The eight year old has asked me
to continue her weekly maths
tutorials during the school holidays.
She says she needs an expert.
Life is so unfair.
Eight is too young for this.
Fifteen months ago at her school’s
open maths morning what she said
and did puzzled me.
I tested her at home. Her stressed
reactions stunned me.
In the kitchen her mother was sombre.
“My brother was like that,” she said.
There is no dyslexia in my family
but we have married into two
dyslexic families. We are learning.
The eight year old’s mother knew what
was ahead. I will be learning for a while.
The eight year old works so hard
to get good results at school
then works with me again after
school on Monday afternoons.
Sometimes after her lengthy
energy sapping efforts she explodes
into spectacular meltdowns.
Life is so unfair.
I get this so much. People don’t understand who hard kids with dyslexia have to work just to stand still. Current teaching sets them up to fail.
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So true. And this class teacher is better informed than a lot of other teachers on the literacy side of learning too. The eight year old’s mother has to educate a new class teacher each year. There is a lot of sympathy, but still little understanding. It does seem a little easier in primary school where the children spend most of the day with the same teacher, usually allowing more empathy to build up.
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