dyslexic that could)
After university I went to work in a medical institution. One of my duties was to issue statements to patients - I wrote down what was written by a doctor into a computer. It was difficult - not only did I have to make out what the doctor had written, and even the receptionist called every five minutes: "You have a mistake, redo it." A few months later, the manager asked: "Evdokia, are you sure that you like this job?" I didn’t like it very much - I’ve no more foot to the offices. Then I went to work in a clothing store, so as not to have any business with letters and managers. When she left, she rewrote the application four times. The boss besides me has a lot of things to do - she was indignant and rolled her eyes. Her whole look expressed a dumb question: "Kraiuhina! Why are you not able to deliver the fourth time correctly?!"
As a result, I began to teach a foreign language - I would describe the way to this with the phrase "Dyslexic that could." I am very stubborn and really wanted to learn English. I started at nineteen - now I'm twenty-five and I'm at a decent level. Language is not only words, it’s schemes and systems that need to be seen. I took a textbook, memorized the times, understood that they are built by analogy. I watched movies - first in English with Russian subtitles, then completely switched to English. It became a habit - yes, sometimes I did not have time for the text, often put the movie on pause, but what to do? I want to watch it.
When I came to school, I warned students about dyslexia. They still love to correct me: for example, once I confused the word "meat" (meat) and "meet" (meet), I once wrote not "bear" (bear), but "beer" (beer). I take this positively, it relaxes children, they understand: if I make a mistake myself, this is normal. They are not shy, and we have a trusting relationship.
(Dyslexia is not a shame)
In my opinion, dyslexia has many advantages. It gives a special creative perception of the world, which does not fit into the framework of the standard system of education and information through reading. My mother is an interior designer. She studied at the Academy of Design, when I was about five years old - we did homework together, painted tiles, and sculpted. Then I went to an art school and worked there for six years, teachers always paid attention to me. At school, I adored to speak, recite poems, make presentations.
Until now, I draw and write stories. If a sister asks me what to wear, a picture of her wardrobe and accessories immediately pops up in my head, and I can mentally make ready-made images. I fill out visa application forms better than people without dyslexia. Any person who works with documents needs to be more careful, write letters - and people with dyslexia do this all their lives. The skill is to recheck everything, to concentrate on each character I have brought to automatism.
Many people believe, that children with dyslexia read and write letters in a mirror image - but this is a myth.
I read important documents for a long time: I will run my eyes, rest, then return to paper again. They squint at me (probably, they think that I’m looking for something) and often ask: "Are you already everything?" And I just think that contracts need to be read thoroughly - I can sit for two hours over two pages. Because you hesitate, it is embarrassing, but what to do. Sometimes I get nervous when I have to write something by hand in case of strangers. Such an irrational fear of children: "So, I will write now, I will make a mistake, they will think that I am stupid, spit in my face and leave." Then I tell myself that dyslexia is not a shame.
Many who do not know anything about dyslexia, believe that I just "thought out for myself" and generally "lazy." A couple of times it was insulting, but then I realized that someone else's ignorance is not my problem. Even older people say: "There used to be one medicine - the father's belt." I understand them: they grew up in such conditions, where any differences and peculiarities were perceived by parents and teachers as something shameful - they say, what a pioneer you are after this. With teens is easier. They cook on the Internet, they are all interested. I told my class about dyslexia, and in the next lesson they said so knowingly: "Oh, and we read, you watched a video on youtube." They began to console me. Nowadays, mental differences are paid a lot of attention, and that's great. Don't be shy - just make your uniqueness work for you.
