Dyslexia

Peter's Help with Dyslexia

The hardest part about reading and writing, for me, is having dyslexia. I do not know when it is going to happen. It is very confusing sometimes, for me to read.

One of the hardest parts of having dyslexia, is that it happens when you least want it to. I feel all confused and I cannot understand what I have just read. It all goes jumbly - but if I stop reading for a while, I can get back into it again. This happens over and over and can be very frustrating at times.

What makes reading and writing even harder for me are silent letters. I wonder why English has silent letters. It makes things very hard when you are trying to learn how to spell. I have often wondered why they are there - because if they weren’t, spelling would be easier and not so confusing. I am a truck-driver and a bricklayer by trade, but I want to be better at reading and writing. I love fishing, reading (even though it isn’t easy) and surfing the net. Most of all I love being a family man and I want my kids  ​not to have the same struggle I’ve had. I think I’m getting there!

I loved school  …  A Story by Vicki

I loved putting my uniform on with my black school shoes that I polished the night before, my little school case that I decorated with colourful stickers. I even loved the trip to school, sometimes on the double-decker bus and other times I would run the 5kms to see if I could beat the bus.   However, the classroom was a big challenge (was then, and continued to be throughout my whole life).   I just couldn’t understand how the other kids could just get it, how letters and numbers all seemed so easy, why their books would look so tidy and neat.   I just didn’t know why or how I was different.   I remember being made an example of and still hear the teacher’s words: “See, this is what happens when you don’t pay attention.”   I started to realise when all the other kids teased me about how I couldn’t do things and called me ‘Dumbie’ that there was something wrong with me.

I still loved running to school through the long grass BUT, when that bell rang I felt hopelessness.  If I could just listen, try harder, sit up straight, try and write on the lines, copy from the board, look at the numbers and letters properly, it would just happen.  I would be like the other kids; my work would be the same. 

I remember my 3^rd class teacher took us all out of the classroom to the oval, we were put into groups one person from each group was chosen to run to the end of the grass and back.  I remember hearing “Go” and I ran as fast as I ran to school, I remember visualising about beating the bus.  I won.  I heard, “Well done, good running”. I even heard: “WOW you’re fast”. My experiences out of the classroom were the ones I loved the best.

But in the back of my mind I wished that I could read, I wished that school was as easy as sport.  I remember hitting my head so hard and hoping that that might help me read or even remember things.

My school experience was all about avoidance of situations which humiliated me and made me feel dumb.  My school life came to an end when I was involved in an accident. I never returned to school.  

I married and had a family and when my kids had all moved on in their own lives, and things had changed in my own, I found myself needing to head out to work.  For me, this was the most frightening thing I had ever done.  I started looking in papers for tutoring but none of the ads helped adults.  I was looking for some help or something that would lead me to do something more with my own life.

 I was given a brochure on the Read Write Now Program.  I knew this was a chance but all the feelings came back, embarrassment of not having the knowledge, the feeling of being ashamed of what I had become was all still real for me.  I knew I had to make that phone call.  How many times did I pick the phone up?  I lost count.  I remember the phone range twice then I hung up, it took days for me to make the phone call.  When I made the call my hands were sweating, heart pumping and the words were coming out all wrong.  Liz spoke the words: “Hello, how can I help you?” I knew that this was where I was going to get help.  We spoke for a while and organised to meet at the local library.  The meeting for me was very emotional; we sat and talked through things that I had never felt safe to share with anyone.  Liz believed me.

The day came to meet my tutor Judy; this was someone I had to trust to help me, to expose all my feelings to.  We sat together and discussed how Judy could help me and worked out the best way she could teach me.  Together we worked on achieving my goals and slowly I began to improve. We explored part time work opportunities and sometimes we talked, just talked about how I was feeling but all the time moving forward and setting more goals.

I managed to get a job cleaning a house.  I realised I was still hiding and this was not going to pay my bills.  The people I cleaned for ran their own business and immediately after I told them about my situation, they offered me a job.  The word “Yes” came out of my mouth and I couldn’t believe what I had just done.  Straight away I began working out how I was going to hide being dyslexic.

Over the next few days I spent a few hours in the shop to familiarise myself with things. They had systems in place but I knew this was not going to work for me. I felt it only fair to let them know that I was dyslexic.  I asked to meet, and funnily enough I wasn’t nervous, more embarrassed. When I told them how things are for me and the differences between how I process things and how others process things they looked at me and said: “We can work with that, just let us know what you need and we’ll work around it.”  That was not what I was expecting to hear.  I had prepared myself for the talk, you know the one: “You’re a nice person, with a nice smile, but we’re looking for someone with…”

I left feeling numb; they were going to give me a shot.  I would be exposed to people asking me things I had no idea about.  I would be ordering, adding, reading, selling, and answering phones – things that all needed words.  I still have my job and two special bosses who always care; and I still catch up with my tutor Judy.

John's Story

On December 12, I went for a test for dyslexia - and I found out that I had it. It was a surprise, because I always thought I was dumb!

When I went to school, I found it very hard to learn.  I could not pick the sounds of all the letters. I did not understand why I never knew what was wrong - because at that age you don’t care about much. When I was at school, I could not pick what the teachers were saying, a lot of the time. I just thought it would come as I got older, but it never came.

When I got to high school, I could not read properly, so I got kept back for a year.  After that year, I was kept back. I still could not pick up the work, so I decided to sit at the back of the class, and hope I could get away without the teachers asking me any questions.

The only way I got away with the dyslexia for so long, is when I had to fill in papers, I used to tell people I had left my glasses at home and I could not see!  I ran my own butcher shop for twenty years, but my wife did all the paper work.  

One day when I was watching TV, I saw the number for Read Write Now! so I decided to contact them.  To my surprise, they were very friendly.  To this day, I am glad I did it. I have been doing it for six months and I am improving all the time.  I still find it a bit hard at work when I have to write people’s names, but it’s a lot easier to spell some of their names now.

My age was forty-nine when I found out I had dyslexia. It was a bit hard to take, but it was good to find out.   By forty-nine, you do not have any confidence left! I always look at what I’ve done and think that I would like to thank Julie. Because before I went to TAFE, I had no confidence in myself.   Julie has given me a lot of support. That is what everybody needs. Thank you very much for everything you have done for me. I’ll never forget that.