Living with a gift like Dyslexia is hard to cope with at any age. The hardest part is when you don’t understand why you are having a hard time learning to read and in some cases write. When you have Dyslexia you tend to spell or get words backward like your p’s, q’s or d’s and b’s or even numbers like 6 and 9. You can also leave out words in sentences or when reading look at a word like I and call it A. Dyslexia can also affect your ability to do math and hinder your writing skills as well. This made life very stressful for me. It made me believe with all my heart that I was really dumb. Thinking you are dumb is the first step to never overcoming your Dyslexia. When my mom and I would stay up late at night to learn how to spell my name or doing homework it was frustrating. I would hit the table and then scream to my mom “WHY ME MOM WHY ME, THIS IS TO MUCH’’. She started to cry then she grabbed me and said to me “God gave you this gift and we will use it for him”. I didn’t really understand what she meant by using it for God at the time but now I do. I was finally tested in the 2nd grade and that is when we found out that I had Dyslexia.
Once I found out why I wasn’t learning like everyone else around me only gave it a name I still felt different. When you have Dyslexia on the level that I have it at my school you have to be in Special Education and that carries a big stigma. The law states that Special Ed students have to be in the least restrictive environment which means that they cannot be put in a class and just left there to do nothing they have to be taught with other students on their level. I was in the general education classes with an aid to help me with my reading, but I was also pulled out to go to Special Ed classes for reading as well. This made me feel like I really didn’t belong in any class. I was too smart for Special Ed and not smart enough for Regular Ed classes.

Having a gift like Dyslexia does not keep you from being successful in most cases you tend to have different attributes that can enhance your life for example: a great imagination, great memory, a gift in music or even become a great artist like Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein. Both of these two creative minds had Dyslexia and there are many other famous people that have the gift of Dyslexia. Once I found out that people like Albert Einstein who is one of my favorite scientists had Dyslexia that gave me the fuel to my flame. When I was in 4th grade I started studying music and fell in love with the great violinist Vivaldi’s music. In 5th grade I started playing the viola and it has helped me a great deal with my Dyslexia.