Over the last week I have had a life changing epiphany. It all started last week Wednesday when I attended a lecture by Susan Barton. I, of course have always been aware of dyslexia as a reading difficulty and as a Reading Teacher I'm sure I have learned more than what I remembered. I was strongly suspicious that my oldest son was possibly dyslexic, but my knowledge of dyslexia began and ended with: it must be diagnosed by an official diagnostician and you don't know for sure until at least third grade. (Yeah... Wrong and wrong) Would it be overly dramatic to say that seeing Susan Barton's speech may have totally changed my sons life? Maybe. Maybe not.
Apparently there is a checklist of symptoms that begin showing themselves as early as 12 months. Since dyslexia is a LANGUAGE processing disorder and not a reading problem like I thought it was, reading is actually among the last problems to manifest. You can begin seeing signs of it in speech and writing before you see signs of it in reading. Who knew?! Since dyslexia is an inheirited condition, if you have a closely related family member that has it (like maybe his father...), you know you should look for it early and often. The earlier you catch it, the better it can be addressed. Since my son is at the beginning of first grade, it will be much easier to treat than if we had waited until third or fourth grade.
What does this mean? I have called around and gotten a few kids to tutor so that I can afford to purchase the Barton system to tutor my own child too. I am intently focused on not only helping my own child but the children in my community to become better able to process language. Now I wait for the materials to arrive, do a six hour training on them and pray that they will be the answer I have been looking for the last several months.
