Dyslexic Friendly book

Many of you have been following my stories about Lochie.  I've also had many messages and emails asking when my book will be ready for release.  Spider and Bat IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRESALE!!

Spider and Bat is printed in Open Dyslexic font and is interesting enough to engage the intelligent dyslexic mind.  All Spider and Bat advententures have a personal development element.  As a qualified Youth Worker, I believe that all stories should encourge learning and discussion.

Lochie developed a strong fear, even hate of books when he was about 8.  To him, they were something all his friends could master, but he could not.   There are a few publishers now releasing novels in Open Dyslexic font which is fantastic, but I believe that a childrens book series can assist a dyslexic child before they become reluctant to read.

Spider and Bat is a flip book, meaning that reading from front to back it is in Open Dyslexic font.  Turn it to the back and read in normal text.  This means, if you have a dyslexic child, they can learn to read the Open Dyslexic font and you can read them the story in normal text.  Or, if you are a dyslexic parent, you can read to your child!

When Lochie read Spider and Bat for the first time, he looked up and said "This is amazing, the words dont move".  I just wish someone had developed something like this much earlier.

This book is the start of a series.  Available now for presale on http://www.p101.com.au/dyslexiaenhanced.htm.  In order for me to get these books printed and sent, I need to presell.

All of you that have encouraged me alog the way, this is now the time to support.  Please go check out the link.

Words hurt...

“A teacher sent the following note home with a six-year-old boy: “He is too stupid to learn.” That boy was Thomas A. Edison”.
- Thomas Edison


Teachers need to think about the power of their words.  Lochie was constantly told he wasn't trying.  It caused incredible frustrations for him. 
Imagine trying your hardest to run a race, absolutely making your body ache with pain and efforts.  Then having your coach turn around and tell you that you didn't try?
That is the same as telling a dsylexic that they aren't trying.  Lochie sees words move, flip, fade and change as he concentrates hard.  So hard that he makes his head hurt.  Then a teacher standing over you, telling you that you  haven't tried.

Imagine little Thomas Edison, six years old, trotting home from school with a note in his pocket to let his parents know that he is too stupid to learn.  What was he feeling?  How did he have the energy to get up each day and continue to learn and grow and develop into the icon that he is? 

Resilience.  It would be a wonderful world if we didn't need it but we do. 

Each word that passes your lips has the ability to spread joy or hurt.  Think carefully as your words could be poisen. 
 

Future aims

Ok so I've been blogging about Lochie's dyslexia for  while and have no idea if anyone reads or not.  For me, it has a way of debriefing some of the trauma I have felt over the past 15 years of Lochie's life.  As a Mum of a dyslexic child, I have felt shame, embarressment, and helplessness at the fact that there was "something" wrong with my child.  I have had people acuse my child of being stupid when in fact, he is highly intelligent.  Lochie has shared with me his feelings of dispair and also about times he has felt he wanted to self harm.  He disclosed to me that he actually did got to the railway line and consider laying on the tracks and waiting for a train to end his suffering at school.

Blogging is ok, but as I said, no idea if anyone reads it.  What I want to do, and Lochie has agreed to work with me, is write a book for parents and children who are suffering from dyslexia.  The book will be both a support and success story, as well as offering some great strategies that we used to get Lochie through those school years.

Dyslexia is a common problem and if you haven't lived it, you dont understand just how hard it can be.  So many successful people are dyslexic.  Richard Branson is one incredible person who has achieved such great successes.  He also admits that perhaps it was the dyslexia that assisted his mind to think outside the box and create solutions that others should have been able to see but didn't.

If you have read my blog and are interested in hearing more, please post a quick comment or email me at tracy@nutsup.com.au and Ill keep you informed on the progress of the book.  If I hear nothing, I will still write but probaby wont publish.  I am so excited that Lochie is going to work with me.  He says even though books make him feel sick to his stomach, he will do it in the hope that other kids wont have to feel so alone as he felt.  If we can stop one child feeling like he would rather lay on railroad tracks than face another day in school, it is worth it.

For me, I'm hoping to offer support to the parents who are supporting dyslexic children.  It is so incredibly hard and the feeling of being a failure and letting your kids down is so intense.  I'm wanting to let you know that you aren't alone and there are things you can learn from Lochie's story that will ease you and your child's suffering at school.

For teachers, please learn more about what these young people go though.  They often do become behaviour issues but they are struggling with so much.   A dyslexic child sometimes has to process 400 times the information as other kids just to read the same word.  They are exhausted, disempowered and feel so anxious and depressed.  Please expand your mind and gain understanding.

Ok so I guess Ill see if I hear from anyone.

Regards,
Tracy and Lochie

Maybe you need to rebirth him?

Lochie's frustrations at school increased over the last few years at Primary School.  I remember his grade 5 teacher calling me in for a chat. 
"he just can't sit still", she said.
"yes, the occupational therapist told me he has to move in order to stimulate his brain to learn and remember so no, he doesn't sit still", I told her.  It was all in his file, I wish I didnt have to continue to have the same conversation over and over.
"And you used to take him to babyshows?",  she asked.
"yes", geez where was this going?
She wasn't backward in saying what she thought.  "So, do you think that the babyshows was what caused all his problems?".
"No"
"Seems like he really hasn't developed like the other kids.  Have you considered rebirthing?"

What the?  Well I hadn't expected that one.  She then explained that there was a program for kids with behaviour or learning problems called Rebirthing.  The whole set up seemed pretty weird.  Lochie was ten at the time.  She explained it to me.  The child is covered with warm wet blankets and the mum puts pressure on the blanket so he feels like he is in a womb. Then the mother proceeds, with the help of the program facilitator, to "give birth" to the child as he tries to wriggle out the blanket whilst the mum and the facilitator press down on the blanket so it's hard for him.  The mum has to do all the breathing, and noises of pushing as the child emerges from the blanket as if he is being born again.  Apparently it all ends with the child feeling like he has a new begining of life and comes out without learning disability or behaiour issues. 

It may surprise you to hear, but I didn't take her advice.  Lochie wasn't in need of that, and I was more concerned about the damage that may cause.

Taking Lochie to school on his first day of grade six was traumatic.  He was ok until we tuned into the street. He broke down and sobbed.  He couldnt stop crying.  My normally happy, smiley little boy was in extreme distress.  I drove past the school and pulled over. 

"I can't do it Mum, Ill never be able to do grade six.  It's too hard.  Everyone else can do the work except for me."  I'd never seen him this upset. 

We drove home and he missed that first day.  We did a lot of talking, and preparing for the next day and he went off ok.  I was sick with stress, and obviously he was too, but better at hiding it.  I did wonder how he would survive the year.  What would happen the next year at high school? 


Lochie's nanna was a retired teacher.  He was lucky that she came up three days per week to help him get his literacy up to where it needed to be.  He loved the time with her and I think it really was good for her too.   A retired teacher needs to teach.  She loved it.

Her work wasn't in vain.  Lochie ended up doing his testing for high school and not qualifying for an aide.  So off he went to high school.   If we think we had trouble in primary school...I had no idea what I was in for at high school.

The Testing begins

The trip to the Dyslexia Centre was interesting.  The lady knew a lot about the difficulties Lochie was having.  She did a lot of tests on him including an IQ test which showed that he had extremely high IQ.

The testing too, a whole day and Lochie and I were exhausted at the end of it.  I paid the $800 and was told that the results would be posted to me in the next week.

The results arrived.  Two pages stating that Lochie was advanced socially, emotionally and had very high intelligence.  He was classified "severe dyslexic" on her scale.  I searched through the repoort again.  There was nothing in there that indicated any actions I or the school needed to take. 

I phoned the lady.  She said that she could only diagnose dyslexia, not fix it.  Fantastic, so now I had a child who was labelled, and apparently, unfixable.  

I began researching dyslexia.  The only information I found was about how difficult it was to diagnose properly as most children who had trouble reading, were diagnosed as dyslexic. 

Lochie was due to go into grade 2.  His teacher recommended he repeat, but the Principal said there is no point Lochie repeating because he would never "get it".  I decided to take Lochie to a new school.

I found Beaconsfield Primary.  There was nearly 1000 kids at his old school, and Beaconsfield only had 180 students.  I spoke at length to the Principal who was very understanding.  She suggested puting Lochie in a composite class where he would get the social interraction from the older kids but could do the work of the lower level.   I left feeling confident that Lochie would have the support he needed at Beaconsfield.

Lochie and his brothers all settled in quickly to the new school.  It was a well run school with a country feel.  After the first week, Lochies teacher asked if I would mind if she referred him for testing.  I agreed, but told her about the Dyxlexia Centre report.  She assured me that it was nothing like that so I signed the form and he was assessed the next week. 

Again, the scores came back that he was advanced in all ways except the ability to read and write.  The school immediately organised for occupational therapy sessions. 

The Occupational Therapist explained a lot about Lochie's condition which was extremely helpful to me.  She asked if Lochie crawled.  I explained about his colic and how he couldn't be left on the ground. She said that many of the kids she sees with learning disorders never crawled.  There are vital brain development processes that are stimulated by crawling.  Many dyslexic kids are also colic babies.  There is no clear research as to whether the dyslexia is caused by the lack of brain development, but it certainly seems to be a trend. 

The sessions consisted of Lochie working on letters.  We made letters in sand, with giant rope, with all different sensory things.  He jumped on a mini trampoline, then climbed ladders, then made the letters again. He couldn't do the same letter five minutes after he had just done it.  He had no recollection of what it looked like. 

Games with balls, and other tests on motor skills showed that Lochie had no preference for his left or right hand.  He also couldn't move one finger without the matching finger on the other hand moving in the same way.  As lovely as the therapist was, Lochie was now 8 years old and begining to work out that he was different to the other kids. 

Lochie began getting depessed from about grade 3.  His love was his football.  As one of the stars on  the team, they went through year after year as virtually undefeated.  Lochie was small, but an absolute gun on the field.  He had a lot of friends in football, school and the area in general, but he started hating school with a passion.   

Many mornings, he would lay in bed complaining of headaches or tummy aches.  As much as I knew it was stress related, I couldn't send him on those days.   Those days got closer and closer.  His grade three teacher suggested I take him to another centre.   This one cost me over $2000 and ended up with similar results.  Very clever kid, just wasn't wired right.  They gave him coloured glasses because reading black letters on white is the hardest to see, so he had blue tinged glasses. 

In this test Lochie said that when he looks at a page of writing he sees black wriggly lines (the words) and white rivers. I didn't understand that until he showed me.  He traced his little finger down the page gliding between the words in patterns that did look like water running down a window on a rainy day.  It was explained to me that when Lochie looks at a word, the letters are different each time, sometimes turning around, sometimes backwards, upsidedown, so his mind has to go through up to 400 processes to read one 3 letter word.  No wonder he was always tired. 

The glasses didn't help.  Having a tolerant teacher helped a bit, but Lochie would often come home crying with frustration that he couldn't do the work and felt stupid. 

The feeling of frustration didn't change through grade 4, 5 and 6.  He had a private tutor each day to help him through maths and english and was doing ok but it was still much harder for him than other kids. 

Although Lochie's teachers knew about his problem, the Emergency Teachers rarely did.  When they took over for the day, they were frustrated with a little boy who seemed clever, who refused to do any work.  One day it hit a point where the Releaving teacher told Lochie to stop being silly and do the worksheet.  Lochie threw a chair and a few other things and took off.  This was the start of his behaviour issues at school...

Maybe he just isn't bright

The first day of school, Lochie was bouncing out of his skin!  To finally be able to go with is brothers to this magical place of play equipment and friendly teachers and soooooo many kids to play with. 

He bounced into the room with barely a glance back.  Most of the kids knew him from sport or riding his bike with his brothers.  He also had been coming to drop off and pick up his brothers every day for the past 4 years too.  His teacher was a first year teacher and didn't openly favour him, but she obviously really liked him.  Full of confidence, I watched as he ran around, talking to everyone then off I went for my first day alone without him. 

The first couple of weeks went smoothly.  There were never any issues  with fights, or hating the teacher.  He was an extremely happy child.  As the year went on, he still managed to keep up with the colour in sheets, and other basic prep work.  He managed the readers.  Each day, a small group would read through a reader together and then they were expected to take the reader home and read it with a parent.  Lochie never faltered reading the reader.  I thought he was reading well. 

At the end of the year, Lochie had managed to pass all assessments and progressed to Grade 1.  His teacher was an older lady, with plenty of experience.  She didn't laugh when he was cheeky - she told him to settle down.  Loc wasn't as pleased with this one, but I was. 

After a few months, she asked to see me.  She had discovered that although Lochie did a great job of "reading" in the group, he actually had only memorised the book.  When she would ask him to point out a word, he had no idea.  He memorised every reader in the room and could recite them easily.  She also pointed out that he couldn't cut out things from paper.  She asked would I mind if she requested that the school get him assessed.  I said that was fine. 

On the way home from school one day, he said, "Mum, what does twenty four look like?".
"It has a two and then a four".  Hm, he though on that for a minute.
"Mum", he said, "is the two the one with the wiggly lines?" 
I looked at him.  He had no idea what a two or four looked like and he had been to school for a year and a half.  Thank goodness they were getting him tested.


The next week, the teacher called me in again.  The school had refused to get him tested as they didn't believe he had a problem.  She suggested I make an appointment with the Principal and trying to push it.  I made the appointment. 

I sat in the Principals office.  She looked down her nose at me.  "Goodness", she said, "you must have been so young when you had the boys".
"Yes," I said, "I had Lochie, my last one, when I was 23".
"Hmm" she said, looking at the papers from what I guessed was his file. "What is it that you want?"
"Well, I was hoping that we could arrange for Lochie to have some testing done.  He seems extremely clever verbally, but just can't do anything on paper.  He can't read, or write or even recognise numbers.  I'm really concerned".
She closed the file.  "Well, Tracy, it's not like your other children are Einstein.  They are average.  Maybe Lochie just isn't bright.  I don't think the school should spend the money on testing when I think he maybe just isn't all there".

I turned red.  If anyone said something like that to me now I'd bite their heads off, but I was a young mum and felt a little inadequate in front of this professional lady.  I thanked her then left. 

I rang my Mum in tears.  Mum used to be a teacher and couldn't believe the attitude of the Principal.  We researched and found a place called the Dyslexia Centre.  It was very expensive, but they said they could do a full assessment.  At least then I would know what I needed to be doing to help my son. 

Kindergarten....all ok....

Lochie went from being an adorable one year old, to my constant shadow until he went to kindergarten.  With two older brothers, Lochie was outgoing, friendly and tough.  He had no attachment to a blanket, dummy, toy or anything....welll, nothing except needing to constantly be holding my hair and rubbing it on his face. 
We had been through a tough time that first year, and had survived. 
When his brothers were at school, we spent our time visiting friends, going to babyshows, going roller skating with his cousin James and spending time with his nanna.  It was a  lovely time and there was never an inkling that anything may not be totally perfect.
He was small for his age and very cute.  Extremely good at any ball sport he played, particularly soccer and football, facing each situation with a fierce determination to win. 
Unlike most other kids, he enjoyed watching documentaries of history, animals, places, anything really.  He liked some cartoons, but got bored quickly of shows that usually kept kids entertained for hours like Sesame Street. 
One day, my eldest son, Trent was doing some practice for a quiz and I asked him the question "Who was the first man on the moon?"
Lochie come flying out of the next room and said "Stretch Armstrong!"  We laughed but the answer was pretty close considering he was only 4.  I began thinking I had a gifted child after that when he answered all the Grade 2 quiz questions correctly. 

At last it was time for Lochie to go to kinder.  I had to get him a specially made uniform because he was so tiny.  His outgoing personality and gorgeous looks made him a popular member of the group with teachers and other kids.  His self-esteem grew.  He was one of the best in his soccer team, and the most popular kid at kinder.  He was a really happy little boy with a huge smile. 

One day, when I was the Kinder Duty Mum, I noticed that Lochie was struggling whilst trying to cut out a shape from paper.  He was really handling the scissors awkwardly.  The Helper was assisting him but he was holding the scissors still and trying to manove the paper around....I cant really explain it but it certainly looked awkward.  He switched hands and it still didnt work.  In the end, Lochie screwed up the paper and went outside.  He looked really unhappy.  The thing he was cutting out was to make a special card for Grandparents day the following week. 

I spoke to him on the way home.  He cried and said that it was too hard he couldn't do it.  I explained that sometimes things aren't easy and we have to try again and again and practice to make it work.  He said, "I just couldn't do it".  

I spoke to the Kinder Teacher the following day. She said that Lochie avoids painting, drawing or cutting usually but he really wanted to make the special thing for his Nanna.  She said that it wasn't an issue or anything, but Lochie also couldnt write his name and that was a little behind the other kids.  Hm, I thought.  Odd because he was so quick at everything else, but, oh well, you can't be good at everything. 

At the end of the kinder year, Lochie's teacher said that he would benefit from repeating the year because he was a little behind with writing and cutting etc.  But, due to his advanced social skills, this would impact dramatically on his self esteem so he happily progressed off to school with all of his friends. 

When I remember that year, I almost get tears.  The first few years were full of happy times, no stress, just fun.  All the boys played together well, they are all best mates.  None of them had any worries. 

The next year, when Lochie started school, all his troubles began.

It all began...

Lochie was born when I was 23.  He was my third child, all boys.  It was a difficult birth, and when the midwife put the squirming little screaming bundle into my arms, I waited for the moment when he would look up at me and stop crying, happy to be in his mothers arms.  I had that moment with his brothers.  When they were handed to me, the screams stopped and they looked up at me. Happy to have been brought into the world. 
Lochie, was another story.  He didn't stop screaming.  I looked helplessly at the midwife, who looked at my husband.  The only thing anyone could say was "wow, he certainly has great lungs because that is one loud scream".

Born only 3 days late, and weighing 7 pound 14 ounces, Lochie wasn't the cutest of babies.  He was very skinny.  The doctor put it down to the fact that I had been quite ill in the last two months of pregnancy and he had not put on the fat that babies usually do.  It was hard to really see what he looked like because it was so rare for him not to be crying at the top of his lungs.  Feeding was difficult because it was hard to try to force him to drink between screams.  But, the midwives weren't concerned and bundled me off home after one day. 

Before I had Lochie, I was loaded with confidence.  My first two children, Trent and Haydn were very good looking and had been extremely easy babies. They ate when they were supposed to, slept through the night.   I thought it was because I was an amazing mum and must have done everything right.  Wow, I found out pretty quick that perhaps I had been lucky with them.  Loc just didn't tow the same line.

After many attempts, I found that holding Lochie across my arm on his tummy seemed to settle him long enough to have a short sleep.  Unfortunately, I could only hold him in this position if I was standing.  If I sat, or tried to lay down with him, he would start up the screaming again.  After 6 weeks, I was a zombie. 

My family were happy to mind the other two boys but nobody would take Lochie, not even for an hour.  He was my screaming little bundle and I'm not sure I know how I managed to survive the year.  I knew he only screamed because he had colic but geez the noise was terrible.  I felt so sorry for my little Loc and bought and did anything that was suggested but nothing worked. 

Yes, it was a whole year before he stopped screaming.  He could never be left on the ground because his screams were so intense, so Bubby Loc never learned to crawl.  On his first birthday, his uncle came over the held his hands and made him walk.  From then, he was happy.  The doctors said that maybe walking straightened out his intestines and relieved the colic.  It doesn't really matter because I had a toddler with an angel face and disposition to match.

Lochie and I, it seemed, had overcome a huge obstacle.  We survived an entire year of colic.   Little did we know that the biggest obstacle was to come.