The optical illusion titled The Spinning Dancer  is the best example I know of that demonstrates the feeling of confusion that I experience while trying to read.

Could this simple revelation be a key to understanding and a discovery to The Truth About Reading and the alternative learner?  For me it is!

To identify the direction of the dancer, we use our left brain and right brain in conjunction to decide if she is spinning clockwise or if she is spinning contraclockwise.   Like magic, the dancer appears to go either way and without any indication or warning she flips and starts to change her direction.

For me, the letters “b” & “d” and the numbers “6” & “9” are the “standouts”.  Letters and numbers appear to go either way and without any indication or warning flip and appear to change direction. I also tend to read words that are not there and omit ones that are and mix up the order of the letters in the words.  Is it any wonder that I thought I was going out of my mind?

One explanation is that a person composes mental sentences one word at a time at the same speed as speech, which is about 150 words a minute. In contrast, picture thinking is estimated to be, overall, 400 to 2000 times faster than verbal thinking.Reading for me is like an optical illusion.

Like magic, the letters and numbers appear to go either way.  Like a tug of war or battle of wits, logic and knowledge are constantly at odds with each other,

If I look at an optical illusion for too long,  “The Spinning Dancer” being a perfect example,  I feel dizzy.   I become physically drained and frustrated because I am using more brain power from both the left and right side of my brain.

This is exactly what happens when I am trying to read and write.  If I concentrate hard, I can make the dancer stop and spin the other way by simply blinking my left and right eye.

It has to do with the colors. There is a certain point in your eyes that does not actually see anything so your brain makes up for it using our imagination The average person uses the logic-oriented left side of the brain to learn to read if they have trouble with a word they use method called “decoding”.

To figure the word out Decoding is like solving a puzzle.    We decode by using clues that we already recognize to figure out a word we can not read.    By amassing information, such as,   who are we reading about,  what is the character doing and where they are,  we can fill in the blanks using either our right brain for imagination or our left brain for logic.

Although this may not be the reason that all people find reading difficult, for me,  “The Spinning Dancer”  demonstrates  the feeling of having our mind playing tricks when trying to read or transport an image from the eyes to our brain.

The words illusion, tricks, magic, appears, puzzle, decoding, solving and imagination all describe the way I learned to read.  Understanding this alone will offer assistance to help understand the truth about reading

I read or decode each single word as a whole picture like a symbol or an icon amongst a flash flood of other images from the right side of my brain.

I imagine letters and number in full colour, three dimensional and can manipulate them in my mind like a 360* panoramic view as if on a non-fixed axis of rotation.  I have a photographic memory for images and text written on paper. When I did learn that I could read I needed to understand the “how”, so that I could help others. Quite simply, I was seeing each word as a whole.

But I cannot read the way most schools educate and I lack phonetic awareness, one of the major keys to learning for the majority of the population

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Researchers from all over the globe have various ideas and hope to uncover the truth about reading but, will there ever be one definitive answer. Each person has their own set of factors and life circumstances and DNA.

One expert from Yale has discovered that the language we speak plays a part in our ability to read because of the differences in the sounds and phonons.   And that understanding to reading is not something that we are born with describing learning to read as a game with English being the most illogical of all.

So if we take what we do understand, realize that we are all different and that different is not wrong, bad or a disability we can accept the fact that we can move forward.  By moving on and working with what we know about a person who exhibits a different slant or way of learning we can better understand the many different views and interpretations any picture or text can have on any scale of learning

.Because reading for me is an illusion, just like a magic trick, I can decode, solve and imagine with the right side of my brain. The Spinning Dancer will finally allow me to show the world, the confusion that  I experience whenever I have tried to read.

My interpretations, because I have never known any other way of reading, are not wrong, they are simply different.

Back to school is an exciting time for most kid and there parents. September the beginning of a new school year with new pencils a new class room, new teachers and new friends to meet.

But if you are like me and my children the newness quickly fades with the reality of learning or more accurately put not learning

Soon sorted by the ability to meet the requirements of your age the “A” kids first then the average learners and finally at times the last one picked the LAC children (learning assistance center).

With each September I hoped that they would find a way to fix me but they did not. With each September that my children returned to school I hoped that they would find a way to understand the emotional toll paid by the alternative learner.

Sadly I did not learn to read at school and 20 years latter either did my children. Happily I have learned to read and I have created a way to help others. My children have finished with the public education system and are happy to be in the real world where being different is an advantage.

But what about the children starting school this September who will stand up for them? Who will speak for them? Who will see their natural gifts and talents? Who will see the hidden pain and worthlessness they feel each and every day?

The though of any child that has a different way of learning retuning to public school is just as painfully as sending my own children back to that hell with out me look out for them.

THE DYSLEXIC WEATHER OR NOT REPORT

Broadcasting  live from…somewhere in Vancouver

The Killer Spelling Bs

From the book called The Truth About Reading

The most degrading elementary school ritual for me was the spelling B.

Twice a week a bunch of cruel violent words would appear with there sharp little stinger ready for stabbing with the weekly spelling B.

They started on Monday to find out the words that I could not spell and then appeared again on Friday to prove to me that even when I tried my hardest all week to learn the words that I still could not spell them.

Each week they kept coming back just as you new they would and that there was no way to escape there attack To make it worse those violent words got bigger harder and more difficult as the years went by.

With each weekly swarming I felt a little bit dumber and learn to fear them a little bit more poke by poke.

Apart from reading out loud the spelling B still to this day make me fell upset even though I have the ability to make fun and laugh at myself.

If I had 3 wishes

Number one would have to be

A scribe to do the paper work that makes me feel crazy

If I had 3 wishes

The second is not doubt

A window to my brain to show what it is about

If I had 3 wishes

The last and best

Would be an education where we all can past the test

Tina H. McInerney

“I hate paperwork”

Tina McInerney

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”

Friedrich Nietzsche

“If you are dyslexic why are you filling out the forms”?

A corporate clerk

At first I could not read

For the firsts 40 years of my life I could not read

Now I can read

At 39 my natural abilities were validated along with my feeling of failure. I lean to see what I was capable of and by using my natural abilities I discover a way to teach myself to read and write

What was wrong with me?

Nothing

And what fixed it?

Learning that different is not wrong and that I can read but I just do it in a different way

If you are not be the best at reading tell me what you can do at  but I can

D.u.n.c.e.

I really mind this word

It speaks so loud for me

That I can not be heard

D.u.n.c.e.

no longer used politely

nor toped upon your crown

the papers hat that told the world

that you were but a clown

D.u.n.c.e.

although it cuts right through me

i truly am outspoken

the letters changed nicely

once the appearance had been broken

Tina H. McInerney

Thursday, August 28, 2008 ™