The Gift of Dyslexia
September 4th 2010 09:10
Original Creative Writing:
Ronald D Davis
The gift of Dyslexia
by Ronald D. Davis
I am dyslexic. It has meant a childhood of remedial reading classes and lots and lots of handwriting sessions where I had to train myself not to mirror write. Yes, mirror write. I am left with a strange ability to read in a mirror and write backwards if I need to - those are two of my natural talents, much to the annoyance of some who really struggle to write backwards.
I am not making a joke - there seem to be a lot of people who, once they see me do it, really want to be able to pick up a pen and just do it themselves.
Not quite sure why, beyond the obvious - if you ever were to send a postcard to Alice through the looking glass, well I'd expect it would need to be written in reverse.
There are no easy answers to the condition, and it manifests differently at different levels with different people. The thing that always troubled me (a published journalist and playwright, among other things) was the way teachers and specialists would project all sorts of doom and gloom onto me because of this oddity. In fact it's no big deal at my ripe old age, and sometimes it is quite amusing to discover something because I'm seeing it in a reverse way to the way it was intended. The discovery may be meaningful, or it may just be a strange little thing that is slightly amusing. One example is reading subtitles or surtitles at the opera or the movies where there is some kind of repetition - quite often in opera - and I will 'notice' the same line displayed three different ways, and they all have meaning - while everyone else is seeing one line repeated three times. "My darling child", "Child my darling", "Darling my child", is one example I recall. My personal experience is literally seeing the repetition in these differing ways - my companion assures me it was simply a reition of the same line three times.
So my brain is seeing it differently.
This does not need to be a problem once the individual is aware of it.
According to Ronald D. Davis it is actually an edge to be capitalised on, and I must agree. Many creative individuals have one or another form of dyslexia. It manifests in many ways, and is essentially a way of seeing, or to put a finer point on it - a way the brain interprets what we are seeing. The majority will always rise to the front and correct you, usually with a bit of a laugh or some level of incredulity. An example of this in my life is rehearsing a play and getting a line consistently around the wrong way. The director or one of the other actors will always tell me - that's not right! You keep doing that!
They will sometimes suggest it is deliberate on my part, and all I can do is politely apologise for my dyslexic brain. Those without any real insight into the problem are the ones who then point and say "It's deliberate, stop doing it," and they are among the ones who should get a look at this book.
As a playwright I have written dialogue sometimes that I've put down in a backward way, and an actor has said "This doesn't make sense" and I've corrected it - in other cases it does make sense and just sounds a little circular.
In the end it is all due to the way I and other dyslexics tend to see things and interpret them differently from the pack. Nothing really wrong with that if you accept it is a gift as Davis suggests. I've always thought it was a gift, one I wished I could return at times, and then, at other times something I am really pleased to have because it provides a broader perspective. You see I can see things correctly and in the right flow as well - so I sometimes am questioning something, only to discover it is right, and should be the way I am seeing it, even thought the way I am seeing it seems not quite right? Confused?
Welcome to the fraught world of dyslexia.
The answer to dyslexia is learning to appreciate it, as I feel I have done, but there are many ways to train the brain around the problem, and none of them 'remedial reading classes'. We use punctuation in writing to provide the reader with meaning and symbols that convey points.
"He sat on the fence," she said.
I nodded.
"Then he jumped off of it, and bolted into the garden!"
I looked towards the garden.
We both agree, you and I, on what is happening here. Someone is telling someone something. Simple. If we look at it without the punctuation it is not so clear.
He sat on the fence she said I nodded then he jumped off it and bolted into the garden I looked towards the garden
Without the punctuation it becomes less obvious. The message needs clarification. It requires the guidelines we all have a grasp of to some degree - grammar, punctuation.
We see this and know it is incorrect because it does not comply with grammatical rules. So to try and describe to someone who is not dyslexic, what is it like to be dyslexic, show them some writing without the punctuation. Sense can still be made of the words; it simply requires more focus and careful reading. It also requires an understanding of the rules.
Davis provides ways of assisting the dyslexic to see things more clearly. Small exercises that help the individual locate the images required to understand what's in front of them. There is a lot of recently discovered information about the brain and it's cognitive functions included in between the lines. When I was a kid, it wasn't really understood that a dyslexic is seeing things in images, even words as mind-images, (not an image of what the word describes, but an image of the word) and has to find ways of locking them down into clearer meaning. I saw letters of the alphabet backwards - probably because I really loved the idea of reading and writing and my creative brain (the side of my brain that is creative) was trying to own the concept of using letters to build words. Obviously I wanted to say something creative with the alphabet.
My dyslexia was overcomplicating the process by breaking it down too much and at the same time storing possibilities of what these letters could look like in order to represent words. Tricky huh?
It is not deliberate of me to remember the sequence of events in a backward way. I can see the outcome of some action in my mind's eye. Sometimes I see the outcome before the rational mathematical process is complete. Again, I expect this will just make some people scratch their head and think "What?"
To me it makes a very clear and logical sense on an interpretive level, but I know I am running the risk of seeming to jump the gun or put the cart before the horse, and to that I would suggest that the horse probably needs to see the cart before it, before it is able to acknowledge what it is expected to do, in relation to the cart.
Yes, it is semantics. It is semantics in the sense that words and meanings and concepts are less solid in my brain, or rather, they are more fluid. I have a little control over it, but not complete control. I can (and do) take things step by step, and stick to the usual way of seeing, but I don't necessarily know at a glance which is the way it is usually seen.
Enough about me - let's get back to this great little book. Davis explains the problems more clearly than I think I can, so if you are really curious, or indeed if you are dyslexic or have a person in your charge who is showing signs of slow learning, mirror writing or just not quite grasping the simple line of something, it may well be they are dyslexic to some degree.
As Davis suggests, it does not need to be a big life destroying drama. It can be worked with very well, and improvements are not impossible. Simple things to do at home are really well presented, and they do not require more than a little time and energy - well, obviously you need the book to know what they are and how to do them.
In the end the main message is not to try and force a round peg into a square hole, or sit a round peg in a square hole expecting it to fill all the gaps.
I think it is a book worth reading by anyone trying to teach reading and writing. The main positive about the book is that it does not seek to damn or belittle the dyslexic, it encourages the acceptance and celebration of the condition - many artists, communicators and scientists are actually dyslexic.
Often it the disability to see the usual way that provides them with a path to seeing something in a new and equally workable way. To some this is innovation - probably everyone who has ever had to sit through a remedial reading class where you are asked to speak each word syllable by syllable and expected to understand the sentence by the time you have done that.
It may so u nd fun dam ent ally sim ple, but be li eve me for so me one with the con dit ion of dys lex ia this sys tem of im pro vem ent can be in fur i at ing ly co nfu si ng and si mp ly put th e read er o ff fo r li fe.
Check out these websites for more:
dyslexiapacific.co.nz
www.dyslexia-australia.com.au
by Ronald D. Davis
I am dyslexic. It has meant a childhood of remedial reading classes and lots and lots of handwriting sessions where I had to train myself not to mirror write. Yes, mirror write. I am left with a strange ability to read in a mirror and write backwards if I need to - those are two of my natural talents, much to the annoyance of some who really struggle to write backwards.
Not quite sure why, beyond the obvious - if you ever were to send a postcard to Alice through the looking glass, well I'd expect it would need to be written in reverse.
There are no easy answers to the condition, and it manifests differently at different levels with different people. The thing that always troubled me (a published journalist and playwright, among other things) was the way teachers and specialists would project all sorts of doom and gloom onto me because of this oddity. In fact it's no big deal at my ripe old age, and sometimes it is quite amusing to discover something because I'm seeing it in a reverse way to the way it was intended. The discovery may be meaningful, or it may just be a strange little thing that is slightly amusing. One example is reading subtitles or surtitles at the opera or the movies where there is some kind of repetition - quite often in opera - and I will 'notice' the same line displayed three different ways, and they all have meaning - while everyone else is seeing one line repeated three times. "My darling child", "Child my darling", "Darling my child", is one example I recall. My personal experience is literally seeing the repetition in these differing ways - my companion assures me it was simply a reition of the same line three times.
So my brain is seeing it differently.
This does not need to be a problem once the individual is aware of it.
According to Ronald D. Davis it is actually an edge to be capitalised on, and I must agree. Many creative individuals have one or another form of dyslexia. It manifests in many ways, and is essentially a way of seeing, or to put a finer point on it - a way the brain interprets what we are seeing. The majority will always rise to the front and correct you, usually with a bit of a laugh or some level of incredulity. An example of this in my life is rehearsing a play and getting a line consistently around the wrong way. The director or one of the other actors will always tell me - that's not right! You keep doing that!
They will sometimes suggest it is deliberate on my part, and all I can do is politely apologise for my dyslexic brain. Those without any real insight into the problem are the ones who then point and say "It's deliberate, stop doing it," and they are among the ones who should get a look at this book.
As a playwright I have written dialogue sometimes that I've put down in a backward way, and an actor has said "This doesn't make sense" and I've corrected it - in other cases it does make sense and just sounds a little circular.
In the end it is all due to the way I and other dyslexics tend to see things and interpret them differently from the pack. Nothing really wrong with that if you accept it is a gift as Davis suggests. I've always thought it was a gift, one I wished I could return at times, and then, at other times something I am really pleased to have because it provides a broader perspective. You see I can see things correctly and in the right flow as well - so I sometimes am questioning something, only to discover it is right, and should be the way I am seeing it, even thought the way I am seeing it seems not quite right? Confused?
Welcome to the fraught world of dyslexia.
The answer to dyslexia is learning to appreciate it, as I feel I have done, but there are many ways to train the brain around the problem, and none of them 'remedial reading classes'. We use punctuation in writing to provide the reader with meaning and symbols that convey points.
"He sat on the fence," she said.
I nodded.
"Then he jumped off of it, and bolted into the garden!"
I looked towards the garden.
We both agree, you and I, on what is happening here. Someone is telling someone something. Simple. If we look at it without the punctuation it is not so clear.
He sat on the fence she said I nodded then he jumped off it and bolted into the garden I looked towards the garden
Without the punctuation it becomes less obvious. The message needs clarification. It requires the guidelines we all have a grasp of to some degree - grammar, punctuation.
We see this and know it is incorrect because it does not comply with grammatical rules. So to try and describe to someone who is not dyslexic, what is it like to be dyslexic, show them some writing without the punctuation. Sense can still be made of the words; it simply requires more focus and careful reading. It also requires an understanding of the rules.
Davis provides ways of assisting the dyslexic to see things more clearly. Small exercises that help the individual locate the images required to understand what's in front of them. There is a lot of recently discovered information about the brain and it's cognitive functions included in between the lines. When I was a kid, it wasn't really understood that a dyslexic is seeing things in images, even words as mind-images, (not an image of what the word describes, but an image of the word) and has to find ways of locking them down into clearer meaning. I saw letters of the alphabet backwards - probably because I really loved the idea of reading and writing and my creative brain (the side of my brain that is creative) was trying to own the concept of using letters to build words. Obviously I wanted to say something creative with the alphabet.
My dyslexia was overcomplicating the process by breaking it down too much and at the same time storing possibilities of what these letters could look like in order to represent words. Tricky huh?
It is not deliberate of me to remember the sequence of events in a backward way. I can see the outcome of some action in my mind's eye. Sometimes I see the outcome before the rational mathematical process is complete. Again, I expect this will just make some people scratch their head and think "What?"
To me it makes a very clear and logical sense on an interpretive level, but I know I am running the risk of seeming to jump the gun or put the cart before the horse, and to that I would suggest that the horse probably needs to see the cart before it, before it is able to acknowledge what it is expected to do, in relation to the cart.
Yes, it is semantics. It is semantics in the sense that words and meanings and concepts are less solid in my brain, or rather, they are more fluid. I have a little control over it, but not complete control. I can (and do) take things step by step, and stick to the usual way of seeing, but I don't necessarily know at a glance which is the way it is usually seen.
Enough about me - let's get back to this great little book. Davis explains the problems more clearly than I think I can, so if you are really curious, or indeed if you are dyslexic or have a person in your charge who is showing signs of slow learning, mirror writing or just not quite grasping the simple line of something, it may well be they are dyslexic to some degree.
As Davis suggests, it does not need to be a big life destroying drama. It can be worked with very well, and improvements are not impossible. Simple things to do at home are really well presented, and they do not require more than a little time and energy - well, obviously you need the book to know what they are and how to do them.
In the end the main message is not to try and force a round peg into a square hole, or sit a round peg in a square hole expecting it to fill all the gaps.
I think it is a book worth reading by anyone trying to teach reading and writing. The main positive about the book is that it does not seek to damn or belittle the dyslexic, it encourages the acceptance and celebration of the condition - many artists, communicators and scientists are actually dyslexic.
Often it the disability to see the usual way that provides them with a path to seeing something in a new and equally workable way. To some this is innovation - probably everyone who has ever had to sit through a remedial reading class where you are asked to speak each word syllable by syllable and expected to understand the sentence by the time you have done that.
It may so u nd fun dam ent ally sim ple, but be li eve me for so me one with the con dit ion of dys lex ia this sys tem of im pro vem ent can be in fur i at ing ly co nfu si ng and si mp ly put th e read er o ff fo r li fe.
Check out these websites for more:
dyslexiapacific.co.nz
www.dyslexia-australia.com.au
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