Spelling Dyslexia, 2006, by Evelyn Lear

From MemoryArchive

Who: Evelyn Lear
What: Obstacle
When: all the time
Where: Kentucky

For as long as I remember I’ve always done exceedingly well when it came to school, except for spelling test. When I was in first and second grade I did okay on most of the spelling tests because the words were short and easy. But as I got older and the words got increasingly harder, I missed more and more on every test.

I remember in fifth grade we had an opportunity to take a pre test on Thursday and if we got a 100 percent we didn’t have to take the test on Friday. Not once did I get a 100 percent. The words I missed were often ones with a lot of vowels, double constant, or with silent letters.

In 6th grade we got graded on our religion notebooks on things like accurate notes, spelling and legible handwriting. In the first quarter, I got a D. I was upset and I asked my mom why I couldn’t spell correctly. My mom and my older sister were both excellent spellers. She told me that all of my dad’s family had dyslexia and I probably did too.

What was dyslexia? I had never heard of that before. My mom explained it that what my eyes saw and my brain read were different. My eyes saw everything in the correct order, but my brain mixed up the letters, causing me to misspell them. That made perfect sense to me. I then knew why it was so hard for me to spell. My mom told me that this should not interfere with my grades; that I just need to try harder and work harder. SO I did. And on the next religion notebook I go a B. An excellent grade in my opinion.

Even today as a 9th grader I work harder to spell correctly. Writing this memory I have misspelled exceedingly, remember, accurate, and many others. But I have just accepted it and learned to spell dyslexia.