Reading
As with writing, reading is a big part of most people’s daily life. My personal experiences with reading have never been excessively troublesome once I’d got my coping strategies in place. I’d never claim to be the strongest person out there at reading, but by no means am I weak. As I’ve aged I’ve moved away from reading for pleasure, as lack of imagination makes it difficult for me to enjoy it as a pastime. Be that as it may, if there is anyone who enjoys reading but struggles, it would be a huge shame for them to miss out, so hopefully what I’ve learned may be of some use.
Pronunciation of words
At a young age everyone will encounter lots of new words as part of their learning process, which is easily enough overcome if there is someone there who can assist in sounding out the new word and giving an explanation of what it means. That situation wasn’t always possible though, so I had to think of a way around that. The first thing I would do to try to understand how a word would be pronounced was to look at the first few letters of it, I’d then try to relate those to words that I already knew. That would often help me work out how to start the word. I’d then try and related the remaining letters to words I already knew of and then piece them together. It was a little trial and error as to getting the word right, but generally through sounding the word out in different ways I could pick out the correct one.
Meanings of words
If you’re reading this and thinking you’d use a dictionary to find them, it would be the best idea, but it would also make this section awfully small lol. I’m including this because as a child I’d often come across words that I’d not previously encountered. As I’d never seen them before I didn’t know their use within a sentence. The way I attempted to understand their meaning was to read the sentence up to and after the word. I’d then read another sentence so I had a few sentences to work with. Thinking about what I’d just read, I’d try to find any linking information that would give me a clue as to the words meaning.
An example of this would be;
The farmer went to the barn to get his scythe before he headed out into the field. He spent the best part of the day cutting down the corn, and was ready to head home when he’d finished as he was very tired.
If I was unsure what I scythe was, I’d read the sentences above and guess it had to be a cutting utensil of some kind. As there wasn’t any information suggesting the farmer had driven it from the barn and that he was tired from working I’d assume it was a hand held tool.
An example of this would be;
The farmer went to the barn to get his scythe before he headed out into the field. He spent the best part of the day cutting down the corn, and was ready to head home when he’d finished as he was very tired.
If I was unsure what I scythe was, I’d read the sentences above and guess it had to be a cutting utensil of some kind. As there wasn’t any information suggesting the farmer had driven it from the barn and that he was tired from working I’d assume it was a hand held tool.
Avoiding page hopping when reading
Perhaps the easiest hurdle to overcome was one that is one that is often related to dyslexia. When I was reading black print on white paper (which most books are) I would jump around the page. Sometimes I wouldn’t notice at first as the words would seamlessly fit together. I’d only realise I’d skipped when I was looking much further down the page than when I had began to read the sentence. The easiest way to solve this is to place a ruler or something with a flat edge underneath the line that’s being read. This will obviously dictate where the eyes are focussed and stop them from skipping down without being aware that the item used as a marker had been passed.
Alphabet & reading the time
To my recollection I can’t remember a huge amount of emphasis being placed on learning either of these beyond class recitals of the alphabet and the odd maths lessons on how to read the time. I dare say I could be wrong, but as far as it goes I can remember quite a few things vividly from being about 3 years old so I’ll edge my bets that I’m right.
To learn the alphabet I owe thanks to someone I was in class with who sat and taught it to me. As I recollect he said a few letters at a time which I repeated until I’d learnt the sequence and then added a few more. The part that helped it stick for me was that we made it into a game where we would race to see who could repeat the letters the fastest. I’m not 100% certain whether it was the game that helped me learn the letters, or that I was repeating the letters so quickly that I wasn’t consciously thinking of them which allowed me to. Either way, because I wasn’t simply barking out letter after letter along with the rest of the class I was able to learn the alphabet.
Learning to tell the time is an example of having somewhat odd learning logic, but at the same time using that to help me. I couldn’t explain fully why I had difficulty learning to read the time other than having the two hands and the number placement to understand made it hard for me to grasp. I think the biggest problem I had was understanding the hour hand placement and if it was a certain hour why it wasn’t pointing directly to that hour.
Despite my troubles grasping the time I’d never had trouble with using a compass and getting the direction right reading one. So I chose to apply the rules of a compass to reading a clock. The needle of a compass may not always be exactly on a direction but whichever it was closest to, that was the correct choice. That was how I determined which hour I should choose when reading the time. I also applied a compass face layout to reading a clock. I used North, East, South and West to represent 12, 3, 6 and 9. I then used NE, SE, SW and NW for 1, 4, 7 and 10. All I had to do then was add one extra number in each clock quarter for the number placement.
To learn the alphabet I owe thanks to someone I was in class with who sat and taught it to me. As I recollect he said a few letters at a time which I repeated until I’d learnt the sequence and then added a few more. The part that helped it stick for me was that we made it into a game where we would race to see who could repeat the letters the fastest. I’m not 100% certain whether it was the game that helped me learn the letters, or that I was repeating the letters so quickly that I wasn’t consciously thinking of them which allowed me to. Either way, because I wasn’t simply barking out letter after letter along with the rest of the class I was able to learn the alphabet.
Learning to tell the time is an example of having somewhat odd learning logic, but at the same time using that to help me. I couldn’t explain fully why I had difficulty learning to read the time other than having the two hands and the number placement to understand made it hard for me to grasp. I think the biggest problem I had was understanding the hour hand placement and if it was a certain hour why it wasn’t pointing directly to that hour.
Despite my troubles grasping the time I’d never had trouble with using a compass and getting the direction right reading one. So I chose to apply the rules of a compass to reading a clock. The needle of a compass may not always be exactly on a direction but whichever it was closest to, that was the correct choice. That was how I determined which hour I should choose when reading the time. I also applied a compass face layout to reading a clock. I used North, East, South and West to represent 12, 3, 6 and 9. I then used NE, SE, SW and NW for 1, 4, 7 and 10. All I had to do then was add one extra number in each clock quarter for the number placement.