I think we can all agree that most of us students are struggling with online school. This new approach is unfamiliar for the majority of students as well as teachers. However, adding a learning disability in the mix is not something most people experience or talk about. Here is what I have been experiencing as a dyslexic during online school.
I first want to explain what dyslexia entails. The most important thing to understand is that dyslexia is completely different for each individual. Many stereotypes have circulated about dyslexia over the years. For example, the whole idea that dyslexics confuse letters and numbers is one of the most popular stereotypes regarding dyslexia. Although some do struggle with this, most dyslexics, such as myself, have never even had that issue. Personally, I struggle mostly with comprehension and expression. In other words, it is harder for me to read something and understand what I read the first time. When it comes to school, I often have to do my readings two or three times before I get an idea of what is going on in the text. To give you a better idea of my situation, it’s as if I was reading a book that was turned upside down. As for expression, sentence structure as well as speaking are where tend to struggle the most. I might not use the right words or the right sentence structure because it gets all mixed up in my brain. All of these elements of my dyslexia mean that I am more of a visual learner.
Since online school is more independent, I struggle with learning since the visual aspect you tend to get in person is no longer there. Having to teach myself theory is probably the worst thing that can happen for a dyslexic. Not only do I not understand what is going on half of the time because I can barely keep up but now I have to find ways to teach myself extra material. It becomes very overwhelming.
However, there is a bit of a plot twist: I’ve had to do this for most of my academic career. Unfortunately, as someone with a learning disability, you have to put in twice if not more, in school compared to “normal” students to manage to get a passing grade. Whether I’m online or in person, these challenges are still there. Yes, online school presents its new set of challenges, but that is nothing new for me. I consider myself lucky because I have had to teach myself many things during my life. In a way, I was more prepared for this situation than many other students.
All in all, I think being dyslexic is particularly difficult in these times of online learning. However, I have had to live with these types of challenges for most of my academic life. I feel like everyone finally understands what I have been going through for years, and I am now the one giving advice, which is pretty cool. I would also like to add something about teachers: they can only do so much. Sometimes you do get the teacher who doesn’t care about their students and pack on work.However, that is rarely the case. Teachers devote a lot of their time to try to educate us in a rather unconventional setting. They’ve never been trained to do this, so give them a chance and keep your cameras on. It’s probably as overwhelming for them as it is for us.