I can’t resist a good story. If I could read morning, day and night, I would. Oddly enough, the mechanics of reading were difficult for me to master. My reading speed was, and still is, far below average. Most kids with these difficulties grow to hate reading, but for whatever reason, I was a persistent, voracious reader. In fact, aside from the pace, I was reading at a high school level in elementary school. My family saw me reading and discussing challenging books from an early age, and thought it was easy for me. I did everything I could to disguise my reading problems because I thought they were my fault. I thought I was lazy, crazy and stupid. This caused me trouble in school. In class I’d get sick to my stomach. I’d start dropping things on the floor, bumping at the legs of my desk, or tearing at the pages of my book until my teacher got mad.
Understanding the way my brain works, or my particular (and sometimes peculiar) cognitive style has cleared up a lot of confusion for me. I’m learning to be patient with myself, and I’m at peace with my cognitive style; I’m even grateful for it. If I could read faster I would understand less of what I read. When I take the time to weave my way across the page and between the lines of a book the stories stay with me. This makes me happy.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: adhd, ld, learning disability, reading
