Stories Of Dyslexia Hope

I am working hard to give my son role models that he can look up to.  One of the older boys in our county has struggled with dyslexia.  My little man really looks up to him, because he knows that if J can get through school so can he.  I don't think J knows it, but I can see that he has taken a special interest in my little guy which makes him beam with pride that someone older notices him at a livestock show.  We never know where their special talent will take them, but what I do know is that we need to give them a wide range of experiences to help them find where they fit.  That goes for all kids, not just ones with dyslexia.

PB shared this when one of our mutual friends linked to one of my first dyslexia posts.   I think it is safe to say that someone took an interest in her son as well.

"My youngest son Jim was and still is dyslexic. It caused him to develop a phenomenal memory and he is very analytical. Those traits made college hard but achievable. 

He never took notes but sat in the front and listened intently. And he made it getting a BS in Ag Econ with a minor in Animal Science. 

Now he has a great job in Garden City as a Risk Manager at Cattle Empire. He buys feed grains and is starting to trade other commodities. He still can't spell or write a decent paragraph but his ability to read the market is uncanny. So the message is 'don't despair' . Your son will find a path.

 Oh and I forget to tell you. J was in special ed for reading and he thought he was not smart, but in middle school Sandy Fraser took him to the state horse expo at Rock Springs. He watched the horse quiz bowl. He came home and wanted to try it the next year.

A special thank you to my friend Laurie over at Country Linked for this photo.

We practiced all winter and the rest is history. He discovered he was very smart. The last year he was in Horse Quiz Bowl he dominated the competition at state.  It gave J belief in himself and his intellect. School was still hard but it was manageable."

My little guy knows that feeling of not feeling smart, because he was in what they now call Title I reading.  He was so frustrated with being pulled out of class.  I am happy to say that after our summer of tutoring, he is not attending Title I reading this fall!  :)

There are so many great leaders and inventors that struggled with dyslexia, but overcame and did great things.  People like:  Alexander Graham Bell, Steve Jobs, Jay Leno, John Lennon, Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Cruise, and even Walt Disney.  Follow the Center for Research, Evaluation and Awareness of Dyslexia to see a different person everyday this month.  You might be surprised at what they can accomplish with the right encouragement.

-A Kansas Farm Mom

A California Farm Mom Shares Her Son's Dyslexia Story (Part 2)

 Part 2 of a Guest Post from A California Farm Mom.  See what their experience was with testing and tutoring.  Part 1 can be found here.

Toby was tested, which is about a 3 hour process, the day after we arrived & was diagnosed w/dyslexia.  He was also given a score from the TOVA test which grades the ADHD, which we never had a grade for to know the severity of it just a diagnosis.  Immediately after the testing, we began tutoring.  We tutored for 4 hours per day for 7 days.  I had planned our trip so the tutoring would start on a Wednesday & he would be tutored for a few days then have the weekend in the middle of the 7 day stretch to give his brain a break.  After all he was not quite 7 years old at the time & was on Summer break & nearly 2000 miles away from home wondering what the heck am I doing here.

Immediately after the first day of tutoring I could already see changes in our son.  We had gone to a museum after tutoring that first day & he saw a sign that said, "Do Not Enter."  He stood there & was actually trying to sound out the words and read what it said.  He had never done this before & was not interested.  I could see his confidence building in himself as he succeeded in sounding out those words & reading what the sign said.  I was so proud of him.  I had given him one of the biggest hugs ever as the tears began to form in the corner of my eyes.  What an accomplishment!

As the week went on I could see him becoming a happier kid & getting along with his brother better and so forth.  His outlook on life was changing in a more positive way because he was aware of more.  After the first few days, the Department head, Dr. Hurford, and I sat down & had a few words.  He informed me that our son's dyslexia is worse than what he had expected from our visits over the phone, but on a good note he is improving faster than what they thought.  It was a blessing.  This is where I strongly believe in early intervention. He also told me that ideally they would like to have him for a year.  With that said, my heart sunk.  That really told me how severe his dyslexia was/is.  A whole year.  How could this be possible?

Well in life I take everything with a grain of salt.  I wasn't going to commit to a year nor walk away.  I could possibly see a month at a time in the Summer, but a year would be tough.  In my mind I knew that we needed to try to continue & I saw the results that we were getting but where could I get such results back at home, 1950 miles away?  Dr. Hurford's son, Thomas, whom is a college graduate & following in his Dad's footsteps, was doing the tutoring with our son & had already created a bond.  I thought to myself how could we do this.  I'd go back to the hotel room in the evenings & continue researching dyslexia & try to learn all that I could while there & thinking how can we continue this....

Then the idea came to me a few days before we left.  Why not try tutoring via Skype?  We could only try.  They were willing to give it a shot & I knew it would be a very good shot if I could get our son to stay focused at the computer screen with his tutor, Thomas.  Well upon arriving home, we took a week off then went right back to it.  We made a commitment to tutor 2 hours per week, 1 hour on Tuesday & 1 hour on Thursdays.  The first time our son "Skyped" with Thomas, Toby was sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by his Legos with the iPad right in front of him with his tutor there.  Our son was actually staying focused & working with Thomas through "Skype" on the ipad!!!  Here he was surrounded by the Legos that he loved & without even touching them, Thomas had his complete attention.

I was absolutely amazed & was trying not to jump for joy & break the focusing.  It was a joyful moment for sure.  We continued the tutoring until school started & now we tutor weekly since that really does make for a long day for a young 7 year old, attending school all day then coming home & sitting for another hour being tutored.  So Wednesdays, our son has a shorter day at school & we tutor those days.

I constantly see improvement in our son in working with Thomas.  Not only in his reading & sounding out words, but his self confidence & self esteem.  Some things are still a struggle, but he is improving.  I remind myself that Rome wasn't built in a day, as much as I would like it to be sometimes.

By taking our son to Kansas, for the testing, I was able to get a diagnosis there for him & the help that he needed.  We have returned home with a 8 page report that explains his testing & diagnosis, in which I was able to present to his IEP (Individualized  Educational Plan) of teachers & staff that we meet with at school.  It was a eye opener.  Before when I would mention dyslexia it was like it went through one ear & out the other.  They did not know how to test for it nor how to teach students with it should there be a diagnosis.  I have several teacher friends that I questioned before coming home from Kansas.  "If you had a student that was dyslexic, would you know how to teach them or help them?"  They had no idea.  And not to take away from these teachers because they are good teachers, but the education system is not recognizing this yet.  Not at a level in which it should be & have the support for it.  Remember, 1 in every 5, is possibly is dyslexic.  That's 20%!

With that said, I haven't made any plans yet, but perhaps hoping to go out again this next Summer back to PSU & get some more one on one help and continue the tutoring services of their program.  I can't imagine the struggles that these people go through in life that haven't gotten this help & can't read & don't understand things such as others do.  We all learn things differently and sometimes some just learn even more differently than others.  It might be more time consuming, but in the end it is all worth it.  Our son continues to amaze us at some of the things that he does out on the farm or even in the house playing with Legos and so forth.  He has a very high IQ, but he has just not been able to completely unleash it yet.  We can foresee him possibly being a engineer in the future based upon how he uses his mind to build things & structurally think ahead.  Time will tell.  His speech has been improving since our intervention & his positive outlook on life has drastically increased which is a huge factor in anything that you do in life.  We could not be happier with the results that we are seeing from our participation in the CARRD program, at Pittsburg State University.  We still have a long road ahead but we are also so thankful for the help that we have found.  You know your child best.  My best advice is use your own judgement & follow what your heart tells you.

Sandy vB

Thank you so much for sharing Sandy!  Each child's experience is different and we all do what we think is best for their child at the time. -KFM

For more information check out the post How Do I Sort Through all of this Information of Dyslexia and ADHD? 

How do I sift through all this Dyslexia and ADHD Information?

The response from my recent posts about ADHD and Dyslexia have been overwhelming.  I am happy to share our family's story if it helps just one more child get the help they need to make school an enjoyable place to be.

Several questions I have been receiving I covered earlier in the summer, so instead of covering them again, I will put links to all the posts here.

My son has struggled with reading since first grade.  After lots of searching and help from friends we got an answer to the question Is it Dyslexia? Is it ADHD? Help!!

Then we had to figure out How does one deal with an ADHD diagnosis?

Everything started to fall into place with a trip to the Alltech Symposium where they posed the question What if We Could Eat Our Way Out of ADHD?  Then later in the summer we saw the results of using ADHD and I had to make myself ask the question Did That Really Happen?

 After a summer of reading tutoring and adding an Omega 3-DHA supplement to his diet, I needed a way to document the changes and not just what I thought I could see happening I needed real numbers.

If you are wondering what the signs of Dyslexia are and why we had our son tested please remember that 1 in 5 kids are born with Dyslexia and there are a number of signs not just flipping numbers and letters.

Pittsburg State (Pittsburg, Kansas) has an amazing Center for Research, Evaluation, and Awareness of Dyslexia.  If you are not lucky to leave close to Pittsburg State University or you leave close to a Dyslexia testing facility, but have been told it would be 6 months before your child could be tested, know that Dyslexia testing can be done anywhere there is internet with a great online testing tool that only costs $25!!

I have a friend in California that did lots of research and decided to bring her son to Kansas for a week of testing and tutoring.  She shared her story about what she found.

I hope this puts everything in one place where you can find what you are looking for.  If you have further questions, please let me know and I will continue to update this post as I have 3 guests posts about dyslexia next week already scheduled.

-A Kansas Farm Mom

Dyslexia Testing Anywhere

I seriously have been stopped on the street, messaged and received phone calls over all the information that I have shared this week and that really excites me that there are some kids that have been struggling in school and will get some help.

We love the tutoring we received from Pittsburg State University, but I know some of you are halfway across the country.  I do have a friend (I will share next week) who brought her son to Kansas from California for a week, but that was in the summer and we are in the middle of a new school year.

What if I told you that you could test your child this weekend at home for dyslexia?  Pretty exciting right?  You could have an answer of whether to pursue further help or look in another direction.

I received this information from the CARRD, Inc. center when I donated to get my cool 1in 5 necklace.

Why Reading Screening?

Approximately 15-20% of our nation's children experience reading failure.

Does your child or student struggle with reading?

Does your child or student sound out the first part of a word and then guess the rest of it?

Is your child or student falling behind his or her class in reading?

Does your child or student get upset when reading?

What is the Reading Screening?

The Reading Screening is your tool to help identify strengths and weaknesses in your child's or student's reading.

It provides a detailed report identifying areas of difficulty that can be used to develop specialized reading interventions.

It can be administered anytime, anywhere.

ReadingScreening.org

• Easy to Use
• Step by step instructions
• Based on Research
• Highly Accurate
• Professional Report

Profits support children with dyslexia.  Reading Screening only charges $25.00 per student per assessment and it only takes about 45 minutes.

What are you waiting for?

Disclaimer:  We have not used the Reading Screening tool, but Dr. Hurford who we worked closely with wrote both this test and the one my little man went through at PSU.  I assume this is a more condensed version without the ADHD screening.  If you do try it, let me know what you thought!

Have a fabulous weekend and there will be much more on dyslexia next week.  Posts from Dr. Hurford and my friend in California are already scheduled.  If you want to make sure you don't miss a post, click on the follow by email box at the top of the right hand side bar.  I promise I will send no spam and you will get the posts in your inbox as soon as I publish them.

- A Kansas Farm Mom

Documenting Change

I am college educated as an Animal Scientist and while I knew I saw changes in my son while taking an Omega 3-DHA supplement, I still needed to see real numbers.  In April, he had taken the TOVA test, which gave me a baseline from which to judge progress.

Before school started, we finished his reading tutoring.  I insisted that we travel back to Pittsburg State for a follow up evaluation of the Dyslexia and ADHD.  His reading had improved over the summer (more on that in another post).  His TOVA score had gone up dramatically which is a good thing!  It went from -6.73 in April to -2.44 in August.  Anything below -1.80 is considered some level of ADHD.  I have been told by several professionals that to see that much change in the TOVA score without medication is absolutely amazing.  Most of the studies that I have seen had the children on Omega 3-DHA for 16 weeks.   Dr. Hurford at Pittsburg State was great to work with and was amazed with the change.  He is willing to work with us and retest him whenever we want or need. 

Now, we are through the first month of school and I see a young man that is more confident than ever.  He is the one who knows where things are kept in the house and can go find them.  He is the one who knows where his shoes are when we get ready to leave.  He was the one that was reminding me what projects needed finished for the fair.  He has struggled with tying his shoes and suddenly he can even do that!  I had no idea that ADHD kids have trouble tying their shoes until he was diagnosed.  I cannot begin to express how excited I am that I am getting a glimpse of my whole son now that we know how he ticks inside.

I am still trying to get him to eat fish, so he doesn’t have to take so many pills, but I am not winning that battle.  He does like the English walnuts my friend brought him from California and boiled shrimp is definitely a favorite.  If you have a good fish recipe, feel free to share it with me. 

I am sharing our story at the urging of several of the professionals that I worked with.  Over the last few months, I have had more than one person tell me 

“Let the child lead you.  Don’t lead the child.”

And 

“Parents are the best advocates for their children.  Help other parents find what might help their kids, too.”

I am not saying that everything we tried will help all the children struggling with ADHD and Dyslexia, but it is what has worked for us.  It has reduced the stress in our household 100% (not kidding) and homework has disappeared from his backpack.  I hope that something I shared here with you can help someone in your family or someone you know.  Feel free to share with anyone who might find it useful.

I do want to say thank you again for Alltech for inviting bloggers like myself to their symposium.  This year I learned about cutting edge info on dyslexia and last year I found something that has made a huge difference in our cow herd.

Throughout the month of October I will focus on Dyslexia as it is Dyslexia Awareness Month.  I have several guest bloggers lined up and welcome anyone who would like to share information about dyslexia either as a parent, student, tutor, teacher or researcher.

 You might find these other articles helpful:

Is it Dyslexia? Is it ADHD? Help!! 

How does one deal with an ADHD diagnosis?

-A Kansas Farm Mom

Is it Dyslexia? Is it ADHD? Help!!

As the school year began again this year, I had to look back on our summer and the month leading up to summer break.  While others were planning their summer vacations, I was trying to figure out what to do with a diagnosis of Dyslexia, something we suspected, and a potential diagnosis of ADD, something we did not see in our own son. 

Over the last 2 years, we have went through a change in schools hoping it would help a bright kid who couldn’t seem to figure out how to get that intelligence out if he had to read or write.  Verbally, he was/is brilliant.  I asked numerous times in both schools to have him tested for Dyslexia only to be told he was too young, they would inquire with other contracting agencies or to just be ignored. 

Luckily, a fellow 4-H mom with a son the same age struggling with the same issues and dealing with one of the same teachers suggested that one of the nearby state colleges might be able to help.  They both are “teacher colleges” and I happened to know that our long time babysitter was studying Elementary Education at Pittsburg State University.  A quick Facebook message to her started a ball rolling that would dramatically change our summer and one son’s outlook as we start the new school year.

 

What most people in the area don’t know is that PittsburgState University has a Dyslexia testing and tutoring program.  The program isn’t some high priced thing out of reach and only for the wealthy.  The testing and tutoring fees are on a sliding scaled for the parent’s income level and totally on the honor system.  They never asked for anything proving our income.

Our son went through 3 hours of testing. 

They started him with a test for ADHD.  Why?  Did you know many schools think kids are ADHD because they won’t do their work and they are actually Dyslexic and can’t read the worksheets given to them? 

He did extensive reading tests including: sounds, nonsense words, letter recognition, reading sentences and so much more.

The graduate student that administered the test gave him several short breaks to come out and sit with me while she set up the next test.  Each time he came out you could tell his brain was getting a real workout.  By the time he finished, he just seemed to stare into space sitting next to me and his favorite sitter that found the testing facility for us.  They really tested him and trying to reach everything in his little head.

We waited a week and got the results.  Let me say this:  Knowing your kid has a hard time learning and hearing someone list off all the things that he can’t do correctly may or may not be handled with the same amount of grace.  I have a wonderful friend who happens to be ADHD and Dyslexic.  She is actually on ADHD medication as an adult.  I messaged her immediately hoping she could give me a glimmer of hope because at that point in time I was about to lose all grace that I had in me and it was about to stream down my cheeks.  The Facebook message she sent me said this, 

“Remember the diagnosis doesn't change who he is or who you are. 

It's a huge step in helping understand how 

he ticks and helping him learn and grow.”

Oh wow!  Did I need to hear that!  She was right.  He is still the same kid he has always been and understanding how his brain works and what it needs to function is going to help him in the long run.  I can honestly say that hearing that he was seriously delayed in reading was hard to hear from someone else.  I wanted to make all kinds of excuses for the score he had on the TOVA testing (the ADHD test), but I also knew that I needed to be proactive.   

Over the next week, I will share with you what helped my son and our entire family.  I will cover resources we found concerning ADHD and how a writing this very blog got me an invitation to an animal health company’s, called Alltech, conference that would change how we went about treating the ADHD.

 You might find these other articles helpful:

How does one deal with an ADHD diagnosis?

Documenting Change

-A Kansas Farm Mom