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I've mentioned this before. I can't read. Well, I can read, but its VERY uncomfortable. I read when I have to, but have never read for pleasure. I feel that its a real disadvantage. I've tried audio CDs, but I have to sit there and focus on them, and do nothing else.......which I don't like to do.
I had this weird idea. I wonder if I learned Braille, if that would bypass the problem I'm having with my eyes/brain connection?
gosh, I would love to be able to read. I can read short snippets, but that's about it.
I know Braille would be hard to learn, but maybe it would be a good thing in the long run? And there's probably alot of literature out there in Braille.
I wish people had been more up on things in the 50's. I think I might have been helped alot with some of the current day things that children are helped with.
Nobody seems interested in helping an old lady with learning disabilities. :~)
Anyhow......is learning Braille a crazy idea?
Braille books are huge. They'd take up a lot of space.
But are you thinking of getting them fro the National Library for the Blind? It's possible that you could, you'd need a physician's certification that you are unable to read regular print. But it's do-able.
rosarugosa
10-8-11, 7:19pm
Cathy, I wonder what you mean when you say it is uncomfortable? Do you mean in a physical sense? Just trying to understand.
When I read, I cannot do much of anything else really either. Maybe pat a cat in my lap and drink a cup of tea or a glass of wine. Reading doesn't permit multitasking in the same way that TV does; that's just the nature of the activity.
I think my eyes don't work together very well, in combination with the words not connecting very easily in my brain. I have to read the same words over and over because as soon as I start reading them, my mind is somewhere else.
I feel like I start out reading a sentence fine, but after a couple words my eyes just don't seem to track the line. I've had this problem my whole life. I really envy people who like to read. I could be so much smarter if I could read. Even when its subjects that I like, I just can't force myself to read it.
I do think its some kind of learning disability.
loosechickens
10-9-11, 12:48am
I wonder if it might be worthwhile to try and locate a professional in the field of reading and learning disabilities and get tested and evaluated. There have been great strides in dealing with various eye/brain comprehension things and obstacles to reading and it's possible that you might find some assistance and ability to overcome this.
My heart goes out to you, I guess, because I am a literally compulsive reader and it has been one of the greatest pleasures of my life. So I hope that you won't take the attitude of you being "too old" to get assistance with this, and will hope that you can and will discover ways to deal with this difficulty and be able to open the wonderful world of the written word to you.
I don't know about the braille....can't give any thoughts about that, but I would try to locate some specialist in reading disorders and see what you could find out. It can't be hugely expensive just to be evaluated, and at least then you might have some idea whether it is a physical problem or if there are ways to correct or compensate for it.
I agree with loosechickens and think that there is a professional who can diagnose and work with you on this.
CathyA,
YOu mentioned in another thread being ADHD -- I am guessing these things are probably connected? You clearly read/write well enough to participate in these forums, so I'm guessing the problem lies with longer, more sustained periods of reading, correct? Have you ever taken medication for the ADHD? Perhaps that would help? I agree that if this bothers you you should seek appropriate assistance. Never too late to try.
lhamo
Last year I went through what felt like a labyrinth with my young son and his learning to read. I am blown away by the resources out there.
Check out http://readingprograms.org/, this organization had programs both where I used to live in the South and where I now live. I'm guessing they may be all over the country.
Maybe you could find someone to talk to there that could get you pointed in the right direction.
Also, try contacting your school districts Reading Specialist - maybe they could point you in a helpful direction.
At my son's school the reading specialists also did private tutoring on the side.
I am a sporadic reader. I have no tolerance for a book that I don't really like. But if I get my hands on one I do like, I will read it nonstop. I also find that I like to read humorous books and can stay really engaged with them.
Thanks everyone.
A few years back I had a psychopharmacologist who I saw for what I thought was ADD and he was taking care of the meds. We tried Adderall, but it didn't help at all, and gave me some unpleasant side-effects (anger, irregular heartbeats). Its funny.........after I started the med, DH would keep saying "do you feel like reading yet?" He was being silly.......but we were hoping it would help.
I asked this doctor to refer me to an educational psychologist. He did and I saw him and took tests, and all he said was that I was depressed. I couldn't believe it. He didn't test my reading at all.
Sometimes I wonder if its just an impatience issue, or maybe the fact that my family never encouraged reading when I was young. We read to our kids alot when they were little. One time when my mother was babysitting and she noticed how many books we had for the kids, she said to me "Hmmm....we never read to you when you were little." She did alot of stupid things. But maybe I just didn't learn to like reading? Seems like I could easily overcome that though.
I have tons of books and magazines. I just wish I could read them!
Yes, I do think my ADD is definitely related. Like I mentioned, I think I have a learning disability that was never addressed. I have a couple degrees, so I know I can read when I have to. But I hate it.
In retrospect, I realize that I've had some mental disability my whole life, but I've adapted. But as you've probably noticed on this forum, I have "feelings" about things, but can never back it up with facts, because I just can't read/comprehend so many things. Its a real bummer.
I've even wondered if I had dyslexia, but I never reverse letters.
I feel really left out in this respect.
Thanks for your suggestions!
Cathy, you said "I've tried audio CD's but, I have to sit there and focus on them and do nothing else.....which I don't like to do". That's what you do when you read. With audio CD's I'm actually able to do more things, spin, knit, cook, clean house. So if you don't really enjoy the idea of sitting and focusing and doing nothing else you won't enjoy reading, perhaps consider the possibility that reading may just not be your thing (and that's OK). You obviously have the intellectual ability to read or you wouldn't be able to participate in these boards or obtained your degrees, so please don't discount yourself.
Mrs. Hermit
10-9-11, 10:43am
One of my sons had an tracking disorder with his eyes. He couldn't follow a line of type from the left side of the page to the right. His eyes would kind of wander down the page. Apparently this type of disorder is very common in kids with ADD. An ophthalmologist who works with children gave me some eye exercises to do with him. They helped worlds. One of the tricks that we used until his eyes got coordinated, was to use a piece of paper to cover the text below the line of type he was reading. That helped him stay on the correct line, so he could focus on what was there. Good luck on your search for answers.
Thanks Jania and Mrs. Hermit,
It very well could be an impatience thing. Maybe I'm ADHD and not just ADD!
I know that I start out great with the first few words of a sentence, and then I feel like my eyes just don't track well and the rest of the sentence falls apart.. I've also noticed that many times my vision shakes. I thought this was from my fibromyalgia. I noticed that if I look out of one eye, there is no shakiness, so I think my eyes aren't very coordinated. I've asked my ophthalmologist about this, but he just shrugged. I think there's a lady in a city nearby who works with uncoordinated eyes.......maybe I should make an appointment with her. I guess considering some of my other funky mental things, its not surprising that I have this problem too.
I think my mother drank alcohol when she was pregnant with me. Who knows what has caused me to be like I am. I have a very curious brain. I'm extremely perceptive and insightful........but some of my brain just doesn't work at all. I think my ability to articulate some of my problems sort of covers up the actual problem! I sort of feel like a blind person......their other senses improve and work for them when they can't see. I think I've learned to use my other abilities, to make up for not being able to think/read/comprehend. Let's face it.......I'm just a weird duck! ;)
I do feel VERY left out of alot of things, because of how my brain works. I'm an image person. I think that's why I watch as much TV as I watch.
I guess there's a point when we just have to make peace with these things. But I fear I'll never be as smart as I could have been, could I have read.
Putting any/all embarrassment I have off to the side to check in. I've never been assessed, but I'm 99% sure I have a learning disability related to reading. When I read, I forget what I've read in minutes, and I have to read and reread sentence after sentence, over and over again, just to get the general jest of what I'm reading to interpret it correctly and clearly. Even then, I often don't. It's an all-out struggle for me, so consequently, I don't read. Never have.
Sorry to hear that Mrs. M. That's exactly how it is for me.
I'm thinking back about the problem you had with affect and effect. That's what happens to me with various things. Its like the part of the brain that handles certain things is just non-functioning.
I see people reading for pleasure or to understand some political writing, etc. and I just think ..........Wow.......
If I MUST read in order to, say, troubleshoot my tiller or figure out what's wrong with my chickens, I have to say each word out loud and go slowly and sometimes just say it all out loud, like I'm teaching someone what I just read.
You have my sympathy and empathy Mrs. M!
There are so many "book clubs" out there. Maybe we should start a "no books" club. ;)
CathyA. Thank you for your kind words. You may also remember a thread of mine related to nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and how I just couldn't get it. I remember how frustrated a few of the people (members) got over me not understanding the difference, but when one cannot read properly and understand what they are reading, then how is one to progress forward. A lot of people just don't understand that part.
My brain works ingeniously Re: so many things, reading however isn't one of them. I too will sometimes repeat and say out loud, certain words and sentences and phrases. Sometimes I'll repeat (out loud) several times to help drive home whatever I'm trying to understand and grasp.
For a while (short time last year), I seriously considered hiring a tutor to help me, but I'm at an age now where it just doesn't matter to me anymore. I get angry and bitter whenever I think about it, and I'm full of resentment, resentment over being born with this and always having to struggle to learn.
All my life I've felt lesser-than, stupid, and reduced when I compare myself to others. Such a painful childhood I had as a result of. I'm just so grateful I was able to read children's books to my kids when they were babies/younger.
My heart goes out to you too, Cathy. I have no answers.
Mrs. M, I too feel resentment over what I was given, both mentally and physically. My parents weren't very good parents and so they gave me bad nurturing and also handed down bad genes! Like you, I'm glad that I could read to my kids when they were younger. I tried really hard to not hand down my shortcomings to my kids.
I have an eating problem and fortunately was able to raise them to eat extremely healthily and not stuff their faces when they were sad/angry/disappointed, etc..
My DS is very much like me. He has ADHD (I think) and hated to read when he was younger. I worried so much for him. But he's turned out to be an extremely creative, bright young man.
Sometimes I wonder if I had been treated differently as a child, maybe I would have overcome some of these issues and could have turned into someone like DS.
Oh well, that's water over the dam. My brain must work like yours. I am far ahead of many people in some things, but way behind in others.
I think we just learn in different ways than the majority. And then we feel inferior because we don't fit in.
I guess at this point in our lives, we just have to focus on what things we ARE good at. And I'm sure you have many of those things!
Hang in there Mrs. M!
loosechickens
10-10-11, 3:39pm
I've always thought it was so sad that just as we seem to have very rigid ideas in our society as to the "normal" definition of success, we have that same sort of straitjacket approach to "smart". There are many, many different kinds of intelligence, and "smart" should never be restricted to just those who succeed with a narrow definition of something like reading skill, school accomplishments, etc.
It would be far more accurate, and far better for everyone if we realized that people come not only in various shapes, sizes and colors, but also have wonderful brains that work in different ways, and learn to celebrate the strong points of all the various ways those brains operate.
I hate that both you, CathyA and Mrs-M, have been made to feel less than "smart" or able, when it is clear, just from these forums that both of you are people with many fine qualities, which shine out from your posts here, and are completely independent of an ability to do something like read well.
I happen to be a person who learned to read very early, and I read well. But, believe me, there are areas of life where I think my brain is so deficient, I'm shocked to see how very "dumb" I can be. I struggled and struggled to learn Spanish, for example, with a brain that dammed up the Spanish words until I felt great sympathy when I would watch President George W. Bush try to express himself, because that hesitancy, word salad and inability to get the words OUT was exactly how my brain processed Spanish. It literally felt like a physical dam in my brain holding back all the words, then releasing them in a jumble.
I also glaze right over despite all efforts on attempts by my husband to teach me about internal combustion engines, and despite my use of the computer on a daily basis, if something happens to my sweetie, I will enrich the Geek Squad for sure, because I just do NOT seem able to comprehend and keep in my mind any of the complexities of the computer beyond getting online.
If I measured myself by those truly deficient performances by my brain, things would look really bad. Luckily, I have realized for many years that there are as many kinds of intelligence and as many kinds of abilities and lacks thereof, as there are people, so enjoy the things I'm good at, smile and shrug away those I'm not, and move on.
Both of you are totally intelligent women, and you'd still be smart if you were completely illiterate. Not to worry.
CathyA. You know, the funny part is, if I'm reading out loud, I read speedily, and without stumbling, so that tells me that my eyes are working properly- and as well as they should, but as far as my brain goes, it doesn't process any of it.
I fell through the cracks as a kid because of my reading disability, and no one, not even my parents, picked up on the fact. Those that did, I believe, looked the other way.
As a result, to this day I have the patience of Jesus, when it comes to helping others. If I start off helping someone with something or another, I won't give up on them for nothing. I'll keep trying and trying until they get it. (The result of people giving up on me when I was growing up, and me not wanting to see others live through the same hurt).
LC. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your uplifting and oh so kind words. You've hit it dead on, i.e., straitjacket mentality Re: smartness. Reading has always dumbfounded me. I remember there was a thread (this forum) where someone started a thread topic related to what everyone was reading and how many books they read, and I remember a few of the replies. Some members stating that they read twenty or more books in a year! That blew me away. I cannot comprehend it, reading that many books, and actually being able to understand the content of all. It boggles my mind...
In fact (at first) I kind of thought, "no way, no one can read that much", not that I was questioning anyone's ability or anything or judging anyone, just that, for someone like myself who can't get through a simple book, it just seems so Albert Einstein like to me. In my mind, only geniuses can do that. People gifted with Mensa IQ's.
When I was younger, the thought never once crossed my mind related to what I was missing out on in life by not reading/being able to read, but now that I'm older I realize just how much I've missed out on as a result of me not being able to read and understand. Sometimes I'll be at the library with my kids and a book will catch my attention, and for a second or two, I loose myself. Excitement and enthusiasm flows freely for a moment causing me to think, "oh wow, this book looks great, so interesting, I'm going to sign it out", then reality kicks in and I put it back with a sense of defeat. It's futile.
I find the comforting words of others, like yourself, LC, to be my saving grace. I remember Kib once saying to me, "you can't be good at everything", and those words really struck home. It was then that I truly appreciated the fact that, yes, we all can't know and be good at everything. I've never forgotten it and never will.
All too often a member will post a link to an article or story, and although I never pass on visiting the link, 9 times out of 10, it's a long article, a complex article, and I just click out and move on, unable to respond to the members thread because I don't have the ability to decipher and digest and comprehend complicated material. It does leave me running races all on my own, or always running by myself (last place), which I'll admit gets old, but having got by all these years battling, struggling, and fighting all that comes with having a reading deficit/disability, I'm semi-able to move on and not allow it to get the better of me. But it still proves to be difficult and challenging at times, knowing I fall within such a low percentile of people with such a disadvantage/handicap. It does take the fun out of certain things.
Agree with most of the above posts...being tested might help...also, there are books out there with tips for reading as in faster and getting more out of it.
There are so many ways reading can be hard for a lot of us. I had it explained to me in my 40's that someone as tone deaf as I am often have problems learning to read with phonics,
which I remember being a nightmare in school, but some how I must have taught myself to read with whole words. I read well and know the meanings of almost all words, but can never
say them properly untill I have heard them serveral times and remember how to pronounce them. Also, makes spelling a nightmare. (as most can tell on here I often just use a word I know instead
of the one I really want to use). This all makes my reading ability much higher then my ability to compose which was always a great disadvantage in my career and trying to furthere my education.
Our youngest Grandson has a reading disorder he is doing very well with now that he has had help and Mom has spent untold hours reading to him and with him.
One of the simplist tips that I started using myself was to put a ruler under the line you are reading, it blocks the rest and allows you to focus on each line, simple but helps. There are so many more
I just can't think of now.
Do those of you who read say the words in your mind? I remember when I was younger and was talking to a librarian who loved to read. I asked her if she could "hear" the words in her head as she read, and she said "no". I couldn't understand that. I have to say each word (in my head). Maybe I'm going too slowly?
I can type a mile a minute. Its just like talking for me. I wish reading was like that. I guess the two abilities have different connections in the brain. I can type almost as fast as I can talk.
Mrs. M......I'm curious.......can you play the piano?
Putting any/all embarrassment I have off to the side to check in. I've never been assessed, but I'm 99% sure I have a learning disability related to reading. When I read, I forget what I've read in minutes, and I have to read and reread sentence after sentence, over and over again, just to get the general jest of what I'm reading to interpret it correctly and clearly. Even then, I often don't. It's an all-out struggle for me, so consequently, I don't read. Never have.
It is the same way for me. But my concentration is pretty poor all around. I have a DD that has a photographic memory and can read a Stephen King book in a few hours. Go figure. It takes me forever to get through a book even if it is really good.
Cathy, I have CFS and I think it causes me to have changes is vision. I really have a hard time wearing glasses. I just got a new pair and either they are wrong, or my vision is weird!
Do those of you who read say the words in your mind? I remember when I was younger and was talking to a librarian who loved to read. I asked her if she could "hear" the words in her head as she read, and she said "no". I couldn't understand that.
CathyA,
When I was a child, I was a voracious reader, but I always said the words in my head as I read them. Still do. I learned in high school that "good" readers don't actually say the words in their heads as they read. I can't imagine reading and not saying the words to myself. The idea seems foreign to me. Having said that, when I'm thinking, I don't always think in words. Perhaps the "good" readers read like I think?
Second, at the risk of sounding dismissive of you and Mrs-M, I will share a loosely related experience I had. As a young adult, I found I was no longer a voracious reader. Reading seemed to require too much effort. College was difficult for me, because I got through the textbooks on sheer will. I later noticed that I still enjoyed reading, but only in short spurts. I turned to poetry or short articles, but missed getting lost in books for hours like I had been able to as a child. In my middle age, I started needing and wearing reading glasses. That made such a huge difference in my ability to focus my attention on a book, that I've again become a voracious reader. Mind you, I had been tested for far sightedness and never seemed to have a problem. Looking back, the "effort" that reading required wasn't the effort of focusing my attention; it was the effort of focusing my eyes. Without my reading glasses, the letters seem to drift apart and together. It's hard work to keep them steady. I wish I had tried reading glasses earlier. Again, I don't ant to sound like I am dismissing what I understand is a real problem for you, but if a simple solution such as reading glasses helps, I'd regret not telling you about it.
Danna. I remember a teacher frowning upon the ruler technique, yet to this day it helps me immeasurably. It's wrong for those in any profession to make blanket statements surrounding possible helpful alternatives related to learning. Helpful alternatives which (for some) may provide a simpler, more easy and manageable method/system.
CathyA. I don't know how to play the piano. Sure wish I did. I love the piano! Re: saying words in my mind, yes, I do, certain words, harder words mostly.
Sissy. One specific thing that happens to me (often) when I'm attempting to read, is I see words spelled differently than they actually really are. For instance, I'll read a sentence that has the word "opposing" in it, yet I'll see the word "opposite" instead. Stuff like that.
Grendel. Thank you for sharing your story with us. P.S. Please don't be at all concerned over feeling as though you are being dismissive. :)
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