Reading Through Colour

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

"My name is Sam ____. I am now 14 years and 4 months old. This is my story.

"All my life I have been unable to see clear text.

"This is normal for me.

"I thought that everybody saw the same thing as me.

"I had to memorise everything that I wrote instead of going back and re-reading it.

"This was because I couldn't read my writing either.

"Nobody asked me if I had trouble reading or writing.

"I was kept in at playtimes and told to do lines.

"The older I got the harder writing became because I had to write more and more.

"I could not cope with the amount of writing.

"I felt let down and stupid because I couldn't do all the work that everyone else was doing easily.

"I gave up. I didn't know how to do the things that other people could do. I didn't know why.

"I was always exhausted when I came home from school.

"I often had headaches.

"This kept on happening to me until I had an eye exam that changed my life.

"I was due for an eye examination and went to a new optician.

"My mum told him that I was dyslexic and the optician offered a coloured overlay test.

"That test changed my life.

"I would never be the same again.

"The coloured overlay test came out positive!!!

"It was the mostimportant moment of my life.

"For the first time in my life I could see text clear as glass.

"I was astounded.

"I looked at the page stunned.

"All I could think to say was 'How did it do that?'

"It was not easy to use the overlays because they made my headaches worse.

"Once I got my lenses the headaches disappeared.

"My life has been a lot easier because of them.

"Now my mum cannot stop me reading.

"I have become addicted to it.

"From being a person who refused to read I now plead with mum to take me to the library every weekend.

"I now feel happier and my self-confidence has increased."

Sam's mother continues the story

"Sam has always had good reports from school, but, from Reception, they always said that he could try harder with his writing. His teachers kept him in at playtimes to complete copying from the board, and I've lost track of the dinnertime playtimes he missed too, to complete work.

"His Primary School teachers always did their best for him, gave the extra support he obviously needed, and we worked closely together to support Sam, using the same strategies and practising skills. But, by the end of his primary school career, Sam was behind with his writing skills. He struggled to organise stories, couldn't decide what to put in reports, and his spelling was very strange, very phonic. No one could tell us what the hold-up was. Tests indicated he was between the high and low parameters, fairly normal, and nothing showed up. He sometimes had headaches and was always exhausted when he came home from school.

"I was sufficiently concerned about Sam's writing progress to visit his new High School and discuss this with his English teacher who was also Sam's form tutor. 'Don't worry,' he said. I asked for a syllabus or some curriculum notes per term, so I could work at home with Sam and support the particular things he would be working on. Nothing was sent home. We struggled.

"Year 7 parents' evening arrived. All Sam's teachers said they were happy with the progress he was making, but highlighted writing as a difficulty. They said Sam was lazy. In his End of Year 7 Report, every academic subject teacher noted that writing was something Sam struggled with. Avoidance tactics were also mentioned. I was concerned. Sam still had headaches and continued to be too tired to concentrate on homework.

"He came home from school one Thursday night, and said, 'My teacher said I'm dyslexic, but it's OK, I'm university material.' Sam is bright. I went to see the teacher who had tested my son and asked what kind of support he would get. 'Nothing,' she said. 'His scores aren't low enough to warrant intervention. Sam's lucky, he has a mum who's a teacher and knows how to help him.' I was to get terribly tired of hearing those words. I insisted that something be done.

"Sam had learning support for the rest of Year 8. He was taken out of English and Maths lessons for half of two lessons per week for a whole year. Homework was given out at the end of these lessons, and no one made sure Sam knew what the homework was. He got detentions for not handing it in. No information was sent home. We continued to struggle to support Sam with no focus.

"As a teacher myself, I believed that the tests Sam had had were correct in their diagnosis. They were. But they were not testing for the right thing. Conventional school testing does not show up all difficulties.

"I have done my share of hair-tearing, ranting in frustration, and shouting at him. I even told him - like his teachers - that he was bone idle and didn't want to work when he didn't want to do his homework. The rows were epic. Sam sometimes just looked at me. He believed every word I said to him. He didn't know any better, and neither did I.

"I became more concerned about the headaches, which sometimes were severe enough to make Sam distressed. He sometimes slept them off. I thought they were migraine.

"Year 9 dawned, and Sam received no support for his writing at all. I was a more frequent visitor to school, but nothing was done. That phrase, 'not low enough to warrant intervention ...' was used a lot. A little information and revision notes were sent home, but I still struggled to support Sam without curriculum focus on particular parts of the term.

"Easter 2001 arrived. Sam was overdue for an eye examination, so I booked him in with opticians new to us. I told them Sam was dyslexic, and they offered a coloured overlay test.

"It changed his life in seconds.

"Two weeks before his 14th birthday, Sam saw text on the whole page for the very first time. I have never seen a child so excited. He couldn't speak. It took his breath away. He said, 'Mum, is that what you see when you read? No wonder you can read so fast. I'm not thick. It's just like magic.'

"Sam brought the overlays home and left them in the kitchen on the worktop by the door, over an open book. He kept wandering into the room, looking at them, playing with them on and off the book, saying, 'I can't believe they do that' and shaking his head. We couldn't see it, the magic only worked for him. It took him a while to get used to using the overlays, but once he did he started to read more often, his confidence grew and then he couldn't stop. The headaches seemed to get more frequent.

"School were informed about the use of the overlays for reading only. His teachers were astounded when I told them about Sam's condition, but pleased that it had been discovered. Sam had to decide when to use them, but there was confusion. Teachers felt that he should be using them all the time.

"The overlays worked for reading Sam's own writing too. The first day he came home from school after the Easter holiday he said, 'Mum, my writing is appalling! My poor teachers, having to read that!' He had never seen a whole page of it before. There was a whole new world out there.

"Sam had the double green overlays for six weeks, then had lenses tinted dark green. The optician corrected a slight long-sightedness to compensate for the coloured lenses and to help stop the headaches. They have gone now. Sam uses the lenses at his discretion. The optician explained that if he felt he didn't need to wear them he didn't have to. Wrong use could damage his eyesight just like wrong use of any glasses (i.e., as sunglasses, for drawing, etc.), and sometimes he doesn't use them at all for short pieces of reading. Science and Maths are the two subjects we are often told he rarely wears his glasses in.

"He can copy from the blackboard properly now. He doesn't lose his place anymore and spends far less time finding where he is and more time working.

"Teachers still don't fully understand the implications and have no idea about visual stress; some teachers think he has to wear his glasses all the time, and still the school refuse to offer support for the dyslexia. They have, however, said they will reluctantly give him some educational psychologist time. We have had no other information about this to date.

"To be fair to them, I feel that they have never come across a child like Sam, and they are genuinely puzzled as to what to do about him. He is bright, and the difficulties he has along with their solutions are now being assimilated into the life of the school. It is a huge learning curve for all of us, but Sam will reap the benefits.

"As a special needs teacher myself, I had asked Sam what he could see when he read; all the usual questions I would ask my pupils ... 'Do the words jump about on the page, swim around, join together into one black blob, etc?' No, they didn't. I never asked if the whole page was a big blurry blob, though I wish I had, for that's what Sam sees when he looks at a page of text. He can focus on roughly three words at a time, and that's how he managed to slip through the net. Three words at a time were enough to hide the real difficulty.

"He never said anything because it was normal for him. He thought everyone could see the same as him, and he was just thick for not being able to read faster. It is testament to his hard work, intelligence, staying power, and use of coping strategies that he has made so much progress when he has had such limited vision for text.

"Sam continues to learn, he even does his homework willingly (some of the time!). And does he read? He now never stops. From not wanting to read at all, we now have to take his glasses away sometimes when we go to bed, because if he is reading an exciting book, he doesn't want to put it down.

"Now that's the real magic of coloured lenses, they're the doorway into a whole new magical world: one that never existed for Sam before."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Reading Through Colour by Arnold Wilkins Excerpted by permission.
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