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Dyslexic Renegade
By Leia Schwartz AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2015 Leia Schwartz
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4969-7001-5
CHAPTER 1
I used to like school but then I started to not do so well in school. I tried really hard and I did all my homework and classwork.
I was failing all my tests. I didn't like getting them back because everyone did better than me. People were telling me that I am really smart and bright but I did not feel so smart and bright. I hated bringing home my failing tests because it showed I really was not smart and bright.
I cried. I couldn't understand why I was failing. That made me feel upset and like I couldn't do anything right. Have you ever felt like this? I know some people feel like this but I feel like this all the time.
My parents went to my school and talked to my teachers and my teachers said "Leia is holding her own." I wasn't sure what that meant. My parents explained that it meant I was doing OK.
So I continued to do my classwork and homework and to try my best. Homework was hard for me. I cried every time I had to do my homework. I was frustrated. My mom and dad were frustrated.
Every day after school my mom and I would talk about all the things I learned in school. I liked telling her the names of the bones we learned in science and the yucky facts about spiders. I liked telling her about dissecting the owl pellets and that bones in them tell us what owls eat. I liked telling her about the math trick for multiplying by nines. My mom liked hearing everything about my day. She said that my days sound interesting and like I'm learning a lot. I was happy and I felt smart talking to her.
I felt not smart and bright again. I was embarrassed. I did not want to show my parents my tests but I had to. They had to sign them. They always said the same thing. They said, "Why are you so upset with a number on a piece of paper? It doesn't show how smart you really are. Let's look at what you do know!"
We would review the tests. It turns out I knew the answers and I would answer them correctly when she read the questions to me. My mom noticed I was confusing my 5s with 2s and 9s with 6s. Sometimes I would get the numbers wrong but I did know what to do with the math problems!
In reading, I would actually not read everything on the page. I would look at the first letter and then guess the word. That was my secret. I hated getting called on to read in class.
My mom noticed this and took me to a doctor called a neurologist. He talked to me and had me read, write, do certain puzzles and do some exercises. He said I show signs of being dyslexic and have to go to a different doctor to tell for sure. Dyslexia sounded scary. I thought I had a scary disease.
So I went to the other doctor. I did all sorts of activities for two whole days. Some were fun and some were easy and some were hard.
I liked this doctor a lot. She was nice and understanding and explained that not everyone knows everything. She told me she wanted to see how I read, write and solve problems. She told me that I was "articulate" and I didn't know what that meant. I learned it means that I express myself very clearly. All these activities made me tired.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Dyslexic Renegade by Leia Schwartz. Copyright © 2015 Leia Schwartz. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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