I am a mother who is schooling my two girls at home. My oldest daughter caught on to reading so fast I had no clue what it was actually like to have to teach it. I used the book 100 easy lessons and it went swimmingly. She was pretty much on her own at age 5. Off like a shot so to speak. I had no clue what was coming next.

Kid number two's turn, tried to teach her starting at around 5 as well. Why not, seeing as it is so easy. Nope! hard! Need to wait! It is clear she can't get this yet. No worries 5 is early and all. Try again every half year or so. Drop the reading for a bit as "it will click when it does and so no need to push."

At least lets get her started on numbers. No big deal their either, right? Wrong! Why on earth are the digits after ten not called onedy one, ondey two, ondey three, and so on? How is a child supposed to remember that after 9 comes 10 and after 29 comes 30 and so on? Doesn't it just keep being twenty something, or thirty something? And now you want to tell her that there are going to be 3 digits after 99? And what is a digit even? Okay, Maybe she can count, now lets count by 2's....What is this foreign thing being taught? A whole new number concept? This has nothing to do with the other numbers does it. This is a whole new number system to her mind.

Okay, we can get this but I guess we are going to struggle with both math and reading. I know why with reading. I had a guess early on but it is becoming clearer as the years trickle by. It would make sense after all. I have always known that I am dyslexic. I know that I will read a passage, and have to go back to re-read because what I came up with from my reading makes not a lick of sense. But this thing, this dyslexia thing is an enigma to me.

I know I have seen letters flip. I know words will totally change their form right before my eyes. I know that it takes me more than double the time to read something that my husband actually just consumes with his eyes in a way that is beyond my comprehension. My spelling is an atrocity. So bad in fact that often spell check can't even decipher what I am trying to get at. I can spell a word fifty times in a week and still have no clue how to get it right the next time. And now that I have looked it up fifty times I am totally confused. But that's it right? Nothing more. I read slow, struggle to spell and so there it is.

But.... But now I am learning what this thing is. I am learning that there are levels of severity. This does not just have to do with reading and what you "see." This is a matter of how the brain is dealing with language as a whole. This is a processing thing. Something that affects all manners of mind things.

Why can't my girl remember the names of the numbers? Language processing! Why can she still not spell her name? Wrote memory. Trouble tying her shoes or following directions? Directionality difficulties.

And the list goes on. So many things that we were confused about, things she just could not pick up easily or at all are finally explained under this one umbrella. The list of things that can be affected by a dyslexic mind is a lot longer than I had ever known.

I am starting to think that I might need to spill me thoughts out on paper for awhile and this might be the form of how I do that. You see it is a lot to take in and the things I am learning is having an affect on how I look at her mind and even my own.

So here goes. Here is the start to something new. Again.