Confession: I Celebrate "YAY!'s", Not A's

Well, folks, it's just about that time of year.  The new school year is about to begin, and that can only mean one thing.  Brace yourselves for the onslaught of moms on Facebook posting all about straight A's and honor rolls. 

All you parents of LD kids know exactly what I'm talking about.  Let's be honest.  Sometimes we feel sad or discouraged about not having "A's" to celebrate.  Sometimes I secretly want to choke the bragging "Straight A" moms of honor roll kids who read 3 years above their grade-level, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.  The only "rolls" in my house go in the oven and come out wearing butter.  It's hard for us moms of LD kids to not feel a smidge resentful of these proud parents of perfect offspring when our own sweet little angels open up a below grade level "easy" reader or math book and it looks something like this:

Parents of kids with Learning Disabilities may not have those "Straight A's" and honor lists to celebrate, but that doesn't mean we CAN'T celebrate the real successes, no matter how small they seem.  That's why I'm asking you to join with me and celebrate your child's "YAY!'s" even if you don't have the "A's".  I'll go first.

As you may recall from my previous blogs, my child struggles with reading due to dyslexia.  I've had her in professional tutoring all summer, as well as working with her some at home.  And by "some at home" I mean "occasionally, when the mere mention of reading a book at home doesn't result in red alert DEFCON 1 status with an imminent threat of initiating global thermonuclear war, resulting in massive casualties of apocalyptic proportions, and ending the fate of the world as we know it."

Okay, I'll be honest.  That was only a slight exaggeration.  Slight.

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, during tutoring we have made some small, yet important, gains.  By going all the way back to the basics, she's building a foundation for larger successes down the road.  This week, her tutor is out of the office so we were given a few worksheets to practice with.  I decided to take a trip over the weekend to a local used bookstore and found literally hundreds of little phonics readers that were perfect for practicing the skills she's been working on this summer.  They were only $0.05-$0.25 each, so I stocked up on a stack of these practice readers she's never seen before.

Typically, she reads new, unfamiliar material about like a drunk man walks: slow and wobbly just before stumbling, giving up, and falling over.  So I've been helping her practice fluency by occasionally asking her to re-read a sentence, but the second time she has to do it smoothly, or I'll read it first and she "echoes" me.  Today, I asked her to just re-read one sentence smoothly, and she did it perfectly.  Then she shocked me.  She didn't stop there.  She kept right on going, carefully studying the next sentence for several seconds, silently decoding each word in her head and then fluently reading it to me out loud.  Then she read the next sentence after that, on her own, fluently.  She took control of this unfamiliar book with unfamiliar words, studying the whole sentences carefully and then reading them to me like a pro.  This was me:

She ended up reading the whole book this way.  Start to finish.  And we high-fived and cheered together after each and every line.  Then she gleefully shouted out the words, "Yay!!! I'm awesome!!" For a child that has been saying how "stupid and dumb" she is, this was a monumental moment.


I totally understand how it feels when other parents are bragging about how well their children read or how they get straight A's in everything.  It's discouraging and disheartening.  Just remember what is most important in your child's life isn't reduced to a single alphabet letter, or to only one skill to master.  Our kids have amazing talents and things they excel at too.  For us it may be music or art skills that we brag about, rather than grades.  We don't get to choose what talents our children will have.  We can only choose how we support them.  The most important thing is the tenacity, the courage we instill in them to do their best, and to overcome challenges no matter how difficult they are.  When we refuse to give up on them, they learn to not give up on themselves, and that's when you have these moments that build their confidence. That's when they begin to lay bricks on the foundation of their own success.

We are just as proud of our dyslexic kids as anyone else for their achievements. It's just that our kids' achievements look different than others.  And that's okay.