Presley Marie

We had a revelation at school with Presley this year. She was diagnosed with Dyslexia. At first it was a hard pill to swallow. Like we really needed "one more thing on our plate". Why Presley? She is our easy one. This is going to affect her for the rest of her life. Things are going to be more challenging for her. I remember her teacher saying "this is a good thing". I thought she was off her rocker....

After a semester of knowing, I now understand what she was saying. Since Kindergarten, we have always struggled with reading, writing and spelling. She is our first to learn all of this so we didn't know any different. Presley would cry, not wanting to do her homework. She would read books and get simple words wrong. She had the hardest time with her "W" words. It was frustrating for all of us. She would make good grades on spelling tests, but we have to work SO HARD. On the other hand, she loves math and would breeze through that homework no problem. And because of her love for Math, dyslexia was completely off of our radar. Since then, we have now learned that dyslexia isn't seeing numbers and letters backwards. It is so much more. The words get jumbled up as they read. They can see a word perfectly normal one time and the next it looks completely foreign. When we read with Presley after her diagnosis it all made so much more sense.

So back to the "good thing(s)"...it turns out that Frisco ISD has an amazing dyslexia program. We met with the assistant principal and her teacher (who both happen to be dyslexic), as well as a diagnostician and a dyslexia teacher to understand the diagnosis better and to learn about her new accommodations. She no longer loses points if she misspells something which improves her grades. Her teacher can read her assignments to her if needed. We can opt out of spelling tests, but I chose not to. I think that it is a good lesson for Presley to know that if she works hard at something she can succeed. In reality, she just memorizes the words and then forgets them. This is a life long diagnosis; however, she will get accommodations through college.

In this process, we realized that Mikey is dyslexic. He always had trouble with things but was never formally diagnosed. It is hereditary and actually pretty common. Now we know to keep a closer eye on Bentley as he learns to read. Oh and another "cool thing" is that during Presley's evaluation, we learned that she has a higher than normal IQ!

Presley started the dyslexia program at the beginning of the spring semester. The "good thing" about her diagnosis is now we have an answer to why she was struggling and she is getting the help she needs. She is pulled from class during her writing time. I think she thrives on the "special attention" and she is learning to read and write in a way that accommodates her struggles. She is learning to write in cursive and she has extra homework every night with different word sounds and handwriting. She did amazing her first semester. I already see an improvement on her impromptu reading. She even volunteered to read out loud in her bible study. The program is two years so she will complete it while still in elementary and hopefully she will have the tools she needs to be successful in this life with dyslexia. We are so proud of how far she has come. I put this very special reading nook in her room for our very special and smart girl!