PSA to authors writing dyslexic characters (and just people in general) that most dyslexic people don’t experience letters “jumping” or moving around on the page.
I myself am NOT dyslexic, but my mom and brother are, and I work full-time with dyslexic children. The research on literacy and dyslexia is constantly changing, but nothing I have learned supports letters floating, moving, or jumping, nor have any of my students reported experiencing something like that. It is a part of some other disorders and may occur for some dyslexic people, but it is not the most common presentation.
What I do see very often in my students: b/d/p/q reversals (eg reading “pig” as “big”,) guessing words based on the initial letters (eg reading “spot” as “spin,”) and changing vowel sounds (eg, reading “bet” as “beet.”)
In terms of writing, I often see letter reversals outside of b/d - for example, students writing g or s backwards. I also see spelling errors that come from difficulty distinguishing similar sounds in words. An example of this would be a child spelling “train” as “chrain” or “clod” as “cod.”
I work with K-5th grade, where we spend most of our time working with one-syllable, short vowel words, but of course multisyllabic words with complex vowels (like “treatise” or “diorama”) will be even more difficult for dyslexic people and may be a struggle for dyslexic adults - and don’t even get me started on loanwords and other words that aren’t phonetic (chauffeur, government.)
Things That Are and Are Not Changing as a Result of Re-Teaching Myself Basic Math
Things That Are Changing
I am less anxious about basic math.
I have more tools for doing basic arithmetic problems.
I'm better at identifying which will be the fastest or easiest tool for any given problem.
I can more quickly and easily ID when an exact answer is needed or when an estimate will suffice.
I'm marginally better at noticing when an answer can't be correct.
Things That Are Not Changing
I still transpose numbers frequently.
I still transpose operations frequently (adding when I should subtract, dividing when I should multiply, etc.)
I still have initial anxiety when looking at a math problem, before the "oh yeah, I have more tools for addressing this now" kicks in.
I still frequently mix up my right and my left.
My sense of direction is still bad.
I cracked Maths - No Problem! Textbook 4A today, putting me halfway through the series. I'm making this list for future reference, because I suspect the things that aren't changing will continue to not change.
Better math education won't change the fact that I have dyscalculia. I didn't expect it to, but I also didn't know what it would or wouldn't change. When I started this, I didn't know where my dyscalculia ended and my poor math education or math anxiety began.
Still, if we can fix "poor math education" and "math anxiety," I'll be much further ahead than when I started - and more willing to live with the dyscalculia.
One of the reasons goblins and orcs in my setting are persistently regarded as stupid by the human majority is their broadly poor classroom performance. But then, both are adapted to nocturnal environments, so they're already starting at a disadvantage.
But, the way each of them experience the world is distinct as well: An orc's superhuman sense of smell turns every crowded classroom into a cloud of detergents, hormones, and flop sweat, while the flourescent lighting grates on their eyes. A goblin's preternatural hearing makes every stray murmur or laugh a classroom away into a distraction, and their social nature as pack hunters makes them especially prone to side conversations.
So any orc or goblin that manages to excel in academia is an exceptional student, and probably working twice as hard as the humans around them.
Which is how you know all of my hot goblin schoolgirls are smart enough to tickle a competence kink.
reminder that learning difficulty or learning disabillity ( talking about dyslexia dysgraphia ectect adjacent . i know in uk intellectual disabillity can be call learning disabillity! still seen SEPERATE to dyslexia and other adjacent conditions or unspecified difficulties ) is NOT in any way same or similar to intellectual disabillity which is pretty significant disabillity no matter which severity have, diagnosed based on very specific iq test and functioning test, and generally affect someone in many areas of life functioning abillity learn ect to varying severity.
please dont say relate to me or get struggle have just cus you have learning difficulty/disabillity or similar. is not same. and am not trying be mean but u dont get experience got and no you dont relate is different roots and really different presentation of struggle. is more uncomfortable than anything else for me honestly and annoying. am no against people who actually relate but more often than not its not case at all and tbh just end up upset my side cus am like oh yay someone get but then i ask question what they mean/experience and like . their stuff supa supa unrelated.
Steve ends up being the reason that everyone makes it through the rest of the summer in one piece when Pony is trying to tutor Soda for the GED.
Eventually he is just absolutely done watching his best friend suffer, and he decides to give Ponyboy a crash course in how Soda's brain works.
He's really just trying to help Soda. That's it.
He doesn't expect Soda to start retaining more.
He doesn't expect Ponykid to start growing up a little more by having to work through this process.
Steve ain't never been a brainiac. Sure, he graduated. But he's a car guy; a gear head. All he's doing is breaking things down into pieces. Just like he does with cars. Just like he had to do, himself, to get through school. Every so often he comes up with some random way of remembering something or other, but mostly it's just taking things apart piece by piece, and making sense of it. Just like how he learned engines.
Steve can't fathom why anybody is looking at him like he's saying something new. He just adapted to his buddy over the years. Soda's brain works differently, and Soda is Steve's best friend. So Steve figured out where their common grounds were. He had to; he and Soda have been working on cars together for years now, and were "homework buddies" years before that. Plus, he's a greaser. Adapting to whatever circumstances they find themselves in is what they do.
When they were kids, Steve always kind of saw himself as being accepted by the Curtises and the gang because of Soda. Soda decided that Steve was his best friend, and that meant that Steve was suddenly a part of another family. At the beginning, Steve was kinda baffled and a bit put-off by it, but Soda was persistent. Steve always believed that he was a part of all of this because of Soda's whims. And don't get him wrong, he's damn grateful. But this is the first time he's had any inkling about why Soda might've kept hanging around him in the first place.
Steve and Soda have always been, in some ways, polar opposites. It's part of why they got paired up all the way back in elementary school. Soda was loud and rambunctious, cheerful and outgoing. Steve was quiet, and had kind of a stutter that made him even quieter than he might he have been otherwise. Plus, even when they were real young, Steve was pretty angry at the world. Soda seemed to smooth out his rough edges, and even though they didn't finish the school journey together, Steve has always thought that being taken under Soda's wing was a big part of why he ended up a greaser rather than a hood.
Maybe he wasn't just Soda's pet project, though. He knows Soda genuinely likes him, but he's never been too sure about anybody else. (Other than Evie, at least now.) Maybe the way that Steve saw through it when Soda smiled falsely, the way that he actively looked for ways to explain things to and connect with his buddy, the way that he adapted to Soda, was a part of it, too.
From the outside, Steve and Soda may seem like a mismatch, but somehow they work. They meet in the middle, they balance each other out, they understand each other.
Glory, Soda really is rubbing off on him. He kinda wants to punch himself for the kinda introspective, sappy thoughts he's having.
Speaking of punching, he was close to decking Ponykid before he decided to intervene instead. Soda was so goshdarn miserable. To his credit, though, Pony seems to genuinely want to help Soda. Steve wasn't gonna say nothing, but he kinda thinks Ponykid might be right about the GED. Soda has a lot more brains than he gives himself credit for; they just work around things a little differently than most. Steve thinks Soda might feel better about himself if he had a high school degree, and there's nobody in the world who deserves to be happy more than Sodapop Curtis.
Christ, now he can see why Evie still calls them "the Wonder Twins." Ponyboy may be the treasurer of the Sodapop Curtis fan club, but Steve's the goddamn treasurer.
I switched from elementary school teaching to special needs education SPECIFICALLY to escape the mandatory math modules and now my learning difficulties seminars are suddenly like 'here’s empirical research :)'
I do not want to go into research... I am not meant for a doctorate... I just want to help kids and not look at formulas 😭
Why is math hunting me... they just want me to suffer
