by Rebekka Klingshirn, Heidelberg IWC, Education Team Co-Chair, high school and vocational school teacher
When I asked my sister if I could ask her (for this article) how her son’s difficulties with literacy have affected their everyday lives, she simply started to cry – and couldn’t stop for a long time.
I cannot imagine what it means to be dyslexic or even illiterate. Books have always played an important role in my life and also in the life of our son. Looking at picture books with and reading to our son was something as natural as brushing your teeth every day. It was no surprise for us that he, like us, would spend hours immersed in a book as soon as he could read by himself. We took his books, and also audiobooks, everywhere – on road trips as well as to restaurants because they meant a way to keep him busy and engaged for a long time without having to take out a digital device to entertain him on long car rides. And what a joy it was to have him spell out his first letters and words and then receive the first little notes from him!
Needless to say, my sister did the same with her children – but things went differently for her son. When he entered first grade at 6 years old, everything seemed to go as it had with his older sister; except for the fact that the communication with the teacher was difficult. During the first parent-teacher meetings in person (in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, that is typically in February), she came across as impatient and somewhat aggressive towards the parents and couldn’t find many good things to say about their son. By the end of the school year, she said that he had to repeat the first year (NOTE: there is no passing or graduating of year 1 in southern Germany, as it is believed that children develop at different paces and that the time needed to develop their skills should be given to them. The school that he attended then was so small that first-year and second-year students were in the same classroom).
My sister was devastated to find out that he was several pages behind in his exercise book, and asked me if I could help her out and work with him while he was staying with us for the first two weeks during our summer break. In addition to a part-time job she held at the time, my sister provides summer camps for children and thus work for her starts when teachers and students are off, so that other parents can keep on working full time over the summer. I happily agreed: getting to spend time with my godson always means a lot of fun for all of us. Not so that year, as I realized that the underlying problem was deeper than just being a couple of pages behind.
Besides literally being in the woods during the summer, with little to no cellphone reception, the six weeks of summer break were when all the psychologists in her area seemed to be on break as well. It was impossible to reach anyone at first, and then difficult to get an appointment. Waiting times of up to nine months were proposed, and the family got really lucky when they were finally pushed forward for a testing session at the beginning of October that year.
School had started again in mid-September, and my nephew’s teacher would not give him the material for second grade students but told him to work on the material she had handed to him the year before. My nephew started losing all interest in school – he knew everything on the sheets of paper from memory but still could neither read what was written down nor write letters and words.
The result of the testing session was devastating and is to this day: my nephew has an IQ of almost 150, is severely dyslexic, has dyscalculia and is on the autism spectrum. The psychologist suggested “boosting his confidence in whichever way possible because he [was] not going to have an easy life.”
What has that meant for him and his family?
After another endless round of phone calls, my sister and brother-in-law decided to change schools, even if that meant having to drive him to a school 20 km (one way) out of their way every day in rush hour traffic. They chose the (private) Waldorf school closest to them because they were promised that the school staff had enough experience to support his abilities and help him with his three Rs. He was put into a class of first-years again to give him time to catch up and at the same time start where his peers were. The report cards my nephew brought home were, as is usual for Waldorf schools, without grades. While focusing on his abilities, they also mentioned his continuing difficulties in reading and writing. His class teacher supported him wherever possible, but at the beginning only with constant reminding from my sister.
Then the pandemic hit, and with it almost all in-school-support came to a halt.
When class was resumed in-person again, the differences between my nephew and his peers became even more obvious. The work in “epochs” (i.e., focusing on only math or only reading/writing for a given period of time) also didn’t help him advance his abilities, as everything that he had till then worked on, memorized and improved, was then left untrained. And we all know what happens to untrained muscles: in a very short period of time, the physical ability decreases. But, whereas so-called “muscle-memory” helps us to regain the lost ability rather quickly physically, the same is not true for a dyslexic person. What is lost is lost and has to be relearned as if it had not been there before.
At the parent-teacher meeting in February of his fourth year at the Waldorf school, the class teacher told my nephew’s parents that they didn’t see a future for him because his reading and writing (and math skills) hadn’t improved as much as necessary over the past years. This was yet another punch in the stomach for them, as this conversation had been scheduled after (as in two weeks after!) the last deadline to apply for a (public or private) secondary school had passed. Devastated and furious, they had to beg the school to let my nephew stay for another year as all schools in the area were already full.
My sister finally found a coach (educational therapist) for my nephew who was able to work with him on a weekly basis. Other than that, his fifth year at the Waldorf school was filled with so much humiliation that he wasn’t even able to talk about it until much later: the students had to stand at their desks, for example, and were only allowed to sit down if they could spell a word or do a math problem. Of course he was the last one standing, of course he was being made fun of by everyone. Of course, he developed stomach cramps in the mornings and was not able to go to school on many, many days.
The coach helped place him at a secondary school, where he repeated fith grade and is currently attending sixth grade. It is still a daily battle for my nephew and the family: he’s got a teaching assistant with him four hours a week and he forces himself to do what he hates most on a daily basis. e.g., read short texts for 10 minutes a day. But not a second longer. The first year at secondary school was okay (no more missed days of school), but with every new teacher, there’s a new struggle, as no one gives him the assistance he needs without his parents’ reminder. He can’t even get a second school book to leave at home in case he forgets to bring it home from school every other day – because the teachers “don’t want to support the laziness of students”.
But while this is all school related, what are the real, daily struggles?
- My nephew has not been able to take public transport to school since first grade, as German school children usually do if they don’t ride their bikes or walk, because he couldn’t read the destination and number on the busses.
- As a consequence, my sister has not been able to work part time for the past 8 years because she’s been his chauffeur almost every day, and working hours were not flexible for her.
- My nephew constantly feels less than because of his disability.
- My nephew cannot play (card) games because almost all games involve either numbers and letters/text.
- My nephew is constantly bored, but can’t read up on things that he’s interested in.
- Going to museums as an alternative is also almost not an option, as all exhibitions usually come with a lot of explanatory text.
- He cannot run errands for the family because he wouldn’t know how much to pay and how much change to expect.
- Their whole lives are centered on the question of how to support him, how to earn enough money to provide for the family with only one income.
- My sister and her husband have to constantly fight for him and his right to get a proper education. They are exhausted to the bone.
When all those years back the psychologist told them to “boost his confidence in whichever way possible because he [was] not going to have an easy life”, she completely forgot to tell them that they needed to boost their own confidence as well – their lives have not been easy, their lives will not be easy, but they will have to keep up the fight for his education because no one else does.
Photo from Canva.com
